Samuel said unto the cook, Bring the portion, &c.— The author of the Observations remarks, that the shoulder of a lamb is thought in the East a great delicacy. "Abdolmelick the caliph," says he, "upon his entering into Cufah, made a splendid entertainment. When he was set down, Amron the son of Hareth, an ancient Mechzumian, came in: he called to him, and placing him by him upon his sofa, asked him, what meat he liked best of all that ever he had eaten; the old Mechzumian answered, 'An ass's neck well seasoned and roasted.'—'You do nothing,' says Abdolmelick; 'what say you to a leg or a shoulder of a sucking lamb, well roasted, and covered over with butter and milk?' The history adds, that while he was at supper, he said, 'How sweetly we should live if a shadow would last!' This prince then thought the shoulder of a sucking lamb one of the most exquisite of dishes: and what he says explains Samuel's ordering it to be reserved for the future king of Israel, as well as what that was which was upon it, the butter and the milk; which circumstance the sacred historian distinctly mentions, and which an European reader is apt to wonder what it should mean, but which added so much to the delicacy of the meat, that an eastern prince, as well as an eastern author, was led distinctly to mention it." See Observations, p. 173. Josephus calls the shoulder, the royal portion.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 9:23
1 Samuel 9:23-24
23 And Samuel said unto the cook, Bring the portion which I gave thee, of which I said unto thee, Set it by thee.
24 And the cook took up the shoulder, and that which was upon it, and set it before Saul. And Samuel said, Behold that which is left! set it before thee, and eat: for unto this time hath it been kept for thee since I said, I have invited the people. So Saul did eat with Samuel that day.