Monday, June 30, 2008

Jeroboam, Pagan King of Israel: 1 Kings 12:25 - 14:20

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Rehoboam's rule has collapsed and he's left with Judah to preside over. The rest of Israel, exercising dubious judgement, immediately votes to let Jeroboam become their new king. He takes over the city of Shechem and proclaims his land the kingdom of Israel. Unlike Rehoboam, Jeroboam is somewhat politically savvy, reasoning that his rule will never be secure so long as people owe their ultimate fealty to God, and therefore are continually going back and forth to Judean territory in order to worship at the Temple.

The solution, obviously, is to create a new religion which won't require trips to Judah. (I'm sensing a return to the elitist view of commoners-as-dumb-sheep here.) He creates two golden calves, which I guess is twice as good as the one golden calf that Aaron made back in Exodus, and starts spreading around a story that these gods have been with the Israelites ever since they left Egypt, but have been in hiding for the last four centuries. He sets up the calves in Bethel and Dan and the people obediently start worshipping the new gods. (I was right about the sheep thing, then.)

Thoughtfully, Jeroboam also democratizes the priesthood, letting anyone - even non-Levites become priests at his new "high places" and shrines. He creates new festivals and sacrifices at the altar in Bethel.

It's at this point that God appears in the narrative again, predictably choosing sides against the king. He sends an unnamed "man of God" to stand at the altar and proclaim the new paganism evil. Jeroboam personally rides to Bethel and reaches out to strike the prophet, but at that moment, God simultaneously paralyzes and "shrivels" the king's right arm. He also strikes the altar with his other mighty godly hand, splitting it apart and sending ashes spraying in all directions. Jeroboam tries to bribe the "man of God" with food and drink and an unspecified "gift," as though this will somehow assuage God's anger. The "man of God" says he won't keep company with such despicable sinners, turns his back on the king, and walks out of Bethel.

Rather cruelly, God decides to kill the "man of God" shortly afterwards, for a considerably lesser transgression than pagan idol worship. The man of God is traveling from Bethel and meets a fellow prophet, who invites him in for dinner. The man of God says he can't, because God doesn't want him to eat any food while he's in this degraded land of Israel. The prophet says this doesn't count, because an angel told him it would be all right. But it isn't all right! The man of God sits down to eat, and the prophet immediately stands up from the table and announces that the man of God has broken God's commands and is going to die for it. The next day, sure enough, he sets out to return to his home in Judah, but while travelling, he's mauled and eaten by a lion. This is rather cruel - either the second prophet is cruelly deceptive, or God, even more questionably, has deliberately used one of his prophets in order to trap another. The second choice is particularly disturbing, theologically.

Even the second prophet seems to realize that this sorry event was most unfair. He goes out and buries the body in his own tomb, then tells his sons that when his own time comes, he wishes to be buried alongside the Judean man of God. It's a sad and troubling story.

Sad and troubling for the prophet, but not for Jeroboam, who continues undeterred. One of his sons, Abijah, falls ill, so Jeroboam decides to send his wife in a disguise to find a man of God and arrange for a magic healing to take place. (We're returning to the idea of prophet as magician, though in this case healer rather than donkey-finder.) Jeroboam's unnamed wife finds the prophet Ahijah in Shiloh, but even though he's blind, he knows exactly who she is, because God has filled him in. Because of Jeroboam's sin, Ahijah proclaims, the house of Jeroboam is also going to lose its kingship. One day God's going to get so upset, he adds, that he's going to break Israel like an uprooted plant and scatter the people from Jerusalem to the Euphrates and beyond.

God's really got it in for this monarchy idea. He fires Saul, inexplicably likes David (for the most part, anyways), grows to hate Solomon, punishes Rehoboam for the sins of Solomon, and he passionately hates Jeroboam, if the lengthy speech from this Shiloh prophet is any indication. So much for the promise of having a national state.
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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Rehoboam and the End of the Unified Kingdom: 1 Kings 11:14 - 12:24

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

God doesn't play around when it comes to clashing with kings. The Israelite empire has been struggling for years with local resistance movements in Aram and Edom, where they conducted genocidal campaigns under David and Joab. In Solomon's later years, however, God raises up an enemy from within the Israelite ranks to rankle Solomon: Jereboam of Nebat, an Ephraimite in charge of the slave labour forces. Jeroboam has a seemingly chance meeting with a prophet just outside Jerusalem - a real prophet, not the "find my lost keys" kind of prophet that Saul was familiar with - who says Jeroboam will be made king of ten of the tribes of Israel. Solomon tries to kill Jeroboam but the latter escapes into exile in Egypt, which is rapidly becoming a haven for anti-imperial dissidents, sort of an ancient Middle Eastern version of Cuba or Venezuela. Then Solomon dies and leaves his eldest son Rehoboam to fight the gathering storm.

Rehoboam chooses the city of Shechem for his coronation, which is a bit of a strange choice - not a lot of good things happen in Shechem. Jeroboam returns and leads what basically amounts to a labour protest movement, calling on the king to "lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put upon" the forced labor contingents. Given the social structure of Solomon's empire, this comes perilously close to a slavery abolition movement.

Rehoboam's senior advisors are actually in favour of this move, noting that it would make Rehoboam very popular politically. Rehoboam's childhood friends, however, aren't convinced, and illogically claim that instead Rehoboam should instead be even crueller in his repression of the slaves. They also suggest he deliver some public speeches suggesting that Solomon had a small penis (the NIV helpfully euphemizes this to say that Solomon had a small "waist." Come on, now.) The king follows their advice, except for the bit about penises.

Maybe it's the lack of penis jokes that did him in, but in any event, the Israelites are unsurprisingly not impressed by their new king. All of the tribes except for Judah declare that they have no "share" in King David, and certainly have no share in King David's grandson Rehoboam, and therefore they have no intention of serving him as subjects. Rehoboam sends out his slave boss, presumably with some armed men, to try and lay down the law, but the Israelites rise up and stone them to death. 1 Kings implies that "Israel" is "in rebellion against the house of David," which I suppose is true, although in this case it seems like a perfectly legitimate cause for resistance.

When the police fail, the state usually turns to the army - and that's precisely what Rehoboam does. He mobilizes 180 000 troops from the Judeans and the Benjamites, a small tribe which apparently remains loyal to him despite everything that has happened and prepares to force everyone back to work (essentially this is the first back to work legislation, which the governments of Ontario and British Columbia will doubtless find inspiring in their relentless efforts to annihilate their citizens' civil rights). At this point, however, God intervenes on behalf of the oppressed workers, sending a prophet named Shemaiah to Rehoboam to warn him that God doesn't want any fighting to take place. Rehoboam's army obeys the word of God and dissolves.

This is a fascinating moment. The kingdom of Israel is broken - actually, both the monarchy and the state in general have been preserved as valuable institutions, but they're no longer presiding over a unified nation of Israel in the name of God. Just as God said he would do, he's split Judah from the rest of Israel and left the son of Solomon with a single tribe to rule.

Perhaps most insterestingly, though, this is a mostly bloodless coup. God's direct intervention in the story is extremely limited - indeed, the most direct action he takes is actually the moment where he intervenes to tell the army to stand down, which they do in good faith. It seems the God of the Book of Kings is no longer interested in the sort of militaristic relations that characterized the books of Samuel and Joshua and (in a sarcastic form) even Judges. This God actually seems more interested in nonviolence, at least for the time being. It's refreshing.
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Saturday, June 28, 2008

Solomon Goes Too Far: 1 Kings 10 - 11:13

This post is part of a revolutionary Biblical commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

We had some firm social criticism, and after a brief break to praise Solomon's wisdom, the author of 1 Kings returns to what is becoming his favorite pastime. (The Bible is like Fox News: fair, and balanced.)

Solomon receives a visit from the queen of Sheba. She has heard of Solomon's great wisdom and excellent walk with God, so she comes to visit, "to test him with hard questions." What sort of questions? Logic? Theology? Theoretical physics?

No one seems to know where Sheba is either, for that matter; Wikipedia says it was either in Ethiopia or Yemen, which aren't even on the same continent, though they are both south of Israel, which I guess counts for something. Either way, the queen of Sheba - who doesn't get a name in the narrative - is most impressed, though she seems more impressed by the wealth of the palace than by the wisdom of Solomon. She promises to deliver a positive report to her country and agrees with Solomon that God must love Solomon and Israel, in order to do such wonderful things for them.

Ah, yes, the Benjamin Franklin argument: "If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?" No, I suppose it isn't - but then, we'd have to look at all the other empires God has therefore "aided." Like the evil Egyptians, for example. And the Romans. And all the others who oppress the ancient Jews, though I suppose we haven't got to those yet.

Solomon also profits handsomely from the visit, adding new treasures from Sheba to what the author of 1 Kings is now referring to as the king's "royal bounty." In this case, he gets 120 more talents of gold, along with "precious stones" and the largest shipment of spices ever delivered to ancient Israel.

And that's just the start! If there was any doubt that the author is contemptuous of Solomon, the next verse sweeps that doubt away:

Solomon now has an annual income in gold alone of 666 talents, i.e. about $650 million a year, which is a tidy sum, I suppose. (This doesn't include an extra set of separate revenues that Solomon collects from his trade with the states in Arabia.) All together that gives him enough excess gold that he indulges in a massive renovation project for his palace, including two hundred large gold shields (each weighing 7 pounds), three hundred "small" gold shields (about half the size for each), and a new gold-and-ivory throne complete with golden lions - "nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom." Solomon also orders all the palace's cutlery and dishes remde from gold, and throws out the old silver dishes on the grounds that Israel is now so rich they have no need of cheap silver. He sponsors yet another fleet of trading ships, which sails with its counterpart in Tyre on three-year voyages to collect cargoes of ivory, apes, and baboons.

Baboons? Cool. Though I don't know why Solomon would need baboons.

