Inquiry after truth is a necessary and invaluable exercise. But inquiry, when it is directed to matters in which we have no proper concern, degenerates into vain curiosity, or mere inquisitiveness. And this often appears both in relation to Divine affairs (Genesis 3:6; Deuteronomy 29:29; 1 Samuel 6:19; Luke 13:23; Acts 1:6)and human affairs (John 21:21). Of the latter we have here an illustration. Saul, having reached his home, was asked by his uncle concerning his journey and interview with Samuel. "Whither went ye?" "Tell me, I pray thee, what Samuel said to you." This man was doubtless acquainted with the popular agitation about a king, but what his precise motives were we are not told. Such inquisitiveness as he displayed -

I. MANIFESTS A WRONG DISPOSITION.

1. An unrestrained desire of knowledge. There must be self-restraint in this desire, as in every other; else it leads to recklessness, irreverence, and pride.

2. An unjust disregard of the rights of others. The claims of family relationship are sometimes exaggerated so as to ignore or interfere with those rights. It is imagined that they justify the expectation of an answer to any inquiry, however little it affects the inquirer.

3. Uncharitable and suspicious thoughts about the conduct of others, expressed in impertinent and annoying questions, which naturally cause resentment and discord. It may be added, that persons who are "busybodies in other men's matters" (1 Peter 4:15) are seldom so diligent and faithful in their own as they ought to be. The proper province of every man affords plenty of scope for his attention and effort (2 Thessalonians 3:11; 1 Timothy 5:13).

II. REQUIRES TO BE PROMPTLY CHECKED.

1. Out of due regard to higher claims. What Samuel said to Saul was intended for him alone, and to divulge it would be a breach of duty.

2. Lest the information given should be used to the disadvantage of him who gives it. Who knows how Saul's uncle would have employed the knowledge of his having been appointed king by the prophet? He might have done irreparable mischief. Many excellent projects have been frustrated by an untimely disclosure of them.

3. For the good of the inquirer himself. The gratification of his curiosity tends to increase his inquisitiveness, the mortification thereof to its cure. It was for the benefit of the Apostle Peter that the Lord said, "What is that to thee? Follow thou me."

III. SHOULD BE CHECKED IN A RIGHT MANNER. Judiciously, discreetly, and, more particularly -

1. With strict truthfulness. "He told us plainly that the asses were found" (ver. 16). Saul spoke the truth, but not the whole truth; nor was he in the circumstances described under any obligation to do so. "A fool uttereth all his mind; but a wise man keepeth it till afterwards" (Proverbs 29:11).

2. With due courtesy. By a blunt refusal and rude repulsion Saul might have alienated his uncle, and turned him into an enemy. "Honour all men." "Be courteous."

3. With few words or resolute silence. "But of the matter of the kingdom whereof Samuel spake he told him not." There is a "time to keep silence" (Ecclesiastes 3:7; Amos 5:13). "Then he (Herod) questioned him with many words; but he answered him nothing" (Luke 23:9). Our Lord himself is thus an example of silence to us when addressed with questions which it would not be prudent or beneficial to answer. "Silence is golden." Conclusion. -

1. Check the tendency to curiosity in yourselves, so that it may not be checked, disappointed, and reproved by others.

2. In checking it in others seek their improvement rather than your own dignity and honour. - D.

So they said in the wild irregular season of his obscure youth, before his accession to the throne, when the Spirit of the Lord, that bloweth where it listeth, suddenly arrested the young Saul, in the midst of his dissolute companions; they repeated their scornful outcry in after years, as recorded in 1 Samuel 19:24, when the spirit of repentance again seized the royal backslider, and brought him stripped and abased to the earth before Samuel at Naloth. The saying rightly interpreted may suggest some useful practical instruction.

