Читать книгу King Saul - John C. Holbert - Страница 8

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How the great Samuel had been chosen prophet by YHWH became legendary, though his beginnings were far more ordinary. Indeed, the thought that Samuel of all boys would one day be Israel’s great prophet and priest and judge, and would both make and depose the first of Israel’s kings, and would crown the second, would have brought gales of laughter from those who witnessed his start in the pathetic village of Ramathaim-Zophim in the remote hills of Ephraim. He had been born to a long-barren woman named Hannah, the second wife of a minor landowner named Elkanah. Elkanah’s first wife, Peninnah, was marvelously fertile, always an important attribute in a woman, and gave her husband son after daughter after son, almost yearly. But poor Hannah could have no children. As a barren wife, her status dipped lower and lower until the community looked with more fondness on some of their productive livestock than on the increasingly sad and frustrated Hannah. Elkanah, too, was increasingly frustrated. YHWH knows he had tried to give Hannah a child, but it had simply not happened, and he was ready to give her up as an empty vessel, a dry tree, a woman without a future with him or anyone else.

Hannah could barely leave her house to perform the daily chores. Cooking on the outdoor fire was unbearable as the women would snigger behind their hands, and gesture to their bellies, miming flat and round. Washing at the stream was worse, since when she waded in to retrieve the clothes, the water accentuated her thin body, devoid of a child, and muffled laughs would rise behind bushes. Her life was made even more miserable by Peninnah, her fabulously fertile co-wife. With a haughtiness born of success at the birthing stones, Peninnah would ask Hannah to watch her expanding brood while she and Elkanah would slip quietly into the tent for what Hannah knew was a sweaty act that would result in still one more child for the woman. More than once Hannah thought of running away or wading far enough into the river to cover her flat body forever.

One year, Hannah had had enough. Enough of nasty Peninnah’s children, enough of nasty Peninnah herself, enough of the pitiful attempts of Elkanah to coddle her, and mollify her, and cheer her up. She had had enough of the whole sort of life she was being forced to live. She decided on her own to go talk to her God at the sacred shrine of Shiloh. Shiloh was a holy place, the holiest spot in the area. The great Joshua, after he brought Israel into the land, had chosen the site of Shechem, near Shiloh, as the spot from which the rest of the land was to be viewed and finally won for YHWH. It was even rumored that those who lived in the land had worshipped their gods of field and stone here long before Israel had come. “Choose this day whom you will serve,” the great Joshua had demanded at Shechem, and the first generation of Israelites had readily enough responded, “We will serve YHWH!” Well, Hannah mused, they and we had not always done so, despite the General’s call. But so it is with those who claim allegiance to anything; constancy is at a premium. But Hannah was determined to have a child, so to Shiloh she went.

There was a uniqueness to the place, a kind of hushed and hopeful mystery that made a desperate woman want to find communion with that deity who ruled here and everywhere. She walked early one morning in the direction of the central shrine, a low stone building of one room, lighted dimly by an oil lamp set in one wall. The priest of the place, Eli by name, was sitting in his seat near the entrance, but he barely noticed her as she rustled quietly by him into the innermost part of the dark sanctuary. Small puffs of incense added to the gloom and somewhere in the shadowy distance a holy voice was chanting words in some ancient dialect she could not understand. She stood in the center of the room, quite alone, unable at first to discover the words she needed to say. She desperately needed a child. She desperately wanted to shut the mouths of all those who had made her life an unspeakable horror. Tears coursed down her sunken cheeks. Finally she knew what she had to say to this hidden God.

“O YHWH of the armies! If you will closely look at the misery of your servant, and not forget me, but remember your servant, and give to your servant male seed, then I vow that I will give him to you all the days of his life; no razor will ever touch his head!”

