{"id":62674,"date":"2019-09-10T11:24:42","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T08:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62674"},"modified":"2023-04-09T13:22:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T10:22:37","slug":"game-over-only-when-the-king-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/game-over-only-when-the-king-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Over &#8211; Only When The King Is Dead"},"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":[927,704],"acf":{"old_id":"62674","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33692,"related_cahpter":"307","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A prophetic parable sharpens the point","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The final scenes of this chapter depict a strange series of events in which the prophet instructs someone to injure him and then disguises himself and approaches the king and issues a severe condemnation: \u201cThus says the Lord: Because you have set this man free, whom I had doomed, your life shall be forfeit for his life, and your people for his people\u201d (20:42).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prof. Uriel Simon, in his <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reading Prophetic Narratives<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, has noted this type of masquerade in several stories in the Bible, identifying them as a sub-genre he terms the &#8220;juridical parable&#8221; (e.g., Sam 11:1-4, Sam 14, Isaiah 5:1-7).In such a presentation, the storyteller presents\u00a0 \u201c&#8230;a fictional tale with a realistic plot dealing with an act of lawbreaking, told to someone who has committed a transgression or is intimately involved in the matter, with the aim of getting him to unwittingly pass judgment on himself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The juridical parable must accord somewhat with the real-life situation, but must also obscure and disguise it, or else the parable will not elicit the desired response. We seek a correlation, on the one hand, along with a distortion, or an in-built discrepancy. Yet in our case, the discrepancy is too great. In the prophetic parable, the man is explicitly told, &#8220;Guard this man! If he is missing, it will be your life for his&#8221; (20:39).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But we fail to locate an explicit instruction to Ahab that Ben-Hadad was to be killed or even incarcerated! Why, then, is Ahab condemned for letting him go? In answering this question, we must appreciate the status of the king in ancient warfare. As in the game of chess (which reflects such warfare), victory cannot be declared unless one has eliminated the king. Despite the loss of 130,000 soldiers, Ben-Hadad could still save face; he would return to his nation and organize a victory parade. As long as the enemy king is free, Ahab&#8217;s &#8220;victory&#8221; is debatable. The only decisive determinant of victory is the death of the enemy leader. Ben-Hadad understands this only too well. When he subsequently fights Ahab yet again, he instructs his archers to target the king: \u201cDo not fight anyone, small or great, except the king of Israel\u201d (22:31).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So is Israel, in fact, victorious under Ahab, or do his actions essentially squander the triumph, allowing it to evaporate? An answer may be found in chapter 22, where we read that a mere three years later, Ben-Hadad flouts all his promises. With this king at large, God&#8217;s victory is short-lived.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alex Israel, <em>1 Kings: Torn in Two,<\/em> Maggid Books, 2013, Tests of Faith<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":61437,"id":61437,"title":"alex israel - kings 1","filename":"alex-israel-kings-1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/adonijahs-scheme-to-ascend-the-throne\/alex-israel-kings-1\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"alex-israel-kings-1","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":61414,"date":"2019-08-19 12:13:44","modified":"2019-08-19 12:13:53","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1020,"height":1304,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-235x300.jpg","medium-width":235,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-768x982.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":982,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-801x1024.jpg","large-width":801,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1.jpg","1536x1536-width":1020,"1536x1536-height":1304,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1.jpg","2048x2048-width":1020,"2048x2048-height":1304,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-939x1200.jpg","post_full_size-width":939,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/alex-israel-kings-1-329x420.jpg","home_baner-width":329,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Excerpts from: 1 Kings - 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