How Is Abner Related to Saul?
Abner is Saul’s cousin and the commander of his army, both of them Benjamites and grandsons of Abiel. He crowned Saul’s son, crossed to David, and died at the gate of Hebron — and his son ended up leading Saul’s tribe for David.
Abner is Saul’s first cousin — the son of Ner, whose brother Kish was Saul’s father — and the commander of Saul’s army for the whole of his reign. Both men are Benjamites, and both are grandsons of the same man, Abiel.
That is the answer 1 Samuel gives. The question keeps being asked because Chronicles seems to give a different one, and because the rest of Abner’s story turns on the kinship: he is the relative who keeps Saul’s house alive after Saul is dead, the one who hands the kingdom to David, and the one David weeps over in public. And his son ends up somewhere no reader expects.
The short answer
Abner was the son of Ner. Ner and Kish were brothers, sons of Abiel. Kish was the father of Saul. That makes Abner and Saul first cousins — and Abner was the captain of his host. The book says so at the end of its summary of Saul’s reign:
“And the name of Saul’s wife [was] Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz: and the name of the captain of his host [was] Abner, the son of Ner, Saul’s uncle. And Kish [was] the father of Saul; and Ner the father of Abner [was] the son of Abiel.”1 Samuel 14:50–51, KJV
It has already said whose son Kish was, and which tribe this family belongs to:
“Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name [was] Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power.”1 Samuel 9:1, KJV
Kish the son of Abiel, Ner the son of Abiel. Saul is of the tribe of Benjamin — “the smallest of the tribes of Israel,” in his own words (9:21) — and so is the man who commands his army.
Cousin, or uncle?
The King James sentence — “Abner, the son of Ner, Saul’s uncle” — can be read two ways: the uncle is Ner, or the uncle is Abner. The next verse settles it for Samuel. Ner is Abiel’s son, as Kish is, so Ner is the uncle and Abner the cousin. Chronicles, though, has a line that points the other way:
“And Ner begat Kish; and Kish begat Saul; and Saul begat Jonathan, and Malchi-shua, and Abinadab, and Esh-baal.”1 Chronicles 9:39, KJV
If Ner is the father of Kish, he is Saul’s grandfather, and Abner is Saul’s uncle. Yet three verses earlier the same chapter lists Kish and Ner side by side among the sons of Jehiel of Gibeon — brothers again.
How this is usually read. Most readers take Samuel’s statement as the plain one — cousins — and explain the Chronicles line either as an older Ner, a family name carried by two men a generation apart, or as “begat” spanning more than one generation, which these lists often do. Others go the other way and call Abner Saul’s uncle. The books do not reconcile themselves. Either way he is the king’s close kin from his father’s house, and this article follows Samuel, where his story is told.
At the king’s side
Abner appears wherever Saul does. When a shepherd boy walks out against the Philistine champion, it is Abner the king turns to:
“And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son [is] this youth? And Abner said, [As] thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.”1 Samuel 17:55, KJV
It is Abner who brings David in afterward, the Philistine’s head still in his hand. At the new-moon feast the seating is given like a diagram: the king by the wall, Jonathan, Abner at Saul’s side, and David’s place empty. Years later, in the wilderness of Ziph, David steals into Saul’s camp by night, takes the spear and the water jar from beside the king’s head, crosses to a hilltop at a safe distance and calls out — not to Saul, but to Abner:
“And David said to Abner, [Art] not thou a [valiant] man? and who [is] like to thee in Israel? wherefore then hast thou not kept thy lord the king? for there came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord.”1 Samuel 26:15, KJV
The taunt only lands because guarding the king is Abner’s office, and his family.
The kingmaker
Saul and three of his sons die on Mount Gilboa. Judah crowns David in Hebron. Abner does not go to Hebron:
“But Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul’s host, took Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim; And made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over Ephraim, and over Benjamin, and over all Israel.”2 Samuel 2:8–9, KJV
Ish-bosheth reigns; Abner rules. The book says he “made himself strong for the house of Saul.” Then the two armies meet at the pool of Gibeon, Abner’s side is beaten, and in the pursuit Joab’s brother Asahel fastens onto Abner and will not turn aside. Abner warns him twice:
“And Abner said again to Asahel, Turn thee aside from following me: wherefore should I smite thee to the ground? how then should I hold up my face to Joab thy brother?”2 Samuel 2:22, KJV
Asahel refuses, and Abner kills him with the butt end of his spear. The question he asked — how he would ever face Joab — is answered in the next chapter.
