Saul in Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Hebrew SHAUL 1. An early king of Edom (Genesis 36:37-38). 2. Genesis 46:10. 3. 1 Chronicles 6:24. 4. First king of Israel. The names Kish and Ner, Nadab and Abi-nadab, Baal and Mephibosheth, recur in the genealogy in two generations. The family extends to Ezra's time. If the Zimri of 1 Chronicles 9:42 be the Zimri of 1 Kings 16 it is the last stroke of the family of Saul for the kingdom. Saul was son of Kish, son of Ner, son of Abiel or Jehiel. 1 Samuel 9:1 omits Ner, the intermediate link, and makes Kish son of Abiel; 1 Chronicles 8:33 supplies the link, or Ner in 1 Chronicles is not father but ancestor of Kish (1 Chronicles 9:36-39), and Ner son of Abi-Gibeon (father or founder of Gibeon, 1 Chronicles 8:29) is named only because he was progenitor of Saul's line, the intermediate names mentioned in 1 Samuel 9 being omitted. The proud, fierce, and self willed spirit of his tribe, Benjamin, is conspicuous in Saul (see Judges 19; 20; 21). Strong and swift fooled (2 Samuel 1:23), and outtopping the people by head and shoulders (1 Samuel 9:2), he was the "beauty" or "ornament of Israel," "a choice young man," "there was none goodlier than he." Above all, he was the chosen of the Lord (1 Samuel 9:17; 1 Samuel 10:24; 2 Samuel 21:6). Zelah was Kish's burial place. Gibeah was especially connected with Saul. The family was originally humble (1 Samuel 11:1-21), though Kish was "a mighty man of substance." Searching for Kish's donkeys three days in vain, at last, by the servant's advice, Saul consulted Samuel, who had already God's intimation that He would send at this very time a man of Benjamin who should be king. God's providence, overruling man's free movements to carry out His purpose, appears throughout the narrative. Samuel gave Saul the chiefest place at the feast on the high place to which he invited him, and the choice portion. Setting his mind at ease about his asses, now found, Samuel raised his thoughts to the throne as one "on whom was all the desire of Israel." "Little then in his own sight" (1 Samuel 15:17), and calling himself "of the smallest of the tribes, and his family least of all the families of Benjamin" (1 Samuel 9:21), Saul was very different from what he afterward became in prosperity; elevation tests men (Psalm 73:18)...