Samuel: Chapter 8

 

Hear the sounds beneath words

The breathing spaces

What was put, what is given, what is asked

Who listens, who screams.

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After the heights--the fall. If the previous chapter portrayed Samuel's greatest triumph, as he "restores" what was lost in a great victory over the Philistines, this chapter portrays his decline. The youthful beloved usurper now becomes, in turn, "old" like the aged Eli, and like his mentor, he too cannot control his children, who waywardly do not "follow in his ways." As in the case with Eli, alternative leadership must be found: "Appoint (sima שימה) upon us a king, so we might be like the other nations.")

Yet if the problem is one of a lack of continuity between father and sons, then appointing a king is counterproductive--it is, after all, defined as hereditary leadership: "rule over us, also you, also your son, also your son's son," the nation begged Gideon, the last time they requested a king--and learned to their detriment the problems of such leadership.  

And indeed, the demand for a king is driven by something far deeper and more visceral than the failures of Samuel's sons. "It is not you they are rejecting, but Me...Like everything else they have done ever since I brought them out of Egypt to this day—forsaking Me and worshipping other gods—so they are doing to you," says God, creating a clear and shocking camaraderie between Himself and Samuel.  Idolatry and the desire for a king are presented as driven by parallel desires--for distance, for control, for the estratz. And indeed, Gideon responded to the initial request for kingship by returning power to God--"No I will not rule over you,God will rule over you"--before slipping himself into idolatry. 

Here, the rejection of Samuel makes the problem more acute. Throughout, the chapter emphasizes Samuel's role as intermediary between God and Israel by  repeated dedicated sections that highlight that  act of communication per se: "Samuel prayed to God" "Samuel reported all of God's word to the people"  "when Samuel heard all that the poeple had said, he reported it to God" "And God said to Samuel... and Samuel said to the poeple."

What begins as a demand for an alternative judge--appoint us a king to judge us like the other nations--is quickly revealed to be something far broader: "'No' said the people, we must have a king over us so we may be like the other nations: he will judge us and go out at our head and fight our battles." What the people are rejecting is not Samuel's sons, but Samuel's mode of doing battle: his demand to look into their "hearts" and "remove the alien gods." 

The biblical command to appoint a king does not define the king as judge: the Levites and judges are clearly differentiated from the temporal power of the king, who is appointed (שימו) by the people themselves, not set up by the judge. The people's confusion and slippage between the position of judge and king, spiritual leader and warleader, reveals a deep ambiguity.

The rejection of Samuel expresses a desire to not be led by a prophet. To not be in constant dialogue with a hidden voice. The people don't want to be exceptional. They want a leader "like all the other nations", with all the accoutrements of power that can be respected, mocked and resented. Samuel's very warnings about the dangers of worldly power evoke the crie de cour: let us be like everyone else.

There is a desperation in this cry. And because it's desperation, it cannot be ignored. Samuel hears "all" their words, the text and subtext. "Listen to their voice" commands God, despite his anger. There are inner necessities that become external realities. In a parallel construction to God's command to Abraham to listen to Sarah, God closes: "Listen to them and appoint them a king." 

 

 

Samuel: Chapter 4

 

When words fail...

The center

does not hold.

What will the future birth? 

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"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.