1 Samuel 9:1

GOD DESIGNATES THE FUTURE KING OF ISRAEL; THE GENEALOGY OF SAUL

"There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth; and he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; from his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people."

The appearance of this genealogy at this point in the narrative is the clear signal that Saul the son of Kish was God's choice to be the king of Israel.

What a marvel is this! God used a search for lost donkeys to bring the Divine designate face-to-face with the prophet Samuel even BEFORE Samuel had ever met him. The narrative here is very skillfully presented.

Three valid reasons why the heavenly choice fell upon Saul are discernible, as pointed out by Philbeck.[1] (1) Saul came from a very wealthy and powerful family; (2) the tribe of Benjamin was centrally located between the rival tribes of Judah and Benjamin and thus strategically located to achieve the unity of the northern and southern tribes. (3) Furthermore, Saul certainly looked like a king. His being head and shoulders taller than the rest of the people is mentioned again in 1 Samuel 10:23.

"A king chosen from either Judah or Ephraim, the two largest tribes, would have aroused the bitterest feelings in the other."[2]

Students who are particularly interested in genealogies will discern that the genealogies of Saul as given here and in 1Chr. 8:33,1 Chronicles 9:39 do not agree, and Willis has a thorough discussion of this.[3] The variations are meaningless, because the Hebrew word for father also means grandfather, or simply ancestor. For example, Jesus Christ is called the son of David the son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1). Thus, there are all kinds of skips in genealogical tables.

The allegations of some critics that we have different sources for this narrative, "rest upon no tenable ground";[4] and we shall omit any discussion of them.

A handsome young man (1 Samuel 9:2) "The word in Hebrew rendered `young man' means a man in the prime of life. Saul was not a teenager, for he had a son (Jonathan) at the time of this narrative."[5]