In addition to the 40 000 horses referenced before, Solomon now has a chariot army numbering twelve thousand horses and 1400 chariots. He makes silver "as common in Jerusalem as stones," plants cedar groves everywhere, and even has a flourishing international arms trade, importing chariots from Egypt and selling them at a profit to the Hittites and the Arameans. Even worse, Solomon starts importing horses along with the chariots - yet another violation of Deuteronomy 17.

That covers the horses and riches restrictions on kings, which Solomon clearly isn't concerned with. Now it's time for the restrictions on marriage, an area in which Solomon's excesses are probably much better known. Solomon, says the author, "loved foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter" - and he loved them in the hundreds. Solomon marries Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites - and his excesses become so extreme here that the author actually interjects with an explicit judgement, reminding readers that God once told the Israelites never to intermarry with foreigners. Solomon doesn't care: he has 700 wives "of royal birth" and three hundred concubines, presumably those who are not "of royal birth."

According to 1 Kings, it is the women more than anything that cause Solomon to go astray. He starts experimenting with the various religious faiths of his many wives, like Ashtoreth, Molech, and all the other fun pagan gods that the Israelites have alternately loved and hated through the years. Eventually he's persuaded to introduce religious tolerance to Israel, building ritual places for the Moabite and Ammonite faiths. He burns incense and offers sacrifices to every god imaginable.

Unsurprisingly, this makes God quite angry. He says that Solomon is going to be fired as king, just like Saul was (actually the same language is used, something about "tearing away" the kingdom from the king). But because David was righteous, God says, he will spare the royal house and let one tribe remain as a "kingdom" for future generations. I'll bet it's Judah! God also says that because Solomon was so nice in building that Temple and all, he's going to hold off on the rebellion until after Solomon dies.

What is the lesson to draw from Solomon? We could be misogynistic and suggest that his foreign wives were what did him in (indeed 1 Kings seems to think this one is the most important). It certainly doesn't appear that he was inherently an evil and despicable man - after all, one of his first acts as king (after the dubious murders conducted at the beginning of his reign, anyways) was to ask God for wisdom and guidance so that he could be just, after which he promptly built a Temple for God, the first truly permanent structure of worship in Israel.

It's tempting to stop at the "foreign women are dangerous" line, and a quick Google search suggests to me that a lot of people do, but it's worth noting that this is just the last of the many sins that the author of 1 Kings is chiefly concerned with (except for the brief reference to the Pharaoh's daughter early on). What about his massive gold hoard? Or his excess of horses? If we go by the measure of Deuteronomy 17 rather than the more limited prohibition against foreign wives, we can see that Solomon is much more corrupt than just the presence of some pagan wives can explain. And this has occurred to him despite the fact that he seems to be righteous and well-intentioned to begin with.

Indeed, it's hard to draw from 1 Kings the implication that Solomon has really become so depraved that he honestly believes in and worships all these gods - at least not without doing great injustice to the notion of Solomon as a wise man. He's known God on an intimate basis and devoted much to furthering God's position in Israel - at least as he understands it, which is in the form of permanent physical monuments to God's power. I suspect Solomon isn't a pagan so much as a politician. He sees political benefit in appealing to minorities - so he shows up to their worship services and follows along in exchange for their support for his government. Maybe I'm trying to write too much contemporary culture into ancient history, but I can see this being plausible. It certainly happens often enough today.

And for most of his life, it pays off - he's a pretty successful king by any normal material measure.

The problem, I suspect, is meant to be a systemic one. God never did want a king in Israel, and, the author of 1 Kings suggests, this is the inevitable result when frail human imperfection is combined with the potential power of a militarized and imperial state. In the short term the state can try to wed the religious and secular agendas by showering the priesthood with fancy gifts like new temples, but in the long run the goals of these two institutions are mutually exclusive.
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Friday, June 27, 2008

Solomon's Largesse: 1 Kings 9:10-28

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

I was wrong - the author of 1 Kings is just wildly bouncing back and forth between fawning praise and bitter criticism.

A couple days ago I noted the conditions set out in Deuteronomy for determining a bad king - too many horses, too much contact with Egypt, too much gold, too many wives. The latter half of 1 Kings 9 implicitly adds another: too much fraternization with foreigners.

Before I noted that God seemed pleased with the work done in his name, but now the author of 1 Kings sounds a note of caution. Part of the payment given to Tyre, says the writer, was a promise that 20 Galilean towns would be given to the king of Tyre as vassal properties. Solomon follows through on this promise, though Tyre seems less than grateful, since it names the new province "the Worthless Land." It's also revealed that at some point during the proceedings, Tyre also made a personal payment to Solomon in the amount of four metric tons of gold. Deuteronomy 17 said a king shouldn't own too much gold or silver. I don't know how much gold is too much, but I know that 4 tons of gold is currently worth about $115 million, which sounds like a great deal of gold to me.

Later, Solomon builds a fleet of ships which sails to Ophir and bring him a profit of 420 talents of gold - in other words, an extra $400 million or so. Gold, gold, gold for everyone!

The next paragraph starts with the rather chilling phrase, "Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's temple, his own palace, the supporting terraces," and the city walls. The slave labour is also used to rebuild a new city given to Solomon by the Pharaoh as a wedding gift (he captured Gezer, burned it to the ground, slaughtered its Canaanite inhabitants, and then gave the smoldering ruins to Solomon as a wedding present). They were also used to build large military bases throughout Israelite territory. The slave labour allegedly included pretty much everyone in the area who wasn't an Israelite - Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, and so on, and Solomon made them into a permanent "slave labor force," according to the Bible. The Israelites remained as Solomon's "fighting men, government officials, officers, captains, and commanders."

The division of labour is interesting because it suggests that Israel has gradually transitioned from an introverted Israelite society based on Israelite labour into an empire built on slave labour, à la ancient Rome - or, more relevant to the present discussion, ancient Egypt, which also had a grand king (the Pharaoh), state religion, slave labour (in the form of the Israelites), and so on.

Adam Michnik once said that "Those who start by storming Bastilles will end up building new Bastilles." It took the Israelites quite a while, but 1 Kings seems to be suggesting that that is precisely what they have done. To the dealings with Egypt I mentioned before, we can now add an excessive personal supply of gold. The author of 1 Kings is gradually chipping away at the image of Solomon as ideal king.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008

Solomon the Architect: 1 Kings 5 - 9:9

This post is part of a revolutionary Biblical commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Solomon decides to build the long-awaited permanent temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and even though he doesn't get a long dictation of instructions from God (as Moses did in Exodus), the Bible still takes a long time to describe his plans, which call for the finest in imported Lebanese cedar. At the center is an "inner sanctuary" in which the Ark of the Covenant will be kept. (Today, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has a similar space within which it claims the Ark now rests.) Various bronze decorative items are prepared for Solomon, mostly by a famous craftsman named Huram. Finally, the Ark of the Covenant is brought to the temple by the priests and Levites.

With the temple built, Solomon turns his attention to the matter of his own palace. This is a symbolic reversal of his father David, who built his own palace and then wondered about making a house for God. Is this a subtle criticism of King David, injected by the author of 1 Kings?

Solomon's palace, like the temple itself, is an impressive structure; he calls it the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon and it's also, as the name would suggest, made of imported cedar.

What's interesting about Solomon's work is that his architecture is a multinational project. Israel's xenophobia is starting to diminish, it would seem (is this moral criticism of Solomon or some long-awaited tolerance on the part of the author? One wonders...). The cedar is purchased from Lebanon via Tyre. Huram is also from Tyre, though his mother was a Naphtali Israelite. Partly in exchange for the work and the resources, Solomon gives twenty Galilean towns to the king of Tyre.

The various Israelite royal festivities have been competing with each other in gore and blood for a while now, beginning under Saul and David. Solomon now tops them all by dedicating the new Temple in a ceremony which saw the sacrifice of "so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted." Given the penchant of the Biblical authors for counting damn near everything, this is a telling admission - especially in light of the fact that someone was on hand to count all the animals available in a second, smaller part of the ceremony which followed later, and involved the sacrifice of 22 000 cattle and 120 000 sheep and goats. Holy fucking Christ. Israel sure has a lot of spare meat available for an early agricultural society.

The Ark is placed carefully into the holiest part of the sanctuaries by the priests and then a dark cloud fills the temple. Solomon takes this as a sign that the Lord is ready to "dwell forever" in the new Temple. He therefore delivers an extremely lengthy speech, followed by an extraordinarily lengthy prayer. It's actually a really cool, well-written passage in my opinion, even if I don't think much of Solomon himself. It's so well written, in fact, that I actually find myself agreeing with my Men's Bible, in which Philip Yancey calls the prayer "majestic." God seems to agree, and he appears to Solomon in a dream again, promising him that if he is righteous God will "establish your royal throne over Israel forever."

In the last entry I speculated that the author of 1 Kings was critical of the monarchy, but at this point I have to wonder whether I was being a little idealistic, or at least jumping the gun a little (since I know for a fact that the criticism of Solomon will resume later). God seems quite pleased with his new king's deeds, despite the fact that way back in 1 Samuel he didn't seem to want a king at all. By blessing Solomon's joint architectural projects (the temple and the palace), God is simultaneously blessing the new social and political order of Israel.
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Solomon the Wise? 1 Kings 3-4

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

The following two chapters appear to be fawning praise of Solomon. He offesr a ridiculously enormous sacrifice of a thousand burnt animals, and then has a dream in which God offers to grant him three wishes (well, only one wish actually). Solomon asks for wisdom that will help him as king, acknowleding that he is young and inexperienced. The dream-God seems surprised that he didn't ask for wealth or long life, or even death to his enemies, but "discernment in administering justice" - the mark, it would seem, of a truly good king. So much for the militarism that still survived in Samuel. Because Solomon is so selfless, dream-God says that he will give Solomon riches and a long life too. Solomon responds by holding even more sacrifices, plus a giant feast. He appoints officials over all Egypt and creates a sort of feudal structure under which they collect taxes in the districts and then pay him a portion of their income.