She knew what she meant by this vow to the God of Shiloh. She had just promised to give her desired son to the shrine forever as a priest, to have him only for a few short years, and then to relinquish him to YHWH’s life-long service. He would never get a haircut, because the vow of a Nazirite, one fully given over to God, insisted that his hair was God’s alone and should thus be forever uncut. Nor would he ever drink wine and live and work around grapes or their vines. Nor would he ever touch or stand close to a dead body. The vow was strict and demanded courage and commitment and complete determination. It could be for a short time or for a whole life. Hannah was desperate; she vowed the service of her son-to-be for his entire life.

Everyone knew the old story of the most famous of Nazirites, Samson, the bull-headed hero of old, who had killed many more people when he died than when he was alive. He may have been a hero in the story, but Hannah had always found the oversexed man nothing more than a brute. And besides, he had been a miserable example of a Nazirite. He had drunk barrels of wine at numerous parties, had touched and created more dead bodies than anyone before or since, and had received an infamous haircut from that brazen woman, Delilah. And though the hair had grown back, leading to that dramatic destruction of the Philistine temple of Dagon when Samson had pulled it down with his massive strength, Hannah had been horrified by the fantastic loss of life far more than she had been thrilled by the great hero’s actions. She had no intention of allowing her son to become such a wretched example of service. No. Her son would be a Nazirite beyond compare! But, of course, first she had to become pregnant. But somehow she felt, after the energy of her vow in the darkened sanctuary of Shiloh, that this time she would lose her flat belly at last.

As she was concluding her prayer, and meditating on what she had vowed, the rough voice of the priest broke the silence of the moment.

“How long will you make such a drunken mess of yourself! Throw away your wine, you filthy woman!”

Hannah realized in an instant that she had prayed her prayers silently but had moved her lips all the while. The foolish priest had concluded that she was drunk! Did he not expect faithful and desperate people to come to his sanctuary for prayer and to commune with God? Would he not be open to the supplicant, offering words of support rather than shouts of condemnation based in ignorance and stupidity? Still, he was the priest no matter how poorly he understood the role. And it would probably be this wretched priest to whom she would have to entrust her future son. So she tried patiently to explain.

“No, my lord. You are mistaken. I am a woman in great pain; I have been pouring out my life to the God who resides in Shiloh. I have drunk no wine this day nor any strong spirits. Do not treat me like some sort of foul creature, because I have been speaking to God out of extreme anxiety and frustration all this time. Can you not see my pain? You have been far too hasty in your conclusions about what you have witnessed.”

But the priest did not apologize, nor did he feel chastened at all. He merely mumbled a rote blessing to Hannah, as she turned to leave.

“Go in peace, and may YHWH grant whatever it was you asked YHWH.” He did not even ask Hannah what it was she wanted so desperately! She had thought a priest of all people would at least have asked that. Still, she responded appropriately and traditionally enough.

“May your servant find favor with you,” and bowed courteously.

But when she left the temple, she smiled sardonically, wondering to herself how such a fool could ever have thought he could serve the great YHWH at all. But no need to waste time with that. She had to find Elkanah now, because she just knew that a son of her own was going to be born in about nine moons!

And so it had happened. Hannah and Elkanah had made such love as they had never made before, and she had gotten pregnant, much to her vast delight and relief, and much to the surprise and chagrin of her many detractors. He was a beautiful child, healthy and strong, and Hannah herself named him, although the custom was that the father had that right. But Hannah would have none of it. When the naming day came, she stood proudly, even defiantly, in the circle of her neighbors, among those who had laughed at her and scorned her, and joked about her, raised her son up to the sky, and shouted for all to hear.

“This boy shall be called Samuel, because I asked YHWH for him!”

Then she fiercely held Samuel to her breast, while he screamed his welcome to the world.

