1 Samuel 9:2

He had a son, whose name was Saul. I.e. asked, a name usually given to a firstborn son. A choice young man. This is a double translation of the Hebrew word, and consequently one half or other must be wrong. It may either be a participle, elect or choice, and is so rendered by the Syriac and Vulgate; or an adjective, young, the rendering of the Chaldee, and virtually of the Septuagint, which gives well grown. This is the preferable translation; for the word constantly occurs coupled with virgin ( Deuteronomy 32:25 ; Isaiah 62:5 , etc.), for one in the full flower of manhood. Saul could not, therefore, have been the runner of 1 Samuel 5:12 , though, as we read that Jonathan his son was a grown man two or three years afterwards ( 1 Samuel 13:2 ), he must have been at least thirty-five years of age, after making allowance for the early period at which the Jews married. His noble appearance and gigantic stature were well fitted to impress and overawe a semi-barbarous people, who were better able to form an estimate of his physical qualities than of the high mental and moral gifts possessed by Samuel.