Herausgegeben von Walter Dietrich Ruth Scoralick Reinhard von Bendemann Marlis Gielen Band 228
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Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Herausgegeben von Walter Dietrich Ruth Scoralick Reinhard von Bendemann Marlis Gielen Band 228
Edited by Sara Kipfer and Jeremy M. Hutton in collaboration with Regine Hunziker-Rodewald, Thomas Naumann and Johannes Klein The Book of Samuel and Its Response to Monarchy Verlag W. Kohlhammer
1. Edition 2021 All rights reserved © W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart Production: W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart Print: ISBN 978-3-17-037040-1 E-Book: pdf: ISBN 978-3-17-037041-8 W. Kohlhammer bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of any external website that is linked or cited, or for that of subsequent links.
Contents Preface ....................................................................................................................... 7 Sara Kipfer / Jeremy M. Hutton The Book of Samuel and Its Response to Monarchy – An Introduction ......... 11 David G. Firth Hannah’s Prayer as Hope for and Critique of Monarchy .................................. 23 Regine Hunziker-Rodewald Images by and Images of Philistia: Winner and Loser Perspectives in 1 Samuel 5–6 ............................................................................................................. 39 Ian D. Wilson Remembering Kingship: Samuel’s Contributions to Postmonarchic Culture 63 Hulisani Ramantswana Tribal Contentions for the Throne: A Culturally Enthused Suspicious Reading of 1 Samuel 1–8 ............................. 81 Jeremy M. Hutton A Pre-Deuteronomistic Narrative Underlying the “Antimonarchic Narrative” (1 Sam 8; 10*; 12) and Its Reuse in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense .................... 115 Hannes Bezzel Der „Saulidische Erbfolgekrieg“ – Responses to Which Kind of Monarchy? . 165 Sara Kipfer Conquering all the Enemies West, East, South, and North: Envisioning Power in the Books of Samuel and the Ancient Near East .......... 183 Mahri Leonard-Fleckman Ally or Enemy? Politics and Identity Construction in 2 Sam 15:19-22 ............ 211
6 Sara Kipfer / Jeremy M. Hutton Benjamin J. M. Johnson An Unapologetic Apology: The David Story as a Complex Response to Monarchy ...................................... 225 Thomas Naumann „Der König weint“ – Das öffentliche Weinen des Königs als Mittel politischer Kommunikation in alttestamentlichen Texten .................................................. 243 Ilse Müllner Das Geschlecht der Politik. Familie und Herrschaft in der dynastischen Monarchie ................................................................................................................. 281 Johannes Klein Dynastiekritische Vorstellungen und das Königtum. Ein Blick auf die Samuelbücher ............................................................................. 299 Walter Dietrich Die Samuelbücher und das Königtum: Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen dieses Bandes .................................................. 311 Walter Dietrich The Books of Samuel and the Monarchy: Response to the Contributions of this Volume ................................................... 321 Index of Biblical References ................................................................................... 331 Index of Subjects ...................................................................................................... 335 Contributors .............................................................................................................. 343
Remembering Kingship: Samuel’s Contributions
to Postmonarchic Culture
Ian D. Wilson
Summary
Kingship has been a political mainstay in human history, even when peoples have lacked monarchic
rulers. This essay examines the book of Samuel as a source for the cultural history of ancient Judah,
focusing on the question of how Samuel’s representations of monarchy would function for its
readers in the early Second Temple era. In this era, when Samuel became a book, as it were, the
people of Judah lacked an indigenous king, but they were thinking deeply about kingship none-
theless. The narrative of kingship’s beginnings in Israel, as represented in Samuel, demonstrates that
Judeans had no single response to kingship, no unified understanding of monarchy’s meaning as part
of their political past. And Samuel himself, the figure in the narrative, would mediate this complex
of political remembering for the book’s ancient readers.
Das Königtum war eine politische Stütze in der Menschheitsgeschichte, selbst zu Zeiten, als es keine
monarchischen Herrscher gab. Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Samuelbücher als eine Quelle für die
Kulturgeschichte des antiken Juda und konzentriert sich dabei auf die Frage, wie Samuels Darstel-
lungen der Monarchie für seine Leser in der frühen Zeit des Zweiten Tempels aussehen würden. In
dieser Zeit, als die Samuelbücher entstanden, fehlte den Menschen in Juda ein eigener König, aber
sie dachten dennoch intensiv über das Königtum nach. Die Erzählung von den Anfängen des König-
tums in Israel, wie sie in den Samuelbüchern präsentiert wird, zeigt, dass die Judäer keine einlinige
Antwort auf das Königtum hatten, kein einheitliches Verständnis von der Bedeutung der Monarchie
als Teil ihrer politischen Vergangenheit. Samuel, die Hauptfigur in der Erzählung, vermittelt diese
Idee des politischen Gedächtnisses für die antiken Leser des Buches.
1. On Kings, Anthropology, and Ancient Judean
Literature
In a recent work, David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins – two of the world’s most
noted anthropologists – examine the human political phenomenon of kingship.
“[O]nce established,” they write, “kings appear remarkably difficult to get rid
of.” 1 This statement is true, they argue, not only for certain historical instances
of monarchic rule (e.g., the British monarchy) but also for human society in gen-
eral, throughout its known history. Kingship, as a form of governance, has been
1
Graeber and Sahlins, On Kings, 1.64 Ian D. Wilson
the norm in human life. In our twenty-first century context, it is sometimes easy
to forget this fact, especially in places like the United States, where many citi-
zens (myself included) imagine themselves having finally shaken off monarchy
and kingly rule. 2 But even in these modern political settings, as Graeber and
Sahlins point out, talk of “popular sovereignty” has its roots in the idea of mo-
narchic power being distributed among the people (compare Isa 55:1–5). 3 And
thus, such power is at the ready to be re-concentrated in the hands of an indi-
vidual, in certain conditions. Referencing the eighteenth-century Scottish jurist
Henry Home (Lord Kames), Graeber and Sahlins write, “[T]he difference between
absolute despotism, where all are equal except for one man, and absolute
democracy, is simply one man.” 4 So, kingship has been around more-or-less for-
ever, it hasn’t really gone anywhere (even for those without a king or queen),
and it probably isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. This was true for ancient
Judean society, as it is for us today.
