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1 Chronicles10:11–14

Jabesh-gilead’s Tribute to Saul

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1 Chronicles 10:11–14 — Jabesh-gilead’s Tribute to Saul. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

11

When all the people of Jabesh-gilead heard about everything the Philistines had done to Saul,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

kōl yā·ḇêš gil·‘āḏ ’êṯ way·yiš·mə·‘ū kāl- ’ă·šer- p̄ə·liš·tîm ‘ā·śū lə·šā·’ūl

Word by word10 · parsed
כֹּ֖לkōlWhen all [the people of]H3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
kôl: properly, the whole In construct with a place name this is the whole town acting as one. The Chronicler has just described Israel fleeing (vv. 1-7); the single exception is a city that does not flee.
יָבֵ֣ישׁyā·ḇêšJabesh-gileadH3003
√ Yâbêsh — Jobesh, the name of an Israelite and of a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singular
Yâbêsh: Jabesh, a place in Palestine A rare name in the canon: the Verifier finds it in only 21 verses, and nearly all of them belong to one chain of story. Jabesh-gilead was decimated in Judges 21, rescued by Saul in 1 Samuel 11, and buries him here. Cambridge simply points the reader down that chain: “See 1 Samuel 11:1-11 ; 2 Samuel 2:4-7 .”
גִּלְעָ֑דgil·‘āḏ. . .H1568
√ Gilʻâd — Gilad, a region East of the JordanNounproperfeminine singular
אֵ֛ת’êṯH853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
Direct object marker; untranslatable.
וַֽיִּשְׁמְע֔וּway·yiš·mə·‘ūheard aboutH8085
√ shâmaʻ — to hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etcConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
shâmaʻ: to hear intelligently, with implication of attention, obedience Qal consecutive imperfect, third person masculine plural: the verb is plural though its subject kōl Yābêš Gilʻāḏ is grammatically singular, so the whole town speaks with one body. In Chronicles hearing is never merely auditory; it is the beginning of a response, which is why the verse ends not with grief but with the march of v. 12.
כָּל־kāl-everythingH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
אֲשֶׁר־’ă·šer-H834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
פְלִשְׁתִּ֖יםp̄ə·liš·tîmthe PhilistinesH6430
√ Pᵉlishtîy — a Pelishtite or inhabitant of PeleshethNounpropermasculine plural
Pᵉlishtîy: an inhabitant of Pelesheth JFB explains the practice this news reports: captured royal armour dedicated to a national deity and hung on temple pillars. What Jabesh hears, then, is not just a death but a public theological claim made by Dagon's people over Israel's king.
עָשׂ֥וּ‘ā·śūhad doneH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationVerbQalPerfectthird person common plural
לְשָׁאֽוּל׃lə·šā·’ūlto SaulH7586
√ Shâʼûwl — Shaul, the name of an Edomite and two IsraelitesPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
Shâʼûwl: Shaul, the name of two Israelites The preposition-l construction says the Philistines did this “to Saul,” collapsing king and corpse into one. K&D notes that the beheading is passed over “as being a matter of course, not specially mentioned”; the Chronicler's interest is in the shame, not the surgery.
12

all their men of valor set out and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons and brought them to Jabesh. And they buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh and fasted seven days.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

kāl- ’îš ḥa·yil way·yā·qū·mū way·yiś·’ū ’eṯ- gū·p̄aṯ šā·’ūl wə·’êṯ gū·p̄ōṯ bā·nāw way·ḇî·’ūm yā·ḇê·šāh way·yiq·bə·rū ’eṯ- ‘aṣ·mō·w·ṯê·hem ta·ḥaṯ hā·’ê·lāh bə·yā·ḇêš way·yā·ṣū·mū šiḇ·‘aṯ yā·mîm

