{"id":60138,"date":"2019-07-25T16:40:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T13:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60138"},"modified":"2023-02-19T07:46:52","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T05:46:52","slug":"david-the-superpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/david-the-superpower\/","title":{"rendered":"David The Superpower\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this chapter, David finally fully establishes himself as a dominant superpower in the Middle East. He conquers nations, stations troops in their territories, and other kings voluntarily begin to pay tribute to David.<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of the text\u2019s description of David\u2019s rule, we read that Tzadok ben Ahituv and Ahimelekh ben Evyatar were priests, and that \u201cthe children of David were priests\u201d (v. 18). The latter phrase is doubly puzzling, as we just learned that Tzadok and Ahimelekh were priests, and we also know that David\u2019s line was from Judah, not Levi, and so were unfit to serve as priests. More generally, given that, as we learned in the previous chapter, the Temple was never constructed during David\u2019s lifetime, it seems odd that he appointed priests at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

These questions drove the classical commentators to offer a series of alternative interpretations. R. David Kimhi, citing the midrash, explains that they were priests in the sense that they were scholars. This follows Moses\u2019 blessing to the tribe of Levi, in which he describes them as the teachers of law to the Israelites. Similarly, R. Joseph ibn Kaspi explains that they studied Torah intensively, much as David himself had modeled for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet we might add a third interpretation. For this is not the only instance in which non-Levites are referred to as priests. Immediately prior to the giving of the Torah, the Torah describes the Jewish people as a \u201ckingdom of priests and a holy nation.\u201d In what sense are the Jews priests? The great Spanish commentator Seforno explains that the role of the Jews vis-a-vis the world was to be, in the words of R. Shlomo Riskin, \u201cpriest-teachers.\u201d By observing the laws and living out the values of ethical monotheism, the Jews were positioned to model a Jewish lifestyle for the rest of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

So too with the children of David. Beyond studying and teaching Torah in a more technical sense, the verse may be suggesting that they served as spiritual-ethical paragons for the Jewish nation, and, given David\u2019s international stature, well beyond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

image: Priests, Charles Foster, 1897 \/ wikimedia<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":60139,"id":60139,"title":"2sam8-priest","filename":"2sam8-priest.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2sam8-priest.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/david-the-superpower\/2sam8-priest\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2sam8-priest","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":60138,"date":"2019-07-25 13:39:28","modified":"2023-03-16 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