God Rejected King Saul, But Declared King David a Man After His Own Heart. Didn’t God Get this Backwards?

God rejected King Saul, a bungler who made a few mistakes trying to do God's will, his own way. But he accepted King David, a rapist and murderer, forgave him two unforgivable sins, promised him an eternal kingdom, called him a man after his own heart--and put him in Jesus' lineage! Didn't God get this backwards? NO!!

Lest there be any question about this, the Scriptures are clear that God appointed and Samuel anointed Saul to be King (1 Samuel 10:1, 20-24 ), even giving him personal manifestations of the Holy Spirit on his life (“is Saul also among the prophets?” 1 Samuel 10:5-11, 19:23-24). But later, after rejecting Saul, God appointed David and a grieving Samuel anointed him to be King. (1 Samuel 13:14, 15:26-16:13). Both were God’s choice, at the times they were chosen, though, as noted in the last posting, Saul had the disadvantage of being the King God chose because his people rebelliously demanded a king to stand in the place of God for them.

Still, God rejected Saul fairly early in his reign (1 Samuel 13:14), but declared David to be a man after his own heart to whom he promised an everlasting kingdom (1 Samuel 13:14; 2 Samuel 7:10-17; Acts 13:21-24).

To the modern way of thinking about “sin” and “repentance,” God’s abrupt rejection of Saul, the impatient bungler, and his continuing favor shown to David, the rapist and murderer, both appear horribly unjust, entirely the reverse of the way God “ought” to have acted. In the modern way of thinking, “sin” is just the singular of “sins”–discrete bad acts that are judged individually and objectively, some as inherently “trivial” or “minor,” others inherently unforgivably evil, with a spectrum in between. And repentance is simply remorse, possibly with some performance of penance or some feeble efforts at “trying to do better” (“reform”) added to it. When these two modern concepts are joined together, they leave “repentance” (remorse) followed by some penance or “reform” very easy for some sinners and completely impossible for others, depending only on the inherent objective gravity of their “sins.” That is, they leave our concept of God’s justice looking a great deal like the “justice” done by human courts–which cannot know the heart–or by our endless individual judgments of each other. Thus, they make God in our image, rather than the reverse.

In our modern world, prior to his rejection as King Saul would be thought to have committed only relatively trivial sins, if any sins at all. After all, he made his two fatal “mistakes” while trying to serve God! In the first of the two situations that led to his rejection Saul was at war against the Philistines, attempting to take the land God had given to his people, but Samuel had apparently sent word to Saul that Samuel would come in seven days and Saul was to wait for him to come before doing anything. 1 Samuel 13:8. But at the end of the seven days, Samuel appeared not to be coming and Saul’s army was scattering. Saul feared that if he did not act immediately, his army would desert him, and he would be defeated. So, as he told Samuel after he belatedly arrived, Saul “forced” himself and offered the burnt offering, seeking God’s favor. 1 Samuel 13:8-12. After this minor-looking failure, God announced that he had rejected Saul, but did not immediately remove him from office. Instead, it appears that God’s Holy Spirit remained on Saul for some years after that, until after his second failure, see 1 Samuel 16:14, and gave Saul an impressive string of military victories in the interim, see 1 Samuel 14:47-48. Saul was given time and opportunity to repent.

Then, after years of “severe” warfare against the Philistines (14:52), the prophet told Saul to go to war against the Amalekites to avenge their prior depredations against God’s people. The only additional instruction the prophet gave was that Saul’s troops were to “destroy” Amalek “utterly,” not taking any living thing as spoil. 1 Samuel 15:1-3. This was contrary to the normal practice, under which victorious armies were compensated by dividing the spoils, but was consistent with God’s instructions in Deuteronomy 13:12-18 for the handling of cities “devoted” to destruction by God because of their wickedness. When God gave Saul and his people victory, Saul, apparently persuaded by his people, permitted them to keep some of “the best” of the “good things” among the plunder, to be used, he said, as “offerings” to God upon their return home. 1 Samuel 15:9, 15, 21. King Saul also kept Agag, king of Amalek, as a prisoner, presumably as a trophy of God’s power. 1 Samuel 15:8, 20, 32-33. Saul had fought the war God told him to fight, and had kept spoils with which to serve God, right? So, big deal! To us, as to Saul himself, any transgression in these two situations seems minor, as it was all done with the purpose of serving God in a way which seemed right under the circumstances (though it ignored a part of God’s directions).

