02_Walton_179_200_179_200 10/07/15 11:58 Pagina 193 193 A KING LIKE THE NATIONS: 1 SAMUEL 8 IN ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT 193 Adad, the hero, made wind and flood pour down over their fighting, Shamash, lord of judgment, blinded the eyesight of the army of Sumer and Akkad, Valiant Ninurta, vanguard of the gods, smashed their weapons, Ishtar flailed her jump rope, driving their warriors berserk! Behind the gods, his allies, the king at the head of the army sets to battle 66. This “divine vanguard motif” is also found in the Bible, most notably for our purposes in 1 Sam 7,10, where YHWH “thunders against the Philistines” as Samuel leads Israel into battle. But ch. 7 is not the first time the Israelites have taken divine assistance into battle against the Philistines. All commentators note a similarity between the sons of Samuel and the sons of Eli who fail to lead Is- rael to victory in ch. 4. But there are several other contextual par- allels between ch. 4 and ch. 8: Element Chapter 4 Chapter 8 Wicked sons Hophni and Phinehas Joel and Abijah establish context (vv. 4, 11) (vv. 2-3) Elders make “Let us bring the ark “appoint a king a request of the Lord’s covenant to lead us” (v. 5) from Shiloh” (v. 3) Purpose of item “so [YHWH] may go “go out before us requested is with us and save us and fight our battles” to lead in battle from the hands (v. 20) of our enemies.” (v. 3) Resulting in Ark captured (v. 11) “They have divine displeasure rejected me.” (v. 7) If chapter 8 is indeed recapitulating chapter 4, the nature of Is- rael’s request becomes perfectly clear. Eslinger, Klein, et al. are pre- cisely correct in saying that the elders want to fight their wars, not YHWH’s, but there is an additional important nuance. Just as in ch. 4, 66 Tukulti-Ninurta Epic v. 33’-41’; translation in B. FOSTER, Before the Muses (Bethesda, MD 32005) 313.