Saul's hunt for lost donkeys

Bible map of Saul hunting his lost donkeys, for The Casual English Bible

The good donkey herder Saul goes looking for his lost donkeys

1 SAMUEL 9

SAUL HUNTS DONKEY, FINDS PROPHET

Saul's dad, Kish, was a rich donkey herder living in the tiniest tribe of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, just north of what is now Jerusalem. Then the town was called Jebus. Saul was "a good man...the best-looking man in Israel, and a head taller than the rest" (1 Samuel 9:2).

Kish had some donkeys that strayed one day. So he told Saul, “Take a servant with you and round up the strays.”

They searched up and down Ephraim’s hills, and in the territories of Shalishah and Shaalim, and all over Benjamin’s tribal land. No luck. By the time they reached the territory of Zuph, Saul told the young man traveling with him, “We’d better get home. Before long, my dad’s going to start worrying about us instead of the donkeys.” But the young man said, “Before we go home, there’s a man in the nearby town you might want to see. He serves God. People respect him. Whenever he says something will happen, it happens. Let’s go see him. Maybe he’ll help us finish what we started.”

That man was the prophet Samuel. And he was looking for the man God has selected to become the first king of Israel. Saul was that man.

Saul never found the lost donkeys. They got home some other way. By the time Saul got home, he had become the king of Israel...a job he didn't seem to want.

Saul's hunt for lost donkeys