And Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head. There is in the life of almost every man some day beyond all others, the events of which serve to determine his future course. Such a day was that which is here described in the life of Saul. On the preceding day he had been guided by Providence to Samuel, and led by means of his conversation to entertain exalted expectations concerning his future destiny. "And when they were come down from the high place into the city, Samuel communed with Saul upon the top of the house" (ver. 25). "And a bed was spread for Saul on the roof, and he lay down" (LXX., Vulg.). "The roofs in Judaea were flat, with a parapet around them. To be lodged there was considered an honour. In fine weather it was not unusual to sleep in the open air, but the place might occasionally be covered with a tent" (Geddes). Strange thoughts must have passed through his mind as he rested there under the silent stars. He rose early to prepare for his journey, and watched the morning dawn over the distant hills, ushering in the most eventful day of his life. Then the voice of Samuel called to him from below, saying, "Arise, and I will send thee away." The prophet accompanied him, as a mark of respect, along the street, toward the end of the city (Ramah). But before parting from him be directed him to send his servant forward, that he might communicate to him alone "the word of God." And in this private interview Saul was -

I. APPOINTED TO THE HIGHEST DIGNITY (ver. 1).

1. By a rite of consecration. "Taking a vial, he anointed Saul, thus placing the institution of royalty on the same footing as that of the sanctuary and the priesthood (Exodus 30:33; Leviticus 8:10), as appointed and consecrated by God and to God, and intended to be the medium for receiving and transmitting blessing to the people" (Edersheim). "Anointing with oil was a symbol of endowment with the Spirit of God; as the oil itself, by virtue of the strength which it gives to the vital spirits, was a symbol of the Spirit of God as the principle of Divine and spiritual power" (Keil). "Two very good reasons they (the Jews) render why God did command the use of such anointing oil as in respect of the action. First, that it did signify the Divine election of that person and designation to that office; from whence it was necessary that it should be performed by a prophet who understood the will of God. Secondly, that by it the person anointed might be made fit to receive the Divine influx." "In respect to the matter they give two reasons why it was oil, and not any other liquor. First, because, of all other, it signifies the greatest glory and excellency. Secondly, they tell us that oil continueth uncorrupted longer than any other liquor. And, indeed, it hath been observed to preserve not only itself but other things from corruption; hence they conclude it fit their kings and priests, whose succession was to continue forever, should be anointed with oil, the most proper emblem of eternity. Beside, they observe that simple oil without any mixture was sufficient for the candlestick; but that which was designed for unction must be compounded with principal spices, which signify a good name, always to be acquired by those in places of greatest dignity by the most laudable and honourable actions" ('Pearson on the Creed,' Art. 2).

2. Accompanied with an act of homage. "And kissed him." The kiss was given on the mouth, the hand, the feet, or the garment, and was a token of friendship, affection, and, in the case of princes, of reverence and homage (1 Kings 18:19; Psalm 2:12; Hosea 13:3).

3. And with a statement of its significance. "Is it not?" etc. Hath not the Lord anointed thee to be ruler over his people, over Israel? And thou shalt rule over the people of the Lord, and thou shalt save them out of the hand of their enemies" (LXX.). His appointment was of God, and the purpose of it was the deliverance of his people. The manner in which he received it shows the change which had already taken place in his feelings (1 Samuel 9:21). When God has work for a man to do, he has power to dispose and prepare him to do it.

II. ASSURED OF CONFIRMATORY SIGNS (vers. 2-6). The events which Samuel predicted were proofs of the Divine interposition, means of Saul's further preparation, and emblems of his future dignity and power.

1. First sign - his royalty was an appointment made by God. By it he would be convinced that it was not made by Samuel merely, but by God, who fulfilled his words (1 Samuel 9:20); at the same time he would be taught to leave lower cares, and aspire after the highest things. "Inwardly free, and consecrated to the Lord alone, he is to pursue his way upward."

2. Second sign - his royalty was an honour shared with God, and held in subordination to him (vers. 3, 4). A part of the offerings that were about to be presented before Jehovah in Bethel would be presented to Saul, but only a part of them; the greater portion would be given to Jehovah as a sign of the supreme homage due to the invisible King of Israel, while he was to accept the lesser portion as a sign of his subordinate position under him. "That this surprising prelude to all future royal gifts is taken from bread of offering points to the fact that in future some of the wealth of the land, which has hitherto gone undivided to the sanctuary, will go to the king" (Ewald). God commands us to "honour the king" (1 Peter 2:17), but the honour which is due to himself may not be usurped by man (Matthew 22:21; Acts 12:23).

