Saul Anointed King 

Saul's initial anointing is done in secret, after his servant is asked to make himself scarce (9:27-10:1). Saul is then given several signs to encourage him and prove God is behind this.

Among the instructions is one involving a visit to Gilgal, and the command to wait there a week for Samuel to arrive for a sacrifice. This is one of the tests Saul will not pass (see 13:8-14).

The "group of prophets" mentioned in 1 Samuel 10 (verses 5, 10) points to the emergence of an institution that accompanied the emergence of the Israelite monarchy. In 1 and 2 Kings, what is evidently a continuation of the same group is called the "sons of the prophets." In its entry on them, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible says they are "members of a prophetic guild, or order, first appearing in the time of Saul and Samuel in the service of Yahweh.... The sons of the prophets appear again prominently in the ninth century B.C. in association with Elisha.... The guilds of professional prophets continue to appear variously indicated [in Scripture] (I Kings 18:4, 19; 22:6; II Kings 23:2; Jer. 26:7-8, 11) until the fall of Jerusalem in the early sixth century B.C."

Saul chooses not to tell his family about being anointed as king. Then, when Samuel calls the nation together at Mizpah to announce to them the king God had appointed at the insistence of the elders, Saul, in a moment of either humility or outright fear of his new responsibility, hides himself. God lets them know where to find him, he is accepted by most of the people, and he returns to his home with a bodyguard, not quite sure what he is to do now.