SAMUEL. 



429 



reign, up to the completion of his conquests, and x. 

 -xii. is a different sequel to v., detailing certain 

 specific events. And fifth, we have the six appen- 

 dices found in 2 Sam. xxi.-xxiv. 



As to the order in which these parts were written, 

 it is natural to suppose that the prefatory sections 

 in Jud. i., ii. 5, and the appendices, 2 Sam. xxi.- 

 xxiv., were added after the rest of the hook had 

 been put together, though some parts of them may 

 have been actually written earlier. There is no 

 ground for the statement that " the appendix, 2 

 Sam. xxi.-xxiv., must have been added after the 

 books of Kiugs had been separated from the context 

 to which 1 Kings i., ii. originally belonged," for 

 there is no proof that these books ever existed 

 otherwise than separate, and consequently no proof 

 tnat any separation was ever made. A perfectly 

 natural account of the phenomena is that the ap- 

 pendices were added when the earlier historical 

 series was collected, and that later, the compiler of 

 Kin^s, when he entered upon his work, used an 

 early narrative similar to those used by the compiler 

 of .Samuel. Two of the appendices, namely, 2 Sam. 

 xxii. and xxiii. 1-7, are explicitly attributed to 

 David, in the context, and there is no reason for 

 minimizing this testimony into a mere expression 

 of a late opinion on the subject. 



Jt is probable that the narratives of David's reign 

 and the continuous history in Jud. ii. 6-xiii. 1, 

 with perhaps the continuation of that history in 1 

 Sam. iv. lb-vii., the sections where the chronologi- 

 cal data are full, were written Inter than the stories, 

 and later than the narratives of the times of .Samuel 

 and Saul, where such data are lacking. 



The account of the books of Samuel in the ENCY- 

 CLOPEDIA BUITANNICA is largely made up of an 

 attempt to discredit those sections of the books 

 which cite from the Pentateuch, or allude to it; it 

 represents these to be the work of n later narrator 

 or redactor, and to be inconsistent with what are 

 assumed to be the older and more trustworthy parts 

 of the books. Largely, though not entirely, these 

 alleged later sections correspond with the parts (if 

 the book that seem to be latest, by the analysis just 

 given. But there is nothing to indicate that these 

 later parts are very much later than the other parts, 

 and tliere are no contradictions between them. 



That "these two books, together with Judges, are 

 made up of a series of extracts and abstracts from 

 various sources," is partly true, as any one can see 

 by reading the books with this question in mind. 

 That they " have been worked over from time to 

 time by successive editors" is a different proposi- 

 tion, and one which, in the nature of things, is 

 incapable of proof. Given the original documents 

 and a single editor, and the phenomena are as well 

 accounted for as by any hypothesis of additional 

 editors. 



That " the main redaction of Judges and Kings 

 has plainly been made under the influence of the 

 iduas of the book of Deuteronomy," and that " the 

 Deuteronomistic hand" is clearly recognizable in 

 the books of Samuel is true, and it is therefore clear 

 that Deuteronomy antedates all these books ; but we 

 need not infer the late date of Judges and Samuel 

 in order to account for these facts ; they are better 

 accounted for by inferring the early date of Deu- 

 teronomy. 



Since the song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 1-10, and 

 the prophecy, ii. 27-36, are incorporated into the 

 utory that occupies i.-iv. la, and not merely into the 

 whole book of Samuel, the supposition that they are 

 later insertions by some redactor of the book is less 

 likely than Unit they are original materials, used by 

 the writer of the story. 



On the view that the narratives of the times of 

 Saul were written earlier than those of the times of 

 David aud of the earlier judges, the most natural 



explanation of 1 Sam. xiii. 1, is not that " one of the 

 numbers has been left blank and the other has been 

 falsely filled up by a mere error of the text," but 

 that we have here an earlier use of the phrase " in 

 his reigning" than that which prevails in the later 

 writings. Later, the phrase is restricted to the 



| meaning "when he began to reign," but here, as 



I the King James' translators correctly held, it means 



[ that Saul was one year old in his new position as 

 king, and that, at the beginning of his second year, 

 he made the arrangements described in the- next 

 verse. The statement that " the similar note in 

 2 Sam. ii. 10, seems also to have been filled up at 



I random ; it contradicts and disturbs the context," 

 is not well considered. There is here no contradic- 



; tiou with the context, but simply a presentation of 

 the fact that although it was seven aud a half year! 

 after Saul's death before David became king of all 



i Israel, only two years of that time were occupied by 

 the reign of Ishbosheth. 



The assertion that " chapter vli. with . . . .its ac- 

 count of a victory at Ebenezer .... which deliv- 

 ered Israel from the Philistines all the days of Samuel, 

 is inconsistent with the position of the Philistine 

 power at the accession of Saul" is based on a care- 

 less idea, very commonly held, of the reign of Saul. 

 This particular careless idea will he banished from 

 the mind of any one who will take the trouble to ob- 

 serve that, if this account is in any sense historical, 

 1 Sam. xiii. 1, 2, must be regarded as a paragraph 

 by itself in the history, the event mentioned in it 

 being separated by an interval of a good many years 

 from the events narrated in the following verses. 

 In proof of this, notice that the accounts certainly 

 make the impression that Saul, at his accession, was 

 so young as to be immature ; this being the case, 

 the crown prince, Jonathan, was a little child when 

 the arrangements of xiii. 2, were made. Saul placed 



', one-third of his guard in charge of his home and his 

 young heir, and with the other two-thirds estab- 

 lished a military camp near by ; but when the 

 events of verse 3 take place Jonathan has become a 



; warrior grown. It follows that the first recorded 



! trace of Philistine invasion in the times of Saul was 

 not at the beginning of his reign, but many years 

 afterward. That Samuers administration left the 

 country with large resources, and free to concentrate 

 them, appears from the numbers who gathered at 

 Saul's first call for troops, 1 Sam. xi. 8. 



The narrowness of the circuit of the four cities, 1 

 Sam. vii. Hi, 17 (the circuit was not narrow if the 

 Mizpah in it was the Mizpah east of Jordan), does 

 not imply that Samuel's position was correspond- 

 ingly narrow ; it shows rather that his going from 

 one city to another may have had some other object 

 than that of bringing his court locally near to those 

 who had business'wilh it; the fact remains that he 

 is said to have been judge of Israel, and not of any 

 one region merely. 



The great instance of alleged inconsistency in the 

 statements of the books of Samuel is that of their 



(.accounts of David and Goliath. In regard to this 



i see article DAVID. The other alleged unhistorical 

 elements in these books are no more difficult to deal 

 with than those which have been thus considered. 



The article in the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA 

 dates the books of Judges and Samuel, in their pre- 

 sent shape, as later than the reform of'King Josiah. 

 Probably a majority opinion of living scholars would 



i assign them to a date two or three centuries earlier 

 than this, but later than the division of the kingdom 

 under Rehoboam. The Jewish traditions say that 

 the prophet Samuel wrote these books, and Gad 

 and Nathan completed them. If this be understood 

 to mean that Samuel personally wrote Judges and 

 Ruth and the parts of Samuel that record events 



| preceding his death, it is subject to grave objections. 



: But if it DC understood to mean that Samuel gave 



