{"id":60593,"date":"2019-08-04T11:09:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T08:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=60593"},"modified":"2023-02-26T18:16:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T16:16:33","slug":"a-minor-character-takes-the-fore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-minor-character-takes-the-fore\/","title":{"rendered":"A Minor Character Takes The Fore"},"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":[604,704,372],"acf":{"old_id":"60593","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":39842,"related_cahpter":"277","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"She bears wisdom for the King, and for the ages","content":"

In a canny mirroring of the prophet Nathan\u2019s allegory of the sheep a mere few chapters earlier, here Joab induces a \u201cwise woman\u201d from the city of Tekoa to again persuade King David to change his behavior, this time to return his son Absalom from exile. The woman, unlike Nathan, does not tell a story about someone else, but rather structures her conversation with the king around an anecdote she tells him has taken place in her own life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why, here, would Joab send this woman to the king rather than position himself like Nathan? He could approach David on his own and share the same parable. It\u2019s possible that, if Joab was familiar with Nathan\u2019s interaction with David in the aftermath of his affair with Bathsheba, he suspected that David would not succumb to the same gambit. However, it\u2019s also possible that there was more intentionality in Joab\u2019s choice to request of the nameless woman that she plead before the King.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The pleading mother, standing before the king or prophet, is a common motif in the Prophets. The wise woman in this scene evokes the Shunnamite woman whose son Elisha revives, and, of course, the desperate mother seeking counsel from the king prefigures the two women who will seek counsel from Solomon over the custody of their one remaining baby. This is a powerful Biblical image that Joab — or rather, the author, through Joab — is crafting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the wise woman herself is not merely an actor, performing a trope in the Biblical drama. She steps out of the confines of her image as a pleading mother to offer David direct and deep counsel: \u201cWe must all die; we are like water that is poured out on the ground and cannot be gathered up,\u201d (II Samuel 14:14). The Tekoan woman lives up to her epithet: she is wise, able to teach and guide the king himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is easy for the reader of the Bible to become desensitized to the differences between minor characters. After all, the main figures of the Bible are those we focus on, the subjects of our folktales and sometimes the originators of our prayers. But those lesser-known figures\u00a0 are not merely wallpaper for the adventures of main characters; those who make only brief appearances carry wisdom with them as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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