Look Out, Here Comes God!
A reflection on the readings for Proper 6B: I Samuel 15:34-16:13 and Mark 4:26-34 Our Old Testament reading today comes from the Biblical genre known as Judges and kings. These books of the Bible talk about the long history, about 410 years, of the Hebrew people which modulated between tribal leaders, known as judges, and the kings. This story was compiled and culminated in book form between the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. The primary effort during this time was the consolidation of settlements and tribes. Life centered around tribal relationships not cities. The transition from tribal leader/judge to king was slow because the region had no means of unifying the diverse tribes into one cohesive unit for defense and leadership. After several centuries of leadership by tribal judges they were finally able to unify the tribes and claim a king – the kings are familiar to us : Saul, David (author of the Psalms) and Solomon. The story in the book of Samuel tells the stor...