1 Chronicleschapter 10
14 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 1 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for a people who had lost their own kingdom and knew why. After nine chapters of names, the compiler begins his story here, and he begins with a king's death. He takes the account from the end of 1 Samuel and adds his own judgment at the close. Listen for what happens to the king's body and to his armour, and for the men who remember an old debt. Then listen for the reason the compiler gives, which is the first judgment the book states in its own words.
Context
- Who
- A people who had watched their own nation fall for the same reason
- What
- The defeat of Israel on Mount Gilboa, the death of Saul and his sons, and the reason for his fall.
- Where
- Mount Gilboa above the Jezreel valley, the Philistine temples, and Jabesh-gilead east of the Jordan.
- When
- About 1010 BC, a date worked back from the reign lengths in Samuel and Kings.
- Why
- To show why the kingdom passed from Saul to David and to state the book's judgment on unfaithfulness.
Historical context
1 Chronicles names no author, and it names its own sources at 29:29, the histories of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer. The Babylonian Talmud at tractate Bava Batra 15a assigns the book to Ezra the scribe, and C. F. Keil follows that tradition. Sara Japhet, H. G. M. Williamson and Gary Knoppers hold instead that an anonymous writer of the Persian period compiled it. The events sit at the end of Saul's reign, about 1010 BC, a date inferred from the reign figures rather than fixed by any record outside the Bible. The place is Mount Gilboa, a ridge on the south side of the Jezreel valley, whose flat floor was the best chariot ground in the country. Israel's infantry stood at a hopeless disadvantage there once the line broke, which is why the Philistines chose to fight on it. A first hearer knew that stripping the dead for armour was ordinary practice, since armour was expensive and reusable. He knew a defeated king's head and weapons went to the victors' temples because the victory belonged to the victors' god. He knew that falling on one's own sword was what a commander did to avoid capture, since captured kings were mutilated and paraded. The men of Jabesh-gilead were paying an old debt, since Saul had saved their town in his reign's first week, and burning the bodies before burial was unusual and probably answered their mutilation.
Significance
The writer opens his story with Saul's corpse and gives his reason in two verses, that Saul died for his unfaithfulness and that he consulted a medium instead of the LORD. That was a live judgment for the first hearers, who belonged to a nation that had already fallen once on the same ground within remembered history. The book states its diagnosis before it offers anything else.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The death of Saul has no place in the synagogue year. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for this book, and no festival reading.
One custom still kept in Jewish homes stands inside this chapter, and Rashi names it. The men of Jabesh Gilead fasted seven days over the bodies of Saul and his sons, and Rashi gives two reasons for the number. One is the seven days Nahash the Ammonite had given their town to find a rescuer, which Saul became. The other is the mourning that was customary for seven days, since these men were kinsmen of Saul's tribe (Rashi on I Chronicles 10:12:2). The seven days of mourning a Jewish family keeps after a burial are the same seven, and this verse is one of the places the tradition finds them.
The chapter is also met in the study of two portions of Leviticus. Under the thirteenth verse, the verdict on Saul, the corpus carries Midrash Tanchuma at Emor 2:1 and Metzora 2:1, with Midrash Tanchuma Buber at Emor 4:1, Emor 4:2 and Metzora 4:1.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. His first note answers the question a reader of this book asks first. Why does the narrative open on a defeat? Because the writer tells Saul's downfall and tells only the heroism and the greatness of David, the book belonging to David and to the kings of Judah (Rashi on I Chronicles 10:1:1). The rule he states there governs everything a reader meets in the twenty chapters that follow.
The death itself is read through the tribe's own skill. Rashi gathers the places where Benjamin is famous for the bow. He names Ehud in Judges, Jonathan's three arrows, the ambidextrous archers of the next chapter of this book, and Asa's bowmen in 2 Chronicles. Saul was of that tribe, and he fell to archers. Rashi opens the note with the line from Proverbs about no wisdom availing against the Lord (Rashi on I Chronicles 10:3:1). A man was brought down by the one craft his own people were known for.