Solomon's wisdom rapidly becomes the stuff of ludicrously high praise. Solomon, the author of 1 Kings writes proudly, was wiser than anyoe sel on earth, even "the men of the East." He was famous, spoke 3000 proverbs and wrote over a thousand songs. He was a botanist, a biologist, and a sage. When two prostitutes came to him disputing over an infant (one has killed the other's, and now falsely claims that hers is the infant who is still alive), Solomon tricks the guilty woman into admitting her guilt by making the ghoulish proposition that the baby be cut in two and half given to each woman. (The guilty woman is prepared to accept half the baby, but the real mother, naturally, would never bear to see her son killed.) The Israelites are "awed" by Solomon's wisdom and justice.

It's fawning praise and I suppose I can understand why I thought Solomon was supposed to be a positive model. On the other hand, even in these early years of his reign, there's a disturbing layer of subtext. Recall that way back in Deuteronomy 17, "Moses" included some rules for the future Israelite monarchy. Along with exhortations to know and follow God's laws, Moses establishes five specific prohibitions that a king must not under any circumstances violate: he must not have too many horses, he must not make people go back to Egypt or buy horses from Egypt (the symbolic humiliation of returning to Egypt was a common threat in the Torah), he must not take "many" wives, and he must not accumulate excessive wealth.

How's Solomon doing, according to this Mosaic measure of quality rulership? Not very good, it turns out.

First, Solomon starts out chapter 3 by marrying the daughter of Egypt's Pharaoh. Marrying foreigners was explicitly banned under the Israelite law, and marrying a Egyptian must be particularly dubious given the history of the two countries.

Second, Solomon has an enormous number of horses. How many it's not entirely clear: the NIV says it's four thousand stalls for chariot horses and twelve thousand horses, but admits in a footnote that according to the Hebrew manuscripts, it's actually forty thousand horses and twelve thousand charioteers. I realize Deuteronomy didn't specify exactly how many horses was too many, but I'm fairly certain that 40 000 is enough to qualify.

Whether Solomon has excess wealth is unclear, but he certainly has great appetite for material goods. His empire spans from Iraq to the Sinai and he collects enormous tribute, including "daily provisions" in the amount of 200 bushels of flour, 400 bushels of meal, thirty cows, a hundred sheep and goats, and innumerable deer and birds. Yum!

So then, even while the author of 1 Kings seemingly falls over himself praising Solomon's fine qualities as a just ruler, he works in some details which, given the Mosaic context, have to be interpreted as sharply critical of the king.

I suppose the only question remaining is: did the author of 1 Kings write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of Deueronomy, or did the author of Deuteronomy write as he did in order to criticize Solomon in light of 1 Kings?
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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Solomon the Murderer: 1 Kings 2

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Solomon may have come to the throne through dishonest means, but David does seem fond of him. In a very Mafia-esque scene, he and a few others cluster around David's deathbed and listen as David metes out instructions for settling scores once he's gone. He has the nerve to tell Solomon to obey the laws of Moses, something David himself clearly didn't care about all that much. David wants some people killed (like Joab) and some others rewarded for their faithfulness (like the sons of one Barzillai of Gilead). He especially wants Shimei of Gera killed, who, as you may recall, was the one who tried to stone David during his pilgrimage to the Mount of Olives. This is an odd one, because at the time David forgave Shimei and promised not to harm him. So much for that promise! David's metaphors are particularly cruel: "bring his gray head down to the grave in blood."

Solomon spends the rest of the chapter carrying out David's final instructions and consolidating his own power base. Dangerously, the disgraced Adonijah asks for the hand (and the rest of the body, of course) of David's last prostitute, Abishag the pretty young virgin. Solomon flies into a rage, worrying that he can't afford to do any favours for Adonijah because, after all, Adonijah is the elder brother and really should have been king. There's an obvious solution to this! He orders his servant Benaiah to go out and murder Adonijah. The deed is done and Solomon no longer has to worry about rightful succession troubles.

Next, Solomon retires priest Abiathar, one of Adonijah's allies. He doesn't actually kill Abiathar; instead, the man is simply dismissed from royal service and sent to his family's fields in Anathoth. His life has been spared, Solomon explains, only because he once carried the Ark of the Covenant, and even Solomon isn't going to stoop to killing a holy man.

General Joab isn't so lucky, however. Realizing there's a purge going on, he races to the temple and grabs the altar, just like Adonijah did. Solomon orders Benaiah to murder him anyways, a particularly dubious and unethical move given the ancient laws surrounding the altar. With Joab out of the way, Solomon is able to reward Benaiah, his hit man, by making him general of the army.

Next up, it's Shimei's turn. Solomon says he should move to a house in Jerusalem and that if he ever leaves the city, he will be killed. Shimei agrees, but two years later, two of his slavse escape to Gath. Shimei naturally saddles his donkey and heads off to reclaim them. Solomon happily seizes the opportunity, recalls Benaiah, and has Shimei murdered.

The bloodbath safely out of the way, the second chapter of 1 Kings ends somewhat chillingly with the sttement that "the kingdom was now firmly established in Solomon's hands."

Under the circumstances, perhaps it's not surprising that God isn't playing much of a role in events. I always remembered Solomon as being a wise and good king who ultimately fell into sin, but only in his old age. After all, he's the one who made the Temple, and authored some of the later books in the Old Testament, and so on - right? Maybe not. Whoever wrote 1 Kings really doesn't seem all that fond of Solomon.
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Monday, June 23, 2008

Solomon the Usurper: 1 Kings 1

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

In contrast to the praise that 2 Samuel heaps upon the idea of a Godly monarchy, 1 Kings starts out with some pointed criticism of the Israelite state. It's a little early to tell, but I have to suspect we're moving towards a rather different view of the usefulness and morality of the monarchical state.

The first story is a deliberate emasculation of King David, who was strong and virile in 2 Samuel (sometimes a little too virile for his own good), but is now old and weak. He has a permanent chill and has taken to laying under thick blankets. His sympathetic servants therefore go out and find him an exceptionally pretty young virgin named Abishag, and put her into bed with the king. Presumably they except David to shag Abishag, and in his younger days I have to suspect he wouldn't have passed up the chance. Now, however, "the king had no intimate relations with her."

With David on his deathbed, David's son Adonijah puts himself forward as a potential future king. (The Bible actually takes time out to specify that David hadn't disciplined Adonijah as a child.) Adonijah gains the support of the military (via General Joab) and the priesthood (via Abiathar the priest), which, despite being thoroughly marginalized by the new institution of the state, can still exercise political influence in such uncertain circumstances. Tellingly, David's closest friends don't support Adonijah.

It's not entirely clear what Adonijah did to make himself an enemy, but he is certainly prophet Nathan's enemy. Nathan is one of David's good friends; he's the one who condemned the affair with Bathsheba. Now, however, Nathan is deadset against Adonijah becoming king. He watches with alarm as Adonijah holds a massive animal sacrifice to gather popular support for his cause, and then approaches Bathsheba. The two work out a way to manipulate David into choosing Solomon as successor: Bathsheba will go into David's chambers and "remind" David that when he was younger he promised to make Solomon the future king, and then Nathan will rush in while they converse and tell David that Adonijah is holding sacrifices and claiming to be king. The scheme has the desired effect: an angered David calls in his loyal officers and orders a counter-demonstration at which Solomon will be proclaimed king.

Adonijah, fearing for his life as his supporters flock to Solomon, races to the temple and grabs the horns of the sacred altar. He can't be killed in such a position, because since he's technically on the altar, to kill him would be a human sacrifice which would profane the temple of the Lord. Solomon and Adonijah negotiate a compromise under which Solomon will let Adonijah live in peace provided he behaves honourably and does no evil.

All of this is a very nice story with a couple of key flaws: Adonijah is Solomon's elder and the rightful heir, and there's no record of this mysterious promise made to Bathsheba. They're playing a trick on old David, whose memory fails him. It's a retelling of the Esau-Jacob story, in which Jacob swindles their father into getting Esau's inheritance in similar deathbed contiditions.

Consequently, by the very hereditary terms by which the future kings of Israel claim legitimacy as rulers, 1 Kings 1 argues that Solomon (and therefore every ruler which follows him) is actually an illegitimate king who steals the throne from its rightful heir.
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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Does Israel Need a King? Final Reflections on the Books of Samuel

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

It's a little hard to know what to make of 1 and 2 Samuel. In these books Israel undergoes a bloody transition from the failed anarchy of the Judges period to a supposeldy superior state-based society led by a human king. It's supposed to be a bottom-up transformation - this time God still chooses the king, but the decision to create the state isn't his. It's the people's. And it seems to be an unwise choice, so far.

On the one hand, 1 Samuel in particular is pretty critical of the state. 1 Samuel 8 is practically a Christian anarchist's creed. Samuel himself, who only lasts for a few chapters of this lengthy work, isn't a king - and he's one of the few really praiseworthy characters portrayed in the narrative. The kings are more dubious characters - God seems to be deliberately mocking Israel when he chooses the incompetent buffoon Saul as the first king, and he lets the country be destroyed in civil war as a result of the appointment of the second king (David). If Joshuan militarism is correct in suggesting that God's will is shown through military success, as 2 Samuel seems to imply, then David ought to have been a fantastic king - yet despite being undefeated in battle for the most part, he's plainly much less than perfect as a statesman. And despite the fact that he's supposed to be a man after God's own heart, he's a blasphemer, an adulterer, and a murderer. (Also an extortionist, but that's not explicitly one of the commandments.)

On the other hand, there's a distinctly pro-monarchist flavour to Samuel, which becomes most explicit by the end of the second book, which basically descends into bombastic militarist and monarchist propaganda, tempered only by the strange story of the census in chapter 24. Multiple stories are presented to prove that David was chosen as a great king by God, by the state, and by the military. He slaughters Israel's enemies and ultimately leads the land into peace (though there's a great deal of bloodshed along the way).

