Saturday, August 3, 2019

James Richard Linville on the Relationship between Samuel and Kings



[I]t is clear that Samuel and Kings have a lot to do with each other, and a number of themes initiated in Samuel are further developed in Kings. The transition between the books is relatively smooth, and many writers hold that the division between Samuel and Kings is largely artificial, and was determined only by scroll length. Complicating the issue is that many scholars have recognized in 1 Kings 1 and 2 an intrinsic component of one of the underlying compositional layers of the book of Samuel, the so called ‘Succession Narrative’. The influence of this general thesis has led some to link the opening chapters of Kings to Samuel at the expense of their role in the opening of Kings. For De Vries, 1 Kings 1-2 is a ‘severed trunk’ which was cut adrift from the rest of Samuel by the interpolation of 2 Samuel 21-24. This misalignment is to be resisted by the modern reader. A number of scholars, more interested in the thematic and structural features of this literature than its compositional history, link 1 Kings 1-2 to the role of Solomon’s story in Kings, although in this they do disagree amongst themselves. This situation, however, must be judged in the light of the fact that the Greek text are not in unanimous agreement about where the break should be made between 2 and 3 Kingdoms. The majority of them agree with the MT that the break occurs after the notice that David built an altar and that the plague against Israel was averted (MT: 2 Sam. 24.25). But a number of manuscripts, attributed to the Lucianic recension (boc2e2), make the division after the equivalent verse to 1 Kgs 2.11, thus including the whole of the story of David’s life in the books of Samuel. Josephus begins the eighth book of his Antiquities at this point. For some, Lucian offers the more logical break. Montgomery holds that there is evidence of yet another division in the early Greek traditions after 1 Kgs 2.46a. This evidence is the collection of what he considers supplementary material collected at the end of a book. Based on the syntax, Montgomery thinks that the next section represents a fresh beginning. I will leave it to others to argue concerning the historical development of the divisions between the books. While I maintain that Kings could have been at least substantially edited independently of Samuel, and the varying portraits of David between the books suggests this as well, the connections between the two books cannot be completely ignored.

Duality within greater Israel, between Judah and Israel, is a major feature of Samuel, even if it does not mark the initial establishment of the monarchy itself. Yahweh’s answer to the people’s demand for a king is the elevating of Saul to be nagid (נגיד) over ‘my [Yahweh’s] people, Israel’ (1 Sam. 9.16). This conception of ‘Israel’ as the deity’s people is hardly to be taken as a general reference to the north. Later, in Kings, this very phrase may be full of irony, and raises the question to what degree the davidic rulers were the sole legitimate representatives of Yahweh in the political life of Israel. At this place in Samuel, however, the נגיד over Yahweh’s people is for the benefit of all. The comprehensive jurisdiction of Saul is reinforced in 1 Sam. 10.20-25, as he is made king before all the tribes. When David is anointed in 1 Sam. 16.1-13, he is selected as the future king. His kingdom can only be understood as greater Israel, for Saul has already fallen out of favour with Yahweh, and David is destined to be his replacement. Even so, separate mention of the people from Judah and Israel in 1 Samuel is not hard to find. In some cases, it is the narrator who recognizes the division. In 1 Sam. 11.8 and 15.4, the armed men of Judah and Israel are numbered separately. Similarly, the army is divided on regional lines in 17.52, and in 18.16 all Judah and Israel loved David. The imposition of plurality by the narrator in these verses is not necessary to the plot itself, although they are ominous signs of later events.

The complexity of the situation between Judah and Israel in the books of Samuel really develops in 2 Samuel 2, in the ensuing power-vacuum after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Rather than simply become the king of greater Israel, David is anointed king over the ‘House of Judah’ (vv. 1-4) by the Judaeans. In vv. 8-9, Abner, Saul’s commander, makes Saul’s son, Ishbosheth, king over ‘Israel in its entirety’ ישׂראל כלה (v. 9). The stage is when set with all Israel opposed to David, king of the ‘House of Judah’ (vv. 4, 7, 10, 11). Here one may see the northern ‘majority’ being granted the name ‘Israel’. Still, one could wonder if the change from ‘all Israel’, that is, Joab’s intended constituency for Ishbosheth (v. 9), to simply ‘Israel’ in the narrator’s summary of Ishboseth’s reign (v. 10), indicates that Abner sought to place Saul’s heir as king of greater Israel, while the narrator accords him a reign only over the north. (James Richard Linville, Israel in the Book of Kings: The Past as a Project of Social Identity [Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 272; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], 114-16)