Daniel H. King, Sr., 1531 Petty Road, White Bluff, TN 37187 | danielhking@hotmail.com

This text has always been considered very difficult to figure out and especially challenging for those who work in the area of textual criticism, i.e. scholars who attempt to determine the original text of Scripture. H. P. Smith, in the International Critical Commentary on 1-2 Samuel, judged: “The verse as it stands in the Hebrew is meaningless and evidently a late insertion.” Following this line of reasoning, the Bible in Basic English left out the verse altogether in its translation.

Some of the translations do not even attempt a confident reconstruction of this passage, since they consider it too thorny for that. For example, the American Standard Version has, “Saul was [forty] years old when he began to reign….” These translators chose to render it thus in spite of the four LXX manuscripts that have “thirty years old” (most Greek mss. leave the verse out) and no Hebrew manuscripts at all that read “forty.” They reasoned that Jonathan was too old at the time to be consistent with a thirty-year-old father.

It has been the conclusion that some writers hold that the text is impossible either to read with confidence its precise meaning or even to reconstruct it sufficiently with the information we have on hand at the present. So they have quit in despair. Hence, the RSV has, “Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel.” A footnote then says, “The number is lacking in Hebrew.”

The highly respected Masoretic Hebrew Text reads: ben shanah sha’ûl bemalchō (literally, “Saul was one year old when he began to reign”). A literal and non-idiomatic reading of the text is impossible, since Saul is clearly portrayed as an adult in his first regnal year. Young’s Literal Translation renders it as, “A son of a year is Saul in his reigning, yea, two years he hath reigned over Israel, and Saul chooseth for himself three thousand men….”

There are a number of possible ways of viewing the passage and producing a readable text. Some involve reconstruction of the original Hebrew text whilst others try to read it as it now stands. The latter see the text as difficult but not impossible. Here are a few of the alternatives, along with what we consider to be the best of the lot:

1. The ASV as quoted above ignores the obvious idiom which we shall discuss below and emphasizes the parallel passages in the other historical narratives about the regnal years of the various kings. In 2 Samuel 5:4: “David was thirty years old when he began to reign (ben sheloshiym shanah dawid bemalchō), and he reigned forty years.” The writer of the Book of Kings, also, in stating the age of a king at accession, and then later the length of his reign employs language very similar to this: 1 Kings 14:21: “Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem…” (cf. also 22:42; 2 Kings 8:17; 8:26; 11:21; 14:2; etc.).

The strength of this way of seeing the phrase is in terms of the many parallel passages that can be called forth as evidence of this general formula in the history of the various kings. Its formidable weaknesses are that so early in the Samuel narratives this formula may not be expected, and its willingness to ignore completely and leave untranslated the obvious idiom which appears here, along with the fact that the Hebrew text without emendation (generally the last hope of the textual critic) is hopeless and untranslatable. As it stands it is meaningless. It may read “thirty” or “forty,” or perhaps even “fifty.” The New English Bible translators (who probably take more liberty with the text than any other group) suggested: “Saul was fifty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel for twenty-two years.” Confusing the situation even further, the ISV has, “Saul was 30 years old when he began to reign, and he ruled for 42 years over Israel.” The English Revised Version deals with the problem in exactly the same way. In every instance, however, the singular number of shanah, “year,” is changed to read “years” without any Hebrew textual support from any source.

2. The KJV (following the Bishop’s Bible and the Geneva Bible before it) rendered the Hebrew text in the following way: “Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose him three thousand men….” The English Standard Version follows this same approach and renders it similarly. This has a clear advantage over the readings which require one or more changes in the Hebrew text (which are not generally justified by the force of adequate alternative manuscript readings). It ignores the attempted reconstruction by the translators of the LXX, who clearly thought that the text was inadequate in its present form. All of them either emended it or deleted it. The strength of this way of seeing the sentence is that it takes the Hebrew text exactly as it stands without any emendation. Its weakness is that it ignores altogether the obvious idiom present in the Hebrew phrase, and it produces a reading that is clumsy and unnatural. Why would the author not simply have said, “When Saul had reigned two years over Israel he chose three thousand men…”?

3. The Contemporary English Version like the Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible attempts to take into consideration the idiom for Saul being a “one year old” in its rendering, but does so in a most stilted fashion. It has, “Saul was a young man when he became king, and he ruled Israel for two years. Then he chose….” According to these translators, the meaning of the idiom is that Saul was very young at the time of his accession to the throne. The strength of this manner of approaching the text is that it takes the passage on its own merit without requiring a renovation or alteration of the original Hebrew. The weakness of it is that this idiom as rendered in their translation has no parallel elsewhere in classical Hebrew literature. That would not make it impossible, but certainly presents an obstacle to viewing it so.

4. Some writers think the first clause of this verse belongs to the preceding chapter rather than to the present one, either as a part of the whole, or as a chronological note added afterwards. The force of it would be that “these things (related in 1 Sam. 12:1-25) took place in the first year of Saul’s reign.” And then the writer proceeds in the next place to tell his readers what took place in Saul’s second year of his reign. Together they certainly represent the most remarkable years of Saul’s kingship. In the first he was appointed, anointed, and twice confirmed, at both Mizpeh and at Gilgal. In the second, Israel was brought to the lowest state of degradation by the Philistines as Saul acted unconstitutionally and without divine authority, and at the last was rejected from being king over the people of God. Once more, the strength of this approach is that it takes the text precisely as it stands, without the need for emendation. Its only weaknesses are that it takes no account of the idiomatic nature of the Hebrew phrase itself which is so key to understanding it, and the fact that those who divided the text at first into paragraphs and then chapters did not see the worth of it or perhaps were not insightful enough to appreciate it.

5. Finally, there is the approach which takes into consideration first and foremost the way the Hebrew text actually reads: “Saul was a one-year old when he began to reign….” The Semitic Chaldee or Aramaic version of this passage tells us that “Saul was as innocent as a one-year-old child when he began to reign….” In our view this is the most insightful approach to the idiom of our writer. Note that these translators are themselves comfortable in a Semitic background, speaking and writing a Semitic language like Hebrew. After all, the text may be appropriately compared with 2 Kings 11:21 and the accession of king Jehoash at seven years old, and the Hebrew is almost exactly the same, except that the Hebrew for “years” is in the plural in that place whereas it is in the singular in 1 Samuel 13:1.

Now, this is not to say that we concur with the force of the passage being that Saul was innocent. Rather, we consider that it means Saul was as “immature, inexperienced, and unproven as a one-year-old child when he began to reign.” He was as inexpert in the principles of leadership as a one-year-old child. He was devoid of many of the essential qualities of good shepherding skills of the Lord’s flock, and he was dragged down by several unwholesome character flaws. In point of fact, this statement begins a section of the book that demonstrates his total lack of ability as a leader. He was exactly what Israel wanted in a king. But he was not what God wanted the people to have in their king. He was not at all “a man after God’s own heart.” This we believe to be the force of 1 Samuel 13:1.

Obviously we consider this last approach to the passage to be the most satisfactory. This is so because it accounts for the words of the text precisely in this context without any need for textual emendation or change. And most importantly, it does justice to the idiomatic nature of the statement itself which alleges that, in some sense at least, “Saul was a one-year-old.”