The elitist slant of the book becomes especially obvious as the people become, in David's own words, "just sheep" - huge quantities of lives to be traded, whipped, and occasionally sacrificed in order to see whose side God is really on. Despite his numerous personal faults, David is a great king - and because he's a great king, he's allowed to survive crimes which God's own law says he really ought to be executed for, multiple times over. At the end of the day, God is on David's side, because David is the king. The priesthood is now not only marginalized but explicitly subordinated to the state, which supplants the role of priest and prophet as chief spokesperson for God.
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Saturday, June 21, 2008

What the Fuck? Part 4: Yet Another Census Crisis: 2 Samuel 24

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Continuing our tour of the absurd appendices of 2 Samuel, we come to the story of David's last census, which strangely comes after David's last words.

Just like he was in the good old days, for no apparent reason God is "burning" with anger against Israel. As a result, he orders David to go and take a census. The king delegates Joab and the army to handle the census. Joab thinks it's a bad idea but he's unwilling to disobey orders from the king. Ever the faithful general.

This census superstition has come up before. I'm not really sure what the significance was, but perhaps it had to do with the idea that one shouldn't be counting one's resources. If the true strength of Israel's armies lies in divine power, then it shouldn't matter how many men you have with you - and therefore to count them is a demonstration of a lack of faith. I guess.

Anyways, David finishes the census and is then overcome with guilt, confessing that he has "sinned greatly" against God. He begs forgiveness. Eh? What happened to God ordering David to do this? Jumping ahead a bit (I know I shouldn't do this), it might be worth pointing out that the 1 Chronicles version of this story actually says it's Satan who rose up and spoke to David. Come on, Bible. Which is it? God or Satan?

Whatever the case, God appears to be angry too and actually offers David his choice of punishments for the census: he can have three years of famine, three months of war, or three days of plague. David thinks it's better to "fall into the hands of the Lord" than to "fall into the hands of men," so he chooses the plague.

Of course, because David is a king rather than a human being, you won't be surprised to know that he's not actually the one who's going to suffer, despite the fact that he was the one who sinned. (This is another example of God punishing the wrong people.) God sends an angel to spread a plague in Israel, and 70 000 people promptly drop dead. The angel is so efficient at his work that God actually recants haflway through and tells the angel to hold off for a moment.

David is upset too, and tries to reason with God, one elite to another. The people of Israel, he says, are "just sheep." He's the one who sinned - therefore he's the one who should suffer. Aside from the ridiculous elitism, I have to agree with this sentiment, and respect David for expressing it. For whatever reason, of course, God has no intention of punishing David.

So, David takes advantage of the respite to hurry over to a farmer and build an altar in his barn. (Why he had to go find a barn for this purpose is unclear, but he did have the support of his chief prophet Gad in doing so.) The new altar prepared, David starts making sacrifices and keeps going until God lifts the plague.

This story is so convoluted it's hard to tell what the point is. Why does God tempt David into sin? Why does he then offer David a choice of punishments - certainly something he's never done before? Why do none of those punishments actually affect David? How many tens of thousands of subjects is God willing to kill in order to prove a point with the king?

This latter question is particularly disturbing because, as you may recall, the last time something similar happened, God was killing Egyptians in order to make his point with the Pharaoh. Now, apparently, he's just as happy to kill Israelites as he was then to kill Egyptians. The lesson for average non-noble folk like myself is that when God gets on intimate terms with the elites, it's time to head for the hills, because he clearly doesn't give a fuck about us.
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Friday, June 20, 2008

Heil David! 2 Samuel 22-23

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Once again, my Men's Bible makes me want to cry, with a ridiculous devotional aside by Walter Trobisch encouraging us to celebrate our salvation because it makes us into "whole men," worthy and competent and secure and confident and all those other good things we can take pride in thanks to our penises.

King David has pretty much had his day, and he sings a long song to God followed by some last words. David isn't exactly going out with humility and grace, as it's hard to tell whether the song is more about God's glory or his own.

Here, for example, is a particularly implausible stanza in which David makes the most unlikely claim that he is blameless and without sin, perhaps forgetting the times when he was consorting with Philistines, throwing Israel into civil war, committing adultery, extorting money, and so on:

The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
I have not done evil by turning from my God.
All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees.
I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.
The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight."


Uh huh. Sure, David. Later on, he arrogantly asserts that the God in question belongs only to him: God helped him destroy all of his enemies, including his own people (verse 22:44); he has so many subjects that he doesn't even know them all, thanks to God; God "avenges me, puts the nations under me, sets me free from my enemies."

David's last words continue on in much the same vein, claiming that he is "the man exalted by the most high, the man anoited by the God of Jacob." He claims that he is "like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning." Better yet, God has "made with me an everlasting covenant," and will "bring to fruition my salvation and grant me my every desire." I could go on but it gets kind of tedious and sickening.

Next, the Bible contains a long list of accolades for David's best soldiers, which it hilariously refers to as "David's mighty men." I think I almost fell off my chair upon reading that term. Some of these men look like they should have been back in Judges: for example, there's Josheb-Basshebeth, who killed eight hundred men in a single encounter using his magic spear; Eleazar, who fought the Philistines for so long that his hand "froze to the sword"; and Shammah, who single-handedly defended a lentil field from a company of Philistines (this feat seems somewhat less impressive, but apparently was enough to qualify him).

Better yet! These three men are especially remembered because, during one particular campaign against the Philistines, David offhandedly complained that there wasn't enough water to go around. So, "the Three" - as the Bible refers to them from here on - crossed the front lines and stole water from a Philistine well for David.

Then there's also Abishai, who killed three hundred men; Benaiah, who killed a lion in a snowstorm; and another thirty-odd men who are important enough to be remembered but not important enough to have their exploits recorded.

I include this section more because it's amusing then because it's theologically significant. Basically, whoever was responsible for finishing off 2 Samuel has changed it from religious scripture into meaningless propaganda. It would make me ill if it wasn't so amusing. Who mentioned God? Bah! We're talking about real human heroes now! It's a marked departure from the flawed heroes of most of the Old Testament.
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Thursday, June 19, 2008

What the Fuck? Part 2: Giants Again: 2 Samuel 21:15-22

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

For no particular reason, it's time to talk about giants again. David is in the middle of one of his innumerable wars with the Philistines, and faces a series of four giants. Why? I have no clue! The Bible has a strange fetish for these mysterious creatures.

The first goes by the really cool name "Ishbi-Benob," and wields a spear with a heavy bronze head. David is old now, and for a moment it seems that Ishbi-Benob is going to kill him, but fortunately the king's life is saved by Abishai of Zeruiah. Once again the officers tell David it's simply too dangerous for him to fight with the men, and instruct him to stay back from the fighting "so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished."

Up next is Saph, who fights the Israelites at Gob. Aside from the strange names, apparently there's nothing significant about this guy; he's killed by Sibbecai the Hushathite, and that's all we know about Saph.

Then there's another battle in which Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim slays the mighty "Goliath the Gittite." Uh, what? I thought we already killed Goliath! Oh, well. Goliath dies again (the 1 Chronicles retelling actually says this is Goliath's brother, not Goliath himself), and in the process loses his mighty "spear with a shaft like a weaver's rod."

The final giant is my favourte, "a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot." Helpfully, the Bible counts them all for us, and correctly concludes that there are "twenty-four in all." The "huge man" challenges the Israelites to battle but Jonathan, David's nephew, kills him.

And that's the end of the giants, at least for the time being.
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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

What the Fuck? Part 1: Avenging the Gibeonites: 2 Samuel 21:1-14

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

The major intrigue is over now and the remainder of 2 Samuel is a bizarre series of appendices. In the first, God makes his triumphant return to the narrative, appearing to David in the midst of a national food shortage and declaring that the shortage is the result of "Saul and his blood-stained house," who made an evil decision to "put the Gibeonites to death."

I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what God is talking about here. Saul never gave any orders to put the Gibeonites to death, or to do anything else with them for that matter - at least not in any form that is recorded in the Book of Samuel. What's going on here? Is God losing his mind?

No matter. David promptly summons some of the surviving Gibeonite elders and asks how he can make amends for what was done to them by Saul. The Gibeonites are initially quite graceful, saying they want neither money nor blood vengeance, but David presses, so they make a chilling proposal: David should take seven sons of Saul and execute them "before the Lord" at Gibeah. David obligingly selects seven of Saul's surviving offspring and hands them over to be executed. Their remains are buried, and God's anger melts away. God "answers" the prayers of the people and restores full food production.

This incident is disturbing for more than just the strange story of the mysterious Gibeonite massacre, however. There is no mention in the Bible that the seven sons of Saul were guilty of anything beyond being sons of Saul. The separation from the initial crime, not to mention any Biblical prescription of punishment (they appear to be killed by "exposure" to the weather), brings their deaths perilously close to a human sacrifice meant to appease God's wrath, rather than a just sentence of execution in accordance with the law.

(I would think any execution unjust, but for other reasons; what's telling is that this execution can't even cling to the law of Moses's minimal legal basis for state-sanctioned killing.)

It's also telling, I think, that for what I think may actually be one of the first times in the Bible, God actually explicitly takes the side of one of Israel's former enemies, against his own people, in order to right this alleged wrong. In the past he's occasionally let foreigners punish Israel as a means to show his people they have sinned, but he's never actually taken the side of those foreigners before. Here Israel is in the wrong and Gibeon is in the right. It's a sign of how far the people have fallen or, alternatively, how far God is now distancing himself from Israel.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Restoration of Israel: 2 Samuel 19:8 - 20

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Inconveniently for the incompetent scribe who put numbers in my Bible, the next section of the story of David actually begins not only in the middle of a chapter, but in the middle of a verse. The civil war with Absalom seems to be over now that Absalom is dead, but the country is in tatters. There are enormous numbers of refugees (which today we'd call "internally displaced persons," I suppose), and the people bicker about whether to accept David back as king. David reaches into the confusion to appease the priests and the Judeans, offering to let General Amasa replace Joab as his right-hand man.

The Judeans organize a huge crowd to welcome the return of David as king. Shimei, who tried to stone David a few chapters ago, comes forward to beg forgiveness, and David happily grants it, promising that "you shall not die." Mephibosheth also aks forgiveness, and David orders him and his former slave, Ziba, to divide up their inherited properties evenly. (Mephibosheth selflessly suggests that Ziba can have it all anyways, because he's just so glad to have a good king back.)

