 One thing that kept cropping up, and it's something that crops up every time I teach this course, and I should always say something about it preemptively, it's just a terminological issue. Israelites are not Israelis. The word Israeli, term Israeli, refers to a citizen of the modern state of Israel. So, there are no Israelis before the year 1948. Okay, and we use Israelite to refer to the ancient inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Okay, so that's an important distinction, and I know you hear Israelis, and so that's just a term that people thought would apply to anyone who inhabited a place called Israel. But Israeli and Israelite are used precisely in order to make that distinction between the ancient and the modern period. Okay, so we're talking about Israelites, and while we're on this subject we're not talking about Jews yet either. We can't really use the term Jew. It's not historically accurate for the period that we've been dealing with in the Bible. When we get towards the very end of the biblical period, and we see that when Persia conquers and reconstitutes this area, where it designates as a province, this area as Yehud, right? So, the Persians are going to be the ones to create a province called Yehud in this area, including Jerusalem, and they will allow the Israelites who are in exile to go back and live there, and they will become Yehudites, and this is going to be where the word Jew comes from, but that's not going to be historically accurate before the end of the sixth century. Okay, so, and even then it's still a technical term having to do with living in the province of Yehud. It's not an ethnic term, the word Yehud or Jew doesn't become an ethnic term for quite some time. So, Israelites is the correct term for the group that we're dealing with here. Hebrew is not bad either. It basically is a linguistic term that refers to people who speak Hebrew. And so, the Hebrews is something of a social, ethnic term, but based mainly on the linguistic feature of speaking Hebrew. Okay, so no Israelis, only Israelites. All right, we were reaching the end of Joshua, and we're going to be moving on to judges today. And the Bible describes the early Israelite sociopolitical unit as the tribe. And this is what's going to be featured in the last part of the book of Joshua. We're going to see that tribes are territorial units. A tribe is attached to a territory. Within the tribe you have clan elders, and the clan elders are the ones who dispense justice. They make decisions regarding the general welfare of the tribe. So, the second half of the book of Joshua. So, the first half recounts the conquest, and then the second half recounts the division of the land among the twelve tribes, who it is claimed were descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. We have a couple of different lists of the tribes in the Bible. So, if you take a look sometime you might want to compare the list that's in Genesis 29 or 30. It's pretty much the same list that's in Genesis 49. Now, these are in blessings. You know, patriarchs will very often give the blessings of all their children. And so, you look at the names of the children, and you'll see the list of twelve. You have the six sons of Leia. You have the four sons of the two concubines, Birah and Zilpah, and the two sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin. And that is probably the oldest list that we have. But if you compare it to Numbers 26 in Joshua and the list that's in Joshua with the distribution of the land, you'll see that Levi is not included. Presumably because the Levites, who were to function as a priestly class in Israel, they have no land allotment. They are supported through the cultic practices and the perquisites that come from the sacrifices. And so, instead of the Levites, we find that there are tribes named for the two sons of Joseph. So, there is no Joseph tribe per se. Joseph's two sons are Ephraim and Menache, and this is how we then reach the number twelve. So, there's no Levi in the later lists, but the Joseph tribes have been split into Ephraim and Menache, if you will, who are said to be the two sons of Joseph. So, the consensus is, a scholarly consensus, is that what you have in Canaan is an alliance of tribes, perhaps not precisely twelve. At different times there might have been a different number and different groups that came together at different times, but you have these tribes who are worshiping Yahweh, perhaps not exclusively as we've seen, and they have some loose obligations of mutual defense in these different alliances. The Book of Joshua presents this very idealized portrait of these twelve tribes who are pre-existent. They come into the land of Canaan already formed basically as twelve tribes are united with one another by their covenant with Yahweh, and they conquer the land in the desert. But there are other elements of the biblical narrative, as we've already begun to talk about and will continue to talk about today as we move into judges, which really suggests there was much more sporadic cooperation among the tribes. You never have more than one or two really acting in concert until the very end of the Book of Judges. And so this suggests that there really was no super-tribal government or coordination at this early age. The ark is said to have circulated among the different tribal territories. It didn't rest permanently in the territory of one tribe until somewhat late in the period it comes to rest in a place called Shiloh, Shiloh. And it seems that only in extraordinary cases would you have the tribes acting together, perhaps by a decision of the tribal elders. But superimposed upon the authority