He told him not. — It has been suggested ingeniously that this reply was prompted by the characteristic Israelite caution — the fear of betraying prematurely an important secret. It is, however, far better to assume that Samuel had given the young Saul to understand that the revelation respecting his future, and the great state change involved in it, was, in the first instance, for him alone; no other man was as yet to share that great secret with him. In His own good time God would signify His sovereign will and pleasure to Israel; till then, Saul was strictly to keep his own counsel in this important matter. To have imparted the secret to any one would have at once opened the door to secret intrigues and party plotting; one like Abner, especially, would not have been slow in devising schemes to compass so great an end as the placing the crown of Israel on the head of one of his own family.
The modesty and humility, as well as the wisdom, of Saul in these early days of his greatness is remarkable. The “changed heart” was indeed an acknowledged fact with him. Wordsworth quotes here how, “in like manner, Samson, in the early days of his humility, told not his parents of the lion. (See Judges 14:6.) So Saul of Tarsus spake not of his visions and revelations of the Lord till he was constrained to do so by his enemies.” (See 2 Corinthians 12:1.)