Word by word22 · parsed
כָּל־kāl-allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
אִ֣ישׁ’îštheir menH376
√ ʼîysh — a man as an individual or a male personNounmasculine singular construct
חַיִל֒ḥa·yilof valorH2428
√ chayil — probably a force, whether of men, means or other resourcesNounmasculine singular
chayil: a force, whether of men, means or other resources Not a moral compliment first but a word for available strength. The Chronicler's judgment is that Jabesh spent its whole chayil on a dead king who could pay nothing back, while the armies of Israel had already abandoned their cities (v. 7).
וַיָּקוּמוּ֮way·yā·qū·mūset outH6965
√ qûwm — to rise (in various applications, literal, figurative, intensive and causative)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
qûwm: to rise, literal, figurative, intensive and causative Qal consecutive imperfect, third person masculine plural. The everyday verb of getting up begins a night march; 1 Samuel 31:12 adds “and marched all the night,” which Ellicott flags as a detail Chronicles drops.
וַיִּשְׂא֞וּway·yiś·’ūand retrievedH5375
√ nâsâʼ — to lift, in a great variety of applications, literal and figurative, absolute and relativeConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
nâsâʼ: to lift, literal and figurative, absolute and relative The plain verb for lifting a load. Ellicott notes Samuel's cooler word (“took”) against Chronicles' “carried off.” The men of Jabesh take on their shoulders precisely what the Philistines had hung up for display.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
גּוּפַ֣תgū·p̄aṯthe bodiesH1480
√ gûwphâh — a corpse (as closed to sense)Nounfeminine singular construct
gûwphâh: a corpse (as closed to sense) A hapax in the Old Testament, Aramaic in form. Its presence here rather than Samuel's word is one of the small pieces of evidence, with the oak/tamarisk difference, that Ellicott reads as “another source used by Chronicles.”
שָׁא֗וּלšā·’ūlof SaulH7586
√ Shâʼûwl — Shaul, the name of an Edomite and two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
וְאֵת֙wə·’êṯandH853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Conjunctive wawDirect object marker
גּוּפֹ֣תgū·p̄ōṯH1480
√ gûwphâh — a corpse (as closed to sense)Nounfeminine plural construct
בָּנָ֔יוbā·nāwhis sonsH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
וַיְבִיא֖וּםway·ḇî·’ūmand brought themH935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine pluralthird person masculine plural
יָבֵ֑ישָׁהyā·ḇê·šāhto JabeshH3003
√ Yâbêsh — Jobesh, the name of an Israelite and of a place in PalestineNounproperfeminine singularthird person feminine singular
וַיִּקְבְּר֨וּway·yiq·bə·rūAnd they buriedH6912
√ qâbar — to interConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
qâbar: to inter The controlling verb of the sentence. Everything before it (rising, lifting, carrying) exists to make this possible: the king who lost the kingdom is not left as a trophy on a Philistine wall.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
עַצְמוֹתֵיהֶ֜ם‘aṣ·mō·w·ṯê·hemtheir bonesH6106
√ ʻetsem — a bone (as strong)Nounfeminine plural constructthird person masculine plural
ʻetsem: a bone (as strong) The word is the hinge of the whole textual problem in this verse. The Chronicler says nothing about burning, but he writes bones, and Cambridge offers the historical guess that “the perfunctory burning carried out by the men of Jabesh was merely a ruse” to persuade the Philistines the remains were destroyed. That is conjecture, honestly labeled as such; the noun is the fact.
תַּ֤חַתta·ḥaṯunderH8478
√ tachath — the bottom (as depressed)Preposition
הָאֵלָה֙hā·’ê·lāhthe oakH424
√ ʼêlâh — an oak or other strong treeArticleNounfeminine singular
ʼêlâh: an oak or other strong tree A named, definite landmark. Cambridge: “Large trees, being rare in Palestine, frequently serve as landmarks.” The grave is marked, which is why 2 Samuel 21:12-14 can later report David fetching these bones from Jabesh for the family sepulchre.
בְּיָבֵ֔שׁbə·yā·ḇêšin JabeshH3003
√ Yâbêsh — Jobesh, the name of an Israelite and of a place in PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
וַיָּצ֖וּמוּway·yā·ṣū·mūand fastedH6684
√ tsûwm — to cover over (the mouth), iConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
tsûwm: to cover over (the mouth), to fast Qal consecutive imperfect. Poole defines the practice tightly: “every day till evening, after the manner of the Jewish fasts.” This is the only mourning in the chapter. Israel's armies fled; the Philistines celebrated; one town went hungry.
שִׁבְעַ֥תšiḇ·‘aṯsevenH7651
√ shebaʻ — seven (as the sacred full one)Numbermasculine singular construct
shebaʻ: seven (as the sacred full one) Construct with yāmîm. Cambridge measures it against David, who fasted “till the evening” for Saul (2 Samuel 1:12) and for Abner: “The fast of Jabesh was a sevenfold fast.” Ellicott compares Job's friends (Job 2:11-13) and Ezekiel at Tel-abib (Ezekiel 3:15). Seven days is the full measure of grief, given to a rejected king.
יָמִֽים׃yā·mîmdaysH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Nounmasculine plural
yôwm: a day (as the warm hours) Plural, counting out the full week of the fast.
13

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,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

šā·’ūl way·yā·māṯ mā·‘al bə·ma·‘ă·lōw ’ă·šer Yah·weh ‘al- ’ă·šer lō- šā·mār də·ḇar Yah·weh wə·ḡam- liš·’ō·wl bā·’ō·wḇ liḏ·rō·wōš

