Samuel: Chapter 15

Grab tight, 

at the moment of parting

before it's all torn away

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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].