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?

 For full chapter, click here

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: Chapter 17

 

find your center

and take flight

For full chapter, click here

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

For full chapter, click here

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: 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].

Samuel 13: In Writing

Indetermindable

moments between the vibrating

phone, the blaring alert,

the siren that might--

might not--sound

I want to go,

my daughter whines--

I want to go down. I gulp down

the still-dewed air, breathe 

in jasmine like I'm drowning. 

It's too far, she scrambles towards the steps.

I'm scared.

Hunker underground. Between concrete slabs. 

My dove, in the crevice of stone

the shelter of the step--

She says, I always dream 

we keep sleeping

And then the missile hits.

I dream I am buried alive

in the endless expanse 

before the All Clear.

Samuel: Chapter 13

Fractures. Learn to stand fast--

or you will not stand. 

For full chapter, click here.

The kingship has only just been established, and hairline cracks are already spreading.

Saul was a year old when he was crowned, indicating something shiny-new. Yet the Saul introduced as a dutiful son is suddenly a father, with Jonathan holding the fateful Geba, using it as a springboard to attack the Philistines--while Saul gets the credit. We are once again in the Oedipal realm  between fathers and sons (be they Eli with Chofni and Pinchas, or Samuel with his unnamed children), returning to the central tension that defined the Book of Judges.

Now Geba, locus of civil war, is launching a war with external enemies--yet the Israelites join this war less willingly than they joined the war against their kin. Some join because they feel they have no choice, others hide in caves, tunnels, cisterns, while yet others cross the Jordan.

The people's fear is reflected in their king's irresolution. Here he is, back in Gilgal--site of the "renewal" of the kingship, where he and Israel felt joy; recreating the meeting point point that Samuel anounced back when he gave Saul a series of signs that God is with you (10:7): After that, you are to go down to Gilgal ahead of me, and I will come down to you to present burnt offerings and offer sacrifices of well-being. Wait seven days until I come. Yet now the man who stood head and shoulders above Israel is unable to stand and wait. After holding on for seven days, he cracks, and brings the sacrifices just before Samuel appears. 

In a recreation of their first meeting, he meets the prophet just as he arrives, with the same evocative use of ve-hineh, "and behold." What is beheld this time is dissolution rather than establishment. GOD would have established your dynasty over Israel forever, but now it will not stand. If Saul's heart was once transformed, as he drew the true-hearted in his wake, now he is no longer chosen by God's heart, his heart insuffincently willing. The doubled pair of Saul and Samuel splits--and with it the triangulation between Saul-Samuel-God and Saul-Samuel-the people.  The monarchy is falling before it ever fully stood, disintegrating from its very core.

Samuel 12: In Writing

 I am not atrustworthy

witness. When accused

I crumble. Anger

burns my tongue, sour in my throat. 

Days of harvest. Thistles browned.

Lupine dried. Wild oats

empty themselves to open beaks.

Air alert with leashed thunder--

I have not yet put winter away.

The night-planes whine like wasps

We sleep beneath haunted skies. 

When do i stop to pray

excep silently?

Samuel: Chapter 12

 

Make your voice heard

over the storm

See, fear, tell your story.

For full chapter, click here

"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.

  

Samuel 11: In Writing

 "History rhymes"

my friend posts

it doesn't repeat

exactly

it does merge, mix, echo

Same lined walls,

same gym mattress in the corner

same wail. Same pile of shoes by the door. 

When it rained, the perichor

slippery stones

and lights blinking through the clouds

marked which year it was

which round

but now it is the same sullen heat

Fallen figs smashed into the floor.

Swim through the same menace,

watch the same dusty sky. 

But now my baby can run halfway

and my daughter can cross the street.

There are two new rabbits in the school petting corner

a new row of graves in the military cemetery

and I am more tired, and sad and heavy

body the clock tracking history

Samuel: Chapter 11

 

Push the bounds

to find the story 

tell it anew

For full chapter, click here

This chapter continues and intensifies the Book of Samuel's redemptive dialogue with the closing of the Book of Judges. If the opening chapters revisited the relationship to women and to vows, here we return to the painful linchpins of the closing of Judges: the relationship of individual to tribe and national framework. These issues come to a head in the final stories of Samson, and Pilegesh bGiva--the rape of the concubine at Geva and its aftermath. If Samson represents the extreme of individuality, the story of Geva exemplifies its opposite: nameless characters acting within a context of mob rule.   

