Saul
BEGINNINGS 3 SAUL 1020–1000 BCE4 The story of Saul is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. It is a tale of glory and fame turning to despair, madness, and ultimate doom. Saul was chosen the first king of the Jews at a time when they were fully recognizing the emasculating consequences of their tribal divisions and rivalries. Some of their land was under Philistine subjugation and the rest was threatened with the same. Despite the growth of their towns, the Jews, almost all farmers and herdsmen, were still a Bronze Age people who could arm themselves only with Bronze Age weapons. The weaponry of the Philistines was far more advanced than anything they could field in combat. The military superiority of their adversaries had been demonstrated when they were routed in battle at Aphek, not far from present-day Tel Aviv, and their sacred Ark of the Covenant was captured. Built to house the tablets of the law handed down by God to Moses in the Sinai Desert, the Ark had been in the care of priests at sacred shrines but was brought onto the battlefield in times of war to help protect His chosen people from the power of their enemies. But it failed to avert defeat at Aphek. The Philistines also destroyed the sanctuary at Shiloh where the Ark had last been housed. It seemed a fitting punishment for a people who had been straying from their faith and therefore no longer worthy of either the Ark or the sanctuary. Even the sons of the prophet Eli, who were guardians of the Ark and who were killed in the clash with the Philistines, had begun flirting with the worship of other deities. However the Ark was soon returned by the Philistines, who blamed a series of subsequent misfortunes that befell them on their theft of this sacred booty from its rightful owners. But its initial loss and the destruction of Shiloh had important ramifications. It generated a unifying backlash among the Jews, of a kind that was to recur repeatedly at times of tragedy. ✶ ✶ ✶ Despite tribal disunity, despite flirtation with the pagan observances of the Canaanites, and despite occasional fratricidal territorial clashes between tribes 4. The dates of the earliest kings are approximate. KINGS OF THE JEWS 4 and clans, recognition of a common Jewish heritage had endured. People from all over the land had periodically gathered to worship at the shrine at Shechem which the Patriarch Abraham had sanctified and where Joshua had renewed the covenant with God. Those gatherings helped sustain the residual sense of common identity. They also nourished shared despair at the impotence of the tribes in the face of territorial pressure from the Philistines and others, and they contributed to the emergence of trans-tribal sentiments with nationalist overtones. Crossing tribal boundaries, itinerant preachers, priests, and prophets wandered among the Jews, as they would in later times of anguish, admonishing people to shun foreign ways and sinfulness. Among those who foretold disaster unless the people followed the path of piety was the revered sage and prophet Samuel, formerly a priest at the shrine at Shiloh. His warnings, and those of others , also promoted a sense of shared uniqueness and fate. By Samuel’s time, the Philistines had extended their domain up along the coast from Gaza as far as Sidon in Lebanon and were extracting tribute from the militarily outmatched Jews inland. To the east, the Ammonites, in what is now Jordan, having recovered from earlier setbacks, were encroaching on nearby Jewish areas. Problems with desert tribes had developed in the south of the land as well. Subjected to marauders, territorial loss, and extortion, and influenced by growing national feelings, the Jews succumbed to the craving for a king, a monarch like other nations boasted, a leader who would unite the tribes and organize armed resistance to their enemies. Samuel objected. The prophet maintained God was the only king the Jews required. He may also have feared the emergence of a figure who would challenge his authority as spiritual leader. He warned that under a king Jews would no longer live as equals. A king would be an oppressive tyrant who would take away their sons to be soldiers and their daughters to be servants. He would take their best cornfields, vineyards, and olive groves. He would demand a one-tenth part of their livestock and would stand between them and the Lord. But popular demand for a king was overwhelming, and Samuel...
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