Prolegomena to the History of Israel

by Julius Wellhausen

In the great difference which separates these two narratives we recognise the mental interval between two different ages. In the eyes of Israel before the exile the monarchy is the culminating point of the history, and the greatest blessing of Jehovah. It was preceded by a period of unrest and affliction, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, and the enemies of Israel accordingly got everything their own way. Under it the people dwell securely and respected by those round about; guarded by the shelter of civil order, the citizen can sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree. That is the work of the first two kings, who saved Israel from his spoilers, and gave him power and rest. No difference is made between them in this respect: the one commenced the work which the other completed (1Samuel ix. 16, xiv. 48; 2Samuel iii. 18, xix. 9). Before them there was no breathing space left in the hard work of fighting, but now there is time to think of other things. Even Deuteronomy, which was written not long before the exile, regards the period before the monarchy as a time of preparation and transition, not to be counted complete in itself: Israel must first acquire fixed seats and a settled way of living, and then Jehovah also will choose a seat for Himself and make known His desires with regard to the cultus. David brought things so far that the people had room and struck firm roots into the ground, and ceased to tremble before their enemies, who had kept them on the strain from the beginning, and all the days of the judges; and under his successor the time came when the temple could be built and higher interests receive attention. That Hebrew antiquity knew nothing of any hostility or incompatibility between the heavenly and the earthly ruler is plain from the title Anointed of Jehovah, and from the hope of the prophets, whose ideal future would be incomplete without a human king. The ancient Israelites were as fully conscious as any other people of the gratitude they owed to the men and to the institutions by whose aid they had been lifted out of anarchy and oppression, and formed into an orderly community, capable of self-defence. Of this the Books of Samuel afford the most eloquent testimony. /1/

— Footnote l In Balaam's view of the happy future of Israel (Numbers xxiii. seq.), the monarchy is spoken of as one of Israel's chief blessings. Generally (xxiii. 21): "Jehovah his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them." With reference to Saul (xxiv. 7): "And his king triumphs over Agag. and his kingdom shall be exalted." To David (xxiv. 17): "I see him, though not now; I behold him, though not nigh: there rises (ZRX) a star out of Jacob and a rod out of Israel, and smites in pieces the temples of Moab and the skull of all the sons of Seth: and Edom also becomes a conquest." According to Deuteronomy xxxiii. 4, 5, the monarchy and the Torah are the two great gifts of God's grace to Israel. — Footnote

The position taken up in the version of 1 Samuel vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii., presents the greatest possible contrast to this way of thinking. There, the erection of the monarchy only forms a worse stage of backsliding from Jehovah. There can be no progress beyond the Mosaic ideal; the greater the departure from it the greater the declension. The capital sin of placing a human ruler on the throne of Jehovah makes even the period of the judges appear not quite black. Dark as the colours are with which that period is generally painted, it held fast to the original form of the theocracy, and so appears somewhat brighter: at last indeed, to heighten the contrast, it is represented as a splendid age. Under the rule of Samuel, everything was as it should be. Should we ask, how were things then? what was exactly the nature of the theocratic constitution? we receive, it is true, no satisfactory answer to the question. We might draw conclusions with regard to the body from the head: but what sort of an idea can we form of the position of Samuel? As he appears in these chapters, we entirely fail to dispose of him in any of the categories applicable to the subject; he is not a judge, not a priest, not a prophet,—if at least we use these words with their true historical meaning. He is a second Moses? Yes, but that does not tell us much. So much only is clear, that the theocracy is arranged on quite a different footing from the kingdoms of this world, and that it amounts to a falling away into heathenism when the Israelites place a king at their head like other nations, and he keeps courtiers and ministers, officers and soldiers, horses and chariots. It is accordingly a spiritual community: the spiritual character of the regent places this beyond doubt. Samuel admonishes the people to give up idolatry; he presides at the great day of repentance at Mizpeh, which forms an epoch in the sacred history; and Jehovah can refuse nothing to his prayers and cries (xii. 1 7). "God forbid," he says in taking leave of them (xii. 23), "that I should cease to pray for you and teach you the good way." Such is his position: and the citizens of the theocracy have the corresponding duty of cultivating the worship of Jehovah, and not withdrawing themselves from the guidance of the representative of Deity. They do not need to trouble themselves about means for warding off the attacks of their enemies; if they fast and pray, and give up their sins, Jehovah hurls back the foe with His thunder and lightning, and so long as they are pious He will not allow their land to be invaded. All the expenses are then naturally superfluous by which a people usually safeguards it own existence. That this view is unhistorical is self-evident; and that it contradicts the genuine tradition we have seen. The ancient Israelites did not build a church first of all: what they built first was a house to live in, and they rejoiced not a little when they got it happily roofed over (xi. 15). But we have still to add, in conclusion, that the idea here before us can only have arisen in an age which had no knowledge of Israel as a people and a state, and which had no experience of the real conditions of existence in these forms; in other words. It is the offspring of exilic or post-exilic Judaism. At that time the nation was transformed into a religious community, whose members were at liberty to concentrate themselves on what they held to be the great business of life, worship and religiousness, because the Chaldeans or the Persians had relieved them of all care for worldly concerns. At that time, accordingly, the theocracy existed, and it is from that time that it is transported in an idealised form to early times. The material basis on which the theocracy rested in fact, namely, the foreign domination, is put out of sight, and it is counted heathenism in the old Israelites that they cared for the external conditions of their national existence, that they are a people in the full sense of the word, and seek to maintain themselves as such with the weapons which are found necessary in the work-a-day world. It naturally never came into the heads of these epigoni to conceive that the political organisation and centralisation which the monarchy called into being provided the basis for the organisation and centralisation of the worship, and that their church was merely a spiritualised survival of the nation. What is added to Moses is taken away from the monarchy.

