The Narrative-Geographical Shaping of 1 Samuel 7:5–13

By John A. Beck

[John A. Beck is Associate Professor of Hebrew, Concordia University, Mequon, Wisconsin.]

Biblical authors crafted their stories and employed language to entertain and shape their readers. In accomplishing this the authors, writing under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, employed a variety of literary conventions, including the mention of geographical sites in the storytelling process.

This artful use of geography is called narrative geography. Study of it is related to the study of physical and historical geography but distinct from them. Physical geography investigates the land through the lenses of topography, geology, hydrology, climate, forestation, land use, urbanization, and transportation.[1] Historical geography examines the role such physical geography plays in the shaping of history and culture.[2] Narrative geography, however, analyzes the literary function of geographical references within a story. It acknowledges that the author may strategically use geographical references to impact the reading experience. Of course the authors’ choices of settings were influenced by the locations of the reported events. Nevertheless “these authors controlled the selectivity of detail in the description of settings, requiring the reader to pay close attention to these textual signals.”[3] As Bar-Efrat concludes, “Places in the narrative are not merely geographical facts, but are to be regarded as literary elements in which fundamental significance is embodied.”[4] Previous investigation has demonstrated that biblical authors may employ geography as a narrative tool to shape the plot,[5] to develop characterization,[6] and even to highlight irony in a story.[7]

First Samuel 7:5–13 is filled with geographical references. In only nine verses mention is made of water and thunder and a number of place names including Mizpah, Beth Car, Shen, and Ebenezer. These geographical references are woven into the story that records Samuel’s leading the Israelites through a time of national repentance. They denounced Baal and pledged their allegiance to the Lord during a national worship service at Mizpah, which was interrupted when the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. Despite the risk of attack the people called for the worship to continue. And as the Israelites stepped out in faith, the Lord stepped out in power with booming thunder that scattered the Philistine attackers. Then a memorial was set up between Mizpah and Shen to commemorate what happened that day.

Geography plays a powerful role in this story. But the focus of this article is on the use of the proper name Mizpah, a name that occurs six times in nine verses. If Mizpah were mentioned only once or twice, that would likely conclude this inquiry. But the sixfold repetition calls for more careful investigation to discover the narrative-rhetorical function of the name Mizpah in this story.

Drawing on literature from archaeology and geography, the first step is to learn all that is possible about the physical location and geographical realities of this place. Once they are known, the insights from literary scholarship lead to four potential explanations for this repetition that honor the insights gained from the geographical and archaeological evidence. This article presents the thesis that the biblical author repeated the reference to Mizpah in a bold attempt to encourage pilgrimage to this memorial site for historical reflection and worship.

The Location of Mizpah in Benjamin

The location of Mizpah is contested. That is surprising given the number of toponyms that cluster in this narrative, all associated with Mizpah and all promising to give assistance in defining its location. Unfortunately the precise location of Beth Car,[8] Shen,[9] and Ebenezer[10] are even less clear than Mizpah. Therefore one must turn to other geographical and archaeological evidence to determine the location of this city.

The proper name Mizpah (מִצְפָּה) occurs forty times in the Old Testament. Five of these occurrences point to a city located in ancient Gilead,[11] while the great majority point to a location within the tribal territory of Benjamin. The clues in 1 Samuel 7 make it clear that this Mizpah is in Benjamin, and scholars have identified ancient Mizpah with either Nebi Samwil or Tel en-Nasbeh.[12]

Nebi Samwil

Nebi Samwil is located four and a half miles northwest of Jerusalem. Its association with Mizpah of Benjamin finds support among early geographers and commentators.[13] Two pieces of evidence favor this identification: the elevation of the site and its physical relationship to Jerusalem. The Hebrew name Mizpah means “watchtower,” which suggests that the location of ancient Mizpah was on rising terrain that afforded a dramatic view of the surrounding area. If elevation were the only consideration, Nebi Samwil would be impossible to contest,[14] for this site rises five hundred feet above the terrain surrounding it[15] and thus offers a commanding view of all of Benjamin.[16] An additional piece of evidence in support of Nebi Samwil as the site of ancient Mizpah is found in 1 Maccabees 3:46, which states that Mizpah lies “κατέναντι Jerusalem.” If this means that Mizpah must be visible from Jerusalem, then Nebi Samwil would be favored over Tel en-Nasbeh, because unlike Tel en-Nasbeh, Nebi Samwil is plainly visible from Jerusalem.

