And this
requirement is abundantly satisfied if chap. xi. is regarded as
immediately continuing the story from x. 16. After about a
month, the opportunity presents itself for Saul to act, which
Samuel had bidden him to look for. While others are weeping at
the disgrace which threatens an Israelite town at the hands of
the Ammonites, he is filled with the Spirit and with rage,
the arrow is still in his heart from that conversation, and he
now does "what his hand finds to do." The result is a great
success; the word of the seer finds its fulfilment in the most
natural way in the world.
If chap. xi. belongs originally to the narrative of ix. 1.-x. 16,
it follows at once that the other sections are dependent and
later. But what is the inner relation of the one version to the
other? They coincide in their ideas here and there. In the one
story Saul seeks the asses and finds the crown, in the other he
hides himself among the stuff and is drawn forth king. In the one
he is called by the seer, in the other he is chosen by lot--the
divine causality operative in both cases. But how the idea is
exaggerated at the later stage, and how nakedly it is put forward!
And if there is this similarity of view, yet the deviation of the
secondary version from the original is much more striking than
the resemblance.
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