Unfortunately, the Israelite tribes aren't ready to lay down arms. As David is proceeding along the Jordan with his prized Judean troops, some men from the other tribes come forward to protest that they have "stolen the king away." The Judeans argue that "the king is closely related to us," but the others argue that this shouldn't matter: "we have ten shares in the king." It's a little unclear, but I think David is in the wrong here. He's been reinstating Judean friends left and right, and the rest of the kingdom feels cheated out of what should been an equitable restoration. Basically they're protesting the same sort of nepotism that still happens in post-conflict situations today, so that, at least, should be fairly easy for us to identify with.

Matters come to a head when a Benjamite named Sheba of Bicri declares that his tribe actually doesn't even want David and the Judeans to come back into power, and calls for a rebellion. The Judeans escort David safely to Israel (where, in a very questionable act, he punishes the concubines Absalom raped by having them locked up "in confinement till the day of their death"), but he has his mind on the new rebellion already and orders his forces to pursue and apprehend Shiba. Even though David earlier appointed Amasa his new general, he hands the pursuit over to Joab, a fateful decision - Joab, skeptical of Amasa's integrity, promptly assassinates him. Eventually Joab hunts down Sheba, too. (Actually, they trap him in a city, and the inhabitants of the city agree to toss out Joab's head in exchange for their own lives, a bargain which Joab cheerfully accepts.)

With order seemingly restored, David sets about appointing a new cabinet. Like today, there's a defence minister (Joab), and a few other key posts (secretary, recorder, chief priest, etc.). There's even someone "in charge of forced labor," which is intriguing. Sometimes I wonder why we don't have a Minister of Slaves anymore - a much better-sounding title than "Minister of Labour," and the job function (putting down strikes) seems to be pretty much the same.

Once again, it's intriguing to note that God seems to play little part in events. Even David isn't seeking his guidance during the restoration of Israel. The priests, moreover, are now completely irrelevant - they've been decisively subordinated to the state and have simply become one set of ministers and advisors among many. (David actually has three priests he puts in charge: Zadok, Abiathar, and his personal priest, Ira the Jairite.)
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Monday, June 16, 2008

David's Sons are Worse than Jacob's: 2 Samuel 13 - 19:8

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

As usual, David is a Biblical hero, and therefore he's a horrific father figure. Years later, he has at least two adult sons - Amnon and Absalom - and a very attractive daughter, Tamar. As usual, the name "Tamar" spells trouble. This is a major clue, because actually the chapters covered here are a creative re-telling of the story of Jacob's kids at the end of Genesis. David doesn't have as many, mind you, but there are some obvious similarities (all the acts of evil have to be compressed onto the heads of only two brothers instead of 11, mind you).

The story initially makes it seem like the villain is brother Amnon. Egged on by his frat brothers, Amnon rapes his sister. He actually uses David to get at her, feigning illness and asking his father to tell Tamar to bring him some "special bread." In what has got to be one of the creepiest pickup lines of all time, he openly tells her, "Come to bed with me, my sister." Very subtle, Amnon. Tamar protests, but "he was stronger than she." Afterwards, Amnon is disgusted and furious - perhaps more with himself than her - and tries to send her away, but she begs him not to, arguing that to send her away afterwards would merely add insult to injury. Absalom quietly vows vengeance; David hears about it but does nothing.

Despite the trauma she suffers from being raped, this story isn't really about Tamar. The fact that she's Amnon's sister makes the incident obviously evil, but aside from that she could have been anyone. The fact that this is really a story about duelling brothers becomes clear from the fact that Tamar plays no further part in the narrative: sent by David, then raped by Absalom, she takes refuge in Absalom's house, where she lives as "a desolate woman." We don't hear from her again.

Two years later, at Ephraim, Absalom calls out Amnon and has his men-at-arms kill him (it helps that Amnon is drunk). Implausibly, Absalom orders his assassins to "be strong and brave" as they murder the drunk Absalom. Initially, the news gets garbled and David is told that all of his sons have been killed, but his nephew Jonadab soon arrives to correct the record. David doesn't seem all that comforted, though - even one dead son is too many. Worried about what his father might do, Absalom flees and lives in exile for three years.

Time passes, and General Joab, David's favourite killer and pretty loyal if occasionally deceptive, finds "a wise woman," dresses her in "mourning clothes," and sends her before David to tell him a parable which convinces David to summon Absalom to return. Absalom now has children of his own, one of whom he names Tamar, in memory of his sister.

Absalom is not a particularly likeable individual. David, embittered by the murder of Amnon, refuses to see Absalom in person. Joab is the unfortunate middleman who's willing to talk to both, and as punishment for this, an infuriated Absalom sets fire to Joab's barley fields. Joab finally agrees to bring the two men together, but Absalom hasn't had enough yet. He buys a chariot and an honour guard, then rides around Jerusalem dispensing summary justice and proclaiming that things would be different if he were king. Eventually, he becomes king - sort of, anyways: he goes to Hebron and announces to the people of Israel tha the is now the king. All of Absalom's time delivering stump speeches and judicial decisions has made him quite popular with the people, many of whom flock to his cause. Time for another civil war!

Concerned by Absalom's growing popularity, David and his advisors flee Jerusalem, leaving the palace to be administered by ten of his concubines. (This leads one to wonder just how many concubines he has.) David initially has his original six hundred companions from the rebellion against Saul, but gradually he dismisses all of his retinue until he is alone, wearing rags, on a pilgrimage to the Mount of Olives. In a particularly bitter moment, he learns that Jonathan's son Mephibosheth has deserted him, so he instantly frees the man's slave Ziba, and gives all the properties to Ziba instead. Presumably this isn't going to be an easy decision to enforce, at least until the civil war is over.

Some of David's other meetings in his wanderings are less friendly - he is attacked by another descendant of Saul's house, Shimei, who actually tries to stone him. Some of those present are willing to kill Shimei in retaliation, but David tells them not to, admitting that he deserves his current "distress." He only hopes that the Lord "will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today." He's very serene in his suffering.

Absalom, meanwhile, marches on Jerusalem and takes the palace. On the advice of one Ahithophel, whose advice "was like that of one who inquires of God," Absalom carries out a rather crude and disgusting ritual to symbolize his supremacy over David: he brings the ten palace concubines up onto the roof and has sex with each of them in turn, "in the sight of all Israel." Then he makes some effort to summon the army (under a new general, Amasa, who replaces Joab) and apprehend his father, but David is clearly a superior commander, even now that he's been reduced and demoted.

David gathers a new army under Joab and proclaims his intention to lead it personally, but his men tell him to stay back, suggesting his life is more valuable than theirs. Uh-huh. Very convenient, having a "God-breathed" text saying monarchs' lives are so worthy. At any rate, it's interesting - his men clearly still respect him, despite all that has happened. An enormous pitched battle occurs, which David's forces win.

The battle also leasd to the death of Absalom. In another example of the twisted sense of humour of the author of 2 Samuel, Absalom is riding to the battle on a mule when he fails to duck low enough while racing under an oak tree. His head is "caught" on a tree branch and he is left dangling from the tree while his mule goes on without him. Joab, ever the loyal soldier, immediately hurries over and kills Absalom. David is disconsolate at the loss of his son, even though were fighting a war just the day before. This is another example of how the lives of the "little" people of the kingdom seem totally irrelevant in these clashes of kings and nobles - and in this, for a rare moment, I actually agree with Joab, who tells precisely that to David in hopes that it will encourage the king to resume his duties.

In some ways the story of Joab is as interesting as that of David. Joab isn't exactly honourable, but he unfailingly does what he thinks will be best for the state of Israel, and for the status of David as rightful king. The fact that he's willing to kill, even to assassinate, political rivals might say something about the dubious moral code he follows - but at least he follows one. Unlike his king, he's not being regularly distracted by cute girls.

It's telling that God basically vanishes at this point in the narrative. After the final warning to David, delivered via Nathan, God appears to wash his hands of the new Israelite state. He tried to warn them that kings wouldn't work out, and now he's had enough. Whatever shreds of unity and kinship Israel still had have basically been destroyed through years of civil war. David sets about to restore the monarchy, but in the meantime his country has been devastated.
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Sunday, June 15, 2008

David Can't Keep it in his Pants: 2 Samuel 11-12

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Things seem to be going fairly well for King David and Israel when he fucks up again, pretty seriously this time, and God basically withdraws his blessing from the new government. So much for the monarchy being a grand idea.

This story is probably the most recognizable part of 2 Samuel. David sees a pretty woman bathing and summons her for sex. (Hilariously, the Bible suggests that htis occurred, "in the spring, at the time when kings go off to war.) Bathsheba is pretty passive throughout this story; teh only thing she actually does on her own initiative is to tell David she is pregnant.

I always remember this story as David wanting to take Bathsheba for himself, but that's not quite how it turned out. David seems to have started out with the idea of a simple one-night stand. He actually panics when she says she's pregnant, and tries subtly to get Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, to come home and sleep with his wife as soon as possible, in order to cover up what he has done. Uriah doesn't seem all that interested, though, insisting that he is a soldier and will sleep with the hired men until he's on leave. Only then does David decide that he will have to kill Uriah by sending him into a dangerous battle - which he does, in the process killing numerous other people as well. With Uriah out of the way, he makes Bathsheba his wife (this would be wife number four, for those who are counting), but there's no sign he's initially all that attracted to her beyond the sexual encounter that caused all this trouble.

While David does eventually suffer for this act, it's worth noting that this is not an isolated event - David has a pattern of doing dubious things. It's not even the first time he's picked up a widow just as her husband dies: he did this back as a rebel too, when he married the wife of Nabal after the latter refused to pay protection fees to David's gangsters. David's penchant for chasing women is a pattern, not an isolated incident.

