Of Proust and Prophets: Samuel,Elijah,and Charles Swann

Two long-standing and overlapping issues in Hebrew Bible research continue at the forefront of discussion: the history of biblical prophecy; and in what order the components of the books of Samuel and Kings were assembled. Two passages are crucial to answering the second question: the accounts in 2 Sam 11-20 and 1 Kgs 1-2 of King David’s dysfunctional household and the succession of Solomon; and the series of prophetic narratives dominated by Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kgs 17-2 Kgs 10 (except for synoptic 1 Kgs 22 and 2 Kgs 8:16-29). Were these among the source-materials available to the principal narrator(s) of the monarchy or were they written (or at least substantially rewritten) to supplement the main narrative? The age and provenance of these narratives has an important bearing on their historical testimony. As we shall see, they are more closely related than first appears.

Interest over the discovery of Marcel Proust’s ‘75 leaves’ (Soixante-quinze feuillets) and their first publication in the spring of 2021 ¹ goes beyond French literary circles. They had been written sometime around 1908 as he was beginning work on his complex and much discussed masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu. The novel was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927, some of them after his death in 1922. In Proust’s view these large ‘leaves’ adumbrated many of the main themes of his great work. Their publisher, Gallimard, claims they are nothing short of the oldest version of the massive novel. If this is fair description, the most notable absence from the 75 pages is any mention of the completed novel’s principal character, Charles Swann.

As soon as I read of this literary find, I was struck by the analogy, even if only partial, that it offers to the account I have advocated of the origins of the biblical books of Samuel and Kings. ² I find the source or seedbed of Sam-Kgs to consist of a much shorter draft of their narrative stretching from the death of Saul (1 Sam 31) to the death of Josiah (2 Kgs 23); and call it the Book of Two Houses (BoTH). The draft was only some 20% of the extent of Samuel and Kings and essentially comprised simply those parts of the text that we find both in Sam-Kgs and in Chronicles. A key similarity with the stages in Proust’s work is that the dominant prophetic figures, Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha, are completely absent from the ‘synoptic’ narrative shared by Sam-Kgs and Chr.

These three towering characters and others associated with them – Eli with Samuel and Jezebel with Elijah and Elisha – feature in many of the most memorable stories in Sam-Kgs. Although none of them had appeared in the source, many of their components were already there. Samuel and Eli of course could not be in the source – they belong to the major prequel 1 Samuel supplies to the royal narrative of David and his house (2 Samuel-2 Kings). The first half of the completed biblical narrative actually now bears Samuel’s name; and the roles played along with him by Elijah and Elisha help explain why these books (along with Joshua and Judges) are known in Jewish tradition as the Former Prophets.

As he bursts on the scene (1 Kgs 17:1), Elijah’s first words are ‘As Yahweh lives, before whom I stand’. He will repeat them once (18:15) and Elisha, twice (2 Kgs 3:14; 5:16); but these are the only four instances in the Hebrew Bible. Each element, oath and servant-formula is familiar elsewhere – but separately. Even separately, we find them in the same context only once in the Hebrew Bible (1 Kgs 22). In the whole synoptic source, Micaiah is the only character to utter the oath (22:14). It heads his response to the officer sent to bring him to the two kings, who encouraged him to fall into line with the other prophets. Micaiah replies under oath that he will follow divine instructions. Then, challenged now by a fellow prophet, he answers by reporting his vision of the heavenly court (22:19-22): a spirit comes forward, ‘stands before’ the divine king, and accepts a divine invitation to deceive the kings. Micaiah utters the oath under challenge from the officer and reports the vision when challenged by a fellow prophet. Elijah’s opening declaration portrays him as an amalgam of Micaiah the prophet loyal to Yahweh and the spirit-volunteer familiar with the divine court. His first words may be drawn from the major source of the book of Kings; but they also present him as a figure different from any in that early draft. Elijah’s opening words show that he will brook no challenge.

Elijah’s contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kgs 18) pits him against greater odds than Micaiah faced: not just ‘about four hundred prophets’ (22:6), but as many as ‘four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table’ (18:19). Micaiah’s rivals are not reported as serving another god; indeed, the only prophetic opponent specifically identified (22:11, 24), Zedek-iah, has a Yahweh name just like Mica-iah. Even the wicked queen in the synoptic source is named Athal-iah, who had usurped the throne in Jerusalem on the death of her son Ahaz-iah (2 Kgs 11:1-2). Overthrown in a plot devised by Jehoiada the priest, she was killed near the Horses Gate (11:16). Then, after Jehoiada had mediated a covenant between Yahweh, the newly anointed king, and the people, the people tore down the temple of Baal and killed Mattan his priest (11:17-18). This second synoptic narrative (in 2 Kgs 11-12) has supplied several details for the story of Jehu in 2 Kgs 9-10. ³ Anointed at Elisha’s command, he had Jezebel killed on his arrival in Jezreel – thrown from a window, she was trampled by horses (9:33) so echoing Athaliah’s fate. After having the remnants of Ahab’s family massacred in Jezreel, Jehu moved on to Samaria. There he summoned all the servants/prophets of Baal to a great sacrifice in the temple of Baal – at its conclusion, they were all killed and the temple and its sacred pillar destroyed (10:12-27). Their fate mirrored the killing of Elijah’s opponents in the open air on Carmel.

