{"id":62025,"date":"2019-08-29T00:46:02","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T21:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62025"},"modified":"2023-03-13T15:39:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T13:39:43","slug":"seeking-warmth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/seeking-warmth\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking Warmth"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/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":[834,419],"acf":{"old_id":"62025","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":56290,"related_cahpter":"288","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"King David did not know Abishag - but she may have known him\u00a0","content":"<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cKing David was now old; the years had caught up to him. Although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What kind of warmth was King David seeking?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His servants seemed to believe his chills were of a physical nature, if not sexual. They offer to find him a young woman, a virgin, who will lie with him. That, they say, will \u201cgive him heat,\u201d as traditional translations have it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cGive him heat?!\u201d Is she to be a blanket, or a sex toy? This short story seems on its surface to be of an old man who needs a young woman to make him feel young again. The blankets do not warm him because the problem is not that he is cold. The story specifically describes the problem as \u201c<em>v\u2019lo y\u2019cham lo<\/em>,\u201d that \u201che could not be made warm.\u201d The problem is internal. And, as the servants and poor Abishag, are about to discover, the problem is not even physical.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">King David\u2019s servants surmise the that king will feel better when the lovely young virgin they find, Abishag the Shunammite, comes to lie with him. She seems right for the role in every way: she is beautiful, she becomes his companion, and she waits upon him. And yet, the king does not know her.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These last words, \u201c<em>v\u2019hamelech lo yad\u2019ah<\/em>\u201d are often understood as \u201cthe king was not sexually intimate with her,\u201d and this meaning is certainly important. Perhaps the king was too old for sex with this young woman. Perhaps he was not interested in sex with her. Or perhaps sex is not what he needed at this point in his life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The story ends here, as if to say, Abishag was a failure. But was she? The lack of sex between King David and Abishag might not mean that she did not warm him, as it were. Her companionship, her pastoral presence, might indeed have been what he needed at this point in his life. His inability to get warm, the first verse suggests, was connected to his aging, to he years having \u201ccome.\u201d I have suggested we translate \u201c<em>ba b\u2019yamim<\/em>,\u201d as \u201cthe years have caught up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this reading, King David is aging, not just physically, but emotionally. He is looking back at his life, and experiencing regret, remorse, alienation. He can get no warmth of satisfaction of life well-lived, because now, he is alone. Finding him a companion is the right instinct, if slightly off. He does not need another wife or a lovely mistress. Rather, he needs someone to be with him, to listen to his life\u2019s story, to help him through this last stage of his life without judgement or manipulation. His family members, as the following chapters reveal, all want something. But Abishag is simply there. She might almost be seen as a therapist. She listens, but does not speak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">King David does not know Abishag. In this reading, however, she knows him. And, perhaps, King David eventually gets warm.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Image: David and Abishag, Jacob Epstein (1880-1959)<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":62026,"id":62026,"title":"1kings1-abishag","filename":"1kings1-abishag.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/seeking-warmth\/1kings1-abishag\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1kings1-abishag","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":62025,"date":"2019-08-28 21:45:44","modified":"2019-08-28 21:45:53","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":480,"height":374,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag-300x234.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":234,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","medium_large-width":480,"medium_large-height":374,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","large-width":480,"large-height":374,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","1536x1536-width":480,"1536x1536-height":374,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","2048x2048-width":480,"2048x2048-height":374,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","post_full_size-width":480,"post_full_size-height":374,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1kings1-abishag.jpg","home_baner-width":480,"home_baner-height":374}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Seeking Warmth","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"King David did not know Abishag - 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