Word by word16 · parsed
שָׁא֗וּלšā·’ūlSo SaulH7586
√ Shâʼûwl — Shaul, the name of an Edomite and two IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
וַיָּ֣מָתway·yā·māṯdiedH4191
√ mûwth — to die (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
mûwth: to die, literally or figuratively Qal consecutive imperfect, third person masculine singular: Saul died, the ordinary active voice. Hold it against v. 14, where the same root returns in the Hifil with God as the acting subject. Verse 13 records the event; v. 14 names the agent.
מָעַ֣לmā·‘al. . .H4603
√ mâʻal — properly, to cover upVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
mâʻal: properly, to cover up (to act covertly, to transgress) Qal perfect, third person masculine singular, standing immediately beside its own cognate noun. The doubled root is the Chronicler's heaviest indictment vocabulary, and he uses it sparingly and deliberately: the same charge in 1 Chronicles 5:25 sends the Transjordan tribes into Assyrian exile.
בְּמַֽעֲלוֹ֙bə·ma·‘ă·lōwfor his unfaithfulnessH4604
√ maʻal — treachery, iPreposition-bNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
maʻal: treachery, sacrilege Ellicott's paraphrase of the whole phrase is precise: “Saul's ‘unfaithfulness whereby he showed himself unfaithful to Jehovah.’” The image behind the root is covering over, acting under a lid, which is exactly what consulting a medium by night at En-dor looked like.
אֲשֶׁ֣ר’ă·šerH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
בַּֽיהוָ֔הYah·wehto the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-bNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh: Jehovah, Jewish national name of God The preposition-b marks the injured party: the trespass was not merely against the law but against Yahweh himself.
עַל־‘al-. . .H5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
אֲשֶׁ֣ר’ă·šerbecauseH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
לֹא־lō-he did notH3808
√ lôʼ — not (the simple or absAdverbNegative particle
שָׁמָ֑רšā·mārkeepH8104
√ shâmar — properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), iVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
shâmar: properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), to guard, keep Qal perfect with the negative: he did not guard the word. The image is a fence set around something valuable. Commentators divide on which episode is meant: Barnes judges “the disobedience with respect to Amalek, recorded in 1 Samuel 15:1-9”; K&D and Gill include the failure to wait for Samuel at 1 Samuel 13:8 as well; Cambridge lists both the unlawful sacrifice and 1 Samuel 15:23. The text names neither, and the honest reading is that it means the pattern.
דְּבַ֥רdə·ḇarthe wordH1697
√ dâbâr — a wordNounmasculine singular construct
dâbâr: a word In construct with the divine name: dᵉbar YHWH, the prophetic word delivered through Samuel. The Chronicler's charge is not that Saul was defeated but that he had a word and did not keep it.
יְהוָ֖הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
וְגַם־wə·ḡam-and evenH1571
√ gam — properly, assemblageConjunction
gam: properly, assemblage (also, even) The particle stacks the second count on the first. JFB reads the two together: “Both of these acts were great sins.”
לִשְׁא֥וֹלliš·’ō·wlconsultedH7592
√ shâʼal — to inquirePreposition-lVerbQalInfinitive construct
shâʼal: to inquire Qal infinitive construct. There is a grim pun the Hebrew makes and English cannot: shâʼal, to ask, is the root behind the name Shâʼûwl, Saul, “asked for.” The king Israel asked for ends by asking the dead.
בָּא֖וֹבbā·’ō·wḇa mediumH178
√ ʼôwb — properly, a mumble, iPreposition, ArticleNounmasculine singular
ʼôwb: properly, a mumble The word names the muttering ghost-voice and, by extension, its medium. Ellicott sets Leviticus 19:31 against Saul directly (“Turn ye not to the necromancers”) and notes that “Saul broke the general law of his people, as well as special commands addressed to himself.” Gill adds that Saul had himself purged such practitioners (1 Samuel 28:9), so he sinned against his own published conviction.
לִדְרֽוֹשׁ׃liḏ·rō·wōšfor guidanceH1875
√ dârash — properly, to tread or frequentPreposition-lVerbQalInfinitive construct
dârash: properly, to tread or frequent (to seek, inquire) Qal infinitive construct, the verb of habitually resorting to someone. K&D glosses the purpose plainly: “לדרושׁ, i.e., to receive an oracle.” The same root governs v. 14, where the negative falls on it. Saul did tread a path for an answer; it simply did not lead to God.
14

and he failed to inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·lō- ḏā·raš Yah·weh way·mî·ṯê·hū ham·mə·lū·ḵāh way·yas·sêḇ ’eṯ- lə·ḏā·wîḏ ben- yi·šāy

