1 Samuel, Volume 10

Dr. Ralph W. Klein, Bruce M. Metzger, David Allen Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, James W. Watts, Ralph P. Martin, Lynn Allan Losie

• Editore: Zondervan Academic
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780310588429
• Edizione: 2
• Argomento: Teologia e religione
• Categoria: Ministro del culto cristiano

The Word Biblical Commentary delivers the best in biblical scholarship, from the leading scholars of our day who share a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation. This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. These widely acclaimed commentaries serve as exceptional resources for the professional theologian and instructor, the seminary or university student, the working minister, and everyone concerned with building theological understanding from a solid base of biblical scholarship.

Overview of Commentary Organization

• Introduction—covers issues pertaining to the whole book, including context, date, authorship, composition, interpretive issues, purpose, and theology.
• Each section of the commentary includes:
• Pericope Bibliography—a helpful resource containing the most important works that pertain to each particular pericope.
• Translation—the author's own translation of the biblical text, reflecting the end result of exegesis and attending to Hebrew and Greek idiomatic usage of words, phrases, and tenses, yet in reasonably good English.
• Notes—the author's notes to the translation that address any textual variants, grammatical forms, syntactical constructions, basic meanings of words, and problems of translation.
• Form/Structure/Setting—a discussion of redaction, genre, sources, and tradition as they concern the origin of the pericope, its canonical form, and its relation to the biblical and extra-biblical contexts in order to illuminate the structure and character of the pericope. Rhetorical or compositional features important to understanding the passage are also introduced here.
• Comment—verse-by-verse interpretation of the text and dialogue with other interpreters, engaging with current opinion and scholarly research.
• Explanation—brings together all the results of the discussion in previous sections to expose the meaning and intention of the text at several levels: (1) within the context of the book itself; (2) its meaning in the OT or NT; (3) its place in the entire canon; (4) theological relevance to broader OT or NT issues.

General Bibliography—occurring at the end of each volume, this extensive bibliography contains all sources used anywhere in the commentary.

My Commentary on 1 Samuel after Twenty-Five Years

Bibliography

Klein, R. W. Israel in Exile: A Theological Interpretation. OBT. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979. Repr., Mifflintown, PA: Sigler, 2002.

My commentary on 1 Samuel was published in 1983 and therefore actually written more than twenty-five years ago. I came to the task trained in historical criticism in general and textual criticism in particular, and the commentary reflects those strengths and interests. In my graduate program at Harvard I had been exposed to the theory of my advisor, Frank Moore Cross, about the two editions of the Deuteronomistic History (Dtr)—Josianic and exilic, and when I began to work on the commentary I had completed a sabbatical in Göttingen, where I had been introduced firsthand to the three exilic editions of Dtr advocated by Rudolf Smend and his students Walter Dietrich and Timo Veijola. In fact, I had decided that the latter theory was “probably right” (1 Samuel, xxix). I decided not to get bogged down in the debates about the dating of the editions—which have hardly cooled in the last quarter century—but I decided to interpret the meaning of 1 Samuel as part of the final or completed Deuteronomistic History. Cross and Smend were agreed that the book in its present form is exilic, and during my stay in Göttingen I had written a monograph on exilic theology and devoted a chapter to Deuteronomy: “The Secret Things and the Things Revealed: Reactions to the Exile in the Deuteronomistic History” (Klein, Israel in Exile, 23–43).

The publishers of the Word Biblical Commentary have hosted an annual lunch for contributors to this series at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. At one of these sessions I was discussing the proposed second edition of my commentary with a friend and colleague, and he argued persuasively that a commentator really only has one commentary in him or her for a given book. Of course, one’s mind does change on individual points, and one does need to take note of recent publications, but in one’s overall approach one will continue to read a book in a particular way. That was and is persuasive to me; in fact, as I reread what I had written a generation ago I liked what I saw and found myself in general agreement with its content and tone. So the second edition of the commentary itself goes forth unchanged, except for the identification of a number of typographical errors (see Errata).

