{"id":58564,"date":"2019-07-01T14:21:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T11:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=58564"},"modified":"2023-01-23T17:18:33","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T15:18:33","slug":"one-lie-does-not-suffice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/one-lie-does-not-suffice\/","title":{"rendered":"One Lie Does Not Suffice"},"content":{"rendered":"
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David is the master of walking the fine line: what it means to defend one\u2019s power by exploiting ambiguity, and by fostering a habitual uncertainty in public perceptions of one\u2019s underlying character and motivations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Attempts to unmask David as nothing but a cynical opportunist fail to do justice to the many ambiguities woven artfully into his story. But it would also be naive to locate David wholly on the side of innocence, piety, and saintliness. He was a thoroughly political being operating in a violently competitive environment. Evading Saul\u2019s attempts on his life and then going on to seize and maintain royal power were essential to his identity as an immensely shrewd and slippery survivor, not simply the fulfillment of a divinely ordained mission. The author of the Book of Samuel narrates some incidents early in David\u2019s political life that reveal his capacity to manipulate the situation to save himself while forcing others to pay the ultimate price.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One such incident is described in detail when David arrived alone, unarmed, and with no supplies at the sanctuary of Nob, not far from Saul\u2019s court. Shocked and apprehensive to see David, a high-ranking officer of the king, traveling alone, Ahimelech was misled by David\u2019s improvised claim to have been sent on an undercover mission by Saul. By making Ahimelech a partner to an alleged state secret, David prevented the priest from double-checking the reliability of his information, since any attempt at verification might well have constituted a dangerous disclosure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here our author reveals another deep truth about political power. The concealed realm that inevitably accompanies power politics unavoidably allowed and even invited deception, crime, and cunning. By invoking the excuse of state secrets, nominally subordinate and obedient political agents can behave in unmonitored and unaccountable ways, because investigating the sincerity of their claims and plans could rend the veil of secrecy that is always presumed to be necessary – because sometimes it really is. Manipulated into supplying David with food and arms, Ahimelech became an inadvertent accomplice to a crime, helping an aspiring usurper escape the punitive hand of the established authorities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As in many such cases, one lie does not suffice. Pushed by the circumstances at the sanctuary, David had to add other layers of deception, this time instrumentalizing not only the priests discreet respect for state secrets but the sacred itself. The priest, we are told, had only consecrated bread at his disposal and worried about defiling it. David, who needed the whole of the supply for his escape, fabricated the existence of a group of lads who were waiting for him in another place due to the secrecy of his mission, and he vouched as well for their state of ritual purity\u2026. Cozened by these untruths, Ahimelech handed David the consecrated bread.<\/span><\/p>\n

Excerpts from The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes, Princeton University Press, 2017, pp.38-41. 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