1 Chron. 9:35-10:14
The subject of the genealogies finishes with 1 Chron. 9:34. 1 Chron. 9:35-44 again take up the enumeration of Saul's family with a few differences that initiate us into the way in which the genealogies were composed. Thus, in this passage we find the ancestors of Ner back to Gibeon, whereas 1 Chron. 8:33-39 gives only the descendants of Ner and add to them those of Eshek, the brother of Azel. As ever, the Spirit of God who directed the composition of Chronicles has a particular purpose. In our passage here, it is first a matter of Saul's ancestors who according to their tribe's right dwelt at Jerusalem "beside their brethren" of Judah; then it is a matter of the direct line of descent from this king, avoiding the collateral branches which here have nothing to do with the purpose of this inspired book.
And so we reach 1 Chron. 10 which begins with references to the accounts in the books of Samuel and Kings, but as we have so often said, with the purpose of bringing out the counsels of God concerning Judah's royal line, that royal line from which Christ would descend.
Here an observation must be made. God presents man's ruin from two aspects. On the one hand, He gives us man's history in detail, for it is a matter of proving through specifics the irremediable condition of sinful man, placed under responsibility. Only after He has shown that his condition is without remedy does God pronounce judgment upon him. On this account we are given the detailed historical narratives from Joshua to the end of Kings. In the New Testament, the epistle to the Romans presents an analogous character: man's state without the law and under the law is traced from the Romans 1, until that "O wretched man that I am!" of Romans 7, the final experience of man's desperate state, even that of an awakened man, under the law but responsible before God to keep it.
On the other hand, when God presents the extent of His grace and the working out of His eternal counsels, He sets down at the very onset as being without remedy, man's definite ruin, without mentioning the trial through which He puts him in order to prove this condition to him. Such is the character of the book of Chronicles. The epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament corresponds to this. Regarding sinful man's state this epistle has these words in Eph. 2:1 as its fundamental principle: "You, being dead in your offenses and sins."
Saul's history as recounted in the Chronicles is a striking example of this truth. After Saul's genealogy, we find only the account of his death, recounted almost word for word (1 Chron. 10:1-12) from 1 Sam. 31. But the Spirit of God adds a very remarkable supplementary passage in 1 Chron. 10:13-14: "And Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he committed against Jehovah, because of the word of Jehovah which he kept not, and also for having inquired of the spirit of Python, asking counsel of it; and he asked not counsel of Jehovah; therefore He slew him." In this passage God explains the reason for His final judgment upon Saul, the same as that upon every sinful man: disobedience and departure from God. And remarkably, these are the very words we find again in Eph. 2, the chapter that proclaims the sinner's condition of death: "sons of disobedience" and "without God in the world" (Eph. 2:2,12).
God had given Saul to Israel in the flesh according to their request, and this kingship could only end in complete failure. Henceforth God would act in accordance with the counsels of His sovereign grace: He "transferred the kingdom to David the son of Jesse" (1 Chron. 10:14).