Samson is consecrated before birth, a nazarite who is set apart. The "spirit of god pulses within him"--he is never "like one of the people." In his superhuman strength, he is the archetypal superhero, his fight against the Philistines that of a lone vigilante. He is a leader who dies, as he lived, separate from his people. It is only after death that he can p be brought back "to his fathers" for reintegration.

On the other side of the pendulum is the Israelite response to the incident at Geva, in which "all Israel, brothers" unite as one to fight Benjamin. This is a model of national identity sans individual leadership, where the people themselves seem to spontaneously self-organise into a cohesive national group. Yet it is a group that allows no individuality, with every dissent ruthlessly destroyed.   

Both these stories are framed by the refrain: "In those days there was no king in Israel."

This chapter returns to these painful stories, to recontextualise them in the context of "a king in Israel."

Here, the tragedy of Geva seems to run in reverse, as though time can be turned back and redeemed. The allusions to Geva introduced in the previous chapters become more explicit and insistent. Now it is Jabesh Gilead, destroyed in the aftermath of the war on Benjamin, that is attacked. As in the case of the concubine, there is a threat of mutilation.  The people of Yabesh, like the Levite in Geba, send messengers to "all the border of Israel"--yet this is a message that seeks help, not revenge. As in  the case of Geva, there is a response of helpless weeping. 

Ironically, help comes when the message reaches Geva itself. This time it is Saul who acts the part of the Levite, tearing apart flesh--but this time of animals, rather than a woman. Like the Levite, he sends these body parts to "the borders of Israel" to call in the people for war. Yet this time, it is not just a wordless horrific message, but an explicit command.  And the people come, "as one." In this iteration, the rejected tribe of Benjamin comes to the rescue of the city it indirectly destroyed, rewarding Yabesh's hesitancy about joining the civil war. This time, Saul takes responsibility, and the weeping is turned to "joy" (a leitword repeated several times at the closing of this chapter.)

When "the spirit of God descends upon him," Saul not only acts the part of the Levite. He also channels Samson's preternatural power in tearing apart the lion.  Similarly, Nahash's threat to poke out the right eye of the people of Jabesh  echoes Samson's prayer to be "avenged of one of his eyes."  The book of Samuel evokes Samson from its very opening, with the figure of Samuel--also a Nazarite consecrated before birth--recreates his vast powers, yet places them within the safe confines of the Mishkan. Now Saul also channels the inspired. charismatic leader, yet his power is placed within a national context, as the cleaving of the animal is used to call the nation together.  

Saul's first battle as king weaves together the two sides of Judges' pendulum, placing the individual within the national structure, while placing a leader at the head of the faceless masses--a leader who heads off threats of violence. 

 Yet Saul can only play this part via Samuel. The merging between himself as Samuel continues in this chapter, as there is a consistent pattern of triangulations--between Saul, Samuel and God; and between Saul, Samuel and the people. The people follow "after Saul... and after Samuel... and fear God." The people go to Samuel to initiatite the recrowning of Saul. Samuel, as prophet, continues to enable linkage and communication.  

 

Samuel 10: In Writing

Everyone is a prophet these days 

betting on the end of days--

will it be today, or tomorrow

can you make the wedding

and how many low-flying

wings make a divination?

I lower the shutters. 

Burrow deep in bed. Know 

that always there is more 

to lose. Every call a beginning

of a new loss. Better

to crouch between the bags

that you pack--or don't pack--

for the shelter. Think of what to take

or not take. Bite your tongue.

Don't answer. Silence is always 

the best measure. 

Samuel: Chapter 10

 

Are you a seeker,

or are you saught?

And who do you find

deep down, within? 

