1 Samuel 10:3

3. The plain of Tabor Rather, the oak of Tabor, a spot apparently well known to Saul and Samuel, but now lost from our knowledge. Thenius’s conjecture that the oak of Deborah (Genesis 35:8) is meant cannot be correct, for that was at Beth-el, far to the north of Saul’s home.

Three men going up to God to Beth-el That is, going up to worship and sacrifice unto God at Beth-el. This “shows that there was still a place of sacrifice consecrated to the Lord at Beth-el, where Abraham and Jacob had erected altars to the Lord, who had appeared to them there, (Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:3-4; Genesis 28:18-19; Genesis 35:7;) for the kids and loaves and wine were sacrificial gifts which they were about to offer.” Keil. Beth-el was one of the places regularly visited by Samuel in his yearly circuit, (1 Samuel 7:16,) and here were doubtless priests, and at this time, when the tabernacle was desolate, (see note on 1 Samuel 9:12,) these three devoted men knew no more appropriate place to sacrifice unto God. Perhaps, too, the tabernacle was at Beth-el at this time, for after the desolation of Shiloh it seems to have become again a movable sanctuary, and appears in later history at Nob and Gibeon. 1 Samuel 21:1-6; 1 Chronicles 16:39; comp. Judges 20:27.