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Saul

This article is about King Saul, the biblical figure found in the Hebrew Bible. For the New Testament figure known as Saul of Tarsus, see Paul the Apostle. For other uses, see Saul (disambiguation).
Saul
שָׁאוּל‎
Saul depicted in a detail from an 1878 oil painting by Ernst Josephson
King of Israel
Reignc. 1030 BCE — c. 1010 BCE
SuccessorIsh-bosheth[1][2]
Spouses
Issue
Names
Saul ben Kish (שאול בן קיש‎)
HouseHouse of Saul
FatherKish

Saul (/sɔːl/; Hebrew: שָׁאוּל‎, Šāʾūl; Greek: Σαούλ, Saoúl; transl. "asked/prayed for") was a monarch of ancient Israel and Judah and the first king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. His reign, traditionally placed in the late eleventh century BCE,[3] supposedly marked the transition of the Israelites from a scattered tribal society ruled by various judges to organized statehood.[4]

The historicity of Saul and the United Kingdom of Israel is not universally accepted, as what is known of both comes exclusively from the Hebrew Bible.[3][5] According to the text, he was anointed as king of the Israelites by Samuel, and reigned from Gibeah. Saul is said to have committed suicide when he fell on his sword during a battle with the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, in which three of his sons were also killed. Saul's son Ish-bosheth succeeded him on the throne and was later murdered by his own military leaders, and then his son-in-law David became king.

The biblical narrative of Saul's rise to kingship and his death contains several textual inconsistencies and plays on words that scholars have discussed. These issues include conflicting accounts of Saul's anointing and death, changes in the portrayal of Saul from positive to negative following David's introduction, and etymological discrepancies in the birth-narrative of Samuel, which some scholars believe originally described Saul's birth.

  1. ^ Garfinkel, Yosef; Ganor, Saar; Hasel, Michael G. (2018). In the Footsteps of King David: Revelations from an Ancient Biblical City. Thames & Hudson. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-50077428-1. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  2. ^ Avioz, Michael (2015). Josephus' Interpretation of the Books of Samuel. Bloomsbury. p. 99. ISBN 9780567458575. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference finkelstein was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Van der Toorn, Karel (1993). "Saul and the rise of Israelite state religion". Vetus Testamentum. XLIII (4): 519–542. doi:10.2307/1518499. JSTOR 1518499.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference David was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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