and for God, and intended to be the medium for receiving and transmitting blessing to His people. And with

this, a kiss, in token of homage (Psalm 2:12), and the perhaps not quite unexpected message: "Is it not that

Jehovah hath anointed thee to be prince over His inheritance?" Saul was appointed the first king in Israel.

In order to assure Saul of the Divine agency in all this, Samuel gave him three signs. Each was stranger than

the other, and all were significant of what would mark the path of Israel's king. After leaving Samuel, coming

from Ephraim, he would cross the northern boundary of Benjamin by the grave of Rachel.93 There he would

meet two men who would inform him of the finding of the she-asses and of his father's anxiety on his

This, as confirming Samuel's words, would be a pledge that it was likewise by God's appointment he had

been anointed king. Thus the first sign would convey that his royalty was of God. Then as he passed

southwards, and reached "the terebinth Tabor,"  94 three men would meet him, coming from an opposite

direction, and "going up to God, to Bethel," bearing sacrificial gifts.

These would salute him, and, unasked, give him a portion of their sacrificial offerings - two loaves, probably

one for himself, another for his servant. If, as seems likely, these three men belonged to "the sons of the

prophets," the act was even more significant. It meant homage on the part of the godly in Israel, yet such as

did not supersede nor swallow up the higher homage due to God - only two loaves out of all the sacrificial

gifts being presented to Saul. To Saul this, then, would indicate royalty in subordination to God. The last

was the strangest, but, rightly understood, also the most significant sign of all. Arrived at Gibeah Elohim, his

own city, or else the hill close by, where the Philistines kept a garrison,95 he would, on entering the city,

meet "a band o f prophets" coming down from the Bamah, or sacrificial height, in festive procession,

preceded by the sound of the nevel, lute or guitar, the thof, or tambourine (Exodus 15:20), the flute, and the

chinnor 96 or hand-harp, themselves the while "prophesying."

Then "the Spirit of Jehovah" would "seize upon him," and he would "be turned into another man." The

obvious import of this "sign," in combination with the others, would be: royalty not only from God and

under God, but with God. And all the more signific ant would it appear, that Gibeah, the home of Saul, where

all knew him and could mark the change, was now held by a garrison of Philistines; and that Israel's

deliverance should there commence97 by the Spirit of Jehovah mightily laying hold on Israel's new king, and

making of him another man. When all these "signs happen to thee," added the prophet, "do to thyself what

thy hand findeth" (as circumstances indicate, comp. Judges 9:33); concluding therefrom: "for God is with

The event proved as Samuel had foretold. Holy Scripture passes, indeed, lightly over the two first signs, as

of comparatively less importance, but records the third with the more full detail. It tells how, immediately on

leaving Samuel, "God turned to Saul another heart" (ver 9); how, when he met the band of prophets at

Gibeah (ver. 10, not "the hill," as in our Authorised Version), "the Spirit of Elohim" "seized" upon him, and

he "prophesied among them;" so that those who had so intimately known him before exclaimed in

astonishment: "What is this that has come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?" Upon

which "one from thence," more spiritually enlightened than the rest, answered: "And who is their father?"

implying that, in the case of the other prophets also, the gift of prophecy was not of hereditary descent.98

Thus the proverb arose: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" to indicate, according to circumstances, either a

sudden and almost incredible change in the outward religious bearing of a man, or the possibility of its

But there are deeper questions here which must, at least briefly, be answered. Apparently, there were

already at that time prophetic associations, called "schools of the prophets." Whether these owed their

origin to Samuel or not, the movement received at least a mighty impulse from him, and henceforth became a

permanent institution in Israel. But this "prophesying" must not be considered as in all cases prediction. In

the present instance it certainly was not such, but, as that of the "elders" in the time of Moses (Numbers

11:25), an ecstatic state of a religious character, in which men unreservedly poured forth their feelings. The