What is new and different about this second edition, however, is an extensive review of developments in literary criticism/narratological analysis; feminism; textual criticism; 1 Samuel as part of the Deuteronomistic History; the historical background of the book; and new understandings of Saul and David. Bibliography is provided for all these developments, and I follow this with an extensive general bibliography on 1 Samuel so that readers will know where to turn in the current literature to learn more about the lively discussion concerning 1 Samuel in the last twenty-five years.

LITERARY CRITICISM/NARRATOGICAL ANALYSIS

Bibliography

Alter, R. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books, 1981. ———. The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel. New York: Norton, 1999. Bar-Efrat, S. Narrative Art in the Bible. JSOTSup 70. Sheffield: Almond, 1989. Berlin, A. “Characterization in Biblical Narrative: David’s Wives.” JSOT 23 (1982) 69–85. ———. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. Bible and Literature Series 9. Sheffield: Almond, 1983. Bodner, K. “Ark-Eology: Shifting Emphases in ‘Ark Narrative’ Scholarship.” CurBS 4 (2006) 169–97. Brueggemann, W. “Narrative Coherence and Theological Intentionality.” CBQ 55 (1993) 225–43. Culpepper, R. A. “Narrative Criticism as a Tool for Proclamation: 1 Samuel 13.” RevExp 84 (1987) 33–40. Damrosch, D. The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Narrative. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987. Eslinger, L. M. Kingship of God in Crisis: A Close Reading of 1 Samuel 1–12. Bible and Literature Series 10. Sheffield: Almond, 1985. ———. “Viewpoints and Points of View in 1 Samuel 8–12.” JSOT 26 (1983) 61–76. Fokkelman, J. P. The Crossing Fates (1 Sam. 13–31; II Sam. 1). Vol. 2 of Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1986. ———. King David (II Sam. 9–20 & I Kings 1–2). Vol. 1 of Narrative Art and Poetry in the Book of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981. ———. Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide. Trans. I. Smit. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999. ———. “Saul and David: Crossed Fates.” BRev 5 (1989) 20–32. ———. Throne and City (II Sam. 2–8 & 21–24). Vol. 3 of Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990. ———. Vow and Desire (1 Sam. 1–12). Vol. 4 of Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses. SSN 31. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993. Garsiel, M. The First Book of Samuel: A Literary Study of Comparative Structures, Analogies and Parallels. Ramat-Gan, Israel: Revivim, 1985. Green, B. King Saul’s Asking. Interfaces. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003. Gressman, H. Narrative and Novella in Samuel: Studies by Hugo Gressmann and Other Scholars 1906–1923. Trans. D. E. Orton. Ed. D. M. Gunn. JSOTSup 116. Sheffield: Almond, 1991. Long, V. P. “Scenic, Succinct, Subtle: An Introduction to the Literary Artistry of 1 & 2 Samuel.” Presb 10 (1993) 32–47. Miscall, P. D. 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. ———. “Introduction to Narrative Literature.” In The New Interpreter’s Bible. Ed. L. E. Keck. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998. 2:539–52. Polzin, R. Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. Part Two: 1 Samuel. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989. Sternberg, M. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

Literary criticism or narratological analysis has been used by a number of scholars, both before and especially since the time I wrote my commentary on 1 Samuel. Students of Old Testament narratives try to describe these narratives on their own terms and not just in comparison with Western literature. Such studies often bracket out historical questions and focus on the “world of the text” rather than the “world behind the text.”

