428 



SAMUEL. 



ditional view arc oblicpd to do. On the whole it is nd still arc, for certain purposes, counted aa 

 more in Mend with the evidence to regard the 1'liil- one book, and that tin- same thing is true of that WO 

 istine oppression, xvith which he was concerned, ns 'books of Kings, is indisputable ; that for other pin- 

 that mentioned in Jud. x. 7, disiiniMiishinjt it. on i poses tlicy an- now counted MS two books each, ami 

 the one hand, from the earlier oppression nf Jud. have been so counted as fur back as we can tind iii- 

 iii. 31 and x. 11, und, on the other, from tlic Inter formation on the subject, is equally indisputable, 

 oppressions of the times of Eli and Saul. See Is- though this fact is often ignored. There is no 

 KAKL and SXMI 1:1.. On this view the exploits of Around for arguing us if at some time the book.- of 



Aininonites. 

 As to the conjecture 



-.MI, recorded in Jud. xiv.-xv., occurred xvliile 

 J.iir the Gileadite was judge, a generation lain 

 than Gideon, and Samson's administration xvas 

 followed by the eighteen years of oppression by the 



' that originally his Nazi- 



rite vow was conceived simply as a vow of re- 

 venge," it should be noticed that the Nazirite 

 obligation, in Samson's case, is not said to have 

 been of the nature of a voxv taken by him, but of 

 the nature of a command laid upon him. On the 

 difference between the Nazirite for life and the 

 Nazirite by voxv. see Vows and OATHS. 



(w. j. B.) 



SAMUEL. Doubtless the genealogies in 1 

 Chronicles make this eminent judge of 



I8nu;1 a L^' 16 ' llot > ** lll NKITAN- 



NICA 8tates i "because a post-exile fam- 

 i'y f singers ti-.iced their stock from 

 him," though that may have been the 





BLW 



Kep") 



Samuel have been "divided from" those of Kings, 

 or 1 Samuel divided from 2 Samuel. 



That the books of Kings, though the}' continue the 

 history from about the point where the books of 

 Samuel leave it, arc yet written from a different 

 |Miinl of view, and constitute an entirely separate 

 piece of composition, has been briefly sho'wn in the 

 article on KlNUS. The literary affiliation that exists 

 U-txveen the earlier chapters ofl Kings and chap- 

 ters ix.-xx. of '2 Samuel does not disprove this, 

 for it may be accounted for by the fact that ihe 

 author of Kings used materials from the same 

 sources whence came these chapters of Samuel. 



The books of Judges, Ruth, and Samuel, as they 

 stand in the versions (in regard to the plaeeol Ruth, 

 see article ou RUTH), form a continuous and unique 

 work, whose analysis, within certain limits, is 

 marked on the face of its contents. First come 

 certain prefatory statements, of a rather miscella- 

 neous character, Jud. i.-ii. ;">. Second, xve have a 

 compacted history, Jud. ii. 0-xiii. 1, which begins 

 by repeating several of the last verses of Joshua, 

 then states the generic process of the history of the 

 times of the judges, and then narrates the events up 

 to the last year of Eli, the account which is begun 

 in Jud. xiii. 1, being directly continued in 1 Sam. iv. 

 Ib. scq. (For the chronology, see ISRAEL.) This 

 section has full chronological data. Third, xve have 



the"vow unless she knew that he was-by birth eligi- live stories, constructed on a common model, each 



complete in itself, and differing in literary character 

 from the narratives of public history that precede 

 and follow : the story of Samson, Jud. xiii. 2-xvi., 

 the story of the capture of Laisb by the Jianiles, 

 xvii.-xviii., the story of the civil war xvifb Benja- 

 min, xix.-xxi., the story of Ruth, and the story of 

 the birth and training of Samuel, 1 Sam. i.-iv."la. 

