Bible Strands
1 Samuel 9:12
“Yes, he is ahead of you,” they answered. “Hurry now, for today he has come to the city because the people have a sacrifice on the high place.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The young women climbing the hill to the city answer Saul and his servant, directing them to hurry to the city because the seer has arrived for a communal sacrifice.
The words — The text employs מַהֵ֣ר (ma.Her) meaning "hurry" and עַתָּ֗ה ('a.Tah) meaning "now," which together compress the timeline and stress immediate movement. These terms frame the women’s urgent directive to locate the seer before the ritual meal begins.
The thread — This urgency around prophetic presence and sacrificial meals echoes Jacob’s mountain sacrifice in Genesis 31:54 and Samuel’s later fear of Saul regarding a sacrificial heifer in 1 Samuel 16:2. The pattern links divine guidance with communal ritual observance.
Why it lands — The verse requires a reader to recognize that divine encounters are timed within communal religious obligations. It demands immediate obedience to locate spiritual authority before the ritual concludes.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And they answered them, and said, He is; behold, he is before you: make haste now, for he came to day to the city; for there is a sacrifice of the people to day in the high place:
Cross-references
- Genesis 31:54 Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and invited his relatives to eat a meal. And after they had eaten, they spent the night on the mountain.
- 1 Samuel 10:5 After that you will come to Gibeah of God, where the Philistines have an outpost. As you approach the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, preceded by harps, tambourines, flutes, and lyres, and they will be prophesying.
- 1 Samuel 16:2 “How can I go?” Samuel asked. “Saul will hear of it and kill me!” The LORD answered, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’
- 1 Kings 3:2 The people, however, were still sacrificing on the high places because a house for the Name of the LORD had not yet been built.
- Deuteronomy 12:6 To that place you are to bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and heave offerings, your vow offerings and freewill offerings, as well as the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
- 1 Corinthians 5:7 Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
- Numbers 28:11 At the beginning of every month, you are to present to the LORD a burnt offering of two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old, all unblemished,
- 1 Samuel 7:17 Then he would return to Ramah because his home was there, and there he judged Israel and built an altar to the LORD.
- 1 Chronicles 16:39 And David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests before the tabernacle of the LORD at the high place in Gibeon