Old Testament Survey - Lesson 15

Dr. Daniel Block 
Old Testament Survey
ot300-15
Samuel
Lesson Transcript

The grace and glory of God demonstrated in raising up Samuel as prophet, priest, and king-maker in Israel. 1 Samuel 1-2, or should we call it 1 and 2 David? This is an important question. Although two of the books of the First Testament bear the name Samuel, this is misleading on two counts.

First, originally these books were one. Indeed, most scholars agree that Samuel Kings originally circulated as a single narrative, perhaps called the Book of Kingdoms. But in its present form, the Hebrew canon has divided this material into four books of more or less equal length.

1 Samuel, 13,260 words from the birth of Samuel to the death of Saul. 2 Samuel, 11,036 words from the death of Saul to the end of David's reign. 1 Kings, 13,140 words from the Solomon to the death of Ahab.

And 2 Kings, 12,280 words from Ahaziah to the fall of Jerusalem. But these divisions are obviously artificial. The natural sequel to the death of Saul, David's lament, appears not at the end of 1 Samuel.

Compare the story of Moses' death in Deuteronomy 34. It's at the end of his book. But the celebration or lament over Saul's death happens in 2 Samuel.

While 2 Samuel is devoted entirely to the reign of David, his death and the transfer of power to Solomon are delayed to 1 Kings, 1 Kings 1 and 2. The division between 1 and 2 Kings falls right in the middle of the Elijah narratives. The division into two parts was necessitated by the length of the composition. It could not all fit on one scroll, so it would be divided into two.

And in the case of Samuel and Kings, divided into four. Actually, the narrative continues into 1 and 2 Kings. The narrative of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel continues into 1 and 2 Kings, which were probably originally combined with 1 and 2 Samuel to form one long book of the kings of Israel and Judah.

But there's a second note we need to make, and that is following the example of Joshua, which is named after the main human character, we expect that the books of Samuel must be about Samuel. He is indeed an important character in the first half of the first book that goes by his name, but by the end of 1 Samuel he is dead, and he never appears in 2 Samuel. As we will see, these books would have been better named after David, who is anticipated from the beginning of 1 Samuel and dominates the narrative from 1 Samuel 16 through 2 Samuel and into 1 Kings chapters 1 and 2. Nevertheless, in order to bring our discussion of writings that deal with a pre-monarchic period to a conclusion, I have isolated the Samuel narrative for separate consideration.

So this lesson is all about Samuel. What can we say about Samuel, the man Samuel? Straddling the fence between the period of the judges and the institution of the monarchy, Samuel occupied a unique position in the history of Israel. We may grasp this by noting the multidimensional nature of his ministry.

First, Samuel was judge, that is, governor and administrator. Samuel apparently served Israel as the last of a series of judges who governed in Israel between the death of Joshua and the coronation of Saul. The basis for this opinion is found in 1 Samuel 7 15 to 17, which notes that he judged Israel at Bethel, Gilgal, and Ramah.

Compare that with Deborah in Judges 4-5. But the comparison with the book of Judges is not quite accurate, since Samuel is never presented as a deliverer. He was raised up by Yahweh to deliver Israel from an enemy oppressor.

Compare him with Judges 2-16 and 18 and other places. Samuel was the agent through whom Yahweh announced that Yahweh will rescue the Israelites, deliver them into the hands of the enemy, chapter 28 verse 19. Nor does Samuel ever lead the Israelites in battle or defeat the enemy.

In fact, when the people request a king, the petition is motivated by the need for one to deliver the Israelite from the Philistine menace. He's never done it. Obviously, the people were not looking upon Samuel as a judge in the sense of deliverer in the book of Judges.

Saul was chosen to fulfill that role in 1 Samuel 10 27. Nor does Samuel's character fit the pattern of the judges in the previous book, with the exception perhaps of the first one or two, Othniel. The earlier judges had been part of Israel's problem.

Not one had shown any inclination to address the nation's spiritual crisis. In this regard, Samuel's sons were more like the rascals of judges than like their father. Second, notice that Samuel was a priest.

