1 Samuel 10:23

And they ran and fetched him thence: and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:17-27 Samuel tells the people, Ye have this day rejected your God. So little fond was Saul now of that power, which soon after, when he possessed it, he could not think of parting with, that he hid himself. It is good to be conscious of our unworthiness and insufficiency for the services to which we are called; but men should not go into the contrary extreme, by refusing the employments to which the Lord and the church call them. The greater part of the people treated the matter with indifference. Saul modestly went home to his own house, but was attended by a band of men whose hearts God disposed to support his authority. If the heart bend at any time the right way, it is because He has touched it. One touch is enough when it is Divine. Others despised him. Thus differently are men affected to our exalted Redeemer. There is a remnant who submit to him, and follow him wherever he goes; they are those whose hearts God has touched, whom he has made willing. But there are others who despise him, who ask, How shall this man save us? They are offended in him, and they will be punished.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Among the stuff - Rather, "the baggage." The assembly was like a camp, and the baggage (impedimenta) of the whole congregation was probably collected in one place, where the wagons were arranged for protection.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17-25. Samuel called the people together … at Mizpeh—a shaft-like hill near Hebron, five hundred feet in height. The national assemblies of the Israelites were held there. A day having been appointed for the election of a king, Samuel, after having charged the people with a rejection of God's institution and a superseding of it by one of their own, proceeded to the nomination of the new monarch. As it was of the utmost importance that the appointment should be under the divine direction and control, the determination was made by the miraculous lot, tribes, families, and individuals being successively passed until Saul was found. His concealment of himself must have been the result either of innate modesty, or a sudden nervous excitement under the circumstances. When dragged into view, he was seen to possess all those corporeal advantages which a rude people desiderate in their sovereigns; and the exhibition of which gained for the prince the favorable opinion of Samuel also. In the midst of the national enthusiasm, however, the prophet's deep piety and genuine patriotism took care to explain "the manner of the kingdom," that is, the royal rights and privileges, together with the limitations to which they were to be subjected; and in order that the constitution might be ratified with all due solemnity, the charter of this constitutional monarchy was recorded and laid up "before the Lord," that is, deposited in the custody of the priests, along with the most sacred archives of the nation.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they ran and fetched him thence,.... Being in haste to see their king elect, and proclaim him:

and when he stood among the people; being brought among them, and presented to them:

he was higher than any of the people, from the shoulders, and upwards; which made him look very graceful and majestic; height of stature, and a comely form, as Kimchi observes, recommend to royal dignity; and make the people stand more in awe of a prince, and have always been reckoned among all other nations to make a prince venerable; see Gill on 1 Samuel 9:2.

Geneva Study Bible

And they ran and fetched him thence: and when he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 23, 24. - And when he stood. This rendering spoils the poetic force of the original, where the rapidity of their action is expressed by three preterites following hard upon one another. The Hebrew is, "And they ran, and took him thence, and he stood forth (see 1 Samuel 12:7) among the people, and he was taller," etc. And now Samuel presents him to the multitude as "the chosen of Jehovah," and the people shout their assent by saying, "Let the king live." For this the A.V. puts our English phrase, but the Hebrew exactly answers to the French Vive le roi! THE EVENTS WHICH FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY UPON SAUL'S ELECTION (vers. 25-27). 1 Samuel 10:23

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

He was speedily fetched, and brought into the midst of the (assembled) people; and when he came, he was a head taller than all the people (see 1 Samuel 9:2). And Samuel said to all the people, "Behold ye whom the Lord hath chosen! for there is none like him in all the nation." Then all the people shouted aloud, and cried, "Let the king live!" Saul's bodily stature won the favour of the people (see the remarks on 1 Samuel 9:2).

Samuel then communicated to the people the right of the monarchy, and laid it down before Jehovah. "The right of the monarchy" (meluchah) is not to be identified with the right of the king (melech), which is described in 1 Samuel 8:11 and sets forth the right or prerogative which a despotic king would assume over the people; but it is the right which regulated the attitude of the earthly monarchy in the theocracy, and determined the duties and rights of the human king in relation to Jehovah the divine King on the one hand, and to the nation on the other. This right could only be laid down by a prophet like Samuel, to raise a wholesome barrier at the very outset against all excesses on the part of the king. Samuel therefore wrote it in a document which was laid down before Jehovah, i.e., in the sanctuary of Jehovah; though certainly not in the sanctuary at Bamah in Gibeah, as Thenius supposes, for nothing is known respecting any such sanctuary. It was no doubt placed in the tabernacle, where the law of Moses was also deposited, by the side of the fundamental law of the divine state in Israel. When the business was all completed, Samuel sent the people away to their own home.