of the elders is the authority of certain inspired individuals. These are known as judges, and it is the exploits of these individuals that are recorded in the Book of Judges. And we'll turn to the Book of Judges now. The Book of Judges is set in that transitional period between the death of Joshua and the establishment of a monarchy system. It's about a 200-year period, from about 1200 to 1000 or so. It is an imaginative and embellished reconstruction of that period of transition. We'll also see it's a very ideologically laden reconstruction. So the stories depict local tribal skirmishes, rather than confrontations between nations. You have pretty much skirmishes with groups around the country. And that makes a lot of sense for this 200-year period when Canaan is making a transition, a transition from sort of city-states in the Bronze Age to the emerging nation of Israel, next to it Philistia, on the east side Aram. So we have nations that are going to be coming into being by the end of this period. But there's this 200-year transitional period before you get the formation of these independent states. Like Joshua, the Book of Judges consists of various sources that were fused together in a Deuteronomistic framework. We'll come back to that. In fact, it's really a collection of individual stories centered on local heroes, several of whom are, interestingly enough, socially marginal. These are pretty scrappy characters. You've got the illegitimate son of a prostitute. You've got a bandit. You've got very interesting colorful and, as I say, socially marginal people. And these stories have a real folkloristic flavor to them. They're full of drama and a lot of local color, local references to places and customs and so on. But if you were to list the stories of the various judges, the major judges, we have six major and six minor judges. The minor judges is simply a reference to the fact that they judged for a certain period of time. So there's twelve listed in all, I believe, and there are six major judges for whom there is a lengthy story, beginning with Ehud in chapter three. It's a very, very funny story. Ehud leads the Israelites against the Moabites, a lot of sort of bathroom humor in that one. In chapters four and five you have Deborah, who helps the Israelites in battle against certain Canaanite groups. You have four chapters, chapters six through nine, recording the adventures of Gideon. Gideon fights against the Midianites. Gideon is interesting. There are signs in his story that he is divinely chosen. There's some evidence of the annunciation of his birth and some signal that he is divinely chosen. Then in 11 and into a little bit of chapter 12 you have the story of Yiftach, or Jephthah, who fights against the Ammonites. Very interesting and tragic story of his daughter, which echoes similar sorts of stories in Greek legend. You also have chapters 13 to 16, Samson, who of course fights against the Philistines. Samson is somewhat atypical. He also has a tremendous and fatal weakness for foreign women, and that's a strong theme throughout the Samson stories. We'll come back to some of that. Then towards the end you have some interesting chapters at the end. 17 and 18 tell the story of Micah, or Micah, and his idolatrous shrine. Then finally the quite horrifying and gruesome tale, beginning chapters 19, going on through 20 and 21, the Levi's concubine and the Civil War. We'll come back and talk about some of these in a little more detail, but that's just to give you a sense of the different units that are in the story that are in the book. These stories have then been embedded in a deuteronomistic framework. This framework provides the editor's view and pronouncement on and judgment of the period. Some of the stories seem to have been left pretty much intact themselves, or isn't, in many cases, an interference inside the story, only a few interpretations that express the editor's theology of history. But the editor's theology of history is best seen in the preface to the book, which is why I sort of stuck these over to the side, this preface that frames the book. Chapter one gives a detailed summary of the situation at the end of Joshua's conquest, taking stock, listing the extensive areas that Joshua had failed to take from the Canaanites, despite the impression that's given by the book of Joshua, certainly the first part of it, that they did everything they were supposed to have done and fulfilled the commandments to Moses and so on. But here we get a list of all the places they failed to take from the Canaanites, starting in Judah and moving northward. They tend to always start in the southern area in Judah and then list things in a northward direction. Then in Judges 2, verses 1 through 5, an angel appears before Joshua's death, and the angel recounts God's redemption of the Israelites from Egypt and then quotes God as follows, I will never break my covenant with you, but you, for your part, must make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land. You must tear down their altars. That's a phrase that's frowned in Deuteronomy 12. Again, one of those phrases that makes us link Deuteronomy with all of these subsequent books, and we refer to it all as a school, the Deuteronomistic school, because you have these phrases from Deuteronomy that can be peppered throughout the rest of these books. God will be faithful to His covenant, in other words, but it's a two-way street. And if Israel doesn't do her part, she will be punished. The editor is setting us up with that expectation before we even begin to read in account of what happens. The angel then relates that Israel has already not been obedient, so God has