January 17th, 2021

The Old Testament reading for the second Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord would never be able to match the significance of last Sunday’s text, that of the beginning of creation, the beginning of Genesis, the beginning of all of Scripture. But the text does have to do with beginnings; it has to do with the beginning of Samuel [1 Samuel 3:1-10].

Recently I mentioned that the ancient Greek translation does a good job in reminding us who live so many years after these events that this text is not a history lesson. This is a ‘life lesson’, like most of Scripture.

You can see that already in the title of the book. Instead of calling this book ‘First Samuel’, it is called ‘First Kings’ (and it goes up to ‘Fourth Kings’). Instead of being about a particular person, it is about what it means to have a king (or any powerful leader), what it means to have a king that people want, and what it means to have a king that God wants. We do not have kings in the United States at this time, but, in some ways, we actually do. Some people think that they can do basically whatever they want. That is being quite misguided. The only one who can actually do whatever he wants is God.

Within the Greek translation of First Kings, as well as in the books that follow, there is also the frequent use of the ‘historical present’. Instead of saying that something happened in the past, the translator sometimes put the verb into the present tense. I do not think he was being stupid and mixed up the two tenses. I also do not think that he was getting all excited and wanted to put the reader into the action by using the present tense. I think he is carefully looking at the text and determining what is happening because of the ramifications of something else and something important.

What a king does has ramifications, and that is connected to his ‘glory’ and ‘honor’, and that is primarily symbolized by his throne. In a way, within these historical presents, we are viewing the throne of God and seeing his significance and his glory. That significance or glory is often hidden, just as it was hidden when Jesus was on earth. But it certainly was there, and it certainly does have ramifications for today.

The first historical presents that appear in this book are right after Hannah receives the promise of a child—she and her husband get up, worship, and go [1:19]. The child, of course, was born—as promised, and the text for today has the LORD speaking to Samuel as a child. The LORD talked to Samuel at night. And after that experience, the text says, in the Hebrew, that ‘And Samuel laid down until the morning….’ But the Greek translation goes this way: ‘And Samuel sleeps until the morning….’

What the LORD had to say to Samuel was not very good news. Punishment was promised in the near future for the current priest, Eli, and his sons. And these are also ramifications of the LORD’s kingship, his ultimate rule over heaven and earth. This will not be good news, but it will be important news, just the same.

Here is where the historical present also pops up. The Greek translation of 1 Samuel (‘Kings’) 4:1-2 says that ‘…the Philistines gather themselves against Israel…and the Philistines prepare to fight with Israel.’ The translation could have said that they GATHERED themselves and PREPARED to fight. 

Eli was not very good, and his sons were extremely bad. And the ramifications for that evil were significant. And, unfortunately, Samuel’s sons were also not very good.

Later in the book, this time it was the sons of Israel who ‘gather’—another present tense—and they say that they want someone else to lead them [1 Samuel 8:4]. And after Samuel dies, the Philistines ‘gather’ against Israel and fulfill the prediction that Saul would die—he also was not a good leader [see 1 Samuel 28 for a good example of this].
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Different groups of people gather at different times for different reasons. The fact that the LORD is connected to some of these verbs, that those actions are, ultimately HIS ramifications and not ours, that can be reassuring in these 'present' times. His Story has a much better ending.