However, the evidence that opposes the early identification of Nebi Samwil with Mizpah is more powerful than the evidence that supports it. First, the language of 1 Maccabees 3:46 does not demand that Mizpah be visible from Jerusalem. The Greek word κατέναντι may simply be indicating the relative position, “near,” without demanding visual contact.[17] The Revised Standard Version renders the phrase appropriately, “Mizpah opposite Jerusalem.”[18]

Second, both ancient tradition and the archaeological record argue against identifying Nebi Samwil with Mizpah. In the sixth century a.d. Nebi Samwil was identified with biblical Ramah, the home of Samuel and the location of his tomb (1 Sam. 25:1). This tradition apparently led Justinian to build a fortified monastery at Nebi Samwil commemorating the burial site of Samuel.[19] Archaeological evidence speaks out against any association of Nebi Samwil with either Ramah or Mizpah, however. No material culture from Iron Age I is evident at this site, thus making it unlikely that a city was in existence at Nebi Samwil during the days of Samuel.[20]

Tel En-Nasbeh

By contrast, the evidence for Tel en-Nasbeh, located eight miles northwest of Jerusalem, is both more substantial and more convincing. The first scholarly connection of Mizpah with this site is given in the dissertation of a French doctoral student in the late 1800s.[21] But it was not until the archaeological investigation of William F. Bad in the middle of the twentieth century that scholarly opinion came to favor Tel en-Nasbeh as the site of Mizpah.[22] Four pieces of evidence favor this identification.[23]

First, Tel en-Nasbeh lies on a hill that rises more than 2,500 feet above sea level and stands in virtual isolation from the terrain that surrounds it. The magnificent view afforded by this rising terrain clearly fits its description as a “watchtower.”[24]

Second, the Iron I archaeological evidence that is absent at Nebi Samwil is found at Tel en-Nasbeh. During the time of Samuel this site was a provincial town[25] surrounded by a rubble wall between one and two meters thick with a 660-meter perimeter around the town.[26] Within that wall lies the archaeological data that “brilliantly supports the identification of this site with Mizpah.”[27]

Third, Tel en-Nasbeh is located astride the Ridge Road that connects key cities in the mountainous interior of the country. Judges 20–21 describes a number of events that have a close connection with the Jerusalem-Shechem roadway and those texts clearly imply that Mizpah itself lies along this road.[28]

Fourth, among the archaeological discoveries at Tel en-Nasbeh were eighty-six jar handles stamped with the Hebrew phrase למלך, indicating that Mizpah was politically oriented with Judah. First Kings 15:22 notes that King Asa of Judah fortified Mizpah after defeating King Baasha of Israel. The presence of these jar handles and their absence from Bethel just three miles to the north, confirms that this is a Judean site, lending further support to the identification of Tel en-Nasbeh with Mizpah.[29] The weight of all this evidence has led to the current scholarly consensus that Mizpah of Benjamin was located at Tel en-Nasbeh.

The Geographical Functions of Mizpah

Assuming the accuracy of that consensus, the Mizpah of 1 Samuel 7 had three important geographical functions that influence the answer to the question of why it was mentioned there repeatedly. First, it served as a key city in the tribal territory of Benjamin and thus helped define its northern border (Josh. 18:26). Second, its unique location along the Ridge Road, controlling movement along that roadway through a narrow pass that climbs the Ramallah-el Birah Ridge,[30] enabled it to function as an important military and political city. In the Divided Kingdom (1 Kings 15:22)[31] it became a key border fortress for Judah, and it was the capital of Judah during the Babylonian Exile (2 Kings 25:23–25).

