Genealogy of Saul

Hey everyone!

I had a personal request, where my research was leading me to a dead end (not surprisingly, since I'm mostly an armchair scholar, or more accurately, a computer-chair historian ), not like some of you guys with your detailed actual books and stuff. If I am able to complete the research properly, I might be able to post the stuff I learnt over here, which may possibly interest some of you. I dunno.


So the thing I am trying to find out is the ancestry of King Saul. 1 Chronicles 8 would be the most obvious place to start, but that passage is REALLY confusing . What confuses it even MORE is that 1 Samuel 14:51 and 1 Samuel 9 conflict with this.

1 Chronicles 8, 29 to 33 gives it as Jehiel being the father of Ner, who was the father of Kish who was the father of Saul.
1 Samuel 9 and 14 gives it as Aphiah, being the father of Bechorath, who was the father of Zeror, who was the father of Abiel, who was the father of Kish, who was the father of Saul.

Confusing it more, is that fact that 1 Samuel 14 says that the commander of Saul’s army was Abner, son of Ner, who was Saul’s UNCLE (Saul’s father Kish and Abner’s father Ner were sons of Abiel).

Now I swear, I am not doing this topic as yet another "THE BIBLE IS CONTRADICTORY LOL!!111!!!" topic, so I searched around, and according to this link, the 1 Samuel 9 version is correct, with Ner and Kish being sons of Abiel.

So okay. Now it says that Abiel was son of Zeror, son of Bechorath, son of Aphiah, who was of the "family of Matri". I do not know the significance of Matri, who s/he was, and how it relates to the Tribe of Benjamin in general. Could someone please help tell me which branch of the Tribe of Benjamin the Matrites are from?

This link from a Biblical genealogy website details Saul's ancestors and Benjamin's descendants, but I see no way to connect the two at all, nor any person called Matri.

Now I am not EXPECTING a completely connected genealogy, I suppose that may not be possible (although considering the importance the Jews of the time placed on lineage, it may be possible), but some sort of better connection than what I have now (shown below) would really be appreciated. Even if you could clarify which of the displayed branches in the Bible Genealogy website I linked is the one that goes to Saul, that'd be really helpful!

(Documented all the way back to Adam)->Abraham->Isaac->Jacob->Benjamin->...->Aphiah->Bechorath->Zeror->Abiel->Kish->Saul


PS: And yeah, if your response is "the Bible is fake, you won't get any clear answers, it isn't true at all, etc., etc., thanks, that IS truly a perfectly valid response, but is really not helpful to me. So I am operating under the assumption that the Bible (or the related scholarly work or research) CAN be helpful or useful for me in this situation. If you like, you can take it as me investigating the cultural history and mythology of the Bible.

reply to post by babloyi

One possibility is that "Ner father of Kish" really means "Ner the distant ancestor of Kish", the originator of that particular clan. Those chapters of Chronicles are most interested in the ultimate ancestors going back to the sons of Jacob, and it seems clear from counting the generations that many have been skipped. So possibily what we've got is a genealogy of the different clans and then a jump to the near relations of interesting people.

Incidentally, I've noticed that Chronicles differs from Kings on the relation between the last couple of kings of Judah (whether brothers or nephew and uncle), and that Chronicles, which is later, seems to have got confused on the point. So I reckon the Samuel-Kings tradition may be a safer guide.

On second thoughts, considering the point that Ner was Saul's uncle; either we ignore my first paragraph above and focus on the second, that this is another example of Chronicles confusing the issue; or possibly they are both right, and Saul's uncle was named after the distant and respected ancestor.

PS; Incidentally, Jehiel is described in 1 Chronicles ch8 v29 as the "father of Gibeon", which does seem to indicate that he and Ner were the "distant ancestors" of the Benjamites of the district.
Kish was the "son of Jehiel" if you take v30, and the "son of Ner" if you take v33. I think we have to take the word "son" loosely, to include remoter descendants.
Anyway, no link at all is shown between Jehiel and the other clans of Benjamin.

Weh....oh well.. I was hoping SOME extension on the side of which branch of the Tribe of Benjamin lead to Saul. While it is probably a male, I don't even know anything about this Matri person!

