The first king of Israel, Saul (reigned ca. 1020-1000 B.C.) was a man of valor who brought the virtues of modesty and generosity to his office.

The youngest son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin, Saul was a modest shepherd boy, a resident of Gibeah, when the prophet Samuel, after a chance meeting, secretly chose and anointed him king of Israel. It was a period of national humiliation, for the Philistines had defeated the Israelites at Shiloh and captured the Ark of the Covenant, which symbolized the presence of God in their midst. This calamity convinced the Israelites that they must either strive for national unity with a king as leader or face complete and permanent subjugation.

Saul succeeded in freeing Israel of its enemies and extending its boundaries. He fought successfully against the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Arameans, and Amalekites. He also succeeded in drawing the tribes of Israel into a closer unity.

Saul's initial conflict with Samuel occurred after Saul offered a sacrifice to God, thereby assuming Samuel's office. Samuel rebuked Saul and proclaimed that Saul's dynasty would not be continued on the throne of Israel. Their second disagreement took place after Saul retained the war booty of the defeated Amalekites, Israel's traditional enemy, and spared the life of their king, Agag. Samuel publicly pronounced Saul's deposition from the throne. Saul fell into a state of melancholia that developed into an emotional disorder.

Saul's fits of depression and his moody, suspicious temperament caused him to attack the lad David, who had been brought into his household to soothe him by playing music. Jealous of David, Saul persecuted him, attacked him, sent him on perilous expeditions, and finally made him into an outlaw.

The Philistines then renewed their attack on Israel. Without David's support and depressed by the feeling that God had deserted him, Saul consulted a witch of Endor, seeking to recall the spirit of the dead Samuel. He was reproached and advised of his impending doom. In a battle against the Philistines Saul fought valiantly but vainly. His forces routed and his three sons slain, Saul died by his own hand. The tragic tale is told by David in an exquisite elegy lamenting the death of Saul and Jonathan. It is one of the most beautiful poems in the Bible.

The affection in which Saul was held is reflected in the action of the men of Yabesh-gilead, whose city he had saved in his first act as monarch. They risked their lives to rescue his body from the Philistines and gave it an honorable burial.

Further Reading

Although there is no single authoritative biography of Saul, there are numerous volumes of fiction, making it difficult to distinguish between historical and legendary accounts. An excellent short essay on him is in Rudolph Kittel, Great Men and Movements in Israel (trans. 1929). For historical background the following works are recommended: William Foxwell Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940; 2d ed. with new introduction, 1957); Max I. Magolis and Alexander Marx, A History of the Jewish People (1944); Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 1 (2d ed. 1952; 2d rev. ed. 1969); and Martin Noth, The History of Israel (trans. 1958; 2d ed. 1960).

For more information on Saul, visit Britannica.com.

First king of Israel (c. 1029-1005 BCE). Saul son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin was anointed king at Mizpah by the prophet and judge Samuel by popular demand (I Sam. 8-10). The background to this demand, opposed at first by Samuel, was the growing Philistine threat and tribal unrest. As king, Saul does not seem to have developed a centralized administration during his reign, though he collected taxes and maintained the nucleus of a standing army. He won victories against the Ammonites at Jabesh-Gilead and then against the Philistines at Gibeah and Michmash near Jerusalem (I Sam. 13-14), thus wresting control of the mountain area from them. He then drove the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Arameans from the territory east of the Jordan River (I Sam. 14:47). He also smote the Amalekites, killing their king Agag with his own hand, but only after Samuel rebuked him for sparing his life, saying that the Lord had rejected him from being a king over Israel (I Sam. 14:48-15:33). Then Samuel went to Bethlehem and secretly anointed David (I Sam. 16)

The rift with Samuel and his own apparently melancholy nature gave rise to fits of depression (I Sam. 14-23), alleviated only by music. Against this background, David had been summoned to play the harp for him. However, David's growing popularity, culminating in his victory over the Philistine champion Goliath in the Valley of Elah (I Sam. 17), and coupled with his marriage to Saul's daughter Michal and his friendship with the his son Jonathan, exacerbated the king's suspicions and jealousy to the point of uncontrollable rage bordering on madness and forced David to flee. Saul's end came at Mt. Gilboa after a new Philistine invasion. There Saul and three of his sons, including Jonathan, were killed (I Sam. 31). Saul's decapitated body was displayed by the Philistines on the wall of Beth Shean until buried by the men of Jabesh-Gilead. Another son, Ishbosheth, was then crowned but was soon assassinated (II Sam. 4), thus paving the way for kingship of David in a united monarchy.