Another general point that Graeber and Sahlins make is that, for nearly all
of our history, humans have understood monarchy in terms of divinity and
sacredness. Monarchic power is typically believed to be something other, a
power somehow distinguishable from commonplace social hierarchies, whether
this power comes from beyond one’s immediate human-social sphere (i.e., from
another culture or society) or from beyond human-social existence in general
(i.e., from some divine realm). 5 Because of this power’s perceived otherness,
societies tend to speak about their kings as transcending their immediate social
and even general human contexts (i.e., divinization), or they tend to set apart
and protect their kings within those contexts (i.e., sanctification), in order to
harbor perceptions of divine power. Graeber and Sahlins outline how these two
processes – divinization and sanctification – go hand-in-hand in the context of
kingship politics, balancing each other in the establishment, institutional-
ization, and maintenance of kingly rule. 6 In the book of Samuel, we can see this
balancing act between divine and human power, between kingship’s perceived
sanctity and its relative profaneness, between the interests of insiders and out-
siders, upstarts and dynasts, within the narrative about the establishment of
monarchy in ancient Israel.
In this essay, I would like to unpack how Samuel represents the founding of
kingship in Israel, in order to learn something about the culture of the book’s
2
I now reside in Canada, a nation subject to a crown, where coins feature an image of the English
Queen along with the Latin inscription “D.G.Regina” (= Dei Gratia Regina, “By the grace of God,
Queen”). I would venture, however, that most Canadians seldom think about monarchy, despite
its continuing presence in their lives.
3
See Wilson, Kingship, 217–20.
4
Graeber and Sahlins, On Kings, 12.
5
That said, Graeber and Sahlins warn against drawing too sharp of a distinction between under-
standings of “everyday” human life and understandings of divine or “metahuman” existence.
For many, the divine is present in the everyday (On Kings, 19–20).
6
See Graeber and Sahlins, On Kings, 7–12 and passim.Remembering Kingship 65
ancient Judean readers. 7 The book, which is one part of a larger ancient
discourse on Israel and Judah’s past, has a take on monarchy, a response of sorts.
But this take is not singular. As readers of the book have long noticed, the text is
unsure of its own position vis-à-vis monarchic power. The book represents a
variety of voices that speak about and to the institution. 8 On the one hand, this
multivocality is a product of the book’s long compositional history – there is no
doubt that the book of Samuel came together over an extended period and
reflects different authorial voices and their times. 9 On the other hand, the fact
that various voices were preserved in individual texts, and that these voices
were collated with certain and sometimes diverse narrative aims within the
book, also says something about the culture of those that initially received the
texts and produced and read the book, in Judah’s early Second Temple era. 10 As
7
“Culture” deserves some explication. Generally, following the work of anthropologist Clifford
Geertz, I understand culture to be the interrelated systems of meaning produced and main-
tained by various aspects of human life in a social setting (see Wilson, History, 6–13). Another
prominent anthropologist, Maurice Bloch, defines culture as “that which needs to be known in
order to operate reasonably effectively in a specific human environment” (How We Think, 4). I
mention Bloch because he provides an important addition to Geertz’s formulation: Bloch’s
work shows that “that which needs to be known” includes more than just conscious meaning-
making in social contexts. Culture also includes mostly unconscious, non-linguistic cognitive
patterns that serve as models for our day-to-day activities, whether those activities are indi-
vidual or social (see Bloch, How We Think, 3–21; also idem, Anthropology). My research interests,
however, lie in cultures of history in social contexts – i.e., how societies construct meanings in
their discourses about past-times or, put more simply, how people think and talk about their
shared past. And so, with these sorts of questions in mind, I find Geertz’s formulation of culture
to be instructive. The book of Samuel is the product of a particular ancient society, and is there-
fore a kind of source for that society’s systems of conscious thought and meaning-making.
Sahlins, already noted above and discussed more below, takes a similar approach to his anthro-
pological-historical work, focusing on the significations that make past persons and happen-
ings mean something to those remembering them.
8
Elsewhere I have argued that the book’s response to kingship is akin to Orwellian “double-
think.” See Wilson, Kingship, 77–130.
9
Reconstructions of this compositional history abound and abide. See, e.g., the various discus-
sions and references in Dietrich, Early Monarchy, 8–11, 227–316; Kratz, Composition, 153–215, esp.
158–86; Schmid, Old Testament, passim; Hutton, Transjordanian Palimpsest, 79–156; and Carr, For-
mation, passim.
10
Most agree that the book of Samuel, as we know it, as part of a larger corpus of Judean litera-
ture, came together in Judah’s postmonarchic and “postexilic” era, probably in the early Sec-
ond Temple period (see, e.g., Dietrich, Early Monarchy, 8–11; and idem, “Layer Model”; with fur-
ther references in each). To what extent the book represents discourse in this particular period,
however, is a point of debate. E.g., Hutton (Transjordanian Palimpsest) argues that the book’s
older, monarchic-era sources are essentially knowable within the book itself, and so the book
affords us access to monarchic-era political and theological concerns. Similarly, Polak (“Con-
ceptions”) shows how the book retains elements of a monarchic-era context, despite later edi-
torial or redactional activity. These searches for textual origins, and others like them (noted
above), reveal the complexity of the book’s composition over time. This study, however, looks
at the issue from the opposite chronological perspective. It asks what the book’s emergence as
such, in the postmonarchic era, says about the community in which and for which it emerged.
Compare, e.g., Adam, “What Made”; and Bolin, “1–2 Samuel.” See also Müller (Königtum) who is66 Ian D. Wilson
David Jobling has argued, the book fails to control its subject matter, but
apparent contradictions in the book’s narratives reflect “contradictions within the
mindset that receives them. The community creating and living by this text was
not of a single mind about what the past had bequeathed them.” 11 The book of
Samuel would play a key role in Judean readers’ negotiation of dissonance in
their remembering of the monarchy and monarchic rule. And the story of
Samuel himself, the figure within the book, would represent and speak to the
dissonant positions concerning kingship, in a postmonarchic setting. By
complicating memories of kingship, its beginnings and outcomes in the Israelite
and Judean past, the reading of Samuel would enable ongoing debate within its
literary culture about the significance of kingship (and other types of leadership
too) for Judah’s present and future. Kingship is indeed remarkably difficult to
get rid of. It hangs around as a concept to think with, as an idea through which
one might explore questions of power and divinity, identity and otherness, even
when there is no king in sight.