resolved. This is a fate of complete at this point. God has resolved that he will no longer drive the Canaanites out before the Israelites. He will drive them as a snare and a trap to test their resolve and their loyalty. So it's a very far cry from the idealized portrait that we had in the first half of the book of Joshua. So that opening announcement, listing all of the ways in which they have failed to take the land, and the visit by the angel who tells them, you've already failed in so many ways, and so God's not even going to help you to route the Canaanites any longer. That's followed then in a section from chapter 2, verse 11 through chapter 3, verse 6. And this is a kind of prospective summary, a summary before the fact of the nation's troubles. And this is a passage that expresses the editor's judgment on the nation of this period. Another generation arose after them, which had not experienced the Lord, experienced the deliverance of the Lord, or the deeds that he had wrought for Israel. And the Israelites did what was offensive to the Lord, what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, an important phrase, what was evil in the eyes of the Lord. They followed other gods from among the gods of the peoples around them and bowed down to them. They provoked the Lord. Then the Lord was incensed at Israel, and he handed them over to foes who plundered them, as the Lord had declared and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were in great distress. And then the Lord raised up leaders who delivered them from those who plundered them. But they did not heed their leaders either. They went astray after other gods and bowed down to them. And I'm sort of skipping. I'm condensing all of this. When the Lord raised up leaders for them, the Lord would be with the leader and would save them from their enemies during the leader's lifetime, for the Lord would be moved to pity by their moanings because of those who oppressed and crushed them. But when the leader died, they would again act basely, even more than the preceding generation, following other gods, worshiping them and bowing down to them. They omitted none of their practices and stubborn ways. So in short, it's the view of the Deuteronomistic historian expressed here in Judges that Israel's crises are caused by her infidelity to Yahweh through the worship of Canaanite gods. And for this sin, God sells the Israelites to their enemies and then moved to pity when they cry out under the oppression. He raises leaders to deliver Israel. And this pattern of sin, punishment, repentance, and deliverance through leaders is the recurring pattern throughout the book, and it punctuates the transition from each of these leaders that God will raise up. So it's this recurring pattern. And this Deuteronomistic perspective, as well as Deuteronomistic ideology generally, isn't always apparent within the individual stories themselves, as I've stressed. Some of them seem to be pre-Deuteronomistic folktales about the exploits of these local heroes. They were popular stories. So Gideon, we'll see, builds an altar, despite the fact that we know Deuteronomy insisted on centralized worship and prohibited outlying alters, or multiple alters. He is also known, his other name, if you will, is Jeru Baal. It's a name that's made with Baal, meaning Baal will strive or Baal will contend. So this is an alternate name for Gideon. He erects an idol. The people of Shechem, where he is, after his death, they continue to worship Baal Barit, the Baal of the Covenant, which is an interesting sort of merger of Baalism and Covenantal religion. So you have a lot of these elements that, presumably, the Deuteronomist would disapprove. The story of Samson also appears to be largely pre-Deuteronomistic. Again, probably a very popular, entertaining folktale about a legendary strongman. You know, he can lift up the gates of the city, he can tie the tails of three hundred foxes with tortures and so on. But this great strongman is undone by his one weakness, which is a weakness for foreign women, particularly Philistine women. At least we think Delilah was Philistine. And that proves to be his downfall. So you can see, in a way, how these stories were fodder for the Deuteronomistic editor. The Deuteronomistic editor insists that foreign gods, often accessed through marriage to foreign women, exercised a fatal attraction for Israel, and it was the inability to resist the snare of idolatry that would ultimately lead to ruin. We have to remember that the final editing of this narrative history is happening in exile. It's happening from people for whom all of this is ultimately leading towards a tragedy. All right? So the leaders who are raised by God are called judges. That's a term that's used in other Semitic texts to refer to leaders in the Second Millennium, sometimes human and sometimes divine. So the term is used here in the biblical texts. It refers always to a human leader and one who exercises many different powers or functions, not merely judicial. We think of the word judge really in a judicial way, but that wasn't the extent of the function of the judge. The Israelite judge was actually primarily a military leader commissioned with a specific task, and only in times of national crisis. The judge had a charismatic quality, which in several cases is expressed by the phrase, the spirit of the Lord came upon him. God would raise up the judge to deliver the people from a specific crisis. The judge might muster troops from two tribes or three tribes, sometimes only a clan or two, which suggests that there was no real national entity at this particular time. We never see more than one or two tribes