 The live follow one another xvith no comment or in- 

 terval. There is a sixth story of the sain.' sort, the 

 story of Saul and the asses, 1 Sam. ix.-x. 16. Each 

 of the six begins xvith a certain formula, introduc- 

 ing the characters of the story, and this formula oc- 

 curs nowhere else in this part of the Bible. Each 

 of the six stories is complete in itself. Any one of 

 them, orany number of them, or all of them might 

 be removed without leaving nny gap in the main 

 narrative. This has actually been done with the 

 story of Ruth, and might equally well be done xvith 



it is correctly located. 1 Sain. ix. "> ; x. 2, the loea- ' the others. The incidents recorded in the stories 

 tion of the grave of Rachel being slated here as in arc omitted in the connected narratives that prc- 

 (ien. xxxv. l!i. "JO, not "on the frontier between cede and folloxv. The stories themselves have 

 Ephraim and Benjamin," but south of Benjamin, [chronological numbers only occasionally. The first 

 near Bcthlehcm-Ephratah. The altering of the three are grouped xvith the others at the cost of bc- 

 Hebrexv text of 1 Sam. i. 1, either by dropping the ing removed from their proper chronological con- 

 word Kphralhite, or by changing it to Ephraimitv, neetion. Fourth, beginning xxith 1 Sam. iv. Ib, 

 is u.eille-s and against' the tacts. There is no con- and omitting the story, ix.-x. Hi, we have a si lies 

 tmdiction in saying that Elkanah xvas at once a Le- : of narratives of the public history from the fortieth 

 vite, an Ephrathitc, and of the mountain country of year of Eli (Jud. xiii. 1 ; 1 Saw. iv. 18), through the 

 Ephraim ; and the account says that he was all three, j reign of David. For the reign of David these nar- 

 In regard to the work of Samuel as judge and ralives are dated._2 Sam. v. 4-5 ; ii. 10-11 ; xiii. 23, 



case, but simply because he was a Levitc. The 

 statement that in 1 Samuel " the story certainly 

 implies that it xvas not by birth but only by his 

 mother's vow that he xvas dedicated to the service 

 of the sanctuary" needs modification. It may have 

 been both by birth and by his mother's voxv ; the 

 latter does not exclude the former, but rather pre- 

 supposes it. His mother would not have made 

 the vow unless she knew that he was'by birth eligi- 

 ble to the service. On the supposition that only 

 Levites were then eligible, the lact of her making 

 the vow shows that the family xvas Li-vitical. That 

 such was the case is borne out by all the evidence 

 there is. There is nothing in the recorded history 

 to prove that "at that early date the priesthood was 

 by no means confined to the Levites,' but much to 

 j.rove the contrary. 



The English Palestinian survey maps are doubt- 

 less correct in locating Arimathaea, that is the 

 Kamathaiui-Zophim of 1 Sam. i. 1, in the Kphra- 

 thite country, near Bethlehcni-Judah. The author 

 of the article on SAMUEL in the ENCYCLOPEDIA 

 BRITANMOA is also correct in MRUuiag il;"t ih. 

 llamah of Samuel is the same with llamathuim. It 

 follows that the district of Zuph (the Zophim of the 

 name Raiuathaim-Zophim) was not of "the tribe of 

 Knhraim.' 1 hut of Judah, south of Benjamin, where 



prophet, see the following article and also ISRAEL 

 and PROPHETS in this Encyclopedia. 



38 ; xix-. 28 ; xv. 7 ; for the earlier period, the dates 

 are incomplete, 1 Sam. vii. 2 ; xiii. 1 ; xxvii. 7. 



SAMUEL, BOOKS OF. ' The statement made in The narratives are arranged mainly in the order 



the ENCYCLOP/I.I>I x I'.UITANNICA that these Imoks in xvhieh the events occurred, but, according to 1 



have been "fn'lv handled by copyists down to a Chron. xiii. 5, the events narrated in 2 Sam. vi. -vii. 



comparatively lat'- date, us the variations betxveen In-long after those narrated in viii. and x.-xii., and 



the Hebrew text and the Scptnanint shoxv," ought all hough this testimony has commonly been ignored 



not to be accepted xvithont verification, and it i* a 

 statement which it xvould l>e difficult really to verify. 

 See SEFTUAGINT. 



by scholars of all schools, we may yet, by accepting 

 it, find a continuity in the history of David such as 

 will otherwise be sought in vain. Further, viii. is 



That the two books of Samuel anciently were a sequel to v., summarizing the events of David's 



