{"id":57499,"date":"2019-06-16T14:18:08","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T11:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=57499"},"modified":"2023-01-08T16:56:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T14:56:21","slug":"before-the-power-takes-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/before-the-power-takes-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"Before The Power Takes Hold"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[374,835,503,839,885],"acf":{"old_id":"57499","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":56443,"related_cahpter":"242","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A handsome but ambitionless king-designate is grudgingly enthroned","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Staged without witnesses on the outskirts of town, the clandestine anointment of Saul by Samuel is followed in the narrative by a public coronation at Mizpah which again serves to underscore Saul\u2019s natural reluctance to assume power that has been so unexpectedly thrust upon him. In the presence of all the people, a divination procedure was enacted in the form of casting a lot meant to reveal the monarch already selected by God. The lot fell first on the tribe of Benjamin, and then on the clan of Matrit, and finally, from among that clan, the lot fell on Saul. After the identity of the new king was this made known, a strangely embarrassing moment ensued. Saul, the chosen one, couldn\u2019t be located: \u201cand they sought him but he was not to be found\u201d (1 Sam 10:22). When he was discovered at last hiding among the gear, the people dragged Saul to a kingship that he had unequivocally never sought for himself:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd they ran and fetched him from there, and he stood forth amidst the people, and he was head and shoulders taller than all the people. And Samuel said to all the people, \u201cHave you seen whom the Lord has chosen? For there is none like him in all the people.\u201d And all the people shouted and said, \u201cLong love the king!\u201d (1 Sam 10:23-24).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this oddly graceless coronation ceremony, distinguished by Samuel\u2019s residual resentment and Saul\u2019s embarrassingly humble demeanor, a handsome but ambitionless king-designate was grudgingly enthroned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike someone long preparing to assume power, Saul didn\u2019t move swiftly to exploit the momentum of his coronation and consolidate his authority. The public gathering at Mizpah ended in anticlimactic dispersal: \u201cSamuel sent all the people away to their homes. And Saul, too, returned to his home in Gibeah, and the stalwart fellows whose hearts God had touched went with him\u201d (1 Sam 10:26-27). It is no wonder that Saul\u2019s slinking back into private life was followed with words of derision spat out by some skeptical and oppositional voices among the people: \u201cAnd worthless fellows had said, \u2018How will this one deliver us?\u2019 And they spurned him and brought him no tribute, but he pretended to keep his peace\u201d (1 Sam 10:27). But why exactly does the author of Samuel make sure that we see Saul as wholly devoid of lofty ambition and craving for power? It is sometimes said that the only one who can be trusted with power is the one who doesn\u2019t seek it. Yet our author, in these passages, obviously wished to convey a diametrically contrary thought. The account of Saul\u2019s first two coronations prepares us to see how the intoxicating appeal of supreme power will overtake even a character as naturally uncalculating, unassuming and unenterprising as Saul. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Excerpts from <em>The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp.20-22. By permission of the author.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":56668,"id":56668,"title":"halbertal-book cover.jpg","filename":"halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/halbertal-book-cover.jpg.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fine-grained-phenomenology-of-political-power\/halbertal-book-cover-jpg\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"halbertal-book-cover-jpg","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":56661,"date":"2019-06-02 14:58:58","modified":"2019-06-03 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