Saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings (2Sam 1)

As 2Samuel (which, as I think I said earlier, was not really a separate book originally) begins, we have yet another story about Amalekites. An Amalekite comes to David and claims that he has killed Saul, prompting the SAB to ask how it could be possible for an Amalekite to exist, given the history of various attempts throughout the reign of Saul to obliterate them. Note however that right here in this chapter, the very first verse mentions David's "slaughter of the Amalekites". I think it would be quite a stretch to claim that the author of this passage didn't notice this juxtaposition as he wrote it. That being the case, I take it as my understanding that all these military attempts at wiping out the Amalekites keep managing to miss a few. David has clearly missed at least one.

Although I already addressed the issue of how Saul died, there's some interesting language here that may further shed light on the matter. If this is a true story, (and once again, with no corroborating witnesses, this may be a fabrication) then Saul's last words were, "Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me." This indicates to me that Saul wanted to be dead, but wasn't, which may fall in line with my suggestion of a failed suicide. Furthermore, the Amalekite says, "So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen:" which indicates to me that Saul had sustained mortal wounds before the Amalekite got there. Actually, if we assume that the story from the last chapter is true, then this story meshes with it pretty well, and for that fact I'm inclined to believe the Amalekite's tale.

The Amalekite delivers the crown and bracelet that Saul was wearing to David, apparently knowing that these royal things now belong to him, and perhaps hoping to be treated favorably for being the one who killed Saul. David is not pleased, even with it supposedly being a mercy killing, and orders one of his men to kill the Amalekite. I don't really know why David would do this. It may link back to the reasons I formerly discussed as to why David himself refused to lay a finger on Saul. Violent? Definitely. Unjust? I personally agree with that assessment. Intolerant? Maybe if we're assuming that David's killing him at least in part for being an Amalekite.

David composes a little poem as a eulogy for Saul and Jonathan, talking about what great warriors they were, and how Saul made Israel into a great nation. Also, he speaks of the great love he had for Jonathan, which need not be interpreted as sexual love.

So Saul died for his transgression (1Sam 31)

Here in the final chapter of this book, the SAB has only one question: "How did Saul die?" The page pointing out the apparent inconsistency gives four possible answers. Now while one can easily dismiss the account of the Amalekite as a lie (after all, he had no witnesses, and apparently assumed that telling David that he had killed Saul would curry favor) I don't think it's necessary, and besides, preachers who cover that story rather like to point out the irony of Saul being killed by an Amalekite, since he was ordered by God to wipe them out and failed.

The thing is, all four of these explanations can be correct in a sense. As I've said before, in some sense, everyone gets killed by God, so no need to explain that. Saul was killed by the Philistines because he died while in battle with them, being struck a mortal blow by Philistine arrows. Knowing that he was as good as dead he endeavored to kill himself rather than be subjected to torture. It may be that he failed to kill himself, and the Amalekite ended up landing the final death blow upon Saul.

The battle is a resounding defeat, and Saul dies along with his three sons, and many of the troops. The next day, Saul's body is captured by the Philisties, who hang his head on the wall of the city of Bethshan.

And two hundred abode by the stuff (1Sam 30)

Amalekites, don't they ever quit? Apparently not in chapter 30. Now I'll say that I'm fine with standing on what I had said before, but here there may be yet another possibility as to what's going on. It might be that the story in chapter 27 is a telescoping of several events into a single story, and the time that David wiped out the Amalekites in that chapter was actually an out-of-order version of this story, if you follow. This time, despite the claim of the marginal note on verse 17, the genocide is not complete, nor was it unprovoked.

The SAB says "David just keeps getting more wives." While true in a more general sense, there are no new wives in this chapter, David still being at two or three, depending on whether you count Michal. There is also a note once again concerning Abiathar's dubious lineage.

After the battle, David decides that those people who stayed behind to guard the supplies deserve the spoils of war just as much as those who rode out for the battle.

This battle was indeed violent, but I have nothing to add to comments I've given before in this book and in other places.

The Philistine of Gath (1Sam 27)

In chapter 27, David flees to Gath, figuring that if he goes among the Philistines, Saul will not follow. Indeed, it is noted here that Saul gives up.

While in this area, he and his men make some raids, completely wiping out the Geshurites, Gezrites and Amalekites, because these apparently were among the people that God wanted wiped out back in the days of Joshua.

