1 Samuel 9 – 2 Samuel 1

Saul has some sort of mental illness and needs to be on meds. He really needs to take some time and get better. This is obvious to a modern reader, but not to the people around him. I suspect that he has epilepsy, too. More about this later.

When we meet Saul, he’s wandering around, looking for some lost donkeys. But he’s REALLY tall and impressive. I imagine him as the Benjaminite version of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like: when you see him coming, you stop and gape for a while, because he’s just so nice to look at.

Saul can’t find his donkeys. He decides to ask the prophet Samuel where they are. Things must be pretty desperate if he’s planning to bother God with a question about donkeys. But his timing is perfect. God tells Samuel to make Saul the king. They have dinner, and Samuel anoints him and sends him off to meet with a group of prophets.

The spirit of God comes upon Saul in power, and he starts to prophesy with them. Everyone who knows him wants to know what’s happened to him. (They’ve never heard of schizophrenia.)

Saul tells his uncle that Samuel told him the donkeys had been found. He leaves out the detail about being made the king. Then he hides in the luggage while Samuel introduces him as the new king of all the Israelites. This ought to be the third sign that not all is well with Saul. But it’s too late. God tells Samuel where he’s hiding, and the people dig him out. They notice that he’s really tall. Again, this is apparently the only thing he has going for him. Samuel points it out to all of the people, in case they had any doubts about his qualifications. He explains the regulations of the kingship and writes them down on a scroll. Then everyone goes home, including Saul, who is apparently in denial about being the king. Some of the people are in denial, too: they don’t think he’s got what it takes to do the job.

The next time we see Saul, he’s coming back from plowing the fields. (Yep, definitely in denial.) The Ammonites want to gouge out the right eye of every person in who lives in the town of Jabesh Giliad. Nobody’s very happy about this, but Saul loses control again. The “spirit of God” comes upon him, and he cuts up a pair of oxen and sends the pieces throughout Israel as a warning to everyone who doesn’t follow him and Samuel. (I love how he’s careful to use Samuel’s name, just in case his own name doesn’t impress anyone.) 330,000 men show up. They’re smart guys: they don’t want Saul to slaughter their oxen. With Saul as their commander, they break into the Ammonites’ camp, kill almost everyone, and scatter the rest.

This convinces the Israelites that Saul is the real deal. They confirm him as the king and have a big feast. Samuel makes a speech, saying that it was awful for the people to ask for a king, because God was their king. But it’ll all be OK as long as everyone follows God. (This is what literary folks call “foreshadowing”.)

Six thousand men join Saul to attack the Philistines, but they’re outnumbered, and they start to scatter. They’re hoping Samuel will show up. When he’s late, Saul offers up the burnt offering in his place. Samuel arrives and gives him a tongue-lashing: he was foolish and his kingdom will not endure. Only 600 men are left: the others have run away.

There are no blacksmiths left in Israel, because the Philistines don’t want them to be able to make swords. Instead, the Israelites have to pay the Philistines to get their farming equipment sharpened. (What? Why are the Philistines sharpening their tools for them? What about the war? And how did they kill all of the blacksmiths?) On the day of the battle, only Saul and his son Jonathan have swords and spears. Everyone else is holding farming equipment like sickles, pitchforks and plowshares. Jonathan launches a sneak attack with 600 men, and they easily rout the Philistines, who become so confused, they start killing each other.

But there’s a problem. King Saul is unstable and has bound all of the soldiers under an oath not to eat anything that day. The soldiers with him are starving, and Jonathan doesn’t know about the oath. He eats some honey, is told about the oath, and points out that it would be a LOT better if the army ate something. This doesn’t matter to Saul, who gets ready to kill his son. The Israelites intervene, pointing out that Jonathan is the reason they won the battle. Obviously, Saul is not the most respected of kings.

Samuel’s still hoping he made the right guy king. He tells Saul that God wants him to kill the Amalekites and all of their livestock. Saul summons 210,000 men and attacks the Amalekites, but not in the way Samuel told him to. He keeps the king alive, and he only kills the weak livestock. God is not impressed. He tells Samuel that he is grieved that he made Saul king. Samuel heads out to find Saul, and finds that he’s set up a monument in his own honour. Saul says that he’s done everything Samuel told him to do. Great line here: “What then is this bleating of sheep in my ears? What is this lowing of cattle that I hear?” Saul, obviously grasping around for an excuse, says that they are going to be a sacrifice to God. Samuel tells him that God has rejected him as king. He turns to leave, and Saul grabs his robe and rips it, begging the prophet to honour him before the people.

Samuel’s done with Saul. He anoints the young shepherd David as king. Meanwhile, Saul is tormented by an evil spirit. Listening to David play the harp is the only thing that makes him feel better. He has no idea that David has been anointed. (David’s smart enough to keep that detail to himself.) But when a nine-foot Philistine shows up and terrorizes the people, Saul sends David out to deal with the problem. (The other men are cowards who won’t help.) Even though David has been playing the harp to make him feel better, King Saul doesn’t recognise him. He asks David to move into the palace, and makes him a leader in the army. But the king wants to take the credit for David’s successes, and there’s also the small matter of David’s odd relationship with Jonathan. Saul tries to murder him, then to marry him off to one of his daughters, then to have him killed in battle. None of this works. Eventually he convinces David to marry his daughter, but he then tries to kill him again. David runs away.

By now, Saul is completely unhinged. He’s screaming at people who like David. The spirit of God comes upon him again, and he strips off his clothes and walks around prophesying. (I have epilepsy, and this sounds remarkably like a complex partial seizure to me.) The king can’t stop himself from trying to kill David, who has wisely escaped with a group of loyal men. Saul keeps going after him and then apologising. David has two chances to kill him (one of them while the king is pooping in a cave), but doesn’t want to hurt him: he knows that for all of Saul’s nuttiness, God chose him as the king. (I also suspect that he doesn’t want to set any precedents about murdering kings while they poop in caves: he knows he’s next in line.)

Samuel dies, but Saul can’t let him rest. He asks a medium to summon the prophet from the grave. (What?) This actually works. (WHAT?) Samuel shows up and, as in life, is pretty mad at Saul. He tells him that he and his sons will die the next day.

The Philistines kill Saul’s sons in battle and wound him with arrows. Knowing that the Philistines won’t be kind to him after all of the kings he’s abused, Saul falls on his own sword and dies. Or does he? An Amalekite tells David that the king begged him to kill him, and that he then took his crown and arm band.

David mourns Saul and Jonathan, but mostly Jonathan. Because, let’s face it, Saul was not the easiest guy to get along with.