Verse 12
SAUL FINALLY PROCLAIMED KING OVER ALL ISRAEL
"Then the people said to Samuel, "Who is it that said, `Shall Saul reign over us'? Bring the men that we may put them to death." But Saul said, "Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has wrought deliverance in Israel." Then Samuel said to the people, "Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingdom." So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly."
The meaning of this paragraph is that, at last, all Israel accepted Saul as king. The Gilgal here is that famous place near Jericho where the ark of the Lord was first placed in Canaan, and where Samuel visited regularly during his judgeship of Israel.
G. B. Caird's comment on this passage is that:
"The story concludes with the public anointing of Saul, in which Samuel had no part; and we may conclude from this that the idea of making Saul king over all Israel had occurred to someone other than Samuel."[9]
This type of comment is not a comment upon the Bible at all, but upon the Septuagint (LXX) and carries no weight whatever. Josephus' words cannot confirm such a view because he was merely reading the erroneous interpretation which the translators of the Septuagint (LXX) inserted into the true text.
The account which we have before us in the RSV is dependable, and there is not even a hint in this passage of anything resembling "an anointing." That had already been done and was recorded by the author of this book in 1 Samuel 10:1ff.
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