But the most striking application of Mizpah’s geography is its function as a gathering place for the tribes of Israel. Located in the middle of the Promised Land, it allowed for equitable travel for the various tribes of Israel when they gathered together. Furthermore travel to Benjamin was made reasonable by the roadways that entered Benjamin from the north, south, east, and west.[32] At the internal crossroads of the country Mizpah became the gathering place of choice when Israel assembled as a nation to make war (Judg. 20:1–3; 1 Macc. 3:46), to crown a king publicly (1 Sam. 10:17), or to gather for a national worship service (7:5–13).

The Narrative-Geographical Function of Mizpah

Literary studies show that repetition in the Old Testament helped shape the artistic form of a story and convey meaning within a story. In his classic work on the narrative analysis of the Old Testament Sternberg dedicates a seventy-five-page chapter to the topic of repetition.[33] And what is true of repetition in the Old Testament in general is particularly true of 1 and 2 Samuel, whose author regularly employed keyword repetition as a rhetorical device.[34]

The Role of Key-Word Repetition in Narrative

Of course the mere repetition of a word is not necessarily meaningful. For example the repetition of the word “and” in a Hebrew narrative has a grammatical role in constructing the Hebrew sentence but is not given the narrative-rhetorical status of a key word whose repetition is meaningful at the literary level. In this regard Bar-Efrat observes that a key-word repetition must have certain qualities. The word under consideration must find less frequent use in the rest of the book while being used more frequently in the smaller unit of text being studied.[35] Clearly the use of Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7 passes this test admirably. This name is used six times in five verses (vv. 5, 6 [twice], 7, 11–12) and only three times elsewhere in all of 1 Samuel (7:16; 10:17; 22:3). Clearly the author was seeking to accomplish something with this repetition.

Gunn and Fewell observe that such key-word repetition can have a variety of narrative-rhetorical functions. Repetition may be used to structure the plot of the story, to develop a theme in the story, to develop the reader’s view of a character, to create suspense, or to mark a point of emphasis.[36] Yet Sternberg urges caution, observing that repetition must be investigated carefully and weighed in context against the possible options.[37] Honoring that word of caution, this article now offers four possible explanations for the repetition of Mizpah that honor the geographical realities associated with this place.

Narrative-Geographical Explanations for the Repetition

First, this geographical repetition may be calling the reader’s attention to a previous historical event that would find a meaningful application or association with the events of 1 Samuel 7. In other words what happened before at Mizpah could be casting a shadow of meaning on what is happening on this occasion. In the Old Testament the city of Mizpah in Benjamin is mentioned in two previous places. The first is Joshua 18:26, where Mizpah is listed along with a number of other prominent cities in the border description of Benjamin, and the second is in Judges. When Israel heard that the wicked men of Gibeah had savagely raped a Levite’s concubine, Israelite soldiers mustered at Mizpah to take revenge against Gibeah (Judg. 20:1–3; 21:1, 5, 8). Given the nature of these two texts, it seems unlikely that the author of 1 Samuel was repeating the name of Mizpah to recall them to the readers’ attention. The first is forgettable, for it is found in a list of names defining the borders of Benjamin. And the second conjures up a negative memory from Israel’s past that sheds no apparent light on the positive events recorded in 1 Samuel 7.

A second possibility is that the sixfold repetition of Mizpah was designed to help characterize the people of Israel in a more positive way. This would be in connection with the command-response formulation in 1 Samuel 7:5–6. In the first of those verses Samuel told all the Israelites to assemble at Mizpah. In the following verse the narrator observed that the Israelites did just what Samuel asked them to do. This command-response formulation characterizes the Israelites in a positive way since they were demonstrating obedience to God’s representative.[38] While this would adequately explain the first two uses of the name Mizpah in verses 5–13, the explanation is unsatisfactory when applied to the four additional uses that follow.

