Was Saul a "nepo baby"?

If you have paid attention to the world of arts and entertainment in the last few years, you’ve probably heard something about “nepo babies,” actors and actresses who have achieved success in Hollywood at least in part because they are related to other established stars. There have been newspaper articles and magazine cover stories about the phenomenon recently, although it is hardly new—every generation of Hollywood actors has included “nepo babies,” even if the term itself was invented only recently.

The question that seems to divide people is how to feel about this phenomenon. It seems obvious that many of this new crop of actors are talented and deserve, to some degree, the fame and acclaim they have received. But the sense that they have benefited from advantages that other people lack is inevitable, as is the resentment this brings. We like to imagine that Hollywood is a pure meritocracy, but, like every area of life, it is not. Some of these nepo babies acknowledge that they have received help that others do not have access to, but some seem eager to disguise or minimize that fact.

I think that if you dropped someone from the Bible into the modern world, they would find the whole discussion around “nepo babies” a bit baffling. Benefiting from the wealth and position of your parents was simply a fact of life, and laboring to provide your children with these advantages was seen as a positive good and even a morally proper thing for parents to do—many proverbs speak to this. The idea that there was something good about having to make it on your own, or that a parent should not provide help to his children, would have been very strange.

So the fact that Saul, the son of Kish, was a “nepo baby,” born into wealth and benefiting from the stewardship of his father, did not communicate anything inherently negative about him. David was also the son of a wealthy man, a large landowner named Jesse, although in his case he was the youngest son. Saul was a sort of princeling, the firstborn of a large household. He was blessed in other ways as well—he was very tall, towering over almost everyone else. He was a well-made man, handsome and attractive.

The text of I Samuel, written in the style of Hebrew narrative, does not insert moral judgments about Saul. We observe his actions but are forced to think for ourselves about what they reveal concerning the man and his character. The closest we get to authorial guidance is when the text describes Saul early on with reference to his appearance and family standing. From there, we must infer. How should we feel about Saul? We certainly have complicated feelings about people like him, and the nature of those feelings changes according to the cultural expectations that shape us.

In my judgment, the advantages of his birth and background, though not intended to import anachronistic class-based resentments, are intentionally highlighted as products of God’s deliberate choice. God has selected Saul, and the aspects of his person pointed out in the text relate directly to that selection. Saul is chosen as king by God because of his wealth, height, and personal attractiveness. The question, though, is why? And how are we to feel about it?

I think, at least in part, we see the answer when we find Saul hiding among the baggage in chapter 10. When they locate him there, after God has selected him as king, Samuel says, “Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people.” This is not because of anything about his internal character or personal faithfulness, but merely because of how he looked and the reality of who he was.

To understand Saul as a failure, we have to understand this. He was what the people wanted, and he was qualified by every conventional standard of qualification. God chose him because, in the eyes of the people demanding a king, he fully fit what they had asked for. But he was not what God wanted, nor what they needed. That is what they would have to learn.