A series of thoughts from todays reading:
1. Both Eli’s and Samuel’s sons failed to follow in their footsteps. Aaron, too: two of his sons offered “strange fire” before the Lord, and subsequently bit it. While Israel is consistently commanded to recount the faithfulness of God to their children, they are never reported as doing so. Seeing Samuel’s sons’ waywardness, Israel decides that the solution to their problems is to have a king “like the other nations.” Methinks they missed the point. From this vantage point in chapter 8 the reader can look back on the history of the Judges and see how bad that era was. Readers can also look forward and see that the history of Israel’s kings - in balance - is not much better.
2. Huh. In chapter 11:8 it says, “When he [Saul] mustered them at Bezek, those from Israel were three hundred thousand and those from Judah seventy thousand.” This is well before the division of Israel to northern and southern kingdoms, and yet they are here referred to as if the division had already happened. The editor showing his (presumably a he) hand?
3. Here’s a tricky piece for theologians to unravel. Chapter fifteen begins with this verse:
The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “ I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands”
What does it mean for God to regret? What are the pre-conditions that would allow for someone to experience “regret?”
It get trickier, here is verse 29 of the same chapter (Samuel is talking to Saul):
Moreover, the Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind
and to make things even more interesting, the last verse of the same chapter:
And the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul King over Israel
4. Wow, today is full of vexing passages: here is another, this one has made me scratch my head for a long time.
In Chapter 16, Saul has an evil spirit, and a harpist is sought to sooth his nerves. The harpist in question is David, who is described this way:
a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the Lord is with him (vs. 18)
Saul send the messengers to Jesse, saying “Send me your son David.”
And David came to Saul, and entered his service. Saul loved him greatly and he became his armor bearer
I think its safe to say that Saul has at least met David at this point.
Fast forward to the next chapter, chapter 17, in which we read the famous goliath incident. The text reads that Saul is an old man when this happens (vs. 12). David comes out to give pizza to his brothers, notices the situation (Israel very afraid), and says to Saul, “your servant will go and fight the Philistine” Saul responds, “ you are just a boy” (not a warrior anymore, eh?) David kills Goliath anyway. Then, from the proverbial hilltop, Saul says,
Abner, whose son is this young man” Abner said, “As your soul lives, O king, I do not know.” The king said, “Inquire whose son the strippling is.”(vss. 55-56)
What?! How can Saul not know? What’s going on here?
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