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Catholic Commentary
The Chronicler's Theological Verdict: Saul's Unfaithfulness and David's Rise
13So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against Yahweh, because of Yahweh’s word, which he didn’t keep, and also because he asked counsel of one who had a familiar spirit, to inquire,14and didn’t inquire of Yahweh. Therefore he killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.
1 Chronicles 10:13–14 explains that Saul died as divine judgment for three covenantal failures: breaking God's command, consulting a medium instead of seeking God, and rejecting divine guidance. God actively transferred Saul's kingdom to David, making his death an act of providential justice rather than military misfortune.
Saul died not in battle but under judgment—his refusal to seek God made him prey to every counterfeit that promised certainty.
"Therefore he killed him" — the pronoun refers to God (Yahweh), not the Philistines. The Chronicler is unambiguous: the Philistine spears were instruments; the agent was divine judgment. This is a profound theological statement about secondary causation and providential justice.
"And turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse." The verb vayasseb ("turned over/transferred") is deliberate. The kingdom does not fall by chance into David's hands; it is actively re-routed by God. The mention of "Jesse" — rather than simply "David" — echoes the prophetic moment in 1 Samuel 16 when God chose the youngest, overlooked son. The Chronicler ends the Saul narrative without eulogizing the king; the final word belongs to David, whose story is, for Chronicles, the story of grace, covenant, and worship restored.
From a Catholic perspective, these verses illuminate several intersecting doctrinal and moral realities.
On Divination and the First Commandment: The Catechism of the Catholic Church directly addresses Saul's sin at Endor as a paradigm case. CCC §2116 states: "All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to 'unveil' the future... They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone." Saul's consultation of the medium is not classified in the Catechism as a curiosity or a lapse but as an idolatrous inversion — the usurpation of God's sovereign knowledge by demonic means. St. Augustine (De Doctrina Christiana I.23) treats all such pacts as forms of spiritual infidelity that destroy the soul's right ordering toward God.
On Obedience to God's Word: The Fathers universally interpreted Saul's disobedience typologically. St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on 1 Samuel) saw in Saul's sacrifice-without-obedience a forewarning against liturgical formalism that masks interior rebellion. The Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum (§25) draws on the covenantal logic operative here: the People of God are to receive the Word not as one option among many but as the authoritative, life-giving address of the living God. To hear and not keep God's word is covenant rupture, not merely moral failure.
On Providence and the Davidic Type: Catholic tradition, following the Fathers (Origen, Homilies on 1 Samuel; St. Ambrose, De Officiis), reads the transfer of kingship from Saul to David as a prefiguration of the transfer of the Old Covenant's sacrificial and royal functions to Christ. David, the chosen and anointed son of Jesse, is the type of Christ the King (CCC §436, §2579). The Chronicler's sovereign God who "turns the kingdom" to David is the same God who, in the fullness of time, constitutes Christ as the eternal King whose kingdom shall have no end (Luke 1:32–33). Saul, by contrast, is read by St. Augustine (City of God XVII.6) as a figure of earthly kingship that grasps its power rather than receiving it in humility — a contrast that illuminates the difference between those who build the City of Man and those who inherit the City of God.
The Chronicler's verdict on Saul presents a discomfiting but clarifying question for Catholic readers today: What do I turn to when God seems silent?
Saul's descent followed a recognizable pattern: first, cutting corners on obedience to God's explicit word (rationalizing disobedience as practicality or even piety); then, when God's silence became unbearable, seeking answers through means that bypass trust in Providence entirely. The contemporary equivalents of consulting a "familiar spirit" are not exotic — they include obsessive use of horoscopes, tarot, psychics, and online "spiritual" oracles that promise certainty without surrender. But they also include the subtler turn toward self-will disguised as discernment: decision-making that never actually inquires of the Lord through prayer, Scripture, the sacraments, and spiritual direction.
The Chronicler's central word — darash, to seek the Lord — is a call to a daily disposition of receptive trust. Catholic practice offers concrete structures for this: Lectio Divina, the Liturgy of the Hours, regular Confession, Eucharistic adoration. These are not techniques to control God but postures of the will that keep us oriented toward the One from whom all wisdom flows. Where Saul turned away from silence to sorcery, the Catholic is invited to endure the silence in faith — trusting that the God who transferred the kingdom to David governs all things wisely.
Commentary
Verse 13 — The Threefold Indictment
The Chronicler opens with a stark causal declaration: "So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against Yahweh." The Hebrew word here is ma'al (מַעַל), a term loaded with covenantal significance. In the Pentateuch and historical books, ma'al denotes not merely sin in the abstract but a specific act of covenant breach — a sacrilegious violation of what belongs exclusively to God (cf. Lev 5:15; Num 5:12). By choosing this word, the Chronicler signals immediately that Saul's death was not a military misfortune but a theological consequence. The narrative refuses the tragic-heroic register; there is no sympathy here for a flawed king undone by fate.
The Chronicler specifies three interlocking charges:
First: "Because of Yahweh's word, which he didn't keep." This refers primarily to the command delivered through Samuel in 1 Samuel 13 and 15 — particularly the divine order to utterly destroy the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:3). Saul spared King Agag and the best livestock, rationalizing his disobedience as religious devotion (sacrifice). Samuel's devastating response — "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams" (1 Sam 15:22) — is the theological backbone of this indictment. For the Chronicler, writing for post-exilic Israel, this is not merely ancient history; it is a mirror. Disobedience to the revealed word of God — however elaborately justified — is covenant rupture.
Second: "He asked counsel of one who had a familiar spirit." This refers to the episode at Endor (1 Sam 28:7–19), where Saul, abandoned by God's silence (no dreams, no Urim, no prophets), turned to a medium to conjure the dead Samuel. The Hebrew 'ôb (אוֹב), rendered "familiar spirit" or "medium," denotes a necromantic practitioner, explicitly condemned throughout the Torah (Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deut 18:10–12). The gravity of this act cannot be overstated: Saul had himself previously expelled such practitioners from the land (1 Sam 28:3), making his recourse to one an act of spectacular hypocrisy and desperation. It represents the final, catastrophic substitution — replacing the living God with occult manipulation of the dead.
Verse 14 — The Summary Indictment and the Divine Transfer
"And didn't inquire of Yahweh." This phrase is the theological hinge. The verb darash (דָּרַשׁ), "to seek" or "to inquire," is one of the Chronicler's most characteristic terms. Throughout Chronicles, fidelity is measured by whether a king (darash) the Lord or fails to do so. Saul's fundamental spiritual failure was not merely sinful acts but a posture of the will: he refused to orient himself toward God in trust and petition. Instead of -ing God, he -ed a medium. The inversion is complete and damning.