1 Samuel 9:3 Commentary and Bible Study

Saul’s father, powerful as he was, had lost some donkeys. How many, we don't know, maybe a considerable number. Perhaps they had been stolen; someone had made off with them. So Saul is sent off to locate them. He was to make enquiries and look for them. If any line of enquiry was successful, then his powerful father could take other effective steps to get them rounded up. He thought they couldn't be far from his extensive farmland. He was a rich man. There's a lot about these lost asses, she asses, female donkeys, jennies. They must have been rather special ones for this rich man, Saul's father, to be so anxious about them. It ha's been suggested, and it is plausible, that they were breeding asses, splendid specimens that were set aside in order to breed. Of course, the horse at this point and throughout Israel's history was actually against the law a prohibited animal, though that law was greatly abused as time went on, even by kings. So at this stage asses or donkeys were very important. But why are we reading about these asses? How wonderful the Old Testament narratives are! When the subject switches and turns a corner, there is great significance. We have been introduced to Saul, the tallest man in the kingdom, and immediately we are reading about lost asses. Then begins the narrative of how the young Saul was sent to search for the asses, the man who is about to be anointed as king. The significance is this: Saul and his father are so far from being pious people, and worshipping people, and godly people, that the only way they could be brought to Ramah, the place of the house of God, the place of worship, was by an event involving lost asses, otherwise Saul would never have been found there. He had never been there before; they were not a worshipping family. That is why the narrative suddenly switches to this strange story of the lost asses. ‘He passed through mount Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalisha, but they found them not’, then the land of Shalim. They are in fact heading towards the house of God in Ramah, which was only about five miles away, but they take a very roundabout route, presumably because it was the likely way that lost asses would have gone. So they must have covered quite a bit more than four or five miles. And they went right ‘through the land of the Benjamites, but they found them not.’But by verse 5 you find that Saul is ready to give up. ‘And when they were come to the land of Zuph,’ – which is very near to Ramah, it turns out – ‘Saul said to his servant that was with him, Come, and let us return; lest my father leave caring for the asses, and take thought for usAnd when they were come to the land of Zuff’ – when you read ‘the land of Zuff’ it's just the region very near to Ramah; it’s not another country; these are just areas within Benjamin – ‘Saul said to his servant that was with him, Come, and let us return, lest my father leave caring for the asses and take thought for us.’ My dad is worrying about me by now. Yes, they had been here and there; they had covered some ground, but the servant seems to have more strength in him to pursue the search. It seems that Saul, for all his strength and his stature and his handsome appearance, must have been a rather spoilt individual: ‘Oh my father will be worried about me; I must get back’, or maybe this was an excuse for stopping the search. He was not a youth anymore; he must have been at least forty. That is young enough to be described as young in the Hebrew narrative, but we soon discover his son Jonathan has come to maturity. So he is not a youth.