Bible Commentaries

Jonathan warded off the first outbreak of deadly enmity on the part ofSaul towards David. When Saul spoke to his son Jonathan and all hisservants about his intention to kill David (את־דּוד להמית, i.e., notthat they should kill David, but “that he intended to kill him”), Jonathanreported this to David, because he was greatly attached to him, and gavehim this advice: “Take heed to thyself in the morning; keep thyself in asecret place, and hide thyself. I will go out and stand beside my father inthe field where thou art, and I will talk to my father about thee (בּ דּבּר, as in Deuteronomy 6:7; Psalm 87:3, etc., to talk of or about a person), and seewhat (sc., he will say), and show it to thee.” David was to conceal himselfin the field near to where Jonathan would converse with his father abouthim; not that he might hear the conversation in his hiding-place, but thatJonathan might immediately report to him the result of his conversation,without there being any necessity for going far away from his father, so asto excite suspicion that he was in league with David.

Jonathan then endeavoured with all the modesty of a son to point outmost earnestly to his father the grievous wickedness involved in hisconduct towards David. “Let not the king sin against his servant, againstDavid; for he hath not sinned against thee, and his works are very good(i.e., very useful) to thee. He hath risked his life (see at Judges 12:3), andsmitten the Philistines, and Jehovah hath wrought a great salvation of allIsrael. Thou hast seen it, and rejoiced; and wherefore wilt thou sin againstinnocent blood, to slay David without a cause?”

These words made an impression upon Saul. He swore, “As Jehovahliveth, he (David) shall not be put to death;” whereupon Jonathan reportedthese words to David, and brought him to Saul, so that he was with himagain as before. But this reconciliation, unfortunately, did not last long.

Another great defeat which David had inflicted upon the Philistines excitedSaul to such an extent, that in a fit of insanity he endeavoured to pierceDavid with his javelin as he was playing before him. The words (Ruach Jehovah) describe the attack of madness in which Saul threw the javelin atDavid according to its higher cause, and that, as implied in the words(Ruach Jehovah) in contrast with (Ruach Elohim) (1 Samuel 18:10; 1 Samuel 16:15), asinflicted upon him by Jehovah. The thought expressed is, that the growthof Saul's melancholy was a sign of the hardness of heart to which Jehovahhad given him up on account of his impenitence. David happily escapedthis javelin also. He slipped away from Saul, so that he hurled the javelininto the wall; whereupon David fled and escaped the same night, i.e., thenight after this occurrence. This remark somewhat anticipates the courseof the events, as the author, according to the custom of Hebrew historians,gives the result at once, and then proceeds to describe in detail the moreexact order of the events.

“Saul sent messengers to David's house,” to which David had first fled, “towatch him (that he might not get away again), and to put him to death inthe (next) morning.” Michal made him acquainted with this danger, andthen let him down through the window, so that he escaped. The danger inwhich David was at that time is described by him in Psalm 59, from which wemay see how Saul was surrounded by a number of cowardly courtiers,who stirred up his hatred against David, and were busily engaged in gettingthe dreaded rival out of the way.

Michal then took the teraphim, - i.e., in all probability an image of thehousehold gods of the size of life, and, judging from what follows, inhuman form, - laid it in the bed, and put a piece of woven goats' hair at hishead, i.e., either round or over the head of the image, and covered it withthe garment (beged, the upper garment, which was generally only a squarepiece of cloth for wrapping round), and told the messengers whom Saulhad sent to fetch him that he was ill. Michal probably kept teraphim insecret, like Rachel, because of her barrenness (see at Genesis 31:19). Themeaning of העזּים כּביר is doubtful. The earliertranslators took it to mean goat-skin, with the exception of the Seventy,who confounded כּביר with כּבד, liver, upon whichJosephus founds his account of Michal having placed a still moving goat'sliver in the bed, to make the messengers believe that there was a breathinginvalid beneath. כּביר, from כּבר, signifies somethingwoven, and עזּים goats' hair, as in Exodus 25:4. But it is impossible todecide with certainty what purpose the cloth of goats' hair was to serve;whether it was merely to cover the head of the teraphim with hair, and somake it like a human head, or to cover the head and face as if of a personsleeping. The definite article not only before תּרפים and בּגד, but also with העזּים כּביר, suggests the idea thatall these things belonged to Michal's house furniture, and that עזּים כּביר was probably a counterpane made of goats' hair, withwhich persons in the East are in the habit of covering the head and facewhen sleeping.

