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Saul Rules over Israel

13 Saul was thirty[a] years old[b] at the beginning of his reign, and he reigned forty-two years[c] over Israel. He chose for himself three thousand from Israel. Two thousand of these were with Saul at Micmash in the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. He sent away the rest of the people, each to his tent. Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews hear!”

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Samuel 13:1 A few LXX manuscripts have “thirty,” but the number of years is missing from the Masoretic Hebrew text
  2. 1 Samuel 13:1 Literally “a son of years”
  3. 1 Samuel 13:1 The Masoretic Hebrew text reads “two years” here, but this number seems far too small; either it is not correct or part of the number is missing (the present translation supplies “forty”); other English versions differ as to Saul’s age at coronation and the total years of his reign