acting together or some clans of a tribe. But the institution of judges never created fixed political forms. And each judge differed from the last in background, in class, and even gender. We do have one female judge, Deborah, who did exercise judicial functions evidently according to the text. The judges aren't chosen necessarily for their virtue. Many of them seem to fall into the literary type of the trickster, you know, a bit like Jacob, some of them are crafty, tricky types. Gideon is explicitly chosen for his weakness and not because of his strength. It turns out that he's quite a ruthless fighter, certainly not a devout Yahwist. Jephthah is an outlaw. Samson is hardly a moral exemplar. So these are not meant to be idealized heroes, but popular heroes. And there's a very interesting tension in the book of Judges that will continue beyond into the book of Samuel as well, but a tension regarding kingship. The individual stories seem to suggest a very deep-seated distrust of kingship. So in Judges 8 the people asked one of the judges, Gideon at that time, to become king. And he responds this way, I shall not rule over you, nor shall my sons rule over you, Yahweh shall rule over you. That's 8, verse 23. And indeed the short reign of Gideon's ruthless son, Avimelech, which means my father is king, ironically, is a complete disaster. The position of judge is temporary. God was viewed as the permanent king in Israel. The temporary authority of the judge derived from the kingship of God, so the judge's position could not become absolute or permanent. That would be a rejection of God's leadership. So the book of Judges seems to be squarely against the notion of kingship in Israel. But the book as a whole seems to suggest a certain progression towards kingship. And this emerges from some of the kind of editorial elements and interpolations. The final chapters of Judges document Israel's slow slide into disorder and ultimately into civil war. Chapter 18 opens with an ominous statement or phrase that recurs throughout the final chapters. In those days there was no king in Israel. That happens again in chapter 19, verse 1, chapter 21, verse 25. And in addition it is said that everyone did, as he pleased, or everyone did what was right in his own eyes since chapter 21, verse 25. By the end of the book the Israelites find themselves spiraling out of control in an orgy of violence and rape and in the final chapter all out civil war. A Levite's concubine is raped by a gang, murdered by the tribe of Benjamin. And this is an atrocity that's to be avenged by all the other tribes. The Levite takes her body, cuts it into twelve parts, sends a part to each of the tribes as a call to war, to join together in a war of extermination against Benjamin. And many scholars have observed that it's ironic and tragic that the one time the tribes do all act in concert is against one of their own. This is the only time all twelve tribes, or the other eleven tribes, come out against a common enemy and it is the tribe of Benjamin. At this point, however, they realize with some regret that the tribe of Benjamin is near extinction. This is not a good thing. So the other tribes then arrange to kidnap women from Shiloh as mates, Shiloh, for the remaining Benjaminites. So as a final comment on this horrible symphony of barbarity, of rape, murder, civil war, kidnapping, forced marriage, the Deuteronomistic historian concludes the book of Judges with this refrain, Those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did as he pleased. It's a wonderfully polythemic phrase, no king in Israel, no human king, perhaps also given their behavior no divine king. So again, I see that as sort of an ominous refrain throughout, there was no king in Israel, every man is doing as he pleases and look at the situation we've reached by the end of the book of Judges. The Deuteronomists' explanation for the moral and social bankruptcy of Israel at the end of the period of the Judges and the dawn, or on the eve of the monarchy, is Israel's continued infidelity. And the prescription for this situation, at some level in the text, is a king. This sits uneasily with an anti-monarchic trend in some of these stories. But according to the Deuteronomistic historian, the institutional structure of a kingdom of God, sort of a theocracy, is how a later Jewish historian would describe this period, a kingdom in which God is the king, and the community is led by inspired judges in times of crisis. That structure, that institutional structure, failed to establish stability, a stable continuous government. It failed to provide leadership against Israel's enemies within and without. You have Amon and Moab to the east, you have the Philistines to the west, and they soon managed to subjugate the entire land. So the tribes seem to be conscious of the need for a centralized authority, a strong central authority, and the demand for a king arises. In their search for a new political order, the people turn to the prophet Samuel. Samuel is the last in a line of prophet judges, and they ask him to anoint a king for them. So we're moving now into the book of Samuel. And the book of Samuel deals with the transition from the period of the judges to the period of the monarchy. In the first book of Samuel you have the opening chapters that record the birth and career of Israel's last judge, Samuel. So that's chapters one through four. The next few chapters, through chapter seven, deal with the Philistine crisis. And at this time the Ark of the Covenant itself is captured and taken into Philistine territory. Chapters eight through fifteen give us the story of Samuel and Saul, who will be Israel's first king. And