According to xiii. 7-15, Saul is to wait seven days for Samuel at Gilgal.  Here there is a reference to x. 8, where the seer says to the future king, “Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and I will come after thee there to offer sacrifices; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come and show thee what thou shalt do.”  This verse is condemned by other arguments than its connection with xii. 7-15.  Samuel’s object at this point, according to x.  I-7, is to overcome the reluctance of the Benjamite who had gone forth to seek his asses, to undertake the high calling announced to him, and to inspire him with faith and confidence,—­not to give him unintelligible directions as to what he is to do first when he has actually become king, and how long he has to wait for the seer at Gilgal.  The schoolmaster tone of x. 8 is particularly out of place after the preceding words of ver. 7, that, when the three signs have come to pass, Saul is to do what his hand finds, because God is with him.  This is surely giving him perfect freedom of action, and for the reason that God’s Spirit is working in him, which “bloweth where it listeth,” and suffers no interference from any authority. 1 ************************************* 1.  It is also clear that the writer of x. 8, xiii. 7-15 cannot possibly have found Samuel in Gilgal in chap. xi. before making him go there in chap. xiii.  We have already seen xi. 12-14 to be a later addition; the name of Samuel must be interpolated in xi.7, too.  In fact in xi. 15 the people, i.e., the army, acts quite of itself even in our present text.  Hence it follows also, that x. 8, xiii. 7-15 are older than vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii. ***************************************

This insertion is based on an older account of the breach between Samuel and Saul in 1Samuel xv.  Here also the matter of dispute is a sacrifice, and Gilgal is the scene; and this alone serves to explain how Gilgal is adhered to in xiii. 7-15 in spite of all impossibility, as being the right and necessary place for the occurrence.  Jehovah, by the mouth of Samuel, commands the king to devote the Amalekites to destruction because of an act of treachery they had committed against Israel in ancient times, and to spare no living thing.  Saul accordingly makes war on the Amalekites and defeats them; but he does not carry out the proscription entirely, as he spares the best of their cattle and their king Agag, whom he takes prisoner.  At Gilgal, where the victory is celebrated before Jehovah, he is called to account for this by Samuel, and states that he intended the booty for a sacrifice to Jehovah.  His statement, however, makes no impression.  “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams:  behold, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim.  Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He also hath rejected thee.”  The king acknowledges his guilt, and tries to pacify