I Samuel 14:47-52 – What legacy are we leaving behind?

Much of Saul’s life had been covered. Who he was as a person, his ability, and his spirituality had been uncovered from the way he responded to God, the people and the enemies. Here in these closing six verses of  1 Samuel 14, we see a summary of his military achievement, his family and life. And from all that we have discovered about him, we sense that essentially his regime was over at this point.  

Let’s first go to his military accomplishment. We must not presume that he did not accomplish anything. In fact, 1 Samuel 14: 47-48 tell us the victories he had secured over  Israel’s enemies. These two verses read,  “Now when Saul had taken the kingdom over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, the sons of Ammon, Edom, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines; and wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment. He acted valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, and delivered Israel from the hands of those who plundered them.” To be sure, Saul was described as acting valiantly, meaning he was courageous in facing the enemies and he plundered them. Reading these closing verses without knowing his disobedience and lack of faith in God, one could surmise that he wasn’t such a bad king after all. But he certainly was a bad king. If he had failed in his role, it was not because of his military capability, it was because of his lack of spiritual capacity.

At this point let’s pause to look at life in perspective. There are four dimensions to a person’s life. Everyone has a spiritual, mental, social-emotional and a physical dimension in life. To have accomplished total success, we need to ensure that we are doing well in all four dimensions of life. According to these verses, we must conclude that Saul did well in the physical dimension. But from all that was seen of him in earlier chapters, we must say that he did not do so well in his spiritual dimension. In Christian living, we must know that success is not measured by what we have accomplished, but by who we become in Christ. What good would it do to climb up to the pinnacle of success, only to realize that our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall? We must not only be well physically, mentally and social-emotionally, we must also be well spiritually.   

Verses 49-51 give us a summary of his family. We are told that he had three sons, namely, Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malchi-shua. He also had two daughters, Merah the elder and Michal the younger. His wife was Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz. His commander was Abner, his cousin, the son of his uncle Ner. These members of his family will be coming up in later chapters. This chapter ends in telling us that Israel had a tough time fighting the Philistines all the days of his life and whenever he came across a valiant man he would attach that man to himself. The tragedy of Saul was that he failed to leave a legacy. He was too self-centred. If only he had made God the centre of his life, his course in life would be very different. That’s Saul, but what about us? Who is the focal point of our life? Be sure that God is the centre of our universe - spiritual, soul, mind and body. We must love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, body, and strength!