{"id":58051,"date":"2019-06-23T04:29:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T01:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=58051"},"modified":"2023-01-16T23:38:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T21:38:48","slug":"david-secret-successor-soothing-musician-valiant-warrior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/david-secret-successor-soothing-musician-valiant-warrior\/","title":{"rendered":"David: Secret Successor, Soothing Musician, Valiant Warrior"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/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":[834,512,885],"acf":{"old_id":"58051","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":56443,"related_cahpter":"248","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"David takes center stage, to Saul\u2019s unraveling","content":"

We first encounter David in the chapter that follows Samuel\u2019s terminal breach with Saul. Expressing his determination to replace Saul, God ordered Samuel to travel to Bethlehem to Jesse\u2019s family and anoint Saul\u2019s successor, a command to which Samuel responded with great trepidation: \u201cHow can I go? For should Saul hear, he will kill me\u201d (1 Sam 16:2)… <\/span><\/p>\n

To protect the prophet from Saul\u2019s predictable fury, God suggests that Samuel pretend to be going to Bethlehem not to anoint the next king but simply to officiate over a festive ritual sacrifice to which Jesse and his family can be unobtrusively invited. Samuel adopts God\u2019s alibi and, after fruitlessly considering Jesse\u2019s eldest seven sons, has the youngest son David fetched from shepherding the herd and anoints him in the presence of his brothers. \u201cAnd the spirit of the LORD gripped David from that day onward (16:13).<\/span><\/p>\n

Saul\u2019s replacement has now been selected, and when he enters the scene he naturally appears to be a mortal rival to the sitting king. Our narrator heightens the dramatic and psychological effects of this rivalry by locating David, with virtually no transition, at the court of Saul and indeed in Saul\u2019s innermost circle. In such intimate proximity, a lethal rivalry over supreme political power becomes entangled in a complex web of personal relationships between Saul, his family, and David. The dramatic unfolding of these familial entanglements and confrontations allows the narrator to explore to ever-greater depth how the emergence of a centralized and inheritable sovereign authority over all Israel inevitably gave rise to a ruthless and, for Saul, emotionally fraught winner-take-all struggle for power.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Book of Samuel offers us two distinct accounts of how David, the shepherd from Bethlehem who has been secretly anointed, joined Saul\u2019s inner court. According to the first version, Saul, a doomed king holding desperately onto power, sank into a dizzying depression… To relieve the king\u2019s chronic melancholy, David was brought to Saul by his servants because of his reputation as a skilled lyre player. David\u2019s music had a comforting effect on Saul, exorcising his evil demons, and we are told that \u201cSaul loved him greatly\u201d (1 Sam 16:21). This particular way of introducing David to the court emphasizes Saul\u2019s emotional dependency on David. That Saul\u2019s mood swings were controlled by David\u2019s music foreshadows the way that Saul\u2019s emotional life will be defined by his struggle with David. Saul will vacillate uncontrollably between a bitter hatred toward his rival and a loving recognition of him as almost an adopted son.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second account of how David joined Saul\u2019s court, David was brought into Saul\u2019s inner court not through David\u2019s soothing musical gifts but due to his heroic and ambitious qualities\u2026 Upon hearing Goliath\u2019s challenge to Israel and the prize that was promised by the king to the one who would dare to fight Goliath, David volunteered to face the giant and was brought before the skeptical king. David\u2019s confidence and ambition and the paralysis of the rest of the troops ultimately convinced Saul to allow the young shephard to fight. After David resoundingly defeated Goliath, he joined Saul\u2019s court, becoming one of the king\u2019s leading and most trusted officers.<\/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.29-31. By permission of the author.<\/span><\/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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