This verse demonstrates how Saul’s impatience and misplaced priorities reveal the importance of obedience to God over appeasing our own fears.
In “But Samuel said, ‘What have you done?’ And Saul said, ‘Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash’” (v.11), the prophet Samuel confronts King Saul around 1050-1011 BC, in the aftermath of Saul’s failure to wait for Samuel’s arrival to offer sacrifices to the LORD. Michmash, located a few miles north of Jerusalem in the territory of Benjamin, was where the Philistine army gathered, creating fear among Saul’s troops. Saul, seeing his men leave and the enemy forces build, gave in to impatience and offered the burnt offering himself, a role God established only for His prophet-priests (1 Samuel 13:8-9).
By starting with Samuel’s stern question—“What have you done?”—the verse highlights the gravity of Saul’s misstep. Historically, Samuel was the final judge of Israel and a divinely appointed prophet who had earlier anointed Saul as king. In this verse, Saul attempts to justify his actions by citing the scattering of his troops and Samuel’s apparent delay. Underlying this excuse was a deeper spiritual issue: Saul placed his circumstances and fear of people above obedience to God. This disobedience would lead to God’s eventual statement that He was seeking a man after His own heart instead (1 Samuel 13:14).
Saul’s attempt to secure victory through his own initiative foreshadows his greater pattern of disregarding God’s commands, an attitude that ultimately cost him the kingdom and set the stage for David’s anointing.
Set to dark mode
1 Samuel 13:11 meaning
In “But Samuel said, ‘What have you done?’ And Saul said, ‘Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash’” (v.11), the prophet Samuel confronts King Saul around 1050-1011 BC, in the aftermath of Saul’s failure to wait for Samuel’s arrival to offer sacrifices to the LORD. Michmash, located a few miles north of Jerusalem in the territory of Benjamin, was where the Philistine army gathered, creating fear among Saul’s troops. Saul, seeing his men leave and the enemy forces build, gave in to impatience and offered the burnt offering himself, a role God established only for His prophet-priests (1 Samuel 13:8-9).
By starting with Samuel’s stern question—“What have you done?”—the verse highlights the gravity of Saul’s misstep. Historically, Samuel was the final judge of Israel and a divinely appointed prophet who had earlier anointed Saul as king. In this verse, Saul attempts to justify his actions by citing the scattering of his troops and Samuel’s apparent delay. Underlying this excuse was a deeper spiritual issue: Saul placed his circumstances and fear of people above obedience to God. This disobedience would lead to God’s eventual statement that He was seeking a man after His own heart instead (1 Samuel 13:14).
Saul’s attempt to secure victory through his own initiative foreshadows his greater pattern of disregarding God’s commands, an attitude that ultimately cost him the kingdom and set the stage for David’s anointing.