His startling return to Ramah after all his years in the temple at Shiloh became the stuff of an enlarging legend. Soon he was issuing proclamations from Ramah for the people to join him at various places for worship of YHWH. He held rallies for YHWH at Geba, Beth-aven, and Michmash, tiny villages only a few miles from Ramah. At each successive event the crowds grew. More and more Israelites were eager to hear the new prophet, to bathe in his confident words, to be moved by his puissant declamations. At every place, Samuel’s message was the same: YHWH was a God who demanded exclusive loyalty; worship of the gods of those who lived in the area, but who did not share Israel’s memory of YHWH’s deeds with the first families and Moses and the event at the Sea and the giving of the law at the mountain and the gift of this very land, was rejected completely. No matter how comforting it was for Israelite farmers to erect a sacred pole in their fields, a pole representative of the goddess of fertility, Astarte, in order to ensure a plentiful crop, those poles must be torn down and burned for fuel. No matter how often Israelite villagers found themselves worshipping with their Canaanite neighbors in the many shrines of Baal dotting the countryside, offering up prayers in their neighbor’s tongue to the storm god who in their belief brought the rains to the land, they must stop such behavior immediately.
In increasingly large and colorful festivals, Samuel preached that it was YHWH alone who made their fields fertile; it was YHWH alone who was the bringer of the rain. There was no need at all for them to waste their breath on prayers to beings that, if they existed at all, which Samuel deeply questioned, had no power in a world that was owned completely by the mighty YHWH. He spoke often of the commandment that Moses had carried down from Sinai, on those tablets that rested silently in the Ark of YHWH, the one that said, “You must not have any other gods in my presence, nor must you worship them or bow down to them.” Even if the words implied that other deities might exist, they had no significance whatever in the presence of YHWH, who was creator of skies and earth.
And every one of Samuel’s powerful and demanding sermons ended in the same way: rejection of these so-called gods, and exclusive devotion to YHWH, which would lead inevitably to the defeat of the threatening Philistines. Had they not already seen how the power of God had been made real in the very cities of the Philistines themselves, how the Ark had made a mockery of Dagon, who in the end was no different than Baal or Astarte, finally no god at all? Had their Dagon image not fallen on its face before the holy Ark, the throne seat of the unconquerable YHWH? Had not the very hands and feet of Dagon been cut off by the power of the Ark? “Put away your worship of these no-gods,” Samuel thundered, “and YHWH will be with you to the consternation of your enemies.” In all of the cities of the hill country, in the territories of Benjamin and Ephraim, Samuel spoke words like these. At last, after many years of such potent oratory, and after occasions of judicious listening to an increasing group of fervent followers, he felt himself ready to take the word of YHWH to the greatest place in the area, Mizpah.
By this time, Samuel had amassed a large retinue of persons and things that had become the means by which he could proclaim his message to ever larger groups of Israelites. There were the provisions to feed those who came to listen. There was the large tent that was erected to shelter the crowds from the heat and the infrequent rain. There were the musicians, players of lute and harp and tambourine, along with the singers who energized the people in preparation for the words of the great prophet. When Samuel came to a place, all who lived there were eager to see and experience him and his words, as well as the music and dancing that delighted the eye and titillated the senses. In the remote and stolid villages of the hill country, Samuel’s visits were eagerly anticipated as occasions of excitement. But Mizpah was far from a remote village. It was the real center, at the very heart of an emerging Israel.
Though Mizpah was only a brief journey north and west of Ramah, it was at the same time very important and darkly notorious. In the not too distant past, Israel had had a ruinous civil war centered at Gibeah, very close to Mizpah, a war that had threatened the future of the tribe of Benjamin and thus the common future of the entire land. The story was well known, and its point was remembered by all those who heard it. And the ending was always the same. The cruel Levite always was made to say, “Has anything like this ever happened in the land since we came here from Egypt? Think carefully, talk it over, and get ready to act!”
At this point in the telling of the story, a good teller would pause and allow the listener to ponder about just what the “this” in the command of the Levite consisted of. Of course, it included the horrors of the marauding people of Gibeah and their destruction of the concubine. But was it not also the disgusting offer by the old man of his own daughter to those perverts? And was it not also the abandonment of his concubine by the Levite himself? Was not the whole sordid affair filled with the most appalling abuses of human against human?
In response to the bloody message all the tribes assembled at Mizpah. They brought significant numbers of fighting men to root out the evil from the land of Benjamin. So the civil war began. Hundreds, even thousands, were killed on each side, until Benjamin nearly disappeared as a people. Only 600 or so of the fighting men managed to escape from the last battle and went to hide in the mountain range known as the Rock of Rimmon, cowering there for four moons while the much larger army of the eleven tribes burned Gibeah and the surrounding cities of Benjamin, slaughtered their livestock, and cut down those remaining Benjaminites unable to escape to the mountains. They gathered at Mizpah and vowed that no woman would be given to any Benjaminite under any circumstances, thus insuring the tribe’s complete extinction. The surviving and desperate Benjaminites at last captured some women for wives, and the tribe was saved.
As the storyteller ended the story, he would pause and wait for the comments and questions that always came.
“What an appalling story,” some woman listener would say. “Rape and abuse and murder and theft and brutal war! What sort of time was it? What sort of people were these ancestors of ours?”
“Well,” the storyteller would respond, “there were no real leaders in those days; everyone did what was right for themselves.”
The stories of the concubine of Gibeah and of the attempted decimation of Benjamin at Mizpah always bred terror and horror and wonder when they were told. One had only to mention Gibeah and Mizpah to send a shudder down many an Israelite back.
But now a leader was emerging in Israel, and Samuel called all who would to meet him in Mizpah. For Samuel, it was essential that Mizpah be the place of his largest gathering. The horrors of the civil war between Benjamin and the rest of the tribes, and the brutality with which it started and with which it was conducted, were still all too fresh in the minds of the people. Samuel knew that a gathering at Mizpah would conjure up all those blighted memories. But he also knew that the memories of Mizpah would speak a word of truth to all who were there. When he stood in front of them and announced that they were a sinful people, in the most desperate need of God and God’s trustworthy prophet, not a single one of them would be able to deny the truth of what he said. All would cry out for God’s mercy, and Samuel would be the conduit of that mercy on earth. Mizpah’s monstrous deeds would serve as a springboard for Samuel’s advancing career as YHWH’s prophet. Mizpah would no longer be known as the place of human arrogance and lust and greed and brutality, but henceforth it would be the place of God’s extraordinary mercy, and just as importantly, a place of Samuel’s prophetic power. His patient waiting and working for all these years were about to bear fruit. So Samuel’s people took special care in setting up the great tent, and brought extra food and gifts for those who would come to listen, fine figs and dates, extra jars of the best wine and rich beer, fresh loaves of bread, all ready to be handed to the worshippers. And, of course, there was always the anticipated smell and tastes of the sacrificial meat that capped the worship. But since the day was fine, and not too hot, Samuel decided that the tent was not appropriate this time. Instead, he chose to use the natural cliff-face of the city to serve as the backdrop for his service.
As the sun moved just past the mid point of the sky and headed to its place of rest in the west, like a bridegroom moving toward his marriage bed,
