self-possessed spectators of the bacchantic company, till he falls down; and he lies naked as he is a whole day and a whole night upon the ground—­whence the proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” But that David when he fled, fled in earnest and went in the direction of Judah, instead of amusing himself by going first towards the north, is perfectly evident, as much so as that it is a serious abuse of the spirit of prophecy to make it serve ends which are foreign to its nature, and turn it into a mere instrument for the personal safety of David, who had no need whatever to wait for Saul at Ramah to play him a trick there.  The narrative, which is unknown to the author of xv. 35, arose out of the proverb which is quoted in it, but this receives elsewhere (x. 12) a much more worthy interpretation.  We can scarcely avoid the suspicion that what we have before us here is a pious caricature; the point can be nothing but Samuel’s and David’s enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king.  For the general history of the tradition the most interesting circumstance is that Samuel has here become the head of a school of prophets and the leader of their exercises.  In the original view of the matter (chaps. ix. x.) he appears alone and independent, and has nothing to do with the companies of the ecstatics, the Nebiim.  He is a Roeh or seer, not a Nabi or prophet.  True, it is asserted in the gloss, ix. 9, that the two words mean the same thing, that what is now called Nabi was formerly called Roeh.  But that is scarcely quite correct.  The author of ix. x. knows the name Nabi very well too, but he never applies it to Samuel; he only uses it, in the plural, of the troops of Jehovah—­intoxicated dervishes.  He gives it quite a different meaning from Roeh, and also quite a different meaning from that in which Isaiah and Jeremiah use the word Nabi. 1

***************************************** 1 As the words are used in 1Samuel i.Y., Isaiah and Jeremiah would rather be called Roeh; and this is the justification of the gloss, ix. 9. *************************************** We cannot doubt that these distinctions rest on a historical basis, and only gradually melted away in later times:  so that Samuel the seer need not be degraded into one of the flagellants.

David’s flight to Samuel presupposes some previous relation to him, and xix. 18 seq. seems to point back to xvi. 1-13.  In this piece David’s career begins with his being anointed king in Saul’s place at Jehovah’s command, when a mere shepherd boy, who was not even counted in the family he belonged to.  But in the sequel no one knows anything about this.  Even in the story of Goliath (which in other respects harmonizes better with xvi. 1-13 than any other piece) the older brothers, here three, not seven, know nothing of the anointing of the youngest, although they were present and heard their own claims discussed (xvii. 28).  In the stories of David’s