And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines (1Sam 14)

Chapter 14 introduces us more formally to the character of Saul's son Jonathan, the man who would have succeeded Saul had there been a proper Saulide dynasty, and frankly someone who seems to have been far more suited to be king. This guy's smart, kind, and a good warrior, which is everything an ancient king really needed to be. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I don't seem to recall the Bible having anything bad to say about Jonathan.

So the men of Israel are trying to figure out how to best wage a battle against the Philistines, and while Saul is busy making plans, Jonathan has leapt into action, saying "there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few." This is fascinating, reminding us perhaps of Gideon's tiny army that overcame much larger forces; Jonathan is actually entertaining the idea that, what with God supposedly being on their side, they might as well go up against the Philistines as an army of two people (namely Jonathan and his armor-bearer) as thousands. This is pretty amazing faith.

Jonathan essentially asks God for a sign, saying that if the Philistines of the garrison call him up to them, it means God intends victory. They do, and Jonathan and his armor-bearer team up to take out twenty Philistines. As usual, the SAB calls this violent, unjust and intolerant, and I reply that well, this is war, and the Philistines are invaders, what do you expect?

Now apparently, there immediately follows an earthquake, which so scares and confuses the Philistines that they commence fighting each other. Saul watches all of this from a distance in wonder, and the Israelite army, which had largely scattered out of fear, regroups. Now Saul is apparently not making the best of the situation. He's brought the ark with him to war (perhaps this was twenty years later?) although at least he doesn't bring it to the front lines. Even with the ark and a priest present, he seems hesitant to take action.

Also, there is an interesting story that finishes out the chapter, reflecting further Saul's lack of sound decision making and understanding of spiritual things. Saul charges all of his men not to eat until they have achieved victory, most likely in some misguided attempt to make his men "spiritually cleansed". The SAB calls it absurd, and I agree. Apparently so does Jonathan, who, not knowing his father has pronounced this "curse", eats some honey; when he is informed of the situation, he points out how much better he feels after having eaten, and essentially points out that the army would probably fight better on a full stomach than an empty one.

In fact, this leads to a big problem, as the men finally break down to eat, and they are so hungry that they don't bother to take the time to drain the blood out of the animals, a serious breach of dietary law.

Saul decides it's time to go and finish off the Philistine army, but decides to inquire of God, I assume through the priest. God gives him no answer. Saul assumes that God doesn't want to talk to him because somebody in the army ate when they were still under Saul's pronounced curse, and it turns out to be Jonathan, so Saul and Jonathan both agree that Jonathan must die for simply eating honey. The people however point out that Jonathan was the hero of the day, and it makes no sense to punish Jonathan for being successful, so Jonathan does not die at this time.

The Philistines escape, and Saul ends up fighting them, and others, throughout his entire reign.

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears (1Sam 13)

The circumstances in chapter 13 indicate to me that perhaps I was too hasty in my evaluation of chapter 7. Let's see.

Saul has managed by this time, about two years on, to amass a regular army (sort of, we'll see some oddities later in the chapter) and has put a division under the control of his son Jonathan, who attacks the Philistine garrison in Geba. The Philistines gather their forces to retaliate, and Saul amasses the Israelite fighters at Gilgal, waiting for Samuel to come and bless them before they go out to battle.

The situation looks bleak, and it seems that some of the men are deserting. Samuel is late in showing up, and Saul starts to get worried. So Saul decides to go ahead and start things without Samuel: he burns a sacrifice to God. As was suggested a few chapters back, it may have been wrong for Saul as a non-Levite to offer a sacrifice. Whether or not that was the problem here, it seems clear that he was not supposed to perform this action, and he gets in big trouble for it.

Samuel arrives, and he knows that Saul has done something wrong. Saul admits that he was afraid to go to battle without having given a sacrifice, and since Samuel was late in coming... Samuel won't have it, though, and tells Saul that God is going to give the kingdom to someone else.

Yes, that person was David, who was not exactly the paragon of virtue, but I'll reserve the bulk of comments on David's character to the chapters in which David actually appears. For now, let it suffice to say that Saul is losing the kingdom because he's not following the religious rules, which to God are extremely important. David expresses in quite a bit of his poetry that he would rather be a priest than a king, but never acts in a way that indicates he doesn't know his place in the end.