The verdict of the last two verses Rashi itemises. The treachery is Saul's inquiry of a familiar spirit, which he counts as two acts, the calling up of Samuel and the inquiry itself. He notes that the Aggadah of Samuel at 24:6 counts five acts (Rashi on I Chronicles 10:13:1). The word of the Lord that Saul did not keep is the seven days he was told to wait at Gilgal in 1 Samuel 10:8. The sparing of Agag in the war with Amalek stands with it (Rashi on I Chronicles 10:13:2). The reading holds Saul responsible on the tradition's own terms and does not soften the verse.
The corpus carries eighteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. Seven stand cited and unquoted at Metzudat David on I Chronicles 10:2:1, 10:3:1, 10:4:1, 10:7:1, 10:9:1, 10:10:1 and 10:14:1. Five stand at Malbim on I Chronicles 10:1:1, 10:4:1, 10:6:1, 10:7:1 and 10:10:1. Five stand at Radak on I Chronicles 10:2:1, 10:10:1, 10:12:1, 10:13:1 and 10:14:1, and one at a further note of Rashi on I Chronicles 10:3:2.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries seventeen rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the third verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 19:9. On the sixth, the house of Saul falling together, it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 33:12. On the twelfth, the men of Jabesh Gilead, it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 17:6.
The verdict on Saul draws everything else. Fourteen of the seventeen locators sit on the thirteenth verse. The corpus holds Vayikra Rabbah 26:7, Bamidbar Rabbah 8:5, Bereshit Rabbah 99:3 and Midrash Shmuel 24:7. Sifrei Bamidbar 2:1 and 7:1, Midrash Tehillim 52:2, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 14:2:4 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Leviticus 14:2:3 stand with them. Midrash Tanchuma at Emor 2:1 and Metzora 2:1, with Midrash Tanchuma Buber at Emor 4:1, Emor 4:2 and Metzora 4:1, close the run. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on I Chronicles 10:1:1 to 10:13:2, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on I Chronicles 10:2:1, 10:3:1, 10:4:1, 10:7:1, 10:9:1, 10:10:1 and 10:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on I Chronicles 10:1:1, 10:4:1, 10:6:1, 10:7:1 and 10:10:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on I Chronicles 10:2:1, 10:10:1, 10:12:1, 10:13:1 and 10:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/1-chronicles/10.json, the 17 Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Saul falls on his own sword at Gilboa
the Philistines fought against Israel: The genealogies end at 1 Chronicles 9:44, and this chapter opens without transition: the Philistines fought against Israel, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Albert Barnes notes that the account abbreviates 1 Samuel 31 and keeps mainly the moral verdict that book leaves untold.
1 Chronicles 10:1
“Now the Philistines fought against Israel--The details of this chapter have no relation to the preceding genealogies and seem to be inserted solely to introduce the narrative of David's elevation to the throne of the whole kingdom.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Chronicles 10:1
“The present chapter contains two facts not found in 1Sa 31:1-13 - the fastening of Saul’s head in the temple of Dagon 1Ch 10:10, and the burial of his bones, and those of his sons, under an oak 1Ch 10:12. Otherwise the narrative differs from 1Sa 31:1-13 only by being abbreviated (see especially 1Ch 10:6-7, 1Ch 10:11-12), and by having some moral reflections attached to it 1Ch 10:13-14.”
1 Chronicles 10:2-3
followed hard after Saul: Jonathan falls with his brothers Abinadab and Malchishua before the battle reaches Saul himself, the same order 1 Samuel 31:2 gives. Chronicles needs from these two verses only the bare fact: the covenant friend who might have inherited the throne dies with his father's army. The archers wound Saul next.
the archers overtook him and: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown render the Hebrew as the archers found him and he feared the archers. On that reading Saul was at most lightly wounded when he chose death, and terror drove the act. 1 Samuel 31:3 carries the same clause.
1 Chronicles 10:4-5
Saul falls on his own sword rather than risk capture, and his armourbearer follows him rather than obey the order to finish the act. The scene matches 1 Samuel 31:4-5 nearly word for word. Chronicles keeps the moment only to reach the verdict two verses later.
he too fell on his: The armor-bearer waits until he sees Saul dead, and his own death follows the king's. Chronicles tells Saul's death once, from this scene. The Amalekite's claim in 2 Samuel 1:6 to 10 that he finished Saul off has no place in its account.