But when Saul sent the messengers again to see David, and that with thecommand, “Bring him up to me in the bed,” and when they only found theteraphim in the bed, and Saul charged Michal with this act of deceit, shereplied, “He (David) said to me, Let me go; why should I kill thee?” - “Behold, teraphim were (laid) in the bed.” The verb can be naturallysupplied from 1 Samuel 19:13. In the words “Why should I kill thee?” Michaelintimates that she did not mean to let David escape, but was obliged toyield to his threat that he would kill her if she continued to refuse. Thisprevarication she seems to have considered perfectly justifiable.

David fled to Samuel at Ramah, and reported to him all that Saul had done,partly to seek for further advice from the prophet who had anointed him,as to his further course, and partly to strengthen himself, by intercoursewith him, for the troubles that still awaited him. He therefore went alongwith Samuel, and dwelt with him in Naioth. נוית (to be read נוית according to the Chethibh, for which the Masoretes havesubstituted the form ניות, 1 Samuel 19:19, 1 Samuel 19:23, and 1 Samuel 20:1), fromנוה or נוה, signifies dwellings; but here it is in acertain sense a proper name, applied to the coenobium of the pupils of theprophets, who had assembled round Samuel in the neighbourhood ofRamah. The plural נוית points to the fact, that this coenobiumconsisted of a considerable number of dwelling-places or houses,connected together by a hedge or wall.

1 Samuel 19:19-20

When Saul was told where this place was, he sent messengersto fetch David. But as soon as the messengers saw the company ofprophets prophesying, and Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spiritof God came upon them, so that they also prophesied. The singularויּרא is certainly very striking here; but it is hardly to be regardedas merely a copyist's error for the plural ויּראוּ, because it isextremely improbable that such an error as this should have founduniversal admission into the MSS; so that it is in all probability to betaken as the original and correct reading, and understood either as relatingto the leader of the messengers, or as used because the whole company ofmessengers were regarded as one body. The ἁπ. λεγ. להקה signifies, according to the ancient versions, an assembly, equivalent toקהלה, from which it arose according to Kimchi and other Rabbins bysimple inversion.

1 Samuel 19:21

The same thing happened to a second and third company ofmessengers, whom Saul sent one after another when the thing wasreported to him.

