☀️ The morning after the feast where Samuel has told Saul that he is about to become the most important man in Israel, Samuel takes him aside and gives him 3 signs that God has indeed chosen him to be king.
- At Rachel’s Tomb he will meet 2 men with a message from his father that the donkey’s have been found. 🫏🫏🫏
- At the Oak (or Plain) of Tabor 🌳 he will meet 3 men on their way to Bethel. The 1st man has 3 goats. 🐐🐐🐐 The 2nd has 3 loaves of bread 🥖 🥖🥖 (he will give 2 of them to Saul) and the 3rd man is carrying a skin of wine.🍷
- At the hill where the old Philistine outpost is, he will meet a group of prophets coming down the hill, prophesying. There will be musicians with them playing 4 instruments: a harp, a tambourine, a flute, and a lyre.
😏 All you need is a partridge in a pear tree.
🤔 Excuse me?
😌 (ahem) me me me meeeee 🎶
🎶 For the 3rd sign of king-ship the prophet said to me:
4 in-stru-ments 🎶
3 trav-ling men, 🎶
2 mess-en-gers, 🎶
and a partridge in a pear treeeeeeeee.🎶
🤣 bah-hahaha hahahaha
😑 Wow. Thank you.
😏 You’re welcome. Betcha won’t forget those 3 signs now.
🙄 Nope. Not gonna be able to un-hear that. And you could’ve said “a partridge in the oak tree.” There’s an oak tree in the narrative. In verse 3. Anyhoo…
😲 Gasp! I wonder if there were 4 prophets playing the 4 instruments! Cause if there were, when Saul joined them that makes FIVE!
😑 Five?
😅 Yeah. Five….Proph…uh Five…Gold… um…
😏 How about, 🎵FIVE PROPH-ETS SIIING!
😲 (speechless)
😏 I’m a songwriter. It’s what I do.
😲 (still speechless)
😏 Go ahead… 🎶🎶 Four instruments…
😄 Three traveling men,
😏😄 Two messengers….
And a partridge in the oak treeeeeeee! 🌳
😄 Hey, we sound pretty good!
😏 Don’t get any big ideas.
Saul gets his signs and even prophesied with the rest of prophets.
This is the first time we have run into a group of prophets in the Bible. We’ve met a few before, but they’re always individuals. Moses, of course, is the main prophet up to this point. Miriam. Deborah. Jacob prophesied over his sons. Enoch before the flood. There was the anonymous prophet who warned Eli. But the little incident here where Saul meets this musical band of prophets – that’s something new in scripture.
To me, if you have a group of people playing music and they all start praying and prophesying, that’s basically a Pentecostal-Charismatic revival meetin.’ 😉 I mean, they DID have a tambourine. 😏
At some point after this, Samuel calls the nation together at Mizpah.
First, Samuel kinda rakes them over the coals for insisting on a king. Then he proceeds to cast lots to select the man. This casting of lots to narrow down to one man is exactly what happened for Joshua to identify Achan after the defeat at Ai.
Now, math is not my thing. But someone with skills in statistics and probabilities should look into this. What are the odds that Samuel could draw lots and the tribe of Benjamin would be selected, then of the all the families of Benjamin, the family of Matri is selected, then of all the men in that lineage, Saul would be chosen? We probably don’t have enough information to get an accurate number, but out of all the men of Israel, the lots narrow it down to Saul – the man already anointed to be the next king. The odds of that exact match have to be astronomical.
God used the lots to prove to people something He had already set in motion.
And when Saul’s name came up on the PowerBall Lottery, he was… hiding. Not exactly the posture of a great leader. No wonder the people were divided. Some supported Saul, some didn’t. But they all shouted “Long live the king” and went home. This is the proclamation. Later will come the coronation. 👑
This chapter says that Saul was given “a new heart.” Samuel had told him that when the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he prophesied he would become “another man,” or “a different person.”
Saul will not consistently BE that different person for the rest of his life. In fact, Saul will almost never be that new man with a new heart. Maybe he thought that one epic experience with God was all it took.
Some Christians think that. They have one epic spiritual experience at a camp or revival or a conference and think they can coast on that for years. They don’t put in the sometimes unexciting daily prayer and reflection and heart-work and study. That’s what it takes to live out being that new person in Christ.
It’s rather like the tortoise and the hare come to think of it. 🤔 🐢🐇
I’ve also met people who chase supernatural spiritual experiences. It can be like a drug. A spiritual high. But no one lives in a spiritual high. Much of the Christian life is simply being faithful in the day-to-day. You keep praying even if there are no musical prophets around. You keep reading and studying scripture even if you don’t get an earth-shattering revelation. You keep serving even if no one but the Lord notices.
You find joy and fulfillment in serving the Lord wherever He has placed you. Tambourines and prophetic signs are pretty cool (☝🏼🤨 IF the tambourine is on beat).
But, slow and steady wins the race. 🐢
To The Reader 