{"id":57786,"date":"2019-06-22T07:43:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T04:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=57786"},"modified":"2023-01-16T15:11:16","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T13:11:16","slug":"the-final-fracture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-final-fracture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Fracture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saul\u2019s next cultic failure severed the relationship between Saul and Samuel forever, this time accompanied by God\u2019s explicit repudiation of Israel\u2019s first anointed king. The final fracture occurred after Samuel had commanded Saul, in God\u2019s name, to engage in a holy genocidal war of annihilation against the Amalekites. Although he dutifully killed all the Amalekites, Saul saved from the slaughter the best of the cattle and the king of the Amalekites, an act prohibited in a holy war marked by <\/span>herem<\/span><\/i>, which forbade the use of any spoils of war for human purposes. Upon hearing of Saul\u2019s transgression, Samuel confronted him, declaring again in harsher terms God\u2019s rejection of Saul\u2019s kingship. After recording the stinging reproach, the narrator paints a vivid and painful scene of the parting of the ways between the scornful prophet and the devastated monarch:<\/span><\/p>\n

And Samuel turned round to go, and Saul grasped the skirt of his cloak, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, \u201cThe LORD has torn away the kingship of Israel from you this day and given it to your fellowman, who is better than you. And, what\u2019s more, Israel\u2019s eternal does not deceive and does not repent, for He is no human to repent\u201d (15:27-29). <\/span><\/p>\n

The divine rejection of Saul was declared to be eternal, transcending, like God\u2019s own word, all human mutability and change. In the last verse of this drama one cannot avoid sensing the bitter irony implicit in the narrator’s report that God now rued the coronation of Saul: \u201cAnd Samuel saw Saul no more till his dying day, for Samuel grieved over Saul, and the LORD had repented making Saul king over Israel\u201d (15:35). God\u2019s everlasting commitment turns out to have been contingent and reversible, but only against Saul, not in his favor.<\/span> Nevertheless, till his last breath Saul will doggedly seek to falsify the prophet\u2019s dark prediction. His remaining life struggle and the utter loneliness of the futile quest to retain his hereditary throne will turn him into one of the Bible\u2019s most tragic figures.<\/span><\/p>\n

The poisonous seeds of insecurity and expected loss were now planted ineradicably in Saul\u2019s soul. But rather than yielding to the inevitable and relinquishing power after being disowned by God, Saul became completely identified with his royal office. The guileless man who had acceded only reluctantly to the throne now became obsessed with keeping it. The foretelling of his deposition made him cling ever more desperately to power. The maddening cycle of paralyzing self-doubts and frenzied efforts to beat back threats to his power were magnified by Saul\u2019s knowledge that his substitute, \u201cwho is better than you,\u201d had already been chosen and was waiting in the wings. <\/span><\/p>\n

His rival, the one who would end Saul\u2019s dynasty even before it passed on to the next generation, was David. And the presence of a challenger, who offered Saul\u2019s followers reasons and incentives to abandon him, pushed Saul over the edge. So thoroughly does hereditary sovereignty captivate the one who wields it that the fearful anticipation of losing it, even for the one who did not originally seek it, suffices to unhinge the mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpts from The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp.27-9. 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