Introductory
Information on the Books of Samuel: The books of Samuel trace the last years of
the judges and the first years of the monarchy.
While the monarchy provided strong government, “the religious meaning of
kingship had to be worked out so as to preserve the more basic belief that
Israel was a people subject to one king only, Yahweh himself” (Lawrence Boadt’s
Reading the Old Testament, 227). Samuel lived in the 11th century
BC. He served the shrine at Shiloh where the ark
was kept. In a desperate defense
against the Philistines, Samuel’s predecessor, Eli let the Israelites carry the
ark into battle against their enemies only to have it taken in their
defeat. In their desperation they ask
Samuel to give them a king. God gives in
reluctantly and Samuel interprets it as a rejection of God’s sovereignty (1 Sam
10:19). In the writings, Boadt says,
there is a pro-Saul tradition (see 1 Sam 9: 1 through 10:6 and 11: 1-15) and an
anti-Saul tradition (see 1 Sam 7: 1 through 8: 22, 10: 17-27 and 12: 1-25).
The Jerusalem Bible says Saul (c.1030) was
first a judge, but recognition by all the tribes invests him with a broader
authority. Saul dies on the field at Gilboa around 1010.
Augustine (354-430 AD)
Confessions
10 - I give thanks to You,
Lord of heaven and earth, giving praise to you for that my first being and
infancy, of which I have no memory; for
you have granted to man that from others he should come to conclusions as to
himself, and that he should believe
many things concerning himself on the authority of feeble women. Even then
I had life and being; and as my infancy closed I was already seeking for signs
by which my feelings might be made known
to others. Whence could such a
creature come but from You, O Lord? Or shall any man be skillful enough to
fashion himself? Or is there any other
vein by which being and life runs into us save this, that "You, O Lord,
hast made us," with whom being and life are one, because You Yourself art
being and life in the highest? You are the highest, "You change not,"
[Malachi 3:6] neither in You does this present day come to an end, though it
does end in You, since in You all such things are; for they would have no way
of passing away unless You sustained them. And since "Your years shall have no end," Your years are an
ever-present day. And how many of ours and our fathers' days have passed
through this Your day, and received from it their measure and fashion of being,
and others yet to come shall so receive and pass away! "But you are
the same;" and all the things of tomorrow and the days yet to come, and
all of yesterday and the days that are past, You will do today, You have done
today. What is it to me if any understand not? Let him still rejoice and say,
"What is this?" Let him rejoice even so, and rather love to discover
in failing to discover, than in discovering not to discover you.
Hard to know exactly what Augustine is trying to get at in this
section except still trying to comprehend fully the nature of a creator who is
somehow contained maybe fully in all that simply IS but is probably larger –
grander than even the WHOLE. Deep in it is a conviction that anything that IS
must have been created by something that could
conceive of it, order it, develop it and sustain it. We know experientially
that they is what is involved in “creating.”
It’s sweet to see Augustine pass for a moment over our time and
those of us who, like him, cannot live without trying to see into the roots of
our “being” human.
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