1 Chronicles 10 (NIV)✞: Saul Takes His Life
Passage
In this chapter, after nine chapters of genealogies, the author(s) of Chronicles begin the narrative with the death of Saul. They had to start somewhere, and rather than going back to the start of Saul’s life and rule the chronicler(s) start with his end, since the end of his reign ushers in the reign of King David. To my untrained eye this chapter mirrors 1 Samuel 31✞ pretty much identically. When I blogged about 1 Samuel 31 I didn’t have much to say, but I’m now coming into the story again fresh in Chronicles. (And still don’t have that much to say!)
I’m wondering how many more times I’ll find myself referring back to passages from the books of Samuel1 and Kings as I go through Chronicles. Probably a lot! (If I do this right, which isn’t guaranteed…)
The chapter begins with the Philistines battling the Israelites—remember that Israel is one nation at this point; if you’re continuing from Kings straight into Chronicles you have to do a bit of a mental reset to remember that we’ve gone back in time a few hundred years—and in the battle Saul’s sons are killed and he himself is mortally wounded. Knowing that he’s nearly dead, but isn’t going to actually die before the Philistines get their hands on him, he asks his armour bearer to finish him off, but his armour bearer refuses (out of terror), so Saul has to fall on his own sword. (The armour bearer then does the same.)
At this point all of the Israelites “in the valley” (though I’m not sure which valley) abandon their towns and flee before the Philistines come and occupy them.
The Philistines eventually find Saul’s body, strip and behead it, put his armour into a temple of their gods and hang his head in another one. (I honestly don’t know if this would be typical behaviour for the people of the day, or if this was something extreme the Philistines did that would have been abhorrent to everyone around them, or somewhere in the middle.)
The men of Jabesh Gilead hear about all of this and send their “valiant men” to reclaim the bodies of Saul and his sons, bury them properly, and fast for seven days.
The text of the chapter is presented matter-of-factly, but lest we forget why this is all happening the author(s) tell us at the end:
13 Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, 14 and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.
And we’ll get to David in the next chapter.
Thoughts
I don’t know how history has treated Saul’s armour bearer, but I’m not harshly judging him. Throughout the latter part of Saul’s reign even David himself refused to lift a hand against the anointed king of Israel, so I don’t judge an armour bearer for refusing to kill his king (even at that king’s command).
One thing I find very interesting, though, is the way the author(s) summarize the reasons for Saul’s death:
- He was unfaithful to the LORD
- He did not keep the word of the LORD (which sounds similar but is different)
- He even consulted a medium
That word “even” changes the tone of the author(s)’ words, in my eyes: it’s one thing for Saul to be unfaithful to God, or to fail to keep God’s word, but he even consulted a medium! And maybe I’m overemphasizing that point—I don’t speak ancient Hebrew so I don’t know how the original words or grammar are structured—but there is still a lot of space devoted in those two verses to the fact that Saul consulted a medium instead of inquiring of the LORD.
What’s even more interesting is that the author(s) say that Saul “consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD” – except if we go back to 1 Samuel 28 we see that Saul actually tried to inquire of the LORD and the LORD wasn’t answering!
5 When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. 6 He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. 7 Saul then said to his attendants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her.”
I think it’s not just the fact that Saul was consulting a medium (bad enough), but that he should have known, when God refused to answer him in the normal ways, that he was not right with God and therefore needed to repent. Instead of doing so, however, it was more expedient to seek out a medium to get an immediate answer, not wait on the LORD. In other words, the author(s) of Chronicles aren’t saying that Saul failed to inquire of the LORD on this occasion, they’re referring to a larger pattern of refusing to seek His guidance.
Which is the same problem I see with consulting astrology in today’s world. I’m not concerned with whether it’s “real” or if it’s demonic (though maybe I should be?), I’m concerned that it’s a way for people to seek out expedient answers instead of waiting on the LORD – something the average person wouldn’t be concerned about, but that should concern the Christian. It would be nice if God told me everything I think I need to know, when I think I need to know it, but He doesn’t. He asks me to trust Him.
If we take the line that astrology isn’t real it doesn’t solve that problem of faith; the person seeking astrology is still trying to get expedient answers instead of waiting on the LORD. If those answers happen to be a lot of confirmation bias it doesn’t change the underlying reasons why the person was consulting astrology in the first place.
Footnotes
- ESV.org published a comparison chart showing the overlaps between Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, which can be found here. ↩
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