Part 19 (1/2)

The book of Samuel was, consequently, not written by Samuel. The words now and beforetime denote too long an interval to allow room for such a supposition. But yet the word Nabi, 'prophet,' not in use in the time of Samuel, actually occurs in the Pentateuch, and other books of the Old Testament; as for example, in Genesis, chap. {132} xx., v. 7; Exodus, chap, vii., v. 1; chap, xv., v. 20; Numbers, chap. xi., v. 29; chap, xii., v. 6; Deuteronomy, chap, xiii., vv. 1,5; chap. xviii., v. 15; chap, x.x.xiv., v. 10; Judges, chap, iv., v. 4; chap, vi., v. 8; 1 Samuel, chap, iii., v. 20; chap. ix. v. 9; 2 Samuel, chap, vii., v. 2; 1 Kings, chap, xiii., v. 11. In the later of these pa.s.sages it is not to be wondered that the word rendered 'prophet' should be found, because the writer of the First Book of Samuel tells us that it had come into use in his time, and therefore must have been a common word afterwards; but that it should occur in the Book of Genesis proves either that Genesis was written after the introduction of the word into the Hebrew language, or that the writer of the First Book of Samuel is wrong in describing the word as modern, or that the meaning of the word had changed. I believe that the word was actually a new word in the Hebrew language, introduced after the Babylonish captivity, and consequently that the First Book of Samuel, as well as the Pentateuch, were written after that captivity. ('Hebrew Records.')

Verse 15. In a note to Home's 'Deism Refuted,' Bishop Middle-ton is quoted, in favour of, the simplicity of the style of the Bible; the style here is undoubtedly simple enough: 'The Lord had _told Samuel in his ear_ a day before Saul came.'

Verse 24. According to the Hebrew it is not Samuel, but the cook, who speaks in this verse to Saul.

'What are we to think of all this? Can we believe that it was by accident that the a.s.ses of Kish disappeared, and that Saul was led to the house of Samuel? Let those believe this who have faith in seers, fortune-tellers, the G.o.ds of the heathen, and a particular Providence in finding lost a.s.ses; but to those who have not lost or abjured their senses, it is clear that all this is a crafty manoeuvre, secretly contrived to attain a particular object. We cannot doubt that Samuel, a man so acquainted throughout Israel, had already known the person of Saul. He thought his character suited to his end; but, to be a.s.sured precisely of it, it was necessary to talk with him. He could not decently go to see him; he must send for him. He says to a devotee (as men of that caste always had them), ”G.o.d wishes to prove his servant Kish; go, take away his a.s.ses, and lead them to such a place.” The man obeys. Behold Saul seeking them. He does not find them. In such a case, how many Swiss, Bavarian, Tyrolese, Breton, Vendean peasants would go to see the fortune-teller? But nothing was easier to this divine than to bribe people on the route which Saul was to take. It was foreseen by Samuel. He projected the sacrifice and the feast after this calculation.

The portion set apart for an absent guest proves it. When he had Saul in his house he employed the evening to sound him in every way; he prepared him for his new part; finally he sends off the servant, and mysteriously, without witness, performs the grand, the important ceremony of pouring a little oil on his head [mark well the circ.u.mstance; he anoints him without witness in secret for a public effect]; he kisses him, says the text; he tells him that from this moment G.o.d has consecrated him unchangeable, irremovable king of Israel.

{133} 'At this stage of their intimacy, it is evident their confidence was complete. Saul knew and accepted the propositions and conditions of Samuel. He who had measured the mind of his pupil, in order to subjugate him more and more, uttered several predictions to be accomplished immediately. ”In returning home (says he) you will meet at such a place two men, who will tell you that your father has found his a.s.ses; further on you will find three men going to Beitel (or Bethel), they will say to you such things; they will make you such a present. Again, at the hill of the Philistines, you will find a procession of prophets, descending from the high place, to the sound of the lyres, of drums, of pipes, and of guitars. The spirit of G.o.d will seize you; you will prophesy with them; you will be changed to another man. When these signs shall happen to you, you must do that which you wish. G.o.d will be with you; you must come and find me at Galgala to sacrifice: I shall go down there to offer pacificatory sacrifices; you must wait my arrival seven days, and I will let you know what you must do. Saul went, and all that Samuel had predicted came to pa.s.s!” Now, what was there miraculous here? It was easy for Samuel to organise all these meetings, and even to calculate the time and place of the procession of the prophets--a religious ceremony which had its fixed days and hours.

