1 Kings 19:20
So Saul sent officers to take David: and when they saw a company of prophets prophesying, and Samuel presiding over them, the spirit of the Lord came also upon them, and they likewise began to prophesy.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Misit ergo Saul lictores, ut raperent David : qui cum vidissent cuneum prophetarum vaticinantium, et Samuelem stantem super eos, factus est etiam spiritus Domini in illis, et prophetare cœperunt etiam ipsi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἀπέστειλεν Σαοὺλ ἀγγέλους λαβεῖν τὸν Δαυείδ· καὶ εἶδαν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τῶν προφητῶν, καὶ Σαμουὴλ εἱστήκει καθεστηκὼς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν. καὶ ἐγενήθη ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους τοῦ Σαοὺλ πνεῦμα θεοῦ, καὶ προφητεύουσιν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח שָׁא֣וּל מַלְאָכִים֮ לָקַ֣חַת אֶת דָּוִד֒ וַיַּ֗רְא אֶֽת לַהֲקַ֤ת הַנְּבִיאִים֙ נִבְּאִ֔ים וּשְׁמוּאֵ֕ל עֹמֵ֥ד נִצָּ֖ב עֲלֵיהֶ֑ם וַתְּהִ֞י עַֽל מַלְאֲכֵ֤י שָׁאוּל֙ ר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים וַיִּֽתְנַבְּא֖וּ גַּם הֵֽמָּה
Haydock's commentary
Prophesying. That is, singing praises to God by a divine impulse. God was pleased on this occasion that both Saul's messengers and himself should experience the like impulse, that he might understand, by this instance of the divine power, how vain are the designs of man against him whom God protects. (Challoner)
The messengers did not return. (Menochius)
They were seized by the spirit only when they arrived at Najoth. But Saul felt the impression even at Socho, threw aside his garments, and began to act and to speak as one inspired. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory Nazianzen Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia
52. For he entered the Church attended by the whole of his train; it was the festival of the Epiphany, and the Church was crowded, and, by taking his place among the people, he made a profession of unity. The occurrence is not to be lightly passed over. Upon his entrance he was struck by the thundering roll of the Psalms, by the sea of heads of the congregation, and by the angelic rather than human order which pervaded the sanctuary and its precincts: while Basil presided over his people, standing erect, as the Scripture says of Samuel, with body and eyes and mind undisturbed, as if nothing new had happened, but fixed upon God and the sanctuary, as if, so to say, he had been a statue, while his ministers stood around him in fear and reverence. …