The smallest of the tribes; for so indeed this was, having been all cut off except six hundred, Jud 20, which blow they never recovered, and therefore they were scarce reckoned as an entire tribe, but only as a remnant or fragment of a tribe; and being ingrafted into Judah, in the division between the ten tribes and the two, they in some sort lost their name, and they, together with Judah, were accounted but one tribe, as 1 Kings 11:32, &c. The least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin, i.e. one of the least; obscure and inconsiderable, in comparison of divers others; whence it may seem that Saul's family was not so noble and wealthy as some imagine: See Poole on "1 Samuel 9:1". Wherefore then speakest thou so to me? why dost thou feed me with vain hopes of the kingdom?
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 9:21
1 Samuel 9:21
21 And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou soj to me?