1 Samuel 13:1

Saul reigned one year. The meaning of this passage of Scripture is not clear, as all translators and commentators have agreed. A literal translation of the Hebrew text was as we have it today reads, “Saul year[s] old when he began to reign, and two years he reigned over Israel” (on “year[s] old” see Vol. I, p. 181; also on Gen. 5:32). Ever since the days of the first Bible version this text has puzzled translators. Earlier editions of the LXX avoided the difficulty by omitting the verse entirely. The Targums paraphrased it to read, “Saul was as innocent as a one-year-old child when he began to reign.” The Syriac gives it, “When Saul had reigned one or two years.” Like preceding translations of the text, that of the KJV is a paraphrase that gives, not the Hebrew as we have it today, but what the translators thought the original text of the Hebrew to have been. The RSV assumes two omissions: “Saul was . . . years old when he began to reign; and he reigned . . . and two years over Israel.”

Some commentators agree that here is doubtless an instance where an omission has occurred in the process of copying, though at what time in the transmission of the text the omission may have occurred no one can tell (see Vol. I, p. 15). If the extant Hebrew text is the result of an omission, it stands as evidence of the carefulness and conscientiousness of later copyists in their work of producing new manuscripts, for they did not tamper with the text itself but left it as they found it even though its meaning was obscure.

Little is to be gained by conjecture; however, a tentative explanation may be offered. The form of the statement under consideration corresponds exactly to that of the formula commonly used by Bible writers in giving a king’s age when he began to reign and the duration of his reign. The corresponding formula for David appears in 2 Sam. 5:4 (see also 2 Kings 21:1; 24:8, 18; etc.). If omissions similar to those that appear to have occurred in 1 Sam. 13:1 had been made in a comparable text, such as 2 Kings 21:1, it would read: “Manasseh was . . . years old when he began to reign, and reigned . . . and five years in Jerusalem.” In basic construction the two passages are identical. The insertion of one figure for the age of Saul when he became king, and another for the length of his reign, would make the statement parallel to the statements for David and other kings. In the original text the phrase “. . . and two” may have read “forty” (see Acts 13:21). The Hebrew text of 1 Sam. 13:1 as it now stands thus implies that it originally constituted a statement of Saul’s age and the length of his reign. If it does not, then Saul is the only Hebrew king for whom the OT makes no such statement.

According to another explanation 1 Sam. 13:1 should read, “Saul reigned one year; and he reigned two years over Israel.” That is, he had completed the first year of his reign (see p. 138) and was in the second year when the events of this chapter occurred. It must be admitted, however, that to construe the Hebrew of 1 Sam. 13:1 to mean that the events of ch. 13 occurred in Saul’s second year is unnatural and a construction without an exact parallel in the Bible record of the kings.

The passage may reasonably be understood as meaning that Saul made an attempt to subdue the Philistines in his second year, although the first real blow — that of Jonathan, here recorded — came somewhat later. Thus understood, there is harmony with the translation and first interpretation here mentioned for 1 Sam. 13:1. If it be concluded that PP 616 seems to be premised on the KJV interpretation of this verse, it might be pointed out that the statement itself can be taken as referring to the first attempt. But no matter what translation or interpretation is given this passage, we are still left in perplexity as to the original reading of the text. However, in this as in other instances of difficult and obscure texts, no question of doctrine, and thus of our salvation, is involved.