By contrast, David’s three great sins were done willfully, to serve himself rather than God, and the first two of them, at least, appear to modern eyes totally unforgiveable. Toward the end of his life, when his power over Israel was secure and he had turned his attention to the conquest of Israel’s neighbors that had oppressed them in the past, on one occasion King David sent his army to attack Ammon but stayed home in his capital instead of going out to personally lead his army (as had been his prior practice). 2 Samuel 11:1. He was walking on the roof of his palace, and from there saw a beautiful woman bathing. (v. 2). Now, to be clear, at this time David was not a lonely old single man. He already had at least six wives. See, 2 Samuel 3:1-5 & 1 Chronicles 3:1-4. Nevertheless, instead of turning his eyes away from the sight of the beautiful woman taking a bath, he kept watching, and asked his attendants to identify her. He was then told clearly that she was taken–she was the wife of one of his most valiant and trusted army commanders. 2 Samuel 11:3, 23:39. Ignoring this warning, David had Bathsheba summoned to his chamber and committed adultery with her. 2 Samuel 11:4. Although the scriptures do not directly say this, owing largely to the difference between the ancient and modern views of the status of women, David raped Bathsheba. He was an absolute monarch, she was his subject, and she lived in a culture which treated women mostly as property of men. She had no real choice other than to comply. This disparity of power is recognized in modern legal systems even in situations in which the offending male has much less power than King David did.

But the rape of Bathsheba was not the end of David’s sins. It proved to be only the occasion for David’s second great sin. Bathsheba conceived. 2 Samuel 11:5. This created a huge public relations problem for David, because her husband Uriah was at the battlefront in Ammon and obviously wasn’t the father. So David first ordered that Uriah be sent home for consultations. He then tried his best to get Uriah to go home and spend a night with his wife. But Uriah was too loyal a soldier to do this–he would not go home while his comrades were risking their lives on the front. 2 Samuel 11:6-14. So David devised a plot to have Uriah killed in battle at the hands of the enemy, and carried it out with the assistance of his cousin Joab, the field commander of his army. 2 Samuel 11:14-25. David then married Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 11:26-27.

In any modern democracy, after such an occurrence came to light, David would have been removed from office, convicted of corruption in office, rape and conspiracy to commit murder, and sent to prison for a very long time. If he were ever during the remainder of his lifetime to be released from prison, he would be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and thereby excluded from much of the community and permanently shunned. But, most important to the present discussion, he would not have been allowed even the possibility of successful public repentance. Any attempt he might have made to express penitence would have been rejected– as “everyone” (everyone but God, apparently) knows, “that kind” of person can simply never change for the better! His sin–viewed solely as two concrete forbidden and harmful acts–was simply too serious. It was unforgivable, in contrast to King Saul’s impatient bungling while trying to serve God.

But this wasn’t David’s only great sin. David repented–a matter treated at more length below–God accepted his repentance, forgave him, left him in office (with some painful consequences, which will be treated in a later posting), and even reconfirmed his promises to David. See, e.g., 2 Samuel 12:9-13, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22:47-23:5. Then, years later, David became proud, and ordered a census of his people to confirm his greatness. 2 Samuel 24:1-2. Unlike adultery and murder, there was no law given to Moses that prohibited rulers of his people from taking a census. However, whenever a census was taken, it was to have a religious purpose–it was to be taken in conjunction with the collection of a half-shekel offering from every adult male for the service of the Tabernacle, to “make atonement” for their souls. Exodus 30:11-16. Thus, the census was to be used to remind the people of their need of God. In his pride, David overlooked this requirement–he ordered a census, strictly for his own information, without the collection of the atonement offering. Also, and related to the purpose of the atonement offering, when a census was taken, the Levites–the tribe God had chosen out of the people to serve him in the Tabernacle–were not to be counted. Numbers 1:48-53. The Levites themselves were an offering from the people to God. Numbers 3:5-10. David also appears to have disregarded this limitation–he commanded Joab to have “all the tribes of Israel” counted. 2 Samuel 24:2. Joab and David’s army commanders knew something was wrong with this order and protested it. 2 Samuel 24:4. Indeed, it appears that Joab saw through David’s pride, and attempted to confront it. 2 Samuel 24:3. But because, as it says in verse 1, God was angry with Israel, David was unmoved by his commanders’ protests, and the census was conducted. 2 Samuel 24:4-9. What Israel’s anger-provoking sin was at this time is not stated, but it can likely be inferred from Samuel’s prediction that kings would follow the people’s sins (1 Samuel 12:13-15) that their sin was also pride.

