1 & 2 Samuel

A Theological Commentary on the Bible

David H. Jensen

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781611646009
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

"The episodes in 1 and 2 Samuel are striking in their depiction of human characterspriests, soldiers, kings, prophets, and royal advisersbut also significant in how they narrate the central character of this history, the God of Israel. History, in these books, is not simply an accounting of royal intrigue, military battles, and socio-economic struggle but the stage upon which God reveals God's very self. First and Second Samuel relay some of the most memorable vignettes in all Scripturethe call of Samuel, David's battle with Goliath, and David's seizure of Bathsheeba as his wifeand discover in them the hand of God."
from the introduction

First and Second Samuel describe the beginnings of monarchy in ancient Israel and introduce us to intriguing characters: Samuelprophet, priest, and judge; Saulthe tragic figure who becomes Israel's first king; and DavidSaul's celebrated successor and Israel's key leader whose influence endured for generations. But as Jensen makes clear in his splendid commentary, there is another figure who is a central character: God. Throughout his theologically rich treatment of these biblical books, Jensen explores what makes these texts important for us. He suggests that we read 1 and 2 Samuel because they reveal the complexities of the human person; the ambiguities of our social arrangements as nations; and God's agency in a conflicted world. Jensen notes that as we are shaped by and grapple with the biblical stories, we are invited to find our own stories within them. "What keeps us coming back to faith, " he says, "is its stories: stories that tell the truth about the human condition, our shared corporate life, and the life God gives to the world."

1 SAMUEL

1 Samuel 1:1–7:17

Great Expectations: Samuel and the Ark

The stories begin with a series of expectations: for a child, for a great nation, for God’s blessing. They begin with one of the most common desires of people across cultures and times—longings for a child to call one’s own. Hannah’s prayer is as old as the human race, uttered countless times each year: “Please, O God, send me a child.” A child’s birth, whether experienced as an answer to a prayer or as a surprise, often signals hope. In 1 and 2 Samuel children sometimes appear in pivotal roles or as agents who shift the course of the story. First Samuel begins with a seemingly personal story that has vast national implications: one woman’s longing for a child results in the upending of history and status, clarifying what it means to be a nation in covenant with God. The beginnings of this story combine the personal, the political, and the theological, themes that are echoed throughout the episodes that follow.

These opening chapters also focus on the question of what it means to hear the command and call of God. How does one discern God’s call amid the surrounding din? In these first pages a boy named Samuel hears a call that is not immediately discernible. His call, like Hannah’s hope, is not focused chiefly on himself. Most visions of calling these days tend to focus on the individual: “Am I really hearing God?” “What am I to do with my life?” Though such questions of individual agency are not foreign to the Deuteronomist, they represent a truncated version of Samuel’s call, a call that also concerns the life of Israel. The nation, in this sense, is also a response to God’s call.

These stories also deal with piety and religiosity. In them we find people at prayer and in praise, trusting in God and relying on God’s favor. Readers glimpse some of the religious practices of ancient Israel, particularly in relation to the ark. The narratives surrounding the ark are perhaps the most difficult for contemporary readers to understand. At first glance, these narratives evoke a primitive religion that has little in common with more “advanced” societies. They seem primitive because they give so much credence to holy objects: the ark is a holy thing that may not be touched or handled indiscriminately. Israel reveres the ark because of its power, a power that stems from the living God of Israel. To lose the ark is to risk courting with disaster, a fate that Israel experiences when the Philistines capture the ark in battle. But these narratives reveal more than primitive fetishism; they vividly express how the living God comes near to humanity. They express how the God of Israel, the God of the universe, makes a home among mortals and sinks an anchor amid human things. These stories demonstrate how a people at prayer, in lament, and in praise come into contact with the living God through ordinary, tangible things. This is not religious primitivism but the heart of an incarnational faith.

1:1–8

Haves and Have-nots

Monarchy emerges in Israel with a seemingly personal story, as the Deuteronomist introduces readers to a family and rivals within it. Elkanah is the patriarch, the one who in ancient society exercises the most power, but in this story Hannah exhibits the greatest agency. The one who ought to be content with her lot decides that she is not. Her story, in many respects, is a story between haves and have-nots: between a wife who has children and a wife who does not, between a man with patriarchal authority and women with none, between the mighty and the lowly. As the story progresses, however, the orders between the haves and have-nots get overturned.

The personal story that begins here soon becomes more than personal, as the birth of this long-awaited child, Samuel, catalyzes the longings of a nation.