2. On History, Theory, and Method
Graeber and Sahlins’s general observations about kingship can be instructive
here, as a conceptual and methodological starting point. The original composers
and readers of the book of Samuel, I submit, would wrestle with whether to div-
inize, sanctify, or perhaps even villainize the notion of kingship. It was either
something to revere, something to protect, or perhaps even something to try
and expel from their social and cultural context as time moved on. But they cer-
tainly would not have ignored or dismissed or forgotten the issue of monarchic
rule in their day and age; it was central to their thought and their literary inter-
ests, because it was the only politics they had ever really known. They had had
kings and would continue to have kings.
In the early Second Temple period, when Samuel became a book, as it were,
the Judeans may not have had indigenous kings, but they were ruled by kings
nonetheless; and they were thinking deeply about kingship and its place in
Judah’s story. The book’s narrative composition, how it presents its story about
the rise of kingship in Israel and how it raises questions about kingship’s func-
tion in Israelite life, is a source for ancient Judean thought on these issues. It is
a literary artifact that reveals insight into the community mindset that David
Jobling mentions in the quote above. Judeans read the book of Samuel as a source
attentive to many of the same diachronic issues that Hutton and others address, in relation to
the monarchy, but who nonetheless situates Judah’s discourse on kingship primarily in the
postmonarchic era.
11
Jobling, I Samuel, 19. Italics in the original.Remembering Kingship 67
for knowledge of their political past, and they did so in their present political
moment, informing present concerns and interests. I quote Graeber and Sahlins
again, this time at length:
Embedding the present in terms of a remembered past, this kind of culturally instituted
temporality is a fundamental mode of history-making, from the omnipresent Dreamtime
of Australian Aboriginals to the state politics of Kongo kings. But then, what actually hap-
pens in a given situation is always constituted by cultural significations that transcend the
parameters of the happening itself: Bobby Thomson didn’t simply hit the ball over the
left-field fence, he won the pennant [the famous “shot heard round the world” of Ameri-
can baseball lore]. The better part of history is atemporal and cultural: not “what actually
happened,” but what it is that happened. 12
So, when I examine a book like Samuel, I look to it as a source for history, but not
as a source for any actual happenings in the early days of Israel’s monarchy. To
be clear, this is not to say that the book lacks information that might inform some
knowledge of Israel’s monarchic history. 13 I mean to say only that my research
here is not interested in reconstructing those happenings. When I look to Sam-
uel for history, I look to it for knowledge of how the ancient Judeans would think
about their own past. The book is, then, a source for the cultural history of its
primary context, a kind of “source for the knowledge of itself.” 14 In another
work, Sahlins comments that, once an “event” happens in a human domain (say,
the establishment of kingly rule in ancient Israel), it is “given a definite cultural
value” and assumes “some particular effect, as orchestrated by the relations of
the particular cultural scheme.” 15 Ultimately, my work here (and in general)
aims to get a bit closer to the Judean cultural scheme of kingship, via the book
of Samuel – a book that is the “particular effect” so to speak, of an ancient Judean
social phenomenon: the preserving and remembering of the Israelite past. 16
Here at the outset, I belabor some of these historical-methodological mat-
ters because they have been longstanding points of contention in Hebrew Bible
studies. Scholarship in our field has often made a point of distinguishing
between maximalism and minimalism, reality and ideology, history and fiction,
and so on. 17 Already in 1980, at the centennial meeting of the Society of Biblical
Literature in Dallas, Texas, the classicist Arnaldo Momigliano commented on the
12
Graeber and Sahlins, On Kings, 17. See Sahlins, Apologies, 125–93, for examples of such cultural
significations, including an extended discussion of Bobby Thomson’s home run.
13
Dietrich, Early Monarchy, is a parade example of a study that utilizes Samuel and other sources
to work toward a history of Israel’s monarchy. Note, however, that Dietrich prioritizes recep-
tion history and synchronic readings of the book as we know it, before he argues for possible
textual precursors and early Iron Age happenings.
14
Compare Liverani, “Memorandum,” 179 and passim.
15
Sahlins, Culture, 299.
16
On this kind of approach, see Wilson, History. See also the recent essays by Gilmour (“Who Cap-
tured Jerusalem?”) and Zimran (“Divine vs. Human”) on the book of Samuel, which have some
general affinities to my approach here, even though they differ on some of the particulars.
17
See Tobolowsky, “Israelite and Judahite History,” esp. 34–37.68 Ian D. Wilson
issue of such methodological distinctions in the work of ancient history, biblical
studies included. 18 Momigliano’s lecture aimed to show that, in the work of his-
tory, biblical sources are no more or no less problematic than ancient Greek and
Latin sources; and that, given their significant overlap, the fields of biblical stud-
ies and classics should converse more regularly. But in the course of his lecture
he also expressed serious concern about “the current devaluation of the notion
of evidence” and the “corresponding overappreciation of rhetoric and ideology”
in historical analyses. 19 He places blame for these tendencies directly at the feet
of historical theorist Hayden White, especially White’s well known and much
discussed interest in blurring lines between historiographical and fictional dis-
courses.
Too many in our field, I think, have taken up Momigliano’s early critiques of
White (and other, similar critiques of studies that problematize historiography)
without fully considering the implications of White’s work and influence.
Throughout his career, White never fully dissolved the boundary between fact
and fiction. His overarching program, put very simply, was to show that factual
narrative discourses and fictional narrative discourses have much in common.
