“Is Saul also among the prophets?”
1 Samuel 10:12
IdiomSettledNarrator
Then a man who lived there replied, 'And who is their father?' So the saying became a proverb: 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' (1 Samuel 10:12 BSB)
* A proverb of surprise at someone acting wildly out of character; Saul, the tall farmer's son, is swept up prophesying in ecstasy, and onlookers coin a saying for the incongruity.
What it sounds like today
A random question that somehow became a proverb.
The cultural key
Newly anointed, Saul meets a band of prophets and is swept into their music-driven ecstatic prophesying, an unexpected sight for a farmer's son from a minor clan. The onlookers' astonishment hardens into a proverb for anyone turning up somewhere they seem not to belong, doing what is wildly out of character. The saying returns later in a darker key (19:24), when Saul, now God's enemy, prophesies again and lies stripped on the ground all day, the same proverb now marking his humiliation rather than his elevation.
Recovered meaning
The crowd's shock at Saul among the ecstatics became a byword for someone acting utterly out of character. It bookends his rise and fall: a wonder at the start, a mockery at the end.
Parallels: 1 Samuel 19:24; 1 Samuel 10:6