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a Gk: Heb lacks over his people Israel. You shall…anointed you ruler
b Or the Hill of God
c Gk: Heb they came there
d Or the hill
e Cn: Heb he came to the shrine
f Heb to the people of Israel
g Gk: Heb lacks Finally…man by man
h Gk: Heb Is there yet a man to come here?
i Q Ms Compare Josephus, Antiquities VI. v. 1 (68-71): MT lacks Now Nahash…entered Jabesh-gilead.
10.1 Samuel anoints Saul (see 9.16) with a vial of oil, probably a small ceramic flask containing olive oil impregnated with spices (cf. Ex 30.22–25). Someone’s heritage was landed property, inalienably held and acquired as a gift, as a result of a military victory, or by inheritance. The Lord’s heritage was Israel.
10.2 Rachel’s tomb was near Ephrathah, where she was going when she died in childbirth with Benjamin (Gen 35.16–20; 48.7). There were two towns with that name, one near Bethlehem (cf. 17.12) and one near Kiriath-jearim (see 6.21). Though erroneous glosses in Genesis connect the site with Bethlehem, scholars agree that the northern Ephrathah is correct. Zelzah, unknown; the text may have sustained errors in transmission.
10.3 Oak of Tabor, evidently near Bethel, otherwise unknown. The three men going up to God at Bethel are carrying goods for sacrifice at the shrine.
10.4 By being given two loaves of bread from the sacrificial goods, Saul is again being treated like a priest (see 9.24). Loaves actually appears in no version of the text. The Masoretic Text is defective, reading “two of bread,” but both the Septuagint and a scroll from Qumran (4QSama) supply the missing term, “elevation offerings,” bread ceremonially reserved for priestly use (Num 18.11).
10.5 Gibeath-elohim, evidently another name for Gibeah of Saul (see note on 9.1), since people who knew him before (v. 11) are there; for the Philistine garrison, see 13.3. Prophetic behavior sometimes expressed itself in a prophetic frenzy, involving music, dancing, group trances, and even more extreme forms of ecstatic behavior such as self-flagellation or self-mutilation. This kind of activity was often regarded as madness by the unaffected (see, e.g., 2 Kings 9.11).
10.6 The chief characteristic of prophetic frenzy was possession by the spirit of the LORD, the inspirational power of the God of Israel. The experience involved a loss of self, or rather transformation into a different person.
10.8 Samuel’s instructions look ahead to 11.14–15. Gilgal (see 7.16; 11.14; 13.4) was an important Benjaminite town and place of sacrifice near Jericho; its location is unknown.
10.9–16 On his way home Saul meets a band of prophets and is possessed by the spirit of the Lord.
10.11 The proverb Is Saul also among the prophets? is explained differently in 19.19–24. Because of the tradition of prophetic antagonism to Saul, the saying may have originated as a way of remarking on a group that has absorbed or accepted the least likely candidate for membership.
10.12 And who is their father? obscure. Does it mean “Saul is not only among the prophets; he is their leader (father)!”?
10.14 Surprisingly, on his arrival home Saul meets not his father, Kish, but his uncle. Is this Ner (14.50)?
10.17–27 Saul’s secret anointing becomes public knowledge when a lottery identifies him as the chosen king. The divine selection of Saul as king, mediated through the mechanism of the lottery, is depicted as in no way auspicious but, on the contrary, as a concession to the people’s wanton demand for a king (8.1–22). This is another Mizpah passage (see v. 17; note on 7.2–17; Introduction).
10.17 Mizpah. See note on 7.5.
10.18 Kingdoms, better “kings.”
10.19 You have rejected your God echoes 8.7 and refers to the people’s demand for a king. Today, now; it is not intended to suggest that the assembly at Mizpah being described here took place on the same day that the demand for a king was brought to Samuel.
10.21 Family of the Matrites, Saul’s clan or family, identified nowhere else (see note on 9.21).
10.25 Rights and duties of the kingship. Cf. 8.11–18; Deut 17.18.
10.27a Present, tribute ordinarily paid to a king by his subjects as a gesture of fealty (see, e.g., Judg 3.15).
10.27b–11.15 Saul demonstrates his ability to lead Israel in battle by liberating a Gileadite city from a siege by an Ammonite army.