Now, the link between Samuel and the priesthood began even before he was born. He was the Lord's answer to his mother's prayer at the tabernacle, and after he was born, she dedicated him to Yahweh, 1 Samuel 1 27 to 28. He did indeed serve Yahweh as Eli's apprentice in the temple of Yahweh where the ark of God was, that is in Shiloh, 3 1 to 3 and 3 21.

And after Eli died, Samuel performed the functions of a priest. Was he high priest? He built altars to Yahweh, 7 17. He offered burnt offerings, 7 10, and in 13 8 to 15, he failed to show up for a priestly moment.

He officiated at communal sacrificial meals at the high places, 9 12 to 14, 19 and 22 to 14, in chapter 11, and in chapter 16. The genealogy of the chronicler in the book of Chronicles places Elkanah, Samuel's father, and Samuel in the Kohathite lines of the Levites from which Aaron also came. So theoretically, according to Chronicles, he would have qualified for priestly or Levitical duty, 1 Chronicles 6 28.

But was he a bona fide priest? His father Elkanah is identified as an Ephraimite, 1 1 to 2. He's never portrayed as officiating at the main cult center at Shiloh, that is Samuel isn't. The genealogy in Chronicles does not place Samuel in the Aaronite line of Kohathites, 1 Chronicles 6 49 to 53. And during Samuel's tenure, Ahijah, a great grandson of Eli, wore the official breastpiece of the high priest, 1 Samuel 14 3. But there's another role that we need to consider for Samuel, and that is the role of a Nazirite.

According to the vow of Hannah in 1 11, 1 Samuel 1 11, Samuel would abstain from beer all his life, never have his hair cut. These are two of the conditions of the Nazirite vow as described in Numbers 6 1 to 21. This invites the reader to compare Samuel with his predecessor or contemporary, we don't know, Samson, who like him was designated a Nazirite prenatally, and who also had to deal with the Philistine menace.

So there are a couple of parallels here. But Samuel's Nazirite status was different from both that of Samson, whose role was appointed by Yahweh, and that described in Numbers 6, where the vow was personal and voluntary. Here it was his mother who devoted him to God as a Nazirite all his life.

Samuel also fulfilled a fourth role, Samuel the prophet. This was undoubtedly the role that the narrator viewed as most significant. We may examine his prophetic status from several angles.

Called by Yahweh to prophetic service when he was a mere child, he was formally labeled a prophet in 320, compare also 99. In fact, all Israel from Dan to Beersheba quickly recognized him as the prophet of Yahweh. Elsewhere, he was referred to as a seer because of his ability to see reality as God sees it, 1 Samuel 9 9, and a man of God, another epithet title for prophets.

Verse 6 describes this man of God as one whom the people held in high esteem and one whose pronouncements came true. That's proof of a true prophet. Deuteronomy 18.

As a prophet, Samuel served as a reliable spokesman for God, 1 Samuel 8 10, 10 18, 15 1 to 2. The Lord did not let any of his words fall, and all that he said came true. As a prophet, Samuel called on his people to repent, 7 3, and he preached to the people in accordance with the Torah of Moses, chapter 8 10 12, compared Deuteronomy 17. His conviction of the primacy of obedience over sacrifice is fundamental to Mosaic religion.

What does the Lord now require of you? 1 Samuel 15 17 to 23. But we must add another note. The significance of Samuel for the rise of the monarchy in Israel, the primary concern actually in the books of Samuel, his significance for the monarchy is reflected in the fact that almost two-thirds of the Samuel narrative is devoted to his relationship with Saul, 274 out of 431 verses.

The prophet continued to move in and out of the narrative, but he functioned increasingly as a behind-the-scenes divine conscience for the king and through him to the people. Occasionally Samuel was out of the picture for extended sections of the narrative altogether. Compare chapters 11 and 14 where he doesn't appear.

But let's see how the narrative actually treats Samuel by hopping, skipping, and jumping through the first few chapters of this book. I give the title to this section of 1 Samuel, Samuel the man of the hour. God called him particularly for this turning point in Israel's history.