'Saul, dismissed by Samuel, met the procession of prophets, and at sight of the train, seized with the spirit of G.o.d, he set himself to prophesy with them. The people inquired if Saul had become a prophet. Those who knew it asked what had happened to the son of Kish to have also become a prophet? Others observed, what is their father to them? His father-in-law having questioned him on the details of his journey, Saul told him all except the affair of the royalty. Behold, then, a connivance between Saul and Samuel.

'There remained a public scene to play to gain the respect and credulity of the people. For this purpose, Samuel convoked at Maspha a general a.s.sembly. After some reproaches on the part of G.o.d (for nothing can be done without his name), you wish to have, says he, another king than your G.o.d; you shall have him. In the meantime he began to draw by lot the twelve tribes of Israel, to know from which tribe should issue their king. The lot fell upon the tribe of Benjamin: he drew them by lot, and the lot fell upon the family of Matri; and finally on the person of Saul. a.s.suredly if there is any juggling, it is that of drawing lot on a thing already determined. As to the trick of directing the lot, we know that it requires but very little address to play the sleight of hand: it has been seen everywhere; we yet see examples of it

'It is necessary that the Hebrew people should believe that G.o.d himself had made choice of Saul, in order that his choice might impose obedience upon all, and respect to the malcontents, which the opposition had not yet let be seen. By an addition to the jugglery, Saul was not present: it is clear that Samuel had concealed him; they seek him; they soon find him in the hiding-place which the seer had the merit of divining. The people were surprised to see so fine a {134} man; and, according to the literal account, they cried 'G.o.d save the King.' Then Samuel read to the people the statutes of the kingdom, and he wrote them a book, which he deposited, without doubt, in the temple. Alter the ceremony the people were dismissed. Saul returned to his house at his farm; and to form an army he a.s.sembled around him men whose hearts G.o.d had touched; that is the sycophants and partisans of Samuel; but the evil one's exclaimed, What! is this he who is to save us? And they carried him no presents.

'These last expressions point out a party of malcontents. Their spirit and tone of disdain indicate the low rank and condition in which Saul was born, and perhaps also the mediocrity of his talents already known to his neighbours, without exposing a secret infirmity, which we shall soon see developed. We perceive, then, that these malcontents were of a cla.s.s distinguished by birth and by wealth, who are in the text denominated ”evil ones,” because the writer was a believer, a devotee, imbued with the ideas of the priest, his hero, and that of the superst.i.tious majority of the nation.

'The book of royal statutes, written by Samuel, is worthy of some attention. The Hebrew word mashfat [------] which it is designated, signifies sentence rendered--law imposed. What was this law, this const.i.tution of royalty? The answer is not doubtful. It was the same mashfat mentioned in the 8th chapter and 11th verse, where Samuel being angry, says to the people--Here is the mashfat of the King; who will reign over you: he will take your children; he will employ them in the service of his chariots and his horses; they will run before him and before his chariots of war; he will make them captains over thousands and captains of fifties; he will employ them as labourers in his fields to gather his harvest, to make his instruments of war, and his chariots.

He will take your daughters and make them perfumers (or washerwomen), his cooks, and his bakers. He will take your corn fields, your olive orchards, and your vineyards; he will give them to his servants; he will take the tenth of your grain and of your wine to give to his eunuchs and servants; he will take away your slaves, male and female, as well as your a.s.ses; and the best of your goods will be for his use; he will decimate your cattle, and of your own persons he will make slaves.

