1 Samuel 9


1 Samuel 9 is the ninth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter describes the meeting between Saul and Samuel which led to Saul's first anointing as king, within a section comprising 1 Samuel 7–15 which records the rise of the monarchy in Israel and the account of the first years of King Saul.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 27 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 with extant verses 6–8, 10–12, 16–24.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Analysis

This chapter introduces Saul, who was to be the first king of Israel, as a resolution to the request for a king left unfinished in the previous chapter. The narrative bears some features of folk-tales: a young man setting out to find his father's missing donkeys comes out as designated king. Saul's search led him to the prophet Samuel, who privately anointed Saul as king and provided three signs as confirmation to its legitimacy, all of which were fulfilled in 1 Samuel 10:2–7. Throughout the account, Saul appeared to be humble, but also showed lack of confidence and perhaps doubts about his calling to kingship.

Saul's genealogy (9:1–2)

The listing of Saul's ancestry in the beginning of this chapter recalls the opening of the Books of Samuel which delineates Samuel's genealogy. In both genealogies Samuel and Saul are listed in the sixth position. The connection of Samuel's name to the word "asked" in 1 Samuel 1:28 may also relate to the name of Saul Saul's genealogy has two noteworthy features:
  1. Saul's father has an attribute of a "man of standing", so Saul came from a well-to-do family.
  2. Saul is from the tribe of Benjamin, which descended from Jacob's youngest son, Benjamin, and not long before this time had almost been annihilated because of their horrific actions.
These may emphasize God's direct participation in the events that Saul, a youth belonging to the smallest of the Israel tribes and the humblest of families was endowed with extraordinary characteristics to be elected as the first king of Israel.

Verse 1

  • Cross reference: ; ; ; ;
  • "Of Benjamite": in Hebrew is written as מבן ימין and read as מבנימין.
  • "A Benjamite": in Hebrew is written as בן־איש ימיני, -
  • "A mighty man of power": attributed to Kish, Saul's father; translated from Hebrew גבור חיל, , which may mean a valiant man, as in, or a wealthy man as in, or the combined idea of personal valor and family importance, rendered in the Septuagint ἀνὴρ δυνατός, "a powerful man",
Some ancestors seem to be omitted, among whom are Matri, mentioned in 1 Samuel 10:21;
and Jehiel, mentioned in 1 Chronicles 9:35, who was described as the first settler and coloniser of Gibeon, and as the husband of Maachah, a daughter or granddaughter of Caleb. An ancestor of Saul could have been among the 600 men of Benjamin who escaped to the rock Rimmon during the slaughter of the whole tribe by the other tribes of Israel.

Samuel and Saul meet (9:3–27)

Saul was told by his father, Kish, to look for their stray donkeys, so he and a servant went through the hill country of Ephraim until they arrived in the land of Zuph. The servant persuaded Saul to visit a nameless seer, who was unfamiliar to them, and turned out to be Samuel. A day before Samuel had been told by YHWH that the chosen man would come to him. God commanded Samuel to anoint Saul not as "king", but "ruler", in contrast to the instruction for Samuel to anoint David as "king" in. After God clearly pointed Saul to Samuel, the prophet introduced himself to Saul as the seer and demonstrated his credentials by accurately speaking about Saul's donkeys. Saul was invited by Samuel to a meal and given a choice of meat which had been set aside for Saul beforehand, again indicating that the meeting was not coincidental. This "pre-coronation meal" was similar to the one organized later when Samuel anointed David. Samuel did not use the occasion of the dinner to anoint Saul, but waited instead until the next morning.

Verse 3

  • "Donkeys" the Hebrew word denotes "female donkeys", can be used for riding and kept for breeding; they were not as confined as the males, so they could stray away.
  • "Servants": translated from a Hebrew plural noun derived from the root word, which literally means "young boy", but in this context, it implies "servants" and need not to be young of age.
The Syriac Peshitta version has additional words: "So Saul arose and went out. He took with him one of the boys and went out to look for his father's donkeys."

Verse 5

  • "Land of Zuph": a district where Samuel's city, Ramathaim-Zophim, was located, in similar locality as Mount Ephraim; probably so named after Zuph or.

    Verse 27

  • "And he went on": This statement is found in Masoretic Text, as well as an Old Latin manuscript, and the Syriac Peshitta, but generally missing from Greek Septuagint version, except of Origen.
  • "Awhile":or "now"

    Commentaries on Samuel

General

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