Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 96:383 (Jul 1939)
Article: Did the Lord Instruct Samuel to Lie?
Author: Graham Gilmer

BSac 96:383 (Jul 39) p. 341

Did the Lord Instruct Samuel to Lie?

Graham Gilmer

A very earnest Christian was once discussing the difficulties of the Bible. This man believed that every word of the Bible was inspired. He had spent thirty years in a foreign country preaching the Gospel, and yet he found one place in the record very difficult for him to accept. He put the difficulty something like this: “The most difficult thing in all of God’s Word for me to understand is where the Lord told Samuel in the sixteenth chapter of his first book, to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite, and anoint from among his sons a successor to King Saul. Samuel protested and gave as his reason the fear that Saul would kill him, if he did so. Then the Lord told him to take an heifer with him and say: ‘I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ It looks to me as if the Lord were telling Samuel to say that he came to Bethlehem with one purpose while he actually came with an entirely different purpose.”

If this is a true statement of the case, it is indeed a very serious difficulty. It means that the Lord instructed Samuel to tell a lie, which is unthinkable. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” It means that instead of protecting His servant by his power from the vengeance of the wicked king he told him to protect himself behind a lie. Yes, it means that he told Samuel to engage in a sacrifice as a mere sham and to cover up his real purpose by a religious deed. If this was this Christian’s understanding of the incident, no wonder he was troubled.

No, there is not here the slightest indication of an untruth but we have only an example of our misunderstanding of the Scriptures. If there is a difficulty, pray and wait as you seek to understand. One day He will make all things clear. I know my Father and I know that my difficulties are caused by misunderstanding and not by His character nor by the Book that reveals that Character. For “this is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto

BSac 96:383 (Jul 39) p. 342

you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

The Lord’s chief purpose in sending Samuel to Bethlehem was to begin there that for which the sacrifice he offered stood. The anointing of David was only an incident in that work. Our enlightenment comes as we compare one Scripture with another. The passage that helps us here is a much neglected one, the first chapters of Leviticus. Those chapters gave Israel her instruction for the offering of five great sacrifices, all of which, even in their details, point forward to the finished work of Christ. Samuel really went to Bethlehem in preparation for this work, which Christ was to accomplish.