Saul and the Lost Donkeys

Kish, a Benjaminite, "a mighty man of power," has a son Saul, "a choice young man, and a goodly… from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people." The donkeys are lost. Saul and a servant search through Ephraim and Benjamin. "Come, and let us return." The servant: "there is in this city a man of God… all that he saith cometh surely to pass." He has a quarter shekel of silver to give.

"Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer." The day before, the LORD had told Samuel: "To morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel… for I have looked upon my people, because their cry is come unto me."

"Behold the man whom I spake to thee of!" Samuel tells Saul the donkeys are found, and asks, "on whom is all the desire of Israel? Is it not on thee?" Saul protests: "Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes?… my family the least?" Samuel seats him at the head of thirty guests at the high place and gives him the reserved portion. In the morning he sends the servant ahead: "stand thou still a while, that I may shew thee the word of God."

Seer and prophet

The narrator's note (9:9) explains an older word for a man of God, so the story was written down when "seer" had gone out of use. Paying a seer for help was normal; the servant's quarter shekel of silver would have been weighed, since coins did not yet exist.

Where?

The route through "the land of Shalisha," "Shalim" and "Zuph" cannot be mapped with confidence. Saul's home, Gibeah of Benjamin (later "Gibeah of Saul"), is usually placed at Tell el-Ful, debated. Samuel's town, Ramah, is often placed at er-Ram; the town of chapter 9 is not named.

The high place

Samuel blesses a sacrifice at a bamah, a local hilltop sanctuary, with a hall for thirty guests. Such local sanctuaries were common before the temple; later kings were condemned for them.