The Undoing of Saul

THE PROPHET & THE KING (382 pp.)--Shirley Watkins--Doubleday ($3.95).

The Prophet is Samuel, aging and fallible last of the theocratic judges who ruled Israel until the 11th century BC The King is Saul, chosen by God, through a reluctant Samuel, to expel the Philistines and elevate Israel to "a nation among nations." Though young King Saul won peace and freedom for his countrymen, he was never able to win Samuel's trust or break the old prophet's hold upon a primitive, God-haunted people The story of the conflict between king and kingmaker, man and God, has been dimmed by divergent accounts in the Old Testament. In Shirley Watkins' novel the struggle rings out as clearly as the clash of ax on armor.

Double Irony. Saul, "a noble column of a man," first irks autocratic Samuel by winning famous victories with no active assistance from the prophet. Later Saul directly flouts God's will, as interpreted by Samuel, with the air of a man who gets his orders direct. Jealous of Saul and resentful of his own failing prophetic powers, Samuel sets about plotting the upstart king's undoing. Samuel's master stroke is to seek out David, the young poet whom Saul loves like a son. Though David protests his loyalty to Saul, Samuel whispers: "Saul has drawn down upon himself and his house the displeasure of the Lord ... It is upon you ... that the choice of the Lord has fallen."

David's anointment is doubly ironic, for it serves wily Samuel's purpose as well as God's; rumors of Samuel's strategy persuade Saul that he has, in fact, been rejected by God. Too late the Witch of Endor warns the king: "Your first sin against God was doubt." Hounded by the sense that he has failed God's trust, Saul loses faith in himself and those around him. Suspicion of David (who becomes a national hero with the slaying of Goliath) gnaws at Saul's soul until he is obsessed with the idea that he must either kill David or be killed by him. Even after he recognizes David's loyalty, Saul convinces himself that he must hunt David to his death to preserve Israel's hard-won unity. Interrupted by an invasion from the north, Saul sees his sons killed in the first crushing defeat of his reign. Bloodstained and abandoned by God, he falls on his sword as the Philistines sweep back into Israel.

To Self-Destruction. Shirley Watkins, 59, wife of a Lancaster, Pa. newspaper publisher and herself a onetime reporter, has a newsman's respect for history--even a shadowy saga of 30 centuries ago. In 14 years of patient writing (this is her third novel in 28 years), she has constructed her oppressive story with fidelity and compelling logic. The strength of the book lies in her imaginative but firm characterization of the soldiers, seers and courtiers who were enmeshed in Saul's downfall. But above them all towers brooding Saul, a complex, courageous, often noble man, whose tragic flaw carries him ineluctably through doubt and guilt to self-destruction under the eye of a Jehovah not far removed, in time or temper, from Sophocles' Zeus.

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