Q. Why did God reject Saul as king for offering sacrifices, but not David or Solomon when they offered sacrifices?
Saul was rejected as king not specifically because he offered sacrifices, but because he disobeyed a direct command that God had given him through the prophet Samuel.
Samuel had told Saul, “Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.” But Saul, worried that his whole army would desert him, offered the sacrifices himself, just before Samuel arrived.
“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel told him. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” In other words, the penalty for this outright disobedience to a direct command from God was that Saul would not be the founder of a royal dynasty; while he would remain king, his descendants would not rule after him.
Secondarily, however, this disobedience did lead Saul to usurp a privilege of the priesthood. As I discuss in this post, by offering these sacrifices, Saul was imitating the Canaanite priest-king model instead of respecting the separation between the kingship and the priesthood that was established in the law of Moses.
Saul subsequently disobeyed another direct command from God when he was told, again through the prophet Samuel, to completely destroy the Amalekites.* Saul instead kept their king, Agag, alive as a trophy of war, and his soldiers kept the best of the cattle to “sacrifice to the Lord”—as part of a grand feast that they would enjoy themselves. Samuel asked Saul once again, “Why did you not obey the Lord?” The penalty for outright disobedience this time was that Saul would not even remain king himself for his natural lifetime; he would die early and be succeeded by “one of his neighbors”—not one of his own descendants.
It is true that during a deadly plague, David built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings upon it. But David actually did this in direct obedience to a command from God, and in any event these were the kind of offerings that any ordinary Israelite could offer. The author of Psalm 116 says, for example:
What shall I return to the Lord
for all his goodness to me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people. . . .
I will sacrifice a thank offering to you
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the house of the Lord—
in your midst, Jerusalem.
Presumably when the psalmist says “I will sacrifice a thank offering,” this involves the assistance of the priests and Levites at the temple.
I think we should understand in the same way the statement that is made about the dedication of the temple itself in Jerusalem: “Then the king [Solomon] and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord.” The text makes clear that priests and Levites were present, and we should understand that they were the ones who actually offered these sacrifices, but at the initiative and expense of the king and people.
I hope these observations help answer your question.
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*Episodes in the Bible like this one, where God commands complete destruction, are very troubling. Some interpreters, like Philip Jenkins, argue that they never really happened. Others like Adam Hamilton suggest that the biblical writers or characters were wrong in thinking that God had actually commanded this. As I say in my review of Jenkins’ book, “I see these stories as exceptional and even incongruous within the Bible.” In this post I describe my own efforts to come to terms with them.
Good Question 
saul was a king. David was prophet priest and king. he could offer a sacrifice.
@Don, David was never a priest.
Don is actually correct. There is a blurring of David role’s as king and priest. See Eugene Merrill’s Old Testament theology for a good treatment of this issue. The issue is not so much that Saul offered the sacrifice but that he did not wait for Samuel. The blurring continues into the book of Zechariah, where the priest is crowned as the Branch, a typical Davidic term.
When David Captured Jerusalem, he captured the throne of Melchezidek, King of Salem. It is understood that Psalm 110 was penned shortly after this event from 2 Sam 5. He inherits the priesthood of Melchezidek at this time, and therefore, at the same time puts Christ in the lineage of the Priesthood of Melchezidek.
Solomon would also take this mantle as well, but after this, the next descendant of David that would have a priestly role would be that of Jesus.
2 samual 6:13-14 David sacrificed a bull and a fatted calf then danced wearing a priestly garment…… we’re is David’s priest in all this how come God was pleased he did not tell David to do this?
Simply wearing the garment and offering the sacrifices were not priestly acts. Israelites were allowed to slaughter animals for community meals and often these were held to honor what God had done for them. While all priests wore tunics, not all who wore tunics were priests.
You state that “the penalty for outright disobedience this time was that Saul would not even remain king himself for his natural lifetime; he would die early.” It appears that Saul actually lived longer than David: Saul died at 72 years and David at 70 years. It also appears that Saul reigned 42 years and David only 40 years. In fact, Saul’s reign was one of the longest of all the kings of Israel and Judah combined. How is this a punishment? The kingdom is lost to Jonathan as Saul’s heir, but it never seems to have been lost to Saul. We diminish God’s mercy and God’s glory when we do not acknowledge that David does not deserve God’s mercy any more than Saul did. Why look for excuses when David did many of the same things as Saul ? Like Saul, David did not destroy the Amalekite livestock in I Samuel 27 (nor in I Samuel 30), and his reason for destroying the men and women in chapter 27 was hardly to honor God’s command; it was to protect his deception of Achish. David wore a priestly garment in II Samuel 6:14. David was a liar, a murderer, and an adulterer who “despised the word of the Lord” and even despised God (II Samuel 12). Perhaps this is why David reigned an even shorter time than Saul did and his sons’ behavior brought him shame, unlike Saul’s son, Jonathan. What a disappointment Solomon turned out to be! He thought he was entitled to whatever he desired, from multiple wives and concubines to conscripted slaves among the Israelites (I Kings 5:13) to build his vast projects that brought him fame. Because of Solomon’s sins, the kingdom was divided (I Kings 11), and David’s dynasty was limited to Judah. When will we realize that there is only one king worth our praise and glory? The Lord Jesus Christ! When we read the story of David’s very flawed life, we should simply be amazed that God showed him as much mercy as He did, just as we are amazed by God’s mercy to us.