In the end of this story, we're told that while there are a lot of men ready to go to battle against the Philistines, there are at this point in history (generally) no swords or spears in Israel; as a bunch of farmers, they're going to war with sharpened farming tools.

Perfect love casteth out fear (1Sam 12)

Chapter 12 is pretty much a one-issue chapter. Samuel gives an address to the people of Israel, and while he is not dying just yet, this has the flavor of a farewell address.

He gives a brief summary of Israel's history from the Exodus to the present, in the middle of which, as a sign of his supernatural authority, he calls down a thunderstorm. The people are afraid.

"Should we fear God?" the SAB asks, and it's not the first time. Nor is this the first time I have replied to the concept. While I think the answer I gave back in Joshua stands up pretty well, I think there might be more that could be said about it.

Fear of God is a strange and important thing. I don't know that I've outlined it here, but I have a great deal of fear of my father. The kind of fear I have of him at this time in my life is different than the fear I had of him as a child that I explained in my last writing on this subject, but I think it still applies in a way. (Then again, maybe this is more of a personal aside than real commentary on the Bible; excuse me while I indulge in some catharsis.)

My father and I had a falling out when I was just twelve years old, and as a result, I haven't spoken to him in well over 20 years. The fault for what happened was entirely on his side (although not necessarily entirely him, I know he was being influenced by others in an unhealthy manner at that time in his life), but I don't think I hold a grudge against him for it; I never got the impression that he quite understood that I was just a child. (Once, when I was six years old, he asked me if I'd given much thought to college.)

The point of all this is that after all these years, despite the fact that he is no longer really a part of my life, I have fear of him. Since my father is Jewish, he's always had a disliking for Christianity; it's common among Jews, and honestly often with good reason. Apparently late in his life he has become an orthodox Jew, so I'm guessing his views on the matter have not liberalized. Generally, I don't care that anyone knows I'm a Christian, but when we get down to specifics, I'm not keen on letting my father know, and it's one of the barriers (among many) for me in getting back in touch with him. Even with him being largely not a part of my life for roughly two-thirds of it, and even though my Christianity is one of the more important things to me personally, I still have a fear of disappointing my father, a fear of rejection. Now it may be that it's unhealthy for me not to confront this fear, but I'm pretty well convinced that it's healthy for me to have this fear. It shows me that despite all the hurt and "water under the bridge", my father still means something to me. He should, because he was there in my early childhood and I loved him dearly. On some level, I still do.

What does all this have to do with fear of God, though? If the God of Israel exists, if He's really there, then God should matter. He should matter deeply. Why shouldn't we fear Him? I fear God on a much deeper and more fundamental level than I fear my earthly father, because he was there for me in my early childhood, in my late childhood, and all through my adulthood as well. He was there for my parents and grandparents. He was there for my people (though I am not technically a Jew, I still identify with them) throughout history. He has always been there, He created us and saved us through His Son, and I love him very dearly. I do think it's natural and appropriate to fear God, not that we feel God is going to hurt us, but that we are going to hurt God because He cares for us so much. Just as we can hurt our parents by hurting ourselves, so we can hurt God in the same way. To me, that's incredibly scary.

In 1John 4:18, John writes "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." I don't know if John is saying something about a specific type of fear (Greek is more precise than English and Hebrew in some aspects, it would be worth checking) that is cast out by love, or if he is talking about a point in time where the love we have is "made perfect" in that our relationship moves beyond fear because we have learned to love well enough that we no longer tend to fall so badly. Either is a possibility and both seem like very good places to be.

The time when kings go forth to battle (1Sam 11)

Chapter 11 is the sort of chapter in the Bible that really makes this sort of thing fun. Whether or not everyone who reads this ends up agreeing with me, I do feel that I have very appropriate responses to every issue brought up by the SAB in this chapter.

The Ammonites, led by Nahash, come up to Jabeshgilead and prepare to do battle against the inhabitants there. The men there send him a message that they don't want to fight, but would rather make peace. Nahash says, "I'll let you live if you show your loyalty to me by gouging out all your right eyes!" Not surprisingly, they hesitate to agree to this, and send for help.

