The Tragedy of the Chosen: Saul’s Kingship—1 Samuel

THE STORY OF Samuel, the last and possibly the best of the judges (1 Sam 7:15), provides the framework through which we view the rise and fall of Israel’s first king. The opening section of the book focuses on Samuel’s birth, childhood, and lifelong work as a circuit-riding judge (7:16–17), and then in his old age, his reluctant anointing of a monarch so Israel can fulfill its ambition to be “like all the nations” (8:20). Saul’s last important exchange before his own death is with the disgruntled ghost of Samuel, summoned back from Sheol by a medium, through whom Samuel delivers, not the guidance for which Saul longs, but rather a last rehearsal of Saul’s royal failures (28:16–19); hence, Samuel renders the final judgment on Saul’s kingship. But the book’s first and most comprehensive statement about how God characteristically disturbs human power arrangements comes many years before that, in an exultant song (2:1–10) uttered by Samuel’s mother, the once-barren Hannah. After bearing and weaning her son, Hannah pronounces that he will be ...