then the last half of the book, 16 onto 31, are going to give us the story of Saul and David. So first Samuel opens with the story of Samuel's birth to Hannah and her dedication of her son to the service of God at Shiloh at the sanctuary at Shiloh. So Shiloh appears to have been the most important shrine in the period before the monarchy. The prophet Jeremiah is going to refer to Shiloh as the place where God first made his name to dwell. You remember the Deuteronomy is always speaking about centralization around a place where God will cause his name to dwell. At first that was Shiloh. It's been noted that after the birth of Samuel the text conveys a sense of three crises. And I've sort of listed them on the far side of the board over there. The first crisis is a religious crisis. The priest of the time, Ailey Eli, he's also described as a judge, but perhaps that's just to fit him literally into the pattern of leadership that predominates in this section of the Bible. He's said to be aging and his sons are quite corrupt. As a result the text says the word of Yahweh is rare in those days. So there's a crisis in religious leadership. There's also a crisis in political leadership or political succession to some degree. Judges 2 tells us that Eli's two sons are clearly not worthy. They dishonor the sacrifices and according to one reading they lie with the women at the door of the shrine. God says he will cut off the power of Eli's house. His two sons will die in one day and God will find and raise up a faithful priest. But in the meantime no leader is apparent. So we have a crisis in succession, if you will. The third crisis is a military crisis. In Judges 4 through 7 the Israelites suffer a defeat at the hands of the Philistines. I'm sorry, 1 Samuel. They suffer a defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The ark is captured, Eli's two sons are killed, and the news of all of this kills Eli as well. So when we first meet Samuel we wonder, is he going to be the answer to all of these crises, these problems? Chapter 3 says that the Word of God comes to Israel through Samuel. In contrast to this statement that the Word of God was rare in those days, we hear that the Word of God is now coming to Israel through Samuel. It raises some hope. In Chapter 7 Samuel exhorts the people to stop serving alien gods, and Ashti wrote, and to serve God, and only then will God deliver them. So the people do this, and Samuel leads them. He employs his military tactics mostly include prayer and confession and sacrifice, but he manages to lead them to victory over the Philistines. God thunders and the Philistines flee in fear. So Samuel seems to be combining in one person several functions. He is a priest. He's in the shrine. He offers sacrifices. He builds altars. He's also a seer and a prophet. He receives the Word of the Lord, and like a prophet he will be anointing kings. And he's also a judge in the sense that he leads Israel to military victory. But he also travels a circuit acting as a judge in a judicial sense. It says throughout Israel that really most of the places we hear about are within the confines of Benjamin. So this story seems to mostly be focused in the southern region, in the tribe of Benjamin. But even he is unable to provide Israel with the kind of leadership that the text suggests is required. The Philistine threat is going to reemerge, and the crisis of succession will remain obviously. And so the representatives of the twelve tribes come together to Samuel to ask for a king. Samuel is therefore a kind of a transition figure between Israel, the semi-democratic confederation, and Israel, the nation, and monarchy. It's going to be a huge transformation, as we'll see. But he's going to be the one to bridge the gap to this new kind of leadership. Now, as in judges, the historical account that we have in 1 Samuel contains many contradictions, many duplicates. So scholars take these as evidence of the existence of various conflicting sources and traditions that have been put together in a larger framework. So, for example, we have three different accounts of the choice of Saul as king. We have two accounts of his being rejected ultimately by God. We have different accounts of how David came to know Saul and how David entered Saul's service. We have more than one account of David's escape into Philistine territory of his sparing Saul's life that happens twice, twice he has the opportunity to kill him, twice he spares his life, and so on. Goliath is killed twice. Only one of those occasions is by David. On the other occasion, he's killed by some other hero. So, most important for us, however, is the existence of sources that hold opposing views of the institution of kingship. This makes for an interesting and complicated structure in the book. Some of the passages are clearly anti-monarchic and some are clearly pro-monarchic. I've put them up here. The anti-monarchic passages, 1 Samuel 8, there's a passage in 10, there's a passage in 12. The pro-monarchic passages are sandwiched in between these in 9 and 11. So you have this alternating sequence of anti-pro, anti-pro, anti. 1 Samuel 8 is a classic example of the anti-monarchic perspective. Samuel is initially opposed to the whole idea. He apparently resents the usurpation of his own power. Until God says, Heed the demand of the people and everything they say to you, for it is not you they have rejected, it is me they have rejected as their king. Heed their demand but warned them solemnly and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over them. And so Samuel does that. He does that in verses 11 through 18. He warns of the tyranny of kings, the rapaciousness