The Rise and Fall of King Saul
March 15, 2025 | By Jack Batten BF ‘27
image description: a backlit crown
If I were granted license to rename the Biblical books, I would title 1 Samuel “The Rise and Fall of King Saul.” Saul experiences an astonishing, rapid rise and an even swifter and more shocking fall. Indeed, his story is one of Scripture’s great tragedies.
Saul is often vilified and made into a caricature. The most enduring image is of the king mad, his eyes wild with rage and envy as he tries to strike down the young David. However, it could just as well be the shrinking youth who hides himself among the baggage when they go to anoint him king or the magnanimous ruler who spares his enemies (1 Samuel 10:22, 11:12-13). Saul is, as Homer said of Odysseus, “a man of twists and turns,” who allows the weight of his crown to corrupt his soul and forgets that it is spiritual strength and not a strength of arms that legitimizes his rule.
Saul’s story can be broken down into three major arcs: rise, corruption, and fall. Today’s devotional will examine Saul’s rise in the context of Lent.
Saul was by far the most popular king of early monarchical Israel. He was everything one could ask for in a ruler: brawny, handsome, charismatic, honest, and possessed with a disarming charm, Saul literally and figuratively stood head and shoulders above everyone else. Yet, one quality made Saul unique: he loved God. Saul was a pious man, seeking out Samuel’s prophetic word for even such a triviality as finding a lost donkey. He fought zealously against idolatry and defended his people against foreign oppression. His passion was filled with the Holy Spirit, a rare occurrence in the Old Testament.
Saul was not elected by popular vote, nor did he seize power by strength of arms. He did not win the people’s hearts with oratory or empty promises—no, Saul was chosen directly by God. Here stood a king who truly possessed a divine mandate.
It had never been a given that Israel would have a king. Since the time of Joshua, Israel had been ruled by a succession of judges, spiritual and military strongmen and women who briefly rose up to deliver Israel from foreign oppression and domestic decadence. The closest analogy would probably be the sheriff in a Wild West town. By Samuel’s time, the judicial system was becoming an embarrassment to Israel. All the nations around them had charismatic kings, dynastic rulers possessed with wealth, influence, and military might. So, like the town in a Western that decides to dispense with the sheriff and elect a mayor, the people went to Samuel and demanded a king.
There’s something in the human heart that demands a king. We want someone upon whom we can gaze with admiration and respect, even awe. This is why so many nations have kept their monarchies alive in a non-governing role—we crave the crown. In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the nation Gondor has been a shadow of its former self since its kingly line vanished, its place held by lesser stewards. Gondor is in turmoil and disarray in the face of a looming threat from the Dark Lord Sauron until its rightful king, Aragorn, returns and unites the West against the forces of evil (in the aptly titled The Return of the King).
God warned Israel that having a king is not to be taken lightly. A king possesses immense power over his people, and there is little recourse should he choose to abuse that power. He may be a harsh master, extracting heavy taxes and demanding sons for his army and daughters for his household. But the people continue to ask for a king.
How often, I wonder, do we demand from God what we do not need? Israel saw God as the problem: a tight-fisted and greedy being unwilling to give His people the monarchy they so desperately wanted. We, too, resent God when He fails to give us what we want. We come to God seeking a good internship, better mental health, romantic love, and all God gives us is rejection, depression, and rejection. It is easy to grow bitter, to insist we know what is best for ourselves. We approach God as if he is the loan officer at a bank, trying to bargain with Him, to prove to Him that we can handle it, that we have earned it.
Sometimes, like in 1 Samuel 8, God gives us what we ask for. He gave Israel Saul. And for a while, the people felt vindicated in their demand. Saul was a smashing success; the Philistines were beaten back, the stock market was up, and gas prices were down. But only God sees the ends of things, and God knew that this monarchy would end poorly.
Israel would have saved itself a lot of trouble if it had never asked for a king, if it had trusted that God knew what it needed and would bountifully supply. We, too, would be well-served to remember the words of John Newton: “All shall work together for good. Everything is needful that He sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds. Be content to bear the cross; others have borne it before you.”
Do not resent God when He withholds the thing you most want. Seek to know His will and understand what it is you truly need. Do not satisfy yourself by making kings out of the things of this world; satisfy yourself with nothing less than the Eternal King. Take comfort! He knows exactly what you need and will supply immeasurably more than you could ask or imagine. Everything is needful that He sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds.