{"id":57619,"date":"2019-06-17T15:17:22","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T12:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=57619"},"modified":"2023-01-10T15:29:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-10T13:29:53","slug":"a-semi-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-semi-king\/","title":{"rendered":"A Semi-King"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With Saul now ensconced as king, his first challenge is war with Ammon, a neighboring country to the east, in Transjordan. In truth, though, the account is narrated more along the lines of the stories of the judges\/saviors in the book of Judges. Which is to say, a portion of Israel comes under attack from a neighboring people, the spirit of the Lord grips Saul (see vv. 6, 10), Saul leads the troops, and the enemy is defeated. Indeed, the term \u2018king Saul\u2019 does not occur in this chapter, though this is also true throughout the Saul narratives, save for 1 Sam 18:6 (where the expression may be a later addition to the prose).<\/span><\/p>\n

As such, it is worth noting that Saul represents more of a transitional figure, linking the period of the Judges to that of true monarchy under David and Solomon. Saul is \u2018king\u2019 in title only, but he lacks the trappings of kingship. He continues to live in his family home, indeed he still engages in farming (see below); he does not establish a capital city; he does not build a palace; there is no developed government administration; and in the early stories there is no standing army. Saul\u2019s general Abner is mentioned for the first time only in 1 Sam 14:50. All of this contrasts with the true kingship which emerges under David.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, when word of the war with Ammon reaches Saul in his home city of Gibeah, he is involved in a most surprising action: \u201cand behold, Saul was coming from the field, behind the cattle\u201d (v. 5). Now most likely he was not driving the cattle, especially since sheep and goats are the most common domesticated animals in Israel, especially in the central hill country, where Gibeah is located. Rather, the cattle were probably a pair of oxen yoked to a plow, as implied in v. 7, for such was their primary use in ancient Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

An excellent parallel to Saul\u2019s plowing his field is furnished by the <\/span>Odyssey <\/span><\/i>18.365-386, where Odysseus brags about his prowess at all manner of agricultural activity, including taking the scythe to the tall grass and plowing with oxen to create the straightest of furrows. \u00a0As with Saul, so with Odysseus: the hero\u2019s status as military champion and rightful king (of Israel and of Ithaca, respectively) does not prevent him from working his ancestral land. This analogue bespeaks the East Mediterranean epic which underlies both early Israelite narrative prose and Homeric narrative poetry, as revealed most prominently in the writings of my teacher, the late Cyrus Gordon (1908\u20122001).<\/span><\/p>\n

For artistic depictions of this activity, we turn to ancient Egypt. \u00a0See, for example,<\/span> the 12th Dynasty wooden model in the Metropolitan Museum<\/span><\/a>, and<\/span> the 19th Dynasty wall painting in the tomb of Sennedjem at Deir el-Medina<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

As the foregoing demonstrates, biblical scholars need to have broad horizons, including both the art of ancient Egypt and the literature of ancient Greece.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image: Model of a Man Plowing, ca. 1981\u20131885 B.C.E.. Ancient Egypt. 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