SUMMARY
First SamuelThe judge who anointed the first two kings of Israel begins with the rise of Samuel the prophet and the fallThe fall refers specifically to the disobedience of Adam and Eve when they listened to Satan rather than adhering to God's command not to eat the fruit from the tree. When people act contrary to God's will, they are said to fall from from grace... of the house of EliPriest at Shiloh who cared for young Samuel. the priestA priest is a person who has the authority to perform religious rites. In New Testament times priests were responsible for daily offerings and sacrifices in the temple.. Sandwiched between these narratives is a rollicking account of the journeys of the ark of the covenantThe ark of the covenant was a box or chest that God commanded the Israelites to make from wood richly adorned with gold. The ark was built to contain the tablets of the covenant (the Ten Commandments). The ark served as a mobile shrine to... as it is captured by the Philistines and eventually makes its way back to the Israelites.
ANALYSIS
A first reading of these chapters leaves the impression that one is still reading the book of Judges. Chronologically speaking, of course, this is true. First Samuel continues the story begun in Judges (the delightful short story of RuthThe great-grandmother of David that separates Judges from Samuel in our English Bibles appears at another place in the Hebrew Bible). The Philistines are still a threat, Israel still has no centralized government, and Samuel appears as a charismatic leader like the so-called “judges” who deliver Israel from their Philistine oppressors.
But there is change in the air as well. Though it appears here, the crushing pattern of disobedience followed by oppression, repentance, and deliverance, only to return to disobedience again–so familiar in the book of Judges–is not as rigidly presented.
- Samuel is introduced as a gift of God both to HannahThe mother of the prophet Samuel., his barren mother, and to Israel, at peace for now; a gift that keeps on giving through his early childhood where his sensitivity and openness to God’s calling is deftly contrasted with the priestly shenanigans of Eli’s sons (chapters 1-3).
- That it was about time for God to raise up a mediator like Samuel is clarified in the tale of the ark’s adventures where the hostilities between Israel and the neighboring Philistines provide an informative background. Though Samuel is hardly mentioned in this section, the wicked sons of Eli are done away with (chapters 4-6).
- This sets the scene for the reintroduction of Samuel as the last (and greatest) of the “judges,” who calls the people to repentance and delivers them from the Philistines (chapter 7).
As such, Samuel functions as a transitional figure between the judges and the monarchy.
