The narrative of the two books of Samuel depict the transition of the people of Israel from a collection of loosely affiliated tribes to a united monarchy. At the beginning of 1 Samuel, Israel is seen struggling through life under God and the leaders sporadically appointed by God to lead, liberate and judge them (Judges). The end of the book of Judges foreshadows what is to come: “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25). This is to suggest that Israel, though they had entered the Promised Land under Joshua, had failed to live according to the Word of God given through Moses as the covenant people. Something needed to change. 

The section, 1 Samuel 1-12, that we will be preaching through, serves as a prologue to the establishment of the monarchy. The central question in this section is, how can a people live under the Kingship of the God of Heaven, Creator of the Universe? In this section, it is established more firmly that the current cycle of charismatic leaders (i.e., judges) being raised up wasn’t working. It was cyclical—with Eli’s failings to lead the people in righteousness and his own sons’ perversion of the priestly office, Israel was doomed to another cycle of subjugation to their neighbors. Even though God was their King, the leaders of the people most often failed to lead the people in right worship. Leaders who served faithfully couldn’t leave a legacy that outlived them.

Kingship is presented as an alternative to judges. Monarchs of that time (“kings like the other nations have” – 1 Samuel 8:4) were always seen as appointed by God, not unlike Israel’s judges. The difference might have been that kings were more of a continuous presence, especially through their significant involvement in the civil religion of the people—they carried their god’s authority to enforce how their people would live and worship. There may be a sense that the people of Israel couldn’t figure out how to get their own God on their side (1 Samuel 4:1-7:2), so their hope was that a king would be appointed and divinely blessed to deal with God for them. 

1 Samuel 1-12 makes a few suggestions regarding the nature of what a king under God might look like. The story of Hannah demonstrates that just as God hears the prayer of an insignificant, disadvantaged woman, God’s ideal king would produce justice for all the people of the land. The perversion of worship at the hands of Eli’s sons indicates that God’s king would not only be personally subject to the Law, but would promote and lead the people in proper worship of God. The ideal king is someone who would hear from God directly and bring God’s Word to the people. The king would also represent the people before God, confessing their sins and making intercession for them. Samuel typifies these ideals in our section, while Saul later plays an anti-typical role (i.e. he is what a king should not look like) and David goes on to be an almost ideal king—forever remembered as the best Israel ever had.

In our section of the book, Samuel, as the last judge, appears as something of an idealized figure. He is born as a miraculous answer to prayer, dedicated to God from birth, and begins to hear from God at a young age. God speaks to Samuel in a way rarely seen in Israel’s history to that point. He comes across as a prophet in the line of Moses, rather than just another judge. By the end of 1 Samuel 7, Samuel is functioning as prophet, priest and judge. That is, he hears God’s Word and brings it to the people, he intercedes on the people’s behalf and leads them in worship of God and he administers justice according to the Law throughout the land. Samuel is presented as the best of the judges. However, Samuel’s faithfulness and success isn’t passed on genetically. His own sons pervert justice just as Eli’s sons did, thus the need for a radical change.

A few themes that are important to what I think this series is about:

• Sons, heirs, heredity
  • Sons and heirs are of special importance in 1 Samuel. Our section begins with Hannah praying desperately to conceive. When she receives the child of the promise, she dedicates him to God’s service. Samuel is presented as a prototypical “Son of God” (he is conceived by God’s miraculous intervention, he is dedicated before his birth to be devoted to God’s service, God speaks to Samuel to give his Word to the people, Samuel faithfully obeys God). Samuel ends up looking a lot like Moses—the one who hears God’s Word and brings it to the people.
  • Samuel, the faithful son, is contrasted by Eli’s unfaithful sons (as was typical of judges’ sons—they didn’t continue in the just ways of their fathers). Eli’s sons use their position of authority in worship for their own gain. Samuel’s own sons follow not in Samuel’s ways but are described in strikingly similar terms to Eli’s sons (8:3). This highlights that despite Samuel’s remarkable career of faithfulness, hereditary leadership can be a poor fit for the people of God.
  • Ancient kings at the time were often referred to as ‘sons of god’. In some cases, they were seen as partially divine—descended from, or imbued with a particular deity. In other cases, it was more of an appointment—God had appointed this king to rule over the people. In both cases, the king carried the authority of the divine. This was understood to be passed on to the kings’ heir (his son, often firstborn). This is probably what is meant by the request for a king ‘like the other nations have’ (8:5).
  • While the judges’ sons were seen to be a problem, kings’ sons didn’t do much better. David’s firstborn Absalom nearly succeeds in violently taking the throne from his father and Solomon, David’s eventual heir, ends up corrupting the kingship in exactly the ways Samuel warned of (compare descriptions of Solomon’s “success” in 1 Kings 9-11 with Deuteronomy 17:14-20 and Samuel’s warning in 1 Samuel 8:11-18). Following increasingly wicked kings in David’s line on the throne of Jerusalem, the city is destroyed and the people are exiled.
• Worship
  • Kings, due to their special connection to a nations’ deity, were expected to facilitate and lead the people in worship of the deity. There was a pragmatic aspect to this, as ancient nations’ economies were usually closely tied to civil religion (e.g. tax to the king was seen as subservience to deity, offerings made at temples funded societal structures like the military, infrastructure, etc.) and having the authority of a deity behind your claim to the throne encouraged submission of the people. But it was also a cultural institution, as religion and politics were much less separable than they are today. That is to say, the way people understood the world to work involved the assumption that the king was there by the appointment of a god, which was overall good for them and their nation. 
  • An interesting question that arises regarding worship in 1 Samuel 1-12 involves the tension between personal piety and civil religion. Civil religion is the sort of cynical approach to worship that sees it as purely pragmatic—worship is a sort of collective game that a society plays for their collective benefit. The king is the one who benefits the most, so it is in his own best interest to ensure that the people are worshiping. But personal piety is based on more of a conviction that the deity is a real, relational being requiring genuine devotion. This is one reason why Saul, who can’t seem to figure out how to genuinely worship, but sees sacrifice as a sort of means to get what he wants, is rejected while David, a man after God’s heart who makes atonement for the people’s sins out of genuine personal conviction, is the ideal king.
  • Eli and Samuel’s sons can be seen as examples of civil religion for their own gain, while Hannah and Samuel are examples of genuine personal piety.
• Justice
  • Kings were usually expected to produce justice for the people they ruled. This was connected to divine authority: the deity decreed how people were to live, so that justice (according to the worldview associated with that deity, so not necessarily how we define justice) was done for all people. In their request for a king, the people of Israel appear to be suggesting that the current system of rule is not producing justice for all people—proved by Hannah’s story in which she is mistreated because of circumstances beyond her control. Israel’s worship under Eli produces pain and injustice for Hannah, whereas God’s merciful intervention produced justice for her.
  • Thus it is damning that Eli’s and Samuel’s sons did not promote justice. Also note the prescription in Deuteronomy 17:16-17 in which the king of God’s people must not use his position for his own gain, and v. 18-20 where the king is to be thoroughly subject to the Law.