'Those will be deceived who take this for menaces only. It is simply the picture of what pa.s.sed among the neighbouring people who had kings. It is an instructive sketch of the civil, political, and military state of those times when we see chariots, slaves, eunuchs, t.i.thes, tillages of different kinds, companies and battalions of thousands and fifties, etc., as in later periods. Such were the evils resulting from the theocratic _regime_, or government of priests in the name of G.o.d, that the Hebrews preferred to it a military despotism, concentrated in a single person; who at home had the power of maintaining peace, and abroad to repel aggression and the intrusion of strangers.

'If Samuel had been a just man he would, in establis.h.i.+ng the rights of the king, have also fixed the balance of his duties, what const.i.tuted the rights of the people: he would have imposed upon him, {135} as is practised in Egypt, the duties of temperance in all things, of abstinence from luxury, of repressing his pa.s.sions, of overseeing his agents, of discountenancing flatterers, of resolution to punish, and of impartiality to judge between his subjects. But the priest Samuel was irritated at having wrested from him the sceptre which his knavery had obtained. The most to be regretted in this affair is, that Saul was not endowed with sufficient means or sufficient spirit to counteract this perfidious protector. He could, by feigning to hold Samuel strictly to his order, by obliging him to explain it clearly, have thrown back upon him the checks which he imposed, and thus, in the eyes of the people, he would have had the merit of liberating them. David did not fail; but Saul, altogether a brave warrior, and not suspecting the policy of the temple, became the dupe and the victim of a consummate Machiavelism.

'According to Samuel, the royal statute was a pure and severe despotism, a genuine tyranny. According to Moses, it was quite another thing. To be convinced of this, it is sufficient to read the precept recorded in the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 14, etc. It says, literally, ”When you shall have entered into the land which Jehovah your G.o.d has given you, and which you shall possess and inhabit, and you shall say I will establish over me a king like all the people that surround me, you shall establish him who shall choose Jehovah your G.o.d; you shall take him from among your brethren (Jews); you shall not take a stranger who is not your brother; and this king shall not possess many horses; he shall not make the people return to Egypt to have many horses; he shall not multiply wives, that his heart turn not away; he shall not ama.s.s treasures of gold and silver, and when he shall sit upon the throne he shall write for himself a copy of the law in a book before the priests and the Levites, and this copy shall be in his hands; he shall read it every day of his life to learn to fear Jehovah his G.o.d, and to practise all his precepts.” What a difference between this statute of Moses and that of Samuel! Mark well the words: the king shall be one of your brethren, a man entirely as one of you; and he shall be submissive to the will of the nation. How happens it that Samuel was not intimate with, or did not mention, a single word of an ordinance of the legislator so precise and radical? How was it that no person made the least mention of it? Was this law of Moses unknown or forgotten? or was it by some chance not yet inserted? These are reasonable suspicions in this respect.' (_Vide_ Volney.)

Dr. Giles observes that:--

'The description of a king (Deuteronomy xvii., 16--20), presents nothing offensive to the feelings or injurious to the happiness of the people: nor does it seem to imply that the Almighty would disapprove of the Israelites choosing for themselves a king when they should, be settled in the land of promise. On the contrary, it conveys an idea that the request would be a natural one, and it explains the mode in which the pet.i.tion should be complied with. Is it, then, likely that Samuel had read this description, when he cautioned the people {136} against choosing a king by giving that forcible picture of his tyranny and his rapacity?

'The words of Samuel will seem highly reasonable to those who know the nature of Oriental despotism, if we only suppose that Samuel had never read the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy, which deals so much more leniently with the same contingency.

'It is something, also, to our present point that neither does Samuel cause Saul to copy out the book of the law as before alluded to, and this seems to prove that there was no book of the Law besides the two tables of stone then in existence.'

*Chapter x., v. 5. 'The hill of G.o.d, where is the garrison of the Philistines.' So that, according to this, the G.o.d of the Israelites, who had brought the Jewish nation into the land promising to cast out all opposers, not only failed in the promise, but actually suffered the indignity of having the hill designated _par excellence_ as the 'hill of G.o.d,' occupied by a hostile garrison.

