1 Chronicles 10 Bible study: Why Saul died

For nine chapters 1 Chronicles has given names. The last list is Saul's line: "Ner became the father of Kish. Kish became the father of Saul. Saul became the father of Jonathan, Malchishua, Abinadab, and Eshbaal" (9:39), down to "These were the sons of Azel" (9:44). The next verse is a battle: "Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa" (10:1) (tap slain). In the WEB those are the same words that open 1 Samuel 31 (1 Samuel 31:1). "The Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul" (10:2). "The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was distressed by reason of the archers" (10:3).

1 Chronicles 10:14→leads toMark 11:10

The chapter ends with the LORD, who "turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse" (10:14), and the book goes on to tell David's reign, to "Now David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel" (29:26). As Jesus came near to Jerusalem (Mark 11:1), sitting on a young donkey (Mark 11:7), those who went in front and those who followed cried out, "Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Mark 11:10). Mark doesn't name 1 Chronicles 10, and the words are the crowd's, so setting the two side by side is a reading. Some see a line from the day the kingdom was turned over to David to the day the crowds around Jesus hailed "the kingdom of our father David that is coming" (Mark 11:10). Others hear Mark 11:10 as the crowd's own hope, and trace the line from David's kingdom to Jesus through the LORD's promise to David (1 Chronicles 17:11-14) rather than through the chapter of Saul's death.

מַעַלma'alsay MA-al

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "unfaithful, treacherous act", and for the verb beside it, "act unfaithfully, treacherously". "So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the LORD" (10:13): in Hebrew trespass is this noun and committed is the verb from the same root, as in "The children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted things" (Joshua 7:1). 1 Chronicles uses the noun only twice. The other is the verse that opens chapter 9: "Judah was carried away captive to Babylon for their disobedience" (9:1), where disobedience is this word. The verb came twice before this chapter: of Achar, "who committed a trespass in the devoted thing" (2:7), and of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, "They trespassed against the God of their fathers" (5:25).