of kings, the service and the sacrifice they'll require of the people in order to support their luxurious court life and their large harem, their bureaucracy and their army. The day will come, Samuel warns, when you cry out because of the king whom you yourselves have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you on that day. Very anti-monarchic passage. The people won't listen to him and they say quite now we must have a king over us that we may be like all the other nations. Let our king rule over us and go out at our head and fight our battles. So this is an explicit and ominous rejection, not only of Yahweh but of Israel's distinctiveness from other nations and what after all does it mean to be a holy nation but to be a nation separated out from observing different rules from other nations. In Samuel 12, Samuel retires and he says, as he does so, See it is the king who leads you now. I am old and gray. And he again outlines what is required of a good king and then again chastises the people for even having asked for a king, warning that really God must be served wholeheartedly. A king should not interpose himself. Some have argued that the editors who compiled the text preserved the pro-monarchic perspective of their sources, but they chose to frame the pro-monarchic passages with their own anti-monarchic passages, with the result that the anti-monarchic passages really provide a stronger interpretive framework and are dominant. And the implication is that despite positive contemporary evaluations of Israel's kings from the perspective of a later period, from the perspective of the editors and perhaps those sitting in exile, the institution of kingship was a disaster for Israel. And that negative assessment is introduced by the Deuteronomistic redactor into his account of the origin of the institution that got himself warned at the time that this transition was being made and this request was being made, got himself warned that this had the potential to be quite disastrous. Others feel that the pro-monarchic and anti-monarchic views were contemporaneous and both ancient, and we see that simply reflected in these dueling sources. Whether one view is older and one more recent, whether both are ancient views or both are recent or later views, the end result is a very complex narrative. As you read it, you feel thrown back and forth between these positive and negative assessments of kingship. And we feel and see these very different views of monarchy in ancient Israel. So these views really defy categorization in the end. They're one of the things that give the book such complexity and sophistication. And not only is there ambivalence, however, about the institution of kingship or monarchy, there's also a great deal of ambivalence about the first inhabitant of the office, the first king, King Saul himself. Judges has three different accounts of Saul's appointment as king. In Chapter 9, 1 Samuel 9, it's a private affair. It's just between Saul and the prophet Samuel. Samuel anoints Saul as king with oil, kind of a private encounter. The anointing of kings is also found among other ancient Near Eastern groups, the Hittites, for example. In Israel, it seems to be a rite of dedication or consecration, making sacred to God, consecration, making sacred. And it's done not just for kings, it's also done for high priests. They are also anointed with sacred oil. Then in 1 Samuel 10, you have Saul's appointment represented as being affected by lottery. It's a lottery that's presided over by Samuel, but there is a lottery system, and the lot falls to Samuel, to be appointed king. In the next chapter in 1 Samuel 11, we have Saul, victorious in a battle over the Ammonites, and so he's elected by popular acclaim, if you will. These could all be complementary ways of his slowly securing the position. They could be seen as competing accounts. But he's an important and a striking figure. Nevertheless, there seems to have been some controversy about Saul, and it's preserved within our sources. On the one hand, he's described in very positive terms. He's tall, he's handsome, he's winning, he's charismatic. In fact, he's associated with ecstatic prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, and he prophesies in a sort of a raving and dancing and ecstatic mode. He defends his own tribe. He defends the tribe of Benjamin, and he defends them from Ammonite raids, and he's hailed by the tribes as a leader in time of war. As king, he did enjoy some initial military victories. He drove the Philistines from their garrisons, and he was such a popular and natural leader that even Samuel, who at first resented Saul and resented the idea of a king, came to appreciate him and was said to really grieve for him upon his death. Once David enters the story, which is about halfway through the book of 1 Samuel, it's 1 Samuel 16, then we begin to see clearly negative assessments of Saul. Perhaps because the sources about David stem from circles that were loyal to the house of David, and David is going to succeed Saul, obviously, as the second king of Israel. Perhaps the negative assessment is because of Saul's ultimate failure and suicide, and that had to be accounted for by identifying some fatal flaw in him. So now, his ecstatic prophecies are presented as irrational fits of mad behavior. So where once the Spirit of the Lord was said to come upon him, now he's said to be seized by an evil spirit from the Lord that rushes upon him suddenly, causing him to rave in his house. Elsewhere, he commits errors. He doesn't obey Samuel's instructions to the letter, and that's going to cost him the support of Samuel and ultimately God. We have two stories