Peter D. Miscall has called attention to three traits of biblical narrative: its episodic nature (stories are often juxtaposed without connecting or transitional phrases); its great diversity in form and content; and the prevalence of repetition (“Introduction to Narrative Literature”). The narrator is often omniscient and often does not speak in the first person. The narrator’s point of view may be different from the characters in the narrative. The theme of a narrative refers to all the ideas and issuer that a narrative treats, explicitly or implicitly. Despite the episodic character of the narrative in a book like 1 Samuel, this book clearly has a plot—how kingship arose in Israel, how Saul rose to power and fell from it, and how David rose from obscurity to become Israel’s second king. Miscall notes that character refers to the personages in the narrative while characterization refers to all the means that the narrator employs to portray them. Robert Alter has noted that the biblical narrators can depict powerful and memorable individuals without using all of the familiar narrative modes. Miscall notes that we readers are given a variety of ways of understanding the characterization of David: “It is striking how many of David’s pronouncements are made publicly so that, in evaluating them for their sincerity and truth, we have to ask whether David speaks honestly, only for public effect, or for a mix of the two. When David confronts Goliath in view of both the Israelite and Philistine armies, he proclaims the Lord’s power (1 Sam 17:45–47). Once Goliath is dead, however, no one—including David and the narrator—makes any mention of the Lord” (“Introduction to Narrative Literature,” 2:550).

Bodner’s article on Ark Narrative scholarship points out that recent studies of the Ark Narrative have exhibited greater interest in literary appraisal and narrative criticism than in critical approaches, such as tradition-historical, form-critical, and redactional methodologies (CurBS 4 [2006] 169–97). The date of original composition and the extent of the Ark Narrative (Did it contain 2 Samuel 6?) seem even less important to me than they did twenty-five years ago. Already in my commentary I wrote: “Though I am convinced that the Ark Narrative had an earlier literary history and that its neutral or even positive attitude toward the Elides antedates the expulsion of Abiathar [by Solomon], the task of a commentary on 1 Samuel is not to interpret the meaning of the pre-canonical document, but to discuss the meaning of the story within the structure of the present book and/or the deuteronomistic history” (1 Samuel, 40). The twelve scholars reviewed by Bodner would agree, and some of them would argue that there never was an independent Ark Narrative. Lyle Eslinger, for example, shows the many literary links between 1 Sam 4:12–18 and the previous chapter, 1 Sam 3:2–18 (Kingship of God, 176). Scholarship has indeed achieved greater sophistication in the literary appraisal of the Ark Narrative in the final form of 1 Samuel during the last quarter century.

As an example of the use of narrative analysis on the Ark Narrative, we may refer to the work of David Damrosch (Narrative Covenant, 182–92). His discussion of the Ark Narrative (where he employs the delineation of verses fostered by Miller and Roberts; see my commentary, 1 Samuel, 39) demonstrates how this narrative is indebted to the structure of the Exodus account. Hophni and Phinehas do not know Yahweh just as Pharaoh did not know him (Exod 5:2). The Philistines, and not the elders of Israel, point to Yahweh’s power in the Exodus (1 Sam 4:8–9), although their reference to “these mighty gods” of Israel shows that they do not get the theology quite right. The Philistines later admonish one another not to harden their hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh had done (1 Sam 6:6). Eli’s sons refuse to listen to the voice of their father for it was the desire of the deity to slay them (1 Sam 2:25), just as Pharaoh’s refusal to listen ultimately results from God’s hardening of his heart (Exod 10:1–2). The plagues of tumors and mice that accompanied the capture of the ark echo the plagues visited on Pharaoh and the Egyptians. When the ark returns accompanied by golden tumors and mice, this seems like a parody of the Israelites taking golden jewelry from the Egyptians.

Damrosch (Narrative Covenant, 193–202) also identifies other themes and motifs connected with the Goliath story and related incidents, many of which are helpful, though in my judgment he pushes the envelope too far in drawing a connection between Saul’s demands for Philistine foreskins as a bride price for Michal and the circumcision demanded for the citizens of Shechem by the sons of Jacob in Gen 34, and in proposing a parallel between Shechem’s soul being drawn to Dinah as Jonathan’s was to David. Similarly unlikely, Damrosch sees redemptive inversion for David’s cutting off the hundred Philistine foreskins in Dav...