Why is David fighting Amalekites if Saul wiped them out already? Well, remember for one thing that Saul didn't wipe them out. As the SAB itself says, Saul's genocide of the Amalekites was "incomplete". For another thing, it's possible that this is another case of mistaken names, with more than one nation being known as "Amalekites".

Having destroyed all these people, David decides to lie to the king of Gath, and say that he was raiding his own people. The king buys it, and concludes that David will now be forced to be an ally of the Philistines forever.

The Agagite, the Jews' enemy (1Sam 15)

Now whereas I usually feel there is an easy response to challenges of violence and intolerance (most of what has been seen in this book so far has been violence in self-defense), chapter 15 presents us with the first example of God-ordered genocide with no immediately obvious purpose. Sure, back in Joshua it was a matter of establishing the nation in the land of Canaan, both for the benefit of Israel and the punishing of evil pagan nations. Here, however, God orders Saul to take his now-sizable and experienced army and attack a foreign country for what seems to be a petty reason. Not that what Amalek did to the Israelites wasn't serious, but as the SAB points out, we're talking about an event centuries previous. In some respects, it seems something akin to me taking it upon myself as a grown man in my mid-thirties to working out and getting strong so I can go pummel a bully who took my lunch money in first grade.

Furthermore, there is no ambiguity here; God really is looking for genocide, not merely punishment, ordering the complete destruction of men, women, children, babies and even livestock. Why does God want this? There's a very subtle clue that we won't find in this chapter, but it brings up possibly another issue that the SAB does not address. After all this setup, I intend to answer this at the end of the entry.

Saul goes off to battle, but he doesn't end up completely destroying everything, saving some of the best livestock, and king Agag as a prisoner. God's not happy, and He says, "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king," leading the SAB to ask the important question, "Does God repent?" I think I addressed this before (yep, here it is), but just in case I didn't, the answer is, "Well, it depends on what you mean by 'repent'." It's understood that the nature of God is such that He, being all-knowing, never comes to be surprised by the outcome of His decisions. Since He knew all that Saul would do as king from the beginning of time, it wouldn't be theologically proper to interpret this verse as God saying, "What was I thinking when I let this joker be king?!" When God "repents", what it means is that He has let the course of history go on long enough, and He is going to now step into the picture and move things in a new direction. The people wanted a king, and God gave them Saul. Now Saul is no longer of any use to God in his position as king, and God will now take steps to remove and replace him. (Note also that in the very same chapter, we are told that God does not repent (v. 29), so clearly the writer means something unusual here, or you have to assume almost immediate self-contradiction, which seems unlikely.)

Samuel comes to Saul and asks him why he didn't obey the command of God. Saul blames the people, saying that they wanted to take some of the best sheep and bring them back as a sacrifice. This is of course, a very lame excuse for a couple reasons, only one of which is stated in the text at this point. The unstated reason is that Saul is the king, which makes him supposedly the man in charge. If things go wrong, he has to take responsibility, not say, "Well, these people didn't want to do it." Secondly, as Samuel points out, isn't it better to just do what you're told than to disobey and excuse your actions by saying, "I was going to do this other thing that I thought would be cool!"

Samuel informs Saul that since he rejected God's command, God's rejects Saul's kingship. Finally, Saul admits he screwed up, and admits both aspects of his mistake, asking Samuel to pray for his restoration, which Samuel refuses to do. However, in some manner that's hard to fully decipher in the King James English, he does something to allow Saul to save face to some degree.

Now, Samuel turns to the matter of the remaining Amalekite, King Agag. He calls for him to be brought, and Agag is nervous, pleading that surely he himself need not die. Samuel kills him, making the genocide of the Amalekites almost complete.