Crossing to David
The break comes from inside Saul’s house. Ish-bosheth accuses Abner of taking Rizpah, his father’s concubine — a charge usually read as an accusation of reaching for the throne. Abner’s answer is fury, and an oath to do what “the LORD hath sworn to David.” Then he sends messengers:
“And Abner sent messengers to David on his behalf, saying, Whose [is] the land? saying [also], Make thy league with me, and, behold, my hand [shall be] with thee, to bring about all Israel unto thee.”2 Samuel 3:12, KJV
David has one condition: Michal, Saul’s daughter, must be returned to him first. Abner delivers her, talks the elders of Israel round — and then his own tribe, Benjamin — and comes to Hebron with twenty men. David makes them a feast, and sends him away. The verse ends, “and he went in peace.”
The gate of Hebron
Joab comes back from a raid, hears who has been and gone, and sends messengers after Abner without telling the king:
“And when Abner was returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside in the gate to speak with him quietly, and smote him there under the fifth [rib], that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother.”2 Samuel 3:27, KJV
Hebron is one of the six cities of refuge (Joshua 20:7), and the gate is where a man pleads his case. David curses Joab’s house, orders Joab himself into sackcloth, walks behind the bier, and fasts until sundown. His lament asks one question — “Died Abner as a fool dieth?” — and the book records what the country made of it:
“For all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner the son of Ner.”2 Samuel 3:37, KJV
“And the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?”2 Samuel 3:38, KJV
What David does not do is punish Joab. “These men the sons of Zeruiah [be] too hard for me,” he says, and leaves the account open for the rest of his reign. It is his son Solomon who closes it:
“And the LORD shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, my father David not knowing [thereof, to wit], Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah.”1 Kings 2:32, KJV
Two things a careful reader would check. One: the motive the text gives is blood vengeance for Asahel — it says so twice (3:27, 3:30). That Abner would also have been a rival for command of David’s army is a common reading, and a likely one, but the book does not say it. Two: this is not the last time Joab kills a man the king wanted spared. The other is David’s own son, and that story is here: How Is Absalom Related to David?
Back in David’s government
Here is the part that almost never gets told. Chronicles keeps the lists of David’s administration, and Abner’s name is in two of them. One is the treasury of dedicated things:
“And all that Samuel the seer, and Saul the son of Kish, and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah, had dedicated; [and] whosoever had dedicated [any thing, it was] under the hand of Shelomith, and of his brethren.”1 Chronicles 26:28, KJV
The prophet, the king, the cousin, and the man who killed him — one sentence, one storeroom. The other list is the rulers of the tribes:
“Of the half [tribe] of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo the son of Zechariah: of Benjamin, Jaasiel the son of Abner:”1 Chronicles 27:21, KJV
Abner’s son is the chief of Benjamin — Saul’s own tribe — under David. The man who crowned Saul’s son against David did not live to see the kingdom he promised to deliver. His son governs Saul’s tribe inside it.
Chronicles does not add “the son of Ner” here. The Bible names only one Abner, which is why Jaasiel is read as his son without much dispute — but it is a reading from the name, and the text gives no more about him than this line.
Trace it yourself
“Cousin” answers the question in one word. What it cannot show is the shape: two grandsons of one Benjamite, one on the throne and one beside it; a house kept standing by a relative after its king is dead; a crossing, a feast, a gate; and a son running the old king’s tribe for the new one.
Open the map on Saul and follow the line to Jonathan, then across to David and back to Samuel, who anointed them both — with the verse behind every link available as you go. Abner has his own page as well — Abner — with his relationships and every passage he appears in.
The free map opens on the 104 key figures; Saul, Jonathan, David, Samuel and Solomon are all among them, so the whole of this story’s royal line traces without an account and without paying. Abner and Joab are part of the full set of 152 that Sacred Scholar unlocks; both keep their public figure pages either way.