The Arcanum of the Monarchy | 167means: he must be a nabi the transforming hour long.”^60 Buber agrees with schol-
ars who see the religious agitation of the nevi’im as having a patriotic, political
dimension; their singing and proclaiming announce the war of liberation. Saul’s
prophesying is witnessed by his fellow Gibeans, who ask each other: “What is this
that is come upon the son of Kish? Is Saul too among the prophets?” They receive
the enigmatic response: “And who is their father?” Buber reads this as a narra-
tive in which the provincial, sedentary, conservative villagers, who know Kish
well as a respectable local pillar of the community, express shock at the sight of
Kish’s son engaged in such “raging, incendiary behavior.”^61 Another villager, who
knows a little more about the nevi’im, answers that one cannot consider the ac-
tions of these men according to their family lineage; entry into the society binds
the group together by severing one from one’s earthly father.^62
When Saul’s uncle (previously unknown to the story) asks him what hap-
pened when he met Samuel, Saul refrains from telling him about the kingship.
This is the first appearance of the concept melukhah in the story, and it appears
as a secret kept, as something not enunciated aloud. The conspiracy cannot be re-
vealed until the proper moment. From this point, however, the idea of the nagid,
that justified the election of Saul for Samuel, is phased out; an academic notion is
being replaced by a folk-popular concept. In the brief conversation between Saul
and his uncle, the Leitwort sound of nagid reappears: haggida, hagged, higgid,
higgid—“the final fading away of a Leitwort dear to [our narrator] from the cen-
tral chapter of his history,” before the story moves to the sphere of the people.^63
Saul sinks into the collective of nevi’im and then emerges from it, ready to
set the liberation plan in motion. Samuel has told Saul that after the third sign he
would be empowered to “do as your hand shall find, for God is with you” (10:7).^64
Buber sees this as a reference to charismatic power and comments on the extent
and limits of such power: “Now do for every situation what the situation claims
and vouchsafes, since you are empowered to be charismatic. That is the practi-
cal implication of v. 6b: ‘there you are transformed into another man.’ Who-
ever receives the ruach needs to consult within his commission for his decisions,
not any oracle. He is free within his commission.”^65 However, freedom within a
commission means the ability to choose the appropriate means to accomplish a
particular task, as the Judges were: “The man gripped by the ruach is specifically
empowered and specifically authorized.”^66
What needs to be achieved here is a levy. Samuel calls a gathering at Mizpa
and proclaims that YHVH has chosen a king, and he reads the new mishpat ha-
melukha, publicly acclaiming Saul. At 10:24, all the people shout “long live the
king,” but Buber notes that the people are in fact split into three groups: two
extreme wings and a passive mass in the middle. At one extreme is an elite of
fighters, “whose hearts YHVH had touched” (10:26); these Saul recruits to mount
a surprise attack on Ammon. At the other extreme are the bene beli’al, the “base
fellows,” who grumble and doubt Saul’s ability to achieve the liberation; these