1 Chronicles 10:6-7
So Saul died together with his three sons: Chronicles says that Saul died together with his three sons and all his house. Yet Esh-baal reigns two years over Israel after this battle in 2 Samuel 2. The commentators read all his house as the royal house that fell in the field, or as the claim on the throne.
1 Chronicles 10:6
“So Saul died - and all his house - Every branch of his family that had followed him to the war was cut off; his three sons are mentioned as being the chief. No doubt all his officers were slain.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
all the Israelites in the: 1 Samuel 31:7 has Israelites flee from across the valley and beyond the Jordan as well. Chronicles names only the Israelites in the valley below Mount Gilboa. The Philistines now occupied cities in the heart of Israel.
1 Chronicles 10:7
“No doubt there was enough in them to deserve this judgment; but that which divine Justice had chiefly an eye to was the sin of Saul. Note, Princes and great men should in a special manner take heed of provoking God's wrath; for, if they kindle that fire, they know not how many may be consumed by it for their sakes. Parents sin and the children suffer for it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A Philistine trophy and Jabesh-gilead's daring burial
1 Chronicles 10:8-10
came to strip the dead: 1 Samuel 31:10 reads that they put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and hung his body on the wall of Beth-shan. Chronicles says they hung his head in the temple of Dagon. The two accounts are read as displays at separate Philistine shrines.
They stripped Saul, cut off: The Philistines treat Saul as David once treated Goliath, whose head David cut off and carried away (1 Samuel 17:51 and 54). The news is proclaimed in their idols' temples as well as among their people. They credit the victory to their gods.
hung his head in the: 1 Samuel 31:10 fastens Saul's body to the wall of Beth-shan, and only Chronicles records his head hung in Dagon's temple. Dagon's own image had fallen before the ark in 1 Samuel 5:1 to 5. Wesley sets the Philistines' praise of Dagon against Israel's forgetfulness.
1 Chronicles 10:10
“Temple of Dagon - If we give not God the glory of our successes, even Philistines will rise up in judgment with us and condemn us. Shall Dagon have so great a place in their triumphs, and the true God be forgotten in ours?”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Chronicles 10:11-12
When the people of Jabesh-gilead heard: Jabesh-gilead remembers Saul's first act as king, the rescue of their city from Nahash in 1 Samuel 11. Chronicles drops Samuel's detail that the men burned the bodies before burying the bones. It keeps the burial, for they buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh and fasted seven days.
1 Chronicles 10:11
“When all Jabesh-gilead heard - For a general account of the principles of heroism and gratitude from which this action of the men of Jabesh-gilead proceeded, see the note on 1Sa 31:11, 1Sa 31:12. By the kindness of a literary friend, I am enabled to lay a farther illustration of this noble act before the reader, which he will find at the conclusion of the chapter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
buried their bones under the: 1 Samuel 31:12 to 13 has the men of Jabesh burn the bodies before burying the bones under a tamarisk. Chronicles omits the burning and names the tree as an oak. David later moved the bones of Saul and Jonathan to the tomb of Kish (2 Samuel 21:12 to 14).
Why the kingdom was turned over to David
So Saul died for his unfaithfulness: Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and consulted a medium. Albert Barnes ties the first charge to the disobedience over Amalek in 1 Samuel 15. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set the second against the law of Leviticus 19:31.
1 Chronicles 10:13
“Saul slew himself, and yet it is said, God slew him. What is done by wicked hands is yet done by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Those that abandon themselves to the devil shall be abandoned to him; so shall their doom be.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
1 Chronicles 10:13
“For his transgression - Compare 1Ch 9:1. The “transgression” intended is probably the disobedience with respect to Amalek, recorded in 1Sa 15:1-9 (compare 1Sa 28:17-18).”
1 Chronicles 10:13
“Both of these acts were great sins--the first as a violation of God's express and positive command [1Sa 15:3], and the second as contrary to a well-known statute of the kingdom (Le 19:31).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
he failed to inquire of the LORD: The verdict closes on one clause: he failed to inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. The next chapter opens with all Israel gathering to crown him.