What's missing, and what was the point of all this bloodshed? Some have made the point that Saul's failure led to a dark day in Israel's history, centuries later. In the book of Esther, a man by the name of Haman rises to power in the Persian Empire, and uses his authority to attempt to exterminate the Jews. Who is Haman? He is identified as an "Agagite", that is, he is a descendant of King Agag, the last surviving Amalekite. The issue that this brings up for some skeptics is, if Agag was the last survivor, how is it that he seems to have had children? Two possibilities exist. Either Saul, in sparing Agag, also spared his children, or the possibility also exists that Agag had children in the time span between the destruction of Amalek and his death at the hand of Samuel. This second possibility points out how sometimes a careful reading of Scripture can make you aware of the passing of time that is not obvious on a quick surface read. In verse 12, Samuel hears, "Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place". Other translations make this clearer; what has happened is Saul has stopped on his return home to have a monument built in his own honor. This must have taken some time, perhaps even months, and the war itself wasn't instantaneous. In this time, it seems likely that Agag's children somehow escaped, and grew over time into a small nation that had, perhaps understandably, some unresolved issues with Israel. God understands the relationships between nations, and does what He must to preserve Israel against violent opposition.

And he said, Bring me up Samuel. (1&2Samuel, introduction)

The books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, in the original Hebrew Bible, were a single book. Actually, context seems to imply that that 1Samuel right through 2Kings was more or less a solid piece of historical narrative. What we're looking at here is the history of the Jewish monarchy, with 1Samuel being events leading up to the coronation of David, and 2Samuel being the story of David as King. I've often wondered why it's not called the book of David, since he figures prominently throughout both books of Samuel, while Samuel is not even named in 2Samuel.

As usual, the SAB has some things to say in the overview of the book that I agree with heartily, although of course it will come out that I disagree with the interpretation when I address specifics. Hemorrhoids and foreskins? It's a wacky book alright, and even the person who believes in God but doesn't know the Bible really well is going to find more than a few surprises in here, many not pleasant.

Why is it that it seems God appoints kings not to keep the peace so much as wage war? As noted, Saul eventually is deposed as king essentially for his refusal to commit genocide. And against the Amalekites, which is an issue I've already had to address, but will probably need to delve into in more detail. On the other hand, God is quite pleased with David, who, as the SAB puts it rather well, "is always happy to kill for God." Really, a lot of this meshes in with the issues of the purpose of the conquest of Canaan, which was left unfinished in Joshua's day, but pretty much completed by David. It also has to do with larger issues of the nature of God and the Judeo-Christian worldview which I have opined on in general in a previous post. What God's looking for in a king is not what we look for in a king, as the Bible itself says. And I don't think we should be looking for the same thing in a king that God looks for, because we're not Israel, and not a monarchy, but that's my two cents.

This is a strange book in various ways for the fact that it introduces politics into the Bible as never before, and also in that it's one of the first books to really be clearly and openly a book edited from multiple sources. It makes for a different feel, that's for sure, but at least we're largely back to a straightforward linear story, at least for a while.

I break this people...as one breaketh a potter's vessel (Judges 7)

I was thinking that today was not the day to tackle Judges 7, since I was pretty tired and didn't have much time, but I see this chapter has mostly charges of absurdity against it in the SAB, which are usually not so difficult to deal with, I think.

So what is absurd here? First, there's this odd selection of Gideon's army by the manner in which people drink water. I've heard it suggested that there may be some significance to the way in which one would hold a sword while drinking from a stream, and that those who drink "with his tongue, as a dog lappeth" are showing greater alertness for a possible approaching enemy. I could see the value of that, although I have also heard some debates about whether this really makes any sense. My own take on it is from the context of the verses before: God wants Gideon to have a small army, so that He will get the credit. Remember, in the grand scale of things, the purpose of this battle is not just to free the Israelites from the oppression of the Midianites, but to turn them back to faith in God. There were 10,000 men when they went to have a drink, and God chose 300 to stay; that means 9,700 were turned away! I think this was just an arbitrary selection to get the smaller group, which turned out to be considerably smaller.

Verse 12 is also tagged for absurdity, though I think we're talking about hyperbole here, and what we're saying is that there are too many camels to count. There's something else noteworthy about this verse in respects to the issue of the number of Midianites. In this verse, it says "Midianites and Amalekites". It is quite possible that this is actually a coalition of several nations that happens to be led by the Midianites, which would explain the number of them a bit better.

