1 Samuel 13 — Dead Sea Scrolls
1 attestation entry • 0 variants • 4QSamᵃ family
Manuscript Overview
Summary
1 Samuel 13 contains the famously corrupt regnal-formula verse (v. 1: 'Saul was a year old when he became king, and he reigned two years over Israel') and Saul's unauthorized sacrifice at Gilgal. The MT regnal formula is universally regarded as textually defective; 4QSamᵃ does not preserve a clear reading of the verse, so the original numbers remain unknown.
Notable Variants
TEXTUAL CRUX: the MT 'a year old / two years' regnal formula is corrupt. Some LXX manuscripts omit v. 1 entirely; others give various numbers. 4QSamᵃ does not preserve a clear reading. Translations supply numbers conjecturally (e.g., 'thirty years old / forty years,' or 'Saul was [...] years old when he began to reign, and he reigned [...] and two years over Israel'). This is one of the most famous open text-critical questions in the OT.
Manuscripts
4QSamᵃ (4Q51)
Scroll Condition
4QSamᵃ does not preserve v. 1 with sufficient clarity to settle the regnal-formula question.
Saul was [——] years old when he became king, and he reigned two years over Israel.
The MT regnal formula is corrupt. Some LXX manuscripts omit v. 1 entirely. 4QSamᵃ does not preserve a clear reading. The original numbers are therefore unknown — a notable case where the DSS does NOT solve a textual problem.
fragmentary