special permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

After the battle of Gilboa the bodies of Saul and his sons were
found on the field by the Philistines and carried to the town of
Beth-shan and fastened to the wall. But the men of Jabesh-Gilead
heard of this indignity to the dead, and making a night march
removed the bodies.
[End illustration]

{373}

Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, "It repenteth me
that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from
following me, and hath not performed my commandments."

And Samuel was wroth; and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel
rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and it was told Samuel,
saying, "Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a monument,
and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal." And Samuel
came to Saul: and Saul said to him, "Blessed be thou of the Lord: I
have performed the commandment of the Lord."

And Samuel said, "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine
ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"

And Saul said, "They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the
people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice to
the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed."

Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord
hath said to me this night."

And he said unto him, "Say on."

And Samuel said, "Though thou wast little in thine own sight, wast
thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed
thee king over Israel; and the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said,
'Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against
them until they be consumed.' Wherefore then didst thou not obey {374}
the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst that
which was evil in the sight of the Lord?"

And Saul said unto Samuel, "Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord,
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag
the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the
people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the devoted
things, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal."

And Samuel said, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings
and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold,--

"To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to harken than the fat of rams."

"For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubb