Fragments on 1 Samuel

1Divine Scripture was about to foretell the ruin of Eli's sons and the capture of God's ark by the foreigners, so it first tends the hearer's ear lest anyone think God harsh. It narrates that Eli's sons' wickedness was not lessened by threat and prophecy against them, but grew worse.

Eli was pious in himself: his first anxiety was not the children's salvation but the ark, lest it fall under the foreigners—and that is what happened. The foreigners were to learn that God was not defeated through Israel, nor conquered by their own strength; Israel's sins and impieties produced the defeat. Dagon fell before the ark not to worship—he was unworthy—but to be shattered; and so it was.

As among humans "hand," "foot," "eye," and "ear" name bodily members, upon God "hand" means creative power, "eye" oversight, "ear" hearing, and "foot" his presence when he acts. So "wrath of God" names discipline upon those who stumble, not a divine passion; and "repentance" names the transfer of God's economy from one deed to another. What we do when we repent—leaving what we regret and pursuing what is better—is called God's repentance in that transferred sense.

Why speak so? The prophets had to address hearers heavy in mind with more bodily speech about God, so the truth could be received. People who thought carved and cast images—and even irrational animals—to be gods could not have received spiritual words about God. If God foreknows all, he is not angered or "repentant" from what he knows; wrath's work is punishment, and repentance's work is standing away from a former deed and transferring into another economy.

So Scripture says of a sword, "Sword, be sharp and slaughter" (sense of commanded sharpness); so "hand" is named of iron and of a sword. Wrath is said to be angry; sin has a "face" in David; rivers "clap" with hands—yet rivers have no hands and sins no face. Do not, because of bodily speech the ancients could bear, invent a body for God or fill him with passions.

Do not attach human turnability of judgment to God. We ourselves work the turns of the divine economy that justly meet us, proving by our deeds that we are unworthy of the honor God gave. Having condemned Saul and wishing to hand rule to David—and to keep the kingdom for his seed because of the king of all creation to be born from him according to flesh—God used human words in dialogue with humans: "I have repented that I anointed Saul king," meaning he wills to give the kingdom's beginning to another and end Saul's power.

"I have repented" on Saul's account means: Saul made himself so unworthy that if God had a repenting nature he would have changed his mind about him. Why then was Saul anointed? Because then he was worthy; having turned, he became unworthy again. So what I said is shown: God's "repentance" names the transfer of his economy from one deed to another. The word shows that even a prophet and righteous…

2…person who petitions for others is not heard unless the one prayed for shows repentance in deed. The righteous person's plea has force when it is energized through the sinner. For the matter to reach its end, both must run together: the righteous one's prayer and the repenting one's work.

Esau was reddish like a hairy hide, carrying deadness from sin and murderous toward Jacob; David was reddish with beauty of eyes, to show his clear sight. How then is the still-shepherding lad called a man, understanding in speech, and a warrior? The speaker did not speak from himself, but foretold what would be as if present, witnessing what David was about to become—except "the Lord is with him" and "good in appearance," which were his from childhood, one by nature and one by grace.

Saul had strength and a crowd helping him wickedly against David, while only Samuel and David were hunted. God's grace makes Saul prophesy not only what cuts against himself but what favors David, and casts him down naked, foresignifying that he will be stripped of the kingdom.

"Profane" here means not the unclean but those who are not holy, set over against the holy loaves of the table. The table held six loaves continually changed for Israel's twelve tribes—called shewbread—so each loaf stood for two tribes and the six for twelve. The good of this was binding the tribes toward concord; the better foresign was the apostles sent two by two by the Savior to preach first among Israel's tribes, so that six pairs make twelve disciples. Lay bread is "profane" only by comparison with the holy, not because the non-holy are unclean as such.

"Today it will be sanctified through the vessels" is said less clearly, but means: my children have been sanctified and kept from a woman yesterday and the day before—that is his claim that the children also are purified. If not, he was sanctified through eating the bread of the Presence. Persuaded, the priest gives David loaves none else ought to eat but priests. This is prophecy through deeds: the royal tribe (Judah) and the priestly (Levi) were about to be joined into one dignity—priestly and royal—in our Savior from David, priest and king together "according to the order of Melchizedek."

Neessar shows either that through sin Doeg the Idumaean remained before the Lord being treated and confessing, or that he was demonized like Saul, whose mules he pastured. Saul bears the type of the evil spirit that once ruled Israel when they said they had no king: the ancient people, despising the Lord who reigned over them, asked that Saul be given as ruler.

