Prolegomena to the History of Israel Part 20

The change of place distinctly shows the whole pa.s.sage about the meeting of the king with the prophet at Gilgal (xiii. 7-15) to be an insertion by a later hand. At the beginning of the narrative Saul is at Gibeah (ver. 2, 3), and the Philistines seek him there, and halt before the place because they meet with resistance. All at once, at ver. 7, it is a.s.sumed without being stated, that Saul had stayed at Gilgal since he was chosen king till now, and had only now advanced from there against the Philistines who were waiting for him before Gibeah. Verse 16, however, gives us the impression that Saul had been posted at Gibeah with his men for some time, when the Philistines took up their camp over against them. Only in this way is justice done to the contrasted participle of state (_sedentes_) and inchoative perfect (_castrametati sunt_). And in the sequel the triumphant continuation of the story, especially in chap. xiv., shows no indication that the ominous scene in Gilgal weighed on the mind of Saul, or of the people, or of the historian.

According to xiii. 7-15, Saul is to wait seven days for Samuel at Gilgal. Here there is a reference to x. 8, where the seer says to the future king, "Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and I will come after thee there to offer sacrifices; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come and show thee what thou shalt do."

This verse is condemned by other arguments than its connection with xii. 7-15. Samuel's object at this point, according to x.

I-7, is to overcome the reluctance of the Benjamite who had gone forth to seek his a.s.ses, to undertake the high calling announced to him, and to inspire him with faith and confidence,--not to give him unintelligible directions as to what he is to do first when he has actually become king, and how long he has to wait for the seer at Gilgal. The schoolmaster tone of x. 8 is particularly out of place after the preceding words of ver. 7, that, when the three signs have come to pa.s.s, Saul is to do what his hand finds, because G.o.d is with him. This is surely giving him perfect freedom of action, and for the reason that G.o.d's Spirit is working in him, which "bloweth where it listeth," and suffers no interference from any authority. /1/ *************************************

1. It is also clear that the writer of x. 8, xiii. 7-15 cannot possibly have found Samuel in Gilgal in chap. xi. before making him go there in chap. xiii. We have already seen xi. 12-14 to be a later addition; the name of Samuel must be interpolated in xi.7, too. In fact in xi. 15 the people, i.e., the army, acts quite of itself even in our present text. Hence it follows also, that x. 8, xiii. 7-15 are older than vii. viii. x. 17 seq.

xii.

This insertion is based on an older account of the breach between Samuel and Saul in 1Samuel xv. Here also the matter of dispute is a sacrifice, and Gilgal is the scene; and this alone serves to explain how Gilgal is adhered to in xiii. 7-15 in spite of all impossibility, as being the right and necessary place for the occurrence. Jehovah, by the mouth of Samuel, commands the king to devote the Amalekites to destruction because of an act of treachery they had committed against Israel in ancient times, and to spare no living thing. Saul accordingly makes war on the Amalekites and defeats them; but he does not carry out the proscription entirely, as he spares the best of their cattle and their king Agag, whom he takes prisoner. At Gilgal, where the victory is celebrated before Jehovah, he is called to account for this by Samuel, and states that he intended the booty for a sacrifice to Jehovah. His statement, however, makes no impression. "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams: behold, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim.

Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, He also hath rejected thee."

The king acknowledges his guilt, and tries to pacify Samuel; but the latter turns from him in anger, and when Saul lays hold of him, his mantle tears.

"Jehovah hath torn the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and given it to one better than thee; and the Truthful One of Israel will not lie nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent."

Yet at Saul's entreaty that he would at least not refuse to honour him before the people, Samuel takes part in the sacrifice, and even begins it by hewing Agag in pieces before Jehovah. Then they part, never to see each other again; but Samuel mourns for Saul, that Jehovah had repented of having made him king over Israel. There is another narrative intimately connected with this one in subject and treatment, thought and expression, namely, that of the witch of Endor. When Saul, shortly before the battle in which he fell, surveyed the hostile army, he was seized with anxiety and terror. He inquired of Jehovah, but received no answer, neither by dreams, nor by the ephod, nor by prophets. In his extremity he was driven into the arms of a black art which he had formerly persecuted and sought to extirpate. By night and in disguise, with two companions, he sought out a woman at Endor who practiced the raising of the dead, and after rea.s.suring her with regard to the mortal danger connected with the practice of her art, he bade her call up Samuel. She, on seeing the spirit ascending, at once perceives that the man he had come up to converse with is the king himself; she cries out loud, but allows herself to be rea.s.sured, and describes the appearance of the dead person. Saul does not see him, only hears him speak.

"Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? Jehovah doeth to thee as He spake by me: He rends the kingdom out of thy hand, and gives it to another, because thou obeyedst not the voice of Jehovah, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon Amalek; to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, and Jehovah also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hands of the Philistines."

At these words Saul falls all his length on the ground. He had eaten nothing all the day before and all night; he is with difficulty induced to take some food: then he rises up with his men to go and meet his fate (1 Samuel xxviii. 3-25).

Comparing with this original the copy in xiii. 7-15, we are struck, in the first place, with the placing of the rupture so much earlier. Scarcely is Saul made king when he is deposed, on the spot, at Gilgal. And for what reason? Samuel has fixed, in a purely arbitrary fas.h.i.+on, the time he is to wait, and Saul waits, and makes arrangements for departure only when the time has run out, although the need is pressing; and for this he is rejected! It is clear that Samuel has from the first felt towards him as a legitimate prince feels to a usurper; he has arranged so as to find an occasion to show unmistakably where they both stand.

Strictly speaking he did not find the occasion, Saul having observed the appointed time; but the opinion is present, though unexpressed, that the king was not ent.i.tled to sacrifice, either before the expiry of the seven days or at any time: his sacrificing is regarded as sacrilege. And thus the autonomous theocracy stands all at once before our eyes, which no one thought of before Ezekiel.

We are reminded of the stories of Joash and Uzziah in the Chronicles.

The incidents in 1Samuel xv. xxviii. are similar, but the spirit of the narrative is different and more antique. The rejection does not come here with such mad haste, and we do not get the impression that Samuel is glad of the opportunity to wash his hands of the king. On the contrary, he honours him before the people, he mourns that Jehovah has rejected him; and Saul, who never again sees him alive, turns to him dead in the hour of his extremity, and does not regard him as his implacable enemy. Again, in the former case the king's offence is that he has too low an estimate of the sacredness of sacrifice, and fails to regard the altar as unapproachable to the laity: while in the latter case he is reproached with attaching. to sacrifice far too high a value. In the former case, in fine, the Deity and the representative of the Deity act with absolute caprice, confront men stiffly with commands of incredible smallness, and challenge them to opposition; in the latter, the conduct of Samuel is not (supposing it to have been the custom to devote enemies to destruction) unintelligible, nor his demeanour devoid of natural spirit; he appeals not to an irresponsible position, but to the manifest truth that obedience is better than the fat of rams.

Not that chapters xv. and xxviii. belong to the original growth of the tradition. In the case of xxviii. 3-25 it is easy to show the insertion: the thread of xxviii. 1, 2, coming from chapter xxvii. is continued at xxix. 1. According to xxviii. 4 the Philistines have advanced as far as Shunem in Jezreel; in xxix. 1 they are only at Aphek in Sharon, and they do not go on to Jezreel till xxix. 11. To prove an insertion in the case of chap. xv. we might point to the fact that there is a direct connection between xiv. 52 and xvi. 14; but this must be proved somewhat circ.u.mstantially. Let it suffice, then, to say that in the preceding narrative of Saul's history, the war with the Amalekites appears in quite a different light (ix. 1-X. 16, xi. xiii.

