Tag: King Saul

Book Plunge: Christian Body: The Naked King

What can we learn from Saul going buff? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost turns to 1 Samuel 19. In this, he recounts how Saul appeared before Samuel and stripped down to nothing and prophesied. Thus, Frost says we have not only Saul going nude, but this is under God’s direction. No one is reacting with disgust or talking about impropriety. Case closed! Right?

Here, Frost has badly misread Scripture.

If you go and read the whole passage, Saul is out for blood. He is trying to eliminate his rival to the throne, David. David flees to Samuel and tells him all that is happening and David stays with him. Saul sends men to Samuel who end up prophesying. Then another group goes to Samuel and the same thing happens. Finally, Saul goes himself.

It is here where we get the most detail. At this point, the Spirit of God comes upon Saul and he ends up stripping naked entirely and prophesying. So what is going on here?

A few commentaries could have helped Frost out:

But in a climactic tour de force, the Spirit of God made a mockery of the most ardent efforts of David’s opponent. Saul’s first servants had not begun prophesying until they arrived at Naioth; however, Saul began prophesying as “he walked along” some distance from Naioth. Then when he actually arrived at his destination, the Spirit of God so overwhelmed him that “he stripped off his robes” (v. 24) as he continued to prophesy “in Samuel’s presence.” The triple employment of the Hebrew phrase gam hûʾ (lit., “even he”; not fully noted in the NIV) in vv. 23–24 emphasizes the fact that Israel’s most powerful citizen was subjugated by the power of God.
Saul’s loss of royal attire in the presence of God’s Spirit presented a powerful image confirming the prophetic judgments Samuel made earlier (cf. 15:23, 28). God had rejected Saul as king, so in God’s presence Saul would not be permitted to wear the clothing of royalty. Saul had “rejected the word of the LORD” (15:23), so now in an ironic twist he would be condemned to be a mouthpiece for that word.
Saul remained “naked” (Hb. ʿārōm; NIV, “that way”; a grave shame in the ancient Near East) and in a prophetic trance “all that day and night.” His actions, so out of keeping with his background and character, gave new life to the proverb coined when Saul was first anointed king over Israel (cf. 10:11), “Is Saul also among the prophets?” As Youngblood points out, the proverb now also distances Saul from the royal office.

Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel (vol. 7; The New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 210–211.

And

The final and rather strange incident in this chapter describes David’s flight to Samuel, who becomes the first of many people with whom David will take refuge. Saul hears of David’s location and sends messengers. God himself protects David by throwing the messengers into a prophetic trance repeated times. Finally, Saul himself goes and his journey to Samuel at the beginning of his career is repeated. However, his experience at the beginning of his career is reversed. There the Spirit came upon him as validation of his appointment as king but now the Spirit comes upon him in such a way as to protect his replacement and confirm his rejection. Saul’s isolation is vividly presented as he strips off his clothes and lies naked and humiliated for a day and a night.

Andrew Reid, 1 & 2 Samuel: Hope for the Helpless (Reading the Bible Today Series; Sydney, South NSW: Aquila Press, 2008), 109.

It is quite alarming that Frost takes a message of judgment and rejection and turns it into a message of celebration. Saul does not go nude to show the glory of the human body. He goes nude because he is not worthy of royal clothing and he is to be shamed.  This also then furthers the idea that in ancient Israel, nudity in public was seen as shameful.

How does Frost so badly misread this? I can only speculate he got what he wanted to see.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Sex, Wives, and Warriors

What do I think of Philip Esler’s book published by Cascade books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Men tend to share a lot of common loves. Most men love sex, for example. For those of us who married, many of us love our wives too. Many of us also have a fighting spirit and love warriors, so naturally, a book called Sex, Wives, and Warriors is attractive.

I thought this would be a book about the conquest in the Old Testament since it was about Old Testament narrative. Nope. Still, I’m not complaining. The book is about a number of other passages in the text and giving them a good and hard look.

Esler also writes from a perspective for every person. If you’re a skeptic of the Bible’s historicity, it doesn’t matter. His goal is not to tell you what happened, but how an ancient Israelite would have seen the text at the time. If you’re a believer in the text, this will give you some insight still. If you’re not a believer, you’ll still get something out of it by seeing how the texts fit into the society.

Genesis 38 with Judah and Tamar is covered. This is a passage of Scripture I always found quite strange to have suddenly pop up in the text with no seeming relation to the narrative. After all, this portion of the text focuses mainly on Joseph and none of the other children of Jacob get a look like this, so why Judah?

I still am unsure of that, but this passage is seen in a whole new light. Esler brings out why it is that Judah wouldn’t give his third son to Tamar and why it is she seduced Judah instead. Many of us today are unaware of the social structure of society and are too quick to read our modern culture into the text.

So it goes with other stories in the Old Testament. How should we see the story of Hannah and her son Samuel? Why is Hannah treated the way she is by her husband and her rival wife? Why even have a rival wife?

What about David and Goliath? Is this just a story about overcoming your own Goliaths in your life? (Spoiler alert: No.) What does it mean of David that he goes and fights? What was it that made this fight so spectacular?

What about King Saul’s being crowned king? Why would he go and cut up an ox and run it through the streets of town? Why would there be hesitation on the part of the people if God chose Saul?

What about David and Bathsheba? This is one of those stories that if a film was made about it even if just for TV, you would have to send the kids to bed early that night. What all else is going on behind the scenes that we might not realize?

One outworking of this is the story of Amnon and Tamar. What is going on in David’s family to cause this to happen? What kind of relationship did David have with his kids? How did this affect the kingdom afterward?

We also step out of the Old Testament for a bit, at least if you’re a Protestant, to cover the story of Judith. If you haven’t read this as a Protestant, you should. This is one also that if you don’t believe it to be historical, you can still see how an ancient Israelite would have seen it.

I recommend this one for believers and non-believers alike. Non-believers will not think they are being preached to and won’t get an apologetics approach. This is all about interpretation and not historicity. Christians and others who hold to historicity, such as a number of Jews, will gain further insights into the text.

So if you love stories in the Bible about sex or about wives or about warriors, give it a try.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)