The next few verses, despite being marked as absurd, are really quite clear and straightforward to me. It's made clear that the Midianites have been supernaturally caused to be very afraid of the idea that they are about to be attacked by a massive army. That night, the men arrive with trumpets, pitchers and lamps. Here's how it works: the lamps are inside pitchers so that they won't be spotted coming, and so that once the time comes to reveal themselves, they can whip out their lamps and smash the pitchers, making a sudden blaze of light accompanied by a crashing noise and the sound of 300 trumpets. Normally, an army would not have every man carry a torch or a trumpet, so the Midianites are to be confused by the illusory sights and sounds of a huge army created by just a relatively small group of men. In the resulting confusion and panic, members of the Midianite army either run away or mistakenly fight each other. Gideon's army of 300 hardly have to draw their swords to attain victory! Violent? Yes, but it's war, and these men are an occupying force.

The chapter ends with the capture and killing of two "princes" of Midian; it's a nasty business, yes, but my caveat here is that once again, it's war, and there's also no particular indication that the Bible condones the manner in which they were killed.

I will make the wilderness a pool of water (Exod 17)

Chapter 17 is a pretty easy one, so as I often do in such cases, I'm going to complicate things with my own comments on what I suggest the SAB might want to say.

First of all, it seems like verse 2 ought to be added to this page, although only if Wells is trying to be comprehensive in his citations. I think a lot of the time, he's just looking for a few good examples, but I'm not sure. It should be noted that he has mistakenly put Genesis 22:1 and 2Sam. 24:1 on this page, which I don't think he meant to. This verse would fit just fine, though. I suppose that since I therefore have not addressed this issue, I ought to here. I think the issue is not whether God can be tempted per se, but whether people will try to tempt God. One of the hard things about this concept is that "tempt" and "test" are largely used interchangeably, with some confusing results. God's certainly not going to be tempted into sin, which is the way we usually think of "tempting". However, God is certainly able to be tested; the only question is whether or not it's appropriate to do so at any given time or in any given manner. For some reason, throughout most of the wilderness wanderings of Israel, the kind of testing/tempting they were doing was inappropriate, while there are examples both of people testing God with positive results, and God actually ordering the people of Israel to test Him! Although the word "test" is not in that verse, the concept is pretty clear there, and I think Wells ought to consider adding it to the test page.

Really, I don't understand this well. I once heard a pastor who said that all testing of God is forbidden in the Bible except for what we find in Malachi 3:10. The guy was a great speaker, but I think he had forgotten Gideon, who doesn't really fit under this heading. (This is also akin to the story in Luke 1 which I really should have included in my "Christmas edition", in which one person gets in trouble for asking a question to an angel, and another person does not.) My only thought is that it has a lot to do with attitude. The Israelites were essentially saying, "Oh my gosh! Moses has led us out into the desert to die, and God doesn't care about us!" While people like Elijah tested God with an attitude more like, "I'm so certain that God is with me, that I'm willing to give him a test to show you!" This is only speculation on my part, but it makes some sense in that God seems to value faith very highly.

Now, Moses goes with the leaders of the tribes to this place where there is this rock that God says, "I will stand before thee there..." which I assume to be somewhat figurative; perhaps the pillar of smoke mentioned previously stopped at the rock. Moses hits the rock with the staff, and water comes out of it. "God is such a clever guy!" the SAB says. Yes, I suppose He is. Apparently, this is absurd to Steve Wells, but he doesn't explain why. I guess it's another case of anything miraculous is absurd. This is definitely meant to be a miracle, and aside from the obvious fact that it's supernatural for rocks to spew out water when hit, the fact that this staff is used is often an indication in the Torah that miracles are involved.

Shortly after this (although it's not clear, since the Bible isn't much on sequential storytelling) the Amalekites come to attack the Israelites. Apparently, the SAB deems fighting back against this attack to be cruel, unjust, and intolerant. Am I to take it then that they should have just let themselves be attacked?

Something miraculous seems to happen in this story. Moses goes up on a hillside, and holds up his staff. So long as the staff is over his head, the Israelites keep winning, when he puts it down, the battle turns on them. This may indeed be a miracle (remember what I said about the staff?) in which case it needs no further explanation. I do notice however that most of the miracles that Moses performs during his ministry are following an order from God to do them. No such order is mentioned here, and I wonder if it might have been a psychological morale-booster for the troops to see Moses holding up the staff? It's a possibility.