Word by word10 · parsed
וְלֹֽא־wə·lō-and he failedH3808
√ lôʼ — not (the simple or absConjunctive wawAdverbNegative particle
lôʼ: not The negative carries the entire verdict of the chapter. Four commentators feel its pressure, because 1 Samuel 28:6 says Saul did inquire; see the note on the verb that follows.
דָרַ֥שׁḏā·rašto inquireH1875
√ dârash — properly, to tread or frequentVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
dârash: properly, to tread or frequent (to seek, inquire) Qal perfect. The flat contradiction with 1 Samuel 28:6 is the oldest crux in this verse, and the commentators answer it in one voice with different emphases. Ellicott: the LORD “answered him not, neither by the dreams, nor by the Urim, nor by the prophets,” and Saul “at once despaired.” Benson: he inquired “not humbly and penitently, not diligently and importunately, not patiently and perseveringly.” Poole makes it a principle by analogy with 1 Corinthians 11:20. Cambridge puts it shortest: “The Chronicler does not count inquiries made too late.”
בַּֽיהוָ֖הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodPreposition-bNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh: Jehovah, Jewish national name of God The preposition-b names who was not sought: the covenant God, by his covenant name, the same name against whom the maʻal of v. 13 was committed.
וַיְמִיתֵ֑הוּway·mî·ṯê·hūSo the LORD put him to deathH4191
√ mûwth — to die (literally or figuratively)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singularthird person masculine singular
mûwth: to die Hifil consecutive imperfect with a third person object suffix: “and he put him to death.” The subject is unexpressed in Hebrew and can only be God, read back from the clause before. Ellicott refuses any crude reading of this: “God acts through the instrumentality of His creatures. In this case He employed the Philistines, and the suicidal hand of Saul himself.” The Chronicler asserts divine agency without denying the sword or the fall on it.
הַמְּלוּכָ֔הham·mə·lū·ḵāhand turned the kingdomH4410
√ mᵉlûwkâh — something ruled, iArticleNounfeminine singular
mᵉlûwkâh: something ruled The noun that the entire chapter exists to move. Henry states the editorial purpose openly: Chronicles “repeats not the history of Saul's reign, but only of his death, by which a way was made for David to the throne.”
וַיַּסֵּב֙way·yas·sêḇoverH5437
√ çâbab — to revolve, surround, or borderConjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
çâbab: to revolve, surround, or border Hifil: to cause to come round. The verb is not “gave” and not “took.” It is the language of a circuit, and Ellicott hears the same providence at work later in Isaiah's Assyrian rod (Isaiah 10:5-15) and in Cyrus (Isaiah 44:28).
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
לְדָוִ֖ידlə·ḏā·wîḏto DavidH1732
√ Dâvid — David, the youngest son of JessePreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
Dâvid: David, the youngest son of Jesse His first appearance as king-designate in the Chronicler's narrative, and the pivot of the book. Ellicott adds the human means Chronicles will detail: “By means of the warriors of Israel ( 1Chronicles 12:23 ).”
בֶּן־ben-sonH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bên: a son (as a builder of the family name) Construct with Jesse. The lexicon's own gloss, a builder of the family name, is the point: a house begins here where a house has just ended.
יִשָֽׁי׃פyi·šāyof JesseH3448
√ Yishay — Jishai, David's fatherNounpropermasculine singular
Yishay: Jishai, David's father Naming Jesse rather than the tribe roots the new kingship in a specific Bethlehem household already catalogued at 1 Chronicles 2:15. From this genealogical point the prophets will later grow the stump and root of Jesse.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The one town that did not run — 10:11-12

The chapter has just emptied the valley: Israel fled, the cities were abandoned, the Philistines came and lived in them. Then one name is heard, and it is a rare one. יָבֵישׁ (Yâbêsh, H3003) occurs in only twenty-one verses in the whole canon, and Cambridge points the reader at the two that matter: “See 1 Samuel 11:1-11 ; 2 Samuel 2:4-7 .” Pulpit spells out what the cross-reference means: Saul “had on a celebrated occasion ( 1 Samuel 11:1-13 ) befriended the people of Jabesh-gilead,” and they now “show that rarest of virtues, gratitude to a fallen monarch.” The Hebrew makes the town one actor: kōl Yābêš Gilʻāḏ, “all Jabesh-gilead,” a collective singular taking a plural verb, with no “people of” in the text at all.

