lltrength, because, alike in national and religious life, it is only by the exercise of a moral choice that human nature can advance upward. Samuel was labour- ing for Israel's gr:iwth in all that was good, and the only king of whom he could approve was one under whom Israel would be free to work out its own destiny; and such a king would be no tyrant, but one who would rule in submission to the same law as that which governed the people. The two particulars in whfoh Saul set his own will above the command of Samuel may have been matters of no great primary importance, But the one happened soon after Saul's appoint- ment, and thus showed a very early tendency on his part to make his own judg- ment supreme ; the other was an express order, backed by Israel's pBSt history; and both were given by the man who had called Saul to the throne. But the real point at issue was that Saul was moving so quickly towards despotism, and that when a second trial of him was made he had advanced a long way towards it; and never was despot more thorough than Saul when he stained his hands ·with the blood of the priests at Nob, and of their innocent wives and children, on the mere supposition of their complicity with David's escape. Possibly, if we knew the particulars, the slaughter of the Gibeonites was a crime of the same deep dye. It is at least significant that the cause of the famine was said to be "Saul and his bloody house." People in thoi;e days were not so tender- hearted as to have troubled much about putting a few men of a subject race to death, unless the deed had been done barbarously. The manner of it must have shocked them, or it would not have remained imprinted so deeply upon the conscience of the nation. In David, trained by Samuel from his youth, we have a noble example of a theocratic king, and that notable fact, which I have already pointed out, that David, in spite of his terrible personal crimes, never set himself above the law, ~~~~~~to~~~~~fuWin~fu very man to be the willing tool of a despot. He would have delighted in play- ing a Doeg's part. David valued his faithfulness, appreciated his bravery and skill, nay, even used him for his ~rimes, but be shrank from his lawlessness.- God was always in David's eyes greater than himself. His law, often violated in hours of lust, was nevertheless to be bowed before as supreme. And so as regards his subjects, there seems to have been no intentional oppression of them. The idea of law was ever a ruling one in David's mind, and thus he approached Samuel's ideal of "the anointed one," though his fierce passions brought upon him personally deep and terrible stains. It was thus Samuel's lot to sketch out two of the main lines of thought which converge in Christ. The idea of the prophet and the idea of the king gain under him their shape and proportion. This is especially true as regards the latter. The king is ever in Samuel's eyes "the Messiah," Jehovah's anointed one. Again and again the word occurs with marked prominence. And it was the pregnant germ of a great future with the Jew. He never lost the idea, but carried it onward and forward, with David's portrait for its centre, THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL. i:z
as of one in whom Messiah's lineaments were marked in outline, feebly indeed and imperfectly, but with the certainty that a Messiah would come who would fill up with glorious beauty that faint, blurred aketch. Such then is a brief summary of Samuel's work, a11rl it justifies us in claim- ing especial importance for this portion of Jewish history, inu.ependently of the interest connected with the development of two such extraordinary charac- ters as Saul and David, and with the many remarkable persons grouped around them, cuch as Eli and Jonathan, and the brave soldiers who formed the court of the two kings. As regards the external history and description of the Books of Sam.1el, the following are the points most worthy of notice :- § 1. NA.ME. In Hebrew manuscripts the two Books form but one; it is in the Septuagint that we :find them divided, and called the First and Second '.Books of the Kin~doms. The Vulgate has followed the Septuagint in its division, but calls them the First and Second Books of Kings. Finally, Daniel Bomberg, in the great Hebrew .Bible published by him at Venice early in the sixteenth century, adopted this arrangement, and most modern Hebrew Bibles follow his example. But the division is most awkward. Saul's death is separated from David's pathetic lamentation over the fallen monarch, and the break in the narrative prevents the reader from following easily the development of David's character and history. In these days, when no matters of convenience require the disruption of the Book, a great advantage would be gained by once again arranging it as a whole, instr,ad of following the Septuagint in its unphilosophi- cal division. The name there, "Books of the Kingdoms," refers to the two monarchies of Israel and Judah, and is carried on through the two following Books of Kings. § 2. AUTHOR. Who was the compiler of the Book of Samuel is absolutely unknown, and we are left .also to gather our conclusions as to the date and character of its composition from incidental facts and allusions scattered through the history. One such conclusion forced upon us is that the Book is made up of a number of detached narratives, each of which is complete in itself, and caui.es the history down into its remoter consequences. Of these narratives we have five or six grouped together in 2 Sam. xxi.-x.xiv. without any attempt at arrangement. The execution of Saul's seven sons or grandsons, the list of victories over the Philistines, David's psalm of thanksgiving, his last words, the names of his heroes, and the numbering of the people seem placed thus at the end because the com- piler had no means of knowing what was their proper place in the history. The "last words" might fitly form the conclusion of the whole, but the other narratives are entirely out of place, and conceal from the reader how little we know of David's conduct after he had returned to Jerusalem, penitent and INTRODUCTION TO