Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
1 Samuel 12:13-15
Samuel Then Stresses That YHWH Has Graciously Given Them Their Desire And Calls On Them To Respond In Like Manner (1 Samuel 12:13).
Samuel now stresses that, in spite of their attitude towards Him, it is still YHWH Who has set over them this king whom they had demanded, and have now chosen. Therefore if both they and their king will continue to hear His voice and obey Him then all will go well with them. But if they refuse to listen to His voice and do not obey Him and His commandments, than they must rather expect that it will go ill with them. Thus although their choosing a king other than YHWH will make if more difficult for them to continue looking to YHWH, how it eventually turns out will depend on them and them alone.
“ Now therefore see the king whom you have chosen, and whom you have asked for, and see, YHWH has set a king over you.”
He presents Saul to them as the one that they have themselves chosen. Notice the emphasis on the fact that it is their choice which has been effective (even though guided by him and approved by lot), which suggests again that Samuel has been keeping himself in the background during the confirmation of kingship. And he stresses they have chosen him as a result of the fact that they had first asked for him. All the responsibility for these actions thus lies on them. And it is because of all this that YHWH had set him as king over them.
(What the people had done should be a reminder to us of how often we manoeuvre God into doing our will, something to which He responds out of His compassion for us, and then we blame Him when things go wrong, whereas if only we had really listened to His voice in the first place, it would never have happened).
“ If you will fear YHWH, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of YHWH, and both you and also the king who reigns over you be followers of YHWH your God, then it will be well with you.”
The new situation need not turn out badly. It is up to them. For the appointment of a king has not altered YHWH's basic requirements, nor has it let the people off from obedience. It is still required of them that they fear YHWH, and serve Him, and listen to His voice. Both they and the king must be followers of YHWH. And the implication is that if they do this, it will be well with them. (‘Then it will be well with you' is not expressed in the Hebrew, but is the implication to be read in).
“ But if you will not listen to the voice of YHWH, but rebel against the commandment of YHWH, then will the hand of YHWH be against you, as it was against your fathers.”
“Go in peace.” So he arose, and went to Hebron (2 Samuel 15:9).
b But Absalom sent scouts throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sou
f the trumpet, then you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.' ” (2 Samuel 15:10).
a And with Absalom went two hundred men out of Jerusalem, who were invited, and went in their simple innocence, and they knew nothing (2 Samuel 15:11).
Note that in ‘a' Absalom wished to go to Hebron on a special occasion to pay his vow, and in the parallel he did so accompanied by two hundred men. In ‘b' his pretence is that he is going to serve YHWH, and in the parallel his intended service of YHWH will turn out to be a very different one than David had thought. Centrally in ‘c' David wishes him peace, and he goes off in order to rebel.
‘ And it came about at the end of forty years, that Absalom said to the king, “I pray you, let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed to YHWH, in Hebron.” '
It is quite apparent from what follows that Absalom's plotting continued, extending further and further through disaffected people until it had spread throughout large parts of Israel and Judah, especially in key cities, with the result that gradually he felt that his support had become wide enough for him to be able to act with a good chance of success. It is also apparent that one powerful group of such conspirators was in Hebron, a group which was sufficiently powerful to guarantee his acceptance there as king. Thus he appears to have had support in both Israel and Judah. This suggests that David's popularity had, through the years, waned outside the capital away from the court. It may well be that once his military successes were behind him and the grateful country gradually began to accept its security as its right, it began to have greater expectations than David was fulfilling. It serves to bring out that David was perhaps not as good at local administration as he was at winning battles. Indeed much of his concentration would have been on the wider empire. As a consequence he had tended to overlook the need to keep his own people happy. All this must have been so for the rebellion to take hold so easily.
Hebron itself may also have become disillusioned because he had moved the centre of his government, and part of the emphasis on worship, away from that ancient sanctuary and from the Tabernacle, to Jerusalem with its sacred Tent containing the Ark. While Jerusalem was an equally ancient sanctuary with an ancient priesthood, it had until recently been a Canaanite sanctuary, and the enthusiasm of David had not necessarily been infectious outside the ranks of his own supporters.
“And it came about at the end of forty years.” The question that this raises is as to what the ‘end of forty years' refers to. If we take the number literally then it produces a definite problem. There are a number of possibilities:
· Some have seen it as signifying forty years from the time when the kingship was first established and Saul was anointed king, but that is to ignore other evidence, for elsewhere we learn that Saul himself reigned for about forty years. He seemingly became king as a young man in the first stage of his life, and died alongside his adult sons who themselves had been warriors for many years. Furthermore Acts 13:21 would support such a period.
· Others see it as referring to forty years from David's anointing, but it is difficult in that case to see why the writer should particularly have had that incident in mind without explaining the fact here.
· Many consider that the number four has been inaccurately copied as forty so that really we should read ‘four' here. That would certainly be sufficient time for the rebellion to spread. But in our view emendation of the text in such a way without textual evidence must always be seen as the last resort (even granted that number symbols could easily be wrongly copied, or might even change in significance over centuries).