For full chapter, click here

This chapter continues seamlessly from the previous one, with its fable-like pattern of trees (3 signs, 3 actions, 3 men, 3 kids, 3 loaves of bread), and it's leitwords of seeking (ב'ק'ש)and found (מ'צ'א). The Saul who set out in quest of the asses is now sought by his father, and later by the entire nation as he hides away from Samuel's announcement of his kingship. Yet now that  "God is with him", his hands can do all that they "seek"--he is seeker and saught at once.

After anointing Saul as king, Samuel immediately shifts to giving him a series of signs--implying  fundamental doubt. These signs revolve around a series of give (נ'ת'נ) and take (ל'ק'ח)--echoing Samuel's address to the people about the royal right to confiscate at will. 

The placement of Saul's encounters by "the burial place of Rachel" further scopes us back to the primal story of Joseph and his brothers, which began with a similar search (It is my brothers I search for"), and splits into a bifurcation between Joseph's receiving and Judah's taking. The signs are not passive proofs, but transformative, forcing Sual to wrest with the issues of kinship: you will become a different man.

 
One of those issues is prophecy, as Saul's body is taken over by the spirit of God, and he is mitnabeh, in a reflexive form that echoes Hanna's discovery of a new level of prayer. This sign is not only an exercise in transformative submission, it also raises one of the book's thematic concerns: the relation of fathers and sons, and its impact on the question of hereditary leadership. Eli's sons did not follow in his footprints; Samuel's sons did not follow in his. In both cases, this disjunction is juxtaposed to the question of kingship. Here, Saul's prophecy causes people to exclaim, "What’s happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul too among the prophets?” prompting the riposte: “And who are their fathers?” 

Some gifts are sui generis, with no relation to antecedents. The prophets prophesize without relation to their fathers, and Saul prophesizes without relation to Kish. And yet, if that is the case, why the turn to kingship, with its focus on fathers and sons, and why the placement of Saul within the context of his foremother Rachel--and within the context of his tribe, Benjamin? 

The story is placed within the boundaries of Benjamin, and as it continues, the echoes of Benjamin's story become more insistent. Benhamin is the "smallest of tribes" because they were nearly annihilated in the civil war triggered by the incident that took place at Geva--Saul's own hometown. Saul is appointed king in a lottery that echoes the lottery that accompanied the war on Geva, while he is attacked by bnei Bliyaal--rabble--the same word used to describe the guilty parties in the incident at Geva. 

The individual and his family in a fraught, tension-filled dance. Saul is head and shoulders above the rest of the nation, a perfect individual--and very much Kish's son, a Benjaminite. A leader is a person--yet can perhaps become a dynasty. The story is both Samuel's an Saul's, shifting between the two, as Samuel's latest convocation at Mitzpah places the fairytale interlude back within the larger story of the state, and Samuel's negative view of kingship. At stake is the issue of the heart--another leitword of this chapter--as Saul's heart is transformed, and those "with heart" accompany him home.

Samuel 9: In Writing

On my third quest

up Yehuda HaNasi--

drop off, pickup, pickup again-- 

I want to believe

I'm the hero

of my own story.

I feel like the car.

Or the ass.

Giddyup donkey. 

Pack apple squeezies,

and baby carrots, pack

crackers, nuts and tangarines.

They won't eat them anyway.

In other lands, women jump handsprings

with hair unbound.

In other lands, they video themselves

setting photos on fire. I look

at the gloaming gold

torching the trees. How it sets fire

to yesterday's puddles.

We play hide and seek

in the dry fountain 

under fruit-bare lemon trees

I am not allowed to say

I see them

as they crouch

behind the wall.

Samuel: Chapter 9

 

Who do you find
As you rise, as you fall
looking for
this day, this hour, this now

For full chapter, click here

After the drama and heartbreak of the previous chapter's depiction of Samuel's old age, this chapter opens with a new beginning--and a new protagonist: "There was a man in Benjamin whose name was Kish son of Abiel...a Benjaminite, ..He had a son whose name was Saul". This sonorous introduction deliberately echoes the exact syntax of the opening verses of the book:  "There was a man from Ramathaim...whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu ... an Ephraimite. And he had two wives..." , as does the focus on food and sacred eating. If until now, we have been reading the saga of Samuel, it now turns into the story of Saul.

