Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Morally, learn here how useful is the society of the good: for it rubs its goodness off on others. Behold Saul in the society of the Prophets becomes a prophet and prophesies. For God, breathing his spirit on the Prophets, breathed it also on Saul placed among them.
of heart: “A great kind of prophesying,” he says, “to which I see you devoted; a great zeal of prophecy to which I see you enslaved.
Whence is that? Namely, according to the Apostle, not to consider the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen, without doubt to prophesy is to walk in the spirit; to live by faith, to seek the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth; to forget the things that are behind, and to stretch forth to those that are before, is in great part to prophesy.”
12. AND WHO IS THEIR FATHER?—so the Roman edition reads, which some first explain thus, as if to say: It is no wonder that Saul prophesies, because Prophets do not have the gift of prophecy from their parents, as by transmission, but from God: as therefore God communicated this very thing to them freely, so also to Saul. So Lyranus, Hugo, Dionysius, Vatablus, Sanchez and others.
Others explain it otherwise, by way of amplification, as if to say: How has Saul suddenly become a prophet? nay their father, namely of the other Prophets also? for Saul excels them in singing, as a father, that is, a master over disciples. How has he become so suddenly the master of the Prophets, who a little before was not yet even their disciple? So the Hebrews in St. Jerome in the Quaestiones.
The Septuagint, moreover, read: And who is his father? as if to say: Is not Cis the father of Saul? Cis, however, is an unmusical man; how then has his son Saul at once become so sweet-sounding a musician? Who taught him to sing so melodiously? Certainly not his father Cis, nor anyone else besides God. But it is to be read with the Hebrew, Chaldee and Roman, and who is their father?
13. AND HE CAME TO THE HIGH PLACE,—namely the hill from which the Prophets had come down, verse 5; for on the high place was the place of prayer and sacrifice. Saul, therefore, went up there before returning to his own people, to collect his mind and to give thanks to God for so many gifts conferred on him, say Abulensis, Hugo and Dionysius. Mystically St. Gregory: “To the high place,” he says, “after the ministry of prophecy he comes, who raises his mind to the heavenly joys which he preaches, and by loving lifts himself to those things which by speaking he shows. Doctors, indeed, when with lesser ones they preach plain things, are as it were on the plain: and because after the words of preaching they prepare themselves by good works to merit what they preach, they are said to come to the high place.”
14. AND SAUL’S UNCLE SAID.—This uncle of Saul was Ner, father of Abner, prince of the army of Saul, say Bede, Hugo, Abulensis, Dionysius and others. He was not, therefore, Cis, the father of Saul.
16. BUT OF THE MATTER OF THE KINGDOM HE TOLD HIM NOT.—Why did Saul keep so deep a silence about his kingdom? Lyranus answers: “to avoid boasting and to preserve humility.” Vatablus: “This is attributed,” he says, “to the modesty of Saul.” Abulensis: “He was ashamed,” he says, “to say this of himself, lest he should seem to boast, if he believed it to be true.” The Carthusian adds: “By this example,” he says, “the boasting, vanity and folly of some are rebuked, who know how to conceal nothing, and especially, if any glory and honor has been shown them or is to be shown, cannot keep silence, and lay open their own foolishness.” Furthermore St. Gregory: “He does not tell the word, who does not reveal the greatness of sanctity through vain glory. For he who shines with great dignity and great sanctity shows by living many things which he does not say by speaking.”
The second cause was, that he might not divulge the secret: so Lyranus. “For Samuel,” he says, “had anointed him in secret, for which reason he made Saul’s servant go ahead, that he might not hear his words, as was said above: and therefore he wished to keep it secret, and ought to until Samuel should make the matter public.” For a king, for royal business, has the highest need of secrecy.
The third, that he might not stir up the envy of his uncle against himself, as Joseph stirred it up by telling his brothers the dream of his headship: so Josephus, book 6 of the Antiquities chap. 4, Hugo, Abulensis and others.
17. AND SAMUEL CALLED TOGETHER THE PEOPLE TO THE LORD IN MASPHA,—not because the ark of the Lord was in Maspha, as Lyranus would have it, but to the Lord, that is, to the assembly of the Lord, to the gathering and Church of the Lord, to the Synagogue of the Lord; for where the Church of God is, there God himself is present and presides. Again, to the Lord, that is, to the lots and judgment of the Lord; by which the Lord was to designate publicly the king of Israel chosen by him: so Cajetan. See what was said of Maspha, chap. 7, verse 5, and Judges 20, 1.