God has generally stood aside while all manner of evil was practiced by Israelites, including kings, for many years now, but he decides to take strong action now, for some reason. Nathan the prophet, regaining the role of prophet as important political protestor and social critic (something that, for example, was never present in 1 Saul, when prophets helped people find lost keys and lost donkeys and such), courageously informs the king that God is incensed and will punish David's house. David breaks and admits his sin, so Nathan says God will take away the suffering that was coming to David, but nevertheless, "the son born to you will die."

Sure enough, Bathsheba gives birth to a son but he is ill and dies within a few days. Uncharacteristically, David actually celebrates the death of his infant son by worshipping and holding a feast. His servants are nonplussed, but David reasons that his son has gone to a better place.

I have to wonder whether there's more going on here - I know a lot of people love David, but seriously, how many fathers celebrate the death of their newborn children if they really wanted those kids in the first place?

The story is doubly interesting because, as you may recall, way back in the laws of Moses one of the penalties prescribed for adultery was that the priest would mix bitter water as a sort of trial by ordeal, and this trial would - if the woman were guilty - induce a painful abortion. Sure enough, here God has killed the child in question. Interestingly enough, in this case we know precisely who committed adultery - David and Bathsheba - but, intriguingly, no one seems to expect that they have to be killed for this. (I know Uriah is dead, but still.) This is because a new and troubling new law has been established as part of the creation of the monarchy: the king is not subject to the law of Moses. Oh, he has to follow the moral prescriptions - but he isn't subject to the same penalties as everyone else, and neither are those who fall under his protection.

Even more worrying, I suppose, is the fact that while David may personally escape the penalties for his actions, punishment and suffering is then imposed on his subjects, who have done nothing wrong. This is a consequence of the new monarchist slant of Biblical elitism. Recall that in the past God would punish an entire family for the sins of the man who headed the household. In the new social order, there is a man who heads the nation - and therefore, when that man does wrong, the nation must be punished. It's a seriously questionable approach to morality. God once said he would punish men only for their own sins, but he's never really followed that rule, and he certainly isn't following it now.

(There's an alternative, of course, which is not to excessively spiritualize what's going on. Perhaps the coming collapse would happen even without some form of mysterious divine intervention, because, after all, people are pretty much the same selfish ingrates that they've been in most of the other books so far.)
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Saturday, June 14, 2008

David Fraternizes with the Other Nobles: 2 Samuel 9-10

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

David's still playing surprisingly gracious with other nobles - as long as they don't slight him.

For example, out of nowhere, he decides it's time to repay some of his debts to Saul's family. He misses Jonathan and wants to "show kindness" to someone from tha thouse. They find that Jonathan had a disabled son named Mephibosheth who's still alive, so David has him summoned and promises to give him some land that would have belonged to him had there not been the civil war and the death of Saul. He also orders one of Saul's former servants, named Ziba, to become Mephibosheth's servant, along with all of Ziba's own sons and servants.

This is an intriguing moment - David orders someone into servanthood with no apparent expiration date. Does the king's writ now override the laws of Moses?

David is considerably harsher with the Ammonites. Because he was once on good terms with king Nahash, David decides to send emissaries to Nahash's son, the new king Hanun. I think this is nice and diplomatic of David, although it does seem a considerable divergence from the original God-given rules against making treaty with foreign nations.

Hanun doesn't seem particularly angry himself, but his nobles, suspicious that the emissaries are in fact spies, humiliate them: they "shave off half of each man's beard, cut off their garments in the middle at the buttocks, and send them away." This is evidently so embarrassing for the men in question that David refuses to look upon them, preferring to find out how the emissaries fared by means of messengers.

David doesn't seem determined to react, at least initially, but then he learns that the Ammonites have hired some mercenaries from Aram and Maacah, so he sents General Joab with his full army. Predictably, Joab trounces them. Later, David joins the battle with reinforcements and delivers such a crushing defeat that the system of alliances the Ammonites and Arameans have signed to protect them against Israelite aggression collapses, and various vassal kings make separate peace treaties with Israel.

We seem to be moving from holy war towards uneasy inter-national politics (I use this term carefully because it has a particular meaning today which obviously wouldn't apply nearly as smoothly to the people groups of the ancient Near East). David's connection with God continues to be seen through battle, but the narrative has shifted, at least for the moment, into an extremely elitist political space where nobles and kings and their senior generals are, for the most part, the only people worth mentioning. This leads to shorthand such as the dubious claim that David killed 700 charioteers and 40 000 soldiers at the Battle of Helam (near the end of chapter 10), whereas of course this killing would have been done by David's army, just as today we say that "Bush invaded Iraq."

Don't worry. The high politics narrative won't last long, because David's penis is about to get in the way.
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Friday, June 13, 2008

David Retrieves the Ark: 2 Samuel 6-7

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

With David's own legitimacy firmly established in battle, it's time to worry about God's place in Israel. (Recall that in the new system, for better or worse, the priests, and thus religion, has been subordinated to the state.)

Since its recovery from the Philistines, the Ark has been sitting in a rural town, so David summons thirty thousand troops and marches down to get it. The ark is reverently placed on a cart and hauled off, and here's where things get a little strange. At one point the oxen stumble and, concerned that the Ark may topple off the cart, one of David's men, Uzzah, tries to steady it. God is apparently infuriated by this transgression and immediately kills Uzzah. Angry and a little frightened by this development, David drops off the Ark at the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. But Obed-Edom gets "blessed" by God for having the Ark, so David promptly goes down and gets the Ark again. He brings it into Jerusalem in a truly gruesome parade, which sacrifices a bull and a calf every six steps. David "leaps and dances" in the front of the procession, causing his wife to rebuke him for behaving like a fool. (David doesn't care, saying he can afford to be "undignified" in the service of God.)

The reduction of God to magic charm here is a little strange. Theoretically we could say that God killed Uzzah because it was against the rules for anyone moving the Ark to actually touch it (this was covered back in Exodus or Numbers, I can't remember which) - and indeed evangelicals often do that, suggesting Uzzah was disobedient. I'm not buying that, though - there's one hell of a lot of disobedience going on here, beginning with the fact that the wrong tribe is moving the Ark. God isn't usually concerned with striking people dead for disobedience anymore. There's also no good reason why Obed-Edom ought to be blessed - he hasn't done anything except live in proximity to the Ark. In a religion that is usually very short on magic relics, the Ark is a strange exception.

Back in Jerusalem, David decides that it's time to properly honour God by building him a home. His intentions actually seem honourable here - if he's living in a palace, God should too - if a little misguided, because, as God points out through his prophet Nathan, God has never asked for a house, and doesn't particularly need one. (If that's true, why is God's presence so centered on the Ark?) Still, God is impressed, and promises to make David's house endure as kings of Israel, and give to one of David's sons the responsibility for creating the promised home of God. David responds with a very long prayer praising God to the skies.
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Thursday, June 12, 2008

David Kills Some Pagans: 2 Samuel 5:6-25, 8:1-14

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

Now that he's king, David starts a war to purify the land of Israel. His first target is the "fortress of Zion," the city of Jerusalem. I have to say this is a little strange, because the Jebusites were supposed to have been slaughtered back in Judges 1 (which, mind you, I already argued was a fictitious book of social and theological criticism), and for this reason David paraded to Jerusalem with the head of Goliath back in 1 Samuel 17. Why would David bring the head of Goliath to Jerusalem in celebration if that city was still in Jebusite hands?

Either way, the Jebusites are confident David can't take the city, but he does. He accomplishes this feat either by using scaling hooks to take the city walls, or by sending his men crawling up a water shaft into the city (v. 8). These are rather different accounts and I'm surprised my NIV doesn't explain why it can't figure out which is which.

Next, he starts a war with the Philistines again, and unlike Saul, David defeats them handily. The Philistines retreat in such haste that they forget some of their idols behind. You'd think David wouldn't have much interest in idols, but for some reason, he and his men "carry them off" to God knows where.

Later, David engages in a series of military campaigns nearly worthy of Joshua's lengthy string of successes. In chapter 8, the Bible describes him racking up an impressive list of kills "in the course of time": the Philistines, the Moabites, the Zobahites, the Arameans, and the Edomites. The kings of Tyre and Hamath are impressed and send him great quantities of treasure - in fact, the former even builds David a palace in Jerusalem. Somewhat disturbingly, after Moab surrenders, David apparently has them separated out by lots and executes two-thirds of them at random, then demands tribute from the survivors.

Only after all this has been done, at the end of chapter 8, does David set all aright politically by appointing qualified advisors, military commanders, and so on.

The new social order being created in Israel is an intriguing one if a disappointing one. The king is first and foremost a military figure, and in that sense the book of Samuel draws on the strongest militarist section of the Bible to date to measure David's success and his intimacy with God. Back in Joshua, in particular, military success was taken as a sign of divine support. Divine support is even more important for a king whose children would inherit the throne than it is for a general whose children would not, however, and so 2 Samuel's description of David's military skill is politically significant.

Contrast David's swift victories in chapter 5 with Saul's bumbling tactics back in 1 Samuel. Saul isn't a bad fighter, but he just can't seem to win a lasting victory against any of Israel's enemies, especially the Philistines - and eventually it leads to his death. David, by contrast, fights short, decisive battles: he routs the Jebusites in just one verse, and beats back the Philistines "from Gibeon to Gezer" with very little difficulty. God must be with him! Look at his successes!

Beyond the military, the end of chapter 8 suggests that David has undisputed command over every aspect of Israelite society: he appoints the high priests, the generals, and the officials of the royal court. Giving total control over all these things to a single person is something God was reluctant to do before, but apparently it's okay now.

In 1 Samuel, I suggested that there were three stories of David's original accession because the writers needed to appeal to three different constituencies to legitimize David's rule - the religious, the political, and the military. These early victories fulfill the militarist expectations for the legitimacy of his rule: God has demonstrably chosen David to win on the battlefield. It is only afterwards that he starts to worry about other issues - like God.

