Saul, David, and the Formation of the Israelite Monarchy: Revisiting the Historical and Literary Context of 1 Samuel 9–2 Samuel 5 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Memories of the Early Israelite Monarchy in the Books of Samuel and Kings
WRITING, REWRITING, AND OVERWRITING IN THE BOOKS OF DEUTERONOMY AND THE FORMER PROPHETS ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF CYNTHIA EDENBURG, 2019
FOR A COPY OF THIS PAPER PLEASE CONTACT ME VIA EMAIL Full citation: Sergi, O., Lipschits, O. and Koch, I. 2019. Memories of the Early Israelite Monarchy in the Books of Samuel and Kings. In: Koch, I., Römer, T. and Sergi, O. 2019. Writing, Rewriting, and Overwriting in the Books of Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets: Collected Essays in Honor of Cynthia Edenburg (BETL 304). Leuven: Peeters: 173–194.
The Three Kingdoms and David's Rise to Kingship
Journal of Asian Evangelical Theology 24, 2020
This article is part of my ongoing project aimed at reading 1 and 2 Samuel as a unified work focusing on politics. My project reflects a recent trend in biblical scholarship, spearheaded by Yoram Hazony, of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, to read the Old Testament as primarily a work of philosophy rather than a religious document. Making an argument very similar to my own are Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes in their recent book, The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel. Their close exegesis of the lives of Saul and David provides abundant insights that are applicable “wherever and whenever political power is at stake.” In this paper I build on Halbertal and Holmes’s work while adding a comparative element, discussing similarities between 1 and 2 Samuel and a medieval Chinese novel, The Three Kingdoms.
The Philistines serve as an important literary device in the tales of the emergence of monarchy in Israel: they are the Other against whom the plot is constructed. According to the grand narrative in 1 Sam 4–2 Sam 8, the Philistines are the fierce warriors who threatened the highland tribes who, in response, united and established kingship. Decades of struggle culminated in the coronation of Saul, his heroic deeds, his downfall, and the rise of David, who ultimately vanquished the Philistines. From the moment of their defeat onward, this Other appears only sporadically in the stories of the monarchy in Israel (e.g., 1 Kgs 15:15, 27) and Judah (e.g., 2 Kgs 18:8). For many years this sequence of the formative days of the emergence of monarchy in Israel dominated historical reconstructions and was synchronized with ancient written sources and material remains. But the assumingly perfect accord of biblical texts, Egyptology, and archaeology suffers from major flaws that preclude accepting the historicity of the grand narrative. Instead, an alternative interpretation of the material remains involved is presented and a framework for reconstructing several genuine memories of the Philistines in the stories of the early monarchy is proposed.
Teleioteti, 2019
Though many studies have probed the significance of the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam 7:1-17) within the biblical canon, few have endeavoured to explore its significance within the narrative of Samuel. This thesis argues that by weaving references to God's promises made to David (collectively known as the Davidic Covenant) throughout his narrative, that author of Samuel reveals God's will to strip away all human pretension by bringing His promises to fulfillment through the lowly David, whose acension to kingship and endurance therein is owing all to God. In this way, the author fulfills his purpose to demonstrate God's sovereign working in history to establish His kingdom on earth through His chosen priest-king, a descendant of David, in fulfillment of the promises He made beforehand. Engaging in a literary close-reading of the text of Samuel, the author shows how the narrative of Samuel is shaped towards this end. In the present environment of high interest in the Book of Samuel, this contribution by James Rutherford is most welcome. Rutherford is well versed in current scholarship on Samuel, but his work moves well beyond this scholarship to contribute fresh insights, not least in respect of the priestly character of King David. And concerning its structure, Rutherford argues that the Book of Samuel as a whole is arranged and narrated so as to draw attention to the centrality of the Davidic Covenant of 2 Samuel 7. Having myself studied 1 and 2 Samuel for decades now, I was nevertheless benefitted at numerous points from Rutherford’s creative interpretive suggestions. His is a work well conceived, well written, and worthy of a serious