Learning from 1 Samuel 14 - God Did Not Answer Him That Day

1 Samuel 14:36-37 - Saul said, “Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them till dawn, and let us not leave one of them alive.” “Do whatever seems best to you,” they replied. But the priest said, “Let us inquire of God here.” So Saul asked God, “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into Israel’s hand?” But God did not answer him that day.

Perhaps the worst thing that could ever happen to a believer is for the Lord to stop speaking to him. How could this happen? It happened to Saul twice - the first time was only temporary (in the passage above). The second time was permanent (1 Samuel 28:6; see also 1 Samuel 15:35, where it started).

All of 1 Samuel 14 is a confusing chapter. It portrays the confusion that results from religious leaders operating outside of God’s will and God’s revelation. Just like any anointed leader today, God raised Saul by revelation and anointed him for his role (as king of Israel). God used him powerfully to achieve great victories (1 Samuel 11:11). Therefore, Saul’s fall from grace serves as a warning to all those whom God has called, anointed, and used in His Kingdom - men and women of God everywhere. We want to avoid being like Saul. We want to please God in every way. We never want to find ourselves in that situation where God refuses to answer us.

Most people could understand why God might remove ministers who fall into scandalous sins, like immorality or financial corruption. Yet the Lord rejected Saul over a sin that is much more subtle, something commonplace among Christians today. In the previous chapter, Saul became impatient waiting for the prophet Samuel to arrive, and he decided to offer the sacrifices by himself - which violated what the Lord had revealed. Ironically, on two occasions Saul sinned by offering a sacrifice (see 1 Samuel 13:8-14; 1 Samuel 15:21-23) - a warning to those of us today who think that God is always impressed with our sacrifice of praise or our financial gifts. The Lord rejected Saul as King because he interjected his own human opinions, ideas, and preferences into God’s Work. Saul’s spiritual justifications did not matter; God stopped speaking to him because he was following his own opinions and ideas.

Chapter 14 begins with Saul’s being vastly outnumbered by the enormous Philistine army, hiding in fear, with most of his men unarmed and unprepared for battle. Many religions today have followers, but lack the spiritual resources to fulfill God’s Project. Saul had 600 men with him at his headquarters. Six is the biblical number of man, falling short of the number seven, which symbolizes God’s perfection. Saul was relying on human resources.

Saul’s son Jonathan went alone with his armor bearer to attack a Philistine garrison. The Lord intervened on their behalf and their enemies fell before them. This skirmish, combined with a well-timed earthquake, then sent a sudden panic through the entire Philistine army. It was a panic from God. (See 1 Samuel 14:15). Some of their troops scattered; others attacked their own comrades. Saul was so blind to what God was doing that day that he did not even know his son Jonathan had left, or what had happened to the Philistines that surrounded him.

Saul beckoned the priest to bring up the Ark of the Covenant immediately so they could inquire of the Lord there. This is a sad picture of how so many Christian leaders operate - they get desperate for a word from God only in the moment of crisis, instead of staying attuned to the Spirit all the time. The priest brought the Ark and they began inquiring of God about what they should do.

“Withdraw your hand.” (1 Samuel 14:19) - Saul interrupted as they were inquiring of God and made his own decision. How does God speak? The Old Testament mentions three main ways - through dreams, prophets (who had visions and revelations), and the Urim and Thummim (see 1 Samuel 28:6, where it mentions these three as the possible ways to hear from God). The Urim and Thummim were small objects that the High Priest kept in the secret pouch of the priestly breastplate (part of the ephod), over his heart (see Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 27:21; Deuteronomy 33:8). Ancient Jewish traditions say that one pertained to the blessings of the Covenant and another to the curses (see, e.g., Deuteronomy 28). The priest could cast the Urim and Thummim like lots before the Lord, and God would answer with a “yes” or a “no” (blessings or curses) - see Prov. 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Sometimes the answer would be something neutral, that is, no answer at all (we will discuss this more later). The godly people would not make a major spiritual decision without first asking the Lord in this way (see Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:75). The early church incorporated this method as one of the ways to hear from God (see Acts 1:26), along with dreams, prophetic words and visions. Today, the faithful church continues this by consulting the Word, where God gives a yes or no answer through a single verse in the Bible, selected at random.

In this story, just as the priest was casting the Urim and Thummim before the Lord - a very sacred moment - Saul said, “Withdraw your hand.” In other words, “Stop inquiring of the Lord - I already decided what to do.”   Then Saul rushed into battle. We see people do this all the time. There are religious leaders who suddenly want to hear directly from God at the time of crisis. Then they feel they cannot wait for God to answer (because it is a crisis, after all), and they interrupt the process and go ahead with their own human ideas. Following his own ideas instead of God’s revelation was a recurring problem for Saul, just as it is a persistent characteristic of religion today.

