Useful Bible Studies > 1 Samuel Commentary > chapter 10
At the end of the day, as Saul reached his own town, Gibeah, he would see an extraordinary event. A group of prophets (holy men) would meet him as they came down from the hill above the town.
Probably, they were offering a sacrifice (a gift to God; usually an animal) on the hill. As they came down from the hill, they would be praising God in a very joyful manner. They would play many different kinds of musical instruments. Perhaps they would sing and dance.
God’s Holy Spirit would be upon them, so that they would prophesy. In other words, they would speak or sing by the power of the Holy Spirit. Their words would not come from their own minds; God’s Spirit would give those words to them.
It seems strange that such a thing would happen in Gibeah. Gibeah was not somewhere that people considered a holy place. It was not a town where people usually gathered to offer sacrifices. Probably, God had guided that group of prophets there on that occasion for a special purpose.
Perhaps we can find a possible explanation of that purpose in Samuel’s words to Saul. Here, we discover for the first time that Philistia’s army had set up a small camp in Gibeah. Saul’s own town was under the control of a foreign army. Samuel calls the town by an unusual name: ‘Gibeah of God’. So Gibeah did not belong to Philistia or to any other nation. Like the rest of Israel, it really belonged to God. So perhaps the prophets had gathered there to claim that town back for God.
They did not, of course, know that Israel’s future king belonged to that town. They would not know that King Saul himself would prophesy with them. That fact would even seem extraordinary to Saul himself.
Next part: Saul would prophesy at Gibeah (1 Samuel 10:6)
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© 2014, Keith Simons.