And yeah, you're probably right about it using "father" figuratively in 1 Chronicles 8. I didn't quite get what that "father of Gibeon" thing in that passage, though. He was an elder of the whole area of Gibeon?

reply to post by babloyi

Perhaps he was regarded as the ancestral figure of the township of Gibeon in general, the first settler?
Just as in ch2 we read of "Machir, the father of Gilead", whose descendants have cities in the land of Gilead.

I suppose we'll never know for certain about Matri. But if vv29-32 of 1 Chronicles ch8 give the sons of the "Founding Father of Gibeon", and Saul's immediate family (in v33) came from Gibeah, then either there is no connection betweenthe two lists, or perhaps the Matrites were a family that migrated from Gibeon and set up or at least settled in Gibeah. At any rate, there would be a gap of many generations between the two lists, and Matri could be an ancestor living in that intermediate gap.

reply to post by babloyi


It's merely an issue of a father naming his first son after himself. Abiel is also named Ner. And he names his first son Ner, who in turn names his first son Abner.


Here is Saul's immediate family tree:

reply to post by NOTurTypical

But what about before that, NOT? Before Aphiah? Or on the other side, after Benjamin?
Benjamin had 12 offspring: Aharah, Shupham, Hupham, Gera, Nohah, Bela, Ard, Ashbel, Rosh, Jediael, Rapha and Becher. Which of these 12 was Saul's (or more specifically, Aphiah's) ancestor?

Many thanks to Disraeli, who helped out a bit here. I realise this is something of a specialised topic, which would explain the lack of responses, but I really was hoping for some help. I even tried contacting some Biblical scholars, but in the 1 case I got a response it was simply "I'm sorry, this is not my field, try ____", but when I contacted them, I got no response.

Digging a bit deeper, I've come across even more problems which are muddying the waters for me. Compounding this is the fact that different sources give conflicting information on the web. I realise this is stuff from thousands of years ago, so there will be theories and opinions and stuff, but there must be one version that is usually considered "canon". If anyone here would know these things, I'd appreciate any help:

Is Jeiel/Jehiel another name Abner/Ner the father of Kish (who was Saul's father)? The associated question being, is Maacah/Maachah Kish's mother?

Is Ahinoam daughter of Ahimaaz and wife of Saul the same woman as Ahimaaz who became wife of David?

Is Ahimaaz, father of Ahinoam the same Ahimaaz who was High Priest of Israel (successor to his father Zardok)? Is this the same Ahimaaz who is father of Basemath, wife of Solomon?

Is Ish-Bosheth son of Saul through Ahinoam, his wife, or Rizpat, his concubine?

It is amazing how close David and Saul's families could possibly be, if some of this information resolves in a certain way.

I'd REALLY appreciate any help with these questions, or even if you can't help, perhaps you can tell me where I could get this information, even PM me if it is an email address.

reply to post by babloyi

Ahinoam; One way for a man to demonstrate that he had taken power in a kingdom was to take over his predecessor's collection of wives. That is what Absolom did when he rebelled against David. If Ahinoam had turned up in King David's later harem, it could have been very plausible that she had been Saul's wife. But I see a problem in the timing. The story seems to indicate that David took Ahinoam at a time when he was on the run from Saul, and Saul was still alive. We may have to regard Ahinoam as a popular name for girls, because of its meaning.

Ish-bosheth; When he complains that Abner has taken Rizpht, he calls her "my father's concubine", which seems odd if she was also his own mother. But it's also possible that he uses this phrase because it is the real root of his objection (for the political reason mentioned in the first paragraph).

Ahimaaz; The stories involving an Ahimaaz are very spread out in time, and I think there must be three of them.
The father of Saul's wife would have been the wrong generation to be the son of David's High priest Zadok. Also a little old, I think, to be involved in the adventures of 1 Samuel ch17.

The third Ahimaaz is in 1 Kings ch4, an officer in Solomon's local administration. At the beginning of the same chapter, we see that Ahimaaz the son of Zadok has already been succeeded by his own son Azariah, and is presumably dead. You call this third Ahimaaz the father of Solomon's wife. My translations make him the husband of Solomon's daughter, which is a very different kettle of fish- two whole generations younger.

I suspect the real reason why you can't get any help from experts is that there isn't any information on these genealogies outside the Biblical text, so they're no better off for information than we are.

Oh well, thanks for the details, anyhow!

I dunno, I was perhaps thinking it may have been explained in greater detail in some Rabbinical tradition or something.

Thanks again!