I apologize for not getting any notes up about the book of Judges. We had a very good conversation at the Wednesday noon Bible study about how to regard the violence that pervades this book. I may get back some time to put some notes on this blog, but it seems wiser to move forward with some thoughts on 1 Samuel, which we will be reading from June 9 through 20.
1 and 2 Samuel are part of the Bible known as the Deuteronomistic History: consisting of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. These books were written by one or more authors and editors, and deal with the history of the land of Israel from its conquest under Moses and Joshua to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The narratives especially of the books of Samuel and Kings are some of the most beautifully written sources we have from the Ancient Near East. If you want to do some serious study of this text, you might really appreciate reading from Robert Alter's translation, The David Story.
The story begins with the birth of Samuel the prophet to Hannah and her husband, Elkanah. What we have there is a sort of annunciation "type scene," as Alter calls it, which rings changes on the annunciations of Isaac's birth and Samson's birth, for example. I love this story, with its leitmotif of "open/close" as Hannah's mouth as well as her womb is closed (she can't eat; she prays with her lips moving but no sound coming out) at the beginning. Then God opens her womb; she is able to conceive and she praises God eloquently. The first "piece" I spoke in a children's Thanksgiving Sunday School program when I was about 2 years old was: "Hannah said, 'Thank you, God, for Samuel.'" Our first child, Samuel, has his name in part because we longed for a child after two miscarriages, and God brought a great blessing into our lives through his birth thirty years ago.
And some time ago I worked with a group of people on their way to ordination as vocational deacons in the Diocese of Southern Ohio, teaching them biblical studies, Christian ethics, and church history, and was honored to preach at their ordination on the call of Samuel in 1Samuel 3.
Notice how in Chapter 4 the leitmotiv of vision, or its lack, continues: (4:15) "Now Eli was 98 years old and his eyes were set, so that he could not see." When the Ark is captured, that is a bigger thing for Eil even than his personal grief that his sons had been killed. He dies; his daughter in law dies in childbirth; his grandson lives, but carries a name that reflects the gravity of the circumstances surrounding his birth, with the name Ichabod ("glory departed").
Don't feel guilty if you find a certain whimsy in the story of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines and its return to the Israelites in Chapters 5-7 There's a little showdown between the Ark and the House of Dagon (a Philistine god). The holiness of this sacred object makes it dangerous to possess without God's blessing or consent. Samuel begins in these chapters to function as a judge (7:6).
Mizpah becomes an important place where the Israelites were challenged to give up their idolatry to local gods and to worship the LORD exclusively. (It helped that they wanted God's help as the Philistines were raiding Israelite territory again. ) At Mizpah Samuel set up a stone monument and called it "Ebenezer," which means "stone of help." You can see how the Judge Cycle from the Book of Judges is recapitulated in these chapters.
In Chapter 8, Samuel tries to make the office of judge an inherited one, rather than one conferred by God's Spirit on whom God chose. It didn't work that way, however. Samuel's sons were almost as worthless as Eli's sons had been when Samuel was a boy.
And this leadership vacuum seems to make the issue of a king for Israel somewhat more urgent. You can see how ambivalent the writer of 1 Samuel is about monarchy:
8:7-9 reads: and the LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only--you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them."
The list sounds like what happens when the profits of the land are not shared equitably between rich and poor, when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is the opposite of the social structures that were built into the commands given by the LORD in the Torah.
Chapter 9 introduces Saul, a Benjaminite. He is tall, well-connected, handsome--the sort of person people might naturally look to as a leader. Except he seems to have been afraid of the power and the responsibilities that the LORD was laying upon him with his anointing; so he ran away and hid (10:22). So we see how the Judge Cycle pattern is evolving to absorb the leadership of a king.
Notice, too, how you can actually see in this text the results of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered in the mid-20th Century. It has taken half a century for this material to reach biblical researchers in a form that could be widely disseminated and studied. Scholars discovered a much older and slightly different text of 1 Samuel that includes the material between 10:27 and 11:1 about the tradition of gouging out the right eyes of the men of the tribes of Gad and Reuben by King Nahash of the Ammonites, thus rendering them unable to shoot with bows and arrows.
And in Chapter 11 we see Saul perform the sort of mighty acts that helped to confirm in Judges that the LORD had called a Judge to save the Israelites. 11:6 says: "The Spirit of God came upon Saul in power when he heard [about the plight of the people]...and his anger was greatly kindled. He took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by messengers, saying, 'Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!"
By the end of the chapter, Saul is king. In Chapter 12 Samuel gives what is sort of a concession speech, or a retirement speech. He reminds the Israelites gathered there about their past and about God's saving acts. And he says, "If both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well; but if you will not heed the voice of the LORD but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you and your king" (12:14-15).
At 13:1 we first see the formula that is used for reporting on the reign of the Kings of Israel in the rest of the Deuteronomistic History.
But it takes almost no time for Saul to impulsively and impatiently disregard the guidance of the LORD as mediated by Samuel; and this leads to Samuel having to tell him (13:13-14): "The LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom will not continue; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart; and the LORD has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the LROD commanded you."
This is also the chapter where we first meet Jonathan, Saul's son. And we see another example of Saul's impulsive style in 14:24-45. By 15:10, the LORD is saying to Samuel: "I regret that I made Saul king." Samuel is apparently feeling betrayed by the LORD and struggles all night, doubtless because he is going to be at terrible risk if he must deliver this news personally to Saul. Fortunately, when Samuel does confront Saul, he still has enough authority that Saul repents (15:24).
But Samuel's work is not done, even though Saul is a failure as a king. He is sent to anoint Saul's successor. (Another high-risk activity for a senior citizen...) in Chapter 16. So we meet David; and really the Books of Samuel are about David and his court. Saul's impulsivity has turned to something we might today call serious mental illness; and this circumstance brings Saul and David together.
There are clearly two textual traditions juxtaposed here; in Ch. 16 it seems that Saul has met David; but in Ch. 17 it seems that Saul has not yet met him. And Ch. 17 introduces the famous and beloved story of David and Goliath. And soon afterward the lifelong friendship of David and Jonathan begins (18:1: "the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." And as David's exploits and bravery become known, David becomes a threat to Saul. 18:10 presumes that David continues to play the lyre to calm Saul.
Who said, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"? Saul seemed to follow that advice, as he marries this successful commander into his family, promising his daughter Merab to David; then giving her to a different commander instead when David hadn't yet been killed in battle. But Michal, Saul's other daughter, had her eyes on David; so Saul offered her in exchange for the foreskins of 100 dead Philistines. (Yes, a grisly detail, emphasizing how the enemy of the Israelites were Gentiles.)
The scheme, which should have got David killed, backfired, and now David was more popular and successful than ever, and a still greater threat to Saul.
Even Jonathan, who should have been the heir apparent, was on David's side in the rift between David and Saul at court, as we see in Chapter 19.
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