A third possible explanation is related to the plot development. Since the narrator is the one using the name Mizpah in five of its six occurrences, the repetition may explain why the Philistines attacked the Israelites. Geographically Benjamin was the logical place to muster an army for an Israelite attack on the Philistines. The attack route would have gone from the Benjamin plateau, down the Beth Horon ridge, through the Aijalon Valley, and onto the Philistine Plain. Benjamin is the starting gate for such an attack. An assembly of this magnitude at this location coupled with a religious ceremony was a possible prelude to war. This explains the Philistine aggression as a preemptive strike warranted by the evidence.[39] If this portion of the plot is important enough to emphasize, then the repetition of Mizpah may be a tool used to explain why the Philistines drew near to engage Israel in battle. But this explanation loses credibility in light of the fact that the Philistine preemptive strike plays only a supplementary role in the plot. The real focus of the story is on the repentance of the Israelites and their victory over the Philistines. If this repetition is informing the plot, then the explanation of the repetition must cohere more closely with the focus of the plot itself.

A fourth explanation is that the repetition of Mizpah was designed to plant the name of this location firmly in the minds of the readers as a way of encouraging travel to Mizpah and the memorial Ebenezer. Worship at this site would recall the dramatic repentance of Israel and would challenge the pilgrims who visited the site to emulate the faith and courage displayed on that day. Several pieces of evidence form a chain that supports this thesis.

First, this explanation requires that the event told in this story be worthy of both recollection and emulation. That is clearly the case when the story is seen as a continuation of the events recorded in the Book of Judges. Throughout the period of the judges Israel frequently wavered in faith and commitment to God. That cycle of disobedience outlined in Judges 2:10–19 continued in the early chapters of 1 Samuel. By all accounts the declaration of repentance that is enacted in 1 Samuel 7 is the most comprehensive rededication to the Lord since the time of Joshua,[40] a theme that lies at the very heart of what the deuteronomic historian wished to emphasize.[41] This makes this act of repentance and the Lord’s affirmation of that repentance via the defeat of the Philistines an event worthy of commemoration and emulation.

Second, the erection of a memorial stone called Ebenezer is best understood against that reality. Standing stones like this were in various shapes and sizes,[42] but in each case they were designed to jog the memory of the visitor: recalling legal agreements, memorializing the deceased, commemorating important events, and identifying worship sites.[43] Given the setting of 1 Samuel 7, the stone Ebenezer erected by Samuel served the latter two functions. The act of repentance and the subsequent victory were too important simply to leave them to the collective memory of those who experienced them in hope that they might pass this information along to others. Samuel established a location and a monument that would memorialize this moment of rededication to the Lord and challenge the memorial’s visitors to learn something from that event and apply it to their spiritual lives.

The precise location of that monument is not stated, but it is clearly located within the vicinity of Mizpah. Samuel called for the people to gather at Mizpah (v. 5). Once the people had gathered there, a service of rededication to the Lord took place (v. 6). The Philistines approached the Israelites while they were rededicating themselves to the Lord at Mizpah (v. 7). The worship service of rededication continued with a whole burnt offering (vv. 8–9). Only when the Lord’s booming thunder signaled approval did the Israelites leave Mizpah to pursue their fleeing enemy (vv. 10–11). And Samuel set up the memorial in proximity to Mizpah (v. 12).[44]

While the archaeological evidence does not suggest that there was a large city at Tel en-Nasbeh at the time of Samuel, DeVaux notes that this memorial may in fact have been one of the reasons the town subsequently developed so quickly in size and importance.[45] This would certainly explain why this city was selected as the site for Saul’s public coronation (1 Sam. 10:17). It would also explain the comment in 1 Maccabees 3:46 that Mizpah was a “place of prayer.” Thus a critical event in the life of the Israelites was memorialized by a standing stone in the vicinity of Mizpah that subsequently became a notable worship site.