xiv.; cf. also Numbers xxiv. 7). The occasion of it, according to xiv. 48, lay in the needs of the time, and the object was the very practical one of "saving Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled them." There is nothing here to suggest that the campaign was undertaken in consequence of a religious command, to punish the Amalekites for an offence over which long ages had pa.s.sed, and information about which could only be gathered from historical books dealing with the age of Moses. Both the narratives, chap. xv. as well as chap. xxviii, are preludes of events afterwards to happen. At chap. xvi. David appears upon the scene; he is thenceforth the princ.i.p.al person of the story, and thrusts Saul on one side. Chapter xv. is the prophetic introduction to this change. The fact had been handed down that Saul was chosen by Jehovah to be king. How was it possible that in spite of this his rule had no continuance? Jehovah, who as a rule does not change His mind, was mistaken in him; and Samuel, who called the king, had now to his great sorrow to p.r.o.nounce the sentence of rejection against him. The occasion on which he does this is evidently historical, namely, the festival of victory at Gilgal, at which the captured leader of the Amalekites was offered up as the princ.i.p.al victim. The sacrifice of Agag being quite repugnant to later custom, it was sought to account for it by saying that Saul spared the king, but Jehovah required his death, and caused him to be hewn in pieces at the altar by Samuel. The rest could easily be spun out of this; it is superfluous to discuss how. Chapter xxviii., again, is related to chap. xv. as the second step to the first. No proof is wanted to show that this is the prophetic shadow cast before the fall of Saul in his last fight with the Philistines. His turning to the witch to call up to him the departed Samuel suggests in the most powerful way his condition of G.o.d-forsakenness since Samuel turned away from him. And, to conclude-the general colouring of the hostile relation between Saul and Samuel is borrowed from the actual relations which must have come to subsist between the prophets and the kings, particularly in the kingdom of Samaria (I Kings xiv. 7). In their treatment of this relation our narratives manifestly take up the prophetic position; and the doctrinal ideas of which they are made the vehicles clearly show them to be prophetic conceptions.

VII.II.4. David is the first hero of Judah whom we meet with; and he at once throws all others into the shade. His acts are narrated to us in two detailed and connected works which are mutually complementary. The first of these is contained in 1Samuel xiv. 52-2 Sam viii 18, and in it we are circ.u.mstantially informed how David rose to the throne. There follows his princ.i.p.al achievement as king, the humiliation of the Philistines and the foundation of Jerusalem, the work concluding with a short notice of other remarkable circ.u.mstances. This narrative is preserved to us complete, only not in the earliest form, but with many interruptions and alterations. The second work, 2Samuel ix.-2Kings ii. is mutilated at its commencement, but otherwise almost completely intact, if 2Samuel xxi.-xxiv. be removed. It tells chiefly of the occurrences at the court of Jerusalem in the later years of the king, and carefully traces the steps by which Solomon, whose birth, with its attendant circ.u.mstances, is narrated at the outset, reached the throne over the heads of his brothers Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, who stood before him. Both works are marked by an essentially historical character. The treatment is much more detailed, while not nearly so poetical as in the history of Saul (1Samuel ix. seq.). There are no exaggerations, such as xiv. 46 seq. The second is the better work of the two, and frequently affords us a glance into the very heart of events, showing us the natural occasions and human motives which gave rise to the different actions. The point of view is, however, the narrow one of Jerusalem; for example, the real reasons of the revolt of the men of Judah under Absalom are scarcely even hinted at. The leading sentiment of the writer, there can be no doubt, is enthusiasm for David, but his weaknesses are not concealed; the relations prevailing at his court, far from edifying as they are, are faithfully reported, and the palace intrigue which placed Solomon upon the throne is narrated with a naivete which is almost malicious. The first work (1Samuel xvi.- 2Samuel viii.) gives a less circ.u.mstantial narrative, but follows the thread of events not less conscientiously, and is based on information little inferior to that of the second. The author's partisans.h.i.+p is more noticeable, as he follows the style of a biographer, and makes David the hero of the history from his very first appearance, although king Saul is the ruling and motive power in it. But Judaistic leanings were unavoidable, and they have not gone so far as to transform the facts, nor indeed operated in a different way or to a greater degree here than local interest in the tribal hero, which is always the earliest motive for narration, has done in other cases. This praise applies to 1Samuel xvi. seq., however, only so far as its original form goes.

