When words fail...
The center
does not hold.
What will the future birth?
For full chapter, click here,
"And Samuel's word went forth throughout Israel"-- a triumphant announcement of Samuel's ascension. Yet this opening verse also contains a hint of threat. For if Samuel's "word" is trustworthy, then the destruction he prophesied must and will come.
And come it does: the decimation of Israel's army, the capture of the Ark of Covenant, the death of Hofni and Pinhas, the heartbroken death of Eli. Only in his death do we learn the extent of his greatness--he is one of the few pivotal judges, who like Otniel, Debora and Gideon led Israel for a definitive 40 years. Yet there is no hope for his family's future, as even birth turns deadly: Pinchas' wife dies in childbirth, naming her child I-Kavod, No-Honor--a fulfillment of God's initial prophecy "For I honor (kavod) those who honor Me, but those who spurn Me shall be dishonored."
Between Samuel's definitive "word" (davar) and the "word" (davar) brought by the soldier of Israel's defeat is a collection of wordless cries: the army "trumpets" (tru'ah) in triumph as the Ark is brought to the encampment; the city screams (tza'aka) and shrieks (zaaka) as the terrible news of defeat spreads. Language becomes a chaotic cacophony (hamon; homeh).
The breakdown of speech into primal screams creates a need for interpretation: “Why is there such a roar in the camp of the Hebrews?” the Philistines ask; What is the meaning of the uproar?" asks Eli. Functionally, these sounds echo Samuel's prophecy: a warning coming to fruition. There are no true surprises--everything has its "herald", if we but learn to listen.
Intertextually, these wordless cries return us to the moment Moses descends Mount Sinai after the creation of the Golden Calf, to be greeted by wordless cries demanding interpretation:
"When Joshua heard the sound of the people in its boisterousness, he said to Moses, “There is a cry of war in the camp.
But he answered,
“It is not the voice of those who scream in mastery,
neither is it the voice of those who scream for being overcome:
the voice of screaming do I hear.” (Exodus, 32: 17-18)
The linkage to the Golden Calf is illuminating.
The Calf was created out of Israel's inability to deal with existential uncertainty--out of a need for safety, a desire for a god they could control. “Come, make us a god who shall go before us, for we do not know what has happened to that man Moses" (Exodus 32: 1). The Golden Calf is God without the terrifying Otherness; the intermediary without the originator.
This is a role that parallels that of the Ark of Covenant here: “Why did God put us to rout (nagaf) today before the Philistines?" the Israelites ask--the word "rout" n'g'f synonymous with "plague", suggesting a defeat by divine order. Yet rather than attempting to answer this question by turning to the terrifying, unknowable God of Knowings (as Hanna named Him), they decide to "fetch the Ark of the Covenant of God from Shiloh, to be present among us and deliver us from the hands of our enemies.”
The identity of the savior here is ambiguous--is it God, or the intermediary Ark?
The slipage becomes more pronounced in the reaction of the Philistines, who declare: "God has come to the camp!" making Him plural: "These are the same God who struck down Egypt..." The plurality that Hanna identified in God--whom she named Lord of Hosts; Lord of Minds, multi-faceted and unknowable--is here reduced to an idolatrous merging of God with the "Ark of the Covenant of GOD of Hosts Enthroned on the Cherubim." The priests, Hofni and Pinhas, play a role parallel to that of their ancestor, Aaron, creator of the Golden Calf. Their "taking" of the Ark reflects Hofni and Pinhas's initial sin of seeking to force the divine: "Give it to me or I will take," they say, grabbing the gifts meant for God; reducing God's "hosts" (tzva'ot) to the women who "congegate" (tzovot) around Shilo, or to the literal Israelite and Philistine armies (tzvaot);
The attempt to force and manipulate God via His tangible symbol becomes here the source of destruction. If the priests thought they could "take" the Ark at will, they leave it to be taken. The wordless jubilation at the coming of the Ark, which echoed the wordless celebration of the Calf--becomes the screams of mourning at its taking--in a separation of the symbol from the symbolized.
