The Matri (plural: Matrites,

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: מַּטְרִי) were one of several ancient Israelite clans from the

Tribe of Benjamin According to the Torah, the Tribe of Benjamin () was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The tribe was descended from Benjamin, the youngest son of the patriarch Jacob (later given the name Israel) and his wife Rachel. In the Samaritan Pentateuc ...

. They were the clan of the family of

King Saul Saul (; he, , ; , ; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tr ...

. They are only mentioned once in the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

: When the Israelites chose their first king, the lot fell upon the clan of Matri. Nothing else is known for certain about them. Later

midrashic ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...

sources which trace

Mordechai Mordecai (; also Mordechai; , IPA: ) is one of the main personalities in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. He is described as being the son of Jair, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was promoted to Vizier after Haman was killed. Biblical acco ...

's full lineage all the way to Saul and from him to

Benjamin Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...

do not include anyone by the name of Matar or Matri. It is possible that this reflects a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

tradition that held that the family of Saul had been adopted into that clan, despite not being direct descendants of the progenitor and namesake of the clan. Zeev Ehrlich suggested that the clan had dwelled in what is now Khirbet Al-Matari, because that site is near Chephirah, which was one of the cities of

Gibeonites Gibeon ( he, , ''Gīḇəʻōn''; grc-gre, Γαβαων, ''Gabaōn'') was a Canaanite and, later, an Israelite city which was located north of Jerusalem. According to and , the pre-Israelite-conquest inhabitants, the Gibeonites, were Hivite ...

within the territory of Benjamin and it is known that the family of Saul had ties with them. Benjaminites in the southern kingdom of Judah were assimilated by the more powerful tribe of Judah and gradually lost their identity.

References

{{Reflist Israelites Jewish families House of Saul Books of Samuel