Special note on Biblical inerrancy: Here, again, the NIV (and possibly others, though I'm not interested in checking this time) deliberately distorts the words of the Bible in order to defend its inerrancy doctrine. 2 Samuel 5:25 actaully says in the Hebrew manuscripts that David beat back the Philistines "from Geba to Gezer." Oops! Over in 1 Chronicles 14, the Bible says it was "from Gibeon to Gezer." So naturally the NIV just slips the right words in, taking it upon themselves to correct God's mistake in the transmission of his holy writings. They defend this on the grounds that the Septuagint does the same thing, mind you, which is better than they've done on other occasions. Still, I have to wonder at this tactic (which they do adopt here) of justifying alterations to the text on the grounds that part of the duty of the translator is to correct errors in the text.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

David Becomes King: 2 Samuel 1 - 5:4

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

With Saul disposed of, the way is theoretically cleared for David to take over the kingship of Israel. The first two chapters of 2 Samuel contain a strange story about the death of Saul which has nothing to do with the one at the end of the previous book - a foreign Amalekite appears in David's camp and claims that he is the one who killed Saul, and, even more humiliating, that Saul begged for death before the end. Furious, David kills him. Then he mourns, probably more for Jonathan than for Saul, though the Bible says he lamented the loss of both. Then he goes to Hebron and proclaims himself king.

The Israelites, as it turns out, have other ideas, and it's time for another civil war - a real one this time, the sort we haven't seen since Judges. Saul's general Abner tries to establish what today we'd call a military junta, under the formal figurehead Ish-Bosheth, one of Saul's surviving sons (probably a young one, since he wasn't at the battle with the Philistines). Thus David is king only of one tribe, Judah, which was with him at Hebron. The war drags on, but eventually Abner is cast from Ish-Bosheth's government after the latter falsely accuses him of sleeping with a royal concubine. Abner tries to defect to David, and bring David's first wife Michal with him, but the job is botched - David's other general Joab, returning from a raid, is convinced Abner is a spy and therefore murders him. David is forced into mourning again. He also curses Joab for the action, in a most creative fashion:

May Joab's house never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food.

Yikes.

Next, it's Ish-Bosheth's turn - the rogue king of Israel is murdered by two of his own mercenaries. They rush off to tell David the good news, presumably thinking he will be pleased. He isn't - David promptly seizes both men and has tem executed rather violently (first, their hands and feet are cut off, then the bodies are hanged.

It's hard to figure out what David thinks about the killing of the other kings, beginning with Saul. He certainly has some interest in putting forward this notion that a king - any king - is one of the "Lord's anointed," even after the Lord explicitly turned his back on that king (as happened in the case of Saul). It's an ancient form of the divine right of kings, and will serve David well once he is king. And he is indeed king - with Ish-Bosheth out of the way, he orders all the elders to assemble at Hebron and anoint him king over all Israel.

The Samuel sections are deeper narratives which make more interesting reading, but they're also not particularly prone to theological considerations. This is political intrigue, not theology. We'll get to that later. In the meantime, God continues to play a fairly minor role in events, occasionally answering questions from David but usually in terse, one-sentence affirmations of things David is already thinking.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Conversations with the Dead: 1 Samuel 28

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary sponsored by the Church of the Orange Sky.

In chapter 25, we interrupted the David-Saul story to see one of David's more dubious actions - the near-murder of Nabal, which was eventually given to David by the hand of God.

Now it's Saul's turn to wander far from the beaten track of righteousness. You may recall that, way back in the beginning of this book, Saul decided to go to a prophet for the ridiculous task of finding a lost donkey - always a good use of God's time. This time, faced with an impending Philistine invasion, he seeks God again - in the prophets, his dreams, and even the Urim and Thummim, which apparently are still around for divining purposes - but God doesn't answer. He reaches the next logical conclusion: maybe a medium will help! The NIV needlessly calls this woman a "witch" in its subtitle, in case any stupid readers couldn't guess that what's going on here is an unsanctioned spiritual activity.

Interestingly, if we were to take 1 Samuel as a literal account of history (or even a purported literal account of history), we would have to assume that the Bible teaches that the spirits of the dead really do exist, and that we can communicate with them. Because that's exactly what happens here: through the medium, Saul talks to the spirit of the recently deceased prophet Samuel, who is "called up" by the medium. Samuel is angry, though apparently more that his rest has been "disturbed" than by the fact that Saul is consorting with evil sorceresses. He says God is also angry with Saul and therefore Saul is going to die at the hands of the Philistines. So much for useful spiritual guidance.

It's also significant that the specific instance of using a psychic medium doesn't appear to anger God, at least according to Samuel - instead God is angry because of Saul's previous sins with respect to the failed war against the Amalekites. Does this mean Samuel and God are willing to look the other way when we talk to psychics, or is it simply that Saul is already so far gone that a few more strikes against him hardly matter at this point?

I admit I don't know much about ancient Jewish views on the afterlife, and I haven't thought about it much yet because to be honest it's not a question that preoccupies much of my time. Even when I was much more orthodox in my beliefs, I never much liked the idea of either heaven or hell. The second is theologically absurd and the first really ought to be theologically unnecessary, or at least the extent of the prestige and splendour with which it's usually described ought to be unnecessary. Promising grand eternal prosperity in a beautiful new paradise doesn't really jive with the call to be selfless in one's love for God and for others. It's not that it wouldn't be nice to have somewhere to go after we check out from this Earth, it's that I just don't see the theological point of worrying about it.

Anyways, that's beside the point. What's going on here is most intriguing: Samuel's spirit is "resting" somewhere below (below in the metaphysical sense if not the physical one; the medium "brings him up" so that he may speak). Wherever it is, pretty soon Saul is going to join him there (verse 19). These mythical halls of the dead bear little relation to later notions of heaven or hell, or even to some sort of unconscious oblivion souls rest in while waiting for judgement day. I suppose that's not particularly surprising, given the Greek influence which pervades present Christian ideas about the afterlife.
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Monday, June 09, 2008

David the Mafia Boss: 1 Samuel 25

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary sponsored by the Church of the Orange Sky.

The ongoing battle between David and Saul is interrupted in chapter 25 for a curious story of David's treatment of an unaffiliated rich landowner named Nabal, who lives at Carmel. He owns a thousand goats, three thousand sheep, and a wife named Abigail. David's men watch Nabal's shepherds in the desert but don't try to take any of the livestock for themselves. Later, David sends messengers to Nabal and says he owes David for this. To repay the debt, David's men thoughtfully suggest that Nabal give them "whatever you can find" in the way of food and gifts.

Uh huh. Well, we could "interpret" this as evidence that rich people need to be charitable, or that David is a man of God and therefore we should support him, or even that we as Jews and Christians have a moral obligation to finance guerrillas and rebels (admittedly a more radical interpretation than any I've ever seen advanced in a church). It's a feast day, so Nabal really should be generous, at least with the immediate visitors. This is what you'll find in most conventional evangelical interpretations of the story - like this one, for example.

There's something to it, though most conservatives would probably hesitate to suggest this gives us the right to finance armed rebellions against legally constituted governments, even though that's exactly what's going on here.

What's much more interesting is that David is basically operating a protection racket here. He didn't agree on these terms with Nabal in advance. His men just show up and say "you know, we've been standing around making sure your flocks weren't harmed these last few months, and, well, you kind of owe us now. Wouldn't it be a shame if we weren't protecting you?" David's armed band is the largest group in the area - there's an unspoken threat here that they might start raiding the flocks if Nabal proves disagreeable. If they were speaking with an Italian accent, they would be threatening to break Nabal's kneecaps just about now. And while it's not charitable, Nabal's claim also isn't entirely unreasonable: he doesn't enough food to feed six hundred extra men, and he would really prefer to give the food to his own servants, who are relying on him for nourishment.

Put in this light, David's reaction becomes understandable: furious that Nabal has rejected the terms offered to him, he takes four hundred of his men-at-arms and marches against Nabal to punish this uncharitable landowner for his transgression. Such an action is necessary because there are probably other landowners in the area who David is extorting in similar fashion. Fortunately for everyone involved, at this point Nabal's wife Abigail intervenes and secretly defects, sneaking off to David's camp. She warns David that, even though Nabal is foolish and clearly inferior to "my lord" David, what David's about to do is still murder. David hesitates, then agrees, telling Abigail that she has demonstrated "good judgement" by preventing a murder from taking place.

God, naturally, takes David's side in this sorry affair. David has decided not to murder Nabal - and therefore, God rewards David by killing Nabal all by himself. First he gives him a heart attack, after which he "became like a stone"; then, after a few days, "the Lord struck Nabal and he died." Chillingly, David thanks God for killing Nabal. Then he finishes the story by marrying Abigail himself.

He's starting a decent collection of wives, it must be said - the Bible adds as an afterthought that in the meantime he's also married Ahinoam of Jezreel. Ain't polygamy grand?
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Sunday, June 08, 2008

The Fulgencio Batista of Israel: 1 Samuel 22-31

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

If you're going to be a righteous political revolutionary, you have to have an evil authoritarian dictator to fight, and Saul fits the bill admirably. When he hears that David has fled, he accuses his senior officials of plotting against him and eventually learns that David was spotted with priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech is summoned and doesn't seem to realize that David is in the doghouse - he praises David and pleads ignorance. Saul isn't amused; he flies into a rage and kills 85 priests, including Ahimelech. Saul's men don't stop there: they also kill the entire city of Nob, where Ahimelech was living. Only one man, Ahimelech's son Abiathar, escapes, and Abiathar makes his way to the rebels, where he joins David.

Eventually, David gets around to doing what Israelite armies are supposed to do (naturally): protect Israelites from the barbarous Philistines. His small band races to Keilah to lift a Philistine siege and help the Judeans living there, but the treacherous Judeans thank him by sending a message to Saul saying they know where David is. Saul decides to repay everyone involved by razing the town, but by the time he's ready to begin the siege, David has moved on - fortunately for the residents of Keilah, who are therefore spared. David flees to Ziphite territory, but they betray him too; and then to the Desert of Maon, where Saul's forces finally trap him. But, good fortune! At the last moment, Saul gets an urgent message that the Philistines are attacking, and he rushes his army away to fight this more serious threat. David is spared.