But White knew that there is a real difference between fact and fiction, and that
the interpretive work of historians contributes to the knowledge of this differ-
ence. The problem is that he took it for granted. His work never sought to expli-
cate what Paul Ricoeur called the “documentary moment” in historical work;
that is, the presumption that historians, in our modern era at least, will select
and interpret truthful sources in the crafting of history, and that historians will
honestly relay those truths to their readers. 20
When we take up these questions of history and rhetoric, of facts and ide-
ology, in relation to the book of Samuel, our main trouble is that we know very
little, if anything, about the book’s documentary moment, to borrow Ricoeur’s
term. We know little about the compositional epistemologies and practices of
those who originally produced the book and other books like it. We are limited
to educated guesses based upon the text of the book itself and upon comparisons
between it and what we know about other ancient artifacts, literary and other-
wise. And getting at the documentary moments of any older sources that might
have informed the book is even more challenging. 21
Another trouble is that our historical analyses of Samuel sometimes conflate
questions of the book’s rhetorical or ideological features with questions of the
book’s documentary moment. In other words, occasionally scholars argue that
features of the writing itself can reveal the factuality (or fictionality) of its con-
tent, which is precisely the kind of approach that Hayden White’s work warns
18
See Momigliano, Essays, 3–9.
19
Momigliano, Essays, 3.
20
See Wilson, History, 14–21, for further discussion and references.
21
Note, however, recent studies by Pioske (e.g., “Retracing”; Memory), which work toward eluci-
dating our knowledge of ancient scribal epistemologies.Remembering Kingship 69
against. Wellhausen’s argument for the historical reliability of 2 Sam 9 to 1 Kgs
2 is the classic example of this approach. This part of Samuel–Kings, he states,
“frequently affords us a glance into the very heart of events, showing us the nat-
ural occasions and human motives which gave rise to different actions.” 22 In
other words, for Wellhausen, the narrative complexity of the books’ plots and
characters evinces, at least to some extent, the historicity of their narrative. 23
Lester Grabbe does something similar in a recent essay on Samuel: he argues that
there probably was a historical Saul because Saul’s story seems to have been a
problem for the composer(s) of the book. 24 Elements of Saul’s story and elements
of David’s story – issues of divine chosenness and dynasty in particular (issues
to which I return, below) – do not seem to mesh. So why not just get rid of Saul
and start the story with David? – because, Grabbe proposes, Saul was an actual
king with an actual royal family, and whoever was responsible for the book of
Samuel was duty-bound to preserve this historical fact.
For me, this is an interpretive leap too far, taking us beyond what Samuel
can tell us about its own documentary moment and the intentions of its com-
poser(s). In my estimation, the narrative problems that Grabbe identifies tell us
that the composer of the book perhaps thought Saul was a real personage of the
past, or that stories of Saul (whether factual or not) were important enough in
the composer’s day that the composer could not omit them. But these narrative
features do not prove the historicity of a king named Saul. Whether Saul (or
David) was a real person in Israel’s past, and what the book of Samuel can tell us
about the interests of those who produced and read the book – these should be
two different kinds of questions, for historians who work with the Bible. 25 And
an approach that takes up these latter questions – that is, questions of the book’s
cultural function in the remembering of Israel’s monarchy, can still lead to
important historical insights.
In the balance of this essay, my brief analysis of Samuel’s representation of
the establishment of kingship aims to help us better understand the culture of
kingship in a postmonarchic setting. What would readers of the book of Samuel,
taking up stories of the Israelite past for insights and knowledge, think about
monarchy and monarchic rule? What potential understandings of kingship are
there in the text, and what might those understandings tell us about the culture
of the text? How did Judean readers think about “what it is that happened,” to
use Graeber and Sahlins’ expression, in relation to their monarchic past? I focus
22
Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 262.
23
For similar approaches, see von Rad, Problem of the Hexateuch, 166–204; Halpern, David’s Secret
Demons; and Baden, Historical David.
24
Grabbe, “Mighty Men,” 90.
25
E.g., Milstein (Tracking, 174–206) provides an account of scribal culture and interests relating
to Saul, one that resists linking such an account to any claims about Saul’s historicity. To be
clear, I am not opposed to arguments for Saul’s or David’s historicity as a king of Israel. I simply
do not think that narrative features in the Hebrew Bible are sufficient grounds for making such
arguments.70 Ian D. Wilson
mainly on the story of Samuel himself, as represented in the book, as a mediating
figure between different political stances and issues.
3. On Governments and Dynasties, Divine Choices
and Promises, Samuel Being Stuck in the Middle26
Biblical scholars have argued that the book of Samuel, in its postmonarchic con-
text, was wrapped up in political debate. 27 The book is in conversation, so to
speak, with the book of Judges, and each is exploring the various merits and
weaknesses of judgeship and kingship. 28 But neither side really wins the debate.
The narrative goes in such odd directions throughout both books that it is diffi-
cult for it to sustain an argument for either form of human government. At the
center of this narrative of diverse and overlapping governments is the figure of
Samuel, who variously plays the roles of priest, prophet, and judge. He is the
prime aporia of the text, the paradox that initiates and fuels the narrative’s mul-
tivocality concerning politics. He at once stabilizes and destabilizes kingship,
becoming a talking point within the discourse that can either support or detract
from kingly rule.
Thinking about this narrative aporia concerning different forms of govern-
ment, Jobling comments, “[K]ingship emerge[s] not at judgeship’s nadir but at
its zenith”; and, “It is more than ironic that the stalwart foe of kingship [i.e.,
Samuel] should become its cause.” 29 Read together, the books of Judges and Sam-
uel are neither pro-kingship nor anti-kingship (nor are they pro- or anti-judge-
ship for that matter). These books represent multiple voices on the issue, and
26
This section is adapted from Wilson, Kingship, 93–99.
27
To reemphasize what I note above, here I am concerned with the book and its emergence as
part of a distinct discursive horizon in Judah’s postmonarchic era. Samuel, of course, contains
material that likely originated in earlier contexts (e.g., Polak, “Conceptions”). But the incorpo-
ration of this older material with other materials constituted new discourse, a new compo-
sition, which was likely read as such in its postmonarchic context.
28
E.g., Jobling, I Samuel, 43; Dietrich, “History and Law,” 318. Marvin Sweeney recently made a
similar argument about Samuel in his Craigie Lecture at the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies
annual meeting, given at the University of British Columbia on June 2, 2019. Also note that a
number of scholars understand Judges as an ideological introduction to Samuel, which pre-
pares readers for the fall of Benjaminite Saul and the rise of Judahite David: e.g., Brettler, Book
of Judges, 111–16; Amit, “Book of Judges”; Milstein, Tracking, 174–206.
