When Saul proposed to return home from the land of Zuph, his servant said to him, "Behold, in this city ('this,' referring to the town which stood in front of them upon a hill) is a man of God, much honoured; all that he saith cometh surely to pass: now we will go thither; perhaps he will tell us our way that we have to go" (lit. have gone, and still go, sc., to attain the object of our journey, viz., to find the asses). The name of this town is not mentioned either here or in the further course of this history. Nearly all the commentators suppose it to have been Ramah, Samuel's home. But this assumption has no foundation at all in the text, and is irreconcilable with the statements respecting the return in 1 Samuel 10:2-5. The servant did not say there dwells in this city, but there is in this city (1 Samuel 9:6; comp. with this 1 Samuel 9:10, "They went into the city where the man of God was," not "dwelt"). It is still more evident, from the answer given by the drawers of water, when Saul asked them, "Is the seer here?" (1 Samuel 9:11), - viz., "He came to-day to the city, for the people have a great sacrifice upon the high place" (1 Samuel 9:12), - that the seer (Samuel) did not live in the town, but had only come thither to a sacrificial festival. Moreover, "every impartial man will admit, that the fact of Samuel's having honoured Saul as his guest at the sacrificial meal of those who participated in the sacrifice, and of their having slept under the same roof, cannot possibly weaken the impression that Samuel was only there in his peculiar and official capacity. It could not be otherwise than that the presidency should be assigned to him at the feast itself as priest and prophet, and therefore that the appointments mentioned should proceed from him. And it is but natural to assume that he had a house at his command for any repetition of such sacrifices, which we find from 2 Kings 4 to have been the case in the history of Elisha" (Valentiner). And lastly, the sacrificial festival itself does not point to Ramah; for although Samuel had built an altar to the Lord at Ramah (1 Samuel 7:17), this was by no means the only place of sacrifice in the nation. If Samuel offered sacrifice at Mizpeh and Gilgal (1 Samuel 7:9; 1 Samuel 10:8; 1 Samuel 13:8.), he could also do the same at other places. What the town really was in which Saul met with him, cannot indeed be determined, since all that we can gather from 1 Samuel 10:2, is, that it was situated on the south-west of Bethlehem.

1 Samuel 9:12 Parallel Commentaries

sacrifice. or, feast

1 Samuel 16:2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the LORD said, Take an heifer with you, and say...

Genesis 31:54 Then Jacob offered sacrifice on the mount, and called his brothers to eat bread: and they did eat bread...

Deuteronomy 12:6,7 And thither you shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows...

1 Corinthians 5:7,8 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened...

the high place

1 Kings 3:2-4 Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built to the name of the LORD, until those days...

1 Chronicles 16:39 And Zadok the priest, and his brothers the priests, before the tabernacle of the LORD in the high place that was at Gibeon,