1 Samuel 9:1

1 Kish, son of Abiel from the tribe of Benjamin, was an important man. (Abiel was the son of Zeror, who was the son of Becorath, who was the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.)

1 Samuel 9:1 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 9:1

Now there was a man of Benjamin
Of the tribe of Benjamin, which had its name from the youngest son of Jacob, and one of this tribe was the first king of Israel:

whose name was Kish:
whom the apostle calls Cis, ( Acts 13:21 ) , and Josephus ^F9 Cises; his name, according to Hillerus ^F11, signifies "ensnared"; for what reason it was given him is not certain:

the son of Abiel;
in ( 1 Chronicles 8:33 ) ( 9:39 ) , he is called Ner that begat Kish; and in this book, ( 1 Samuel 14:50 1 Samuel 14:51 ) Ner and Kish are represented as brethren, the sons of Abiel: to reconcile this, it may be observed, that Ner being the elder brother, on the death of his father Abiel, had the care and bringing up of his younger brother Kish; and therefore when he is said to beget him, the meaning is, not that he was the parent of him, but the bringer up of him; or rather, as Kimchi thinks, Abiel had two sons, one of which was Ner; and that he had two sons, one that was called after his own name Ner, who was the father of Abner; and the other Kish, the father of Saul:

the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite;
of these persons we nowhere else read:

a mighty man of power;
not a man of riches, or of authority, neither a wealthy man, nor a magistrate, for his family was mean and contemptible, ( 1 Samuel 9:21 ) ( 10:27 ) but a man of great strength, an able bodied man, and of great natural fortitude, and courage of mind.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F9 Antiqu. l. 6. c. 4. sect. 1.
F11 Onomastic. Sacr. p. 405.

1 Samuel 9:1 In-Context

1 Kish, son of Abiel from the tribe of Benjamin, was an important man. (Abiel was the son of Zeror, who was the son of Becorath, who was the son of Aphiah of Benjamin.)

2 Kish had a son named Saul, who was a fine young man. There was no Israelite better than he. Saul stood a head taller than any other man in Israel.

3 Now the donkeys of Saul's father, Kish, were lost. So Kish said to Saul, his son, "Take one of the servants, and go and look for the donkeys."

4 Saul went through the mountains of Ephraim and the land of Shalisha, but he and the servant could not find the donkeys. They went into the land of Shaalim, but the donkeys were not there. They went through the land of Benjamin, but they still did not find them.

5 When they arrived in the area of Zuph, Saul said to his servant, "Let's go back or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and will start worrying about us."