Third, a memorial established alongside the well-traveled north-south roadway would give hundreds of travelers opportunity to stop at this memorial. This memorial would take its place beside a number of other memorials also established along the Ridge Road that likely functioned in the same way. For example Abraham established memorial altars at Shechem (Gen. 12:6–7), Bethel (v. 8), and Hebron (13:18). His grandson, Jacob, also placed a memorial stone at Bethel (35:14). Joshua established a standing stone at Shechem as a witness to the covenant renewal that occurred there (Josh. 24:25–26). In each of these cases the memorial was set up beside the Ridge Road so that as people traveled, they would be invited to reflect on events from the past and on the meaningfulness of those events for their present condition.

Given the importance of the event identified by a memorial beside an important north-south roadway near Mizpah, it can be argued that the author of 1 Samuel repeated the name Mizpah in this story in order to plant the name of that city in the minds of future travelers who now could include the memorial at Mizpah in their itinerary. Much as the repetition of a particular place name in a modern travel brochure is designed to create a memory in the mind of the potential traveler, so the sixfold repetition in this story firmly plants Mizpah in the mind of the reader. Thus it became a call to travelers on the Ridge Road to reflect on the remarkable victory of the Israelites and to remark on the significance of the stone Ebenezer, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

Notes

1. Barry J. Beitzel, The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 25–69.
2. Ibid., xv.
3. Tremper Longman III, “Biblical Narrative,” in A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman III (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 75.
4. Shimon Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible, trans. Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, 2nd ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 194. See also John A. Beck, “The Storyteller and Narrative Geography,” in Translators as Storytellers: A Study in Translation Technique (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 165–96.
5. John A. Beck, “Geography and the Narrative Shape of Numbers 13, ” Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (July-September 2000): 271-80.
6. John A. Beck, “Faith in the Face of Famine: The Narrative-Geographical Function of Famine in Genesis,” Journal of Biblical Storytelling 11 (2001): 58-66; and idem, “Why Did Moses Strike Out? The Narrative-Geographical Shaping of Moses’ Disqualification (Numbers 20:1–13),” Westminster Theological Journal 65 (2003): 135-41.
7. John A. Beck, “Geography as Irony: The Narrative-Geographical Shaping of Elijah’s Duel with the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18),” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 17 (2003): 291-302.
8. Beth Car (ית כָּר) means “house of the lamb.” This is the only time this place is mentioned in the Old Testament. The Septuagint translators associated it with Beth Horon, the ridge that rises from the coastal plain providing access to the Benjamin plateau. J. Simons finds this identification credible, given the likely retreat route of the Philistines down that ridge toward their homeland (The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament [Leiden: Brill, 1959], 309). However, in the absence of further supporting evidence the identification remains uncertain (Carl G. Rasmussen, nivAtlas of the Bible [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989], 229).
9. Shen (ן) means “tooth.” This is the only time the Old Testament mentions this location. The Septuagint translators identified this site as Jeshana, located eight miles north of Tel en-Nasbeh. Simons supports this identification (The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, 309). Others see Jeshana as too far north, believing that Shen must lie along the Philistines’ westerly retreat route (Ralph Klein, 1 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary [Waco, TX: Word, 1983], 64). However, there is nothing in the text that demands this location for Shen. Like that of Beth Car, the precise location of Shen remains in question (Rasmussen, nivAtlas of the Bible, 251). Given the descriptive nature of the name, it may simply refer to a topographical feature that looked like a tooth and may not refer to a city.
10. Ebenezer (אֶבֶן הָעָזֶר) means “the rock of help.” This is the name of the memorial established by Samuel. An Ebenezer is mentioned earlier in 1 Samuel 4:1 and 5:1 in connection with defeats experienced by the Israelites. This Ebenezer has been associated with Izbet Sartah twenty miles northwest of Mizpah. While the naming of the monument in 1 Samuel 7 may have had an ironic connection to those two Israelite defeats, the location of the earlier Ebenezer is better associated with a location closer to the coastal plain near Aphek (Rasmussen, nivAtlas of the Bible, 233). Eusebius’s location of this site at Beth Shemesh (iuxta uillam Bethshyms) seems highly unlikely (Erich Klostermann, ed., Eusebius Werke das Onomastikon der biblischen Ortsnamen [Leipzig: Hinrich, 1904], 33).