10.27b Now Nahash…Jabesh-gilead has been lost in all the existing witnesses to the text except a manuscript from Qumran (4QSama) and the account of the Jewish historian Josephus. Along with the half-tribe of Manasseh, the Gadites and the Reubenites were the Israelite tribes that lived east of the Jordan River (see Josh 13.8–13, 15–32). Jabesh-gilead, a stronghold in Gilead (Transjordanian Israel; cf. note on 13.7); it was probably situated on the banks of the Wadi Yabis, which preserves the ancient name of Jabesh and empties into the Jordan about twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee. Would not grant Israel a deliverer, better “would put the dread of him on Israel” (cf. Josh 2.9).
1 SAMUEL 11
Saul Defeats the Ammonites
1About a month later,a Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.” 2But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you, namely that I gouge out everyone’s right eye, and thus put disgrace upon all Israel.” 3The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days’ respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.” 4When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter in the hearing of the people; and all the people wept aloud.
5Now Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen; and Saul said, “What is the matter with the people, that they are weeping?” So they told him the message from the inhabitants of Jabesh. 6And the spirit of God came upon Saul in power when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. 7He took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the LORD fell upon the people, and they came out as one. 8When he mustered them at Bezek, those from Israel were three hundred thousand, and those from Judah seventyb thousand. 9They said to the messengers who had come, “Thus shall you say to the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead: ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have deliverance.’” When the messengers came and told the inhabitants of Jabesh, they rejoiced. 10So the inhabitants of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.” 11The next day Saul put the people in three companies. At the morning watch they came into the camp and cut down the Ammonites until the heat of the day; and those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together.
12The people said to Samuel, “Who is it that said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Give them to us so that we may put them to death.” 13But Saul said, “No one shall be put to death this day, for today the LORD has brought deliverance to Israel.”
14Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingship.” 15So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal. There they sacrificed offerings of well-being before the LORD, and there Saul and all the Israelites rejoiced greatly.
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a Q Ms Gk: MT lacks About a month later
b Q Ms Gk: MT thirty
11.1 About a month later may have been removed from the Masoretic Text because it is inconsistent with the chronology of the larger narrative, which permits only seven days to elapse between Saul’s departure from Samuel in 10.8 and Samuel’s arrival at Gilgal in 14.8–10.
11.4 Gibeah of Saul (see note on 9.1) lay across the Jordan slightly more than forty miles away.
11.7 Israelites were bound in covenant
by an oath, sanctioned by the slaughter of an animal, to join in any military action needed for the defense of fellow Israelites. Saul’s summons of the tribes appeals to this oath and threatens them with the fate of the slaughtered oxen for noncompliance.
11.8 Bezek, mentioned nowhere else in the OT, was probably a town west of Jordan facing Jabesh; it has been identified with the modern village of Khirbet Ibzik about fifteen miles northeast of Shechem.
11.11 On Saul’s strategy of three companies, cf. Judg 7; 9, where Gideon and Abimelech employ similar battle plans.
11.14 Gilgal. See note on 10.8.
1 SAMUEL 12
Samuel’s Farewell Address
1Samuel said to all Israel, “I have listened to you in all that you have said to me, and have set a king over you. 2See, it is the king who leads you now; I am old and gray, but my sons are with you. I have led you from my youth until this day. 3Here I am; testify against me before the LORD and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against mea and I will restore it to you.” 4They said, “You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from the hand of anyone.” 5He said to them, “The LORD is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” And they said, “He is witness.”
6Samuel said to the people, “The LORD is witness, whob appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your ancestors up out of the land of Egypt. 7Now therefore take your stand, so that I may enter into judgment with you before the LORD, and I will declare to youc all the saving deeds of the LORD that he performed for you and for your ancestors. 8When Jacob went into Egypt and the Egyptians oppressed them,d then your ancestors cried to the LORD and the LORD sent Moses and Aaron, who brought forth your ancestors out of Egypt, and settled them in this place. 9But they forgot the LORD their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of King Jabin ofe Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them. 10Then they cried to the LORD, and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD, and have served the Baals and the Astartes; but now rescue us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.’ 11And the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak,f and Jephthah, and Samson,g and rescued you out of the hand of your enemies on every side; and you lived in safety. 12But when you saw that King Nahash of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ though the LORD your God was your king. 13See, here is the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; see, the LORD has set a king over you. 14If you will fear the LORD and serve him and heed his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well; 15but if you will not heed the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you and your king.h 16Now therefore take your stand and see this great thing that the LORD will do before your eyes. 17Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call upon the LORD, that he may send thunder and rain; and you shall know and see that the wickedness that you have done in the sight of the LORD is great in demanding a king for yourselves.” 18So Samuel called upon the LORD, and the LORD sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.
