King Saul Prophesies Among the Prophets

Introduction

At the beginning of the year, I had taken a course through Hillsdale College and was introduced to King Saul and King David and the Kingship of Israel and how God’s nation had ended up with a King. I had begun to comb through First & Second Samuel in my time with the LORD, and I had fallen in love with one particular King who I saw a lot of myself in, and that was King Saul. Through God’s Word and Revelation, I was able to see a lot more of God’s character and who God is and desires to be in me through the story of King Saul. God laid this on my heart at a very low point in my mental health; one day I was lying down staring off into space, and just opened my mouth and spoke, “In God’s Word, it says that Saul Prophesied among the Prophets.” In that moment of submission among the called of God- King Saul Prophesied among the prophets in 1 Samuel 10:10 & 11. To appreciate the moment in the spirit, we must understand deeply how God works, and look past what we know as the fall of the first King of Israel.

Background

After the LORD (YHWH) had delivered His Nation, the Israelites from the hand of the Philistines, His people demanded a king “like all the nations.” Specifically to judge them, go out before them, and fight their battles (1 Samuel 8:20), as if God had not already been doing that. But the Israelites desired to be like the pagan nations that desired for their destruction. Maybe they thought if they looked like them, they wouldn’t get picked on so much. God was still faithful and gave His people what they wanted. He instructed Samuel to “hearken unto their voice,” (1 Samuel 8:22) when Samuel was displeased towards the people and their neglectfulness of God (1 Samuel 8:6).

God Chooses Ordinary People In the character of God, He chose a King out of a Benjamite- a man from the smallest tribe of Israel, Saul son of Kish. Saul descends from Aphiah, who was a mighty man of power (1 Samuel 9:1). Saul is also described as a “choice young man,” “a goodly man,” “and there was not a man among the children of Israel that was a goodlier person than he.” Some translations say that he was handsome, and we also know that he was tall (1 Samuel 9:2, 1 Samuel 10:23). God often takes the foolish in the world to shame the wise, and he chooses the weak in the world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27). God uses the unlearnt, seemingly unqualified for His glory. Our King and Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, had no room for Him in the Inn, and was born in a filthy, unsanitary barn, and slept in an animal feeding trough. God takes the ordinary and overlooked and crowns them with glory and honor.

Prophet Samuel meets the Chosen. Just as God used a donkey for Christ to enter into Jerusalem on (Prophesied in Zechariah 9:9, fulfilled in Mark 11:1-10), God allowed the donkeys of Saul’s father to go missing and for Saul and his servant to seek out a “seer,” a Prophet, to find them (1 Samuel 8:8-9)- Samuel the Prophet. The LORD told Samuel beforehand that a man of Benjamin would come and he was to be anointed captain over his people, saving them out of the hand of the Philistines (1 Samuel 9:16). When Samuel spoke to Saul what he had heard from God and what God was calling Saul to, Saul spoke of his believed unqualified nature.

Saul’s Hesitations “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? And my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Wherefore then speakest thou so to me? (1 Samuel 9:21).” Here, in the midst of his calling, Saul spoke just as Moses spoke, “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, (Exodus 3:11),” and the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, “I cannot speak: for I am a child (Jeremiah 1:6),” and the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:5).” He spoke the words of many of us, including myself: Who am I, Lord? 

Allow God to be God

God allowed Samuel to tell Saul that He had reserved this for him- He was chosen into this. Not because of who he was, but because of who God is and the Word of God goes out to accomplish what it was set out to do (Psalm 55:11). In the New Testament, Apostle Paul iterates that our works, our lives in Christ Jesus, and what we are called to was predestined before the foundation of the Earth. No matter how unfitting Saul felt, God chose him to be the first King of Israel. In Saul accepting the will of God, God revealed His word to him through Samuel (1 Samuel 9:27). In the face of Saul’s submission, Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon the head of Saul, and kissed him. He spoke to him saying, “Is it not because the LORD hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance (1 Samuel 10:1)?” Samuel then sent Saul on his way and spoke to him all that he would encounter leading up to him being proclaimed before the people as King. 