One more point has to be noticed. The chapters vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii. betray a close relationship with Judges xix.-xxi., not only by their general tendency, but by a geographical detail in which the two passages agree. It is only here that Mizpeh, near Jerusalem, occurs as the place of meeting of all Israel; we find no further mention of the place in the whole period of the judges and the kings. Only after the destruction of Jerusalem is it mentioned, and there as the centre of the new Jewish community instituted by the Chaldeans (Jeremiah xl. seq.) as the substitute of the old capital. It appears once more, and in a similar character, in I Maccabees iii. 46 seq. at a time when the temple of Jerusalem was in the hands of the Syrians, and the Jews could not get to it. The Mizpeh of Judges xx., 1Samuel vii. 10, is probably the same as that of Jeremiah xl. seq., and intended to be, like these, in place of Jerusalem, the only legitimate sanctuary, which, however, did not exist at that early time. This is a further proof of the post-Deuteronomic and Jewish origin of these narratives, but at the same time an indication that, with every inclination to the views of the Priestly Code, the writer yet had not that code before him. For in that work the projection of Jerusalem into the period before Solomon is carried out in quite a different way: the tabernacle renders Mizpeh superfluous. It has also to be remarked that the rite of pouring out water (1Samuel vii.) is foreign to the Priestly Code.

VII.II.3. The relation of Saul to Samuel is a subject which lends itself readily to general views, and the development of the tradition is visible in it in other particulars besides those we have mentioned. Taking the view of 1Samuel vii. viii. xii. as the lower limit, the narrative nearest in character is the story about Samuel contained in an insertion in chap. xiii. After Saul is made king at Gilgal by the levy with which he relieved Jabesh, he selects from it a body of men who camp with him and Jonathan at Gibeah and the neighbouring Michmash: and Jonathan, by killing the officer at Gibeah, gives the signal for battle with the old enemy of his race. The Philistines advance, and take up a position to the north of Gibeah, with only a deep valley between them and the Israelites. But Saul, we hear all at once, xiii. 7 (cf. ver. 4) was yet in Gilgal, and waited seven days for Samuel, according to the set time the latter had appointed; but Samuel did not come, and the warriors began to scatter. As he was himself offering the sacrifice without which no campaign could be commenced, Samuel arrived, and at once opened upon him. Saul defended his act with great force: the people were scattering, and Samuel had not come at the appointed time, and as the Philistines had advanced close up to Gibeah, he had found it impossible to delay longer, and had offered the sacrifice in order to advance against them. To all this Samuel's only answer was:

"Thou hast done foolishly; if thou hadst kept the commandment of Jehovah, He would have established thy kingdom for ever, but now thy kingdom shall not continue; Jehovah has sought Him a man after His own heart, and appointed him to be ruler over His people, because thou hast not kept that which Jehovah commanded thee."

So he said, and walked off; but Saul went with the army from Gilgal to Gibeah. At Gibeah, the following verse (xiii. 16) goes on, abode Saul and Jonathan, and their men, when the Philistines encamped in Michmash.

The change of place distinctly shows the whole passage about the meeting of the king with the prophet at Gilgal (xiii. 7-15) to be an insertion by a later hand. At the beginning of the narrative Saul is at Gibeah (ver. 2, 3), and the Philistines seek him there, and halt before the place because they meet with resistance. All at once, at ver. 7, it is assumed without being stated, that Saul had stayed at Gilgal since he was chosen king till now, and had only now advanced from there against the Philistines who were waiting for him before Gibeah. Verse 16, however, gives us the impression that Saul had been posted at Gibeah with his men for some time, when the Philistines took up their camp over against them. Only in this way is justice done to the contrasted participle of state (sedentes) and inchoative perfect (castrametati sunt). And in the sequel the triumphant continuation of the story, especially in chap. xiv., shows no indication that the ominous scene in Gilgal weighed on the mind of Saul, or of the people, or of the historian.

According to xiii. 7-15, Saul is to wait seven days for Samuel at Gilgal. Here there is a reference to x. 8, where the seer says to the future king, "Thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal, and I will come after thee there to offer sacrifices; seven days shalt thou tarry till I come and show thee what thou shalt do." This verse is condemned by other arguments than its connection with xii. 7-15. Samuel's object at this point, according to x. I-7, is to overcome the reluctance of the Benjamite who had gone forth to seek his asses, to undertake the high calling announced to him, and to inspire him with faith and confidence,—not to give him unintelligible directions as to what he is to do first when he has actually become king, and how long he has to wait for the seer at Gilgal. The schoolmaster tone of x. 8 is particularly out of place after the preceding words of ver. 7, that, when the three signs have come to pass, Saul is to do what his hand finds, because God is with him. This is surely giving him perfect freedom of action, and for the reason that God's Spirit is working in him, which "bloweth where it listeth," and suffers no interference from any authority. /1/

— Footnote 1. It is also clear that the writer of x. 8, xiii. 7-15 cannot possibly have found Samuel in Gilgal in chap. xi. before making him go there in chap. xiii. We have already seen xi. 12-14 to be a later addition; the name of Samuel must be interpolated in xi.7, too. In fact in xi. 15 the people, i.e., the army, acts quite of itself even in our present text. Hence it follows also, that x. 8, xiii. 7-15 are older than vii. viii. x. 17 seq. xii. — Footnote