The family is in many ways somewhat ordinary yet in other ways set apart. Elkanah has two wives, Peninnah (who has given birth to children) and Hannah (who has not). Bigamy, of course, was common during this period of Israel’s history. Because he was able to support more than one wife, Elkanah’s economic status was higher than abject poverty but probably lower than ostentatious wealth. His lineage, which stretches back to his great-grandfather, is a “sign of a noble and well-known family.”¹ He comes, in other words, from a family with a name (vv. 1–2). The Deuteronomist suggests that he is from Ramathaim (referred to in the New Testament as Arimathea, cf. Mark 15:43). The Chronicler, however, lists him as a Levite (1 Chr. 6:26), the tribe that bears responsibility for the ark. This connection is important, because it situates Elkanah’s acts of piety in a long line of actions related to Israel’s central religious practice. The story begins with a somewhat ordinary family whose religious actions set them apart.

The poor person is the one who has been converted to God and puts all his faith in him, and the rich person is one who has not been converted to God and puts his confidence in idols: money, power, material things.

Oscar Romero, A Shepherd’s Diary, trans. Irene Hodgson (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger, 1996), 125.

Elkanah’s family journeys to Shiloh to worship and make sacrifice. These are the days before there is a temple in Israel, before Jerusalem is claimed as an Israelite city. At this time, the sanctuary in Shiloh, according to most biblical scholars, was the most significant one for Israel’s cultic practice. The family journeys to Shiloh, the highest holy place in the land, and performs their religious duty. The sacrificial portions, however, are a bit out of the norm. Elkanah gives portions to Peninnah and all her sons and daughters (vv. 3–4), but to Hannah he offers more. Is this favoritism? Compensation, perhaps, for Hannah’s lack of children? The Deuteronomist’s reason for this double portion is succinct: “because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb” (v. 5). The juxtaposition between a husband’s love and God’s action of closing a womb here is striking. On the one hand it is a direct expression of affection and a pledge of faithfulness. Elkanah does not love Hannah because she supplies him with offspring but because Hannah is Hannah. This steadfast love, shown with a seemingly excessive portion, at first seems to contrast with God’s closing of Hannah’s womb. Whereas Elkanah loves Hannah and gives her more than enough, God withholds something from Hannah and closes her off.

The phrase “the LORD had closed her womb” raises a host of questions. For the Deuteronomist, God’s activity is primary: beneath, behind, above, and beyond all human action. God is the source and author of events that unfold on the pages of history. But is God the author of every event and circumstance in the lives of people? All the tragedies and joys? Every birth and every death? Each instance of suffering and each occasion for celebration? The language in this passage is strong. God is the direct cause of Hannah’s infertility. The vision of God’s sovereignty is quite comprehensive: even the reproductive lives of Hannah and Elkanah are governed by God’s action and rule. John Calvin, in an analogous manner, has a strong version of God’s providence: “There is no erratic power, or action, or motion in creatures, but that they are governed by God’s secret plan in such a way that nothing happens except what is knowingly and willingly decreed by him.”² Sometimes in the wake of Calvin, well-meaning theologians have claimed that because God is sovereign, we must acquiesce to whatever hand we’re dealt: sickness or health; wealth or poverty; suffering or happiness.

Nothing takes place without [God’s] deliberation.

John Calvin, Institutes 1.16.3; ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1:200.

Because matters are out of our hands, we might as well resign ourselves to our lot and trust that God has the best intentions for us. There is, to be sure, much comfort in this sentiment, that “in life and in death we belong to God,”³ that our lives are entrusted to the creator and ruler of the universe and that we are cared for by God and matter to God. But Hannah does not resign herself to her lot; her sense of God’s sovereignty involves a struggle, as she prays earnestly for a change in her life: the birth of a child. Trusting in God’s sovereignty need not lead to resignation over the present; it may lead to actions that fervently attempt to change the course of history. People of faith are not remarkable for their acceptance of the status quo. That is the mark of a cynic. People of faith are remarkable for how they envision a different world, despite the signs and events of the times. Just like Hannah did.

The difference in status between Hannah and Peninnah reveals rivalry in the family. Hannah’s barrenness causes her rival to provoke her. The one with much denigrates the one who has little. In a patriarchal world, a woman has status on the basis of her offspring, the legacy that she provides for her husband. Here is a glimpse of some of the insidious sides of oppression and imbalance of power: those who experience oppression can become agents of oppression themselves or hold within themselves festering wounds of the effects of sin. Many Korean American theologians have dubbed this dynamic “han,” a Korean word that speaks to the experience of sin from the “underside.” In Andrew Sung Park’s words, han is “frustrated hope, the collapsed feeling of pain, letting go, resentful bitterness, and the wounded heart.”⁴ Sin has many faces and is experienced in many ways, both in those who commit actions that oppress others and those who internalize the effects of oppression.

But no one is immune from sin’s grip. On these pages, we see rivalries for power and favor that lead to further denigration of the one who has little. In response to Peninnah’s words, Hannah weeps and refuses to eat (vv. 6–7).

Sin causes han and han procreates sin. Sin is of sinners; han is of the sinned-against. The sin of sinners may cause a chain reaction via the han of the sinned-against.

