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Catholic Commentary
Saul's Discreet Silence About the Kingdom
14Saul’s uncle said to him and to his servant, “Where did you go?”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.
In 1 Samuel 10:14–16, Saul's uncle questions him about his meeting with the prophet Samuel, but Saul truthfully reports only that Samuel found his lost donkeys while concealing Samuel's revelation that God has chosen him to rule Israel. Saul's selective disclosure creates narrative tension between his divine election and his calculated silence about his calling.
Saul's silence about his anointing is not humility—it is the first tremor of the spiritual cowardice that will later destroy him.
There is also a moral ambiguity here that Catholic tradition does not rush to dissolve. Is Saul's silence virtuous humility — an awareness that the time for the kingdom has not yet come publicly? Or is it the first tremor of the self-protective instinct that will later unravel him? The text does not editorialize. Saul is here at his most fully human: elected, overwhelmed, and quiet.
Catholic tradition brings several distinct lenses to this passage.
On silence and vocation: St. John of the Cross teaches that a soul newly touched by divine grace is typically led into a kind of hiddenness — what he calls the "dark night" — where the gift is protected from premature exposure (Ascent of Mount Carmel, I.11). Saul's silence, read charitably, participates in this logic: the anointing is too new, too fragile, too enormous to be handed over to social curiosity. The Catechism reminds us that "the vocation of each person is not an isolated act of God but is woven into the providential plan for the whole community" (cf. CCC §1877–1879), and vocations unfold in God's timing, not ours.
On the nature of kingship as divine gift: The Church Fathers read Israel's kingship typologically. St. Augustine (City of God, XVII.6) notes that Samuel's anointing of Saul inaugurates a new kind of sacred office — one that foreshadows Christ the Anointed One (Christos, "the Anointed") even through Saul's failures. The davar hammelûkhâh that Saul suppresses is thus, in its deepest register, a word about the Kingdom of God that ultimately cannot be permanently silenced.
On truthful speech and prudent discretion: The Catholic moral tradition, following Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q.110), distinguishes lying from legitimate prudential reserve. Saul does not lie; he answers selectively. Prudence (prudentia) — the first of the cardinal virtues in its practical ordering — sometimes requires withholding truth from those not yet prepared or authorized to receive it. This is not deception; it is the right ordering of disclosure. However, the very ambiguity of Saul's motive — prudence or self-protection? — invites the reader to examine their own interior dispositions when they withhold the things of God from others.
Contemporary Catholics often receive a sense of calling — to a vocation, a ministry, a conversion, a particular act of charity — and face exactly Saul's dilemma: when to speak and when to hold back. Family dinners have a way of asking the exact questions that touch our most sacred interior movements. "What did that retreat do for you, really?" is the modern uncle at the door.
Saul's silence invites a concrete examination of conscience: Am I silent about my faith and calling out of genuine prudence — protecting a fragile seed before it has taken root — or out of fear of ridicule, conflict, or the cost of commitment? There is a form of spiritual cowardice that dresses itself as humility. St. Paul ultimately had to learn the opposite lesson from Saul: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel" (Rom 1:16).
Practically, a Catholic today might ask: Is there a davar — a word, a call, a grace — that I am hiding not because the moment is wrong, but because disclosure would make it real and binding? Saul's silence in this moment is understandable; his silence about his calling will later become a pattern that corrodes him. The invitation is to bring our callings — however quietly, however gradually — into the light of community, spiritual direction, and prayer.
Commentary
Verse 14 — The uncle's inquiry: The unnamed uncle (later identified in 1 Chr 9:36 as Ner, father of Abner) greets Saul and his servant upon their return and poses what appears to be an innocent domestic question: "Where did you go?" The question functions as a narrative hinge. The reader already knows — from 1 Sam 9–10 — that Saul has been anointed with oil, filled with the Spirit, and told that the LORD has chosen him to rule over Israel. The uncle knows none of this. The gap between what the reader holds and what the uncle suspects creates a quietly dramatic tension. His question is ordinary; the answer that could be given is extraordinary.
Verse 15 — Pressing for details: The uncle is not satisfied with a simple geographical answer and presses further: "Please tell me what Samuel said to you." This escalation is significant. He already knew or had heard that Saul had encountered Samuel — the question targets the prophetic content of the meeting, not just the itinerary. The particle of entreaty (nā', "please") suggests a genuine curiosity rather than suspicion. He is not interrogating Saul; he is reaching toward him. This makes Saul's subsequent withholding all the more poignant.
Verse 16 — The strategic silence: Saul's reply is technically truthful but structurally evasive: "He told us plainly that the donkeys were found." The Hebrew hîggîd higgîd (literally, "he told, he told" — an emphatic infinitive absolute) ironically overstates Saul's openness about the minor matter precisely to close off inquiry into the major one. The narrator then steps in with a line of unusual directness: "But concerning the matter of the kingdom, of which Samuel spoke, he didn't tell him." The Hebrew ûdevar hammelûkhâh ("the matter/word of the kingdom") is a weighty phrase — davar in the Hebrew Bible carries connotations of not just "matter" but "word," "event," and even "oracle." Saul is suppressing a davar from the LORD.
Typological and spiritual senses: The literal sense is clear: a newly anointed man hides his calling from his family. But the spiritual and typological senses open further dimensions. The hiddenness of Saul's anointing anticipates the pattern of concealed divine election found across Scripture: Joseph does not immediately disclose his dreams to his brothers after they have already turned against him (Gen 37); David's anointing at Bethlehem is a private household affair (1 Sam 16); and supremely, the Messiah's identity is marked by a paradoxical concealment — the so-called "Messianic secret" of the Synoptic Gospels, in which Jesus repeatedly instructs those he heals not to publicize his identity (Mk 1:44; 7:36; 8:30). The kingdom of God does not announce itself with political fanfare; it advances in hiddenness, in mustard-seed fashion (Mt 13:31–32).