1 Samuel 10

Today’s Passage: 1 Samuel 10

The chapter opens quietly, in private, with a flask of oil. Samuel pours it over Saul’s head and tells him plainly that the LORD has anointed him ruler over His people, then sends him off with a string of confirming signs to watch for along the road: two men at Rachel’s tomb, three pilgrims at the Oak of Tabor, and finally a band of prophets near Gibeah, where the Spirit of God will come rushing upon him. Every sign unfolds exactly as promised. God changes Saul’s heart that very day, the Spirit rushes on him, and he prophesies, until the neighbors who had always known him are asking in astonishment whether Saul too now belongs among the prophets. Then the scene widens from that private anointing to a public gathering at Mizpah, where Samuel gathers all Israel and the lot narrows tribe by tribe until it falls on Saul, who is nowhere to be found, hiding among the baggage. He is brought out, proclaimed king, and Samuel writes down the ways of the kingdom in a book before the LORD. Most of the people rejoice, but a handful of scoundrels sneer, and Saul, for now, holds his peace.

As you read, hold this: God equips the one He calls, changing his very heart by His Spirit, even when the man himself is hiding from the calling.

1 Samuel 10:1 (BSB)

¹ Then Samuel took a flask of oil, poured it on Saul’s head, kissed him, and said, “Has not the LORD anointed you ruler over His inheritance?

Everything begins here, in a quiet place with no audience, before Saul has done a single kingly thing. Samuel does not ask Saul to earn the office or to prove himself worthy of it first. He simply pours the oil and speaks the settled fact: the LORD has anointed (מָשַׁח) mashach, pronounced mah-SHAKH. Strong's H4886, to anoint, smear or pour oil upon, consecrate. From mashach, to smear or pour oil over someone in consecration, comes the noun mashiach, the anointed one, which we know through Greek as Messiah and Christ. Every time a king or priest was anointed in Israel, a small arrow was quietly pointing forward to the true Anointed One who would come. Saul is the first man in Israel anointed to be king, and the oil on his head marks him as God’s chosen instrument, set apart not by his own strength but by the LORD’s appointment. The word reminds us that the calling never rested on Saul’s ability. It rested on the God who poured out the oil. you. The calling comes as a gift, from God’s hand and God’s choosing, and Saul’s whole future flows from that moment rather than from anything he brings to it. Notice too that the people are called God’s inheritance, His own treasured possession, so that leading them is never a private prize but a trust to be carried on their behalf. The oil says out loud what heaven had already decided.

1 Samuel 10:2–6 (BSB)

² When you leave me today, you will find two men at Rachel’s tomb in Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you seek have been found, and now your father has stopped worrying about the donkeys and started worrying about you, asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

³ Then you will go on from there until you come to the Oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine.

⁴ They will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from their hands.

⁵ After that you will come to Gibeah of God, where the Philistines have an outpost. As you approach the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, preceded by harps, tambourines, flutes, and lyres, and they will be prophesying.

⁶ Then the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be transformed into a different person.

Samuel lays out the road ahead in remarkable detail, and the whole point of these signs is that Saul will not have to take the calling on blind trust. God gives him proof he can measure against the map, so that step by step the young man can see that the word spoken over him is true. The signs rise like a staircase, from the practical news that the lost donkeys are found, to the gift of bread pressed into his hands, and finally to the mountaintop moment near Gibeah when the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon him and he will prophesy with the others. And note the last promise most of all: you will be transformed into a different person. God does not simply hand Saul a title and leave the man unchanged. He announces that the same Spirit who equips him will also remake him from the inside. The calling and the changing come together.

1 Samuel 10:7–8 (BSB)

⁷ When these signs have come, do as the occasion demands, for God is with you.

⁸ And you shall go before me to Gilgal, and surely I will come to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Wait seven days until I come to you and show you what you are to do.”

Once the signs have confirmed the word, Saul is told to act with confidence, for God is with him. That last phrase is the ground beneath a leader’s feet, the assurance that his strength is not his own but the LORD’s presence going with him. Yet even here, at the height of Saul’s new confidence, Samuel plants a test that will matter greatly later: go to Gilgal, and wait seven days for me. The kingship God gives comes with the call to obey, to hold still under God’s timing rather than to seize the moment on his own. For now the instruction sits quietly in the story, a small seed of the obedience that will one day be asked of him in earnest.

1 Samuel 10:9–13 (BSB)

⁹ As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all the signs came to pass that day.

¹⁰ When Saul and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a group of prophets met him. Then the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied along with them.

¹¹ When all those who had formerly known Saul saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked one another, “What has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹² Then a man who lived there replied, “And who is their father?” So the saying became a proverb: “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹³ And when Saul had finished prophesying, he went up to the high place.