Nine months later, when the census had been completed and the results reported to David, David understood that he had sinned and began the process of repentance, praying “I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, Yahweh, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.” 2 Samuel 24:10. There were, again, painful immediate consequences which God did not take away, and which David accepted. 2 Samuel 24:11-25. (These will also be treated at greater length in a later posting). Ultimately, God forgave David–again!–and honored his prayer to stay the plague and heal his land.

Yet here is the true contrast between King Saul and King David: King Saul habitually treated the true God like other nations treated their idols–i.e., as supernatural forces to be manipulated to gain his own ends rather than obeyed. David never did this. The difference is also seen in the contrast between David’s complete repentance and Saul’s excuses and remorse for the consequences of his sins. Saul habitually tried to do God’s will, as he understood it, by his own strength and his own understanding. When confronted by Samuel about ignoring God’s instructions on two occasions (on both of which he was, more broadly, doing “God’s will”), he made excuses. David habitually honored God as his Lord and strove to keep his instructions, though on a few occasions he departed from this and pursued his own lust (Bathsheba) or pride (the census). When confronted with these sins, he promptly and completely repented.

As previously stated, when Saul “forced” himself and offered the burnt offering, he was trying to serve God, in his own way. He was seeking God’s favor, as a commodity that could be purchased from God for an appropriate offering. But God’s favor was not what Saul received as a result of his offering!

After this first great sin, Samuel told Saul that he had done “foolishly” because he had “not kept the commandment of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you.” 1 Samuel 13:13. When confronted by Samuel on this occasion, Saul made an excuse–and the excuse implicitly blamed both Samuel and God:

Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you didn’t come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines assembled themselves together at Michmash, therefore I said, “Now the Philistines will come down on me to Gilgal, and I haven’t entreated the favor of Yahweh.’ I forced myself therefore, and offered the burnt offering.”

1 Samuel 13:11-12.

Neither Samuel nor God accepted this excuse. Because of Saul’s failure to wait for God, as he had been commanded, instead choosing to try to bribe God, Saul’s kingdom would not last “forever,” as God had originally intended. No, Saul’s kingdom now would not endure. God had been looking for “a man after his own heart” to rule his people, and Saul had shown he was not that man. Indeed, on this occasion, at the time Samuel spoke to Saul, God had already found the man he was looking for:

“Yahweh has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and Yahweh has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept that which Yahweh commanded you.”

1 Samuel 13:14.

Yet God retained Saul in office for a time after this, and gave him a second opportunity to show God to be his God, rather than his idol. As previously explained, God ordered Saul, again through the mouth of Samuel, to take God’s vengeance on Amalek, leaving nothing alive. Saul instead destroyed Amalek, but let the people take the best of the animals alive and kept the king of Amalek alive as his prisoner. 1 Samuel 15. When confronted, Saul at first insisted that he had fully kept God’s instructions, because everything that was brought back was brought back as an offering:

Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, “You are blessed by Yahweh! I have performed the commandment of Yahweh.”

Samuel said, “Then what does this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the cattle which I hear mean?”

Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the cattle, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God. We have utterly destroyed the rest.”

