1 Samuel 9 Commentary.
Chapter 8 closed with one action item on Samuel’s agenda. He needed to find a king for the nation of Israel.
Chapter 9 introduces us to Kish’s son, Saul. He is looking for his father’s lost donkeys.
How the mission to find the missing donkeys becomes the mission to find Israel’s first king is very interesting. Characters in this chapter make ordinary and logical decisions. This is what they always do. Nothing is out of the ordinary. But we know the LORD is at work. He, and not Samuel, is looking for Israel’s first King.
The LORD pulls the strings. Samuel is given information here and there. But Saul is completely blank. You want to come back to this chapter again, as it gives us important pointers on how the LORD interacts with humanity.
The LORD interacts with Samuel, and the prophet is fully aware of it. The LORD interacts with Saul, but he is completely unconscious of the happenings around him.
“About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin.” We can focus on the “sending”. There is neither an air ticket nor an invitation letter. The meeting is unscheduled and the venue undefined.
Should you blame the participants for not showing up under these circumstances? Yet, on the LORD’s calendar, this appointment is cast in steel and concrete. The date is known. The venue is known. The participants are known. It is a must-happen situation!
The LORD may work in our lives in ways that appear random, unplanned, and completely ordinary. Yet, this may be the very path that the LORD has ordained. Angels pull the strings in the background. When donkeys are lost, probably the LORD has something planned for you!
It is probably the purpose of this scripture that the saint becomes suspicious of everything around them.
How do you know if your letter of dismissal is actually an appointment letter for something much greater and better? How do you know your visit to the temple is in fulfillment of the scheduled meeting?
At a local church, the members noticed that the church building was shaking whenever they filled it on a Sunday morning. So they called in the civil engineer to observe the shaking and recommend structural adjustments to the building. In the process of investigating the structure, he heard the gospel and made a decision for Jesus. The building never shook again!
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