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The Deuteronomist's explanation for the moral and social bankruptcy of Israel at the end
of the period of the judges at the dawn, or on the eve, of the monarchy, is Israel's continued
infidelity. And the prescription for this situation at some level in the text is a king.
This sits uneasily with an anti-monarchic trend in some of these stories. But according
to the Deuteronomistic historian, the institutional structure of a kingdom of God--right, a sort
of "theocracy" is how a later Jewish historian would describe this period--a kingdom in which
God is the king and the community is led by inspired judges in times of crisis--that structure,
that institutional structure failed to establish stability, a stable continuous government.
It failed to provide leadership against Israel's enemies within and without. You have Ammon
and Moab to the east. You have the Philistines to the west, and they soon manage to subjugate
the entire land. So the tribes seem to be conscious of the need for a centralized authority,
a strong central authority; and the demand for a king arises.
In their search for a new political order, the people turn to the prophet Samuel. Samuel
is the last in a line of prophet judges, and they ask him to anoint a king for them. So
we are moving now into the Book of Samuel. And the Book of Samuel deals with the transition
from the period of the judges to the period of the monarchy. In the first Book of Samuel,
you have the opening chapters that record the birth and career of Israel's last judge,
Samuel. So that is chapters 1-4. The next few chapters through chapter 5-7 deal with
the Philistine crisis, and at this time the Ark of the Covenant itself is captured and
taken into Philistine territory. Chapters 8-15 give us a story of Samuel and Saul, who
will be Israel's first king. And then the last half of the book, 16 on to 31, are going
to give us the story of Saul and David. So 1 Samuel opens with the story of Samuel's
birth to Hannah, and her dedication of her son to the service of God at Shiloh, at the
sanctuary at Shiloh. So Shiloh appears to have been the most important shrine in the
period before the monarchy. The prophet, Jeremiah, is going to refer to Shiloh as the place where
God first made his name to dwell. You remember the Deuteronomist is always speaking about
centralization around a place where God will cause his name to dwell. At first that was
Shiloh. It has been noted that after the birth of Samuel, the text conveys a sense of three
crises. The first crisis is a religious crisis. The
priest of the time, Eli--he is also described as a judge, but perhaps that is just to fit
him literarily into the pattern of leadership that predominates in this section of the Bible--he
is said to be aging, and his sons are quite corrupt. As a result, the text says, "The
word of Yahweh is rare in those days." So there is a crisis in religious leadership.
There is also a crisis in political leadership, or political succession to some degree. Judges
2 tells us that Eli's two sons are clearly not worthy. They dishonor the sacrifices,
and according to one reading they lie with the women at the door of the shrine. God says
he will cut off the power of Eli's house. His two sons will die in one day. And God
will find and raise up a faithful priest. But in the meantime, no leader is apparent.
So we have a crisis in succession, if you will. The third crisis is a military crisis.
In Judges 4-7, the Israelites suffer a defeat at the hands of the Philistines. I'm sorry,
in 1 Samuel! They suffer defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The Ark is captured. Eli's
two sons are killed and the news of all of this kills Eli, as well. So when we first
meet Samuel we wonder: is he going to be the answer to all of these crises, these problems?
Chapter 3 says that the word of God comes to Israel through Samuel. In contrast to the
statement that the word of God was rare in those days, we hear that the word of God is
now coming to Israel through Samuel. It raises some hope. In chapter 7, Samuel exhorts the
people to stop serving alien gods and Ashteroth and to serve God, and only then will God deliver
them. So the people do this, and Samuel leads them. He employs--his military tactics mostly
include prayer and confession and sacrifice, but he manages to lead them to victory over
the Philistines. God thunders and the Philistines flee in fear.