1 Samuel 15:13-15

Samuel then confronts Saul’s pride in disregarding God’s instructions, and Saul repeats his insistence that the plunder was taken only to provide an offering, this time as an excuse for his disobedience, which he now recognizes, but blames on the people (which was a half-truth):

Samuel said, “Though you were little in your own sight, weren’t you made the head of the tribes of Israel? Yahweh anointed you king over Israel; and Yahweh sent you on a journey, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then didn’t you obey Yahweh’s voice, but took the plunder, and did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight?”

Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed Yahweh’s voice, and have gone the way which Yahweh sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the best of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.”

1 Samuel 15:17-21.

Finally, Samuel comes to the crux of the matter–Saul’s disobedience is like witchcraft, which tries to manipulate supernatural spiritual forces, and is a form of idolatry, in that it attempted to subordinate God to Saul:

Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim [i.e., household idolatry]. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23.

Saul never really repented. He asked Saul twice to help him maintain his public image, as a worshipper of “the LORD your God,” by going back with him to lead the people in worship. 1 Samuel 15:25, 30. He thus showed himself more concerned about appearances and public relations, and the willingness of Samuel and his God to keep him in power, than in the reality of his own, and his people’s, relationship with God. In the process of asking Samuel to help, he tore Samuel’s robe, and Samuel told Saul that God would likewise tear the kingdom away from Saul and give it to another, “to a neighbor of yours who is better than you”. v. 28. “Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent.” v. 29. What follows rather swiftly is the private anointing of David, 1 Samuel 16, and the decline of King Saul into homicidal paranoid insanity, brought on by an “evil spirit from the Lord” (which may have been the effect of the Holy Spirit on a man who was actively resisting God? compare Saul of Tarsus), 1 Samuel 16:14-15, and was aggravated by his jealousy over the slow rise of David in popularity and power, which he was unable to stop.

By contrast, when David sinned, he sinned for himself, with no pretense that he was keeping God’s instructions. He clearly did not believe that he was manipulating God, or was able to do so. When the seer Nathan rebuked David concerning his sin involving Bathsheba and Uriah, he made no excuses, but instead immediately agreed with God about his sin (i.e., confessed it), repented, and returned wholeheartedly to God. He also accepted the consequences Nathan described to him without argument. 2 Samuel 12:7-15. In the second situation identified as a great sin on David’s part, after the outcome of the census was reported to David, no one needed to confront him–his own “heart struck him,” and he immediately confessed his sin. 2 Samuel 24:10. Then, when Gad the seer came to David, to offer him a choice of three different consequences by which God would show his justice openly with respect to the instructions about the atonement offering David had ignored in conducting the census, David made no excuses, but chose the consequence which was entirely the act of the merciful God he knew: “Let us fall now into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into man’s hand.” 2 Samuel 24:14. Then, when David saw the angel God sent to strike the people, he prayed for his people, taking the full guilt of his sin on himself: “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.” 2 Samuel 24:17. Gad then instructed him to build an altar on the threshing floor of Araunah outside Jerusalem–later to become the site of the Temple–and David did so without hesitation. 2 Samuel 24:18-24. “David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.” 2 Samuel 24:25.

Even more than his general habit of honoring God as God, it was David’s swift and complete repentance when he recognized his sin that made David a man after God’s own heart, while Saul, who lacked these qualities, was not. King David became the founder of a long dynasty and the second most illustrious ancestor–after Abraham–of Jesus, the Messiah.

Did God get this backwards? No, he did not.

SERIES: Lessons From the Repentance of King David:

NEXT: The Prophets Nathan and Gad Deal with King David in His Sins.

Repentance and Earthly Consequences: the consequences of David’s sins involving Bathsheba, Uriah and the census.

Repentance toward God, recognizing sin is really against God first, not people. Keys to Psalm 51.

Consequences of the guilt of sin and resulting fear on the sinner. Psalms 6 and 38.

Repentance and Human Enemies, Psalms 6, 38, 69 and 143–do we really “deserve” everything human enemies do to us, citing our sins as an excuse? Does punishment go on forever? God’s protection now, and deliverance in his time.

The Problems Involved in Taking Up the Offenses of Others

Repentance, promised forgiveness, and thanks for it. Psalm 32.