The Arcanum of the Monarchy | 171the request for a king was not itself problematic. But Thomas Hobbes reads the passage other-
wise:
When the Elders of Israel... demanded a King, Samuel displeased therewith, prayed unto
the Lord; and the Lord answering said unto him, Hearken unto the voice of the People, for
they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Out
of which it is evident, that God himself was then their King; and Samuel did not command
the people, but only delivered to them that which God from time to time appointed him.
Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 283.
- Robert Polzin, speaking for “literary” criticism, chastises biblical scholars (including
Buber) for excessive concern with what he calls “genetic” questions at the expense of the final
form of the text—which is the only text we actually have (as opposed to the hypothetical pre-
texts constructed by critics in their investigations). Polzin nonetheless cites some of Buber’s
more “literary” observations; Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the
Deuteronomic History, Part 2: 1 Samuel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). - A position associated with Martin Noth, who is cited frequently throughout The
Anointed. Buber does not avail himself of Noth’s authority in this matter, even though it might
initially seem congenial to his political views. - Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett,
2001), 120. - N.B.: Not textual reconstruction, because Buber generally does not seek the original
text; he seeks the original tradition that he thinks lies behind the earlier forms of the text. - SM 295.
- See Buber, “Leitwort Style in Pentateuch Narrative,” and Buber, “Leitwort and Discourse
Type,” in ST 114–128, 143–150. - SM 307.
- Ibid., 308.
- Ibid., 309.
- Ibid., 301.
- Buber points out that 1 Samuel 4:18 even describes Eli, in the moment of his great mili-
tary failure, as having “judged Israel forty years”; its placement shows that it designates succes-
sion to authority, not judgeship in the technical military sense. SM 373. - SM 300.
- By splitting up the passage, Buber is saying that the Leitwort is a false Leitwort. He as-
sociates the Leitwort style with the “genuine” narrator, and accuses later editors of failing to
master it. Another example of an apparent Leitwort that Buber considers misleading is the play
on the name sha’ul and its seeming relation to shemu’el. - SM 2 87.
- Ibid., 288.
- Ibid., 290.
- SM 337–338, 342.
- Ibid., 343.
- With the exception of 2a, from va-ani through itkhem: “and I am old and greyheaded
and my sons are with you,” which Buber deletes as clashing with the more authentic earlier
description of the sons as a black mark on Samuel’s tenure. - SM 339–340. This reconstructed passage evidences what Buber considers the clear and
powerful style of the authentic work of our narrator. - Ibid., 297–298. I usually render Buber’s Geheimnis as “secret” or “mystery.” I translate
Geheimnis as “arcanum” here because of this term’s history in discussions of royal authority
and ideological mystification: “To every great politics belongs the ‘arcanum.’” Carl Schmitt,