Samuel 19: In Writing

Sit in secret. Close the door.

Brood with fist clenched

ready to spear each fear

only for it to slip into the shadows.

Outside,  the night stalks.

Check the sleeping shapes of your children
So silent, they could be simulacra
bodies yielding beneath your touch.
Study their stirs like tea leaves.

The wind shrieks unintelligible

propheciesm as the floor flees

before your feet, and you teeter

at the edge of the sudden pit.

Samuel: Chapter 19

Now you lie, exposed, stripped

what bare forked thing is this?

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Saul's hidden antipathy towards David moves into the open--and the fissures in the royal family gape into ravines under the pressure. Saul urged his son Jonathan and all his courtiers to kill David. But Saul’s son Jonathan desired David exceedingly. The repetition of the filial bond emphasizes the dual pull. Jonathan tries not to make a choice by advocating for David, but manages only to shove the hatred back into hiding: David serves Saul "as before"--and Saul tries to murder him while he plays, exactly as before.

Jonathan willingly stripped himself of pomp and weapons in his love for David; Saul is inexorably stripped--metaphorically, then literally. First his family falls away: his son, Jonathan, loves David; his daughter, Michal, whom Saul thought to use as a “snare” to trap David, entraps her father’s men instead.

If Saul's kingship was originally defined by the boundaries of the "burial" of his ancestress Rachel, he now finds himself trapped in a funhouse version of his ancestress's life. Why did you deceive me? he asks Michal, echoing Jacob's cry at finding Rachel replaced by Leah. The terafim that Rachel stole from her father are used by Michal to deceive him, stealing David away--and pushing against the very bounds of his kingship.

Next, Saul is stripped even of Samuel, the king-maker so enwined with him. Even though Samuel mourns Saul's fall “till the end of his days”, it is David he provides with succor. In doing so, he turns the signs of Saul's kingship against him. Saul’s third sign that he would be king is that he would prophesy and become another man--a transformation so complete it becomes proverbial: is Saul too amongst the prophets?. Now that transformative experience of being taken over by the spirit of God is cheapened, as every group he sends to arrest David are similarly overtaken by prophecy. When Saul at last comes himself, he too is possessed: mitnabe is a reflexive form, as his prophecy fuels his tranformation, which intensifies his possession by God's spirit. This second possession does not return him to himself. Instead, he is literally stripped, rolling naked on the floor. His interaction with God's spirit is indicative of the kingship as a whole: an external imposition that tranformed him, is revealed as a destructive breaking of the bondaries of self.

Samuel 18: In Writing

 And when you are stripped

of cloak and sword

armor gone

skin exposed to the gathering storm--

and the storm always gathers

always upwelling swirls of

did he eat? who did he hurt?

does he cry? Why this rains?

Your soul feeding his soul

as your life fed his life

invistble ubilical pulsing between you

worry, love, exhaustion,knowlge

that some day it will be severed

and what will be left of you?

Samuel: Chapter 18

 The bonds that tie, entwine, ensnare

Who holds the edge

and what is left over?

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The entire royal family is drawn into David's orbit. 

If Saul was the first to "love" David, now Jonathan's soul is "bound wth the soul of David""--an echo of Jacob's all-consuming love for Jonathan's ancestor Benjamin--his soul is bound with his soul (Genesis 44:30). "Jonathan loved David as himself," and indeed they are doppelgängers, David's fearless charge toward Goliath foreshadowed by Jonathan's own sortie against the Philistines, both united by an imminent sense of God's presence and involvement. Now the nation's former beloved hero strips himself to give all to the new beloved, taking "off the cloak and tunic he was wearing... together with his sword, bow, and belt." 

As Jonathan gives all in love, Merav, Saul's older daughter, is offered to David as a wife, and  Michal, his other daughter, "fell in love with David." The text is silent about whether David loves back. Vayichrot, the verb used for the covenant between Jonathan and David, is in the singular, indicating either complete merging--or one-sidedness.  

To Saul, this is fatal attraction. The bons of love are a "snare", which he can only hope to turn against David rather than get caught in himself (regardless of the cruelty to his own daughter).    

The dancing women--recalling the ambiguous salvation of Saul's tribe after the incident in Geva--are the trigger that turns love to jealousy, which quickly transforms to fear. Vayar 'see,'  'fear' is part of a key lexical set that revolves around eyes: who is seeing the whole picture, and who is right to be afraid?

