The following is the first of two posts, separated for length. It is an exegetical take on 2 Samuel 22. Thanks for reading and please leave comments!
I was never a big fan of Sunday school. Having to get up early, wear tight
uncomfortable dress clothes and hear the same stories year after year seemed so
pointless to me. My classmates and
I were also quite rowdy, to the point that we almost got asked to leave Sunday
school around the age of ten. It
was usually not our teachers’ fault… many of my classmates grew up to be
Lutheran camp counselors and there are two (and hopefully three) of us who plan
on becoming pastors. Simply put
though, up until around I hit confirmation age, church just was not my thing. Despite such a negative attitude, I
always felt happy and close to God when singing one particular song:
I
will call upon the LORD!
Who
is worthy to be praised.
So
shall I be saved from my enemies!
The
LORD liveth, and blessed be the rock,
and
let the God of our salvation be exalted!
What a powerful hymn, filled with triumphant language
and joyous words of praise.
Singing it made me feel so good to be a Christian… and we sung it in a
round… and there were even hand motions! While reading through 2 Samuel I
stumbled upon David’s song of Thanksgiving, the passage from which the lyrics
of my favorite childhood hymn were taken.
Once put into the larger narrative arc of 1 and 2 Samuel, it struck me
that David’s song might convey a very different meaning from the triumphant
message of joy I felt as a child.
I will therefore employ both extrinsic and especially intrinsic
exegetical methods in order to find the true message of David’s song of
thanksgiving.
The
main function of external criticism in discovering the true meaning of 2 Samuel
22 is not to define exact authorship or whether a historical King David really
did sing his song of thanksgiving.
Rather, external critical methods are used only to the extent that they
can shed light on the passage’s general historical context.
After reading through 2 Samuel 22 a few
times, it quickly became clear that the song splits into at least two main
sections.
Following a short
introduction, verses two through twenty-nine narrate a story of David’s
salvation from deathly forces.
Verses thirty through forty-seven discuss God’s support of David’s many
military triumphs.
The song then
offers a conclusion in the verses forty-eight through fifty-one.
There is a high (although not universal)
level of scholarly consensus on similar formal divisions.
The New Jerome Commentary supports my
initial observations, while proposing a possibly deuteronomistic middle section
that stretches from verses twenty-one to twenty-nine.
McCarter argues for a similar split
while more forcefully identifying deuteronomistic authorship of the middle
section.
The strongest dissenting opinion is
that of Kuntz, who writes that the similar use of ‘divine epithets’ (such as
y¶IoVl`As or ‘rock’) in both major sections supports common
authorship.
Given
general scholarly consensus on splitting 2 Samuel 22 into two main portions
with a deuteronomistic middle passage, we must identify the historical context
of each portion.
Scholars
generally agree that Samuel is a collection of earlier narratives with Deuteronomistic
edits and additions.
As the Harper
Collins Study Bible argues:
“The
literary foundation of 1 and 2 Samuel is a group of early narrative sources
upon which later editors and compilers drew… In their present form 1 and 2
Samuel are part of the Deuteronomistic History, which extends from Deuteronomy
through 2 Kings…”
While there
is some disagreement, many scholars support an exilic dating and context for
the Deuteronomistic history.
Polzin in particular argues that much of Samuel in its final form is a
“message to the exiles” in Babylon.
Were all portions of 2 Samuel written
during the Babylonian exile by the Deuteronomistic community?
As McCarter states, this is likely not
the case:
The presence of Deuteronomistic language in the
linking segment indicates that the psalm as a whole probably does not predate
the seventh century.
This provides
only a terminus ante quem, however, for the two major parts, which can have
been much older… Most now agree that the poetry of the psalm is consistently archaic,
as show by comparison to Ugaritic poetry, early biblical poetry, and (by
contrast) later biblical poetry… One or both of the major parts of the psalm
may have been composed as early as the time of David, and it is unlikely that
either postdates the ninth century.
McCarthy additionally cites a number of scholars who
believe the two archaic portions of 2 Samuel 22 are of a Northern Hebrew
character.
It is important to briefly mention that
2 Samuel 22 is nearly identical to Psalm 18.
The only significant difference is the inclusion of
:yáîq◊zIj h∞Dwh◊y äÔKVmDj√rRa r&Amaø¥yÅw or “I love you LORD, my source of strength!” at the
beginning of the Psalm version.
Ackroyd acknowledges however that, “A close comparison of the two texts
shows small but important differences, though the overall effect is the same.”
If
2 Samuel 22 was indeed arranged and edited by a Deuteronomistic community
during the Babylonian exile, what can we then assume about the purpose of the
chapter?
Once we define the
literary setting, characters and imagery present in the song, we can begin to
answer these questions.
While the
first portion of 2 Samuel 22 accurately reflects the troubled nature of David’s
ascent to power and life as king, the second portion and middle bridge are
strangely divorced from the literary setting of previous chapters.
For example, the triumphant tone of
verses twenty-nine through fifty-one seem to indicate that with the LORD’s help
David’s many victories in life came easily.
Much of David’s life however was a struggle, seemingly quite
difficult to bear.
After being
anointed by Samuel, David does defeat Goliath easily, yet he must soon flee
into the wilderness to escape the jealous hatred of Saul.
David quickly becomes King of Judah
after the death of Saul and Jonathan, but is only declared king of all Israel
after “a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David” (2 Samuel
3:1).
Even after uniting the
kingdom, David still suffers the rape of his daughter Tamar by his son Ammon
and the betrayal of his son Absalom.
The sense of absolute victory and triumph present in the second portion
David’s thanksgiving song does not really reflect actual experience.
The middle bridge of verses twenty-one
through twenty-eight also fails to reflect David’s life; it seems unlikely that
Uriah for instance would agree David was
My™ImDt “perfect”
or “without blemish” before God (2 Samuel 22:24).
Raymond
Edward Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy,
The New Jerome
Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1990), 159.
Robert
Polzin,
Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic
History Part Two, I Samuel (New York, NY:
Harper & Row, 1989), 31.
Peter R.
Ackroyd,
The Second Book of Samuel: Commentary. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 204.