11. Rasmussen, nivAtlas of the Bible, 245.
12. For the best discussion of these options see Chester Charlton McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I: Archaeological and Historical Results (Berkley, CA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1947), 13–22.
13. C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 2:72; Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions 1838 and 1852 (Jerusalem: Universitas Booksellers, 1970), 1:460; Carl Ritter, The Comparative Geography of Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula (New York: Green Wood, 1968), 3:231–32; George A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), 120; and William M. Thompson, The Land and the Book (London: Nelson and Sons, 1881), 2:67.
14. McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 16.
15. Ritter, The Comparative Geography of Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula, 231–32.
16. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 370.
17. McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 34.
18. Bruce M. Metzger, ed., The Oxford Annotated Apocrypha of the Old Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 228.
19. Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land, 370.
20. McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 17. This early observation is supported by a recent inspection by Jeffrey R. Zorn (“Mizpah: Newly Discovered Stratum Reveals Judah’s Other Capital,” Biblical Archaeology Review 23 [1997]: 30).
21. Abbé Raboisson, “Les Maspeh” (Ph.D. diss., Paris, 1887).
22. Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), 123; Michael Avi-Yonah, “Mizpah,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 12:174; D. Deringer, “Mizpah,” in Archaeology and Old Testament Study, ed. David W. Thomas (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 329; Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-596b.c.e. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 336; McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 13; Rasmussen, nivAtlas of the Bible, 245; and Jeffery R. Zorn, “Navbeh, Tel en-,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. Eric M. Meyers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4:101–3.
23. A fifth piece of evidence may be identified in the phonological connection between the names “Mizpah” and “Nasbeh.” While this evidence is intriguing, it does not follow strict phonological change principles (McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 43–44).
24. Deringer, “Mizpah,” 329.
25. Aharon Kempinski and Ronny Reich, eds., The Architecture of Ancient Israel from the Prehistoric to the Persian Periods (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1992), 263.
26. Deringer, “Mizpah,” 333.
27. McCown, Tel en-Nasbeh I, 58.
28. Ibid., 26.
29. Deringer, “Mizpah,” 337.
30. David A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 132.
31. Zorn, “Navbeh, Tell en-,” 1098.
32. Yohanan Aharoni, Michael Avi-Yonah, Anson F. Rainey, and Ze’ev Safrai, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 143; and Richard Cleave, The Holy Land Satellite Atlas (Nicosia, Cyprus: Rohr, 1994), 105.
33. Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 365–440.
34. V. Philips Long, “First and Second Samuel,” in A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible, 170–72.
35. Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible, 212.
36. David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 148.
37. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 387.
38. Ibid., 389.
39. Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, 1 and 2 Samuel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 68; Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 67; and John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, Old Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 290.
40. Lyle M. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis: A Close Reading of 1 Samuel 1–12 (Decatur, GA: Almond, 1985), 237; Robert Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 73–74; and Henry Preserved Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: Clark, 1899), 51.
41. Klein, 1 Samuel, 66.
42. David M. Gunn, Narrative and Novella in Samuel (Sheffield: Almond, 1991), 51.
43. Carl F. Graesser, “Standing Stones in Ancient Palestine,” Biblical Archaeologist 35 (1972): 37.
44. Peter D. Miscall, 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986), 39.
45. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 304–5.