No one stands and urinates even toward a wall unless he is at leisure; so he speaks also of the carefree person who expects nothing…

3…to suffer, if he belongs to Nabal. The medium did not bring Samuel up—that is impossible—nor did the apparition speak truth once "up." Who this was, and by what power he rose, inquire.

David was besieging Jebus—Jerusalem's name when it lay under foreigners. The Jebusites, knowing David loved the poor, set blind and lame on the wall to insult him. Having taken Jerusalem he so refused to mistreat the maimed that he even set a death penalty on any soldier who tried to kill a blind or lame person: "everyone who strikes a Jebusite lame or blind, let him be touched with the dagger"—that is, let him be killed. Even those who hated David's soul obtained sparing. So he is honored when people say the lame and blind shall not enter the Lord's house—those who insulted David, whom he spared.

Note that Nathan son of David is born after David takes and inhabits Jerusalem. This is the Nathan Luke genealogizes, while Matthew genealogizes Solomon his brother. From David's named sons, then, one line runs through one genealogy and one through another.

From this it is also shown that what God does not do, yet allows to happen, he is said to have done. Absalom's rising, Shimei's insult, and the stones cast at David were not God's work. David makes this clearer: "Let him curse, for the Lord has told him to; perhaps the Lord will look on my humiliation and repay me good for his curse today." What happened did not please God; what does not please him he would not command.

If in zeal for Israel and Judah Saul tried to wipe out the Gibeonites—with whom Joshua son of Nun and all the people had made covenants—and seven born from Saul's daughters were killed for it, why are the tribes not blamed while those who did no wrong pay the penalty? That would be unjust—unless one says a king Saul could not resist Israel and Judah or break the fathers' covenants with the Gibeonites. I would add: it was God's economy that Saul's whole line be consumed, as many as were ever suspected of claiming royal dignity and thus of rising against David and his children.

"The Gibeonites exposed them before the Lord on the mountain" means they did not bury the killed but left them under the sun. "They were exhausted, and Dan son of Joa of the giants' descendants took them" means the giant took those laid in the sun and killed them already spent by the heat. The Gibeonite word is obscure unless we say that when Saul sat at Gibeah for war he routed the foreigners and destroyed the Gibeonites with them. The narrative is in the thirty-…

4…second and thirty-third of First Kingdoms, and the thirty-seventh, where it says he fought round about all his enemies, and what follows. The saying means: Saul wronged against him, and from Saul's house came the vengeance of that wrong upon Jesus. Yet those who share being with the one at the beginning are not wronged: from where they received being, they also receive non-being; and if through themselves they were worthy of any good, they receive it later.

How did David, having forgiven Shimei, command Solomon to kill him—David the unresentful and gentle—and Joab too, who had shared his labors? Being wise, David knew Solomon would not leave Shimei alive for fear of revolt, since Shimei would fight for the kingdom as from royal dignity; nor Joab, who had set David's son as king outside David's will and had killed Abner, though he had shared many wars and successes with the father. Foreseeing this, David first orders Solomon to do what Solomon would have done anyway, so that when those men die by Solomon's hand, Solomon may have pardon as fulfilling a father's wish rather than moving against them from himself alone.

"And returning, he slept. And the angel of the Lord returned a second time and touched him." Perhaps these were symbols of powers ministering food fit for a prophet—to one withdrawing from human things and worthy of such teaching—so that afterward he might hear "Rise and eat" and find at his head ineffable mysteries, of which the hidden barley cake was a type. A second time, by the angel's command, he partakes, hearing "Rise, eat, for the journey is too great for you."

"In the morning the ravens brought Elijah bread"—akin to the Lord's word to Moses, "In the morning you shall be filled with bread and know that I am the Lord your God"—and meats toward evening, as "toward evening you shall eat meat."

The power of Christ Jesus makes men into sons. Anyone who is a man of power is clearly a son of Christ. Sometimes the powers under Christ cannot make sons; and if they do, they make not men but infants.

"Eunuchs" are eunuchs; he says this of the three youths and Daniel, as from this Hezekiah. Through this ode he also teaches the one who approaches God to set hopes in him alone and boast in him—not to be arrogant but humble-minded. As God he knows all and renders to each according to his practices. He masters death and life. He exhorts us to know the Lord—clearly through good deeds—and so adds doing judgment and righteousness in the midst of the earth. As righteous judge of all the earth, he himself is strength, exaltation, and the horn of salvation for those who love him.