The story begins with the birth of Samuel, 1 1 to 2 11 a. There's the account of his birth in 1 1 to 28, and then the celebration of Samuel's birth when Hannah, his mother, presents him in the temple to the high priest, and she bursts out in a prophetic song. In fact, at that point, at the beginning of chapter 2, the Aramaic Targum refers to Hannah as a prophet. No ordinary people would speak the way this song comes out of her lips.

This was obviously inspired of God. The second part of his narrative involves the call of Samuel. This is chapter 2 verse 11b to 4 1a.

The crisis of leadership in Israel, 2 11 to 36, gives us the context for the call, but the nature of the call actually is recounted for us in chapters 3 to chapter 4 1a, where we need spiritual leadership in this country. This is chapter 3. It's a time when it is very dark in Israel's spiritual history. The word of the Lord was rare, and God wasn't speaking through the prophets, and that's when Samuel appears.

The public ministry of Samuel takes up chapters 4 through 7. It begins in chapter 4 with the context of Samuel's ministry, the national emergency represented by the Philistine threat. This is a military emergency, chapter 4 1 to 2, but it's also a spiritual emergency, 4 3 to 7 2. And what you have in the verses that follow is the symptom of the crises, and then the response to the crisis, and finally the complication, the loss of the ark in this crisis. It is a dark day in the history of worship in Israel.

That's the context of Samuel's ministry. Number two, the nature of Samuel's public ministry, his response to the emergency. In chapter 7 verses 3 to 14, we have his immediate response and his ongoing response in verses 15 to 17.

But by then, the people are getting desperate. The Philistines are a problem, and they don't know how to solve this problem. This leads to the phase of Samuel's life when he is the kingmaker of Israel.

Samuel and the emergence of kingship in Israel takes up the next eight or nine chapters, chapter 8 verse 1 to 16 23. So now we've got a couple of plots intersecting. The rise of Samuel recedes into the background a little bit.

He plays a supporting role, but now the narrative begins to focus on Saul. In chapters 8 to 12, we have the account of the rise of King Saul. Again, it's a crisis of leadership in Israel.

In Deuteronomy 17 verses 14 to 20, Moses had anticipated this moment when he contemplates a situation in the future when the people will come and ask for a king like the nations have. And then Moses tells the people, you may indeed put a king over yourself, but he shall be one whom the Lord chooses. And then he gives a description of how that king operates, and it is precisely the opposite of the way the nation's kings operate.

But in this case, the Philistines continue to be a problem. The people have no confidence in Samuel's sons, so they come to Samuel and say, give us a king like the nations. Well, what does God do? Samuel takes this personally.

He said, they've rejected me. But when he takes it to the Lord, the Lord tells him, don't you feel badly about yourself. This is not about you.

It's about me. They have not rejected you. They've rejected me, which leads then to the divine commissioning of the king, Saul.

God gives them a king, Saul, 9-1 to 10-16. The divine election of the king, 10-17 to 26. And then the divine authentication of the king, 10-27 to 11-13.

There's a very complicated narrative in this one. Saul seems to be publicly presented three times. He's commissioned, he is elected, and he is authenticated.

But it is God's hand at work in answering the people's requests. Give us a king like the nations. God gives them a king like the nations.

He gives them Saul, the Benjaminites. Now from the ending to the book of Judges, we know what Benjaminites were like. They were like the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and of the tribe of Benjamin, only 600 men had remained in the civil war with which the book of Judges ends, the rest of the nation against Benjamin.

Only 600 men were left, and then the Israelites had to go through great legal gyrations to try and figure out, how can we rescue the tribe of Benjamin by getting wives for the kings, when they had all made a vow never to give their daughters to Benjaminite men. But in the end, apparently, they got wives for all of them, and Saul the son of Kish emerges here, head and shoulders above everybody else. I have a theory that Kish must have been one of those 600 men who survived the civil war, and for whom the Israelites had provided wives.

We don't know who Saul's mother was, but in any case, we know who his father was. He was a Benjamite son of Kish. This is the man God chose.