God tells Moses to write the story down "in a book," presumably this one we're reading now. I find this verse in itself to be an odd one, and it may be a Hebrew idiom that we don't fully understand, but God says essentially, "Make sure everyone remembers the Amalekites, because I'm going to make sure everyone forgets them." Huh? Sort of the reverse of Jesus' statement in Matthew 26, where He says the woman with the ointment will be remembered forever, but Matthew fails to tell us who the heck she was. (It may have been Mary, as a very similar story is told in John, and Mary is named there.) In any case, as I mentioned way back, Israel indeed had to keep fighting generation after generation of Amalekites, and yes, most of the time they had to do it without Moses' help.

The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation (Gen 14)

Ugh, Amalekites... What a drag. (No offense to any Amalekites reading my blog!)

The Amalekites are this tribe of people who live in the general region of Canaan. They get defeated about six or seven times throughout the Bible, a couple times being "utterly destroyed". But they just KEEP COMING BACK! What the heck? Sometimes I feel like I'm helping the SAB's cause more than countering it, but the SAB might do well to have a reference page just for all the varied mentions of Amelekites and how they pop up in some strange places.

Here in chapter 14, the SAB points out that the Amalekites are mentioned three generations before the birth of Amalek, who one would think it would be safe to assume was the patriarch of the Amalekites. After all, Cush is the father of the Cushites, Canaan is the father of the Canaanites, Israel is the father of the Israelites, etc. Well, I believe the Amalek mentioned in chapter 36 does indeed become the father of a tribe of people called the Amalekites eventually. But one would be right to ask, what the heck are Amelekites doing back here before Amalek's birth? These can't be the same people, so why the same name?

Well, although it's strange that two separate nations might have the same name, it's certainly not impossible. For instance, there is a tribe in Oklahoma known as the "Kado", but there are also ethnic groups with that name in Chad and Burma, and the groups have nothing in common but their name. I think in this case, the real key to understanding what's likely to be going on is to look at the Hebrew. The name "Amalek" means "dweller in a valley". Thus "Amalekites" would really mean "the people who live in the valley". It may or may not be a genuine name, and could be simply a label that could be applied to any nation that happened to live in a valley. I think that in general, when this name appears in the Bible, there is a chance that it is referring to a people that has little in common with the other Amalekites other than happening to perhaps be located in a valley. That certainly seems to be the case here.

I'm not going to look into all of the Hebrew for this chapter, but there may be more of interest, such as "the Zuzims in Ham" mentioned in verse 5, which apparently is, rather than a title, just a generic term for nomadic people, and "Shaveh Kiriathaim" which means a plain with two cities.

Also, since I've already touched on slavery as an ancient Middle Eastern custom that differs from our modern concept, I'm not going to respond to the notes on verse 14 and 15, but refer you to my earlier post, and the comments following.

I am however going to finish this post out with some comment on Melchizedek, as promised earlier. Melchizedek appears here in verses 18-20, and it's the only place he appears, but the Bible has a fair amount to say about him. Who is he? His name means something like "King of Righteousness", and he's the king and high priest of Salem, a place with a name that means "peace", and eventually becomes Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, location of the Jewish Temple, and location of Christ's crucifixion.

Melchizedek is an interesting person for numerous reasons. His ancestry is not mentioned (it's usually the practice to say a person's name and the name of their father), and in fact Hebrews 7 says that he was "Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually." This is suggestive, but before I follow this line, I'd like to also point out that he's in the unique position of being simultaneously a king and a high priest; in the law of Israel, a person was never allowed to be both, and you don't really see it in other nations either. (Call it "separation of church and state"; even God thinks it's a good idea!) Apparently some scholars have suggested it might be Shem who, oddly enough, is still alive according to the numbers in chapter 11's genealogy. Other people have other interesting ideas. The most significant idea, however, is that some believe this to be the first "Christophany" as it is called: a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus on the earth. Note that this guy knows who Abram is, knows who Abram's God is, and Abram gives him a tithe (one-tenth of his spoils from the war), something that in Israel's future was something people were supposed to give to their priesthood in order to honor God. Also note that Melchizedek brings bread and wine, a traditional communion plate long before communion was instituted. Whoever this was, he was definitely a messenger from God.

At the end of the story, the king of Sodom offers to give all the material spoils of the war to Abram, but he declines, saying that while he was willing to team up with the army of Sodom to win this war, he's not willing to take anything from Sodom as a gift beyond that. It seems that Abram already knows that something's not quite right with this place.