1 Samuel 10:11

Is Saul also among the prophets?

A Saul among the prophets

So they said in the wild irregular season of his obscure youth, before his accession to the throne, when the Spirit of the Lord, that bloweth where it listeth, suddenly arrested the young Saul, in the midst of his dissolute companions; they repeated their scornful outcry in after years, as recorded in 1 Samuel 19:24, when the spirit of repentance again seized the royal backslider, and brought him stripped and abased to the earth before Samuel at Naloth. The saying rightly interpreted may suggest some useful practical instruction.

I. What is meant by being “among the prophets?” By “the company of prophets” in 1 Samuel 19:5, or “a company of scribes,” says the Targum, are meant the scholars of the prophets, who were at that period the only accredited teachers of religion. Mr. Harmer thinks the following custom among the Mohammedans illustrates this passage: “When the children have gone through the Koran their relations borrow a fine house and furniture and carry them about the town in procession, with the book in their hand, the rest of their companions following, and all sorts of music of the country going before.” Eastern customs have little varied; they seem to abide immutable, and identical, as their sunny climes, and very probably, the procession of the school of the prophets in the context was on a similar occasion.” “Is Saul also among the prophets?”--that is, is he turned psalm singer and a supplicant? Is the rough, riotous herdsman of Benjamin become a companion of prophets and an utterer of the solemn things of God? Are we to have no more merry songs together, nor the light dance and jocund festival? Saul, our old fellow reveller, become quaint and grim as a Levite? “What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” That this is the general meaning of prophesying in this place; see also the sense in which the word is used in reference to the priests of Baal, 1 Kings 18:29 : “And it came to pass, when midday was put, and they prophesied until the time of the evening sacrifice”--they prophesied, that is, were importunate in prayer to their God. Thus the phrase, “Saul among the prophets,” is equivalent to what the angels, in a holier and more charitable spirit, said of the Saul of Tarsus, when the Lord changed his heart, brought him to his knees, and they described his conversion to the truth by the terms, “Behold he prayeth.” A similar astonishment seized them who had known the apostle for a blasphemer and persecutor, and when they heard that he preached the faith which he once destroyed they too might have said, “Is Saul also amongst the prophets,” that is, among the praying people, the people of God? There was in Saul, at different times, the development of a different man, according as “the law in his members,” or “the law in his mind,” obtained the mastery. Saul “did run well, but suffered something to hinder him.” He began his reign in the Spirit, he ended it in the flesh. As a king he was weighed in the balances and found wanting; as a man, Mercy might have interposed and turned the scale. It is no unwarrantable stretch of Scriptural charity to imagine it possible that other tongues than those of living men might have talked of the departed Saul, as again “among the prophets.” I am not ashamed to think so of the man, whom the, inspired psalmist eulogised in his sepulchre. Only if it were so, his story illustrates the apostle’s case of those “who are saved with difficulty pulling them out of the fire.”

II. To the penitent sinner and returning backslider.

1. To the penitent sinner. Imagine his repentance genuine. The difference is so marked that his old companions scarcely recognise their former hail fellow, and insinuate at once a charge of hypocrisy and a sneer of contempt, whether or no in the scornful cry, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” “Is so-and-so among the saints?” “Have they caught him with their psalm singing?” or, “Is he playing upon them with his guile?” The penitent hears this; it is meant he should hear it, they take care of that; and his first feeling is, “This is a penalty for my former association with them; ‘Be sure your sin will find you out;’ it has found me out, even since I left it.” “The way of transgressors is hard,” even after they abandon it. It is but natural that Satan should grumble at the loss of a servant, and his children only echo their father’s sentiment. “They think it strange (and so it is) that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.” But you meet these people day after day. If you are a workman, you meet them at your work; if one of a higher class of the community, you meet them in business or society; and they repeat their scornful insinuations. They don’t and they won’t believe you to be sincere, for they are strangers to what has taken place within you, distinctly enough to your convictions, but a mystery to them. They hate you, as Ahab hated Micaiah, because the sacred contrast of your life, always, however, unconsciously, prophesies evil things concerning them, and they would visit, as the world always did, their anger at the prediction on the head of the prophet, and you will be called upon to bear many a heavy version of the contemptuous proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

2. But, further, let us suppose you have failed in maintaining your ground; that you did run well, but suffered something to hinder you; that you had followed your Saviour, like the youthful John, up to the very moment of His seizure for the crucifixion, but there your heart failed you, and like him you turned and “fled away naked,” leaving behind you all your better convictions and determinations. You have done this, and you have since lived a backslider; and may we ask, “Is it well with thee?” Are you happy in your apostasy? (J. B. Owen, M. A.)

One act does not make a saint

Saul was not a saint because he did once prophesy, nor is every one a believer that talks of faith. (T. Adams.)

Transient reformations

The snow today covered all the ground, and the black soil looked fair and white. It is thus with some men under transient reformations; they look as holy, and as heavenly, and as pure as though they were saints; but when the sun of trial arises, and a little heat of temptation cometh upon them, how soon do they reveal their true blackness, and all their surface goodliness melteth away! (C. H. Spurgeon.)