Samuel the Prophet: the Last of the Judges
A child prayed for at Shiloh and raised in the sanctuary becomes prophet to all Israel, brings the people back to the Torah, and with his own hands anoints its first two kings.
Samuel's story begins with a childless woman. Hannah went up to Shiloh and prayed silently, her lips moving; Eli the High Priest took her for a drunk. She explained: "I am pouring out my soul before the Lord." She named her son Samuel—"asked of God"—and when he was weaned brought him to the sanctuary for good.
As a boy he heard a voice calling his name at night and was told by Eli to answer, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears." The first thing revealed to him was the verdict on his own teacher's household. He hesitated to repeat it; Eli accepted it.
After the disaster at Even-ha-ezer, Samuel became the people's central authority. He assembled Israel at Mizpah, demanded they put away foreign gods, and there, as he prayed, the Philistines were broken. Each year he rode a circuit of Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah, judging the people, then returned to his court at Ramah.
When he grew old and his sons did not follow his ways, the elders demanded a king. It grieved him, but he anointed Saul, and later David. Stepping back from office he gave an accounting rare in the history of power: whose ox have I taken? from whom have I taken a bribe? The people answered: nothing from anyone.
How we know
On the chronology
Academic history dates this event differently. In the age of the kings the divergence is not the one familiar from the Persian period, where Seder Olam runs about a hundred and sixty-five years short. Here academic chronology reckons some reigns as overlapping — father and son on the throne together — so its span from the division of the kingdom to the destruction of the Temple comes out nearly three decades shorter. The gap therefore grows: a hundred and thirty-five years at the division, a hundred and fifty-four at Sennacherib, a hundred and sixty-four at the destruction. The anchors of the academic count are external documents: the battle of Qarqar (853), Jehu's tribute on the Black Obelisk (841), the fall of Samaria (722), Sennacherib's campaign (701), Megiddo and Nebuchadnezzar's campaigns in the Babylonian Chronicles (609, 605, 597). Both dates appear on the timeline when the divergence layer is on.
Sources
Tanakh
- Shmuel I 1–3 — Chanah’s prayer, the dedication of her son, and the first prophecy
- Shmuel I 7, 8, 12 — Mitzpah, the demand for a king, and the farewell address
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Berachot 31a–31b — the laws of prayer derived from Chanah’s prayer
- Taanit 5b — Shmuel’s early death and old age that “came upon him suddenly”
- Bava Batra 14b–15a — Shmuel as the author of his own book, of Shoftim and of Ruth
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.
People and places
Eli the High Priest · Samuel the Prophet · King Saul · Shiloh · Samuel · Hannah · Elkanah