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1. The first king of Israel, son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin. Handsome and tall (I Sam 9:2), he proved a charismatic leader (I Sam 11:7). The account of his election as king is presented in parallel narratives, which differ in their viewpoints, being either favorable or hostile to the monarchy. The background to his election was the military successes of the Philistines and the growth of unrest among the tribes of Benjamin and Ephraim. The pro-monarchic account of his election narrates how Samuel found Saul searching for his father’s lost asses and anointed him privately in Ramah (I Sam 9:1-10:16). Interwoven with this narrative, and possibly a separate account, is the story of his victory over the Ammonites who had attacked the city of Jabesh Gilead (I Sam chap. 11). An anti-monarchic version of his selection (I Sam chap. 8; 10:17-27; chap. 12) tells of Samuel’s opposition to the demand of the people for a king. However, he eventually relented and presided over Saul’s formal election at Mizpah. Samuel’s main argument against appointing a king (I Sam 8:6-8) was based on his interpretation of the people’s demand as a rejection of the kingship of God. His solemn warning of the consequences of the behavior of the king (I Sam 8:11-18), became a famous denunciation of the institution of the monarchy.Due to the varying accounts, it is difficult to reconstruct the sequence of events during Saul’s reign. It seems that after a brief period of organization, Saul directed his attention towards the Philistines, who had overrun the southern tribes of Israel, destroyed Shiloh, and were so thoroughly the masters of Judah and the central hill country that they maintained an outpost in Benjamin (I Sam 13:3). Saul’s son, Jonathan, slew the Philistine governor at Geba (I Sam chap. 13), and thus the signal was given for the uprising. The Philistines took up a position opposite Gibeah in the gorge of Michmash, and Jonathan, without the knowledge of his father scaled the cliff and slew 20 men of the Philistine outpost. The philistine armies were routed and driven back to Philistia (I Sam chaps. 13-14). Thus their control of the mountain area was broken, although they continued to threaten Israel throughout Saul’s reign.The expulsion of the Philistines marked the beginning of Saul’s kingship. In his attempts to assert his authority over the Israelite population of the central mountain area and unite the tribes under his rule, he uprooted the foreign enclaves in his tribe’s territory. In this context, he killed an unknown number of Gibeonites in violation of the treaty made in Joshua’s day (Josh chap. 9). After Saul’s death, to rectify this, the Gibeonites demanded the lives of seven of Saul’s sons; David handed over five of Saul’s grandsons and two sons who were hanged at Gibeon (II Sam 21:1-9). The Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites and Arameans were driven off from the country east of the Jordan (I Sam 14:47). In order to deliver Judah from the raids of the Amalekites, Saul undertook an expedition against them; his army captured Agag, their king, and Samuel personally slew him, rebuking Saul for initially sparing his life (I Sam chap. 15). The breach between Saul and Samuel, a result of Saul’s apparent usurpation of authority during the war against Amalek, was to cast a gloom on the remainder of the monarch’s reign. An evil spirit seemed to posses the king; he was given to fits of terror and suspicious brooding; a profound melancholy crept over him, and only the sound of music gave him temporary relief. Perhaps it is in this context that David, a skilled musician, joined Saul’s entourage; the narrative contrasts David’s heroic personality, charm and popularity with the increasing nervous depression of Saul (I Sam 16:14-23).Apparently after David’s victory over Goliath (I Sam chap. 17), Saul grew increasingly jealous of David’s popularity, even casting a spear at him (I Sam 18:10-11; 19:9-10). Later, in a fit of anger, Saul threw his spear at his own son Jonathan, who had become David’s close friend and admirer (I Sam 20:33). David was forced to flee from Saul’s wrath to the border regions of Judah and later as far as Gath in Philistia. Saul’s rage against David extended beyond pursuing him and his followers, to attacking the priesthood which he felt had been siding with David (I Sam 22:17-19). This widened the gulf which had come to separate him from many of his people.The end of his reign came when he engaged in one last forlorn struggle with his earliest enemy. The Philistines had invaded Israelite territory and gathered forces at Shunem; Saul established his headquarters on the slope of . Sad forebodings of his fate troubling him, he traveled to En Dor to consult a witch about the outcome of the battle (I Sam 28:7-8), since he could no longer use the official means of divination (I Sam 28:6). The result of the séance confirmed his worst fears and filled his soul with despair (I Sam 28:20ff). The Israelite army had no chariots and could not withstand the assault of the heavy Philistine weaponry. On , Saul and his three sons, including Jonathan, were killed. The biblical narrative describes how Saul, being seriously wounded, called upon his armor-bearer to “thrust me through”, and when the young man refused, the king fell upon his sword and died (I Sam 31:4). (In a contrasting account, in II Samuel 1:6-10, a young Amalekite claimed that he had slain Saul). The Philistines next day found their enemy dead, and hung his decapitated body on the walls of their city Beth Shan (I Sam 31:8-10). The inhabitants of Jabesh, remembering how Saul had responded to their cry for help, removed his body during the night, and gave it an honorable burial in their own city, the site of his first victory. According to I Samuel 31:12 they burned the bodies of Saul and Jonathan to spare them from further Philistine indignities (but see I Chr 10:12).The outcome of the battle meant a state of vassalage for Israel; the Philistines regained control of much of the country and kept it until well into David’s reign. Saul left behind him a tribal alliance weakened and in disarray, and it was David who was to establish the national unity of the Israelite tribes.Recent research suggests that the biblical narrative was heavily tilted in favor of the Davidic version of events and that Saul’s wrath and rage may have been fictious and that the picture of Benjaminite history has been distorted.
2. Saul of Rehoboth-by-the River was the sixth king of Edom. His reign succeeded that of Samlah of Masrekah and was followed by that of Baal-Hanan the son of Aohbor “before any king reigned over the Children of Israel” (I Chr 1:43). 3. Saul of Tarsus“who also is called Paul” (Acts 13:9). See PAUL.