· The probability, therefore, is that we should rather see it as signifying, not a literal forty years, but the period from Absalom's birth to the time when he attained maturity, sufficiently to rebel. Such a special event as coming to maturity would adequately explain why he took with him two hundred chosen men, who were totally unaware of what was really happening, in order to perform a vow, something which would surely have been suspicious had it not been on a very special occasion.
We can, for example, compare how in Genesis marriage consistently took place when someone was ‘forty years' old, in other words was seen as mature enough for marriage (Genesis 25:20; Genesis 26:34). It is very unlikely that in either case they would literally have waited until they were forty years of age. But larger numbers were used in this general kind of way. See also Joshua 14:7, where Joshua said of himself that he was ‘forty years old' when he was sent out as a spy into Canaan (which if taken literally would mean that he began the conquest when he was seventy eight years old), and compare the constant use of ‘forty years' as indicating important periods in the books of Judges, Samuel and Kings, where it is unlikely that we should take them too literally (see Judges 3:11; Judges 5:31; Judges 8:28; Judges 13:1; 1 Samuel 4:18; 2 Samuel 2:10; 2 Samuel 5:4; 1 Kings 2:11; 1 Kings 11:42; 2 Kings 12:1). They may well in these cases signify ‘a generation'. This is not to say that the figure is ‘incorrect'. It is, in the terms of the time when it was written, fully correct. It was simply the Hebrew way of indicating a longish period which was complete in itself (compare the similar use of ‘forty days'), something not simply confined to the Hebrews. For we should remember that whereas we have been brought up to think numerically, the majority of ancients were innumerate and saw larger numbers as being used as adjectives in order to give an impression rather than as intended to be numerically accurate. This verse is thus probably saying that Absalom, having attained the age of maturity, wanted to go to Hebron to ‘pay his vow'. The age of maturity may actually have been twenty, the age at which he became eligible to fight for Israel (Numbers 1:3; etc), or twenty five, the age at which the Levite apprenticeship began (Numbers 8:24), or even thirty when the Levite (and presumably the priest) came to full maturity (Numbers 4:3; etc). Absalom was after all one of the king's ‘priests'. This would also make sense as explaining why at this time he wished to fulfil his vow in order to be a true priest to YHWH, that is, to ‘serve YHWH'.
“ For your servant vowed a vow while I abode at Geshur in Aram (Syria), saying, ‘If YHWH shall indeed bring me again to Jerusalem, then I will serve YHWH.”
Absalom then explained how when he was in Geshur he had made a solemn vow to YHWH that if He would restore him to his rightful position in Jerusalem, he would ‘serve Him'. The verb ‘to serve' can have a general significance of obedience to YHWH (e.g. Deuteronomy 6:13) but it can also have the special significance of ‘serving' in a levitical or priestly fashion (e.g. Numbers 3:7; Numbers 18:7). If the king's sons were seen as ‘priests after the order of Melchizedek', and as connected with the sanctuary as intercessory priests (see on 2 Samuel 8:18), this would make good sense. Others see it as signifying his intention to offer freewill sacrifices of thanksgiving. In the end, however, it was only really an excuse to go to Hebron without arousing suspicion.
‘ And the king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he arose, and went to Hebron.'
Such a proposal that he should ‘serve YHWH' would have gladdened the king's heart for he would have wanted nothing more than that his sons properly fulfil their responsibilities towards YHWH. So totally unsuspectingly he bade him ‘go in peace'. This was a general farewell wish indicating a situation of wellbeing between the parties, but it gains special significance in this case because the reader and listener know that he is doing anything other than going in peace. And the consequence was that Absalom ‘went to Hebron', to cause war.
‘ But Absalom sent scouts throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron.' ”
And it was from Hebron, where he was seemingly greeted as prospective king, (it is apparent that a number of negotiation must have been going on meanwhile), that he sent out messengers to selected groups with the news that when they heard the blowing of the ram's horns then they were to declare that ‘Absalom is king in Hebron'. His coronation, when he would be anointed as king (2 Samuel 19:10), was evidently imminent. This stress on ‘in Hebron' might suggest that there was general disaffection among many throughout the whole of Israel over David's selection of a Canaanite stronghold as his capital city, something which Absalom was taking advantage of. Hebron at least was an ancient sanctuary of YHWH, and the home of the Tabernacle, and ancient traditions die hard. Many would not have been pleased with the change of emphasis to Jerusalem. Absalom was again playing the people for all he was worth.
‘ And with Absalom went two hundred men out of Jerusalem, who were invited, and went in their simple innocence, and they knew nothing.'
Absalom took with him ‘two hundred men' out of Jerusalem, men who were in simple innocence of what his motives were. Whether we take the two ‘hundreds' as strictly numerical, or see it as indicating two family/clan or other groupings (Israelites and Geshurites?), such an invitation indicated that this was being seen as a very special occasion. And if it was so they were being taken in order to allay suspicions. They would, however, no doubt have been selected because they were known to be his ‘friends'.