The Book of Samuel: Its Composition, Structure and Significance as ...

12 JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES
attaching conditions to the promise of endurance of the house of
David and the people of Israel, on their right to the promised land,
and even on the survival of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. 31
Needless to say, the book of Samuel lacks any historical perspective
on other traumatic events which devastated Israel or Judah,
such as the destruction of Samaria and the mass deportation of the
citizens of the kingdom of Israel; Senacherib’s military campaigns
in the kingdom of Judah, including the siege and destruction of
Lachish and the heavy siege of Jerusalem; Jehoiachin’s exile to
Babylon with the elites of the citizens of Judah; the destruction of
Jerusalem and its temple, and more massive deportations from the
ravished land of Judah. None of these or other events during the
exile and Second Temple period left any mark or hint in the book
of Samuel. One must, then, challenge the common scholarly opinion
about the “late” writers and editors—aside from a handful of
insignificant late glosses, to be discussed below, where in the book
of Samuel are their so-called anachronisms?
Furthermore, the book of Samuel does not take any notice of
important kingdoms that operated in the region from the ninth
century BCE on. Egypt is not mentioned in the book as a great
power of the time, but as a remote memory of when the Israelites
were slaves in Egypt. Assyria and Babylon are not mentioned even
once; neither are the kingdoms of Persia, Greece, and Rome. There
are no “anachronistic” interferences in that department from our
“late” writers and editors. The book concentrates mainly on early
neighboring kingdoms and their relations with Israel in the times of
the last two judges and the first two kings.
Furthermore, a closer look at another literarily and ideologically
central juncture of the book, Samuel’s speech denouncing the
behavior of the future king (1 Samuel 8), shows (once again) that it
reflects a very naive and primitive conception of the monarchy, its
establishment and activities. By no means does it reflect a developed
kingdom, with a comprehensive bureaucracy, with much road
and city building operations, with problematic relations between
the people and the administration, with diplomatic relations with
the neighboring countries, and so on. The picture which the reader
confronts in Samuel’s speech is quite different and, one may say,
out of touch. In his portrayal, the people’s main occupations are
agriculture and animal husbandry; no large-scale urbanization is
depicted. The portrait does not include the image of the later tyrant
kings who built luxurious palaces, roads, fortified cities, and who
31 Compare 1 Kgs 2:4; 5:25; 9:4–5. These texts include stipulations of
observing God’s way in order to ensure the survival of David’s house.
The following texts, 8:33–34, 44–53; 9:6–9, place conditions to the Israel’s
rights of their land and they even raise the possibility of exile depends on
Israel’s behavior. Furthermore, the latter text raises even the possibility of
the destruction of the temple.