Did Saul inquire of the Lord?
Samuel reports Saul seeking an answer from God; Chronicles makes his failure to seek God a reason for his death.
- Textual conflict
- Direct contradiction
- The quoted passages make incompatible claims about the same subject under the same conditions. Little additional inference is needed.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Samuel explicitly says Saul inquired without receiving an answer whereas Chronicles says he did not inquire at all.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Saul inquires of God but receives no answer
And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
Saul is condemned for failing to inquire of God
So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; And enquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.
Understanding the contradiction
1 Samuel 28:6 explicitly says Saul inquired of God. It distinguishes the request from its unsuccessful result: no answer came through dreams, Urim, or prophets. Silence is attributed to God, not to Saul's failure to ask.
1 Chronicles 10:13-14 condemns Saul for consulting a medium and says he did not inquire of God. That denial clashes with the reported inquiry in Samuel. Asking without receiving an answer still counts as asking, and the earlier verse names several possible channels. Chronicles turns the contrast between divine silence and Saul's later consultation into a moral accusation that omits or denies the initial attempt. The passages therefore differ over an action, not merely over whether Saul received useful guidance.