Andrew Sung Park, “Sin,” in Miguel A. De La Torre, ed., Handbook of U.S. Theologies of Liberation (St. Louis: Chalice, 2004), 115.

Elkanah’s response to Hannah’s predicament is both compassionate and obtuse. The one who gives Hannah a double portion also says to her that he is to be more to her than ten sons (v. 8). In effect, Elkanah disregards the typical ways in which husbands of his time value their wives. He is bound to Hannah not on the basis of offspring but because of a promise he has made to her. By saying that he is more than ten sons to her, Elkanah seems also to be saying that Hannah is more than ten sons to him. Yet at the same time these words demonstrate a failure to understand the depth of Hannah’s pain. As Johanna van Wijk-Bos notes, “They must have been the final straw for Hannah, for in the next breath she appeals for help to an authority higher than Elkanah or the local priests.”⁵

1:9–18

A Prayer

Hannah regards the hand she is dealt and considers the words of her rival and her husband: Peninnah’s words cause tears while Elkanah’s words are intended to comfort. But Hannah takes their words and charts her own course, “gets on her feet and makes a move toward her liberation from the oppressive forces of culture and family.”⁶ No one encourages her to seek a change, but change is precisely what Hannah implores. She heeds the words of her husband by eating and drinking, but then she rises and presents herself “before the LORD” (v. 9) and prays with all her might. Many of the words of her prayer are not recorded, but at the prayer’s core is a vow: that if God will “not forget” Hannah and give her a son, then she will set him before God as a servant, a nazirite, one set apart from society for a cultic purpose.

There are hundreds of prayers offered in Scripture: some in thanksgiving, others in confession, others in lament. Hannah’s prayer, like some others, is a prayer of petition. What is the purpose of petitionary prayer? The great nineteenth-century Reformed theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher claimed that petitionary prayer is not a bargain we strike with God, asking God for something in exchange for something else. Such understandings are problematic since they render God a cosmic ATM who bestows us with things if we only will ask for them (and if there are enough cash reserves!). We petition God not in order to get what we want but in order to make our petition more in line with God’s will for our lives. The chief model for petitionary prayer, in Schleiermacher’s reading, is Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, as recorded in Matthew: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (26:39). As Jesus is facing impending death, he asks God initially for his life to be spared. In Schleiermacher’s words, “He began with the definite wish that his sufferings might pass away from him; but as soon as he fixed his thought on his father in heaven to whom he prayed, this wish was at once qualified by the humble, ‘if it be possible.’”⁷ Jesus desires to live but places desire in the context of God’s wider intent for Jesus’ life. Jesus’ posture in this earnest request is the model for our posture whenever we ask God something: “If our prayer has not the effect of moderating the wish that it expressed, of replacing the eager desire with quiet submission, the anxious expectation with devout calmness; then it was no true prayer, and gives sure proof that we are not yet at all capable of this real kind of prayer.”⁸ Petitionary prayer, in this view, does not change God’s action toward us but changes our posture in relation to God. We ask for something, but in the asking we find that what we ask is changed. There is much wisdom in Schleiermacher’s sermon, particularly when we recognize that we often ask for the wrong things. In a consumer age where persons pray for victory on the football field, for financial success,⁹ and for new cars, Schleiermacher’s view of petitionary prayer is sorely needed. If our petitions are simply expressions of any and all desires, then prayer seems little more than selfish clamoring. Often our desires need to be modified to bring us into greater conformity with the way of Jesus.

But is this the case with every prayer of petition? Hannah’s prayer does not modify its desire but increases the intensity of her desire. She prays fervently and silently, with lips moving. The priest Eli thinks that she is drunk, and embarrassed for her, tells her to quit making a spectacle of herself (vv. 12–14). In her defense, Hannah clarifies that she has been praying the entire time, speaking out of “great anxiety and vexation” (v. 16). Hannah’s prayer of petition is different from Schleiermacher’s ideal. Sometimes our desires do not subside, but intensify as we seek to follow God. The pious heart is not simply a placid one; often it is restless. At the beginning of St. Augustine’s spiritual autobiography are these memorable words: “Our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”¹⁰ This rest may not occur until the end of our days; in the meantime we desire, have desires modified, and experience the growth of desire. Our desires may even cause us to cry out to God for a change, just like Hannah.

Hannah makes a promise. Many of the promises in the Old Testament depict God as the originator of a promise: God pledges faithfulness to Israel and asks of Israel something in return: to keep the commandments God has given. But in this opening chapter, a person makes a p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Publisher’s Note
• Series Introduction by William C. Placher and Amy Plantinga Pauw
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why Samuel? Why Now?
• 1 Samuel
• 2 Samuel
• Afterword
• Selected Bibliography
• Index of Scripture
• Index of Subjects