read." V. Philips Long, Professor of Old Testament, Regent College This thesis argues that by weaving references to God’s promises made to King David throughout his narrative, the author of Samuel reveals God’s will to strip away all human pretension by bringing his promises to fulfillment through a lowly man whose ascension to kingship and endurance therein is entirely owing to God. In this way, the Samuel author fulfils his purpose of demonstrating God’s sovereign working in history to establish his kingdom on earth through his chosen priest-king, a descendant of David. The thesis represents an excellent piece of work that does a great job of bringing together into one coherent argument, focused on the Davidic covenant, much of the best recent narrative-critical research on 1-2 Samuel, and from this point of view represents a distinctive contribution to the field of Samuel studies." Iain Provan, Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies, Regent College
A Sure House: Studies on the Dynastic Promise to David in the Books of Samuel and Kings
This book is a study of the texts referring or alluding to the dynastic promise to David in the books of Samuel and Kings (and the "Law of the King" in Deut 17,14-20). Attention is paid to the textual problems of some of the studied passages, especially 2 Sam 7 which has different meanings in the most important textual witnesses (MT, LXXB, LXXL, 1 Chr 17MT, 1 Chr 17LXX). Although the most ancient retrievable text of 2 Sam 7 is not to be identified with MT, this text form corresponds to the original basic meaning of the chapter. Special attention is given to the value of 1 Chr 17 for the reconstruction of the oldest text of 2 Sam 7. There are many "synonymous" differences between 2 Sam 7 and 1 Chr 17, which cannot be explained as resulting from "mistakes" or "tendentious" (e.g. ideologically motivated) changes in one of the two traditions. A statistic study of the patterns of agreements among the witnesses leads to the conclusion that evaluating these differences "case by case" would lead to arbitrary decisions; the great majority of these differences are a result of the Chronicler's relatively free approach to his source. The emergence of 2 Sam 7,1-17 may be construed in two historical contexts. In the "exilic" period, the purpose of the dynastic promise being linked to the polemic against the traditional significance of the temple in royal ideology might be to preserve-or to establish-the validity of the promise after the fall of the temple. Alternatively, 2 Sam 7,1-17 might have been written at the time after Zerubbabel (at the end of the 6th / beginning of the 5th c.?), during the period when the temple of Jerusalem was restored, but the Davidides could not derive their legitimacy from it, since the cult and the temple were understood as the domain of priests under the auspices of Persian rule. The author of 2 Sam 7,1-17 may also be thought to be responsible for 1 Sam 10,8 + 13,7b-15a and 1 Sam 25, the texts that primarily emphasize, in accordance with 2 Sam 7,14-15, the unconditional nature of the dynastic promise once it is given. In the books of Kings, 1 Kgs 2,24.33.45; 1 Kgs 11,29-38*; 15,4; 2 Kgs 8,19 could be ascribed to this hand as well. All these texts could have been written in both the Neo-Babylonian and Persian period, similarly to 2 Sam 7,1-17. However, some other references to the dynastic promise in Samuel (1 Sam 2,27-36; 2 Sam 7,18-29; 22,51; 23,1-7) cannot be dated to the Neo-Babylonian period (or even the very beginning of the Persian period). Theoretically, these texts could belong to the same redactional layer as 2 Sam 7,1-17, but only in case we adopt the later one of the two suggested dates of its origin. In contrast, if the earlier date is accepted for the first group of texts, the second group must have been added later (in one or several stages). At any rate, whereas all these texts may be regarded as a defense of actual political interests of the ex-royal family in the exilic and/or post-exilic period, this does not hold for 1 Kgs 2,4; 8,25; 9,4-5 where the power of the Davidic kings is explicitly conditional upon the eternal loyalty of David's descendants to Yhwh. These passages cannot be ascribed to the same author(s) as the other references to the dynastic promise in Samuel-Kings; on the other hand, this redaction in Kings was perhaps not driven by actual anti-Davidic political interests, representing rather an attempt to explain the unfulfillment of the dynastic promise. Following W. Oswald (and building on the work of S. McKenzie), we ascribe the oracles against the founders of the dynasties (or, in the case of Ahab, the dynasty's other "prominent" member) ruling in northern Israel and the related fulfillment notices (