The musical accompaniments to the prophesying, prove that a very different meaning must attach to the word than the one usually given; some allege that the word means poet. It is used in many places in a manner entirely unconnected with the foretelling of future events. In the epistle to t.i.tus the word prophet is used in reference, probably to a heathen poet. By Chronicles, chap, xxv., v. 123, the word 'prophesying' clearly denotes musical performances 'under order of the king.' The Douay in a foot-note tells me that prophesying is singing praises to G.o.d by divine impulse.

I am inclined to consider the word prophet as synonymous with that of _bard_. Our ancient bards recited the events of the past, and in stirring poetical phraseology gave forth their hopes and conjectures of victories in the future.

Verse 12 has no connection with the rest of the chapter, and it is not consistent in itself. There is no connection between the question 'Who is their father?' and the following words, 'Therefore it became a proverb, is Saul also amongst the prophets?' Besides which, in chap, xix., v. 24, we get a totally different version of the origin of the proverb.

Verse 25. This book is lost, I presume. It is never referred to afterwards. Was it a revelation from G.o.d?

Verse 26. Why did not G.o.d touch the hearts of every man.

*Chapter xi., vv. 4 to 7. Although Saul was the anointed king of Israel, he seems to have been ploughing in a field, and to have killed the very oxen he had been using. The king at that time, therefore, was not so well off as the priest.

Verses 8 to 15. 'The Hebrew version says, thirty thousand men of Judea, and three hundred thousand of the eleven tribes. The Greek, on the contrary, says, seventy thousand of Judea, and six hundred thousand of the others. Such variations, which are often repeated, show the credit that is due to these books of morals. According to the Greek version, by supposing every six persons to furnish one man-of-war, there would be three millions of inhabitants on a {137} territory of nine hundred square leagues; consequently more than three thousand persons to the square league; which is against all probability. The most reasonable number, perhaps, is twenty thousand picked men for a _coup de main_, which moreover demanded rapidity. Saul departs like an arrow; arrives at break of day, and pours on the camp of the Ammonites, who, accustomed to the sluggish manner of the Jews, expected no such movement. Saul surprises, destroys them, and delivers the town. The people, charmed with this beginning, come uncovered, and propose to Samuel to slay those who do not recognise and salute the king. Saul brave, and for this reason generous, opposes it. This once Samuel is satisfied, and gives orders that there snail be a general a.s.sembly at Gilgal to renew the installation, which was done. But why this second ceremony? Was it to give the opponents and malcontents an opportunity to rally with the majority of the people, and to stifle a schism which had more partisans than are indicated? for we see symptoms of it when in the approaching war with the Philistines there were found in their camp many Hebrew deserters, bearing arms against the party of Samuel and Saul. This was the first apparent motive, and it was quite ingenious. But we shall soon discover that Samuel, always, profound and full of deception, had another secret intimately connected with his interests and character.

The text tells us, chap, xii., that the a.s.sembly being formed, Samuel standing before all the people, made a speech, the substance of which was that he had managed their affairs with perfect integrity; that he had taken no one's ox or a.s.s; that he had oppressed or persecuted no one; that he had not taken bribes; and that nevertheless he had been forced to put a king in his place. He attributes this step as against G.o.d. But why G.o.d? It was himself. As, by the nature of the royal _regime_, such as he has pictured it, Saul could not fail to cause similar vexations, a contrast was created which even at this time tends to diminish the credit he had just, acquired, and shows the jealousy that actuated Samuel.

'The priest insisted that G.o.d had, until then, governed the nation by his special servants, such as Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Jephtha, etc.; and that the people, now rebellious, wished to govern themselves by men of their own choice. But as this new system took away the supreme and arbitrary power from the priests of whom Samuel was the head, we see whence came the deep hatred which he entertained for it; and his sacerdotal arrogance in setting himself up as the chief interpreter and representative on earth of the Divinity. Here the writer (a priest also) has joined a remarkable circ.u.mstance: ”You see,” says Samuel to the people, ”that we are in the time of harvest [the end of June, or beginning of July.] Well, I will invoke G.o.d, and he will answer me in a voice of thunder and rain, and you shall know your sin of disobedience.”