3. Third sign - his royalty was an endowment dependent upon God, and effectually administered only through his grace. Coming to the hill (Gibeah) of God, near the city (Gibeah, his home), where there stood a garrison of the Philistines (or perhaps a pillar erected by them as a sign of their authority), which could hardly fail to impress upon him with great force the main purpose for which he had been appointed king, he would meet a band of prophets descending from the high place (of sacrifice), playing instruments of music and prophesying (speaking and singing in ecstatic utterances the praises of Jehovah, declaring his greatness, and his victory over his adversaries), and -

(1) He would be imbued with a Divine power. "The Spirit of Jehovah will come upon thee."

(2) He would catch the spirit of the prophets, and join them in their ecstatic utterances. "Thou wilt prophesy with them."

(3) He would undergo a surprising transformation. "And will be turned into another man." When he had turned his back to go from Samuel, "God gave him another heart" (ver. 9), but the prediction of the prophet was more completely fulfilled afterwards (ver. 10). The fulfilment of these predictions shows that apparently accidental events are clearly foreseen by God, human affairs are under his direction and control, and "the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will" (Proverbs 21:1), and that "the teachings of Providence unite with the teachings of revelation and of the Holy Spirit to show men their duty and their destiny."

III. ADMONISHED OF FUTURE DUTY (vers. 7, 8). In relation to -

1. Circumstances. "Do thou what thy hand findeth," i.e. what circumstances indicate to be thy duty. His own judgment would have to be exercised, but he would not be left to it alone.

2. God. "For God is with thee," to observe, direct, and aid thee. The firm belief in his presence is a mighty preservative from the neglect of duty, and a powerful incentive and encouragement to its performance.

3. The prophet, through whom he would receive "the word of God," in obedience to which he was bound always to act. "Gilgal, on the southwestern bank of the Jordan, was then, from all indications, one of the most holy places in Israel, and the true centre of the whole people; it had a like importance before, and much more then, because the Philistine control reached so far eastward that the middle point of the kingdom must have been pressed back to the bank of the Jordan. There the people must have assembled for all general political questions, and thence, after offering and consecration, have marched forth armed to war" (Ewald). Thither he was to gather the people; not, indeed: immediately, but when circumstances indicated that it was the proper time to prepare for war with the Philistines, which was the main object of his appointment. Samuel promised to meet him there, offer burnt offerings (dedicatory) and peace offerings (eucharistic), and tell him what to do; and directed him to wait seven days, and to do nothing without him. The direction was explicit, it set a limit to his authority, and its neglect was the first step in his disobedience (ch. 13:13). When God places men in positions of authority, he teaches them the obligations which they involve; and if they fail it is not from want of knowing them. - D.

But not a better heart. He found himself suddenly fitted for the new place to which Providence had summoned him. In this there was nothing magical or extraordinary. It is indeed said that God gave him another heart, but we are not to understand the words as indicating a Divine operation independent of outward means and natural influences, or at all distinguishable, in the consciousness of its subject, from the effects of external circumstances. It is not more true that the man makes the place than that the place makes the man. Both, indeed, are most pregnant and concerning truths. Saul, transplanted into a new station, brought into new relations to life and society, felt the simultaneous upspringing within him of sentiments and purposes suited to his position, and became conscious of capabilities which had before lain dormant, and might have always remained so, but for this transformation of his outward state. Made a king, he became kingly. His soul expanded to the horizon of his new dignity and office. But, alas! there was no spiritual element in his change, and, therefore, it yielded no happy fruit for him, or to the church of God. It was but the direction of the same earthly mind to larger objects, stander schemes, a wider range. We may properly take occasion from this case, to discriminate between certain other changes to which the spirit of man is subject, and that great spiritual change which alone affects him savingly, planting in him the germ of holiness and immortal felicity; or to point out the difference between another heart and a new heart.