You want a king like the nations? I'll give you a Benjaminite. But of course, Samuel should have protested at this point, shouldn't he? Samuel should have said to God, could have said to God, didn't you say through the mouth of Jacob that the scepter shall not depart from the tribe of Judah? How can you give us a Benjaminite? But of course, as we read the narrative, we know that Saul is a foil for the real king who is coming. This is a human solution to a spiritual problem, and God says human solutions don't work, so I'll give you Saul.

He did not fix the problem. Samuel's response to the crisis that is raised by the anointing of King Saul is described in chapter 11, verse 14 to 12, 25. Things don't get any better just because we have a king.

In fact, they only get worse. So chapters 8 through 12 are about the rise of Saul, but four chapters later, it's the demise of Saul, 13.1 to 16.23. This all starts with another Philistine crisis. They wanted Saul so that the Philistine problem would be resolved once and for all, but it obviously hasn't, and now we have another one of these crises involving the Philistines in 13.1 to 14.52, and of course, Saul's performance here is less than heroic.

In a stupid move before the battle with the Philistines, he tells them, nobody is supposed to eat until we've won the victory in this one. Of course, that's ridiculous, isn't it? If you know anything about military engagement, your people have to be nourished, and in the process, obviously, somebody must have eaten something because it ends up in a total failure, and the heroism of it turns out that Jonathan becomes the hero of this story who had eaten some honey in the process, but he is the one who resolves the problem. Saul's rule was one crisis after another.

He was elevated in a moment of crisis. The Philistine crisis dominated his world, and then in the end, it is the Amalekite crisis in chapter 15. The Amalekites were a migratory tribe from the south.

Sometimes they were in the Transjordan, sometimes they were in the Sinai Peninsula, but they appeared on the scene to test Saul, and in the process of this, this was the Lord's testing of Saul. In the process of this, Saul failed the test totally, and as a result of his failure of the Lord's test, Samuel comes and announces the Lord's final rejection of Saul, which leads then to a spiritual crisis, resulting in the divine election of David, chapter 16, verses 1 to 13, followed by the divine rejection of Saul, and now we have two kings that have been anointed as kings living at the same time. This crisis is not solved until the end of the book, when Saul is actually killed by the Philistines up on Mount Gilboa, but after this, Samuel disappears from the scene.

We're talking here about Samuel. Samuel hasn't been seen for a while until later on Samuel comes to haunt Saul. In the last chapters, chapter 19, 18 to 24, and 28, 3 to 5, we have the haunting role of Samuel.

First of all, you have his prophetic power over Saul in 19, 18 to 24, with warnings and then final demonstration that Saul is done. But in leapfrogging quickly then over to chapter 28, we have what I call Samuel's necromantic power over Saul. Now we know from Deuteronomy 17, verses 9 to 14, that Israelites were not to have anything to do with sorcerers, witches, fortune tellers, anything of that consulting the dead.

But at the beginning of chapter 28, this is nearing the end of Saul's reign, at the beginning of the chapter, God isn't answering him. Samuel has died. Samuel is long gone, and Saul can't get through to God, either with prophets or with omens or with the urim and tumim, God isn't talking.

And so in a desperate move, Saul consults a witch at Endor who apparently is one of the survivors of a purge of sorcerers and witches that Saul had conducted. We don't know much about that purge, but here is one of the sorcerers or witches who had survived that purge, and Saul consults with her and asks her about the fate of the coming battle with the Philistines. What will happen in this? And so she consults Samuel, who's been buried, and Samuel shows up, and Samuel prophesies.

He comes back to life for a brief moment, and his ghost, his spirit, and it's a fascinating story. Apparently, Saul didn't see Samuel, but Saul asked the witch, what do you see? And she said, I see an elohim. That word usually means God, a divine being.

And who is it? It's Samuel, the ghost, the spirit of Samuel has returned. And then Samuel predicts, by this time tomorrow, you're gone. It's over.

You will die. And of course, Saul's reaction, he gets ready for battle, and he takes on the Philistines, and in that battle, both he and his son, Jonathan, die. That's the last we hear of Samuel in the book of Samuel.