It is different with the insertions, here very numerous, which have crept into the older connection, or replaced a genuine piece of the old story with a newer edition of it. In these the tendency to idealise the founder of the dynasty of Judah has worked creatively, and here we find rich materials for the history of the tradition, in the rude style in which alone it is possible as yet to construct that history. The beginning of the first work especially is overgrown with later legendary formations.

David, known as a man of courage and prudence, and of a skilful tongue, and recommended, moreover, by his skill on the harp, came to the king's court and became his armour-bearer (xvi. 14-23).

He so approved himself in the war with the Philistines that Saul advanced him step after step, and gave him his daughter in marriage (xviii. 6 seq.). But the success and fame of the man of Judah filled Saul with jealousy, and in one of his fits of frenzy (to which x. 10 also shows him to have been subject) he threw his javelin at David, who was seeking to drive away the evil spirit by his playing (xix. 8-10). David agreed with Jonathan that it was advisable for him to absent himself, but this only confirmed the king's suspicions, which prompted him to destroy the priests of n.o.b, because their head had provided David with food and consulted the oracle for him (xxi 2-7, xxii. 6-23). The fugitive himself Saul failed to lay hands on; he gathered round him his own family and other desperate men, and became their leader in the wilderness of Judah (xxii. 1-5, xxiii. 1-13, xxv. 2 seq.).

To escape the repeated persecutions of Saul, he at length pa.s.sed over to the country of the Philistines, and received the town of Ziklag in Judah as a fief from the hands of the prince Achish (xxvii. 1 seq.).

Such is the beginning of the history of David according to the simple thread of the old narrative. The first accretion we notice is the legend of the encounter of the shepherd boy with Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5), which is involved in contradiction both with what goes before and with what follows it. According to xvi. 14-23, David, when he first came in contact with Saul, was no raw lad, ignorant of the arts of war, but "a mighty valiant man, skilful in speech, and of a goodly presence;" and according to xviii. 6 the women sang at the victorious return of the army, "Saul has slain his thousands of the Philistines, and David his tens of thousands," so that the latter was the leader of Israel beside the king, and a proved and well-known man. Evidently something of a different nature must originally have stood between xvi. 23 and xviii. 6. Now the fate of the story of Goliath (xvii. 1-xviii. 5) involves that of the story of the anointing of David (xvi. 1-13), which is dependent on it (xvi. 12, xvii. 42); and, as we have already decided that chapter xv. is a secondary production, xiv. 52 joins on at once to xvi. 14.

In xviii. 6 seq., where we are told of the origin of Saul's jealousy, several of the worst additions and interruptions are wanting in the LXX, especially the first throwing of the javelin (xviii. 9-11) and the betrothal to Merab (xviii. 17-19).

The insertions are most varied and confusing in the account of the outbreak of the hostility of Saul and of David's flight (chapters xix. xx). Chapter xix. 1-7, a pointless and artificial pa.s.sage, betrays its later origin by its acquaintance with chapter xvii.; xviii. 29a (LXX) is continued at xix. 8. After Saul's spear-cast David takes flight for the first time, but at verse 11 he is still at home, and makes his escape the second time with the aid of feminine artifice, going to Samuel at Ramah, but to appear in chap. xx. at Gibeah as before. The king remarks his absence from table; Jonathan a.s.sures him of his father's favour, which, however, David doubts, though he has no distinct evidence to the contrary. When quite certain of the deadly hatred of the king, David takes flight in earnest; in chapter xxi. seq. we find him at n.o.b on his way to Judah, but at xxi. 10 he goes away afresh from the face of Saul. It is evident that in reality and in the original narrative the flight took place only once, and that it must from the first have been directed to the place of refuge, i.e., to Judah. This is enough to dispose of xix. 11-24: the twentieth chapter is impossible in the connection, at least in its present form, and in chapter xxi. verses 8-10 and 11-16 must be left out. In the section which deals with the freebooter life of David, chaps. xxiii-xxvii., considerable pieces have been added; xxvii. 7-12 of course is one; but also the encounters of David with his pursuers. There are two versions: the one, xxvi. 1-25, is placed before chapter xxvii. on account of verse 19; the other, xxiii. 14-xxiv. 22, is placed before chapter xxv. to avoid too near a contact. There is a good deal of verbal coincidence between the two, and we are ent.i.tled to regard the shorter and more pointed version (chapter xxvi.) as the basis. But the sequence (xxvi. 25, xxvii. 1) shows beyond a doubt that chapter xxvi. does not belong to the original tradition. The process of inserting the additions naturally was not completed without all sorts of editorial changes in the older materials, e.g., xvi. 14.

