160 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
tain a priestly Samuel: “Does not the supplicant of ch. 7 also sacrifice, does not the
‘Seer’ of ch. 9 also bless the meal, do we not hear also in 10:8 and in the continuation
of our narrative of his sacrificial office? Does not the Chronicle (I 6:13) account him
among the Levites?”^29 Yet Buber finds the arguments for Samuel’s priesthood as
unpersuasive as those for his judgeship. The legend of Samuel’s childhood, which
tells of his birth and childhood at Shilo, the shrine of the ark, is dismissed as pure
fiction, modeled on the Samson story and inserted here by a late redactor to make
the final form of the text contain the meaning of the hero’s life from the begin-
ning. The actions of the adult Samuel differ in crucial ways from priestly service.
He does not sacrifice professionally, at a single sanctuary at specified times, but
only on special occasions, at large public gatherings, in a variety of locations. He
makes oracular pronouncements freely, when he has something to say, whereas a
priest can pronounce only by consulting the ephod, and only when asked a specific
question. Ultimately, Buber concludes that for our narrator, “Samuel maintains no
association with the priesthood and concedes to it no function.”^30
Buber sees the story beginning with a moralistic contrast between Eli, the
priest at Shilo, and Samuel, who represents the future of Israel. Eli’s sons “did not
know YHVH” (2:12), whereas Samuel “came to know YHVH” (3:7). Revelation
from YHVH was rare in the days of Eli (3:1), whereas YHVH reveals himself to
Samuel (3:21). To be sure, YHVH announces the fall of Eli and the rise of Samuel
by saying, “I will raise me up a kohen ne’eman,” a faithful priest (2:35), but when
he fulfills this action Samuel is ne’eman le-navi, trusted as a prophet (3:20). In
other words, “the new kohen is no longer a kohen in the old sense, linked to noble
house and sanctuary, but rather the house should be deprived of its heads, the
sanctuary should be demolished, the inheritance should default to the nabi. Not
a priest, who would found a new priestly house and preside over another sanctu-
ary, but a nabi.”^31 Thus, where Samuel takes over the priestly functions, he adapts
them to the needs of his own mission.
Eli’s house is replaced because it attempts to usurp political authority for the
priesthood, the only centralized dynastic institution in Israel, by attacking the
Philistines without charismatic authorization to do so. This is the first attempt
in Israel’s history at “a materialization of the theocracy as hierocracy, through
utilization of the acknowledged oracle-authority and the Ark as martial power.
Such an attempt is dependent on military proof.”^32 Yet the effort culminates in ca-
tastrophe, as the ark is taken by the Philistines, putting an end to the priestly pre-
tensions. Much of the material about the ark is legendary, but Buber insists on the
historicity of this fundamental event: “No people comes up with such a thing; no
people can make such a thing credible, if it has not been passed down.”^33 The nar-
rator interprets this event to mean that YHVH punishes the people, together with
its overambitious priesthood, and elevates a new prophetic leadership instead.
If Samuel ever was a temple attendant at Shilo, even without having been
born and raised there, he may have himself brought the ark to the Israelite war