29
Jobling, I Samuel, 58, 63. Reversal of expectations is a consistent theme in Israel’s overarching
storyline: Joshua inspired the people to serve Yhwh faithfully (Josh 24:31; Judg 2:7), but shortly
after his death, within a couple of generations, the people turn to apostasy (Judg 2:10–13); fur-
ther, David and Solomon bring the kingdom of Israel to unprecedented greatness, building the
temple in Jerusalem, but Solomon, in his old age, turns to other gods and the kingdom unravels
shortly after his death (1 Kgs 11–12). Note that all of this is foreshadowed in Moses’s speech in
the book of Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut 27–31). One comes to expect unexpected turns.Remembering Kingship 71
Samuel’s story is the crux of the conversation. Although the book of Samuel
ultimately deals with the institution of monarchy in Israel and the establishment
of Davidic rule in particular, it begins with the narrative of Samuel himself. It is
Samuel who sets the stage for Saul’s fall and David’s rise, and it is Samuel who
continues to haunt the narrative – figuratively and literally – long after his main
scene has concluded.
Recognizing the strong connections between the books of Judges and Sam-
uel, Judean readers would place Samuel himself within the age of judgeship, spe-
cifically during the period of Philistine oppression begun with Samson’s story
(Judg 13:1). 30 This is what, at least on the surface, makes the beginning of Samuel
so surprising as part of the larger Judean discourse on kingship. The book of
Judges implies that human leadership mostly failed in this period, but then a
powerful and faithful Ephraimite 31 judge – who happens also to be a priestly fig-
ure (1 Sam 2:11, 18) and a prophet (1 Sam 3) – emerges to quell Philistine oppres-
sion (1 Sam 7:13). With this, he finally purges Israel of its Baalim and Ashtaroth,
so that the people may “serve” ( )עבדYhwh alone (1 Sam 7:4; contrast Judg 2:11,
13, 19; 3:6–7).
In recent years a good deal of work has addressed the issue of Samuel’s char-
acterization, especially with regard to his variety of leadership roles. 32 Samuel’s
role as a prophet is perhaps most dominant in the Judean literature, as it is in
later textual traditions. 33 But the overarching emphasis on Samuel as prophet
does not diminish his priestly and judge-like characteristics in the narrative at
hand. In fact, prior to the elders’ request for a king and the appearance of Saul,
Samuel’s story mainly emphasizes his role as judge. 34 In line with what one finds
in the book of Judges, the priest Eli – Samuel’s mentor – “judges/rules” ()שפט
Israel for forty years (1 Sam 4:18); and after Eli’s death, Samuel’s most significant
achievements, defeating the Philistines and purging idolatry, are judge-like
activities. In any case, the text spells it out directly, saying that Samuel
30
There are salient tribal and geographical correspondences between the books of Judges and
Samuel: e.g., Judah and Benjamin, the “house of God” at Shiloh, as well as Gibeah, Ramah, and
Jerusalem. In addition, as scholars have often observed, Samuel himself forms a kind of inclusio
with the judge Samson. Both have mothers that were once barren, both are not to cut their
hair (4QSama 1:22 even states that Hannah dedicated Samuel as a nazirite; cf. Josephus, Ant.
5.347; Gilmour, Representing, 55–56), and both fight the Philistines.
31
Samuel’s father, Elkanah, is said to be “from the hills of Ephraim” ()מהר אפרים, while his distant
ancestor, Zuph, is labeled an “Ephratite” ()אפרתי, perhaps linking Samuel’s ancestry with the
tribe of Judah, and therefore with David (1 Sam 1:1; cf. 17:12; Ruth 1:2). See Leuchter, “Jero-
boam,” 60–61. Elsewhere, however, אפרתיclearly indicates someone from Ephraim (Judg 12:5),
so the reference in 1 Sam 1:1 is ambiguous. Complicating matters further, in the genealogies of
Chronicles, Samuel is a Levite (1 Chr 6:13, 18).
32
E.g., Steussy, David, 27–47; Gilmour, Representing, 53–56; Leuchter, Samuel.
33
In addition to 1 Sam 3, see 1 Sam 9; 19:20; 1 Chr 9:22; 11:3; 2 Chr 35:18; Sir 46:13–20, each of
which associates him with prophetic activity (Leuchter, Samuel, 41, 83–86).
34
Cf. Samuel’s actions in 1 Sam 11, which are very judge-like, and the statement in 1 Sam 12:11.
See Steussy, David, 34–35.72 Ian D. Wilson
“judged/ruled” ( )שפטIsrael all his life (1 Sam 7:15), and that he appointed his
sons to carry on the task (1 Sam 8:1). At this point, then, the narrative construes
Samuel as a priestly judge who prophesies and leads Israel with great success. 35 231F
Here, his role as judge in particular has special import in the larger narrative
construction.
Samuel’s rise to prominence as a judge ostensibly suggests that judgeship is
in fine shape. Samuel does exactly what judges are supposed to do, which would
encourage the readership to bracket or temporarily forget Yhwh’s words in Judg
10:13–14 and the increasingly ineffective cycles of judgeship remembered in the
book of Judges. But then there is 1 Sam 8:1–5. At this point in Samuel’s narrative,
when readers might have expected resolution – the reestablishment of ongoing,
proper judgeship under Yhwh’s rule, a result of Samuel’s great success – they
would instead encounter yet another turning point. The narrative undermines
itself. Instead of engendering answers, it raises more questions. 36
Samuel has grown “old” ()זקן, 37 and despite all his righteousness and accom-
23 F
plishments, his sons turn out to be scoundrels. 1 Sam 8 thus explores issues of
ancestral power transfer. Samuel appoints his scandalous sons as judges in his
stead, but the elders do not trust the sons in this role. A similar exploration of
ancestry and power is found in Judges 8–9: in that text, Gideon denies a dynasty,
yet his ruthless son tries to start one anyway. In 1 Sam 8, Samuel tries to start a
dynasty, yet his sons are inept to rule. Gideon and Abimelech and Samuel and
his sons offer variations on a theme: having dynasty means taking the sons along
with the father, the bad apples along with the good, which has all kinds of
potential ramifications.
