Chapter 10: Is Saul also Among the Prophets?

All the prophets do not prophesy whenever they desire. Instead, they must concentrate their attention [upon spiritual concepts] and seclude themselves, [waiting] in a happy, joyous mood, because prophecy cannot rest upon a person when he is sad or languid, but only when he is happy.
Therefore, the prophets' disciples would always have a harp, drum, flute, and lyre [before them when] they were seeking prophecy. This is what is meant by the expression [I Samuel 10:5]: "They were prophesying" - i.e., following the path of prophecy until they would actually prophesy - as one might say, "So and so aspires to greatness."

The meaning of Elōhim can be grasped by way of speculation, because a Guide and Manager of the world is a postulate of Reason. Opinions differ on the basis of different speculations, but that of the philosophers is the best on the subject. The meaning of Adonāi, however, cannot be grasped by speculation, but only by that intuition and prophetic vision which separates man, so to speak, from his kind, and brings him in contact with angelic beings, imbuing him with a new spirit, as it is written: 'Thou shalt be turned into another man,' 'God gave him another heart' (I Samuel 10:6. 9), 'A spirit came over Amasai' (I Chronicles 12:18). 'The hand of the Lord was upon me' (Ezekiel 37:11). 'Uphold me with Thy free spirit' (Psalms 51:14) All these circumscribe the Holy Spirit which enwraps the prophet in the hour of his ministry, the Nazirite, and the Messiah, when they are anointed for priesthood, or for the royal dignity by a prophet; or when God aids and strengthens him in any matter; or when the priest makes prophetic utterances by means of the mystic power derived from the use of the Urim and Tummim. Then all previous doubts concerning Elōhim are removed, and man deprecates those speculations by means of which he had endeavoured to derive the knowledge of God's dominion and unity. It is thus that man becomes a servant, loving the object of his worship, and ready to perish for His sake, because he finds the sweetness of this attachment as great as the distress in the absence thereof. This forms a contrast to the philosophers, who see in the worship of God nothing but extreme refinement, extolling Him in truth above all other beings, (just as the sun is placed on a higher level than the other visible things), and that the denial of God's existence is the mark of a low standard of the soul which delights in untruth.