The word reaches Saul that his fellow Israelites are in trouble, and "the Spirit of God came upon Saul". I make no excuse for this, because I think this is one of the times that Saul is acting in the proper manner for a king of Israel, seizing the opportunity to rally together all the people of Israel and unite them in a common cause. His actions indicate to all the people the seriousness of the cause and their king, and the entire nation rallies at Bezek.

Saul sends messengers to Jabeshgilead, telling them that help is on the way by the following afternoon. True to his promise, the next day the army arrives and fights until the Ammonite army is completely destroyed. (That is, not everyone killed, but "so that two of them were not left together.")

Now I realize that this is in the midst of a bloody battle, but I have to give props to Saul for one more thing here that I personally think the SAB should put a "Good things" label on. After the victory, everyone is so excited about the new unity and military/political power of Israel, that they suggest that the people in the last chapter who rejected Saul be rounded up and killed. Saul immediately squashes this idea, which you can guess from the way things have gone in Israel up until this point, would probably have been a successful endeavor, with virtually nobody to be the voice of reason if Saul had not protested. Instead, they go to Gilgal to make sacrifices to God and recommit themselves to the kingdom of Israel.

Maybe you disagree, but I call it a happy ending.

The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king (1Sam 10)

In chapter 10, Samuel finally comes out and tells Saul plainly that he is to be the king of Israel, and he anoints him with oil. (I've always thought this a strange practice, and probably ought to read up on it more. I can't imagine having a jar of oil dumped on your head is a pleasant thing, but I suppose I'm missing something.) He tells him a series of signs that will come to pass to verify to him that all he has spoken is true. After seeing the signs, Saul is to go to Gilgal, where something important is to occur.

So Saul comes along the road and meets some prophets, and immediately, the Spirit of God comes over him and he begins to prophesy as well. People see him there and ask in amazement, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" This is an interesting story for many reasons, one of which is that it occasions the skeptic to ask, as the SAB does, how can this story and the similar one in 1Samuel 19 both be true? Actually, the SAB flat out denies that they can both be true, but I fail to see why. Certainly, if we accept that such a thing could happen once, it could happen again many years later. The problem is not the repetition of action, but the ascribing of the "proverb" to both events, right? But why should that be a problem? Sure, it's strange, but why should it not be a possibility that the first event made some people say such a thing, and the second event made it all the more popular?*

The thing that makes it very interesting is the realization that this event is a miraculous moment in which Saul loses control of himself that was engineered to verify God's will that Saul be made king. The second event is, on the other hand, a miraculous moment in which Saul loses control of himself that was engineered to verify God's will that Saul be deposed as king. God has a sense of humor, I have no doubt about that.

Saul returns home and tells his uncle that he met Samuel, but not that Samuel said anything about the political situation to be. It's interesting that Saul, upon returning home, has a lengthy conversation with his uncle rather than his father. Perhaps there is something in the structure of Saul's family we are not being told that might explain the trouble of the previous chapter?

Samuel calls all the people together and gives them one last lecture on how bad they are for wanting a king, and then makes a choice. The selection process seems very odd, and not a lot of detail is given, but eventually, Saul is chosen to be king, although nobody can find him, because he's hiding for some unnamed reason. They bring him out, and everyone is impressed, because he's a tall handsome guy.

The SAB notes the writing in verse 25 as a "lost book of the Bible", which I think is an overstatement of the idea being put forth here. "Book" is pretty much a catch-all term for anything written down, and I've always assumed that what has happened here is Samuel has written up a short scroll with the details of the rules in the Mosaic Law that the king should be especially aware of, like Deuteronomy 17, which has a handful of laws concerning kingship. Whatever it was, it seems likely that this is more of a "lost pamphlet of the Bible".

In the last verse of this chapter, we are told that there were a few people in the crowd ("children of Belial", generally a term for particularly sinful people) who didn't think highly of the idea of Saul. The SAB finds this absurd, but I don't know why. Once again, I seem to be missing the point. I probably would have felt the same way, but perhaps it's something about the wording? I'm missing what the issue is here.

*Robert Alter says in his footnotes on chapter 19, "The doublet, far from being a stammer of transmission or inept or automatically inclusive redaction, is vividly purposeful, providing a strong frame for Saul's painful story. ... To the ancient audience, however, the recurrence would not have seemed a contradiction, and the conflicting valences given to the explanation of the proverbial saying add to the richness of the portrait of Saul, formally framing it at beginning and end."