1 Sam 12:16-19: Divine Omnipotence Or Covenant Curse?

By Tremper Longman III

Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

1 Sam 12:16–19 records a final show of divine displeasure with the Israelites for requesting a human king “like the nations” (1 Sam 8:5). Though Saul had ascended the throne by this time, Yahweh sends a sign of his powerful and fearful presence to the people in the form of a violent rainstorm during the season of wheat harvest. The reason given for this manifestation is “your great evil” which the people committed, that is, their desire for a king (1 Sam 12:17).

Commentators are united in their interpretation of the significance of this divine sign. The statement of the most recent commentator, P. Kyle McCarter, may be taken as typical:

The allusion to the wheat harvest marks the season as early summer when rain rarely fell…. Thus the thunderstorm here sent by Yahweh at Samuel’s behest cannot be misinterpreted by the people as a natural occurrence; it is so extraordinary as to be unambiguously supernatural in origin. The point of the incident is not so much that Yahweh thunders at the people to express his displeasure (though this is an important element) as that he exhibits his willingness to respond to Samuel, his prophet.[1]

The significance of the sign is found in the fact that Yahweh is making it rain in a season which usually does not experience it, namely the time of the wheat harvest. In other words, the people quake at the appearance of this unusual rain because it clearly demonstrates that the God whom they have offended is in control of the weather and is omnipotent.

But does this interpretation, which is given by scholars of the past[2] and present,[3] explain the passage adequately in the light of its context, both broad and narrow?

It is our contention that the rainstorm theophany of 1 Sam 12:16–19 is not only a sign of Yahweh’s omnipotence, but a manifestation of the covenant curse both to illustrate God’s displeasure with the people’s covenant-breaking request for a king and also to motivate the people to keep the covenant sanctions which Samuel had just delivered to them (vv 14–15). This interpretation is supported by looking at the context and the text itself.

The context of our pericope is a covenantal renewal festival. In a recent monograph, J. Robert Vannoy[4] has persuasively argued that 1 Samuel 12 is best understood as a covenant renewal ceremony[5] which served two purposes: (1) to reestablish the covenant between Yahweh and Israel after the latter broke it by turning aside from their divine warrior and king and asking for a human one;[6] (2) to establish a human monarchy which was complementary and not in violation of the theocracy.

Vannoy structures 1 Samuel 12 in the following fourfold manner:[7]

1. Appeal to antecedent history (12:6–12)
2. The challenge to the basic covenantal obligation of undivided allegiance to Yahweh (12:13a, 14a, 15a, 20–21, 24)
3. Blessing and curse sanctions (12:14b, 15b, 25)
4. Theophanic sign (12:16–18a)

While we believe that Vannoy has rightly discerned the nature of 1 Samuel 12 as a covenant renewal ceremony and has correctly structured it, we note that he too has misunderstood vv 16–18.[8] As a matter of fact, he wavers[9] concerning the suitability of such a theophany in a covenantal context.

But it is precisely the context of a covenant renewal ceremony which leads us to interpret the thunderstorm as an illustrative covenant curse. Coming right after the sanctions, the violent thunderstorm not only communicates to the people that they have “done an evil thing” in the past, but also that they must obey the covenant sanctions which Samuel has just delivered to them (vv 14–15).

Interpreting the thunderstorm as covenant curse rather than divine omnipotence also aids us in understanding the text itself. The divine omnipotence interpretation takes as its starting point Samuel’s rhetorical question, “Is it not wheat harvest now?” (v 17a). Since the months of wheat harvest are dry months, it is true that God’s ability to produce rain at this time is a sign that he is in control of the weather. But there is additional significance to this time indicator which has not been noted before. The fact that the wheat is standing makes a driving rainstorm a very perilous matter. It jeopardizes the season’s crop and therefore threatens famine.[10]

In addition, the interpretation which pictures the rainstorm as a crop-destroying one gives concrete meaning to the people’s reaction. They “stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel” (1 Sam 12:18) and said, “Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we will not die” (1 Sam 12:19). Their fear was well founded; unless the storm stopped, they would face the possibility of starvation. The usually accepted interpretation of the passage does not do justice to the force of the people’s cry.

