1Then Samuel took the vial of oil and poured it on his head, then kissed him and said, “Hasn’t Yahweh anointed you to be prince over his inheritance? 2When you have departed from me today, then you will find two men by Rachel’s tomb, on the border of Benjamin at Zelzah. They will tell you, ‘The donkeys which you went to look for have been found; and behold, your father has stopped caring about the donkeys and is anxious for you, saying, “What shall I do for my son?”’
3“Then you will go on forward from there, and you will come to the oak of Tabor. Three men will meet you there going up to God to Bethel: one carrying three young goats, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a container of wine. 4They will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall receive from their hand.
5“After that you will come to the hill of God, where the garrison of the Philistines is; and it will happen, when you have come there to the city, that you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the high place with a lute, a tambourine, a pipe, and a harp before them; and they will be prophesying. 6Then Yahweh’s Spirit will come mightily on you, then you will prophesy with them and will be turned into another man. 7Let it be, when these signs have come to you, that you do what is appropriate for the occasion; for God is with you.
8“Go down ahead of me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings. Wait seven days, until I come to you and show you what you are to do.” 9It was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart; and all those signs happened that day. 10When they came there to the hill, behold, a band of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came mightily on him, and he prophesied among them. 11When all who knew him before saw that, behold, he prophesied with the prophets, then the people said to one another, “What is this that has come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”
12One from the same place answered, “Who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” 13When he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place.
14Saul’s uncle said to him and to his servant, “Where did you go?”
He said, “To seek the donkeys. When we saw that they were not found, we came to Samuel.”
15Saul’s uncle said, “Please tell me what Samuel said to you.”
16Saul said to his uncle, “He told us plainly that the donkeys were found.” But concerning the matter of the kingdom, of which Samuel spoke, he didn’t tell him.
17Samuel called the people together to Yahweh to Mizpah; 18and he said to the children of Israel, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, says ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ 19But you have today rejected your God, who himself saves you out of all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to him, ‘No! Set a king over us!’ Now therefore present yourselves before Yahweh by your tribes and by your thousands.”
20So Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was chosen. 21He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by their families and the family of the Matrites was chosen. Then Saul the son of Kish was chosen; but when they looked for him, he could not be found. 22Therefore they asked of Yahweh further, “Is there yet a man to come here?”
Yahweh answered, “Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”
23They ran and got him there. When he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward. 24Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom Yahweh has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people?”
All the people shouted and said, “Long live the king!”
25Then Samuel told the people the regulations of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book and laid it up before Yahweh. Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house. 26Saul also went to his house in Gibeah; and the army went with him, whose hearts God had touched. 27But certain worthless fellows said, “How could this man save us?” They despised him, and brought him no tribute. But he held his peace.
REWRITE FOR HVSB—THIS IS FROM ZHBA
Concerning the birth of Jesus, Luke says that Mary was forced to give birth to Jesus in a manger, “because there was no room for them in the inn.” Early Christian tradition placed this manger in a cave, (or grotto). In A. D. 135, after he established a military post at Bethlehem during the Bar Kokhbah Revolt, Hadrian is said to have planted trees around (or above) a grotto “in which Jesus was born,” and erected statues of Tammuz (Adonis). Scholars theorize this was an effort to thwart Christian use of the grotto. Justin Martyr, an early second-century native of Shechem (modern Nablus), wrote “But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village; and while they were there Mary brought forth the Christ and placed Him in a manger.” A little later (early third century) Origen wrote, “…in conformity with the narrative in the Gospel regarding His birth, there is shown at Bethlehem the cave where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling-clothes. And this sight is greatly talked of in surrounding places, even among the enemies of the faith, it being said that in this cave was born that Jesus who is worshipped and reverenced by the Christians.”
The modern Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is almost universally accepted as being built over this grotto. The current church, while having been greatly modified and expanded, is largely the church built by Justinian in the sixth-century, having avoided destruction during the Persian invasion unlike the majority of churches of that period. Excavations carried out inside the church confirm historical records of an octagonal Constantine-era basilica underneath the current church. Mosaics floors have been found, containing the well-known ΙΧΘΥΣ (IXTHUS) symbol, as well as columns inscribed with crosses by later Crusader-era pilgrims.
See also Manger
Bibliography. ASB 1668, “Cultural and Historical Notes: The Birthplace of Jesus”.Bagatti, Bellarmino, “Gli antichi sacri de Betlemme in seguito agli scavi e restauri praticati dalla Custodia di Terra Santi” in Publications of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Vol. 9, (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1952).Cornfield, Gaalyah, Archaeology of the Bible: Book by Book, David Noel Freedman, ed., (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 279-280.Finegan, Jack, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus and the Beginning of the Early Church, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 29-30.Gonzalo Baez-Camargo, Archaeological Commentary on the Bible, (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1984), 219. Gutman, S. and A. Berman, “Communication” Revue Biblique, 77, (1970), 583-585.Sharon, Moshe, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, Vol. 2 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999), 180.Against Celsus, 1.51, (ANF 4.418). Dialogue With Trypho, 78, (ANF 1.237).
[1]As opposed to the other Bethlehem, which is in Galilee. See Joshua 19:15.
[2]Jews continue to venerate the traditional site of Rachel’s tomb, near the entrance to the modern city. Although considered the third holiest site in Judaism, and has a very ancient tradition, the modern tomb is almost certainly not the original tomb of Rachel, since the current site is five miles south of the southern border of the territory of Benjamin, where Rachel’s tomb is said to have been (1 Sam 10:2).
[HAC1]Need Bible translation if other than NIV