In response to Samuel’s dynastic failure, the elders request a king ( )מלךto
“rule/judge” ( )שפטlike all the other nations (1 Sam 8:5). Here we encounter the
issue of indigenous versus exogenous forms of government, an issue highlighted
by Graeber and Sahlins in their study of kingship. 38 Notice the contrast between
234F
35
The blending of roles is to be expected anyway: e.g., Deborah, the prophet-judge (Judg 4:4), and
of course the multitasking Moses, with whom Samuel shares many characteristics (Leuchter,
Samuel, 33, 36, 51–52). The narratives construe a distant past in which a single person could
conduct the activities of judgeship, prophecy, and priesthood. In the ancient Near East there is
concrete evidence for such overlap. In Egypt, for instance, priestly officials also conducted pro-
phetic duties (Edelman “Of Priests”; Leuchter, Samuel, 43–44).
36
As is its habit. See Wilson, Kingship, 35–40.
37
Compare the reference to David’s old age in 1 Kgs 1:1 and to Solomon’s old age in 1 Kgs 11:4. In
the Deuteronomistic corpus, the discourse suggests a correlation between old age and incom-
petence in leadership. Moses, of course, provides the exception that proves the rule (Deut 34:7).
38
One of the central talking points in Judean discourse is whether kingship was (or should have
been) an insiders-only endeavor. Graeber and Sahlins’s research suggests that societies tend to
view kingship, and the king himself, as a power that initially comes from outside, in order to
conquer and dominate; and that only after the king is established do societies sanctify and har-
bor the office to protect its power within their particular settings (see On Kings, 5–7). The
Hebrew Bible, of course, contains a variety of perspectives on this issue: Deuteronomy
acknowledges that kingship, the office, is a foreign concept, but it insists that the king himselfRemembering Kingship 73
Samuel’s growing old ( )זקןand the elders’ ( )זקניםdoubting his sons, and between
the sons’ appointments as judges ( )שפטיםand the elders’ desire for a king’s judi-
cial rule ()שפט. There is some irony here: old age brings both folly and wisdom.
Also, compare the request to Gideon (Judg 8:22), in which a judge was asked to
rule like a king ()משל. The line between judgeship and kingship is blurred. The
elders’ request to Samuel is ironic, too, because kingship itself is dynastic. 39 It will235 F
not solve their problem in the long run – kings, like judges, can have sour off-
spring, and they often do.
The elders, however, seem to have something different in mind. The king
they want seems to be the ideal king of Deuteronomy, one who reads Torah and
whose descendants will reign long over Israel. The elders’ request clearly alludes
to the peculiar king-law of Deut 17:14–20 (compare the phrasing of 1 Sam 8:5 and
Deut 17:14), which puts severe restrictions on the traditional powers of ancient
Near Eastern monarchy (not too many horses, not too many wives, not too much
wealth). 40 Deuteronomic law grants Israel permission to have a king, however
peculiar, and it imagines dynasty as possible. But nothing in the overarching
narrative demonstrates that such kingship will succeed or that dynasty is, in
fact, possible. 1 Sam 8:1–5 is a strongly aporetic moment in the discourse. Sim-
ultaneously looking back at Israel’s dynastic ideals and failures, and looking
ahead to Saul and David and the dynastic successes and failures of the Israelite
monarchy, it is “a moment when the strain in the text becomes unavoidably
apparent.” 41 Deuteronomic law, the stories of Moses and Joshua, the transition
to the cycles of judgeship, and the stories of the various judges themselves – each
would frame understandings of 1 Sam 8:1–5 in Judean social remembering. 42 Var-
ious paths for leadership and for succession have been explored and tested up
to this point in the narrative, and it seems that all meet the same end: failure of
the leadership to follow Torah, and failure of the leadership to consistently
inspire Torah obedience among the people. Now, the people request a king, as
Deuteronomy projected they would, but the question is: How will it change
anything? Kingship appears to be a new beginning, but it is, in effect, nothing
new. The failure of dynasty (and thus kingship), then, is a fait accompli. 43
Consider, too, a passage earlier in the book of Samuel, the failure of Eli’s sons
and Elide priesthood (1 Sam 2:12–36; cf. 4:1–11). Eli plays an important support-
ing role in Samuel’s story. His subplot in the Samuel narrative serves to reinforce
should be indigenous; Cyrus, a foreigner who is somewhat Davidized, perhaps provides a
mediating position in this discourse (see Wilson, “Yahweh’s Anointed”).
39
See Green, How are the Mighty, 181.
40
On the relationship between between 1 Sam 8 and Deuteronomic law, see, e.g., Knoppers,
“Deuteronomist”; Levinson, “Reconceptualization”; and Nihan, “Rewriting Kingship.”
41
Jobling, I Samuel, 14.
42
On the king-law in Deuteronomy and its role in Judean memory, see Wilson, Kingship, 43–76.
43
See also Ben Zvi (“Memories of Kings”), who discusses the teleology of failure as it relates to
kings in the Deuteronomistic and prophetic books. He points out, though, that Chronicles is
“not deeply teleological” in this regard, and so mitigates this perspective on monarchy.74 Ian D. Wilson
the points made above about the failures of dynasties, but it also introduces
another key problem into the discourse: the issue of divine choices and prom-
ises.
Scholarship tends to make light of Eli, who appears somewhat dim-witted
(e.g., 1 Sam 1:13–14) and suffers a death that one might call darkly humorous
(1 Sam 4:18). 44 The narrative, however, suggests that at one time Eli and his
family had great potential. 1 Sam 2:30 offers a key revelation:
“A declaration of Yhwh, God of Israel – Surely I had said your house and your father’s
house would walk [ הלךHithp.] before me forever []עד עולם, but now – a declaration of Yhwh
– far be it from me! for those who honor me I honor, and those who despise me are des-
picable.” 45
This changing of the divine mind is significant, since it overturns a dynastic
promise meant to last “forever” ()עד עולם. 46 In the words of Ehud Ben Zvi, the text
construes Yhwh as a deity for whom yesterday’s “forever” is not necessarily
today’s or tomorrow’s “forever.” 47 After annulling this promise, Yhwh immedi-
ately makes another one (1 Sam 2:35), which draws on the same language. The
deity states his intention to replace Eli with an “enduring” ( )נאמןpriest for whom
he will build an “enduring” ( )נאמןhouse – a priest who will “walk” ( הלךHithp.)
before Yhwh’s “anointed one” ()משיח.
