An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 51: In which everyone has very bad motivational technique (1 Samuel 11-15)

1 Samuel 11-15

In which everyone has very bad motivational technique.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

1 Samuel 11

“And, behold, Saul came after the herd out of the field; and Saul said, What aileth the people that they weep? And they told him the tidings of the men of Jabesh.”

Nahash the Ammonite lays siege to the city of Jabeshgilead, and he agrees to peace only on the proviso that he can put out the right eyes of all the men of the city. Charming. So the people of Jabeshgilead send for aid to the Israelites and word reaches Saul. Saul uses a strange method of motivating the Israelites to war by carving up some oxen and sending the portions to everyone, as an example of what will happen to their cattle if they do not help. No-one here is being very good with their motivation techniques.

He raises a massive army, and they attack the Ammonites in the heat of mid-day and defeat them. For some reason the Israelites get angry at Saul until Samuel mollifies them, and then they re-coronate him.

1 Samuel 12

“And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you.”

Samuel is old and addresses the people, basically saying “I’ve always done right by you, so listen to me.” He then repeats some of the times that God has saved the people, and the people turned away from God, and got into trouble and been saved by God again.

He tells them that by raising up a king they have offended God, but that things will be alright with them if they are faithful to God. And then he sends a thunderstorm to frighten them. This is all the usual kind of abusive parenting style behaviour that crops up a lot in the OT.

1 Samuel 13

“And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.”

Saul, via his general Jonathon, makes war on the Philistines and gathers the Israelites to war. Eventually he uses a burnt offering to call Samuel, like some kind of Bat Signal, and Samuel (and God) is angry with Saul, although I can’t figure out what he’s done wrong at this point. But whatever it is that Saul has done wrong means that his kingdom will not last now.

The Philistines and the Israelites make war, and there is an example of breath-taking stupidity here, wherein the Israelites have no smiths at all, but have to take any items to the Philistines to be sharpened, so the Israelites army have no swords or spears. Whut? Either that’s some serious oppression by the Philistines, or some serious laziness by the Israelites. In any case, bludgeoning weapons perhaps?

1 Samuel 13

“Now it came to pass upon a day, that Jonathan the son of Saul said unto the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over to the Philistines' garrison, that is on the other side. But he told not his father.”

Some goings on in the fight with the Philistines in this chapter, some of it reminiscent of the Iliad to me. Jonathon (who it turns out is Saul’s son – have we had this information before?) sneaks off with his armour-bearer to the Philistine camp and kills a few of them, which sets up a rumpus in amongst the Philistines (there may also be an earthquake as well, it’s not clear). It seems to suggest also that some Israelites were fighting on the side of the Philistines and this fuss makes them change sides.

Meanwhile amongst the Israelites, Saul wonders what is going on. He has banned anyone from eating before the day has finished (because he’s never heard the Napoleon quote about an army marching on its stomach). Jonathon on his way back finds some honey and eats it. There’s a little metaphorical element here in that upon eating the honey he feels better and sees that the people must eat – it feels a little like we are supposed to read this as communion with God, and I usually miss most of the things that are taken as spiritual metaphors by later commentators.

Anyway, Jonathon tells the people that they must eat and they are so hungry they eat raw meat, thus breaking Mosaic law by eating meat with blood. This gets sorted out by Saul, who tells them to eat, but eat kosher stuff, and that only the instigator should be punished (unaware that this is his own son).

Once he finds out, Saul is going to kill Jonathon until the people ask him not to. Then the chapter ends with Saul’s family tree for no obvious reason.

1 Samuel 15

“It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.”

Saul makes war on the Amalekites and captures their king Agag, and the people capture a whole load of livestock as plunder, some of which Saul offers up as sacrifice.

But grumpy old Samuel isn’t happy, because apparently the Israelites were not supposed to have taken the livestock. Although it feels here like Samuel (and God) are never happy and always seem to find fault with whatever Saul does (not to mention that it feels like they keep changing the rules on him all the time) there are some nice quotable sections. “What meaneth this bleating of sheep in mine ears” could be used as an erudite biblical of saying “Not listening…”. And also of interest is Samuel’s point of theology when he says that it is “better to obey than sacrifice”, expounding on this point that obedience to God is a better thing than to make burnt offerings, which seems to be an expansion and even a reversal of earlier Mosaic law (how much of Leviticus was endless detailing of how to make different types of offering? And now apparently that doesn’t matter so much).

Samuel turns away from Saul, even tearing his robe as a visual demonstration of how Saul will be cut off from Israel, and Samuel and Saul never see each other again. Samuel, however, does so with sadness.