The readings - Days 86 and 87 - 1 Samuel 1-8
If Judges is any indication, the fact that 1 Samuel starts with a man who is from the hill country in Ephraim is hardly the most optimistic sign... Hopefully this one turns out better.
A couple of interesting things about the opening chapters of 1Sam struck me over the course of this run-through.
The first is that I find it somewhat bizarre that people blindly throw out a phrase like "traditional Biblical interpretation of marriage" without, apparently, much of a fleshed-out idea of what that might mean. Samuel himself is the son of a second wife. Anyway... moving on.
There's an interesting dynamic happening in the family of Samuel's dad, and not just because of the polygamy (although that's definitely part of it). I find it interesting that Hannah would so badly want a son that she would vow to give him up as soon as she actually gets one, but that's pretty much what she does.
Part of it may be that she's being constantly harassed by wife #1 for not being able to conceive, but I sort of suspect that another (larger?) part may just be the fact that society viewed (views?) women as being primarily instruments of procreation and not much more, so being unable to have kids becomes an invalidating thing on a basic personal level.
Clearly she loves the kid, though - she makes him stuff and checks in on him during their yearly trips to the temple, where Samuel grows up under the watchful (and, as it repeatedly says, dim) eyes of Eli, the priest.
Speaking of Eli, his own kids, as it turns out, suck. Which gives cause for another one of those cool moments where we get a peek into an entirely extra-narrative God's-work storyline. This guy doesn't even get a name, he's only referred to as "a man of God", but he's sufficiently prophet-esque to give Eli a firm, verbal, five-across-the-eyes about his son's ridiculous thievery and his relatively meek rebuke of them for it.
He shows up, gets to tell off the Priest in Israel (who gets the same posthumous treatment as the other judges in Judges (IE, "Eli judged Israel x years...")) and then just disappears. Maybe. I mean, we don't know who he is, so I suppose he could've been back and we wouldn't know it, but I think we're getting off track here...
When we get to the latter part of these chapters, we find Israel openly hankering for a king. Turns out peer pressure was alive and well a-way back then, and even (especially?) on an international political level. Everyone else gets a king, God, why can't we have one?
The petulance of Israel continues, and although God Himself laments their slap-in-the-face rejection of His kingship over them, he concedes that they'll have their king, although he does take some time to point out the day-to-day realities of life under an earthly king. Remember how under His covenant with them, they just had to listen to stuff He told them to do, be nice to each other and not worship other gods? They failed that test. Over and over again.
This one doesn't bode so well, then, considering the multitude of elements of sacrifice and obligation towards a king. I suppose we'll find out...
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