Episodes in the older synoptic narrative provided or suggested many of the details of the younger stories in Kings. The account in 2 Kgs 3 of the campaign against Moab by Jehoram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah repeats several details of the campaign against Aram over Ramoth by Jehoram’s father with Jehoshaphat reported in synoptic 1 Kgs 22. The kings pledge unity in the same terms (3:7); and the Micaiah role of prophet loyal to Yahweh (22:7) is now played by Elisha, successor to Elijah (3:11-12). But there’s a difference. Elisha’s instructions for a determined and ruthless campaign against Moab (3:19) are followed by the kings (3:25); and only when the king of Moab sacrifices his firstborn on the city wall does Israel withdraw with ‘great wrath’ upon them (3:27). Like the spirit volunteer in the synoptic source, Elisha has given effect to Yahweh’s dissatisfaction with his people.

Elijah and Jezebel and Elisha and Jehu have clear links with synoptic Micaiah and Athaliah and Jehoiada. But the newer stories that feature them involve large increases in numbers and intensity. Four hundred prophets have become more than double that number. Their loyalty is now specifically to Baal and Ashera, to gods other than Yahweh. A temple of Baal and its priest have become a temple of Baal packed with its worshippers. Death by the Horses Gate has become a death followed by trampling by horses. The narrative rhetoric has been cranked up. And the Elijah who has in him something of both Micaiah the loyal prophet and Jehoiada the loyal priest speaks with all the assurance of a divine spirit who has seen Yahweh and received his commission in the heavenly court.

The four hundred prophets did not suffer for their enthusiastic support for Ahab’s campaign against Ramoth in Gilead – it was instead Micaiah who was committed to prison on short rations to be released only when Ahab returned victorious (1 Kgs 22:27). Elijah in flight from Ahab was also hungry (1 Kgs 17) but was fed first by ravens (or were they Bedouin? – the Hebrew letters ‘rbym can be read both ways) and then by a starving widow near Sidon. In the source narrative, the king of Israel is the only reported casualty in a deliberately focussed campaign (1 Kgs 22:31-35); however, if the deaths in Moab matched the extent of the collateral damage, they were of a different order. Elijah, like Jehu, instructed the massacre of his prophetic rivals (18:40). The new stories are memorable, but they also include some appalling details.

Synoptic Joash and Jehoiada may also have helped inspire the start of the prequel. Young Samuel delivered by his mother to the care of Eli the priest at the sanctuary in Shiloh (1 Sam 1) reminds us of baby Joash delivered by his aunt to the care of Jehoiada the priest at the sanctuary in Jerusalem. Eli of Shiloh unable to see (1 Sam 4:15) anticipates Ahijah, the blind prophet at the same sanctuary (1 Kgs 14:4). Two narratives in BoTH feature the ark. The first tells of David bringing the ark to his new capital from Baala/Kiriath-jearim west of Jerusalem and close to Philistine territory (2 Sam 6). At the climax of the second (Solomon bringing the ark into the temple), ‘Yahweh’s glory’ (kbwd yhwh) filled his house (1 Kgs 8:11). The narrative of the ark in Philistine hands draws on both ark episodes in BoTH. This section of the prequel explains that it had once been captured by the old enemy and had come to Kiriath-jearim when Yahweh triumphed over them (1 Sam 6:21-7:1). Then the multiple play in 1 Sam 4 on kbd (‘where is the glory?’ and ‘give glory to Yahweh’) anticipates the second. The great tale of the uneasy relationship between Saul and David fills the second half of the prequel (1 Sam 16-30) and is the response of a brilliant narrator to the sparsest of clues at the start of the older narrative: Israel approach David as their former commander in the time of Saul (2 Sam 5:2), yet he and his men were absent from the battle with the Philistines where the old king and his sons were killed (1 Sam 31). David prospering in Philistine exile from Saul anticipates Jeroboam’s success in flight from Solomon to Pharaoh Shishak (1 Kgs 11:40).

A case can certainly be made for understanding many non-synoptic portions of Sam-Kgs as drawing on and inspired by the shorter synoptic narrative. To this extent the analogy with Proust’s 75 pages holds. The introduction of new characters who come to dominate the expanding story make the analogy more secure. But there is also a major difference. Not much more than a decade separates the completion of Proust’s seven volumes from their seedbed in the 75 pages. However, there may be at least a generational and probably an epochal gap between the synoptic narrative and the books of Samuel and Kings.

