IF PLAYWRIGHT ARTHUR MILLER is correct in defining a great play as one in which you discover facets of your own character, then the two books of Samuel can be read as great plays. From Hannah’s reaction to her infertility in 1 Samuel to David’s desperate act of worship to stop the plague in 2 Samuel 24, these two books seem like nonstop character studies.
If you like to read biographies, the two Samuels are for you. If you are in need of a sure-fire Sunday school series to teach, the life of King David will keep them coming Sunday after Sunday. And, as Bill Arnold so expertly shows in the pages of this commentary, the application of biblical truth to everyday living is immediate and direct. God speaks through these pages.
Why do we hear God’s voice so clearly through the lives of Hannah, Samuel, Eli and his sons, Saul, David, and David’s family? What is it about the stories of these people that make us think we have met them? How do they remind us of people we know in everyday life?
A couple of “isn’ts.” It isn’t because we are reminded of our own specific life problems and successes through these characters. Samuel was a priest, David was a king. They lived three thousand years ago under circumstances so foreign to our way of life we can hardly imagine it. And it isn’t necessarily that we identify with the sins these characters committed. David coveted his neighbor’s wife and ordered her husband’s murder so he could have her. Such deeds most of us only have nightmares about.
Rather, the reason we find the applications so immediate has deep theological roots. No matter what role we play, what deeds we do, or what culture gives form to our humanity, we are all created in God’s image. We all have the same “father.” We are made the same way. If you dig deep enough, underneath every role, deed, and culture you find a person made to seek God. It is the deepest, most basic urge we have. That is why we can read biographies of kings and arch-criminals and see ourselves in them.
There is a second reason why we find these applications so immediate. It is because we are all sinners saved by grace. We recognize not only our parentage, we recognize our common condition. When the prophet Nathan accuses David of murder and adultery in 2 Samuel 12, he points a long, bony finger at David and says, “You are the man,” and all of us flinch. We have not all committed adultery, yet in the deepest recesses of our hearts we all have sins we are desperately trying to hide.
Similarly, when David sings his beautiful song of praise to God in 2 Samuel 22, thanking his Creator for delivering him from all his enemies, both external and internal, we immediately feel the warmth surrounding our hearts. We remember all the times in our lives when God’s grace was sufficient to overcome the worst we could manage.
The two books of Samuel, therefore, have something to say about similarity and difference. One of the most important lessons of the twentieth century is the importance of difference. Through psychology we have learned the value of recognizing individual differences, of seeing each of us as unique as a snowflake. The study of anthropology has made us see the value of recognizing cultural differences, that the cultures in which we live dramatically shape the way we look at the world—so much so that people from different cultures can witness the same event and see radically different things. Such lessons are making enormous contributions to the ways we do evangelism and mission.
The books of Samuel, however, remind us of the importance of similarity. The lessons of difference must always be balanced by the lesson of similarity. We are so different from Samuel and David. But the same God made us, the same God saved us, and the same God keeps us safe. We call to that God who is worthy of praise, and we are saved from our enemies.
Terry C. Muck