Like how God telling Isaiah to go naked for three years (Isaiah 20:1-6) and King Saul to kill the Amalekite men, women, and children (1 Samuel 15:1-3) would mean that according to these passages alone, each of these behaviors is not evil, God telling Samuel in 1 Samuel 16 how to manipulate others without lying to them would mean that this is not a Biblically immoral course of action. Because this narrative directly says that God authorized Samuel to do this, the often applicable clarification that a narrative solely mentioning human actions does not in itself teach anything about their moral nature is irrelevant. 1 Samuel 16 ascribes the instructions to tell the truth partially for the sake of honest manipulation to its perfect God. Indeed, it is because Saul neglected to kill all the Amalekites he could between Havilah and Shur (1 Samuel 15:1-9) that Samuel has to anoint a new figure as king, hence why he is cautious about visiting Bethlehem to begin with, for he fears Saul:
1 Samuel 16:1-5--"The Lord said to Samuel, 'How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.'
But Samuel said, 'How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.'
The Lord said, 'Take a heifer with you and say, "I have come to sacrifice to the Lord." Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.'
Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, 'Do you come in peace?'
Samuel replied, 'Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.' Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice."
Samuel does not lie in this passage, and God does not tell him to lie. There are verses detailing how people lie in very particular circumstances and are actually rewarded by God for this, as with the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who lie to Pharaoh when they are commanded to kill all male Hebrew babies after they are born to save lives (Exodus 1:15-21). While casual and general lying is something immoral to avoid outside of scenarios where one is averting a lesser evil (Leviticus 19:11), the true universal, more heinous sin of lying against others has to do with false testimony (Exodus 20:16, 23:1, 7, Deuteronomy 19:15-21, and so on). However, Samuel did not need to resort to lying to preserve his life in 1 Samuel 16.
Samuel does, however, state the truth about his arrival in a way meant to manipulate a certain reaction so that his safety is promoted. He does not say all that is true about his intentions, and he does not have to in order to avoid lying gratuitously. Selective affirmation of the truth is not lying no matter what some people feel or prefer about the matter. This is not condemned directly or by extension on any level in Yahweh's detailed moral laws. People of lesser ideological accuracy and moral character do not deserve to not be manipulated as suits the needs of the superior, given that the latter individuals are not themselves believing anything illogical or behaving immorally in the process. Since Saul sinned by intentionally failing to kill all the Amalekites between Havilah and Shur, God rejects him as king in favor of a morally superior candidate (1 Samuel 15:13-28).
As a vital aside, lying is not always the same as successful deception, as I have clarified before, since deception involves someone believing the lie. Thus, although the guilt for a sin always lies with the sinner alone, someone who is lied to is not deceived unless they allow themself to be by assuming that something unverifiable that another person tells them is true. If it is not a matter of strict logical necessity that another person does not have to articulate in order for oneself to discover it, then it cannot be known from the testimony of others, though their statements are a form of evidence. Thus, to believe them, one would have to deviate from strict adherence to logic by making an assumption--examples include if another person tells you they love you or that they visited a given location last week without you present and you believe them. Either way, manipulation is not Biblically evil in itself, as I have relished in pointing out here over the years.
Needless lying is always morally wrong according to Leviticus, but not telling the entire truth is logically distinct from lying even when done for self-benefit, like it or not, independent of whether morality exists or what that morality would entail. Biblically, there are many cases where there is no obligation whatsoever to tell the entire truth about one's intentions or actions as opposed to the entire truth about whatever one does speak on (as long as the aforementioned sort of exceptions is not relevant). Moreover, while it is absolutely contrary to the irrationalistic concept of showing equal love and respect to all people (no matter their philosophies or deeds) by default as is embraced by some evangelicals, manipulating morally inferior people casually or regularly could not possibly be evil.
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