Throughout the OT, Yahweh warns his people that if they abandon him, then he will curse them. These curses take many forms, but a great number of them deal with food crops. This is not surprising since the welfare of the ancient Israelites depended on the prosperity of the crops whose fruitfulness was contingent upon the weather. Since Palestine is a rather dry area, the great majority of curses forecast drought and famine, if there is general apostasy (e.g., Deut 28:22, 24, etc.). Positively stated, faithfulness will bring rain in its season and the result will be that the ground will be fruitful (Lev 26:1ff; Deut 11:13ff). So even if drought is the threat in explicit formulations of covenant curses, a crop-damaging rainstorm can also be considered a curse. Prov 26:3 illustrates that the ancient Israelites were fully aware of the great danger of a driving rainstorm during harvest:

A ruler who oppresses the poor
is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.

In addition, Ezek 38:22, though admittedly different in that the rain is accompanied by hailstones and burning sulphur, is an explicit example of a punishing rain.[11]

As a matter of fact, the punishing rainstorm here is highly appropriate in the context. The people’s sin was their rejection of Yahweh as divine warrior. They felt they needed a human war leader to accomplish what the Lord promised he would do for his obedient people—drive out the enemy. Yahweh as the divine warrior often appeared in the form of a driving rainstorm (Ps 18:7–25 and Ps 29). In the rainstorm in 1 Sam 12, Yahweh is manifesting himself as the divine warrior, but against his people due to their disobedience.

In summary, the context (covenant renewal ceremony), the text itself (wheat harvest and fear of death) and the explicit covenant curses in other parts of the Old Testament argue for our interpretation of 1 Sam 12:16–19 as the outworking of a covenant curse which motivates the Israelites to repent of their past sin and to keep the sanctions which had just been presented to them by Samuel.

Notes

1. P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (AB8; Garden City: Doubleday, 1980) 216.
2. For example, Keil and Delitzsch, The Books of Samuel (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1868) 120 (“this was a miracle of divine omnipotence”); H. P. Smith, Samuel (ICC; Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1899) 87–88.
3. H. W. Hertzberg, I and II Samuel (Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1964) 100 and John Mauchline, I and II Samuel (New Century Bible; Greenwood, S.C.: The Attic Press, 1971) 109.
4. J. Robert Vannoy, Covenant Renewal at Gilgal (Cherry Hill: Mack Publishing Co., 1978).
5. Also P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel, 220-21.
6. See the interesting discussion in Millard C. Lind, Yahweh is a Warrior (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1980) 100ff.
7. J. Robert Vannoy, Covenant Renewal, 160-9.
8. Ibid., 47; “In a season during which rain rarely fell (cf. Prov 26:1) Samuel says that he will call on Yahweh to send thunderings and rain as a sign that Israel has sinned in asking for a king.”
9. Ibid., 168, though he notes that there are a few instances where theophany is associated with covenant (Deut 31; 1 Kgs 8 and Ps 50).
10. A heavy rainstorm can do terrible damage to a wheat crop which is in the field about to be harvested. “Lodging” is the technical term which describes the destruction of cereals by hard rain or wind at harvest time. Cf. John H. Martin, Warren H. Leonard, and David L. Stamp, Principles of Field Crop Production (3rd ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1976) 73–74. I wish to thank my student Richard Holmes for this reference.
11. Thomas Mann (“The Pillar of Cloud in the Reed Sea Narrative,” JBL 90 [1971] 15–30) shows how frequently rainstorm and volcano imagery are mixed. It is true that no known biblical or extra-bibiical curse is known which threatens crop-destroying rain, but the assumption is that our present inventory of curses from the Near East is not exhaustive.