Though proceeding from the same root, these offshoots are by no means of the same nature, nor do they all belong to the same stage of the process. Some of them are popular legends and unconscious fictions. Of this nature is the story of Michal, who takes the part of her husband against her father, lets him down in the evening with a rope through the window, detains the spies for a time by saying that David is sick, and then shows them the household G.o.d which she has arranged on the bed and covered with the counterpane (xix. 11-17). The scenes in which Saul and David meet are of a somewhat different colour, yet we notice that the conviction that the latter is the king of the future does not interfere with the recognition of the former as the king _de facto_ and the anointed of Jehovah; Saul too appears not wicked, but blinded. The secondary version (xxiii. 14 seq.) contains (not to speak of the distinctly later insertion between verse 15 and 19), in addition to the touching features of the story, a good-natured jest, telling how the two played hide-and-seek round a hill, which took its name from the circ.u.mstance. These stories present certain marks which serve to fix their date in the history of the religion: one is, that the image in David's house is spoken of quite simply; another, the expression in xxvi. 19, "If Jehovah have stirred thee up against me, let Him accept an offering, but if it be men, cursed be they before Jehovah, because they have driven me out this day from the fellows.h.i.+p in the land of Jehovah, and obliged me to serve other G.o.ds."

It is perhaps not by mere chance that this speech is wanting in the parallel version, and that there is added in place of it a formal act of recognition which Saul pays at the end to his destined successor. As for the story of Goliath, it is also quite artless, but its religious colouring is much more marked. The speech with which David goes to meet the giant is characteristic on this side (xvii. 4 seq.): "Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear, but I come unto thee in the name of Jehovah of hosts, whom thou hast defied. This day will He deliver thee into mine hand, that all the earth may know that there is a G.o.d in Israel, and that this a.s.sembly (hqhl = Israel) may know that Jehovah saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is His."

This approaches to the religious language of the post-Deuteronomic time. According to 2Samuel xxi. 19, Goliath of Gath, whose spear-shaft was as thick as a weaver's beam, /1/ fought in the

1. This expression occurs in I Samuel xvii., and shows this legend to be dependent on 2Samuel xxi. xxiii., a collection of anecdotes about heroes from the Philistine wars of David in the genuine short popular style. Cf., on 1Chronicles xii., supra, p. 173.

wars, not in Saul's time, but in that of his successor, and was killed, not by a shepherd boy but by a warrior of Bethlehem named Elhanan.

The theme of David and Jonathan has no doubt a historical basis, but for us it is found only in second-hand versions. The story of the farewell (chapter xx.) must be placed in this category.

Yet it appears to point back to an earlier basis, and the earlier story may very possibly have belonged to the connection of the original work. For the shooting of the arrow could only have a meaning if it was impossible for the two friends to have an interview. But as the story goes, they come together and speak out freely what they have in their hearts, and so the dumb signal is not only superfluous, but unintelligible and meaningless. But if the most characteristic trait of the whole story does not fit into it as it now stands, that is just saying that the story has not come down to us in its true form.

Originally Jonathan only discharged the arrow, and called to his boy where it lay; and David, hid in the neighbourhood of the shooting range, heard in the call to the boy the preconcerted signal. In calling that the arrow was nearer him or beyond him, Jonathan was apparently telling the boy, but in reality telling his friend, to come towards him or go farther away from him. The latter was the case, and if so, the friends could not enter into conversation; the tearful farewell then disappears, and the sentimental speeches spoken before it in the same style, in which Jonathan virtually admits that his father is right, and yet decidedly espouses David's cause, disregarding the fact that David will deprive him of his inheritance. /2/

2. Only in one direction does he set limits to his self-denial: he makes the future king solemnly promise to spare his family.

