When we
left off, Saul had just been informed of his impending kingship by Samuel, and
given a new heart by God. He also started prophesying among a group of other
prophets, though there isn’t a single word mentioned about what he (or they)
prophesied and whether any of it actually came true. We’re told this is the
origin of the proverb “Is Saul also among the prophets?” though I have no idea why
that would be considered a meaningful proverb.
From
there Saul goes to the high place at Mizpah, where he runs into his uncle and
tells him about his adventures in search of the donkeys. Except for leaving out
the whole “I’m going to be king,” part. Samuel, meanwhile, is summoning all of
Israel to join him there so he can announce the king. He makes a show of
selecting the king by drawing lots, but of course this is just pointless
theater because we already know he’s picked Saul.
The
Bible seems pretty ambivalent about this whole king thing. Samuel accuses
Israel again of rejecting God by asking for a king, but then the people who
don’t accept the king are referred to as “worthless fellows.”
But
anyway, after this everyone goes home, including Saul with a few notable
warriors whose hearts God touched. And nothing much seems to happen for a
while, until an Ammonite named Nahash decides to take a force up to attack the
Israelite city of Jabesh.
Now the
people of Jabesh offer to surrender to Nahash and become his slaves, but Nahash
is a colossal dick and says he’ll only accept their surrender on the condition
that they allow him to gouge out everyone’s right eye. The people of Jabesh
aren’t thrilled with this idea, so they come up with a counteroffer: if Nahash
will give them seven days to send messengers to other Israelite cities to see
if anyone will come rescue them, they’ll surrender after those seven days if no
one shows up. Nahash, it turns out, is not merely a colossal dick, but also a
colossal fuckwit because he actually agrees to those terms.
So the
messengers go out, and news reaches Saul as he’s coming in from plowing his
fields (guess he hadn’t settled into this whole kingship role thingy yet). As
he hears the news, the “Spirit of the Lord” came upon him and he flew into a
rage (interesting how virtually every time we hear about the Spirit of the Lord
coming upon someone, it’s to send him into an unreasoning rage. It never seems
to inspire a burst of compassion). In his rage, he took his poor oxen and
chopped them into bits. Then had messengers take the bloody bits all over
Israel to threaten people that if they didn’t come join his army he’d have the
same thing done to their oxen. So already we see the style of leadership he’s
selected (under God’s direct inspiration) is “tyrannical asshole.”
So the
people turn out to make an army of three hundred thousand, who go and smash
Nahash’s force like little bugs. And there was much rejoicing (and offers to
kill Saul’s detractors, though he turns those down).
After
all the celebrating, Samuel gathers everyone around to that he can berate them
about how wicked and evil they are for asking for a mortal king when God is
supposed to be their king. Then there’s the usual admonition that they still
have to follow God and his law, and the usual threats of punishment if they
don’t. Samuel even has God create a thunderstorm as a sign to remind the
Israelites how wicked they are in his eyes, followed by Samuel reassuring them
that, in spite of their evil, he’ll still continue to do right by them by
praying on their behalf.
Heh.
“You’re evil, but I’ll pray for you.” I guess that line has been floating
around for a long, long time.
The next
passage starts Chapter 13, and it’s… weird. Let me just quote it for you.
“1 Sam 13:1 Saul was … years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned … and two years over Israel.”
This is
the English Standard Version of the Bible, and the footnotes claim that the two
blank spaces are places where the numbers are missing from the original documents
from which it is translated (the Septuagint and Hebrew versions). A brief look
online for other translations renders a wealth of interpretations of this
passage, some of which try to supply numbers (though they don’t all agree on
what the numbers are), and others just gloss it over by simply changing the
meaning of the passage to “…and when he had reigned for two years…” as a
preface to the next passage in which he picks three thousand men as his
personal standing army. So yet again as is so often the case, nobody knows
exactly what the book is trying to say here.
But
anyhow, Saul has his army of three thousand. Two thousand he keeps with
himself, and he gives his son Jonathan command over the remaining thousand.
Jonathan takes his men and stages a successful attack on the Philistine
garrison at Geba. So Saul sends trumpeters all over the land to spread news of
their great victory, and summon the fighting men to join him at Gilgal.
Meanwhile, the Philistines sent a large force into Israel in retaliation for
the attack on their garrison, and people start getting scared.
This is
where things get a little confusing again. See, we’re told that Saul waited at
Gilgal for seven days, “the time appointed by Samuel” (1 Sam 13:8), waiting for
Samuel to come and make burnt offerings and peace offerings. And though we don’t
appear to have a scene where he’s actually told that, that could be simply
written off as the author using the line “the time appointed by Samuel” to
inform us that such a meeting had taken place.
Except
that (if you recall from my previous post) there actually is a scene where Samuel told Saul to wait seven days in Gilgal for
Samuel to make burnt offerings and peace offerings. That scene took place way back before Saul was
actually declared king, and appeared to be instructions for something he was
supposed to do right after he had seen all the signs Samuel had prophesied that
would demonstrate that Samuel was truly telling him God’s will. The thing is
that way back then, he never went to Gilgal, but actually met Samuel again at
Mizpah where he was officially declared king in front of everyone (I kind of
missed that discrepancy in my previous post: sorry).
So it
really looks like this scene is actually the fulfillment of those earlier
instructions (which, depending on which version of the Bible you’re reading,
could have been as much as two years of lapsed time in between). Or it’s a
wholly separate occasion. I don’t know; like I said, it’s confusing. The
timeline here is all kinds of fucked up.
But
anyway, back to the events. Saul waits his seven days, but Samuel doesn’t show
and some of his army is starting to desert for fear of the Philistines. So in
desperation, Saul offers the sacrifices himself.
Well, no
sooner has he completed all of the sacrifices than Samuel finally shows up.
Whereupon he informs Saul that he has done a horrible thing in disobeying God
by offering the sacrifices in Samuel’s stead. If only he had obeyed God, the
kingdom would have been his and his family’s forever. But since he disobeyed,
God has picked somebody else to be king after Saul.
Am I the
only one who thinks this reads like Saul was set up? And always remember, at
the start of his kingship Saul was “given a new heart” by God himself, so it’s
debatable whether any of these decisions are legitimately Saul’s fault to begin
with.
But
anyway, written enough for today I think. Please tune in next time, when we
continue the “Abusing the Hell out of Saul” follies. Until then, be well!
No comments:
Post a Comment