1 Samuel 19:22-24

Saul then set out to Ramah himself, and inquired, as soon ashe had arrived at the great pit at Sechu (a place near Ramah with which weare not acquainted), where Samuel and David were, and went, according tothe answer he received, to the Naioth at Ramah. There the Spirit of Godcame upon him also, so that he went along prophesying, until he came tothe Naioth at Ramah; and there he even took off his clothes, andprophesied before Samuel, and lay there naked all that day, and the wholenight as well. ערום, γυμνός , does not always signifycomplete nudity, but is also applied to a person with his upper garmentoff (cf. Isaiah 20:2; Micah 1:8; John 21:7). From the repeated expression “healso,” in 1 Samuel 19:23, 1 Samuel 19:24, it is not only evident that Saul came into an ecstaticcondition of prophesying as well as his servants, but that the prophetsthemselves, and not merely the servants, took off their clothes like Saulwhen they prophesied. It is only in the case of ערם ויּפּל that the expression“he also” is not repeated; from which we must infer, that Saul alone laythere the whole day and night with his clothes off, and in an ecstatic stateof external unconsciousness; whereas the ecstasy of his servants and theprophets lasted only a short time, and the clear self-consciousnessreturned earlier than with Saul. This different is not without significance inrelation to the true explanation of the whole affair. Saul had experienced asimilar influence of the Spirit of God before, namely, immediately after hisanointing by Samuel, when he met a company of prophets who wereprophesying at Gibeah, and he had been thereby changed into another man(1 Samuel 10:6.). This miraculous seizure by the Spirit of God was repeatedagain here, when he came near to the seat of the prophets; and it alsoaffected the servants whom he had sent to apprehend David, so that Saulwas obliged to relinquish the attempt to seize him. This result, however, we cannot regard as the principal object of the wholeoccurrence, as Vatablus does when he says, “The spirit of prophecy cameinto Saul, that David might the more easily escape from his power.”Calvin's remarks go much deeper into the meaning: “God,” he says,“changed their (the messengers') thoughts and purpose, not only so thatthey failed to apprehend David according to the royal command, but sothat they actually became the companions of the prophets. And Godeffected this, that the fact itself might show how He holds the hearts ofmen in His hand and power, and turns and moves them according to Hiswill.” Even this, however, does not bring out the full meaning of themiracle, and more especially fails to explain why the same thing shouldhave happened to Saul in an intensified degree. Upon this point Calvinsimply observes, that “Saul ought indeed to have been strongly moved bythese things, and to have discerned the impossibility of his accomplishinganything by fighting against the Lord; but he was so hardened that he didnot perceive the hand of God: for he hastened to Naioth himself, when hefound that his servants mocked him;” and in this proceeding on Saul's parthe discovers a sign of his increasing hardness of heart. Saul and his messengers, the zealous performers of his will, ought nodoubt to have learned, from what happened to them in the presence of theprophets, that God had the hearts of men in His power, and guided themat His will; but they were also to be seized by the might of the Spirit ofGod, which worked in the prophets, and thus brought to theconsciousness, that Saul's raging against David was fighting againstJehovah and His Spirit, and so to be led to give up the evil thoughts oftheir heart. Saul was seized by this mighty influence of the Spirit of Godin a more powerful manner than his servants were, both because he hadmost obstinately resisted the leadings of divine grace, and also in orderthat, if it were possible, his hard heart might be broken and subdued by thepower of grace. If, however, he should nevertheless continue obstinately inhis rebellion against God, he would then fall under the judgment ofhardening, which would be speedily followed by his destruction. This newoccurrence in Saul's life occasioned a renewal of the proverb: “Is Saul alsoamong the prophets?” The words “wherefore they say” do not imply thatthe proverb was first used at this time, but only that it received a newexemplification and basis in the new event in Saul's experience. The originof it has been already mentioned in 1 Samuel 10:12, and the meaning of it wasthere explained.

This account is also worthy of note, as having an important bearing uponthe so-called Schools of the Prophets in the time of Samuel, to which,however, we have only casual allusions. From the passage before us welearn that there was a company of prophets at Ramah, under thesuperintendence of Samuel, whose members lived in a common building(נוית), and that Samuel had his own house at Ramah (1 Samuel 7:17), thoughhe sometimes lived in the Naioth (cf. 1 Samuel 19:18.). The origin and history ofthese schools are involved in obscurity. If we bear in mind, that, accordingto 1 Samuel 3:1, before the call of Samuel as prophet, the prophetic word wasvery rare in Israel, and prophecy was not widely spread, there can be nodoubt that these unions of prophets arose in the time of Samuel, and werecalled into existence by him. The only uncertainty is whether there wereother such unions in different parts of the land beside the one at Ramah. In1 Samuel 10:5, 1 Samuel 10:10, we find a band of prophesying prophets at Gibeah, comingdown from the sacrificial height there, and going to meet Saul; but it is notstated there that this company had its seat at Gibeah, although it may beinferred as probable, from the name “Gibeah of God” (see the commentaryon 1 Samuel 10:5-6). No further mention is made of these in the time of Samuel; nor do we meetwith them again till the times of Elijah and Elisha, when we find them,under the name of sons of the prophets (1 Kings 20:35), living inconsiderable numbers at Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho (vid., 2 Kings 4:38; 2 Kings 2:3, 2 Kings 2:5; 2 Kings 2:7, 2 Kings 2:15; 2 Kings 4:1; 2 Kings 6:1; 2 Kings 9:1). According to 2 Kings 4:38, 2 Kings 4:42-43, about a hundredsons of the prophets sat before Elisha at Gilgal, and took their mealstogether. The number at Jericho may have been quite as great; for fiftymen of the sons of the prophets went with Elijah and Elisha to the Jordan(comp. 2 Kings 2:7 with 2 Kings 2:16, 2 Kings 2:17). These passages render it very probablethat the sons of the prophets also lived in a common house. And thisconjecture is raised into a certainty by 2 Kings 6:1. In this passage, forexample, they are represented as saying to Elisha: “The place where we sitbefore thee is too strait for us; let us go to the Jordan, and let each onefetch thence a beam, and build ourselves a place to dwell in there.”It is true that we might, if necessary, supply לפניך from 2 Kings 6:1,after שׁם לשׁבת, “to sit before thee,” and sounderstand the words as merely referring to the erection of a morecommodious place of meeting. But if they built it by the Jordan, we canhardly imagine that it was merely to serve as a place of meeting, to whichthey would have to make pilgrimages from a distance, but can only assumethat they intended to live there, and assemble together under thesuperintendence of a prophet. In all probability, however, only such aswere unmarried lived in a common building. Many of them were married,and therefore most likely lived in houses of their own (2 Kings 4:1.). Wemay also certainly assume the same with reference to the unions ofprophets in the time of Samuel, even if it is impossible to prove that theseunions continued uninterruptedly from the time of Samuel down to thetimes of Elijah and Elisha. Oehler argues in support of this, “that thehistorical connection, which can be traced in the influence of prophecyfrom the time of Samuel forwards, may be most easily explained from theuninterrupted continuance of these supports; and also that the largenumber of prophets, who must have been already there according to 1 Kings 18:13 when Elijah first appeared, points to the existence of suchunions as these.” But the historical connection in the influence ofprophecy, or, in other words, the uninterrupted succession of prophets,was also to be found in the kingdom of Judah both before and after thetimes of Elijah and Elisha, and down to the Babylonian captivity, withoutour discovering the slightest trace of any schools of the prophets in thatkingdom.