Here manifests itself an interest belonging to the time of the narrator. The oriental custom according to which the new ruler extirpates the preceding dynasty, was not systematically carried out by David, and a special exception was made in favour of a son left by Jonathan. "All my father's house," says Meribaal (2Samuel xix. 28), "were dead men before my lord the king yet thou didst set me at thy table: what right have I therefore yet to complain unto the king (even about injustice)?" Now this son of Jonathan was the ancestor of a Jerusalem family which flourished till after the exile.

Older traits in 1Samuel xx. are the importance attached to the new moon, the family sacrifice at Bethlehem, perhaps the stone )BN )CL which appears to have implied something inconsistent with later orthodoxy, the name being in two pa.s.sages so singularly corrupted.

Chapter xviii. 6 seq. manifests tendency in a bad sense, even apart from the additions of the Masoretic text. Here Saul's enmity against David is carried back to the very beginning of their relations together, and even his friends.h.i.+p is represented as dissembled hatred. All the honours with which the king covers his armour-bearer are interpreted as practices to get rid of him.

He makes him his son-in-law in order to expose him to deadly danger in his efforts to procure the hundred foreskins of the Philistines which were the price of the daughter. The connection cannot dispense with xviii. 6 seq, but at the same time it is beyond doubt that the venomous way of interpreting the facts is a mark of later revision. For Saul here practices his perfidies with the cognisance of his servants, who must therefore have been well aware of his disposition towards David; but the old narrator proceeds on the opposite a.s.sumption, that his hatred appeared all at once, and that David had been held by all up to that time to be one of the king's favourite servants: cf. xxi. 2-xxii. 14 seq., not to speak of chapter xx. And this alone agrees with the nature of Saul as it is everywhere described to us.

It is a characteristic circ.u.mstance that the corruption of the tradition is greatest in those narratives in which Samuel enters into the history of David. There are two insertions of this kind. According to xix. 18-24 David flees to the old man at Ramah, where the school of the prophets is; Saul sends messengers to take him, but these, when they come near Samuel and see him in command of a troop of ecstatic enthusiasts, are seized by the frenzy like the rest. The second set of messengers whom Saul sends, and the third, fare no better; and Saul has at last to come himself. But he also is drawn into the vortex, tears off his clothes and dances before Samuel and David, the only self-possessed spectators of the bacchantic company, till he falls down; and he lies naked as he is a whole day and a whole night upon the ground--whence the proverb, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" But that David when he fled, fled in earnest and went in the direction of Judah, instead of amusing himself by going first towards the north, is perfectly evident, as much so as that it is a serious abuse of the spirit of prophecy to make it serve ends which are foreign to its nature, and turn it into a mere instrument for the personal safety of David, who had no need whatever to wait for Saul at Ramah to play him a trick there. The narrative, which is unknown to the author of xv. 35, arose out of the proverb which is quoted in it, but this receives elsewhere (x. 12) a much more worthy interpretation. We can scarcely avoid the suspicion that what we have before us here is a pious caricature; the point can be nothing but Samuel's and David's enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king. For the general history of the tradition the most interesting circ.u.mstance is that Samuel has here become the head of a school of prophets and the leader of their exercises. In the original view of the matter (chaps. ix. x.) he appears alone and independent, and has nothing to do with the companies of the ecstatics, the Nebiim. He is a _Roeh_ or seer, not a _Nabi_ or prophet. True, it is a.s.serted in the gloss, ix. 9, that the two words mean the same thing, that what is now called _Nabi_ was formerly called _Roeh_. But that is scarcely quite correct. The author of ix. x. knows the name _Nabi_ very well too, but he never applies it to Samuel; he only uses it, in the plural, of the troops of Jehovah--intoxicated dervishes. He gives it quite a different meaning from _Roeh_, and also quite a different meaning from that in which Isaiah and Jeremiah use the word _Nabi_. /1/

1 As the words are used in 1Samuel i.Y., Isaiah and Jeremiah would rather be called Roeh; and this is the justification of the gloss, ix. 9.

We cannot doubt that these distinctions rest on a historical basis, and only gradually melted away in later times: so that Samuel the seer need not be degraded into one of the flagellants.