44
E.g., Jobling (I Samuel, 51) calls him a “parody” of judgeship, and Geoffrey Miller (Ways of a King,
13, 220–22) calls him “hapless” and argues that Eli’s lack of a backstory is a kind of condem-
nation by the author. Perhaps, though, we should not be so hard on Eli. He is, after all, “very
old” when he enters the picture (cf. 1 Sam 8:1; 1 Kgs 11:4), and, pace Miller, it is not surprising
that we read nothing of Eli’s younger days, because Samuel is the primary focus of the narra-
tive, not Eli. Gilmour (Representing, 56–62) presents a more balanced view, comparing and jux-
taposing Eli’s character with that of Hannah.
45
Yhwh has apparently changed his mind, contra Num 23:19 and 1 Sam 15:28. On divine promises
and repentance, consult Sonnet, “God’s Repentance.” Sonnet, however, passes over the Eli text,
which does not contain the verb נחם, Sonnet’s central talking point. On God’s repenting, with
particular focus on 1 Sam 15, see also Amit “Glory”; and Middleton, “Samuel,” 81–83. In a recent
essay, legal scholar Geoffrey Miller (“Political Function”) outlines how divine revelation
(including promises) functions as a “wild card” in the biblical narratives and how it never-
theless operates within certain discursive constraints.
46
The identity of Eli’s ancestry, who received the promise, is not entirely clear in the discourse.
Following Wellhausen, Frank Cross (Canaanite Myth, 195–98) suggested that Eli is meant to
descend from Moses. See Leuchter (Samuel, 33), who posits a connection between 1 Sam 2:35
and Num 12:7. But perhaps a more obvious connection is with the eternal covenant made with
Aaron’s grandson Phinehas (Num 25:10–13) – notice that one of Eli’s sons is also named
Phinehas (Jobling, I Samuel, 53). One can make a case for linking Eli’s house with either Moses
or Aaron. Cross, who maintains Wellhausen’s assertion that Eli’s ancestry is Mosaic/Mushite,
states nevertheless, “It is quite impossible to separate this account [Num 25:6–15] from the
story leading up to the rejection of the Elid (Mushite) priestly house in 1 Samuel 2:22–25”
(Canaanite Myth, 202). These fuzzy links and disconnects between the Levitic houses of Moses
and Aaron, and the related tensions between the various priestly genealogies, reflect another
complex system of social remembering in postmonarchic Judah, a topic that would require a
separate major study.
47
Ben Zvi, “Balancing Act,” 117.Remembering Kingship 75
This second promise would prefigure and frame Judean thinking about
Yhwh’s promise to David, later in the book (2 Sam 7:16), which also guarantees a
house that will “endure” ( אמןNiph.) “forever” ()עד עולם. Notice also, in 1 Sam
2:35, the promise of service before the “anointed one” ()משיח. Many scholars
have interpreted this as a reference to the Zadokites’ role in Jerusalem, their
service before the anointed David. 48 This is a valid reading of 1 Sam 2:35. In its
immediate context, however, the promise clearly links up with Samuel, who in
this very passage is juxtaposed with Eli’s failed sons, and who is reared in priestly
service (1 Sam 2:18–21; 3:1). 49 Moreover, it is Samuel who eventually “anoints”
( )משחboth Saul and David as Israelite kings (1 Sam 9:16; 10:1; 15:1, 17; 16:3, 12–
13). So at least on one level – probably the most obvious one – this new promise
to Eli is meant for Samuel, not for some unnamed future priest. 50 But what to 246F
make of the new promise? Apparently, “forever” is not forever, as the fall of Eli’s
house evinces. 51 As I showed above, the discourse tends to argue that dynastic
247 F
failure is inevitable.
Much more could be said here about promises, priests, messiahs, and so
forth, but I want to refocus our discussion on the issue of Samuel’s failed sons
and the elders’ request for a king in 1 Sam 8 – the remembering of monarchy’s
beginnings, in ancient Judah’s discourse. The overarching narrative has already
introduced dynastic succession, positively and negatively, kingly and pseudo-
kingly, in Deuteronomy 17 and in Judges 8–9, respectively. The opening chapters
of 1 Samuel then bring the issue of divinely promised dynasties into the discourse.
The aporetic passage of 1 Sam 8:1–5 confirms the discourse’s suspicions
about dynasty as it simultaneously reifies the dynastic institution of kingship in
the land of Israel. It thus confounds expectations for divinely sanctioned dynas-
ties. First, Eli’s divinely sanctioned priesthood is revoked, and then Samuel’s
promising house becomes a failure. This is in addition to the repeated failures of
non-hereditary leadership in Israel’s pre-monarchic story: the apostasy after
Joshua’s death and the increasingly difficult cycles of appointed judges. The
unsure nature of Yhwh’s promises and the repeated failures of succession in a
variety of pre-monarchic political situations, as represented in the discourse,
48
E.g., Bodner, 1 Samuel, 35; Steussy, David, 29–30.
49
See Polzin, Samuel, 39–44; also Leuchter, Samuel, 33–34, who is sympathetic with the Zadokite
interpretation, but ultimately agrees that the reference is to Samuel.
50
See also 1 Sam 1:22. Hannah says Samuel will remain in Yhwh’s presence עד עולם, a statement
that looks forward to 1 Sam 2:30–36 and 2 Sam 7:14–16. See Polzin, Samuel, 29.
51
Again, this has interesting implications for understandings of priesthood in Persian-era Judah,
because the priesthood was understood to be ancestral. For a good overview of the texts and
issues involved, consult Rehm, “Levites.” Notably, the Elide priesthood does not actually come
to an end with Eli (cf. the Elide Abiathar, priest at Nob, who eventually serves alongside Zadok
under David; see 1 Sam 22:11; 23:6; 30:7; 2 Sam 8:17; 15:24; 1 Kgs 2:27; etc.). The history of
Zadokite priesthood, too, is a much debated issue (see Hunt, Missing Priests).76 Ian D. Wilson
would ultimately shape the remembering of monarchy’s foundations, for those
reading the book in Judah’s postmonarchic era. 52
In the rest of the story, in the narratives of Saul and David and the divided
monarchy, the successes and failures of kingship are overdetermined. 53 Why
does Saul’s house fall while David’s succeeds? Is Yhwh’s promise to David eternal
or not? And how then would one understand the historical fall of Judah and
Davidic kingship? The narratives provide no clear answers to these sorts of ques-
tions. Moreover, Chronicles, with its curious inclusion of Saul’s death (1 Chr 10)
and its Davidic focus, provides another narrative response to the institution of
monarchy, further complicating the discourse in Judean antiquity. These discur-
sive complications concerning the past, I have argued elsewhere, would find
their match in the prophetic books’ discourse on the past and future. And it is
the reciprocal relationship between monarchy’s past and future, in the Judean
literature broadly conceived, that would have shaped social remembering of
kingship among those Judeans composing, reading, and maintaining these texts
in the early Second Temple period. 54 Samuel, with its overdetermined account
of kingship’s beginnings in Israel, was central to this process.