⚙ What they spend is named exactly: כָּל־אִישׁ חַיִל, which Ellicott renders “Literally, every man of valour,” and chayil (H2428) is defined as a force, whether of men, means or other resources. The town's entire strength goes out by night to carry home a corpse that can never repay it. The verse then quietly changes its object: they lift corpses and they bury bones. Ellicott catches the seam: “The phrase ‘their bones,’ contrasted with their ‘corpses,’ certainly seems to imply that the latter had been burnt.” Chronicles has omitted the burning that 1 Samuel 31:12 records, and Pulpit calls that omission out: “The silence is very remarkable.” Cambridge offers a conjecture to fill it, that the burning “was merely a ruse to give the Philistines the impression that Saul's remains were destroyed”; that is a historian's guess, and should be read as one. What the text gives without conjecture is a marked grave under a definite tree, הָאֵלָה, an oak or other strong tree, which Pulpit connects to a root “significant of the idea of strength,” and a fast of seven days. Poole measures the practice: “every day till evening, after the manner of the Jewish fasts.” Cambridge measures its length against David's single-day fasts for Saul and for Abner: “The fast of Jabesh was a sevenfold fast.”

ii. The verdict that only Chronicles writes — 10:13

Cambridge marks verses 13 and 14 as “(peculiar to Chron.)” and calls them “The Moral of the Overthrow of the House of Saul,” noting that “such reflexions as these are characteristic of the Chronicler.” Ellicott agrees: “A concluding reflection from the mind of the chronicler himself.” The indictment is built on a doubled root: בְּמַעֲלוֹ אֲשֶׁר מָעַל, noun H4604 on verb H4603, “in his treachery which he treacherously did.” K&D refuses to treat it as generic sin and sends the reader to Leviticus 5:15 for the technical sense; Ellicott shows the Chronicler firing the same word at the Transjordan tribes (1 Chronicles 5:25) and at Judah (1 Chronicles 9:1), and draws the conclusion for the whole book: “The sin that ruined the first king was essentially that which led to the final ruin of the nation, viz., unfaithfulness to the covenant-God. The same word characterises both.”

⚙ Two counts follow, joined by וְגַם, “and also.” K&D states them as “a double transgression”: not observing the word of Jahve, and inquiring of the אוֹב. On the first, the commentators do not agree on which episode is meant, and the honesty of the unit depends on saying so. Barnes: “the disobedience with respect to Amalek, recorded in 1 Samuel 15:1-9.” Gill: “both in not staying for Samuel the time appointed, and by sparing the Amalekites.” Cambridge lists the unlawful sacrifice and 1 Samuel 15:23. JFB takes both together and weighs them: “Both of these acts were great sins.” The Hebrew itself names no episode; it says only that he did not guard (shâmar, H8104, “properly, to hedge about”) the word he had. On the second count the vocabulary is startlingly physical: ʼôwb (H178) is defined properly, a mumble, the ghost-voice itself before it is the medium who produces it, and K&D calls it “the summoner of the dead.” Ellicott lays Leviticus 19:31 over it, “Turn ye not to the necromancers,” and observes that “Saul broke the general law of his people, as well as special commands addressed to himself”; Gill adds the aggravation that Saul had already tried to extirpate such practitioners himself.

iii. Sought and not sought: the kingdom brought round — 10:14

The seam between the verses carries the whole argument, and only the Hebrew shows it. Verse 13 ends לִדְרֽוֹשׁ and verse 14 opens וְלֹא־דָרַשׁ: the same root H1875 dârash, to tread a path to someone for an answer, first positive toward the dead and then negative toward the living God. Against this stands the flat report of 1 Samuel 28:6 that Saul did inquire of the LORD, and every commentator in the brief feels it. Ellicott: the LORD “answered him not, neither by the dreams, nor by the Urim, nor by the prophets,” and Saul “at once despaired of help from his God, instead of seeking it with self-humiliation and penitence.” Benson: “not humbly and penitently, not diligently and importunately, not patiently and perseveringly.” K&D: “instead of seeking with all earnestness for the grace of Jahve, that he might receive an answer, Saul turned to the sorceress of Endor.” JFB is harshest: “His enquiry was, in fact, a mere mockery.” Poole turns it into a rule by analogy with 1 Corinthians 11:20, and Cambridge states it in seven words: “The Chronicler does not count inquiries made too late.”