For God did not wish Samuel to be suspected by the people, as though he had accomplished so great a matter by human, not divine, judgment.
18. I BROUGHT UP ISRAEL, etc.—Truly St. Bernard, sermon On the seven mercies, confessed of himself: “So,” he says, “God loads me with his mercies, so overwhelms me with benefits, that I cannot feel any other burden.”
19. NOW THEREFORE STAND BEFORE THE LORD.—“The religious use of lots,” says Cajetan, “is signified by standing before the most high God: that they might expect the result of the lot not from chance but from divine providence, with minds raised to God and devoutly commending the cause to God.”
20. AND SAMUEL BROUGHT (in Hebrew tacreb, that is, made to approach or draw near) ALL THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL,—to the lot, that is: he gave or cast the lot to the twelve tribes, that by it he might see which of them God chose, so as to designate the king by it. Samuel brought them, says Abulensis, by placing lots for them, or by asking God for each. What these lots were we do not know, because Scripture does not explain them.
Note: Samuel had already before, by God’s command, anointed Saul as king, but secretly; now, to show the same man chosen by God to the whole people, he casts the lot by the instinct of God, who suggested to Samuel that he would so direct these lots that they would fall on none other than Saul. God did this with prudent counsel, lest anyone should think that Saul was not chosen by God but by Samuel from private friendship, hopes and advantages; or should judge himself or others of Juda, or of other more noble tribes, to be more worthy of the kingdom, says Lyranus. This lot was divinatory, but, being suggested by God, was lawful. See what I have said of the threefold lot, partly lawful, partly unlawful, Acts 1, and Jonas 1.
21. AND THE LOT FELL UPON THE KINDRED OF METRI.—Among the sons of Benjamin who are exactly numbered in book 1 Paral. chap. 7, verse 4 and following, Metri is named. Wherefore the Hebrews, Lyranus, Abulensis, Hugo, Dionysius and others think that some one of the descendants of Benjamin was called Metri, that is, dart-thrower, because he excelled in the art of shooting, namely of hitting the mark; for that the Benjamites were eminent in this is clear from Judges 20:16.
22. AND AFTER THIS THEY CONSULTED THE LORD,—through the Pontiff clothed with the Rational, in which were the Urim and Thummim, as I said at Exodus 28:30.
BEHOLD HE HATH HID HIMSELF AT HOME,—among certain vessels, as the Hebrew and Greek have, namely among the baggage of the people who had assembled, says Vatablus, or had fled into some hiding-place, as Josephus says, and this out of humility, by which he judged himself unworthy of the kingdom, and dreaded the burden of ruling, say Lyranus, Hugo, Abulensis and Cajetan. See here how honor follows those who flee it, and flees those who pursue it, as it followed Saul.
23. HE WAS HIGHER THAN ANY OF THE PEOPLE FROM THE SHOULDERS AND UPWARD,—that as in body, so also in mind, virtue and royal dignity he might be eminent above all his subjects. Saul was therefore tall, and like a giant. So Virgil says of Anchises, Aeneid 8: “he went higher than all,” and of Turnus, book 7, “by a whole head is above.” So Solomon was tall, Cant. 5:15, Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Romulus. Pliny praises his Trajan in the Panegyric: “Because he was not carried on the shoulders of men, as other proud Emperors, but, lifted higher and loftier by the sole tallness of his body, he had triumphed not over the patience of the citizens but over the pride of Princes.”
Hear Theodoret: “God therefore chose the tallest of all, because the Hebrews admired not the virtue of the mind but the greatness of the body.”
Tropologically St. Gregory: “The king,” he says, “excels in neck, excels in head. For what is designated in the neck but speech? what in the head but the contemplation of the mind? By head and neck, therefore, he excels the heads of all his subjects, if he is admirable by the loftiness of contemplation and the sublimity of doctrine.” And a little below: “Let the king be eminent by the neck,” he says, “eminent by the head, lofty by the shoulder, that he may be perfect in conversation, admirable in speech, above the rest steep in the citadel of contemplation.”