All that can be inferred from 1 Kings 18 is, that the large number ofprophets mentioned there (1 Kings 18:4 and 1 Kings 18:13) were living in the time of Elijah,but not that they were there when he first appeared. The first mission ofElijah to king Ahab (1 Kings 17) took place about three years before the eventsdescribed in 1 Kings 18, and even this first appearance of the prophet inthe presence of the king is not to be regarded as the commencement of hisprophetic labours. How long Elijah had laboured before he announced toAhab the judgment of three years' drought, cannot indeed be decided; but ifwe consider that he received instructions to call Elisha to be his assistantand successor not very long after this period of judgment had expired (1 Kings 19:16.), we may certainly assume that he had laboured in Israel formany years, and may therefore have founded unions of the prophets. Inaddition, however, to the absence of any allusion to the continuance ofthese schools of the prophets, there is another thing which seems topreclude the idea that they were perpetuated from the time of Samuel tothat of Elijah, viz., the fact that the schools which existed under Elijah andElisha were only to be found in the kingdom of the ten tribes, and never inthat of Judah, where we should certainly expect to find them if they hadbeen handed down from Samuel's time. Moreover, Oehler also acknowledges that “the design of the schools of theprophets, and apparently their constitution, were not the same underSamuel as in the time of Elijah.” This is confirmed by the fact, that themembers of the prophets' unions which arose under Samuel are nevercalled “sons of the prophets,” as those who were under thesuperintendence of Elijah and Elisha invariably are (see the passagesquoted above). Does not this peculiar epithet seem to indicate, that the“sons of the prophets” stood in a much more intimate relation to Elijahand Elisha, as their spiritual fathers, than the הנּביאים חבל or הנּביאים להקת did to Samuel as theirpresident? (1 Samuel 19:20.) הנּביאים בּני does not mean filii prophetae, i.e., sons who are prophets, as some maintain, though withoutbeing able to show that בּני is ever used in this sense, but filiiprophetarum, disciples or scholars of the prophets, from which it is veryevident that these sons of the prophets stood in a relation of dependenceto the prophets (Elijah and Elisha), i.e., of subordination to them, andfollowed their instructions and admonitions. They received commissionsfrom them, and carried them out (vid., 2 Kings 9:1). On the other hand, theexpressions חבל and להקה simply point tocombinations for common working under the presidency of Samuel,although the words עליהם נצּב certainly show thatthe direction of these unions, and probably the first impulse to form them,proceeded from Samuel, so that we might also call these societies schoolsof the prophets.

