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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Saul Biography SAUL. The first King of Israel. According to 1 Sam. xiii. 1, "Saul was one year old when he became King and he reigned two years over Israel." Some words have evidently fallen out which we have no means of restoring. And the whole verse seems to be a late insertion, as it was not found by the Greek translator. That he was 30 years old when he became King is a later guess. Jonathan was a young man when David fled, and he left children when he died; and David had a long career in the Negeb. Saul could not, therefore, have died at the age of 32. His reign may have begun as early as c.1050 B.C. He was a son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. The story of his career in 1 Sam. ix-2 Sam. i seems to contain older and later elements. There seem to be two varying accounts of the manner in which he came to occupy his position as head of the people. According to one of these it was while searching for the lost asses belonging to his father that he encountered the seer Samuel, who announced to Saul that he was destined to deliver Israel from the oppression of the Ammonites and Philistines. Soon afterward Nahash, a chief of the Ammonites, laid siege to Jabesh-Gilead. The inhabitants appealed to the West-Jordan tribes for aid, and when the news reached Saul he gathered a force with which he inflicted a crushing defeat on Nahash. At Samuel's bidding the people then gathered at Gilgal and solemnly crowned Saul as King. The other account represents the people as dissatisfied with their condition and demanding of Samuel that a king be placed at their head. Samuel, while rebuking the people, nevertheless yields to the popular request, and at an assembly held at Mizpah Saul is chosen. Those who accept the above theory conclude from these varying accounts that it was not so much Samuel's interference as the natural course of events that brought Saul forward. The chief efforts of his career were directed towards reducing the power of the Philistines. In a series of well-directed campaigns he drove the Philistines back to their territory along the seacoast. He was equally successful in his campaign against the Amalekites. His victory over them represents the climax in his career. Intertribal jealousies and family intrigues loosened the union of the tribes after the crisis had been temporarily passed, while the growing popularity of the youthful David (q.v.), originally introduced at Saul's court as a skillful harp player, brought out the worst elements in Saul's nature. A strange melancholy settled upon him, and this illness, which at times resembled madness, was a factor leading to the quarrel between Saul and David and David's flight. Encouraged by this state of affairs, the Philistines roused themselves to renewed action and at Mount Gilboa succeeded in defeating the Hebrew army. Saul's three sons perished in the battle, while the King himself, when he realized the desperateness of the situation, "fell on his sword" and thus put an end to his life. Consult the chapters on Saul in the Hebrew histories of Stade, vol. i (Giessen, 1881), Renan (Paris, 1887), Kent (New York, 1891), Guthe (Freiburg, 1899), Piepenbring (Paris, 1899). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 488. |