I. WHAT IS MEANT BY BEING "AMONG THE PROPHETS?" By "the company of prophets" in verse 5, or "a company of scribes," says the Targum, are meant the scholars of the prophets, who were at that period the only accredited teachers of religion. Mr. Harmer thinks the following custom among the Mohammedans illustrates this passage: "When the children have gone through the Koran their relations borrow a fine house and furniture and carry them about the town in procession, with the book in their hand, the rest of their companions following, and all sorts of music of the country going before." Eastern customs have little varied; they seem to abide immutable, and identical, as their sunny climes, and very probably, the procession of the school of the prophets in the context was on a similar occasion." "Is Saul also among the prophets?" — that is, is he turned psalm singer and a supplicant? Is the rough, riotous herdsman of Benjamin become a companion of prophets and an utterer of the solemn things of God? Are we to have no more merry songs together, nor the light dance and jocund festival? Saul, our old fellow reveller, become quaint and grim as a Levite? "What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?" That this is the general meaning of prophesying in this place; see also the sense in which the word is used in reference to the priests of Baal, 1 Kings 18:29: "And it came to pass, when midday was put, and they prophesied until the time of the evening sacrifice" — they prophesied, that is, were importunate in prayer to their God. Thus the phrase, "Saul among the prophets," is equivalent to what the angels, in a holier and more charitable spirit, said of the Saul of Tarsus, when the Lord changed his heart, brought him to his knees, and they described his conversion to the truth by the terms, "Behold he prayeth." A similar astonishment seized them who had known the apostle for a blasphemer and persecutor, and when they heard that he preached the faith which he once destroyed they too might have said, "Is Saul also amongst the prophets," that is, among the praying people, the people of God? There was in Saul, at different times, the development of a different man, according as "the law in his members," or "the law in his mind," obtained the mastery. Saul "did run well, but suffered something to hinder him." He began his reign in the Spirit, he ended it in the flesh. As a king he was weighed in the balances and found wanting; as a man, Mercy might have interposed and turned the scale. It is no unwarrantable stretch of Scriptural charity to imagine it possible that other tongues than those of living men might have talked of the departed Saul, as again "among the prophets." I am not ashamed to think so of the man, whom the, inspired psalmist eulogised in his sepulchre. Only if it were so, his story illustrates the apostle's case of those "who are saved with difficulty pulling them out of the fire."

II. TO THE PENITENT SINNER AND RETURNING BACKSLIDER.

1. To the penitent sinner. Imagine his repentance genuine. The difference is so marked that his old companions scarcely recognise their former hail fellow, and insinuate at once a charge of hypocrisy and a sneer of contempt, whether or no in the scornful cry, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" "Is so-and-so among the saints?" "Have they caught him with their psalm singing?" or, "Is he playing upon them with his guile?" The penitent hears this; it is meant he should hear it, they take care of that; and his first feeling is, "This is a penalty for my former association with them; 'Be sure your sin will find you out;' it has found me out, even since I left it." "The way of transgressors is hard," even after they abandon it. It is but natural that Satan should grumble at the loss of a servant, and his children only echo their father's sentiment. "They think it strange (and so it is) that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." But you meet these people day after day. If you are a workman, you meet them at your work; if one of a higher class of the community, you meet them in business or society; and they repeat their scornful insinuations. They don't and they won't believe you to be sincere, for they are strangers to what has taken place within you, distinctly enough to your convictions, but a mystery to them. They hate you, as Ahab hated Micaiah, because the sacred contrast of your life, always, however, unconsciously, prophesies evil things concerning them, and they would visit, as the world always did, their anger at the prediction on the head of the prophet, and you will be called upon to bear many a heavy version of the contemptuous proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?"

2. But, further, let us suppose you have failed in maintaining your ground; that you did run well, but suffered something to hinder you; that you had followed your Saviour, like the youthful John, up to the very moment of His seizure for the crucifixion, but there your heart failed you, and like him you turned and "fled away naked," leaving behind you all your better convictions and determinations. You have done this, and you have since lived a backslider; and may we ask, "Is it well with thee?" Are you happy in your apostasy?

(J. B. Owen, M. A.)