(13)
He came to the high place.--After he had spent his fervour in the hymn, and probably ecstatic prayer, Saul, before he went to his home, we read, betook himself at once to the high place of Gibeah, whence the sons of the prophets had just come down when he met them on the hill-side. He went there, no doubt, because, conscious of the change that had passed over him, and aware of his new powers, he felt a desire for solitary communing in the quiet of a holy sanctuary with God, who had come so near him.
Verse 13. -
He came to the high place. Saul had met the prophets coming down from the Bamah; but the same religious fervor, which had made him take so earnest a part in the prophesyings of the young men, urged him now, after parting from their company, himself to go up to the high place, there to offer his prayers and praises to God.
10:9-16 The signs Samuel had given Saul, came to pass punctually; he found that God had given him another heart, another disposition of mind. Yet let not an outward show of devotion, and a sudden change for the present, be too much relied on; Saul among the prophets was Saul still. His being anointed was kept private. He leaves it to God to carry on his own work by Samuel, and sits still, to see how the matter will fall.
And when he had made an end of prophesying,.... For, as Procopius Gazaeus observes, he had not the gift of prophecy always; it did not continue with him, but, like that of the seventy elders in the times of Moses, it was designed to make him respectable among the people, and to be taken notice of as a person that God had honoured with a peculiar gift, that so, when he should be chosen king, they would the more readily receive him:
he came to the high place; to return thanks to God for the gift bestowed on him, and for that high honour and dignity he was raised unto, of which he had private knowledge; and to pray God to fit him more and more for government, and to, assist him in it, and help him to discharge his office in a wise and faithful manner.