1 Chronicles 10:14
“Inquired not of the Lord - On these two last verses the Targum speaks thus: “And Saul died for the transgression by which he transgressed against the Word of the Lord, and because he did not keep the commandment of the Lord when he warred against the house of Amalek; and because he consulted Pythons, and sought oracular answers from them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 10:14
“And inquired not of the Lord--He had done so in form (1Sa 28:6), but not in the spirit of a humble penitent, nor with the believing confidence of a sincere worshipper. His enquiry was, in fact, a mere mockery, and his total want of all right religious impressions was manifested by his rushing from God to a wretched impostor in the service of the devil [1Sa 28:7].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, a battle summary closed by an explicit theological verdict, as table classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| So Saul died, said once of the battle and once of the cause | Verse 6 closes the battle with the words that Saul died together with his three sons and all his house. Verse 13 opens the verdict with the same three words and finishes the sentence differently, that he died for his unfaithfulness. The narrative fact and the theological cause are given the same opening so the reader meets the second as a rereading of the first. | 1 Chronicles 10:6, 1 Chronicles 10:13 |
| Two clauses for one verdict, the act and the omission | Verse 13 names what Saul did, breaking the word of the LORD and consulting a medium. Verse 14 names what he failed to do, inquire of the LORD. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold both acts as sins on their own separate grounds, the first against a plain command and the second against the statute of Leviticus 19:31. They add that Saul had inquired in form at Endor while the spirit of a penitent was missing.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on 1 Chronicles 10:13 and 10:14. | 1 Chronicles 10:13, 1 Chronicles 10:14 |
| The armour and the head, sent to two houses | Verse 10 puts the armour in the temple of their gods and hangs the head in the temple of Dagon. At 1 Samuel 31:10 the armour goes to the house of Ashtaroth and the body is fastened to the wall of Beth-shan. The site's published exposition reads the two accounts as complementary displays across separate Philistine shrines, and records that neither text says so outright. | 1 Chronicles 10:9, 1 Chronicles 10:10 |
All his house, and the sons who outlive the battle
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
Verse 6 says Saul died together with his three sons and all his house. Yet Eshbaal, Saul's fourth son, is named at 8:33 and at 9:39, and he reigns two years over Israel after this battle in 2 Samuel 2, while Jonathan's son Mephibosheth outlives him as well.
Adam Clarke reads all his house as every branch of the family that had gone to the war, and takes the three sons as the chief of them. Albert Barnes reads the phrase as an abbreviation of the expression in the parallel passage at 1 Samuel 31:6, and holds that it covers neither the whole family nor even all his sons. The site's published exposition leaves the two texts standing rather than forcing them into one sentence, and this row keeps them that way.
The two failures read as one sentence
Albert Barnes ties the transgression of verse 13 to the disobedience over Amalek recorded at 1 Samuel 15:1 to 9, and points to 1 Samuel 28:17 and 28:18 where Samuel names it at Endor. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold both acts as sins on their own separate grounds. Two failures years apart are read in this chapter as one verdict, and the kingdom turns to David at the moment the second is named.
The portrait of David, and what this chapter does to the charge against it
The site's published book guide carries the idealized portrait of David as one of its three contested points. The critical charge reads the book as a retelling that suppresses David's adultery, his murder of Uriah and his family catastrophe in order to build an uncomplicated founding hero. The response at its strongest answers that the book retains the census and the plague in full and states Saul's condemnation outright. It adds that the book is written in a different genre for a community rebuilding a temple with no king. The guide's own flag records that readers who hold the charge weigh the omissions as more than a matter of emphasis. This chapter is the first place a reader can test the response, because the condemnation here is the plainest in the book.
What the surrounding nations did with a dead king
The whole scene at verses 8 to 10 is standard practice rather than outrage invented for the story. Armour was expensive and reusable, so the dead were stripped. A defeated king's head and weapons went to the victors' temples because the victory belonged to the victors' god as much as to their army. Captured kings were mutilated and paraded, which is the reason verse 4 gives for Saul's own choice. The IVP Bible Background Commentary carries the practice, and the site's published historical-context row for this chapter cites it.
Keep studying
Studies6
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on 1 Chronicles 10:1; This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/1-chronicles/Book1ChroniclesGuide.tsx, the BANDS table, the band "Saul's End, David's Rise" at 10:1 to 12:40 and This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "1 Chronicles": "history".
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Berean Standard Bible; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.