Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 73:2 (Fall 2011)
Article: Yahweh’s Poetic "Mishpat" In Israel’s Kingship: A Reassessment Of 1 Samuel 8-12
Author: Jerry Hwang

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Yahweh’s Poetic Mishpat In Israel’s Kingship: A Reassessment Of 1 Samuel 8-12

Jerry Hwang

Jerry Hwang is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College in the Republic of Singapore.

I. Introduction

The overlapping careers of Kings David and Saul have inspired countless depictions in art, literature, and music. These kings are popularly portrayed with Saul as the villain and David as the godly “man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14). As Baruch Halpern observes, however, such a stark contrast between the kings oversimplifies “a circumstantial character history whose complexity makes even the most sophisticated ancient biography seem like a cartoon in comparison.”1 Furthermore, the biblical narrative betrays an ambivalence regarding kingship itself: Is the text negative (1 Sam 8; 10:17-27; 12) or positive (1 Sam 9:1-10:16; 11) toward the institution of kingship? Was kingship necessitated by sociopolitical realities within Israel (8:1-5a), or was it a reluctant concession to Israel’s demands (8:5b-22)?2

Current attempts to answer these questions tend either to fragment the text or to harmonize it using questionable metaphysical or theological assumptions. Source and redaction critics posit that multiple traditions were joined in the final form of the text, while scholars using the close reading methods of the “new literary criticism”3 often resort to extra-textual models of fatalism or divine finitude to reconcile the tensions. What these literary-critical and new-literary scholars have in common is the charge of inconsistency, whether leveled against the unity of the biblical text or against the character of Yhwh. This article argues, in contrast to such positions, that kingship is portrayed in 1 Sam 8-12 as a form of Yhwh’s poetic justice upon Israel.4 Yhwh grants Israel’s sinful request for

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kingship, not by way of concession, but by his design simultaneously to allow evil and punish his people, but fulfill his will in inaugurating Israel’s monarchy.

Poetic justice has typically been defined in biblical studies as the quid pro quo causa...