The kings of Israel and Judah

King Saul

The united kingdom · Reigned over all Israel (1 Samuel gives no total; Acts 13:21 says forty years) · A mixed reign · 1 Samuel 9 to 31; 1 Chronicles 10

Saul was the first king of Israel, a tall and handsome man of the tribe of Benjamin, anointed by the prophet Samuel when the people demanded a king like the nations around them. He began humbly and won early victories, but his reign unravelled through disobedience and jealousy, and God rejected him from being king. He died by his own hand on Mount Gilboa after his sons fell in battle with the Philistines.

And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.1 Samuel 15:22 (KJV)

The people demand a king

Israel had no king but the LORD, judged in each generation by the leaders God raised up. But in the days of Samuel the people came and asked for a king to reign over them like all the nations, and though it grieved Samuel, God told him to listen, for they had not rejected Samuel but rejected God from reigning over them. God gave them what they asked, and warned them plainly through Samuel what a king would take from them.

Saul, son of Kish, was a choice young man of Benjamin, taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. He was out searching for his father's lost donkeys when he came to Samuel, and God revealed to the prophet that this was the man. Samuel anointed him privately with oil, and later, when the tribes were gathered, the lot fell on Saul, and he was found hiding among the baggage. Samuel presented him, and the people shouted, God save the king.

A promising beginning

Saul's reign began well. When the Ammonites threatened Jabesh-gilead, the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and he rallied all Israel and delivered the city, and the people renewed the kingdom before the LORD at Gilgal. He was modest at first, hiding from the honor, and slow to take revenge on those who had despised him. He had a brave son in Jonathan and led Israel in real victories against the Philistines who had long oppressed them.

Yet the cracks showed early. Waiting for Samuel before a battle at Gilgal, Saul grew impatient and offered the burnt offering himself rather than wait, taking on a role that was not his. Samuel rebuked him: thou hast done foolishly, and told him his kingdom would not continue, for the LORD had sought a man after his own heart to be captain over his people.

Disobedience and rejection

The decisive break came when God, through Samuel, commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all they had. Saul spared their king Agag and the best of the livestock, then claimed he had obeyed. When Samuel confronted him with the bleating of the sheep, Saul made excuses and blamed the people. Then Samuel spoke the words that ring through the whole Bible: to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Because Saul had rejected the word of the LORD, the LORD had rejected him from being king.

From that day the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit troubled him. Samuel secretly anointed the young shepherd David, and Saul's long decline began. He was tormented, and only David's harp could soothe him, but when David killed Goliath and the women sang that Saul had slain his thousands and David his ten thousands, jealousy consumed the king.

The pursuit of David and the fall on Gilboa

Saul spent his last years hunting David across the wilderness, hurling a spear at him, murdering the priests of Nob who had helped him, and pursuing him with thousands of men. Twice David had Saul in his power and spared him, refusing to lift his hand against the LORD's anointed, and twice Saul wept and confessed that David was more righteous than he, yet returned to his hatred.

At the end, facing the Philistines and abandoned by God, Saul in his terror sought out a medium at Endor, breaking his own law, and heard only that the kingdom would be torn from him and given to David, and that he and his sons would die the next day. On Mount Gilboa his sons, including the noble Jonathan, were killed, and Saul, wounded and afraid of capture, fell upon his own sword. Chronicles gives the verdict: Saul died for his transgression against the LORD, and because he consulted a medium instead of enquiring of the LORD.

Where Saul points to Christ

Saul is the tragedy of a king chosen by the people's demand and destroyed by his own pride and disobedience. He looked the part, tall and kingly, but his heart did not stay with God, and the crown that began in the Spirit ended in jealousy, fear, and blood. He is a warning that outward gifts are no substitute for a heart that obeys.

His fall clears the stage for the king God himself would choose, a man after his own heart. Where Saul grasped at the kingdom and lost it, David received it as a gift and pointed beyond himself to a greater Son. The whole story of Saul says that Israel's true King is not the tallest or the one the crowd would pick, but the one God appoints, and that King is finally Christ, who obeyed his Father even unto death and so was given a name above every name.

A note on the record: everything here is drawn from the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Kings and Chronicles sometimes tell a reign differently, Chronicles often adding a king's repentance or building works, and where they differ this is said plainly rather than smoothed over. The exact lengths and overlaps of the reigns are genuinely complex, because kings often shared the throne with a son for a time, so the totals in Scripture do not always add up in a simple line. The verdict good or evil is the Bible's own assessment, whether a king did right or evil in the sight of the LORD.

Related: King David · David's life · All the kings of Israel and Judah