4. On Remembering Monarchy with and through
Samuel
As far as we know, Judean literature of the early Second Temple era contained
no other narrative account of Samuel’s early life, of the fall of Eli’s house, and of
the failure of Samuel’s sons and the subsequent request for monarchy. Samuel’s
back story, as recounted in 1 Samuel 1–8, would therefore serve as the primary
narrative framework for the figure of Samuel in Judean social remembering. Any
mention of Samuel would necessarily recall his origin story, for those intimately
familiar with the literature. The brief glimpses of Samuel outside his eponymous
book thus would not alter the overarching trajectory and telos of his narrative,
but would instead provide perspectives that balance understandings of that nar-
rative’s essential information.
The genealogies of Chronicles, for example, list Samuel among the Levites
(1 Chr 6:13, 18). Other texts, too, point to a Levitic connection: Jer 15:1, which
associates him with Moses; and Ps 99:6, which groups him with Moses, Aaron,
and Yhwh’s priests. Given this data, one could argue that Samuel’s primary role
in the Judean literature is Levitical. 55 The Levitic ancestry in Chronicles is, how-
52
See Polzin, Samuel, 48.
53
See Jobling, I Samuel, 99–100.
54
See Wilson, Kingship, passim.
55
As does Leuchter, Samuel, 22–40.Remembering Kingship 77
ever, at odds with the genealogical information in 1 Sam 1:1, which is itself
potentially confused, stating that Samuel’s ancestors are both from Ephraim and
Ephratites (i.e., possibly originally from Judah, but not necessarily so). The
information in Chronicles would not alter the course of Samuel’s story, but it
would create tension in one’s knowledge of his character. 56
This confusing tension, I suggest, is correlate to Samuel’s liminal story,
which bridges the gap between judgeship and kingship in Judean discourse.
Samuel is a multivocal figure because he was central to Judean society’s complex
remembering of and thinking about monarchy. His variety of ancestral back-
grounds and the different political and social roles he plays are, in part, func-
tions of the kingship discourse and the aporetic turn to monarchy in this narra-
tive account of Israel’s past. Samuel is both a northerner and a southerner, the
outspoken critic of kingship who also anoints and supports kings, eventually
damning Saul while serving David. His origin story introduces him as an Ephra-
imite but holds out the possibility of distant Judahite connections.
In the book of Samuel, then, we get a glimpse of how Judean readers would
want it both ways, to criticize human monarchies and to lionize Davidic king-
ship, to remember the unfortunate failures of Israel’s Benjaminite ruler and to
forget the tragic sins of its Judahite one. In the midst of it all stands Samuel him-
self. Mark Leuchter comments, “When one looks at the Gestalt of Samuel’s liter-
ary depiction, he is liminal, standing in the space between diverse theological
and political polarities, yet engaging them at various turns in the narrative.” 57
As I hope to have shown above, no turn is sharper than the failure of Samuel’s
sons and Israel’s subsequent and aporetic turn to kingship in 1 Sam 8:1–5. That
final turn to monarchic rule, as represented in the larger passage of 1 Sam 8–12,
is the narrative key to an entire complex of political thought and culture in
Judah’s early Second Temple era. Samuel’s judicial failure and the people’s
request for a king, the problems of dynastic rule and divine promises, the rivalry
between judge-of-old and king-to-be, the explicit challenges of kingship’s legit-
imacy in the face of kingship’s establishment – each would overdetermine and
confound any narrative expectations with regard to Israelite law and polity in
the past. Deuteronomy allows for a kind of non-kingly king in Israel, even pre-
dicts the office’s institution, whereas Samuel proclaims that kings in that day
and age are necessarily anti-Deuteronomic.
56
Moreover, although his actions in 1 Sam 1–8 are more judge-like than anything else, Samuel’s
depiction in Chronicles is that of Levitical(/priestly) prophet (1 Chr 9:22; 11:3; 2 Chr 35:18). This
balances and rounds out Samuel’s multifaceted character within the discourse. In the book of
Samuel he acts mostly like a judge, even though he is introduced as priest and prophet. In
Chronicles the priestly and prophetic roles come to the fore, and Samuel’s judgeship is forgot-
ten or bracketed. According to the perspective advanced by Chronicles, Samuel’s role as judge
is not worth remembering. He was, instead, a prominent priestly prophet who worked closely
at David’s side (1 Chr 9:22). The priestly and prophetic focus in Chronicles would thus mitigate,
to a certain extent, the downfall of Samuel’s judicial dynasty in the book of Samuel.
57
Leuchter, Samuel, 6.78 Ian D. Wilson
The discursive possibilities inherent to the book of Samuel, however con-
founded they may be, are historical evidence for the culture that initially pro-
duced, received, and maintained the book as such. They speak to the issues that
postmonarchic Judean readers would contemplate as they remembered their
monarchic past. And to me they suggest that Judeans were in the thick of it. They
were navigating the very issues of monarchy that Graeber and Sahlins have iden-
tified as fundamental aspects of kingly rule – what is the relationship between
kingship and divinity, between kings and other sociopolitical roles, between for-
eign and indigenous kingly power, and so on? The multivocal and overdeter-
mined nature of the book of Samuel (and other Judean literary artifacts) evinces
the overdetermined nature of the conversation among Judeans themselves, in
the early Second Temple era. As part of a corpus of texts about the monarchic
past, Samuel resisted providing any one response to the question of monarchy
and its ongoing import, because Judean society itself did not have a single take
on this issue.
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