The parents of Saul were Jews, and his father at least, was of the
tribe of Benjamin. In some of those numerous emigrations from Judea
which took place either by compulsion or by the voluntary enterprise of
the people, at various times after the Assyrian conquest, the ancestors
of Saul had left their father-land, for the fertile plains of Cilicia,
where, under the patronizing government of some of the Syro-Macedonian
kings, they found a much more profitable home than in the comparatively
uncommercial land of Israel. On some one of these occasions, probably
during the emigration under Antiochus the Great, the ancestors of Saul
had settled in Tarsus, and during the period intervening between this
emigration and the birth of Saul, the family seems to have maintained
or acquired a very respectable rank, and some property. From the
distinct information which we have that Saul was a free-_born_ Roman
citizen, it is manifest that his parents must also have possessed that
right; for it has already been abundantly shown that it was not common
to the citizens of Tarsus, but must have been a peculiar privilege
of his family. After the subjugation of Cilicia, (sixty-two years
before Christ,) when the province passed from the Syrian to the Roman
sway, the family were in some way brought under the favorable notice
of the new lords of the eastern world, and were honored with the high
privilege of Roman citizenship, an honor which could not have been
imparted to any one low either in birth or wealth. The precise nature
of the service performed by them, that produced such a magnificent
reward, it is impossible to determine; but that this must have been the
reason, it is very natural to suppose. But whatever may have been the
extent of the favors enjoyed by the parents of Saul, from the kindness
of their heathen rulers, they were not thereby led to neglect the
institutions of their fathers,――but even in a strange land, observed
the Mosaic law with peculiar strictness; for Saul himself plainly
asserts that his father was a Pharisee, and therefore he must have been
bound by the rigid observances of that sect, to a blameless deportment,
as far as the Mosaic law required. Born of such parents, the destined
apostle at his birth was made the subject of the minute Mosaic rituals.
“Circumcised the eighth day,” he then received the name of _Saul_, a
name connected with some glorious and some mournful associations in the
ancient Jewish history, and probably suggested to the parents on this
occasion, by a reference to its signification, for Hebrew names were
often thus applied, expressing some circumstance connected with the
child; and in this name more particularly, some such meaning might be
expected, since, historically, it must have been a word of rather evil
omen. The original Hebrew means “_desired_,” “asked for,” and hence it
has been rather fancifully, but not unreasonably conjectured that he
was an oldest son, and particularly desired by his expecting parents,
who were, like the whole Jewish race, very earnest to have a son to
perpetuate their name,――a wish however, by no means peculiar to the
Israelites.
The name Saul is in Hebrew, שאול the regular noun from the
passive _Kal_ participle of שאל (_sha-al_ and _sha-el_) “ask
for,” “beg,” “request;” and the name therefore means “asked for,”
or “requested,” which affords ground for Neander’s curious
conjecture, above given.
Of the _time_ of his birth nothing is definitely known, though it is
stated by some ancient authority of very doubtful character, that he
was born in the second year after Christ. All that can be said with
any probability, is, that he was born several years after Christ; for
at the time of the stoning of Stephen, (A. D. 34,) Saul was a “_young_
man.”