The name itself emphasizes the linkages between the two protagonists: the name  Saul (Shaul ש'א'ל--lit. "asked for""lent") takes us back to Hannah's introduction of her own son: "This is the child I prayed for, and God has given me my request (sha'alti ש'א'ל) that I asked (sha'alti ש'א'ל) of him. I in tוrn lend him (hish'altihu ש'א'ל) to God...For as long as he lives, he is lent (shaul ש'א'ל) to God"--Saul retroactively taking the place of Samuel.

The change in protagonist comes with a shift in ambiance, as the narrative switches to a fable-like quest of threes, full of direct dialogue, and replete with allusions to earlier biblical narratives, from Abraham to Joseph to Moses to Gideon. In this version, Samuel is no longer the national leader, but a local "seer", come to play his part in a quest of "searching" and "finding" (מצאו)--two leitworts of the chapter.

The appointment of a king is also redefined: not as idolatrous betrayal, but as an act of mercy analogous to the Exodus itself: "He will deliver My people from the hands of the Philistines; for I have taken note of the plight of My people, and their outcry has come to Me”.  

Yet the chronotope of this fairytale-like story is complex. Space is defined by a continuous oscillation between rising and falling, echoing Hanna's song of flux; meetings happen at liminal spaces, heavy eith expectation. Time opens with a retrospective look at history ("Formerly in Israel...the prophet of today was formerly called a seer), then narrows down to focus on a specific day ("one day before" "on this day" "this time appointed" "just then"): far from being timless, this fable is almost breathlessly of a moment, easily missed and transient. 

Samuel 8: In Writing

De-escalation is key. Lower

your voice. Crouch

down. Slow your body,

though your heart

might pound and if you tense

he’ll feel it. Be calm.

Listen! He screams,

You don’t listen to me!

Stare at the gaping maw

the screaming teeth. Feel

nothing. I thought, he gulps

I thought you said…

But I didn’t say, I want

to say, but don’t– 

to de-escalate.

I thought you said

it’s for me. I want 

it to be mine.

And I want to give him

what is mine

to swerve the storm

to escape.

No, I say. Walk--

slowly, slowly

--to not escalate.

 

Samuel: Chapter 8

 

Hear the sounds beneath words

The breathing spaces

What was put, what is given, what is asked

Who listens, who screams.

For full chapter, click here

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 7

 

Loop around

and return

back to where you began

back to your heart

For full chapter, click here

The saga of the Ark's capture, which seemed to end in the previous chapter with the Ark's return, is now revealed to be part of a longer saga of twenty years of longing and displacement. For "return" (sh'v שב)--the chapter's key word--is a process. The Ark has physically returned to Israeli territory, but remains decentered, tucked away on a hill outside of national consciousness. The Philistines' "sending forth"  of the Ark undoes its physical taking, but not the distance from God that precipitated its capture.  Only after time and space become saturated with "longing" can this distance be addressed.  

The saga, which is introduced with  Samuel's "word going forth to all of Israel" can only be resolved by Samuel. Return, he tells the people, begins within: God will only return when "you return to God with all of your heart." Samuel, indeed, goes back in history, all the way back to Joshua, and his final address to the people, where he demands that they remove "the alien gods from within you" and "prepare their hearts" for God.

Israel's removal of the alien gods precipitates a second address, as Samuel calls the people together in Mitzpa (a redemption, perhaps, of the last gathering of "all" Israel in Mitzpa, which ended in civil war), which becomes a reprise of the fatal war with the Philistines--with profound differences. This time it is the Israelites rather than the Philistines who fear the "sounds" in the camp; this time, the people pray, rather than mechanically attempting to control God; this time, it is God, rather than the Israelites, who makes the noises that terrify the Philistines.  This reprise ends in victory, offering a way back, as the territory previously lost "returns" to Israel. 

The looping nature of this saga of restoration is highlighted by the location "Even HaEzer"--the "helping stone": previously introduced as the site of Israel's great defeat and the loss of the Ark,  it is here reintroduced as indicating that "God has helped us unto here". The reprise has redefined the beginning.