But the community looked at one another in surprise and confusion. The naming had been decidedly odd. The name “Samuel” means “God listens,” and they expected Hannah to explain the name by announcing that YHWH had heard her cry for the child. But that had not been her explanation for the boy’s name. She had said that the reason for the name was that she had “asked” YHWH for him. But “asked” is from another verb altogether, as they all knew. The boy should have been named something more like Saul, since that is a possible name from that verb. Had Hannah made a mistake? Was she being deliberately mysterious or confusing? Was she somehow making fun of those in the community who had made fun of her? Whatever Hannah had meant by her peculiar naming rite, no one ever forgot what had happened that day, especially after the appearance of king Saul so many years later. Had Hannah known about Saul? But how? She was long dead by the time he was born. Was Hannah somehow privy to the workings of the wonderful YHWH? Everyone looked at her very differently after the birth of Samuel, and Hannah herself was a completely different woman. She held her head high when she appeared at the well; she proudly made her way to the place of washing, carrying her son on her hip with shoulders squared and back straight, though she was surely not the youngest woman in the village.

When the time for the yearly pilgrimage to Shiloh came around, Hannah told Elkanah that she would not go with him this year! She actually defied her husband in this!

“When I wean him, he will go with us to Shiloh, but not before,” she said with a withering glance in the direction of Peninnah and her many children.

And she strode right back into the tent, not bothering to see them off.

Elkanah, much impressed with his formerly despondent wife, said to her retreating back, “Do what seems best to you; wait until you have weaned him. May YHWH establish his word!”

But those who heard him say that were not clear whose word he meant, YHWH’s or Samuel’s. Given what the boy became, it could have been either.

Of course, Hannah knew that when she took Samuel to Shiloh, she would have to leave him there to fulfill her vow to YHWH. She was in no hurry to do that, so delayed the weaning as long as she comfortably could. But in the boy’s fourth year, it was time for them to go. There was no doubt that she was going to do what she had promised, but her preparations for the trip were slow and as deliberate as she could make them. The lively Samuel played nearby with his favorite toy, a carved wooden bear, while his mother packed some simple food into her bag of skin, finally scooping Samuel into her arms. He was not old enough to know that this would perhaps be the last time he would see this village and its familiar smells and sights, but Hannah vowed silently that she would see her son as often as possible. She had already devised a plan to do so.

In addition to the lunch of bread and dates, Hannah selected the finest of the family’s best bulls—a huge and expensive offering—along with an entire bushel of flour and a full skin of wine and began the trip to Shiloh. Little had changed since her last time there, that time when she had been favored by YHWH. The temple had not changed at all; it was still unimposing on its tiny rise and still dark and smoke smelling within its one room. But this was to be the place of her son’s new life, so she went to it immediately. Outside, at the spot of sacrificial slaughter, she killed the bull, prepared it for proper sacrifice, and mixed wine and flour into a paste. Then holding tight to her son’s hand, she moved toward the dark room of the tiny temple and placed the sacrificial food on the crude altar, while she uttered the old words of thanksgiving to the God from whom she had asked the child, that same God who had heard her plea.

“Praise to you, O YHWH, ruler of the universe, who gives us fruit of the vine, grain from the fields, and children from our womb!’

The last phrase of the prayer she said with special energy and gladness. All the while, the young Samuel stood wide-eyed in the dim room, surrounded by the smells of meat and smoke and wine, mesmerized by the ancient words pouring forth from his beloved mother.

When the prayer ended, Hannah turned from the altar and led her son to the old priest, Eli, who was sitting in his usual place by the front entrance to the sanctuary. She wondered silently to herself whether the fat old man had moved from the spot in the many moons since first she saw him! His blind eyes were fixed on some horizon only he saw, his priestly robes filthy with spilled wine and blotched with grease stains of meat. He seemed no more alert to her now than he was all that time ago, but he was the priest and she had made the vow. She gave the speech she had practiced again and again but was still reluctant to say. She spoke loudly in case the old man’s ears worked no better than his eyes.

“Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing with you here many suns ago, praying to YHWH. You said I was drunk, but I was not. For this child with me I prayed that day. YHWH clearly has given to me what I asked.” The priest was startled from his reverie by the shouted words, his face turning toward the unwelcome sound.