⚙ Then two Hifil verbs, both with an unnamed subject who can only be God. וַיְמִיתֵהוּ is the causative of the same root that opened v. 13: Saul died, and He caused him to die. Ellicott guards this from crudeness: “God acts through the instrumentality of His creatures. In this case He employed the Philistines, and the suicidal hand of Saul himself.” וַיַּסֵּב (H5437 çâbab, “to revolve, surround, or border”) does not mean gave or seized; it means caused to come round, a circuit closing. Gill hears the transfer precisely: God “translated the kingdom of Israel out of Saul's family, upon his death, into Jesse's.” Ellicott names the human means Chronicles will spend chapters on, “By means of the warriors of Israel ( 1Chronicles 12:23 ),” and reads the structural function: “This sentence shows that 1 Chronicles 10 is transitional to the history of David as king.” Pulpit notices that the last two words are genealogy doing narrative work: the compiler “identifies the future chief hero of his history as him who had already been instanced ( 1 Chronicles 2:15 ), ‘son of Jesse.’” Henry had said the same of the whole chapter from the first verse: Chronicles “repeats not the history of Saul's reign, but only of his death, by which a way was made for David to the throne.”

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested by Scripture and by better readers. Four verses hold two kinds of faithfulness side by side and let the reader feel the difference. Jabesh-gilead hears and immediately spends everything it has on a man who is past helping them; Saul heard a word from God and did not hedge it about. The Chronicler does not moralize the contrast, but he does put it in one paragraph, and the Hebrew keeps the hinge: dârash twice across the seam of v. 13 and v. 14, once toward a mumbling voice in the dark and once, negatively, toward the LORD. The sin named is not unbelief in the abstract. It is a man who had access to the living God, found the answer slow, and went to get a faster one somewhere else. Ellicott's diagnosis, that Saul “at once despaired of help from his God, instead of seeking it with self-humiliation and penitence,” is more dangerous to us than a charge of witchcraft would be, because impatience is ordinary.

⚙ Against that, notice what Chronicles refuses to say. It never says God abandoned Saul's body. The one act of decency in the chapter comes from a town Saul had rescued forty years earlier, and God lets that gratitude, not a miracle, be the thing that answers Philistine shame. Grace runs on long memory and through ordinary courage here, while judgment runs through a battle and a man's own sword, and the text calls both of them God's doing without embarrassment. If this reading is right, the chapter is not primarily about a medium at En-dor at all. It is about where a person goes when heaven is silent, and about a kingdom that comes round to the son of Jesse not because Saul failed but because God turned it.

Not a verse, a fallible reading offered to be tested: Saul's ruin was not that he stopped asking, but that he would not wait for the answer.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The parallel the Chronicler edits: 1 Samuel 31 verbal / quotation: confirmed

Verses 11 and 12 rework 1 Samuel 31:11-13 closely enough that the differences are the interesting part. Ellicott lists them one by one: Samuel adds “and marched all the night”; Samuel has the pure Hebrew word for corpse where Chronicles writes the Aramaic hapax גּוּפַת; Samuel says “and burnt them there,” which Chronicles omits entirely; Samuel's tree is a tamarisk and the Chronicler's is a terebinth. Ellicott's own conclusion from the tree alone is cautious: “The difference points to another source used by Chronicles.” Pulpit calls the omitted burning “very remarkable.” Cambridge explains the omission as theological economy, “perhaps because the bones were not destroyed by this burning.” The Verifier confirms the shared vocabulary, and the shared name is genuinely rare.

1 Samuel 31:11 · 1 Samuel 31:12 · 1 Samuel 31:13

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3003 Yâbêsh (in 21 vv, rare) and H6106 ʻetsem (in 108 vv) at 1 Samuel 31:13, plus H7586 Shâʼûwl and H3003 Yâbêsh at 31:11-12. The rarity of H3003 together with near-identical clause order marks literary dependence within the Hebrew canon, not a formal citation formula.

Why Jabesh owed Saul: the debt of 1 Samuel 11 structural / thematic: confirmed

The gratitude of v. 12 is unexplained in Chronicles and the reader is expected to supply it. Pulpit supplies it: Saul “had on a celebrated occasion ( 1 Samuel 11:1-13 ) befriended the people of Jabesh-gilead, coming to their rescue against Nahath the Ammonite, of which kindness they are now mindful.” Ellicott simply writes, “For the behaviour of the men of Jabesh, comp. 1 Samuel 11,” and Cambridge gives the same pointer. ⚙ The shape is symmetrical: Saul's kingship effectively began when he rose in the Spirit's power to save this town from mutilation, and it ends with this town rising to rescue his mutilated body. No quotation is claimed; the link is the shared, rare place name and a completed narrative arc.

1 Samuel 11:1 · 1 Samuel 11:5 · 1 Samuel 11:9

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3003 Yâbêsh (in 21 vv, rare) and H1568 Gilʻâd (in 123 vv) at 1 Samuel 11:1, 11:9; H7586 Shâʼûwl (in 335 vv) with H3003 at 11:5. A real shared lexeme set within one narrative arc, with no quotation claimed.