Here is the heart of the day, and Scripture states it in the plainest words: God changed (הָפַךְ) haphak, pronounced hah-FAKH. Strong's H2015, to turn, to overturn, to transform. The verb haphak means to turn something over, to overturn or transform it completely, the same word used when the LORD turned a rock into a pool of water or turned mourning into dancing. It is not a gentle nudge or a small adjustment. When Scripture says God turned Saul’s heart, it means the LORD reached in and turned the man’s inner life around, giving him a new heart for the work ahead. This is God’s own doing, not Saul’s self-improvement. The one who calls a person also equips that person, and the equipping goes all the way down to the heart. What the LORD asks of a man, He first works within him, so that the calling is never a burden laid on empty hands but a gift carried by a heart God Himself has made ready. Saul’s heart. The transformation Samuel had promised does not wait or hang in doubt. The moment Saul turns to leave, God works within him, and then every sign follows in order just as it was foretold. When the Spirit of God rushes upon him and he prophesies, the people who had known him all his life cannot believe their eyes, and their astonished question becomes a proverb passed from mouth to mouth: is Saul also among the prophets? What they are really marveling at is the work of God. A man they thought they knew, an ordinary farmer’s son sent out to look for stray donkeys, has been visibly touched and changed by the Spirit. The calling did not depend on Saul making himself into something new. God did the changing, and the whole neighborhood could see it.

1 Samuel 10:14–16 (BSB)

¹⁴ Now Saul’s uncle asked him and his servant, “Where did you go?” “To look for the donkeys,” Saul replied. “When we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel.”

¹⁵ “Tell me,” Saul’s uncle asked, “what did Samuel say to you?”

¹⁶ And Saul replied, “He assured us that the donkeys had been found.” But Saul did not tell his uncle what Samuel had said about the kingship.

Back in the ordinary world of family and questions, Saul’s uncle wants to know where he has been and what the prophet told him. Saul answers truthfully about the donkeys but keeps the greatest news to himself, saying nothing of the kingship. We are not told exactly why he holds it back, whether from humility, from caution, or from a shrinking that will show itself more plainly in a few verses. Perhaps a man who has just been overwhelmed by God’s calling needs time to let it settle before he speaks it aloud. Whatever the reason, the silence reveals something honest about him. The Spirit had rushed upon him, and yet Saul himself still felt small before the weight of what God had chosen him to be.

1 Samuel 10:17–19 (BSB)

¹⁷ After this, Samuel summoned the people to the LORD at Mizpah

¹⁸ and said to the Israelites, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hands of the Egyptians and of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’

¹⁹ But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions, and you have said to Him, ‘No, set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and clans.”

Now the story moves from the private anointing to the whole nation gathered before the LORD. Before Samuel names the chosen king in public, he first reminds the people of who God has always been for them: the One who brought them out of Egypt and rescued them from every oppressor. That memory sharpens the sting of what follows. In asking for a king to be like the nations, the people had, in a real way, rejected the God who had never once failed to save them. Notice the tenderness even in the rebuke, for God still calls Himself the One who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions. He gives them the king they demanded, and in the very act of giving, He reminds them that they already had a King who had never let them down.

1 Samuel 10:20–24 (BSB)

²⁰ Thus Samuel had all the tribes of Israel come forward, and the tribe of Benjamin was selected.

²¹ Then he had the tribe of Benjamin come forward by its clans, and the clan of Matri was selected. Finally, Saul son of Kish was selected. But when they looked for him, they could not find him.

²² So again they inquired of the LORD, “Has the man come here yet?” And the LORD replied, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

²³ So they ran and brought Saul, and when he stood among the people, he was a head taller than any of the others.

²⁴ Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

The lot narrows down just as God directs it, tribe to clan to family, until it lands on Saul son of Kish, the very man already anointed in secret. And then comes one of the most telling moments in the whole chapter: when they look for the chosen king, he cannot be found, because he has hidden himself among the baggage. The man on whom the Spirit rushed, the man God had already equipped and transformed, is crouching among the packs and bundles, shrinking from the calling laid on him. It is a strangely human picture, and a comforting one. God’s choice does not wait for a man to feel ready or bold. Saul is drawn out from his hiding place, and when he stands he towers over everyone, and the people shout their joy. He had tried to disappear, yet God’s calling reached in and brought him out. The Lord equips those He calls, even the ones found hiding.

1 Samuel 10:25–27 (BSB)

²⁵ Then Samuel explained to the people the rights of kingship. He wrote them on a scroll and laid it up before the LORD. And Samuel sent all the people away, each to his own home.

²⁶ Saul also went to his home in Gibeah, and the men of valor whose hearts God had touched went with him.

²⁷ But some worthless men said, “How can this man save us?” So they despised him and brought him no gifts; but Saul remained silent about it.

Samuel does not simply crown a king and walk away. He writes down the ways of the kingdom in a book and lays it up before the LORD, so that even the king would stand under God’s word and not above it. In Israel the throne was never meant to be a law unto itself. Then the people go home, and two kinds of hearts show themselves in response to the new king. There are the men of valor whose hearts God had touched, who go with Saul, their loyalty itself a gift of God’s own working. And there are the worthless men who sneer, how can this man save us, and withhold their honor. Saul, for now, holds his peace and says nothing, letting God vindicate the choice He has made. The same God who touched hearts to follow the king had already equipped the king himself. From beginning to end of the chapter, the initiative belongs to the LORD.