Concordance
SAUL 1: I Sam 9:2-3, 5,7-8, 10, 15,17-19, 21-22,24-27; 10:11-12, 14-16, 21,26; 11:4-7, 11-13, 15; 13:1-4,7, 9-11, 13,15-16, 22; 14:1-2, 16-21,24, 33-38, 40-47, 49-52; 15:1, 4-7, 9,11-13, 15-16,20, 24, 26-27,31, 34-35; 16:1-2, 14-15,17, 19-23; 17:2, 8, 11-15,19, 31-34, 37-39, 55, 57-58; 18:1-2, 5-13,15, 17-25, 27-30; 19:1-2, 4,6-7, 9-11, 14-15, 17-21, 24; 20:25-28, 30,32-33; 21:7,10-11; 22:6-7,9, 12-13, 21-22; 23:7-17,19, 21, 24-28; 24:1-5, 7-9,16, 22; 25:44; 26:1-7, 12, 17,21, 25; 27:1,4; 28:3-10, 12-15, 20-21, 25; 29:3, 5; 31:2-8, 11-12. II Sam 1:1-2,4-6, 12, 17,21-24; 2:4-5,7-8, 10, 12,15; 3:1, 6-8,10, 13-14; 4:1-2, 4, 8, 10; 5:2; 6:16, 20,23; 7:15; 9:1-3, 6-7, 9; 12:7; 16:5, 8; 19:17,24; 21:1-2, 4,6-8, 11-14; 22:1. I Chr 5:10; 8:33; 9:39; 10:2-8,11-13; 11:2; 12:1-2, 19, 23,29; 13:3; 15:29; 26:28. Is 10:29. Acts 13:21
SAUL 2: Gen 36:37-38. I Chr 1:48-49
SAUL 3: Acts 7:58; 8:1,3; 9:1, 4, 8,11, 17, 19, 22,24, 26; 11:25,30; 12:25; 13:1-2, 7, 9; 22:7, 13; 26:14

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first king of the ancient Hebrews. He was a Benjamite and anointed king by Samuel. Saul's territory was probably limited to the hill country of Judah and the region to the north, and his proximity to the Philistines brought him into constant conflict with them. The Bible tells his story dramatically, for it is really the story of David, first the protégé, then the rival, and finally the successor, of the king. Saul's son Jonathan was David's friend—a fact that adds pathos to the story of Saul's attempts to destroy David. David would not harm Saul, who nevertheless met a melancholy end after he went to the witch of Endor and heard his defeat and death prophesied. Saul, defeated and wounded in battle with the Philistines on Mt. Gilboa, committed suicide rather than be captured. Though Saul was unsuccessful in defeating the Philistines, he paved the way for enhanced national security and unity under David. The Saul of the Book of Genesis is elsewhere called Shaul.

The first king of Israel, who battled repeatedly with the Philistines. He often felt great despair, which was soothed by David playing his harp. Saul later became jealous of David and tried to have him killed in battle. After a prophesied defeat by the Philistines, Saul killed himself.

Saul was also the Apostle Paul's original name.

john saul