Thank you my dear friend for such an excellent question! My quick answer to your question is that I do not believe that the Holy Spirit indwelt prophets or priests, nor judges nor kings in OT times, but rather that He simply “came upon” those whom the LORD chose to use for His purposes. The term that we commonly find for this in the OT is that the Spirit “came upon” a person, and this was not necessarily on any permanent basis. But now in the NT we find instead that the Holy Spirit “abides with (or makes a permanent dwelling with) or that He “indwells” man, but this only occurs with born again Christians. I believe that the Morrish Bible Dictionary states this very clearly: “David asked that the Holy Spirit might not be taken from him, Psalms 51: 11; which stands in contrast to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christians, for He abides with them. It is by the operation of the Spirit that they are born anew, and He is the seal of their faith in Christ, and the earnest of their inheritance above.” In the verse cited above, Psalms 51:11, David, who clearly loved God, realized that the Holy Spirit which was upon him could possibly be removed; on the other hand, we who are born again today need never fear such a removal.

Now, to elaborate on what I have said, I believe that we find many examples in the OT where we see that the Spirit came upon a man only for a specific purpose. I list some of these as follows: in Exodus 31:1-5, the special skills in building the tabernacle are given to certain men by God; in Numbers 11:11-17,25-29 we see the giving of a portion of the Spirit which was “upon” Moses to the 70 elders while in the wilderness; in Numbers 24:2 we find that Balaam, though not a godly man, is given a vision for God’s purposes; in Judges 3:10 the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel; in Judges 6: 34, the Spirit came upon Gideon; also He came upon Jephthah (Judges 11:29); regarding Samson we read: ”The Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times” (Judges 13: 25), Judges 14:6, Judges 15:14); and then we might consider how the Spirit came upon King Saul, but we also read later on that the Spirit was removed from him (1 Samuel 10: 6, 1 Samuel 10: 10). These examples that I have shared are spelled out in detail in a book called “Another Comforter” by W. T. P. Wolston.

Now, let’s contrast the OT with the NT where we read of the Holy Spirit coming into a believer to “dwell” permanently with him. In John 14:16 we read: “And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.”  Again in 1 Corinthians 3:16 we read: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” Thus, in the OT, we see that the Holy Spirit came upon men, such as the prophets for the purpose of transmitting to them the Word of God (2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17), and similarly we see that He came upon kings or others whom God chose to use for His purposes as seen in the examples above. On the other hand, in the NT, we see clearly that Born again Christians today receive the Holy Spirit who “indwells” them, and that on a permanent basis.

And now, my dear friend, I must ask you if you are born again? In John 3:5-6 the Lord Jesus said plainly: “…Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” And if you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, and I trust that you have, then you have received the Holy Spirit which has indwelt you as we read in Ephesians 1:13-14, “…after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.”  (SF)  (593.6)