Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
7. IN OUR BAGS.—Sitarcia are wallets or little sacks in which loaves and other food are put for the journey. For in Greek sitarkes is called military provision, as if sufficient grain, that is, wheat, or sufficient food. Hence by metonymy the wallets containing this food are called sitarcia. Wrongly, therefore, some read cistartois, a name derived from the Latin cista and the Greek, as if a chest or basket of bread. AND WE HAVE NO PRESENT TO GIVE TO THE MAN OF GOD.
Sportulae are small gifts of food, or even of money, says Budaeus in the Pandects. For these were usually put in sportulae, that is, small baskets, for carrying, as we see done at Rome in the baskets which are frequently used for sending food. In Hebrew it is teshurah, that is, a gift, a present; for such things are called in law sportulae, because they were offered in baskets to Judges by litigants. This, then, Saul wished to offer to Samuel for the oracle concerning the asses, not as a fee; for this would have been the sin of simony, namely to buy and sell prophecy, which is a spiritual thing, for a temporal price, but as a gift of gratitude, or for sustenance, freely offered: for Saul thought it was due to the Prophet out of decency, but he did not know the virtue of Samuel, who rejected gifts of every kind. So Josephus, Procopius, Theodoret.
9. FOR HE THAT IS NOW CALLED A PROPHET, WAS FORMERLY CALLED A SEER,—from the prophetic vision which he received from God. For prophecy is called a vision; whence the prophecy of Isaias is inscribed the Vision of Isaias, as are those of the other Prophets.
13. BEFORE HE GO UP TO THE HIGH PLACE TO EAT,—namely Samuel as a priest offered a sacrifice here: for it was usual to offer it in a high place, e.g. on a hill or mountain. This sacrifice was a peace offering: for from such a one a banquet is prepared, such as Samuel here prepared, at which he received Saul.
Tropologically St. Gregory, part 2 of the Pastoral: “Whoever,” he says, “is raised to the height of pastoral care ought, in the same sublimity of his rank, to have both loftiness of his own life and compassion for the weakness of others.” And a little after: “Samuel therefore carried Saul up to the high place, and set him down in the town; because when great men set in order the summit of the holy Church, those whom they place on that summit they teach to live loftily, to preach plain things, to be strict to themselves but gentle to subjects; so to attend to their own salvation that they can be weak with the weak; weak, I should say, by affection of mind, not by the languor of bodily sickness; for if the Doctor lies down through languor of mind, he cannot cure the sick and raise up the fallen.”
15. NOW THE LORD HAD REVEALED THE EAR OF SAMUEL,—as if to say: The Lord had secretly revealed to Samuel that on the morrow Saul would come to him, whom he himself had designated king, just as if he had said it into his ear. For we say into the ear what we wish to be secret.
19. GO UP BEFORE ME.—Why, says Dionysius the Carthusian, “did he not say: Follow me, or go with me to the high place; but go up before me: was it to prefigure that Saul was to be set over himself and others as king? Samuel also was old; nor could he equally ascend that mountainous place quickly.”
Our Mendoza gives three other causes: “To me,” he says, “Samuel seems in this matter to have given an example of humility, obedience and temperance. Of humility indeed, because he yielded the better parts to Saul, following him as he went before. Of obedience, because he paid due reverence not only to the king elect, but also to the king to be elected. Of temperance, finally, because he who flew before to labors more readily, followed more slowly to the meal.”
AND I WILL TELL THEE ALL THAT IS IN THY HEART,—that is, whatever thou shalt wish to know, “I will tell thee.” The Hebrews, as St. Jerome testifies, hand down that Saul had an omen of the kingdom by a vision, in which he saw himself placed on the top of a palm tree, which was a royal vision; and that he wished to consult Samuel about this. But the following words of Saul, by which he so humbles himself when Samuel announces the kingdom to him, and as it were is stunned, signify that he was wholly ignorant of this matter, and had thought nothing about a kingdom.
20. AND FOR WHOM SHALL ALL THE BEST THINGS OF ISRAEL BE? SHALL THEY NOT BE FOR THEE?—“The best things,” that is, the kingdom or power and royal dignity: for in the Commonwealth nothing is more excellent than this; in Hebrew it is chemdah, that is, all desirable; either the kingdom, which all desire; or the king, whom the Hebrews desired; as if to say, as Isidore Clarius says: “All Israel desires to have a king, and thou art he toward whom the wishes of all conspire by divine will.”
21. AM NOT I A SON OF JEMINI, OF THE LEAST TRIBE OF ISRAEL?—“The least,” both because the tribe of Benjamin, on account of a shameful outrage, was almost cut off, and reduced to six hundred men, Judges chap. 20, verse 39. So Abulensis, Lyranus, Dionysius; and because on account of this outrage it was greatly defamed and disgraced, and therefore seemed unworthy of the leadership and kingdom of Israel on account of so great an infamy, as Ruben also was, though the firstborn of Jacob.
WHY THEN DOST THOU SPEAK THIS WORD TO ME?—Saul understood that Samuel by “the best things” promised him the kingdom, of which he in humility thought himself unworthy, especially because there was then a common rumor and expectation among all about a new king to be created. So Angelomus and Abulensis. It is therefore a dream of the Hebrews that Saul knew by the dream of the palm tree that he would be king.
Furthermore Saul by this humility of his deserved to be exalted and raised to the kingdom, which afterwards through pride he lost. Hear St. Jerome, epistle to Heliodorus, of his nephew Nepotian, who asserted that he was unworthy of the priesthood: “The more he resisted, the more he stirred up the zeal of all toward himself, and deserved by refusing what he did not wish to be, and was the more worthy the more he cried out that he was unworthy.”
The same celebrates the humility of St. Paula in her Epitaph thus: “By fleeing glory she deserved it, which follows virtue like a shadow, and, deserting those who seek it, seeks those who despise it.”
22. HE BROUGHT THEM INTO THE PARLOUR,—to this sacred banquet, namely prepared from the peace offering, as I said at verse 13. Hence the Hebrew, Greek and our version call it a sacrifice; the Chaldee, a holy oblation, and therefore it was celebrated not in the city and in the house of Samuel, but outside on the high mountain.
For parlour the Hebrew has lishcah, that is, a dining-room: for the custom of reclining at table did not yet exist, but the ancients sat at it, as we do now; whence the brothers of Joseph are said to have sat at his table, Genesis chap. 43, verse 33. So in the desert “the people sat down to eat and drink,” Exodus chap. 32, verse 6. Nay even much later David: “I,” he says, “am accustomed to sit near the king to eat,” 1 Kings chap. 20, verse 5; and Solomon: “When thou sittest to eat with a prince,” etc. Prov. chap. 23, verse 1.
TRICLINIUM, moreover, properly signifies three rows of table couches (for kline is a couch), on which the guests reclined half-lying and half-sitting at table. This, therefore, was not properly a triclinium, but a dining-room: yet it is called triclinium by our Interpreter, because later generations using these couches called any dining-room a triclinium, as it is still called, though the custom of reclining on couches has ceased, and the ancient custom of sitting at table has been restored.
HE GAVE THEM A PLACE AT THE HEAD,—to show that Saul by the decree of God would be the head and prince of Israel. Furthermore God chose Saul as king because he was then the best, although afterwards, becoming proud, he fell back.