These themes come together for us in the person of Jesus, our Messiah.

• The Messiah is a trope associated with kingship—Messiah meaning ‘anointed’, that is, the one who has been anointed by God as King over Israel—just as David and Saul before Him had been. As Israel is intended by God as the nation of priests who bring all of creation into the presence of God, the anointed King of Israel is the one who extends God’s rule over all nations of the earth.
  • The Jewish messianic expectation was that God’s anointed would liberate the Jewish people from their oppressors, establishing an independent nation. From there, the Messiah’s reign would extend, eventually reaching all nations of the earth. This would establish the Jewish nation as the center of God’s creation because it would be the place where God is worshiped in truth (i.e. in the temple, according to sacrificial laws).
  • This expectation is founded in part in God’s promise to David that David’s royal line would endure forever (2 Samuel 7). Following the exile and return, the Jewish nation was rarely independent and almost never had a king, leading to an expectation of a King (Messiah) to come, who would be anointed to restore the Jewish nation to its place at the center of God’s creation and to restore worship of God in Jerusalem
• Jesus is presented in the New Testament as that Messiah. That is, He is the one anointed by God to be King over the earth, who will lead all nations of the earth in right worship of God and administer justice to all people. This ends up looking a lot less nationalistic than the Jewish vision—Jesus ascends to the throne of heaven, not the throne in Jerusalem.
• Jesus is named as the Son of God. More than just the one appointed by God, Jesus is God, the eternal Son, one with the Father and one with humanity. Jesus is the faithful Son, who obediently does His Father’s will, who hears God’s Word and brings it to the people. Jesus is the Son who carries out the will of his Father—the one instance of hereditary kingship gone right.
• Jesus is the righteous worship leader, whose own heart is conformed to God’s, who offers pure sacrifice to God (Himself) and teaches others to do the same. Even though He is Himself God, Jesus prays and practices devotion to God—worshiping with genuine personal piety that surpasses all civil religion. Jesus calls all to follow Him—to hear His voice and obey—to be drawn up in worship of the Father. Jesus’ various engagements with worship in the Temple are important to this subject.
• Jesus is the King who brings justice. The kingdom established by the Messiah is the place where God’s Word defines existence, meaning people obey. The result is relationships marked by justice and systems of governance based on love and mutuality. The Kingdom of the Messiah is the place where those who have been dishonored (i.e. Hannah) are given special honor, where those who would abuse God’s authority (i.e. Eli’s sons) are cast out, and where all people hear God’s Word and obey.

Conclusion:

So all that is to say that in this series, I want to take a look at how Scripture defines life under God for us as God’s people and explore what it means for Jesus to be our King. How Jesus fulfills the role of anointed one in a way that no other human ever can or will. There’s opportunity for interesting engagement with contemporary subjects like political involvement, as well as how we govern ourselves, how we collectively engage with others in our community, neighborhoods, and city. And above all, I hope that each passage we look at shows us Jesus as our King and gives insight into what it means to live under His kingship. 

A note regarding Hebrew narrative: as you probably know, Hebrew narrative is very subtle—moral judgements are rarely stated plainly, and when they are, it indicates exceptional severity (i.e. 2 Samuel 11:27). The Hebrew narrative typically isn’t interested in making strong moral pronouncements (i.e. this is how we all should live, or try to be more like that guy; do this, don’t do that, etc.,) but is more concerned with telling a story that shows us something true about God. Very few characters are purely good examples (David is instructive here: the ideal king has his own sins laid out in the book in graphic detail—he certainly doesn’t come across as a paragon of virtue in the Samuel narrative), so character studies are usually out of place in a series like this. 1 Samuel is more concerned with revealing to us our Holy God, a revelation which then compels us to live according to the nature and Word of this God, so my hope is that our preaching might do the same.