God was already moving against the Philistines, and the Israelites chased after them. Then Saul made another mistake: he bound all the people by an oath to keep a strict fast that day, eating nothing. It is strange that immediately after interrupting the priest who was inquiring of the Lord, Saul wants to do something super-spiritual, like forcing everyone to fast on a day of strenuous physical activity. Unfortunately, this was the opposite of what God wanted that day. God had provided abundant honey for the troops in a place where they would all find it, because the Lord knew they needed strength and nourishment for the hard physical strain of battle. Yet Saul was already following his own plan, and did not have time to ask God anything. So all the people missed the blessing God intended.

What arrogance - for religious leaders to think they can control God by imposing fasts and lengthy prayer vigils on the people. God wants people who will ask Him what to do, and carry out His will - not people who follow their own ideas and then attempt heroic feats of fasting or prayer in order to make God bless their human plans.

The situation that day deteriorated more and more, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a day of deliverance from God. Saul’s son Jonathan - the very one who had stepped out in faith and attacked the Philistines, setting them all to flight - had not heard Saul’s oath, and he ate some of the honey. This presented a very awkward situation spiritually. Jonathan was correct that the troops needed to eat, and that the Lord had provided the honey. At the same time, Saul’s oath was still binding on Jonathan, even though the oath was a foolhardy mistake (see Ecclesiastes 5:5-6). God is offended at our broken promises. Jonathan’s inadvertent violation of the oath meant the people were in breach of the king’s vow. Saul set the stage for this mess when he stopped the priest from inquiring of God and imposed a rule on the people that came from his own heart or mind. Religion makes this same mess today. The people must choose between missing God’s intended blessing (the honey, the revealed Word) and rebelling against their anointed pastor. It is such a pity. Jonathan broke the vow, and the people who kept it could not finish the victory that day - they were too faint from hunger.

Worse still, Saul’s soldiers were so desperate by day’s end that they ate the captured animals raw, without cooking, and with the blood still there. This was a serious sin under the Old Testament law (see Leviticus 17). They were supposed to keep blood separate from the flesh they ate. The blood, as it says in Leviticus 17:11, points forward to Jesus’ blood that makes atonement for sin and gives us his life. Saul made his men so famished that they mixed the blood with flesh. It is a tragedy today when Christians lack the revealed Word, and they end up mixing the blood of Jesus with fleshly things. Saul stopped this and insisted that they cook the food and separate the blood. He built an altar to the Lord there to seek forgiveness for the men’s sin of eating blood (verse 35). He had never before built an altar - another picture of religious leaders who become serious about seeking God only when a crisis comes, not before.

Now Saul wants God to speak, to tell them what to do next. It was unclear whether they should pursue their enemies immediately, or wait for a better opportunity. The men told Saul, “Do whatever seems best to you” (v. 36). Like many church members today, they had learned to tell their leader whatever he wanted to hear. Saul beckoned the priest again to inquire of God; but God does not always tell us what we want to hear. “But God did not answer him that day” (verse 37). The Lord took offense at the series of events that had unfolded. God remained silent.

Saul continued. He made the priest cast lots with the Urim and Thummim to determine who had broken the oath. The Lord began to speak again, revealing through the Urim that Jonathan had been the first to break the vow. Then Saul makes another rash vow before God: “May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if you do not die, Jonathan.”

This is stunning - he quickly switches back from inquiring of God to following his own heart or mind. Many do this.

Just as the first vow was broken (first by Jonathan, then by the men eating blood and flesh), this second oath also goes unfulfilled. The people intervened and refused to let Saul execute Jonathan - they even made a vow of their own (”As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help” - v. 45). This foreshadowed another weakness of Saul - he did what his men wanted (see also 1 Samuel 15:15, 30). We sometimes hear religious leaders say, “The people here will not accept that revelation - they demand that we do things another way.” In a sense, we are glad to see that Jonathan survived, as he was a good man. The people were in the same awkward situation that Jonathan had faced - they were correct that God used Jonathan and that it would have been a tragedy for him to die. Yet there was another breach of a vow.

How did that day end? It was similar to the way it began: “Then Saul stopped pursuing the Philistines, and they withdrew to their own land” (v. 46). Instead of pursuing them and finishing the victory, Saul just stays there in his weakness, in the mess he had made of that day. God did compel the Philistine army to withdraw, which was a blessing - albeit with no help from Saul. God was already looking for a new leader (David) who would “do everything I want him to do.” (see Acts 13:22). That is what God looks for even today.

See vv. 41-42. The Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament from about 250 B.C., renders Saul’s prayer as follows: “Why have you not answered your servant today? If the fault is in me or my son Jonathan, respond with Urim, but if the men of Israel are at fault, respond with Thummim.” This gives us a little picture of how the Urim and Thummim worked, giving yes-or-no answers to specific questions.