of disobedience related in 1 Samuel. One is in chapter 13. He sees that the morale of his men is sagging, and so to sort of rally them together. He officiates at a sacrifice. He was supposed to wait for Samuel to arrive and do it, but he sees that it needs to happen now, and so he officiates at the sacrifice himself. And this appropriation of a priestly function enrages Samuel. And this is Samuel's first pronouncement or prediction that God will not establish Saul's dynasty over Israel, despite the fact, by the way, that other kings at other times will sacrifice with impunity. So it's interesting because David and others will sacrifice and doesn't seem to be a problem. But here it's given as the occasion for Samuel's fury and his first pronouncement that the dynasty of Saul will not be established. In chapter 15, we have a second instance of disobedience that earns Samuel's disapproval. Again, against Samuel's order, he spares the life of an enemy king. This is king Agag. He spares his life and otherwise violates the terms of harem, you know, this notion of total destruction or devotion of booty and enemies to God through total destruction. And again, when he violates the order of harem, Samuel again announces that God regrets having made Saul king. The Lord has this day torn the kingship over Israel away from you and has given it to another who is worthier than you. That's chapter 15, verse 28. In any event, with his support eroding, Saul seems to sink into a deep depression and paranoia. And toward the end of his life, he's depicted as being completely obsessed with David and the threat that David poses to Saul himself but also his dynasty. Saul is angry that his own son, Jonathan, who presumably should succeed him to the throne, has a deep friendship with David and, in fact, throws his support over to David instead of himself. In several jealous rages, Saul attempts to kill David or to have him and his supporters killed, one particularly violent incident. He kills 85 priests who he believes have given shelter to David and his supporters. So in these encounters between Saul and David, the sources portray Saul as this raving, obsessed, paranoid person. And David is seen as a sort of innocent victim, and he protests his loyalty and his support for Saul. He doesn't seem to understand why Saul should view him as a threat. And twice he passes up the opportunity to do away with Saul himself. He says, I will not raise my hand against the Lord's anointed. So the portrayal of Saul as a raving and paranoid man who's obsessed with David probably reflects the views of later writers who were apologists for the House of David. Positive views of Saul's character weren't entirely extinguished by the biblical writer. David's own lament, when he hears of Saul's death by suicide and Jonathan's death also, may reflect Saul's tremendous popularity. David orders the Judah Heights to sing what's called the Song of the Bow in praise of Saul. Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How have the mighty fallen, Saul and Jonathan, beloved and cherished, never parted in life or in death? They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Daughters of Israel weep over Saul, who clothed you in refinery, who decked your robes with jewels of gold. How have the mighty fallen, in the thick of battle, Jonathan, slain on your heights. I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan, you were most dear to me. Your love was wonderful to me more than the love of women. How have the mighty fallen, the weapons of war perished? Of course, representing David as bewailing Saul and Jonathan in these terms would have served an apologetic function as well. They could have any part in or even desire for the death of Saul. So, halfway through the book of Samuel then is the first part of the story of David and his encounters with Saul, running through to the end of 1 Samuel and the first few chapters of 2 Samuel, about 2 Samuel 5. And this whole section, this first part of the story of David, has the feel of a historical novel or narrative. There's lots of direct speech and lots of dialogue, but there is the feel of fiction, of a novel. Given that the ruling family in Judah was referred to as the House of David for several centuries, and given a wonderful archaeological find, dating from the 9th century, it's a Syrian inscription that refers to the House of David, dating to the 9th century. So, given some of those two pieces of evidence, I think most scholars would see David as a real person. None of the details of the biblical account can really be confirmed, of course, but I think the consensus is that David was a real person. There are obviously some who do not hold that and believe this is a much later retrojection. But David is surprisingly enough, presented as very human. He's not a divine character, and he's certainly not even a highly virtuous character. The first installment of his story through about 2 Samuel 5 is clearly sympathetic to David and favorable to David. But it's not entirely obsequious or flattering, which is the sort of genre that we very often have coming out of ancient Near Eastern texts dealing with royalty. This part of the story may be an apology for David, but it's also subtly critical of him. Certainly, David is a hero, but if you read between the lines, he's also an opportunist. He's an outlaw. He serves as a mercenary for the Philistines for some of his life, and he can act pretty unscrupulously. So this isn't royal propaganda in the simple sense, even though, to some degree, it may be an apology for David. As we're going to see in a minute, David will fare much, much worse in the second installment of his