Jabesh before Saul: the town that was almost erased structural / thematic: confirmed

The same rare name carries an older and darker memory. In Judges 21 the men of Jabesh-gilead are destroyed for failing to come up to Mizpah, and their surviving virgins are given to Benjamin so that a tribe will not be blotted out of Israel. ⚙ Saul was a Benjamite, and the Chronicler's readers, who have just been given nine chapters of genealogy, were in a position to hear that. This unit does not state the connection and no commentator in the brief draws it, so it is offered as a pattern in the shared vocabulary rather than as an authorial intention: the town tied to Benjamin's survival buries Benjamin's king.

Judges 21:8 · Judges 21:10 · Judges 21:12 · Judges 21:14

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3003 Yâbêsh (in 21 vv, rare) and H1568 Gilʻâd (in 123 vv) at Judges 21:8, 21:9, 21:10, 21:12, 21:14. The lexical link is confirmed; the Benjamite inference drawn in the body is this tool's own and is marked as such.

David finishes what Jabesh started structural / thematic: confirmed

The story of these bones does not end under the terebinth. Cambridge notes that 2 Samuel 21:12-14 records “the bones of Saul and Jonathan brought from Jabesh in David's reign and re-interred in the family sepulchre,” and Pulpit observes that the men of Jabesh “are further on ( 2 Samuel 2:5 ) commended for it by David” at the very moment Judah anoints him king (2 Samuel 2:4). ⚙ So the kingdom that v. 14 says God turned to David turns, in its first recorded royal act, back toward the men who honoured the king it replaced. The link is lexical and narrative, not a quotation.

2 Samuel 2:4 · 2 Samuel 2:5 · 2 Samuel 21:12

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H7586 Shâʼûwl (in 335 vv), H3003 Yâbêsh (in 21 vv, rare) and H1568 Gilʻâd (in 123 vv) at 2 Samuel 2:4, 2:5 and 21:12. Shared rare place name across a continuing narrative; no citation formula is present.

Paul tells the same transfer in Pisidian Antioch structural / thematic: confirmed

Preaching in the synagogue at Antioch, Paul compresses this chapter into a sentence: God gave them Saul for forty years, “and when He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king,” and then moves straight from David to Jesus. ⚙ That is the Chronicler's own sequence, judgment on Saul and the kingdom brought round to the son of Jesse, used as the spine of an apostolic sermon. No verbal tier is possible here and none is claimed: the Acts text is Greek and this unit is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme can be computed between them, and Paul is summarizing the Samuel and Chronicles narrative rather than quoting this verse. The link is the shared structure of removal and succession.

Acts 13:21 · Acts 13:22

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are not computable across languages, so no verbal tier is available. Basis is the shared narrative structure, Saul removed and David raised up, which Acts 13:21-22 states in the same order as 1 Chronicles 10:13-14. No quotation of this verse is claimed.

The root of Jesse: a genealogy that becomes a prophecy flagged: verify source

Chronicles ends the chapter not with “David” but with “David son of Jesse,” and Pulpit shows the compiler doing this deliberately, tying the new king to the household already catalogued at 1 Chronicles 2:15. ⚙ Isaiah will later take that patronymic and make it the standing name of messianic hope, a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a root of Jesse standing as a banner for the peoples, which Paul then quotes over the Gentile mission. The connection between this verse and Isaiah runs through a proper name, not a shared clause, and the Isaiah and Romans texts are not commented on in this unit's sources, so the tier stays modest.

Isaiah 11:1 · Isaiah 11:10 · Romans 15:12

basis: The Verifier returned no shared-lexeme basis for these refs, and the Romans link is cross-Testament so no verbal tier is possible. The connection rests on the proper name Jesse (H3448 Yishay) shared with Isaiah 11:1 and on Paul's explicit quotation of Isaiah 11:10 at Romans 15:12, neither of which this brief's sources verify. Verify against the Hebrew of Isaiah 11:1 and the Greek of Romans 15:12 before relying on it.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The kingdom brought round to the son of Jesse ancient/widely-held

⚙ The last clause of the unit is the Chronicler's whole reason for telling Saul's death at all. Henry states the purpose plainly: Chronicles “repeats not the history of Saul's reign, but only of his death, by which a way was made for David to the throne,” and Gill reads the transfer as God's own act, translating the kingdom “out of Saul's family, upon his death, into Jesse's.” Ellicott adds that the sentence is structural, showing “that 1 Chronicles 10 is transitional to the history of David as king.” The verb is וַיַּסֵּב, a Hifil of çâbab, to bring round in a circuit, with God as the unnamed subject. From this point the Old Testament never lets the throne go anywhere else: the covenant of 2 Samuel 7 is made with this house, and the prophets keep calling the coming king by this father's name. When Paul preaches in Antioch he takes the same step in one breath, from God raising up David to God bringing from this man's offspring a Saviour, Jesus. That reading of the Davidic succession as leading to Christ is the ancient and widely held one, not a novelty of this page; what belongs to this page is only the observation that the Chronicler's verb is a circuit closing, not a gift being handed over.

