So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped the Lord.
So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped Jehovah.
And Samuel turneth back after Saul, and Saul boweth himself to Jehovah;
So Samuel turned again after Saul; and Saul worshipped Jehovah.
1 Samuel — The transition from judges to monarchy. Samuel rises as prophet-judge; Israel demands a king; Saul rises and is rejected; David is anointed in obscurity and flees across the wilderness. Three lives overlapping — the prophetic-judicial-royal handoff.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Voices4
35. For on account of the evil that lay hidden within, he deserved to hear: "The Lord has cast you off from being king." But so that under the pretext of good he might draw others to the truth of that same good, Samuel wished to follow Saul, and saw him worship the Lord. Sometimes even the evils of kings and the great ones of the earth must be tolerated, lest being provoked they slip into worse things. For the children of Israel often worshiped the gods of the nations.
Gregory the Dialogist· Commentary on 1 Kings, Book 6, Chapter 2, 604patristic
So Samuel turned again after Saul,....
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed
Samuel turned again after Saul--not to worship along with him; but first, that the people might have no ground, on pretense of Saul's rejection, to withdraw their allegiance from him; and secondly, to compensate for Saul's error, by executing God's judgment upon Agag.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871reformed
Turned - First, that the people might not upon pretense of this sentence of rejection, withdraw their obedience to their sovereign; whereby they would both have sinned against God, and have been as sheep without a shepherd. Secondly, that he might rectify Saul's error, and execute God's judgment upon Agag.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765evangelical
The verses this one reaches1
“I will not return with you,” Samuel replied. “For you have rejected the word of the LORD, and He has rejected you as king over Israel.”
