cheenc03a.pdf

vicroriorlsl he showed ?=lour; he smote Amnhk, md mved
Isr=el out :f the hand of his spoiler.
Thus in original farm the plssage was not the
close of a history of Saul (Wellh. LN z46f ), but
rather an introduction to the story of the
against , Amalek; which is, in fact, the war of
Saul described at any length in our traditions before
the tragedy of bit. ' Gilboa' (see I S. 15, and cp Acnc,
BFSOR. HAVILAH. SHUK. ?'ELAIM. SAML.~.~. --
'Thenarrative iuffers greatly from the waht of preliminary
erpiunurions. Are %e to sllppose thar the
hands of raiders had already forced their way to Saul's
territory? Or should we rather assume that the clans
to the S. of Benjamin had appealed for aid to the king's
generosity? In order to answer there questions we
must rend the notice of Saul's expedition against
' Amalek' in the light of the new bur indispensable
theory (see above) that his warfare was chiefly with the
Sarephathiter (Peliifim king a corruption of S&ephSthim
as ' Amalek' ir a distortion of Jerahme'elim).
It may be assumed tilat if these raiders penetrated into
Snuls kingdom (the territory of Benjamin was then
pcrhapn "lore extensive than afterwards), the Amnlekites
(Jerahmeeliter), whom we can only with same
difficulty distinguish from the Zarephathites, were not
less succesrful. It is true, the details respecting Samuel
are, from a critical point of view, questionable. But
we may perhaps accept the statement (so much more
creditable, rightly considered, to Svul than to Samuel)
that on a certain point of religious tradition the seers
represented by Samuel were more conservative than the
king.
The statement is that Samuel was highly dis-
pleased because, after Saul had 'utterly destroyed'
(c.,,"n) all 'the warriors' (op) of Amalek, he spared
Agag and 'the best ofthe sheep and the oxen' (w. 8 f ),
thus violating the fundamental religious custom (see
Rzs) of devoting enemies taken in war, and even the
animals which belonged to them, to the wrathful God of
I s ( p I S 283). Still this. even if correct. was
surely not the only or the chief reason why the seer
(or the seers?) broke off intercourse with the king. As
most agrer, there war some other cause for the breach
which can only be divined.
We must not, of course, underrate the benefit of the
application of methodical criticism m the corrupt proper
nnnies in thir section (ch. 15); see BESOR, HAYILAH,
SHua, Tr~nrM, and especially JEXAHMEEL Thus, in
a. z we should do well to read, 'I have marked that
which Jerahmeel did to Ismel' (the hostile section of
the gmt Jemhmeelite people is intended), and should
emend ' Amalek' and ' Amalekites ' throughout ac-
cordingly. 111 v. I? the word ' Jenhmeel' has unah ('Zikiag'). Of course, to
say thir, ir not to deny that he may have possessed
some attractive qualities in which Saul was deficient.
I and which not only favoured his an~bitiour schemes, hut
illso facilitated the idealising process of later narrators.
We now hasten on to the pathetic closing scene of the
life of the hapless king.
We have two verrionr of the ancient tradition : a.
1 chaps. 28 and 31 belong to one document ; d, chaps. 27
4b, laat battle. 29.f and I S. 1 belong to annrhrr.P
ID o the camp of the .Philistines' is
placed at Shunem ; in b at APHEK [q.u.]. In o we
have the strangely fascinating rtoty of the 'witch of
Endor' ; in b, a great deal of interesting infornbation
respecting David. who was at that time at Ziklag or
rather Halfiyah, a vassal of Arhirh (or Nabash?). king
of Gath or RsHoeoT~ [y.u.] in the Negeb. Thcre are
also differen- between the two accounts relative to the
death of Saul. Neither of the two stories maker it clear
what the precise object of the ,Philistines' was. An
able geographer holds that they songht 'either to
subjugate all the low country and so confine Israel
to the hills, or else to secure their caravan route to
Uanlarcus and the Fnrt from Israel's descents upon it
by the roads from Bezek to Beth-shan and across
Gilboa' (G. A. Smith, HC 402). Hence, when Saul
had taken up his position on MI. Gilboa (or rather
Haggilboi y>hn), which is taken to be the ridge running
SE. from the eastern end of the great central plain, the
' Philistines' didnot herirate tosttack him on his superior
poritiotl (see Gn.noA ; HAROD. X'LLLOF). To dislodge
him was imperative, because from Gilboa he coul~l
descend at will either on Jczreel or on the Jordan
vnlley. Before the battle, ar one of the docunientr
states. the despondent king, who neither by dreams,
nor by Unm, nor by prophets could obmln any orncir
fiom Yah*.* (28615). applied to a fcmalc -1ccromancer
at En-dor, of whom he had heard fronr his servants.
In former times he had done all in his power to exterminate
such magicians from his realm ; but now he
relapsed into the ancient superstirion (see DIVINATION.
1 Winckler G,21,..
1 a see H. P. smith, s.,,;uel, Introd. pp =irf:
43'0