story. And this is the story that takes up the bulk of 2 Samuel. Right? So moving now into the book of 2 Samuel and the latter part of David's story. Actually, no, I lied. We're going to back up for one minute just to talk about the different accounts of David's emergence. Right? The three different stories, if you will, of David's discovery. Because in the first, Samuel, again secretly, sort of anoints him King of Judah. So it's a private affair. And he anoints him as the King of Judah, which is just the southern region. And he does this in Saul's lifetime. David is the youngest of his father's son. So this anointment is another reversal of primogeniture, the exultation of the lowly that we see so often in the Bible. In the second account, we first meet David when he is summoned to play music for a disturbed Saul, who of course is suffering from these irrational fits. And then in the third account, David is introduced as the 98-pound weakling who takes on the legendary Goliath. Later, after the death of Saul, David will be anointed King in Hebron over his own tribe Judah. He then manages to either win over or kill off the rest of Saul's household, anyone else who could make a dynastic claim to the throne based on descent from Saul, anyone who might be a threat to his claim to kingship in the more northern region. And eventually, the northern tribes will also elect him King. And so the United Kingship of the northern parts of Israel and the tribe of Judah is finally formed. Once his reign seems secure and the nation is consolidated behind him, David then captures Jerusalem and launches attacks against Israel's neighbors. And the text says that the Lord gives him victory. This is in 2 Samuel 8 now, verses 6 and 14. God gives him victory. The biblical narrative depicts him as the master of a huge empire that stretches from the desert to the sea. There's very little evidence that Israel actually established lasting control over all of the states in this region. It's likely that David was able to take advantage of a power vacuum. Egypt's hold on Canaan was crumbling the, again, the migration of these peoples of the seas throughout this region and other peoples pressing in from the desert had the upset of the two major powers in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, and they really had lost control of the central region. And so David was, and the Israelites were able to take advantage of this and establish an independent state. And David's independent state was probably able to dominate the area for a little while, ending the Philistine threat, for example, and possibly even collecting tribute from some of the surrounding or neighboring states, Amon and Moab and Edom. But it's the prophet Nathan who transmits God's promise to David, a promise that will become the basis for the faith in the eternity of the Davidic kingdom. And that happens in 2 Samuel chapter 7, verses 8 to 17. Very important passage and very important in the construction of what we'll see is a royal ideology, a royal ideology that comes to contest some of the basic ideology of the nation. Thus says the Lord of Hosts. This is Nathan speaking now, quoting God. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel, and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house, meaning here dynasty. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house, meaning now a temple, for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and in accordance with all this vision, Nathan spoke to David. It's a very important passage, and it's with this passage that you have the idea of an eternal and unconditional covenant between God and the house of David, the dynasty of David. And this is now the fourth covenant that we've met, the Noahide covenant, the patriarchal covenant, the Sinaitic covenant, and now the Davidic covenant. Note that God says that David and his descendants may be punished for sin. David only will be punished for sin, but he will not take the kingdom away from them as he did from Saul. So God's oath to preserve the Davidic dynasty, and by implication, we'll see later next time, Jerusalem as well, would lead eventually to a popular belief in the invincibility of the Holy City. In addition, the belief in Israel's ultimate deliverance from enemies became bound up with David and his dynasty. David was idealized by later biblical and post-biblical tradition, and became the paradigmatic king. So even when the kingdom fell finally to the Babylonians in 586, the promise to David's house was believed to be eternal. The community looked to the future for a restoration of the Davidic line, or Davidic king, or a messiah. Now, the Hebrew word messiah simply means anointed. One who is mushiah is anointed with the Holy Oil. That's a reference to the fact that the king was initiated into office by means of Holy Oil being poured on his head. So King David was the messiah of God, the king anointed by or to God. And in the exile, Israelites would pray for another messiah, meaning another king from the house of David appointed and anointed by God to rescue them from enemies and reestablish them as a nation at peace in their land, as David had done. So the Jewish hope for a messiah, speaking now in the post-biblical where it's correct to say Jewish, the Jewish hope for a messiah was thus always political and national and involved the restoration of the nation in its land under a Davidic king. We're going to talk next time about the royal ideology that begins to emerge and challenge the older, sanitic and covenantal ideology. But that's too much to get into now. So we'll deal with that on Wednesday and then move on through the rest of the Deuteronomistic history.