David's flight to Samuel presupposes some previous relation to him, and xix. 18 seq. seems to point back to xvi. 1-13. In this piece David's career begins with his being anointed king in Saul's place at Jehovah's command, when a mere shepherd boy, who was not even counted in the family he belonged to. But in the sequel no one knows anything about this. Even in the story of Goliath (which in other respects harmonizes better with xvi. 1-13 than any other piece) the older brothers, here three, not seven, know nothing of the anointing of the youngest, although they were present and heard their own claims discussed (xvii. 28). In the stories of David's persecution also, chapter xxiv. xxvi., Saul alone is the sacred person, the anointed of Jehovah, not David.

A belief that David is chosen for high things by G.o.d is quite a different matter from an anointing which has already taken place in fact. And if consequent and antecedent be inseparable, we must remember how, according to xv. 35, Samuel not only withdraws himself from Saul till his death, but also feels grieved for him till his death. It is a harsh transition from xv. 35: "Samuel came no more to see Saul till the day of his death, because he mourned over him," to xvi. 1: "and Jehovah spake to him, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him?"

But it appears clearly that the appointment of the successor was connected with, and a consequence of, the deposition of the predecessor.

The anointing of David by Samuel is at the same time the set-off to the anointing of Saul by Samuel. This is clearly seen on comparing x. 6, xi. 6, "and the Spirit of G.o.d leapt upon Saul,"

with xvi. 13, 14, "and the Spirit of Jehovah leapt upon David, and it departed from Saul." In the former case the inspiration is a momentary foaming over, in the latter (the leaping notwithstanding) it is a permanent property; and this difference alone leaves no doubt as to where the original is to be looked for, and where the imitation. Saul alone, according to the old tradition, was made king in a divine, i.e. an overpowering and ideal manner: David was made king in a tedious human way, and after many intermediate stages. Of Saul alone was it originally told that the sudden outbreak of the spirit with which he, unelected as he was, summoned the levy of Israel, placed himself at its head, defeated the Ammonites, and became king, was quietly prepared by an old seer, who pointed out to him his great calling, and filled him with confidence in himself by secretly anointing him in the name of Jehovah. All that was known of David was how by his own energy he raised himself from a soldier to be the leader of a band, from that to be the va.s.sal prince, under the Philistines, of Ziklag and Judah, and from a va.s.sal prince to be the independent and powerful king of Israel. He also was anointed, not, however, beforehand by G.o.d, but after his elevation, by the elders of Judah and Israel. But this human origin and this inferiority in point of divine consecration to a predecessor whose kingdom, as it turned out, Jehovah had not made to stand, was found by a later age to be unworthy of him: he must at least have received his anointing from Samuel as well as Saul. And this was accordingly made good by the legend (xvi. 1-13). It is a step further on this downward path that in the Judaistic version (x. 17 seq.) all mention is omitted of the anointing of Saul.

We return to Samuel. The Books of Samuel take their name from him, and he is a figure of great importance, if not for the history itself, yet for the history of the tradition, the progress of which may be measured by the change of view about his person.

In the views taken about him we may distinguish four stages.

Originally (ix. 1-x. 16) he is simply a seer, but at the same time a patriotic Israelite, who feels deeply the need of his country, and uses his authority as seer to suggest to the ear and to the mind of one whom he recognises as fit for the purpose, his destination to be Israel's deliverer and leader. This relation between seer and warrior must be held fast and regarded as historical if Samuel is to mean anything at all. Similar instances are those of Deborah and Barak in earlier times, and later, that of Elisha and Hazael, and still more, that of Elisha and Jehu.

Samuel's greatness consists in this, that he rouses to activity the man who comes after him, and is greater than he: after kindling the light which now burns in its full brightness, he himself disappears. But his meteoric appearance and disappearance excited wonder, and this in early times produced a story of his youth, in which, while still a boy, he predicts the ruin of pre-monarchical Israel (1Samuel i.-iii.). After he has done this, darkness closes completely around him. Even in chapter iv. he has completely disappeared, and when we meet him again he is an old man. On the other side the circ.u.mstance that we hear nothing more of the seer after his meeting with Saul, caused it to be believed that a rupture very soon took place between the two.