David's playing, formerly a healing intimacy, becomes an opportunity for growing paranoia and attempted murder, as Saul attempts in vain to literally pin down his enigmatic rival.  In the end, all he can do is "remove" David, as God has removed himself from Saul.

Samuel 17: In Writing

Hard to be a hero

enmeshed in care

of others

every leavetaking

an abandonment,

needs scaled

one atop the other

rib-crushing 

traitjacket.

Easy not to be

body forgotten

in its encasement,

easy not to hear

your heartbeat

in the ceaseless clamour.

Every day, sun rises, 

sun falls. A distant call

to look up

shed it all, let the wind

lift your arms

let it all fly.

Samuel: Chapter 17

 

find your center

and take flight

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David, take 2. Saul's kingship was introduced twice, first within the framework of Samuel's anguished betrayal; then as a fairy-tale-like redemption focused on Saul. So too, David's kingship: first, in the context of God's rebuke to Samuel, David a literal afterthought; now, with a focus on David himself. This change of focus changes the depiction of Saul as well: if in the previous chapter, he is the empty husk left after the departure of "God's spirit", here he is back as in his familiar form as hesitant king--troubled, but not broken. 

There are parallels between the introduction of Saul and David: both kings-to-be are introduced in the context of their fathers; both introductions are suffused with allusions to the story of Jospeh and his brothers--Saul oscillates between "give" and take" as he wanders to  the "burial place of Rachel"  while David is sent, Joseph-like, to his brothers, and must return a Judah-like "pledge." Saul is introduced with a fable-like pattern of three, and he is the fairytale prince who stands head and shoulders over the rest. David's battle with Goliath also has the elements of a fairytale,  but while the Giant may boom a ritualized threat, David himself remains firmly grounded in reality, as he squabbles with his annoyed older brother: “Why did you come down here, and with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your impudence and your impertinence.” " I was only asking!"

 This realistic frame makes the victory more profound--not magic or miracle, but human. The battle is presented as perfectly symmetrical: two mountains, two camps, two armies that "gathered"--Israel on one side, Philistines on the other. The ish ha-beynayim ('champion' lit, "in between man") strides between the two sides of the picture, demanding a corollary. Israel, thinking the corollary must be a mirror, tremble.  When David offers to take on the Philistine champion, Saul can see no hope, but offers him the royal armor, in an attempt to make him  mirror Goliath (albeit an inferior reflection).

David's brash strength is his refusal to be something he is not. "I cannot walk in these," he says, stripping off the armor, taking instead his own shepherd's pouch. He realizes a corollary can be a counterpoint rather than copy. Goliath, the insurmountable mountain, is defined by weight--a "breastplate weighing five thousand shekels" the "head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels." David, by contrast, is defined by his ability to leave (n't'sh) things behind as needed--first the sheep, then the supplies, then the armor.  Fleet and unconstrained,  he runs, fighting while in motion--and the mountain falls under its own weight. ]

Samel 16: In Writing

Once

you were gilded

dawn climbed your shoulders

haloed your head

Once, you drank the sun

life champagne--

felt it bubble within

 

When did the world shift

from yours to theirs?

When did you become

a black hole 

sucking at distant light?

Now they all dance

to music you cannot hear. 

Every body more graceful

every face more lovely.

You are ash circles,

the dead weight off flesh

in friction with itself, 

Walk, and self chafes against self.

You have proofed

overnight, ballooning disappointment.

Samuel: Chapter 16

 

The spirit moves

and leaves a void

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If the previous chapter closed with Samuel's ceaseless mourning till the day of his death, this chapter opens with God's impatient demand, How long will you grieve for Saul?--a rejection of the intimacy and merging between the king-maker and king. God's solution is a brutal break.  Samuel is to crown another king--and must acknowledge that the man he grieves so deeply could and would kill him:"if Saul hears of it he will kill me." There are fatal boundaries to this all-encompassing relationship.

The two annointings are paralleled. Both take place after a zevach, a public sacrifice; both are defined by the same leitworts : sh'l'kh (send); r'e'h (sight). Both kings are described with the appellation t'v, good. Yet these surface parallels serve to heighten the contrast. If Saul is sent in a quest for his father and finds Samuel, Samuel is sent to find David: one is introduced as a hero, the other discovered by a process of elimination. If Saul is accompanied by a naar servant, David is the naar. 