Never let it be said that the author of 1 Samuel lacks a sense of humour! The Philistines retreat, and Saul resumes the chase after David. Completely by chance, the king steps into a cave where David is hiding in order to "relieve himself." Egged on by his comrades, David sneaks up and cuts off a piece of the king's cloak. He then presents the piece to the king as evidence that he could have killed Saul, but has chosen not to. Saul is stricken and begs David's forgiveness for all that he has done. The two men appear to make peace, exchanging oaths: Saul blesses David and asks God to bless him too, and David promises not to "wipe out" Saul and his family once he has become king.

The truce doesn't last - in chapter 26 the two are at it again. Actually, it's not entirely clear why, and the circumstances are sufficiently hazy that we could conclude this is just an alternate telling of the original cave story. The Ziphites betray David again, Saul comes down to find him, but David sneaks into the enemy camp during the night and steals Saul's spear and favourite water bottle. Like before, he then challenges Saul - though this time out of pride and arrogance, rather than guilt and humility, which might be significant or at least noteworthy - and Saul admits that he has done wrong. The two men make peace and go their own way.

This time, David has no expectation that the truce will hold. Convinced that Saul will eventually come after him, he defects to the Philistines along with his entire band, seeking asylum from king Achish in Gath. David and his merry band of mercenaries turn rogue, randomly raiding Geshurite, Girzite and Amalekite territories and murdering everyone they find, before stealing their livestock and even their clothes. Usually I use murder as broadly as possible, but here I use the term in the specific Biblical legal sense: there's no other apt word for what's going on here. David is murdering people so there will be no witnesses left alive afterwards. He has a reason for this: he's secretly lying to king Achish by telling him the raids are actually targeting Israelite communities in Judah.

(Saul has his own problems, as he's presently off consulting with spirit mediums, but I'll get to that in a separate post.)

Eventually the Philistines decide to attack Israel again, and this time Achish demands that David's band go with them. David actually agrees. We don't get to see whether David would actually be willing to kill Israelites to further his ruse, because the Philistine army refuses to march alongside a group of Israelites, so Achish sends David home. Instead, David's men decide to attack the Amalekites, who in the meantime have raided the Negev and kidnapped David's wives. They easily overcome the Amalekite raiders and recover the stolen property and women. David establishes new rules for handling war booty and sends some of the captured treasure to the Judean elders "who were his friends." Hurray for petty corruption!

In the meantime, while David is killing Amalekites, Saul is actually defending Israel from the Philistine invasion. The battle isn't going well: all Saul's sons (including Jonathan) are slayed and Saul's position is overrun by the enemy. Wounded nad surrounded, Saul and his armour-bearer commit ritual suicide so that at least they won't have been killed by the uncircumcised Philistines.

The supposed role of God in this set of stories is intriguing. David basically uses God as an oracle, occasionally engaging in some strategic question-and-answer sessions and usually getting useful results. Saul, too, claims that God is on his side on numerous occasions (see, for example, 23:21, among many others). David actually accepts this - on more than one occasion, he refuses to harm Saul specifically on the grounds that Saul is "the Lord's anointed." At some points God really does seem to be on both sides, but in the end the militarist yardstick may be used to show that the author, at least, favours David: David survives his battle with the Amalekites, but Saul dies fighting the Philistines. The fact that David is chasing down a small raiding party and Saul is defending the homeland from a massive invasion doesn't seem to enter into the equation.
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Saturday, June 07, 2008

The Fidel Castro of Israel: 1 Samuel 21 - 22:5

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

David, on the run, starts a guerrilla revolt against Saul's government, which rapidly proves the thesis that there is very little righteousness in war on either side. In this case, we have the "God-chosen" David blaspheming God and consorting with enemies of Israel, and the God-damned Saul chasing after him with the armies of an Israel he doesn't deserve and shouldn't have. Very good fiction, though. David has become the Fidel Castro of ancient Israel.

His campaign gets off to an ignoble start when he thoughtlessly violates the laws of Moses, with a complicit priest named Ahimelech. Arriving at Nob, David orders the priests to get food for his men. First, David openly lies to the priest (so much for the "Ten Commandments"), claiming that he is on a secret mission from King Saul. No dice! says the priest, who has only holy bread available. That's okay with David, who foolishly argues that he has the right to this bread because he and his men haven't had sex recently. So much for the sacrificial laws, which don't say anything about getting special access to the consecrated foodstuffs after you've abstained from sex. This is a very curious "man after God's own heart," seeing as he doesn't appear to give a damn about God's own laws. David eventually gets his way and takes the bread, though only after advancing the even more dubious proposition that "men's bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy." What the fuck? By some bizarre fluke, Ahimelech the priest also just happens to have Goliath's old sword on hand, so David takes that as well.

David's been spotted by one of Saul's flunkies, so he's off again, this time leaving Israel entirely to meet up with king Achish in Gath. Worried that he's going to be recognized as a dangerous Israelite general (and probably executed as a result), he feigns insanity, scratching the walls with his fingernails and drooling all over the place. Achish eventually grows tired of the performance and orders the mad Israelite kicked out of his palace. (Hilariously, he phrases it thusly: "Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow into my house?" Tragically, the pagans are much wittier than the Israelites, who don't crack these sorts of jokes at all, at least not in 1 Samuel.)

Dvaid moves from Gath to Adullam, where he gathers a group of 400 men who are "in distress or in debt or discontented" - basically, a bunch of malcontents and miscreants. He meets the Moabite king, who agrees to grant asylum to David's father and mother lest they be harmed by Saul. Then he and his men go into the Hereth forests to continue their campaign.

I don't necessarily mind that David doesn't care about the sacrificial law, because I don't care about it either. But what is intriguing is that David's character here is thoroughly opportunistic and manipulative - and in retrospect, it always has been. David loves both Jonathan and Michal - but ultimately he uses them against their father for his own benefit. He deceives the priest into giving him bread. Israelites aren't really supposed to consort with foreigners like the Gathites and the Moabites, but, like Samson before him, David doesn't seem to mind. Neither do the Gathites or the Moabites, who see an opportunity to weaken Israel and, like good political realists in any age, they promptly seize it.
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Friday, June 06, 2008

David's Foreskin Collection: 1 Samuel 18-20

This post is part of a revolutionary Bible commentary by the Church of the Orange Sky.

In Iceland there's actually a penis museum. Here in 1 Samuel 18 we have a collection of foreskins, which isn't quite the same but is almost as impressive in a crude and disgusting way.

It's at this point that the militarist version of King David's story takes over the narrative entirely.

It begins, incongruously, with a description of the close friendship that develops between David and prince Jonathan. The language employed here is so suggestive that it's not surprising that a lot of people cheekily suggest this was a homosexual relationship, although I personally happen to think it's perfectly possible for two people to have an extremely close and completely non-sexual relationship regardless of what sex organs they happen to have. In this case, still, one has to wonder: Jonathan and David "became one in spirit" and are so close that Jonathan takes off all his clothes and gives them to David as a gift. How nice!

Saul is more suspicious of David. He makes David a commander in the army and David becomes extremely successful - too successful, in fact, so that Saul grows jealous and David is more popular with the chicks. Saul is angry that all the girls in Israel are infatuated with David, and even tries to kill him - twice! - while David plays the harp. Eventually he sends David off to the front on an indefinite military campaign. Saul seems to think if he keeps David in the field long enough, eventually a Philistine soldier will kill him, but this doesn't happen, supposedly because "the Lord was with David."

In the meantime, David falls in love with Saul's daughter Michal. (Following the battle with Goliath, he was supposed to be married to Saul's elder daughter Merab, but he turned her down, so Saul married her off to some nobody named Adriel of Meholah.) Saul is "pleased" to learn that they want to marry - not because this will bring the two men closer together, but rather because he believes Michal will be "a snare to him so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him."

This logic at first seems tortuous, but the plot soon becames clear: Saul will set a high bride price. High, indeed: he orders David to go out and collect a hundred Philistine foreskins. David again one-ups the king by killing two hundred Philistines and presenting their foreskins. In exchange, Saul gives him Michal.

This is a rather dubious bride price. I realize the Philistines in question are foreigners and perhaps therefore unworthy of the same rights and privileges given to Israelites - but surely this is an act of mass murder. We can expect it from Saul, who is nearly as immoral and crazy as Gideon or even Samson, but David doesn't bat an eye, either.

Saul's immediate reaction to the presentation of the foreskins is not recorded, but we may presume that it was something along the lines of "Curses! Foiled again!"

In the next two chapters, Saul continues to conspire against David but can't get the support of his own kids. At the beginning of chapter 19, he decides to kill David, but Jonathan sends David away and intercedes, persuading his father to relent. David returns to the court but once again Saul throws a spear at David and this time the latter escapes with the help of his wife Michal. David comes back yet again to speak to Jonathan, who has inexplicably forgotten the event in the previous chapter and initially refuses to believe his father would genuinely want to kill David. The two conspire to find out Saul's intentions and, finally convinced, Jonathan covers for David as he once again flees the king's court.

Sadly, despite the fact that this book is named after him, Samuel has been relegated to a bizarre secondary role by this time in the narrative - as has God, really, but that's another matter. David flees to Ramah at the end of chapter 19 and ultimately comes across Samuel, who apparently has taken to standing around with a group of men delivering vague prophecies. When you were a political refugee in Israel, yu could stand among the men - which David did, so that on three separate occasions Saul's men refused to apprehend the fugitive. Ultimately Saul goes himself to meet up with Samuel, and "the Spirit of God" possesses him - as it apparently possessed all of his deputies - and he strips naked and starts prophecying. What the hell is this lunatic prophecying craze? Why do people in Samuel's presence automatically turn into gibbering soothsayers? The Pentecostals doubtless find it exciting, but I just find it kind of stupid. Why the Spirit of God would be at all interested with Saul at this point is totally unclear - he's already been thoroughly condemned.
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