This belief we meet with at the second stage of the tradition which is represented by the prophetical narratives recorded in chaps.

xvi. and xxviii. It arose out of the inconsistency involved in the fact that Jehovah did not afterwards confirm in his reign the man whom He had chosen to be king, but overthrew his dynasty.

Thus it becomes necessary that Samuel, who anointed Saul, should afterwards sorrowfully reject him. Even here he appears no longer as the simple seer, but as a prophet in the style of Elijah and Elisha who regards the Lord's anointed as his own handiwork, and lays on him despotic commands (xv. 1), though according to x. 7 he had expressly left him to be guided by his own inspiration.

The transition from the second to the third stage is easy. Here Samuel, after withdrawing the unction from Saul, at once transfers it to David, and sets him up against his rejected predecessor as being now de jure king by the grace of G.o.d. The respect with v.hich he is regarded has meanwhile increased still further; when he comes to Bethlehem the elders tremble at his approach (xvi. 4 seq.); and in xix. 18 seq. he has a magical power over men.

Up to this stage, however, he has always been regarded as intellectually the author of the monarchy. It is reserved for the last (exilian or post-exilian) stage of the development of the tradition to place him in the opposite position of one who resists to the uttermost the desire of the people to have a king. Here pre-monarchical Israel is advanced to a theocracy, and Samuel is the head of the theocracy, which accounts for the feelings aroused in him by their demand.

The modern judgment has been prejudiced in Saul's favour by Samuel's curse, and to David's disadvantage by Samuel's blessing; the picture of the one has not suffered from the blackening so much as that of the other from the glorification. /1/

1. The efforts of later writers to glorify David are at their worst in their account of his last testament (1Kings ii. 1-12). Even the language betrays this piece as a post-Deuteronomic insertion (v. 2-4); the contents are borrowed from the succeeding narrative.

But in the narrative Solomon's conduct towards Adonijah, Abiathar, Joab, and s.h.i.+mei is not dictated by any means by the testament, but by other considerations; and it is the declared object of the narrator to show how Solomon's throne was established by the removal of the elements of danger. Nor do the acute calculations of the weak old king agree very well with the general impression given of him at this time by 1Kings i. ii.

Some critics, who are unenc.u.mbered either by prejudice or by knowledge of the subject, regard Saul as the antagonist and David as the creature of the clerical l.u.s.t of rule, of which they see the embodiment in Samuel. But this view gives Samuel a powerful position over against the king such as he cannot have possessed unless he had broad ground under his feet and an influence well and extensively organised. Did he find support in the Nebiim? These were only then rising into view out of an irregular enthusiasm which was not yet confined to any definite circle or school; and besides, the old tradition speaks of a close connection between them and the king, but not between them and the seer. The belief that the latter was the founder and president of their guild is based on the worthless anachronistic anecdote, 1Samuel xix. 18 seq. Or was Samuel in conspiracy with the priests against Saul?

This is inferred from 1Samuel xxi.-xxii. where Abimelech of n.o.b provides David with bread on his wanderings, and expiates this offence with his own death and that of the whole race of Eli. But in the first place these priests have no connection with Samuel.

In the second place there is nothing to make it probable that they had an understanding with David, or were acquainted with his ambitious plans if he had then begun to cherish them. In the third place, it is positively certain that they represented no distinct power in the state as against the king, but on the contrary were entirely the creatures of his smile or frown; on the occurrence of a faint suspicion they were put to death to a man without a dog barking to remonstrate. The liberal view we are discussing of Samuel's relation to Saul and David is based on the erroneous a.s.sumption that Samuel had the hierocracy to rest on in his acts of opposition to the monarchy. But the student who carries back the hierocracy to these early times has still to learn the very elements of what is necessary to a true historical appreciation of Hebrew antiquity.

VI.III.

It is in the Book of Kings that the last revision works most unrestrictedly. Here also chronological and religious elements combine to the building up of the framework, and we begin with examining the chronological system.