That chap. xi. is now an integral part of this version of the history is clear from xii. 12, and also from xi. 12-14. But it was not originally designed for this connection. For we hear nothing of the warriors who according to x. 26 were in company with Saul; it is not on his account that the messengers of Jabesh came to Gibeah. When the supposed king comes home from ploughing, nothing is done to indicate that the news concerns him specially: no one tells him what has happened, he has to ask the reason of the general weeping. He summons the levy of Israel not in virtue of his office as king, but in the authority of the Spirit, and it is owing to the Spirit acting on the people that he is obeyed. Only after he has showed his power and defeated the Ammonites do the people make him king (xi. 15); the "renewal" of the kingdom (xi. 14), after a month's interval, is a transparent artifice of the author of viii. 10, 1) seq. to incorporate in his own narrative the piece which he had borrowed from some other quarter: the verses xi. 12-14 are due to him. Chapter xi. stood originally in connection with the other narrative of the elevation of Saul (ix. 1-X. 16). Hero Saul first appears engaged in searching for strayed she-asses. After a vain search of several days he arrives in the neighbourhood of Ramah, and at the suggestion of his servant applies for information as to the asses to a seer there, to Samuel. His approach has been announced to the seer by Jehovah the day before: "To-morrow I will send to thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be ruler over My people Israel; he shall save them from the Philistines." He was accordingly expecting him, and had instituted a sacrificial feast on the bamah for him even before he arrived. At this moment Samuel has gone down to the town between the sacrificial act and the meal which followed it, and just as he is going back to his guests he meets in the gate Saul, who is asking for him, and at a whisper from Jehovah he recognises in him his man. He takes him up with him to the bamah, reassures him about the asses, and then at once tells him to what high things he is called, and gives him convincing proofs that he had reckoned on his presence at the feast as the guest of the occasion. He then gives him lodgings for the night, and accompanies him on his way next morning. The servant is sent on a little way before, Samuel stands still and anoints Saul, for a sign that he is chosen by Jehovah to be the king and deliverer of Israel, and in conclusion instructs him that, when the opportunity for action comes, he is to use it, in the consciousness that God is with him. On his way home three signs come to pass which the seer had announced to him. He is thus assured that all that was said to him was true; his heart is changed by degrees till he cannot contain himself; on his arrival at Gibeah his acquaintances are struck with his strange demeanour, but he does not disclose