1 Samuel 13:1
Saul's missing age
The Hebrew reads "Saul was a year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel." A number is missing. The library's Greek has no verse 13:1 at all. English Bibles fill the gaps with different conjectures.
Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording
The family tree
Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.
✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
What translations supply
- NRSV
- "Saul was … years old… and he reigned … and two years" (with dots).
- NIV
- "Saul was thirty years old… and he reigned over Israel forty-two years."
- Sources
- "Thirty" from late Greek manuscripts; "forty" from Acts 13:21; both are reconstructions.
Every witness, in order
Unknown (debated)
Original Samuel
No original survives.
Translated c. 2nd century BC
Septuagint, 1 Kingdoms (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
The library's Greek has no 13:1; chapter 13 begins with Saul choosing three thousand men (Hebrew 13:2). Some later Greek manuscripts supply "thirty years." One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Filius unius anni erat Saul cum regnare cœpisset: duobus autem annis regnavit super Israël
Saul was a son of one year when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel
Translates the Hebrew literally.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
בֶּן־שָׁנָה שָׁאוּל בְּמָלְכוֹ וּשְׁתֵּי שָׁנִים מָלַךְ עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל
Saul was a son of [a] year when he became king, and two years he reigned over Israel
The standard formula (as in 2 Samuel 2:10) needs a number before "year."
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,
Reinterprets the verse to avoid the problem.
What changed, and why
A defective verse in the Hebrew. Any specific numbers in English are editorial reconstructions, not readings of a surviving Hebrew manuscript.
What the evidence shows
- A number is missing from the Hebrew of 13:1.
- The library's Greek lacks the verse. One Greek text (Vaticanus type) via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical edition.
- Saul reigned forty-two years.
Sources
- NET Bible, notes on 1 Samuel 13:1 ↗
- E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (2012)
Related lessons
- Saul's Offering and the Philistine Smiths →The chapter opens with a verse whose numbers are missing. Jonathan attacks a Philistine garrison, and the Philistines muster a huge army at Michmash. Waiting at Gilgal for Samuel, Saul offers the sacrifice himself; Samuel arrives and announces that his kingdom will not continue. Israel has no smiths: the Philistines control the sharpening of tools, for a fee of a pim.
- How 1 Samuel Came to Us →Samuel was one book in the Hebrew Bible, divided in two by the Greek translators. Its Hebrew text is unusually difficult, and the Greek often reflects a different Hebrew. A Dead Sea Scroll, 4QSam-a, agrees with the Greek in many places, preserves a paragraph found nowhere else in the Bible, and changed how scholars study the text of the Old Testament.