Make your voice heard
over the storm
See, fear, tell your story.
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"Then Samuel said“I have listened to your voice in all you have asked and set a king over you"--from the redemptive "joy" in Saul's story in the previous chapter, we return to the pain of Samuel's frame story. If before God told Samuel to subsume his hurt and betrayal and "listen" to Israel's voice, now it is Samuel who makes his voice heard. The chapter is sturctured around the thrice-repeated anaphora: And Samuel said...and Samuel's singular "call".
Many before have "judged" Israel, but Samuel here enacts a courtroom, demanding the people stand (n't'v) while, calling for testimony, as he "judges" them, in a recreation of Moses's final address.
This linkage to Moses is central to Samuel's argument, as he seeks to assert a vision of leadership that subsumes this shiny-new toy of kingship. God, he asserts, comes first. It is he who "made" Moses and Ahron. History needs to be seen as a continuum from that initial act of redemption, with the people forgetting, and then being saved by those that God "sends". It is you, Samuel, asserts, who have attempted to disrupt this continuity, by asserting "‘No, we must have a king reigning over us’—though the ETERNAL your God is your King."
Redemption lies in seeing-fearing (r'e'h) (another leitwot) the deeper reality, which must always subsume local human kingship: "if you will see-fear (ti'reuh) your God and serve him and listen to his voice...if both both you and the king that he crowned over you follow God..." The voice that must be heard is not yours, but God's. The human king is subordinated to this overarching Voice, just as the tale of Saul's coronation is subsumed by the frame story of Samuel's critique of the kinship.
The king might lead, but the deepest service (a'v'd) is to God: you must serve him, and listen to his voice. Samuel drives home the lesson with a recreation of Sinai's overwhelming sounds, at the very time of Shavuot's "wheat harvest" (See Exodus 34:24). Do not fear, Samuel concludes. You have not yet lost true leadership, which lies in this continuous connection to God. Samuel returns to his role as intermediary, yet if before he was almost an invisible conduit, now he is force that must be activated: I will not cease to pray for you.
The child born through an act of definitive prayer makes prayer the definitive act.
