1 Samuel 19:24

24. He stripped off his clothes That is, his outer raiment; his royal and military vesture.

Lay down naked Not in a state of utter nudity, but divested of his upper garments, as just stated. Compare Isaiah 20:2; Micah 1:8; Mark 14:52; John 21:7.

All that day and all that night From ten to twenty hours. And when he recovered again his consciousness and self-possession he probably returned to his home at once, without any further attempt at that time to capture David. God thus indicated to Saul that in seeking to destroy David he was fighting against the divine Power a Power that holds the hearts of all men in subjection, and can turn them whithersoever he will. This remarkable scene served to revive the proverb that originated with a former somewhat similar occasion (1 Samuel 10:12) Is Saul also among the prophets?

The profoundly mysterious and interesting subject or the prophesying and catalepsy of Saul and his messengers is one of the physical and psychological problems connected with religion that has been the subject of extensive speculation. We regard this whole matter of Saul’s prophesying and falling down under the power of the Spirit as an ancient instance of substantially the same marvellous religious phenomena which the Christian Church has so often witnessed in modern times. The extensive religious revivals in the Western States fifty years ago were attended with hundreds of such phenomena, commonly called “the jerks.” In the great awakening in New England in Edwards’s day similar scenes were of frequent occurrence, and also in the British Isles during the ministry of Wesley, and earlier. They seem to have been always more or less common during seasons of great religions excitement, and to have a peculiar affinity for a certain class of minds. Persons, like Saul, of quick and powerful emotions, and given to sudden changes of feeling, have been the readiest subjects of this mysterious affection. But not only have pious and devoted persons, but wicked and blasphemous opposers of the truth, been seized upon by this strange influence. Some, in attempting to disturb religious meetings, and while yet, like Saul, beyond the bounds of the company of worshippers, and hastening on to intended acts of violence, have been seized by an unseen power, and held in subjection to it in spite of all their efforts to regain their self control. Some have remained in such a state for nearly a week at a time. See facts and references in Stevens’ History of Methodism, vol. ii, p. 425.

What the precise nature of Saul’s prophesying on this occasion was we are not informed. In one of the seasons of his madness, and when possessed by a demon, his prophesying seems to have been prompted by the evil spirit, and to have consisted of impassioned cries and incoherent ravings. See 1 Samuel 18:10, and note. But when he first prophesied at Gibeah, (1 Samuel 10:10,) his exercises, like those of the band of prophets whom he met, seem to have been the ecstatic utterance of prayer and praise to God. So, on this occasion, it was the Spirit of God that made him prophesy; and it is therefore probable that his utterances now, like the later ones recorded 1 Samuel 24:17-20; 1 Samuel 26:21; 1 Samuel 26:25, were confessions of his own sins, and predictions of David’s ultimate triumph.

We have space only to suggest that an explanation of these mysterious phenomena may be brought out in the scientific elaboration of the following propositions: All human beings have a common sympathetic nature, universally pervaded by a subtile and mysterious medium of influence, by means of which mind is brought in rapport with mind and heart with heart. This influence becomes intensely active in an assembly of persons where all hearts and minds are highly electrified by one common all-absorbing thought and state of feeling, and in such cases it may pass beyond the bounds of the assembly and make itself powerfully felt at a distance. It furnishes the psychical basis on which demoniacal possessions are possible, and also by which the Holy Spirit holds personal intercourse with man. By it these different external agencies will affect the different persons in different degrees of power, according to their different organism and temperament. But any attempt at a scientific explanation, which assumes all the phenomena to be merely physical, and not also psychical, must fail, as well as any explanation that denies that the Spirit of God may have often been exerted in their production; for this mysterious medium of influence seems to be the psychological basis both of divine and demoniacal possession.