Elijah and Elisha have not just been added to the story – they have taken it over. Micaiah is the most substantial prophetic character in BoTH; and his depiction there has influenced how Elijah and Elisha are portrayed. Yet these belong to a different world. Micaiah, like Nathan and Gad and Huldah in the older royal story, is a prophet consulted by kings. In that monarchic context, unwelcome advice can lead to abuse and imprisonment. But Elijah is not consulted: he initiates and confronts. From commanding a drought, through defying king and queen, to being caught up into heaven, he is quite unlike any synoptic prophet. Elisha is no less unique within the Hebrew Bible: a prophetic servant become successor (2 Kgs 2), who continues to work miracles from his grave (2 Kgs 13:20-21). The nearest biblical analogy to such a quasi-royal succession is from Moses to Joshua. The shift from earlier prophetic category to later is nicely caught where we first meet Samuel as an adult (1 Sam 9-10). Saul and his attendant, failing in their search for lost donkeys, seek advice from Samuel, a seer. What they expect belongs to the older narrative world. However, their encounter ends with the seer seizing the initiative and anointing Saul king. Later, when Saul proved a disappointment as king, Samuel announced his end (1 Sam 13:13-14; 15:26-29) and anointed his successor (1 Sam 16).

Samuel anoints David as Saul’s successor while his master is still very much alive but has lost divine favour (1 Sam 15-16). His action is echoed in the Elijah-Elisha cycle: Elijah instructs Elisha to anoint Jehu the army commander in place of the wicked house of Ahab (1 Kgs 19 and 2 Kgs 9). Non-synoptic Nathan also anticipates Elijah. His scathing denunciation of David’s murderous acquisition of Bathsheba (2 Sam 12:1-12) anticipates Elijah’s words of powerful brevity (1 Kgs 21:19) as he faces Ahab in the vineyard the king has murderously acquired from Naboth: ‘Have you killed and also taken?’

This addition to the older David story faces readers with the issue of divine justice. In the book of Kings, as already in BoTH, David is the standard by which his successors are judged. But David in the book of Samuel is much more complex. Saul and his sons had to give way to David; and Ahab and his successors were supplanted by Jehu. Why did David not also pay the price for his culpable behaviour? The older royal narrative in BoTH seems clear. ‘For ever’ recurs again and again through the narrative of the divine promise mediated by Nathan (2 Sam 7); and it reappears in a comment by the narrator after reporting the wickedness of Jehoram of Judah – he was related through his mother to the house of Ahab: ‘Yet Yahweh was unwilling to destroy Judah, for the sake of his servant David, for he had promised to give a lamp to him and his sons for ever.’ (2 Kgs 8:19) The details of the older account of David’s continuing dynasty could not be changed – but they could be added to and re-framed. The Nathan who denounces David in the newer story is more like Elijah than the Nathan consulted by David of the older story, just as the David who has Uriah killed and marries his widow is more like Ahab the murderous thief. The lines of the older story were fixed; but the added reports about Saul and Ahab – and about David – make us ask about the rightness of it all. Perhaps Yahweh was simply not yet willing to destroy Judah.

In the world of the synoptic source, kings rule and they occasionally consult prophets. When the king happens to be a child, as with Joash and Josiah who become king aged seven and eight, the leading roles are played by priest and scribe/secretary (2 Kgs 11; 22). But the Elijah/Elisha stories in 1 Kgs 17 – 2 Kgs 10 feature not a single scribe; the only priests mentioned are priests of Baal (2 Kgs 10:11, 19); and kings have been reduced almost to pawns. The older role played by Jehoiada the priest in having Baal’s house and its priest destroyed is transformed into the spectacular contest between Elijah, prophet of Yahweh, and the prophets of Baal and of Ashera. Whether or not the old narrative was written before or after the fall of Jerusalem, the royal house and the temple and priesthood that it portrays represent that world before the collapse. But Samuel and Elijah and Elisha belong in a different narrative world.

Two oracles against Eli’s house near the start of 1 Samuel suggest that the function of the prequel is not simply to describe how kingship in Israel began. They also point beyond rule by inherited office, whether priestly or royal. The first (1 Sam 2:27-36), delivered by an unnamed ‘man of God’, declares that Eli’s house will be replaced by a house that is ‘established’ or ‘trustworthy’. The second (1 Sam 3:10-18), delivered through the young Samuel, makes no mention of a replacement priestly house; the chapter ends instead with the recognition that Samuel himself was ‘established’ as ‘Yahweh’s prophet’ (3:19-20). Prophets in the older royal narrative may have been part of the elite, along with scribes and priests. Samuel, like Elijah and Elisha, combines characteristics of three traditional roles: prophet and priest and king. It is hardly surprising that Jewish tradition calls these books ‘Prophets’ and names the first half of the story ‘Samuel’. There is a future beyond a line of kings.