But now came the hard words, nearly choking her as they came out.

“Now I offer him to YHWH all of his days; he is now offered to YHWH forever.”

Eli was silent, pointing his withered hands toward the sound of Hannah while she and her son prostrated themselves before him, falling down in religious devotion before YHWH’s priest. The truth was that the old man did not remember the woman, or her vow, or the fact that he had accused her of being drunk those moons ago. There were so many worshippers, so many desperate people. Eli had been priest for countless years, and his eyes were no longer clear, his mind no clearer. He rummaged around in his heart for some recollection, some clue that could remind him of what this obviously fervent woman was talking about, but he was blank. He decided to say nothing so as not to reveal his confusion.

Hannah expected something from Eli, some sign, some blessing or other. She did not expect that the aging priest would be overjoyed to be given charge of a young boy. And she had heard that Eli’s own grown sons were scoundrels, bribe-takers, defilers of sacrifices in the sanctuary itself, even having illicit sex with some of the women who served the temple. She would not be surprised if Eli might be reluctant to assume the responsibility of another boy when his own were such a disgrace to him. But she had made her vow, and she would keep it. Eli would simply have to mentor her son.

She waited in vain for him to say something, anything, but he was mute. But Hannah had things to say; her heart was full both of joy for the gift of her son and sadness that she was about to leave him with this doddering priest. But her prayer welled up and burst into the dank air of the sanctuary, saying much more than even she expected.

My heart exults in YHWH!

My power rises up in YHWH!

My mouth opens wide against my enemies,

as I rejoice in your victory.

There is no Holy One like YHWH,

no one besides you,

no rock like our God!

Warriors’ bows break,

while feeble ones grow strong.

Those who were comfortable have sold themselves for bread,

while hungry ones grow fat with spoil.

Barren ones have borne seven,

while the one with many children fades.

YHWH kills and brings to life,

sends to Sheol and raises up from there.

God protects the feet of the faithful,

while the wicked shall be cut off in darkness;

surely not by strength alone is anyone strong.

The silent priest listened to her prayer in shock. This woman had taken her experience of the birth of her child and had turned it into a claim that YHWH was about to turn the world upside down! The strong are weak; the weak are strong. The warriors’ bows become useless while the unarmed gain strength. The rich grow poor and the poor grow fat. What gives a simple, arrogant female the right to utter such nonsense in the house of YHWH? And why does she wish to saddle me with her brat? She has filled his ears with this twaddle since he was born, I wager, and how am I to train him in the ways of the priests if his mind is so muddled with these revolutionary thoughts?

Eli had half a mind to tell the creature to shove off and to take her sniveling child with her. But she had vowed to leave him, or so she said, so he was trapped. If he refused to raise the boy, he was, at least possibly, denying YHWH’s word, a word that was always mysterious in any case. But if he accepted the child—well, what mischief might he bring? Eli was simply too tired and confused to say no, so when the family left, Elkanah, Peninnah and her many children, and Hannah, Samuel was left behind. Eli felt with his aging hands for the little boy and wondered whether he had made a mistake. Too late! He would have to deal with him now. He grabbed his tiny hand and half led and half followed him to the small priestly quarters at the back of the dark sanctuary. Samuel whimpered a bit, fearful of the terrifying and fat and blind old man, but he did not cry aloud. He sensed, even at his very young age, that crying would do him no good with Eli.

He got to his tiny room and reached for his wooden bear, stroking it with pleasure, feeling its solidity, its certainty, its reality. He lay down on the platform that formed nearly all of the room, and as Eli stumbled his way out of the place, Samuel did not move but lay quietly, impassively, rubbing the bear, gazing at the four clay walls, adjusting his eyes to the dim light. After a time, he slept and dreamt of Ramah and his mother. He felt very small, very alone, completely abandoned, and fear along with a knot of anger welled into his chest. One would expect fear from an abandoned child, but anger was unusual in one so young. Fear was understandable, but the origin of that anger was not at all clear.