There is to be none of the destructive intimacy between Samuel and this second king: if Samuel is foretold of Saul's arrival, he must arrive at David after running through all his brothers. It is God who takes the active role, and Samuel must discover whom God chose. There is no private communion on the roof: David is anointed within the presence of his brothers. There is no final kiss, no series of signs. Instead, Samuel, having fulfilled his function, leaves. 

Yet the dangerous intimacy persists, but now moves to a different triangle. The codependency between Saul and Samuel is replaced by a linkage between Saul and David. Having been crowned, God's spirit imbues (tz'l'kh--a root that also implies success) David--and vacates Saul. Hanna, in the prayer after Samuel's birth, defines a world in flux, where one side of a binary constantly transforms to its opposite.  There is no going back to what Saul once was: after being anointed, he became another man.  With the departure of the kingship and God's spirit, the void in Saul is invaded by an evil spirit (a force that returns us to the saga of Abimelech, the first man who sought to be king, also destroyed by an "evil spirit").  This spirit can be calmed only by David, the positive to Saul's negative. The two kings are bound together in a single sine curve, two sides of one reality, bound together by Saul's love for his own replacement. 

Samuel 15: In Writing

 Consistency is key.

And boundaries. Boundaries--

again and again, 

I review: Don't walk back. 

No regrets. Say it once

and hold. He cries

when I say no chocolate.

Forgets the warning: if you don't LISTEN,

if you don't stop. Now!

Please, he pleads 

I'm  good now. I didn't kick 

since I got home.

M heart cracking. 

Hand running through his swear-soft hair

his amber-flecked eyes. 

Please, Imma, please. 

One last chance. 

And though I know it shoud be know

out slips yes. 

Samuel: Chapter 15

Grab tight, 

at the moment of parting

before it's all torn away

For full chapter, click here

The chapter is framed by the relationship between Samuel and Saul: opening with Samuel defining himself as the one who anointed Saul, it ends with Samuel's mourning that God regrets annointing Saul. A chapter of intimacy and severance, when the entwined protagonists merge--and are torn apart.

Saul, indecisive, scrambling, fearful, is given one more chance: he can be leader of the level of Joshua, avenging Israel against their historic nemesis, and become part of Israel's eternal story. Saul steps up to the challenge, calling on the Kenites to depart by invoking a relationship that reaches back to the Exodus.

Yet the initial bravado is undone by his fundamental weakness. The king anointed under the command to Listen to all Israel demands listens to the voice of the people, unable to hear God's voice--or even his own. Indeed, it is unclear if Saul can even access his own desires. It is "Saul and the people" who originally spare Agag, yet Saul experiences the move as initiated by the people. He is the dog being wagged by the tail: "I feared the people, and listened to their voice." The inability to listen completes the dissolution introduced in the previous chapters: God "regrets" [n'h'm] that he chose Saul as king, introducing the twinned leitworts of the chapter: n'h'm (regret / reconsideration) and sh'v (return / turn away).

Samuel originally opposed the creation of the monarchy,  and reproached Israel even as they joyfully celebrate Saul. Yet now, at the moment of dissolution, his personal investment is laid bare as well: very distressed, he entreats God all night. Samuel is the lynchpin of Saul's relationship to God and to the people --the chapter opens by emphasizing this intimate triangulation: "It is I that God sent to anoint you king over Israel." The moment that the kingship falls away,  the relationship between Saul and Samuel becomes primary: I transgressed God's mouth and your words" Saul says, realizing that his sin is also against Samuel. Even as God rejects Saul, he clings to Samuel, the two merging linguistically until it is unclear who is the tearer and who the one torn: "And Samuel turned to leave and he grabbed the edge of his cloak, and it tore." God, the Eternal of Israel, might not return or change his mind, but Saul begs Samuel to "return" with him, and at least provide him backing against the people he so fears.  Samuel, after refusing, is unable to refuse. His weakness echoes Saul's own inability to stand fast, the two mirroring each other. 

This final intimacy presages the final dissolution, as Saul and Samuel split forever: Samuel never saw Saul again to the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul, because God regretted [n'h'm] having made Saul king over Israel." The chiastic structure of God's n'h'm frames Samuel's assertion that God is "not a man, who is n'h'm." We return to the world of flux defined in Hanna's thanksgiving prayer, which first introduced the idea of kingship. In this world of mutability and change, God may transform individual destiny, but there remains an immutabl anchor, the Eternal of Israel, who does not lie or regret [n'h'm].