1. And, first, I will direct your attention to the nature and effects of spurious religious excitement. There is excitement almost necessarily in the serious and earnest contemplation of religious truth. Its revelations are fitted to stir the spirit of man deeply; the interests to which it pertains are too momentous to be contemplated without emotion. The nature of men is sympathetic. Hence feeling is contagious, and not only so, but excitement, where it exists already, rises, by the reacting influence of those who come within its sphere and imbibe its infection. But excitement is bounded by limits fixed in the constitution of our nature; and when these are reached a revulsion takes place, which issues either in stagnation or in a new excitement of a different description. And when these opposite emotions are produced by religious causes they are thought to indicate a work of the Spirit and involve conversion. It is quite remarkable, how little the moral and truly spiritual nature of man may have to do with such a process, how little of anything else there may be in it beside imagination and nervous sensibility. And yet, on the strength of it, a man often accounts himself a new man; and, whether he be right in that judgment or not, not infrequently, he thereupon becomes and permanently remains another man. His life henceforward assumes a new bent. He adopts new opinions, he talks a new language, he affects new associates, he frequents new walks, he lends himself to the promotion of new interests. And yet he is not new man. Only his outward life has taken a new impress, as Saul's did, in which the same worldly spirit finds a concealment and disguise.

2. There is another very different transformation to which men are subject, which yet is at no greater value; and tends to no better results — that which is brought about by the slow operation of time and the gradual alteration of outward circumstances. The lesson of life is a sobering lesson. The fire of youth burns out as the period of youth expires. Every day some leaf fails from the flower he is seeking to grasp. Continually the stern hand of irresistible Providence shuts up some avenue that allures his steps. But the worst disappointment is that which waits upon success — the bitter pain of finding a thing, when it is gotten, not worth the pains of getting. Sometimes there is but a change of follies and vices, the substitution of a calmer and more private form of sensuality or dissipation for another of a more boisterous and public character; but the impress of sin and worldliness remains, and is too visible to allow the supposition of any moral improvement. The result of time upon human character is very various, yet it seldom fails in one way or another to be evident and marked, and among persons whose course is not an abandoned one, is generally distinguished by a nearer approximation to the apparent effects of religion; and thus few men live on over the meridian of life without coming to have another heart, one which, in many instances, it may not be very difficult for themselves or others to mistake for a new and a better heart. What I said may be wanting in either of these, is a spiritual element, and as the absence of this fatally vitiates these cases, and every other ease where it appears, so its presence in either of them, or in any other change which the soul of man may undergo, declares the work to be of God, and furnishes a true mark of meetness for life eternal. Let us then look a little at this as it stands contradistinguished from all alterations, whose seat is either the imagination or the outward deportment, whose affinity to religion is limited to a certain accidental coincidence or similarity in some particulars, and whose religious phases are confined to the inferior and superficial portion of human nature.(1) And first, look at this change in reference to the effect upon the heart of the grand and peculiar features of the Gospel. an irreligious mind has either no clear or definite views of the scheme of salvation by Jesus Christ; or if it comprehends it intellectually, and is able to think and speak of it with a scientific precision, it does not perceive and feel its fitness and necessity. It wears an arbitrary appearance. The Gospel is unreal to it. But with the rise of spiritual affections the film is cleared away. The truths of the Gospel come forth from their obscurity and vagueness, and the heart at once learns what they are, loses its indifference to them, appreciates their value, loves them, and lives upon them.(2) Look, secondly, at this change in respect to the power and influence of the Divine will upon the soul. The spirit of religion is an obedient spirit. The spirit of irreligion is a disobedient spirit. If a child pursue a course of conduct coincident with its parent's will purely for its own gratification, that, is not obedience; or if it complies with his commands simply from fear of punishment, that is not obedience. Man's eyes may not distinguish it from obedience, but it is not obedience. Obedience requires a filial and submissive heart. There is the recognition of a new authority, the acknowledgment of a new rule. The man does the same act for a different reason.(3) Look, thirdly, at this change as it affects a man's view of eternity. The view of the worldly man is comprised within the bounds of time. If he ever looks beyond it, it is with a stealthy and uneasy glance. There is a quickening of that man's spiritual nature to whom eternity comes forth out of this vague and unreal condition, and becomes a near and interesting reality, full of interests for which he would fain make provision, to be habitually borne in mind and cared for, to secure the benefit of which he counts it a privilege to live and labour.

(R. A. Hallam, D. D.)