But murmurs of discontent grew. And indeed the situation was dire. The Philistine conquerors had forbidden even a smithy in Israelite territory, lest it be used to forge weapons of war. To have a plowshare sharpened, a man had to carry it to a Philistine city and humbly beg for the favour of paying heavily. The Israelites yearned for a king, such as nearby nations had. Someone they hoped could lift their yoke.
Samuel bitterly warned them of the evils of kingship — that a king would conscript all their sons to make war, and all their daughters to work in his kitchens, and would take the best of their fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his personal servants, and would take a tenth of their produce and herds for his officers and men, and take all their own servants and slaves, the finest of their young people, for his own use. He predicted that instead of the Israelites being saved they would find themselves hopelessly enslaved. And then they would cry out in their anguish, but the Lord would refuse to hear them!
The people listened patiently to this tirade and then insisted that they still wanted a king. The elders pointed out that all other alternatives had failed. Elders were men who, because of their age, wealth, or virtue, were considered leaders of their communities. They respectfully reminded the old man that his own two sons, whom he had appointed to judge disputes, had proved unworthy: they had taken bribes and perverted justice. This sad truth, which privately hurt the prophet terribly — for he had never in his life departed from what he considered best for the nation — plus the combined elders’ persistence, finally overcame him.
Samuel wisely chose from the smallest tribe, Benjamin, of whom the others could be least envious. And he picked the tallest, most valiant man.
*
Saul was ruggedly handsome. He stood a head higher than those around him. And his assured air suggested nobility. As a younger man he had forcefully recruited and led a party that had gone to the aid of Jabesh-gilead, a small Israelite city on the east bank of the Jordan. It was being assaulted by the Ammonites, whose terms of submission were that they be allowed to gouge out the right eye of every man in the city. Saul’s force rescued it.
Amid general approval, Samuel anointed Saul king.
*
But they soon fell out. Samuel was unable to stomach sharing power. He made it impossible for Saul to adhere to his commands. Which, as always, he said were the wishes of God.
Yet Saul proved an able ruler and the tribesmen rallied to him. At first, with only heavy sticks used as clubs, axes, a very few swords and spears that had been hidden, slings and some bows, they began to win skirmishes. Then battles. Weapons were increased and improved. And gradually Saul brought a measure of order.
This success riled Samuel, and he denounced Saul, proclaiming that he was no longer king. Their final rupture came after a successful battle against the Amalekites. Samuel had ordered Saul to destroy utterly the Amalekites and everything of theirs, but Saul spared their king, Agag, and the best of their livestock, which he said were meant as an offering to the Lord. Samuel, enraged, declared that obedience was greater than ritual sacrifice, and demanded that Agag be brought before him. When the chained prisoner appeared, Samuel, uncharacteristically, personally hacked him to pieces.
Following this frightful event, Samuel and Saul parted, never to meet again. Samuel went on maintaining that the Lord had completely rejected Saul’s monarchy. But this only caused uncertainty among the population, and humiliation for the prophet. Because Saul continued as king, and continued to be effective. Samuel had moral authority, and the supposed word of God, but Saul had the soldiers.
*
Samuel was determined to destroy him. But the prophet was too crafty to promote another big man as a challenger. He wanted a boy who would grow into his own when Saul was declining. As he had informants everywhere, he had heard of the unusual lutist in Bethlehem. He made his way there, in seeming innocence, leading a red heifer. It was not strange in Israel for even so great a man to have his hand in earthy pursuits. Nonetheless his arrival stirred anxious concern throughout the village. Trembling, the elders met him, venturing Come you peacefully?
Peacefully he replied. Though before he would sit down to the feast hurriedly prepared for him, he required that all the young men be brought before him. Fortunately, Jesse’s sons were there, and they in turn were shown to the prophet. But his shrewd eyes saw nothing outstanding in any of them. Yet for a moment he was interested in Eliab, the oldest son, because of his height and burly stature. But then he remembered that he had already made that mistake. He turned to Jesse. Are there no more youths?
Jesse said The youngest is still left, but he is tending the sheep.
Samuel replied Send for him, for we will not sit before he comes.
*
David arrived breathless, outstripping the messenger. He revered and feared Samuel, as someone whose eminence and power he had heard of all his life. But when he stood in front of the prophet, his cheeks flushed, his mouth open in gasps, his reddish hair curling around his forehead, the blue-green eyes wide, the beautiful face upturned, he felt that this must be the most decisive moment he had ever known.
The prophet’s lids narrowed as his gaze sharpened, then slowly almost shut. Samuel had witnessed many happenings and known many people in his long life. He could read them and was seldom wrong. He had been right about Saul, unfortunately. Yet he held to the bitter conviction that he knew best. Age did not deter him; he behaved as if he was going to live forever. With the help of God, Who in mystic moments seemed little different from himself, he was resolved to continue guiding the country’s destiny. Without him, God’s agent on earth, who would uphold the utmost standards of morality, of ethical behaviour, of justice, all of which were contained in the humility of religious worship? Any other course had to be prevented, by whatever means.
In this lad before him he saw not only attractiveness, talent, sense and courage, but a bounding, suppressed ambition, an unleashed yearning to do large things. It suited well his own unfolding plans.
David fell to his knees, his head bowed. Samuel took from his robe a horn of oil and spilled a little on the boy’s hair. As the inquiring look rose to his, the prophet lightly smeared some across David’s brow, and briefly laid his hands on the consecrated head.
No one spoke. All were frozen in wonder. The mysterious ceremony was concluded without a word. But from then on everyone present knew that David, like Saul, was of the Lord’s anointed.
*
Jesse didn’t know what to make of it. He was elated that his son, and through David his family, had been favoured, and relieved that the prophet had departed with no more troubling gestures. But since nothing else followed, and the intention of the act remained obscure, David’s brothers, though they had been awed when it happened, tended to dismiss it. Jesse too was gradually able to take comfort in things getting back to normal. David returned to the sheep.
*
But within himself David knew that God had blessed him. Perhaps chosen him for some unique role. Left alone, thrilled, and with fresh language continually running through his mind, his songs took on more intimacy, as if, insignificant as he was, as all people were:
What is man that You have been mindful of him,
mortal man that You have taken note of him.
He had become the protégé of that Almighty power. Now when he played the