The opinions entertained with regard to the nature of these unions, andtheir importance in relation to the development of the kingdom of God inIsrael, differ very widely from one another. Whilst some of the fathers(Jerome for example) looked upon them as an Old Testament order ofmonks; others, such as Tennemann, Meiners, and Winer, compare them tothe Pythagorean societies. Kranichfeld supposes that they were freeassociations, and chose a distinguished prophet like Samuel as theirpresident, in order that they might be able to cement their union the morefirmly through his influence, and carry out their vocation with the greatersuccess.

(Note: Compare Jerome (Epist. iv. ad Rustic. Monach. c. 7): “Thesons of the prophets, whom we call the monks of the Old Testament,built themselves cells near the streams of the Jordan, and, forsakingthe crowded cities, lived on meal and wild herbs.” Compare with thishis Epist. xiii. ad Paulin, c. 5.)

The truth lies between these two extremes. The latter view, whichprecludes almost every relation of dependence and community, is notreconcilable with the name “sons of the prophets,” or with 1 Samuel 19:20,where Samuel is said to have stood at the head of the prophesyingprophets as עליהם נצּב, and has no supportwhatever in the Scriptures, but is simply founded upon the views ofmodern times and our ideas of liberty and equality. The prophets' unionshad indeed so far a certain resemblance to the monastic orders of the earlychurch, that the members lived together in the same buildings, andperformed certain sacred duties in common; but if we look into the aim andpurpose of monasticism, they were the very opposite of those of theprophetic life. The prophets did not wish to withdraw from the tumult ofthe world into solitude, for the purpose of carrying on a contemplative lifeof holiness in this retirement from the earthly life and its affairs; but theirunions were associations formed for the purpose of mental and spiritualtraining, that they might exert a more powerful influence upon theircontemporaries. They were called into existence by chosen instruments of the Lord, suchas Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, whom the Lord had called to be Hisprophets, and endowed with a peculiar measure of His Spirit for thisparticular calling, that they might check the decline of religious life in thenation, and bring back the rebellious “to the law and the testimony.”Societies which follow this as their purpose in life, so long as they do notlose sight of it, will only separate and cut themselves off from the externalworld, so far as the world itself opposes them, and pursues them withhostility and persecution. The name “schools of the prophets” is the onewhich expresses most fully the character of these associations; only wemust not think of them as merely educational institutions, in which thepupils of the prophets received instruction in prophesying or intheological studies.

(Note: Thus the Rabbins regarded them as מדרשׁ בּתּי; and the earlier theologians as colleges, in which, as Vitringaexpresses it, “philosophers, or if you please theologians, andcandidates or students of theology, assembled for the purpose ofdevoting themselves assiduously to the study of divinity under theguidance of some one who was well skilled as a teacher;” whilst othersregarded them as schools for the training of teachers for the people,and leaders in the worship of God. The English Deists - Morgan forexample - regarded them as seats of scientific learning, in which thestudy of history, rhetoric, poetry, natural science, and moralphilosophy was carried on.)

We are not in possession indeed of any minute information concerningtheir constitution. Prophesying could neither be taught nor communicatedby instruction, but was a gift of God which He communicated according toHis free will to whomsoever He would. But the communication of thisdivine gift was by no means an arbitrary thing, but presupposed such amental and spiritual disposition on the part of the recipient as fitted himto receive it; whilst the exercise of the gift required a thoroughacquaintance with the law and the earlier revelations of God, which theschools of the prophets were well adapted to promote. It is thereforejustly and generally assumed, that the study of the law and of the historyof the divine guidance of Israel formed a leading feature in the occupationsof the pupils of the prophets, which also included the cultivation of sacredpoetry and music, and united exercises for the promotion of the propheticinspiration. That the study of the earlier revelations of God was carried on, may bevery safely inferred from the fact that from the time of Samuel downwardsthe writing of sacred history formed an essential part of the prophet'slabours, as has been already observed at pp. 8, 9 (translation). Thecultivation of sacred music and poetry may be inferred partly from thefact that, according to 1 Samuel 10:5, musicians walked in front of theprophesying prophets, playing as they went along, and partly also fromthe fact that sacred music not only received a fresh impulse from David,who stood in a close relation to the association of prophets at Ramah, butwas also raised by him into an integral part of public worship. At the sametime, music was by no means cultivated merely that the sons of theprophets might employ it in connection with their discourses, but also asmeans of awakening holy susceptibilities and emotions in the soul, and oflifting up the spirit of God, and so preparing it for the reception of divinerevelations (see at 2 Kings 3:15). And lastly, we must include among thespiritual exercises prophesying in companies, as at Gibeah (1 Samuel 10:5)and Ramah (1 Samuel 19:20).

