The family tree of King Saul, the first king of Israel

Kish was “a man of Benjamin” and “a mighty man of power,” the son of Abiel.¹ His son Saul was “a choice young man, and a goodly,” and taller than any of the people “from his shoulders and upward.”¹ In the book of Acts, Paul still calls him “Saul the son of Cis.”¹⁴

The captain of Saul’s host was Abner, the son of Ner, and 1 Samuel 14:51 says that “Ner the father of Abner was the son of Abiel.”² By that verse Kish and Ner were brothers and Abner was Saul’s first cousin. The two lists of 1 Chronicles read differently, “Ner begat Kish, and Kish begat Saul,” which would make Abner Saul’s uncle.^12,13 The chart follows 1 Samuel and draws the Chronicles reading as a dotted line of uncertain parentage.

The only wife of Saul the Bible names is Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz.² It does not say which children she bore, so the chart draws the sons and daughters under that marriage and marks her side of each line as uncertain. Saul also had a concubine, Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, and two sons by her.^7,11

The lists of sons do not match. 1 Samuel 14:49 names Jonathan, Ishui and Melchishua, and 1 Samuel 31:2 names the three who fell with Saul in battle with the Philistines, Jonathan, Abinadab and Melchishua.^2,5 1 Chronicles 8:33 gives four, Jonathan, Malchishua, Abinadab and Eshbaal.¹² Eshbaal is the son called Ishbosheth in 2 Samuel, whom Abner made king over Israel for two years.⁶ The text does not say which son of the other lists Ishui is.

Saul offered his elder daughter Merab to David, but when the time came she “was given unto Adriel the Meholathite to wife.”³ His younger daughter Michal loved David, and Saul asked no dowry but a hundred foreskins of the Philistines.³ David brought them, and “Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.”³

When David fled, Saul gave Michal to Phalti the son of Laish.⁴ After Saul’s death David demanded her back from Ishbosheth, and her husband “went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim.”⁷ Michal “had no child unto the day of her death.”⁹ On this family tree of King Saul she stands between her two husbands, and David stands at the end of the row as Saul’s son-in-law. His own line is drawn on the King David family tree.

“So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.”⁵ Ishbosheth reigned two years over Israel while the house of Judah followed David.⁶ Jonathan left a son, Mephibosheth, who was five years old when the news came and became lame when his nurse dropped him in her flight.⁸

David later asked, “Is there not yet any of the house of Saul, that I may shew the kindness of God unto him,” for Jonathan’s sake.¹⁰ Mephibosheth ate “continually at the king’s table,” and his young son was Micha.¹⁰ In 1 Chronicles the same father and son are Meribbaal and Micah.¹²

A famine brought the house to its end. David spared Mephibosheth but handed seven descendants of Saul to the Gibeonites, among them Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Rizpah.¹¹ Rizpah spread sackcloth on the rock and kept watch over their bodies, and David then buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan in the country of Benjamin.¹¹

The other five handed over were sons of a daughter of Saul, and the King James Version names her as Michal, “whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.”¹¹ Adriel was Merab’s husband, and Michal had no child.^3,9 The New International Version reads Merab, the mother who bore them to Adriel, after two Hebrew manuscripts, some Septuagint manuscripts and the Syriac, and notes that most Hebrew and Septuagint manuscripts read Michal.¹⁵

The chart does not draw these five grandsons, since the Bible does not name them. For the patriarchs from whom the tribe of Benjamin came, see the Genesis family tree, and for the whole span of the Bible the Bible family tree.