1.31 Samuel and the Tragedy of King Saul

History in the Bible

Garry Stevens

History, Christianity, Judaism, Bible, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 693 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2016

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

King Saul becomes king of the Israelites, in four different ways. Samuel moves from being the last judge to the first prophet. I take the opportunity to introduce the Hebrew prophets, showing they were not fortune-tellers and sooth-sayers. They responded to political crises, and spoke about the here and now.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.
0:24.8	All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles. Episode 1.31. Tragic King Saul.
0:47.8	I mentioned in the last episode how much of Saul's story is really about the rise of David.
0:55.4	Before we lose sight of Saul in the narrative,
0:58.6	I think it's worth summarizing his story, just to give him his Jew.
1:03.9	To get a handle on the geography of Saul's reign,
1:07.3	take a look at my maps at www.
1:11.3	History in the Bible.com.
1:14.5	Saul of the northern tribe of Benjamin is the most tragic figure in the Old Testament, doomed
1:20.8	from the beginning.
1:22.7	His reign is marked by wrong turnings and heart-rending mistakes.
1:30.3	Saul will end his career as he started it,
1:37.7	fighting the Israelites' greatest enemies, the Philistines. His line will be supplanted by the House of David. In the first part of his story, he is chosen by the Prophet Samuel as Israel's king.
1:46.0	The judges, all temporary and expedient leaders, had failed to deal with the Philistine threat.
1:53.1	A permanent and enduring military leader was needed, a king.
1:58.9	Saul is depicted as a unifying force, a great military leader and ecstatically devoted to God.
2:06.3	He is charismatic and winning. He is a hero. Once David enters the story, the narrative changes
2:13.7	decisively. All the things that Saul had been praised for, he is now condemned.
2:20.6	Saul's religious frenzies are no longer exuberant celebrations of God, but the irrational
2:26.6	fits of madness. Where the text earlier said that the spirit of God came upon him,
2:33.4	after David's introduction, it says that he
2:36.4	was seized by an evil spirit. Saul is then depicted as unstable, and in his last years,
	...

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