The outward occasion for the formation of these communities we have toseek for partly in the creative spirit of the prophets Samuel and Elijah, andpartly in the circumstances of the times in which they lived. The time ofSamuel forms a turning-point in the development of the Old Testamentkingdom of God. Shortly after the call of Samuel the judgment fell uponthe sanctuary, which had been profaned by the shameful conduct of thepriests: the tabernacle lost the ark of the covenant, and ceased inconsequence to be the scene of the gracious presence of God in Israel. Thus the task fell upon Samuel, as prophet of the Lord, to found a newhouse for that religious life which he had kindled, by collecting togetherinto closer communities, those who had been awakened by his word, notonly for the promotion of their own faith under his direction, but also forjoining with him in the spread of the fear of God and obedience to the lawof the Lord among their contemporaries. But just as, in the time of Samuel, it was the fall of the legal sanctuary andpriesthood which created the necessity for the founding of schools of theprophets; so in the times of Elijah and Elisha, and in the kingdom of theten tribes, it was the utter absence of any sanctuary of Jehovah which ledthese prophets to found societies of prophets, and so furnish theworshippers of Jehovah, who would not bend their knees to Baal, withplaces and means of edification, as a substitute for what the righteous inthe kingdom of Judah possessed in the temple and the Leviticalpriesthood. But the reasons for the establishment of prophets' schoolswere not to be found merely in the circumstances of the times. There wasa higher reason still, which must not be overlooked in our examination ofthese unions, and their importance in relation to the theocracy. We maylearn from the fact that the disciples of the prophets who were associatedtogether under Samuel are found prophesying (1 Samuel 10:10; 1 Samuel 19:20), thatthey were also seized by the Spirit of God, and that the Divine Spiritwhich moved them exerted a powerful influence upon all who came intocontact with them. Consequently the founding of associations of prophets is to be regarded asan operation of divine grace, which is generally manifested with all thegreater might where sin most mightily abounds. As the Lord raised upprophets for His people at the times when apostasy had become great andstrong, that they might resist idolatry with almighty power; so did He alsocreate for himself organs of His Spirit in the schools of the prophets, whounited with their spiritual fathers in fighting for His honour. It was by nomeans an accidental circumstance, therefore, that these unions are only metwith in the times of Samuel and of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Thesetimes resembled one another in the fact, that in both of them idolatry hadgained the upper hand; though, at the same time, there were some respectsin which they differed essentially from one another. In the time of Samuelthe people did not manifest the same hostility to the prophets as in thetime of Elijah. Samuel stood at the head of the nation as judge even duringthe reign of Saul; and after the rejection of the latter, he still stood so highin authority and esteem, that Saul never ventured to attack the prophetseven in his madness. Elijah and Elisha, on the other hand, stood opposed to a royal house whichwas bent upon making the worship of Baal the leading religion of thekingdom; and they had to contend against priest of calves and prophets ofBaal, who could only be compelled by hard strokes to acknowledge theLord of Sabaoth and His prophets. In the case of the former, what had tobe done was to bring the nation to a recognition of its apostasy, to fosterthe new life which was just awakening, and to remove whatever hindrancesmight be placed in its way by the monarchy. In the time of the latter, onthe contrary, what was needed was “a compact phalanx to stand againstthe corruption which had penetrated so deeply into the nation.” Thesedifferences in the times would certainly not be without their influenceupon the constitution and operations of the schools of the prophets.