King Saul, the Lion of
Judah
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And when
the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice and spoke to Saul,
saying, why have you deceived me? For you are Saul. And the king said
to her, be not afraid: what did you see? And the woman said, I saw gods
ascending out of the earth.
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I
Sam. 28: 12-13
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to
Dawn
David, the man "after
the
heart of God," made his enemies pass “under saws and
harrows of iron, and under axes,” before sending
them to “the brick-kilns (II Sam.
12: 31). He was
a serial philanderer who went after the skirts of other people’s wives
and had
their husbands murdered (II Sam.
11: 1-15).
He betrayed his king and reaped the rewards. He also was a king and had
a whole
staff of court historians to do the whitewash for posterity. I am a
child of
the cold war; propaganda was the air we were breathing. My sympathies
have
always lain with King Saul.
Over
time the judges over Israel had begun developing a habit of passing on
their
privileges only to club members. So, when it was Samuel’s turn, he too “made his sons judges over Israel.” And
they “turned aside after lucre, took
bribes, and perverted the law. So all the elders of Israel gathered and
came to
Samuel and said, behold, you are old, and your sons walk not in your
ways: now
make us a king to judge us like all the nations. The thing displeased
Samuel” (I Sam. 8: 1-6). Reluctantly he grabbed from his
wife’s larder
a vial of olive oil and in 1025 BC he anointed Saul as the people’s
prince.
Old
Shmul had little choice in this matter. There was still no Hebrew
nation, only
a loose confederacy of half domesticated tribes, roaming the mountains
and
keeping a jealous eye on each other, while bowing to the Philistine
overlord.
They were not even allowed to have their own blacksmiths “lest
they
make
the
Hebrew
swords
or
spears” and had to trade their
supply of nails, hoes and plows from the Philistines (I Sam.
13:
19). Inevitably this became the cause for a growing resentment
against
the Philistine protectorate. Resentments are the forge of nation
building. All
it takes is a William of Orange or a George Washington and a new nation
is born
out of the resentment against the Spanish Inquisition or taxation
without
representation. King Saul was the George Washington of the Hebrews. The
Bible
introduces him as the nation-builder (I Sam.
11: 7) a
charismatic leader, who was a bit of a shaman himself (I Sam.
19:
24). He was chosen and appointed by a shortsighted and envious
politician because Saul’s tribe was the smallest and least likely to
dominate
the confederacy. He
was the anointed, the Messiah, the last of the judges and the first of
the
kings, the rock against the Philistines.
Not surprisingly, the old
establishment of tribal elders developed a dim view of the man cutting
into
their privileges: “He will take our sons,
and appoint them for his horsemen; and some shall run before his
chariots. And
he will take our daughters, our fields, and our vineyards, and give
them to his
servants” (I Sam. 8: 11-18). The
wily Samuel’s idea was of course to use Saul as a puppet with him
pulling the
strings – I wouldn’t say he’d set him up to fail – but the prince soon
began following his own counsel instead of playing the game of a bygone
age and
commit senseless slaughter to no purpose (I Sam.
15: 14).
So, Samuel resorted to scare tactics
against the brave but superstitious prince, proclaiming the “will of
God” in
“oracles” from his shrine at Shiloh (I Sam.
9: 9; 14: 35-46, 15: 11, 23).
Still not
satisfied, he then approached in secret what
seemed an inexperienced but willing young man, carefully chosen for his
handsome looks (I Sam. 16: 2-4; 12).
Under
Samuel’s
approving
eye
the
young
man
was
introduced
to
Saul
as
a
harp player (I Sam.
16: 23) and soon advanced to
the office
of the king's armor bearer. The king's oldest son, Prince Jonathan,
immediately
fell under the spell of David's handsome looks and stripped himself
bare the
very first time he laid eyes on him (I Sam.
18: 4). Thus the infatuated
prince
became the unwitting accessory to Samuel and David's conspiracy against
King
Saul. Old Shmul must have been a particularly poor judge of character.
As it
turned out, this David, too, had ideas of his own.
David
was a shrewd propagandist of his own, admittedly courageous, exploits (I Sam. 17, 18: 7)
and began to command a following in Saul’s army. Yet the
plot was discovered and David had to run for dear life. He became the
leader of
a band of malcontents and mercenaries (I Sam. 25: 10
27: 5)
even appeared on the Philistines' – the archenemy’s – payroll (I Sam. 27: 1-7).
Betrayed and without allies, King Saul and his son were
left to fight an overwhelming force against hopeless odds.
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The priestly narrator, writing in a later
and very different period, alleges that in his heydays King Saul had
been
prosecuting sorcery and witchcraft, which is not likely in a period
when
witchcraft was the common mode of religious operation and the term
“prophet”
was just another name for a sorcerer casting spells on the enemy (Numbers
22:
21-38). Whatever the case, the
prince
was now reduced to seeking help from a sorceress. Her vision confirms
his
impending doom; she has no comfort to offer, only a meal. So King Saul,
sore in
his soul but unflinching, rises and goes into the long night (I Sam. 28), a true
aristocrat all the way. Yet the Good Book doesn’t approve of nobility
and tragedy. What seems to annoy the rabbinical editor is the fact that
an
aristocrat lives by his own honor and chooses his own destiny. Tragedy
is
neither a sob story, nor the story of a man getting himself
inadvertently into
deep waters. Tragedy is the story of a choice in the face of
unfavorable odds
and knowing
these odds. In 1011 BC, Saul and Jonathan were slain in the final
showdown
against the Philistines. The narrator claims that David took no part in
it. Not
a likely scenario if indeed the Philistines had their suspicions (I Sam. 29: 3-7).
With their main forces engaged, they would rather
have kept an eye on this treacherous ally (I Sam.
27: 11). Wishing to maintain
an
appearance of legitimacy for his own claim to the vacant throne, David
then
collected King Saul’s body for a decent burial.
David assumed his rule as a puppet of the
Philistines. Foreign mercenaries held key positions in his army (II Sam. 11: 3 etc.).
The
new
king
consolidated
his
power
with
ruthless
efficiency,
eventually
shaking
off
the
yoke of the Philistines. There
was
rebellion in his own house (II Sam.
13-18), but surprisingly the
records
never mention the omnipresence of Egypt, the biggest player in the
region, who
would have allowed neither David nor the Philistines even to sneeze
without
asking permission (II Sam. 12). When
in 969 BC "the days of David drew nigh that he should die,”
the
prophet
Nathan
and
Solomon,
the
son
of
a
concubine,
plotted
against
the
legitimate
contender.
In a last minute coup Solomon became the designated successor and
received the
dying king’s final instructions. By his own life, David had sworn
clemency to
his defeated adversaries, but now all bets were off: “You
know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, show yourself a man and let
not his hoar
head go to the grave in peace. And, you have with you Shimei
the son of Gera, which cursed me with a grievous curse: hold him not
guiltless:
bring his hoar head down with blood. So David slept with his fathers,
and the
kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon" (I Kings 2).
The scene has inspired Mario Puzo’s Godfather.
© – 3/10/2009 – by
michael sympson, 1,350 words,
all rights reserved