the bible names David as a man after God’s own heart simply because he would do what God wanted him to do. He had true repentance just to mention these two… that’s why all other kings who came after him were measured in accordance to David’s reign. king David had many achievements compared to Saul
Hello Agnes ,
Greetings in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ .
There is one vital question in the Tanakh book of Exodus or the Old Testament that apparently was never asked of God – Yahweh by Moses , Joshua and or Caleb or anyone else who survived the 40 years in the wilderness to then enter the promised land of Israel . Israel as a people at Mt. Sinai promised Yahweh that they would honor and obey Gods commandments always .
Why then when Yahweh gave his ten commandments to Moses and the tribes of Israel didn’t someone in the Camp of Joshua and Caleb simply ask God how Lord are we to obtain the promised land without violating your commandment ” Thou Shalt not Murder ” as you Lord have told Joshua & Caleb to exterminate the various tribes of the Canaanites and other inhabitants of the promised land ?
If this question had been asked what would God have said ? What kind of perhaps better world would we have been able live in now ? Its one thing to just read the Scriptures but its a totally different thing to think about Scripture and attempt to put its Wisdom into Practice with Love , Faith and Charity including Obedience in Justice tempered always with Mercy for Holy Solutions .
Amen ! Praise the Lord both now and Forevermore !
Like what christopher said, in those days, there’s always a war between good and evil. Most times what God asks israelites to do is a retaliation for the consequencies of their sins of their enemies.
Perhaps in judging how closely King David measured up to God’s standard we miss the point of the narrative. Scripture describes him as “a man after God’s own heart,” which means he was approved by God. David exemplified the first commandment in loving God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength though he was human, tempted and flawed. I am so encouraged by his story which demonstrates principally to me the unsurpassing love, mercy, and faithfulness of God that translates David from pasture to palace and transforms him from brash shepherd boy to victorious leader and gracious king, capable of great kindness and generosity to his enemies. Scripture tells us David was Israel’s greatest king, who united a divided country, ended a protracted civil war and ushered in a 40 year reign of peace and prosperity for God’s people. This made her the superpower of the mid-east and guiding light of the surrounding polytheistic nations to believe in the one true God (Israel’s divine purpose). The dynasty God established through David is also the royal line through which our Saviour, Lord Jesus, descended. The number 40 is hugely significant in God’s timing, symbolizing a period of divine trial and purification (a generation) which Israel certainly went through under Saul after their rejection of God. After this followed a period of restoration, also divinely orchestrated here through the shepherd king, David. This pattern began with Israel – the nation God created – and her neighbors, but will be repeated in the entire world before the Lord Jesus – our Good Shepherd, King and High Priest – returns.
I am greatly comforted by God’s grace to David through all his trials, persecutions, temptations and betrayals, especially as I experience these in my own faith journey to Christ weighed down by the trappings of my own fallen human nature. My hope and trust is that God will as graciously lead, train and grow me according to His divine purpose, even when I sin. It is not David’s faithfulness on display here, but God’s. The awesome grace, power and loving kindness God lavishes on us – His enemies until we believe – shines through the pages of King David’s life as the sun amid the heavens! David failed at times in his life, as do we all; the good news is that God loves us and forgives us and has provided restoration for us through the sacrifice of His perfect son, Jesus Christ. Hallelujah, my God and my King!
Christopher,
Concerning the kherem order of some of the battles in the Old Testament, I have a theological consideration.
In any pericope where the kherem is ordered, there are nephilim. In the pericopes where combat happens, but, the kherem is missing/omitted, there are none.
With the uncovering of pagan literature late in the 19th century, we now know that the pagans also preached about nephilim, their term in Mesopotamian literature is apkallu.
I Enoch has a large sector about them( The Watchers), so that documents ancient Jews saw them as divine creature/human hybrids before they changed their theology around 200 AD to preaching nephilim are Sethite humans.
Here’s a research paper on the nexus between the Mesopotamian take and how Jews did a dialectic opposing the typical pagan view( they were typically seen by pagans as good and by Jews as intrinsic evil).
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240717753_On_the_Origin_of_Watchers_A_Comparative_Study_of_the_Antediluvian_Wisdom_in_Mesopotamian_and_Jewish_Traditions