Saul is Anointed and Prophesies

God’s Word says that Samuel not only anointed Saul but poured the vial of oil upon his head (1 Sam 10:1). God anointed Saul in an abundance and an overflow- as Saul’s successor, King David said in Psalm 23, “thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” God didn’t just stop with the anointing- we read that God turned him into a new man (1 Sam 10:6) and gave Saul a new heart (1 Sam 10:9). King David prayed to the LORD in Psalm 51:10, “create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”  In Ezekiel 36:26, God spoke to the Prophet Ezekiel concerning Israel, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Apostle Paul addressed the church of Corinth with a Word from the LORD saying, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are past away; behold, all things are become new.”

Then we see this so beautifully in the spirit of the LORD, Saul prophesied among the Prophets. In verse 5 Samuel tells Saul that he should come to the hill of God and he shall meet a company of Prophets coming down from the high place with instruments: psaltery, tabret (tambourine), a pipe, and a harp, and they shall Prophesy. Samuel spoke to Saul, “The spirit of the LORD will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man, (1 Samuel 10:6).” In verse 7, Samuel commanded Saul, “let it be when these signs are to come unto you; you shall know that God is with thee.” So simply, verse 9 says, “And it was so, that when he turned his back from Samuel, God gave him another heart, and all those signs came to pass that day.” Verse 10 says that Saul ran into the company of the Prophets, and the spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he prophesied among them. Verse 11 reads that he Prophesied among the Prophets. 

I love the linguistics in verse 9, how it is written so beautifully and simply, “and it was so.” Through the signs of the LORD, Saul knew that God was with him. 

Saul had many hesitations and many reasons to be confused- all he wanted to do was get his donkeys back to his father. He goes to see a man, a seer, a Prophet, who is able to tell him where those donkeys are, and he leaves out as a King. He left out with his head and garments drenched in oil, not leaving out the same way that he came in, as God had given him another heart and made him a new man.

When Saul prophesied among the Prophets, he was proclaiming the Word, and the Glory, and the Power, and the Praise, and the Worship of the LORD among the Prophets. Saul in submission to what God was calling him to, he forgot about everything that he told Samuel about him being a man of the smallest tribes of Israel. To echo again 1 Samuel 10:1, “Is it not because the LORD hath anointed thee to be captain over His inheritance?” It was the LORD who chose Saul for this- and because Saul allowed God to intervene and give him a new heart and make him a new man, Saul was able to see that the LORD was with him, a God of His promises. We see in this text the scripture Isaiah 55:9 come to life, where the LORD spoke that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. And In that moment, when Saul encountered the presence of the LORD, as it should happen for each one of us, he was not the same. Every time that we come into the presence of the LORD, we should not expect to leave out the same way that we came in. Let it be so today and let go today, that all these signs may come to pass that we are filled and the spirit of the LORD comes upon us that we may know that He is with us and He has called us to be new before Him for His good Work according to His Word. 

Reflection

On the surface, King Saul doesn’t have a good reputation with us at all. God impressed in my heart what I was missing from the story of Saul - the beauty of what happens when I allow Him to purge me of myself and my hang-ups. We often get hung up on Saul’s failure as the first King of Israel- his disobedience toward God on more than one occasion and his bitterness towards King David, leading to his death. And in this, my heart breaks terribly for King Saul as did the LORD’s. In 1 Samuel 15:35 it says that the LORD repented that He had made Saul king over Israel. This repentance is not like what God calls us to when we go against His commands, but it is a Godly sorrow and grief of God when having to reject His anointed as King. In this moment, we see the brokenness of God’s heart, because Saul found it difficult to trust the Word of the LORD and follow Him in obedience even after the LORD had reserved this beautiful anointing for him. In Ezekiel 33:11, it says that God does not delight in the destruction of the wicked, and in 2 Peter 3:9, it says that God does not desire for any of us to perish. It did not please God to remove the anointing from Saul. I believe that is what God wants me to see- not letting go of the former keeps the LORD from doing a new thing in me the way that He wants to. It grieves me terribly to know that Saul’s final years were filled with so much torment and anger, and to hear that the LORD also grieved makes this text one of the hardest ones that I have read thus far.

