{"id":58449,"date":"2019-06-27T23:45:59","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T20:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=58449"},"modified":"2023-01-22T11:55:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T09:55:58","slug":"same-stories-opposite-significance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/same-stories-opposite-significance\/","title":{"rendered":"Same Stories, Opposite Significance"},"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":[834,506,885],"acf":{"old_id":"58449","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"251","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"From promising rise and ignominious fall","content":"

A weird episode, confusing on multiple levels, ends today\u2019s chapter. David, on the run from Saul, takes refuge with Samuel at Ramah. Saul sends three bands of soldiers to kill David, and each is diverted from their mission when a \u201cspirit of God\u201d comes over them causing them to prophesy. Finally, Saul who has obtusely failed to learn from what happened to his soldiers, comes after David himself. The prophetic spirit of God seizes Saul too, making him \u201cstrip off his clothes\u2026 and lie naked all that day and night.\u201d This, concludes the narrator, is why people say, \u201cis Saul too among the prophets?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, regular 929 readers will recall that less than two weeks ago, we read a rather different origin story for this popular proverb. In chapter 10, when Samuel has just anointed Saul king, Saul encounters a band of prophets playing music, and an ecstatic spirit of God comes over him. Seeing this, people say, \u201cwhat\u2019s happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul too among the prophets?\u201d (10:11) This, the narrator says as an aside, is where the proverb comes from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, we have two different stories that both purport to be the origin of the expression \u201cis Saul too among the prophets?\u201d Which is the real source?<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Da\u2019at Mikra<\/span><\/i> commentary points out the sharp difference in tone and resonance between the two cases. At the outset of Saul\u2019s career, people expressed astonishment that an obscure young man with no previously noticed aptitude or preparation for prophecy should receive the spirit of God. This was a portent of a great future.<\/span><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s chapter, on the other hand, \u201cis Saul also among the prophets?\u201d is an utterance of surprise that the king of Israel should behave like one of Samuel\u2019s neophyte followers, leading him to act in such a degraded way. Now in Saul\u2019s decline, the proverb expresses wonder at how low the king has fallen as he struggles with the divine spirit that is on the point of leaving him for ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rabbi Amnon Bazak points out that after this episode, we hear no more of the \u201cevil spirit\u201d that has filled Saul for the past three chapters. No longer possessed by spirits good or evil, he becomes an ordinary mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

The two events where Saul prophesies bracket his promising rise and ignominious fall. Together, they represent his struggle and ultimate failure to receive, hold and domesticate the divine spirit. They are bookends of one story.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this sense, both episodes are origins of \u201cIs Saul too among the prophets?\u201d Taken together they express the tragic incongruity of Saul\u2019s career, as an unknown donkey herd unprepared and unable to handle the greatness that was thrust upon him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":58450,"id":58450,"title":"isam19-Saul-behaving-as-a-prophet","filename":"isam19-Saul-behaving-as-a-prophet.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/isam19-Saul-behaving-as-a-prophet.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/same-stories-opposite-significance\/isam19-saul-behaving-as-a-prophet\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"isam19-saul-behaving-as-a-prophet","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":58449,"date":"2019-06-27 20:45:44","modified":"2019-06-27 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