19All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the LORD your God for your servants, so that we may not die; for we have added to all our sins the evil of demanding a king for ourselves.” 20And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart; 21and do not turn aside after useless things that cannot profit or save, for they are useless. 22For the LORD will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself. 23Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you; and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24Only fear the LORD, and serve him faithfully with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you. 25But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”
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a Gk: Heb lacks Testify against me
b Gk: Heb lacks is witness, who
c Gk: Heb lacks and I will declare to you
d Gk: Heb lacks and the Egyptians oppressed them
e Gk: Heb lacks King Jabin of
f Gk Syr: Heb Bedan
g Gk: Heb Samuel
h Gk: Heb and your ancestors
12.1–25 Samuel formally turns responsibility for leading Israel over to Saul. His farewell address is punctuated with a fresh demonstration of his prophetic power (see note on 12.17) and a pledge to continue to perform certain indispensable duties in the future (see note on 12.23). Kingship has now been divinely granted to Israel (v. 13), and Samuel sets forth strict terms by which it might succeed (v. 14). But little reason is given for the people to look forward happily to life under the monarchy. On the contrary, the emphasis is clearly on the benefits they are losing with the departure of the great prophet. Though this account embraces a long Deuteronomistic retrospective on the history of Israel (see note on 12.6–15), in its final form, to which a thematic introduction has been provided (vv. 1–15), it is one of the Mizpah passages (see note on 7.2–17; Introduction).
12.1 See 8.22. Samuel is saying that he has been obedient to his instructions.
12.3–5 Samuel reminds the people that he dispensed justice without corruption.
12.6–15 One of a series of long retrospective speeches inserted in the biblical narrative at crucial junctures to express the views of the Deuteronomistic Historian (cf. Josh 23–24; 1 Kings 8.12–61; see Introduction).
12.6 The appointment of Moses and Aaron is described in Ex 2–4.
12.9–11 A review of the events recorded in Judges.
12.9 Sisera. See Judg 4–5. The Philistines are prominent enemies in Judges (see Judg 3.31; 13–16). Eglon, the king of Moab, is the oppressor of Israel in Judg 3.12–30.
12.10 Baals, Astartes, illicit or foreign gods and goddesses in general.
12.11 Jerubbaal, another name for Gideon (see Judg 6–8). The reference to Barak, Deborah’s colleague in Judg 4–5, is textually doubtful. Jephthah, the Gileadite hero of Judg 11. Samson. See Judg 13–16.
12.12 This verse relates the people’s demand for a king in 8.1–22 to the threat posed by King Nahash of the Ammonites (see 11.1–15), a connection not made in the larger narrative.
12.17 The wheat harvest took place in early summer when thunder and rain were unnatural (Prov 26.1) and unexpected, a fact that underscores Samuel’s special ability to invoke the Lord.
12.18–19 Shocked out of their refusal to see reality by the miracle of the thunderstorm, the people finally acknowledge their mistake and call on Samuel for help.
12.21 Useless things, idols, rendered “empty wind” in Isa 41.29 and “nothing” in Isa 44.9.
12.23 Samuel promises to continue to do two things: pray for (better, “intercede on behalf of”) the people and instruct them in the good and the right way. With the advent of kingship, the prophet’s role is twofold: he will be an intercessor between Israel and the Lord and an advocate of morality and justice.
1 SAMUEL 13
Saul’s Unlawful Sacrifice
1Saul was…a years old when he began to reign; and he reigned…and twob years over Israel.
2Saul chose three thousand out of Israel; two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin; the rest of the people he sent home to their tents. 3Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba; and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews
hear!” 4When all Israel heard that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become odious to the Philistines, the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal.
5The Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude; they came up and encamped at Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. 6When the Israelites saw that they were in distress (for the troops were hard pressed), the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns. 7Some Hebrews crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.
8He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people began to slip away from Saul.c 9So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the offerings of well-being.” And he offered the burnt offering. 10As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Samuel arrived; and Saul went out to meet him and salute him. 11Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul replied, “When I saw that the people were slipping away from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were mustering at Michmash, 12I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down upon me at Gilgal, and I have not entreated the favor of the LORD’ so I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which he commanded you. The LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, 14but now your kingdom will not continue; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart; and the LORD has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” 15And Samuel left and went on his way from Gilgal.d The rest of the people followed Saul to join the army; they went up from Gilgal toward Gibeah of Benjamin.e
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