Saul knew in some sense that he was the least of them, yet he came to accept God’s call. However, he did not forget the former- Even though God had made him new, He did not walk in it. In Isaiah 43:18-19, God commands us to, “remember not the former things” for He will do a new thing and it shall spring forth. Saul watched the spirit of God come upon David and was probably reminded of a time when he himself Prophesied among the Prophets with the spirit of the LORD upon him. I think I would be bitter too. 

Receive the revelation of God and see what happens when you let go of who you aren’t or even who you want to be in the presence of the LORD and allow God to be who He is in and through you. In the presence of the LORD, Saul left it all behind. He became one with the spirit of God. In fact, the people said, “What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul among the prophets? 1 Sam 10:11” 

What we Learn from King Saul God equips the called and does not call the equipped, we must submit to God’s will and allow Him to make us new, and when we submit, He anoints our head with oil and seals us with the Holy Spirit, we know that He is with us for His good work to proclaim His Holy name.

Revelation from the LORD

I reflected a lot on God’s transformation power as I wrote. The moment I began writing this, in the bout of depression, The LORD is revealing to me through His word that He makes all things new for His glory. In Isaiah 61:3, God spoke of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ saying that through His ministry, He would give to them “a crown of beauty for ashes.” God is showing me all the beautiful things that He has reserved for me when I die to myself, and allow Him to be in control. The ashes in Isaiah 61:3 represent death and the beauty is salvation and eternal life, as the LORD beautifies the meek with salvation (Psalm 119:4). I must give my yes to the LORD, leaving behind the reservations of myself, and be covered with His anointing oil and filled with the Holy Spirit. In Zechariah 3, Joshua (God’s nation; the Israelites) is told to take away their filthy garments, and their iniquities will be caste from them, and God will clothe them with a change of raiment (priestly garment). He is clothing me in garments of salvation and wrapping me in the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). 

Walk in the Anointing 

Before Christ’s crucifixion, He breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost (John 20:22).” Christ still breaths on us today, but will you receive?

What is stopping you, me, from prophesying among the prophets? What is keeping you from walking in the anointing and remaining on the anointed path that God has set before you? What is holding you back from treading on the holy ground of God? God has set apart so much for His people, and there is nothing that the world should have to offer you. To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:6). There is such beauty in the presence and in the anointing of the LORD, as Psalm 16:11 speaks “in the presence of the LORD, there is a fullness of joy.” Be so much in the spirit that those who know you can’t even recognize you, as they didn’t recognize Saul. Run over in obedience to the LORD, pledge your allegiance today, and prophesy among the prophets the glory of the LORD, receiving the Holy Ghost.

Prayer

LORD God, they say that every time we breathe, it speaks Your name, “YHWH.” Lord, I don’t know how true that is, but I want to breathe Your name. I want to live and breathe Your holiness, as you God are the holy of holies. As I follow behind You, diligently seeking Your face, I want to breathe the air that You breathe, Your pure, spotless, air. Jesus, what You did for Saul, do it for me. I give my heart over to You, my King. God, pour Your bottle of oil over my head, that I be smothered in Your anointing. Change my heart to beat for You. May I remember not the former but allow you to make me new, and fill my mouth with Your Word, that I may prophesy among the Prophets. Lord, before the Throne of Your holiness, I am undone, and I will sing to You LORD, for You are highly exalted. LORD, You are my strength and my song, You God are my salvation. You are my God, and I will praise You. You are my warrior, the LORD is Your name. With Your faithful love lead me, God, whom You have redeemed, and guide me to Your holy dwelling with Your strength. There is no other God like You, and You are God alone. God, You have called me for a righteous purpose, and You will hold my hand, and watch over me, and have You appointed me to be Your covenant people. Make me unleavened bread, new wine, a people of your presence. Take my ashes, LORD, and beautify me in You. Drench me and overflow me with Your Holy Spirit. Fill me with zeal for Your house, LORD GOD. Let it be so, today LORD, that I be turned into a new man, and given a new heart in Your Presence. It is in Your name that I trust and in Your grace that I set myself under and in Your anointing that I prophesy. In Jesus Name, Amen.