The Glory of Israel Will Not Lie

Mike’s Bible Reading Journal
April 4, 2026 — Days 88–89 of 365

The Glory of Israel Will Not Lie

1 Samuel 8–15 — The same Hebrew word used in the same chapter to say God does and does not regret. Both are true.

The Texts

“Has 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 listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.”
— 1 Samuel 15:22–23

“And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”
— 1 Samuel 15:29

“And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.”
— 1 Samuel 15:35

The Observation

The same word — nacham — appears four times in 1 Samuel 15. In verse 11, God says he regrets making Saul king. In verse 29, Samuel says the Glory of Israel will not regret, because he is not a man. In verse 35, the narrator says the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. The same word. In the same chapter. Used both to say God regrets and to say God does not regret. This is deliberate. And the deliberateness is the theological point.

What Came Out of Studying It

The word nacham and what it holds together. Nacham has a wide semantic range — to be sorry, to grieve, to sigh deeply, to console, to be moved with compassion, to change course. English separates regret — a cognitive assessment that you made a wrong choice — from grief — an emotional response to a painful reality. Hebrew nacham holds both together without separating them.

When Samuel says the Glory of Israel will not nacham, he means God will not change his decision, will not reverse his course, will not lie about what he has declared. The decision to remove Saul is final. God is not a man who says one thing and then backs down when pressured. That kind of nacham — the reversal of a declared purpose — God does not do.

When the narrator says God nacham‘d that he made Saul king, he means God grieves. God is moved with sorrow. God feels the weight of what Saul’s failure costs — costs Saul, costs Israel, costs the purposes God had in mind for Saul’s reign. That kind of nacham — the deep emotional response to a painful reality in a personal relationship — God does experience. And the text does not apologize for saying so.

The immutability of God’s purpose and the reality of his emotional engagement with his creation are both true simultaneously. He declares the end from the beginning. He also weeps at Lazarus’s tomb. He also says — O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing (Matthew 23:37). 1 Samuel 15 holds both in the same chapter with the same word.

The Glory of Israel. The name Samuel uses — Netsach Israel — appears only here in the entire Old Testament as a divine title. Netsach means permanence, endurance, everlastingness. Samuel uses this name while Saul is standing before him trying to negotiate, trying to find some way to reverse the verdict. The Eternal One of Israel, the permanent one, the one who does not shift or lie or reverse course when a man pleads with him.

Saul’s self-deception. The sequence of Saul’s statements in this chapter is one of the most searching portraits of self-deception in Scripture.

Samuel arrives. Saul greets him — I have performed the commandment of the LORD (verse 13). He says this while the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep are audible in the background.

Samuel presses. Saul adjusts — they have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the LORD your God (verse 15). Three moves in one sentence. He distances himself — they, the people. He reframes the disobedience — not kept, but spared. He provides a religious justification — to sacrifice to the LORD.

Samuel presses again. Saul escalates — I did obey the voice of the LORD. I went on the mission the LORD sent me on. I brought back Agag king of the Amalekites and I devoted the Amalekites to destruction. But the people took of the spoil (verses 20–21).

Each statement puts more distance between Saul and the decision. Each adds more religious justification. Each shifts more blame to the people. Each is more elaborate than the one before it. Saul has constructed a narrative in which what he did was actually obedience — partial, pragmatic, religiously motivated obedience — and what the people did was the real problem. He has told himself this story often enough that he believes it.

Then the confession. I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice (verse 24). The confession is real as far as it goes. He did fear the people. He did obey their voice instead of God’s. But the next sentence reveals what the confession was for — now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may bow before the LORD (verse 25). The confession is instrumental. It is the move a man makes to get what he wants — Samuel’s return, the public honor before the elders.

And then the tell. I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the LORD your God (verse 30). Your God. Not my God. Not our God. Your God. The distance in that phrase is either a slip or a tell. Either way the narrator records it and lets it stand.

To obey is better than sacrifice. Samuel’s statement connects everything I have been tracing since Joshua. Shama — to listen, to hear in the full Hebrew sense of hearing that produces response — is better than the most elaborate religious performance. Sacrifice without shama is worship in form only. It substitutes the outward act for the inward reality. It gives God the fat of rams instead of the heart.

Saul’s specific justification — we spared the best animals to sacrifice to the LORD — is precisely this substitution. He replaced the obedience God commanded with a religious performance he preferred. And he called it worship. That is why Samuel says rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as idolatry. Divination is going to a source other than God for guidance — substituting your own judgment for God’s word. Saul substituted his own judgment for God’s word. Idolatry is giving to a thing the devotion that belongs to God alone. Saul gave to his own preferences and the people’s pressure the devotion that belonged to God’s command.

The prophets return to this again and again. Amos — I hate, I despise your feasts… but let justice roll down like waters (Amos 5:21, 24). Micah — what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8). Isaiah — what to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?… Learn to do good. Seek justice (Isaiah 1:11, 17). Saul is the first king and he is already demonstrating the pattern the prophets will spend centuries diagnosing. Elaborate religious performance substituted for genuine shama.

Samuel. Samuel cried to the LORD all night when God told him what Saul had done (verse 11). He did not arrive at this confrontation dispassionate. He had spent the night weeping and crying out to God. He went to Saul as a man who had grieved all night over what he was about to say.

And he said it. Completely. Without softening it.

Then he did what Saul refused to do. He killed the king God commanded to be killed. At Gilgal — the place of covenant renewal, the place where the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. Before the LORD. With an explanation — as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women (verse 33).

Samuel grieved over Saul until the day of his death. He never saw him again. But he held both — the grief and the faithfulness — in the same life. The verdict and the tears. Which is itself an image of the God he served. The one who does not lie or have nacham about his purposes — and who nacham‘s over what human sin costs the ones he loves.

What This Means for Me

I recognize Saul’s moves. The instinct to reframe disobedience as something more respectable. The religious justification that makes the thing I chose to do look like the thing God wanted. The confession that is really a negotiation — I have sinned, now honor me. The slow imperceptible slide from I have performed the commandment of the LORD to your God instead of my God.

The Glory of Israel will not lie. The verdict on this kind of religion — the fat of rams offered in the place of the obedience that costs something — is as old as Samuel and as current as this morning. To obey is better than sacrifice. To shama — to hear in a way that produces response — is better than every religious performance I have ever substituted for the thing God actually asked.

And the LORD nacham‘d. He grieved. His purposes are immovable and his heart is not stone. Both are true. The God who will not reverse his word is the same God who grieves over the man who will not hear it. That is who I am dealing with when I pray. The Eternal One whose purposes will not move — and whose grief over my failure to shama is real.

Key Scriptures

1 Samuel 15:11, 13–15, 20–26, 29, 33, 35 · Amos 5:21–24 · Micah 6:6–8 · Isaiah 1:11–17 · Matthew 23:37 · John 11:35

Prayer

Father, I hear Saul’s voice and I recognize the moves. The reframing. The religious justification. The confession that is really a negotiation. I am worse at this than I think I am and better at disguising it than I know.

Thank you that you are the Glory of Israel who will not lie. Thank you that your purposes are immovable. And thank you that you grieve — that the same word the text uses to say you will not change your mind is the word it uses to say your heart broke over Saul. You are not indifferent. You are not stone. You are the God who holds the verdict and the tears in the same hand.

I pray for my country and for the war. For the families in Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and across the Middle East. For our troops. For the displaced and the grieving. Teach us to shama — to hear in a way that produces something other than the fat of rams.

Amen.

Pray for the Sauls — the ones who have substituted religious performance for obedience and cannot see the difference — that the Glory of Israel would break through.