1 Chronicles 10:14 · Acts 13:22 · Acts 13:23 · Isaiah 11:1

Two kings and one word: maʻal novel

⚙ Saul dies in his own trespass: בְּמַעֲלוֹ אֲשֶׁר מָעַל, and the preposition is “in,” not “for.” K&D ties the word to the sacrilege law of Leviticus 5:15, and Ellicott shows the Chronicler using it of the exiled Transjordan tribes and of Judah, concluding that “the sin that ruined the first king was essentially that which led to the final ruin of the nation.” The word therefore reaches past Saul to the covenant people as such, and that is where this reading listens for the gospel. Israel's last king in the flesh is a man who dies inside a trespass that is his own; Israel's hope is a king who dies inside a trespass that is not his own. The contrast is not stated by any commentator in this unit and it is not read out of the Hebrew of this verse, which is why it is marked novel rather than ancient. It is offered only as a way of feeling the weight of the preposition: everything in the chapter depends on whose maʻal the king dies in.

1 Chronicles 10:13 · Leviticus 5:15 · Isaiah 53:6

Bodies taken down and given a grave novel

⚙ The single act of mercy in this chapter is that brave men came by night for the body of an executed king that his enemies had put on public display, carried it away, and buried it honourably under a known tree, and then fasted seven days. The Gospels report a structurally similar mercy at the cross, where a man of standing asks for a body no one else would claim and lays it in a marked tomb. No source in this unit draws the comparison, and the differences are real: Saul died under a verdict the text names as his own, while the Gospels insist the crucified king was innocent. The figure is therefore offered as a pattern of faithful burial in a moment of total defeat, not as a prophecy fulfilled, and it is marked novel accordingly.

1 Chronicles 10:12 · Mark 15:43 · Mark 15:46

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. Scripture is BSB (CC0); the interlinear, parsing and Strong's data are the Berean set as given in this unit's brief. The literal renderings above are built from that interlinear upward and are the tool's own work, marked ⚙; where they differ from BSB the difference is argued in the divergences, never asserted silently.

Sources actually usable here. Eleven commentators are present in the brief, but not all of them comment. The Geneva Study Bible entries for 10:11, 10:12, 10:13 and 10:14 contain only the verse text plus the header “EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)” and carry no annotation, so Geneva is cited nowhere in this unit. Gill's entries for 10:11 and 10:12 read only “See Gill on 1 Samuel 31:1,” so Gill is quoted only where he writes (10:13, 10:14). Poole has no note on 10:11. Matthew Henry's paragraph is written over 10:1-14 as a block, and K&D's paragraph covers 10:8-14; both are quoted with that scope noted rather than presented as verse-level comment. Barnes' entries for 10:11 and 10:12 discuss “all his house died together” from v. 6 and are not used at those verses.

What is uncertain. Three things in this unit are genuinely open. First, which disobedience v. 13 means: Barnes says Amalek, Gill and K&D include the failure to wait for Samuel at 1 Samuel 13, Cambridge lists the sacrifice and 1 Samuel 15:23, and the Hebrew names none of them. Second, the burning: 1 Samuel 31:12 reports it, Chronicles does not, the noun “bones” may imply it, and Cambridge's explanation that it was “a ruse” is an explicitly conjectural reconstruction. Ellicott's alternative, that the burning was an exceptional response to mutilation, is equally a reconstruction. Third, the tree: ʼêlâh is rendered oak here and terebinth in the Revised Version margin, against a tamarisk in 1 Samuel, and Pulpit judges the Hebrew tree words “of doubtful and perhaps only generic signification.”

Translation judgments flagged. At 10:14 the subject of “put him to death” and “turned the kingdom” is not expressed in Hebrew; BSB supplies “the LORD,” which is almost certainly right from context but is supplied, not written. At 10:13 the preposition ‘al-dᵉbar is rendered causally by BSB and as “because of the word” by the Revised Version, per Cambridge; both are defensible.

Thread provenance. Badges use the Verifier's computed shared-lexeme bases. The link to Isaiah 11 and Romans 15 is tiered “flagged: verify source” because the Verifier returned no basis for it and no source in this brief discusses it. The Acts 13 link is cross-Testament and is tiered structural, never verbal, since Strong's numbers cannot be shared between Greek and Hebrew. The Judges 21 Benjamite inference and both novel christological readings are the tool's own and are labeled as such where they occur.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)