Neither shall he multiply wives to himself (2Sam 5)

Finally in chapter 5, David becomes king over all of Israel, and remains king for 40 years. This prompts the SAB to see a possible contradiction in certain events that occur in the reign of David, particularly the eventual rebellion of Absalom. I don't think I buy the logic here; if anything, it almost seems worse than the SAB is insinuating. 2Sam. 15:7 says "And it came to pass after forty years..." I say, counting from when? In the immediate context, it sounds like Absalom spent 40 years kissing up to the people, which could have happened starting before David became king, or a long time afterwards, as one might wonder how he could be doing the stuff described in that chapter while his father was on the run from Saul. On the other hand, the 40 years in the context in this chapter could mean that David was king for 40 years until he was deposed temporarily by Absalom. In any case, I don't see any of this dating to be clear enough to base a contradiction on.

Apparently, one of the first things that David has to deal with as king is some sort of challenge on his authority by the Jebusites. On the face of it, it does sound fairly cruel, but I'm not sure what's going on here at all. Are the Jebusites telling David he has to kill his own people? Are they using their own disabled population as human shields? I don't know, so I'm not sure how to comment on it. The SAB calls it violent and unjust, and I'm inclined to agree that far.

David builds himself some sort of palace, and takes more women, neither action being commented upon here, but I believe the latter being condemned elsewhere. With more women come more children, and a list is given here; the SAB points out this list doesn't match other lists, and once again, what can I say but they sure don't match. It may be that none of the lists is meant to be exhaustive, but then one might ask why, and why the particular names on each list? I certainly don't know.

So the Philistines come up and move in on David, and David inquires of the Lord if he should respond. God says yes, and vows to help, exactly as the SAB says. As I've said before, if the land is being invaded, why shouldn't they defend themselves and why shouldn't God help them do so? And when they find the Philistines' idols left behind, why shouldn't they burn them?

The Philistines come back, and this time God gives David some tactical advice, which for some reason the SAB finds absurd, but who would be better at giving tactical advice than an omniscient being?

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 said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan (1Sam 29)

Back to David in chapter 29, we find him in the uncomfortable situation of marching to war with the Philistines against his own country. Some of the leaders of the Philistines aren't happy and insist that David go away.

The SAB notes that the word in the Hebrew used of David is "Satan", but I'm not sure what's noteworthy about this. I think most people who know anything of Hebrew (well, I guess that's not too many) know that "Satan" is a Hebrew word meaning "adversary". Also, they make mention of the song about David being a great warrior. It is decided that David should leave, and so he does.

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 ruler of the half part of Keilah (1Sam 23)

Chapter 23 is pretty standard fare for the most part. David has decided to do something about the invading Philistines, despite the fact that he's more or less in hiding from Saul. This of course leads to claims of violence, etc. from the SAB; insert stock answer here re self-defense.

It is a little odd that David "enquired of the LORD" twice, my thought on that is that the first time was more privately, and when his men expressed doubt, he did it more publicly to give them assurance. (Apparently the ephods that the priests carried could be used in some manner for a sort of divination, thus the mention of one being carried by Abiathar son of Ahimelech.)

In the midst of the fighting, David starts to worry nonetheless that the people of Keilah that he had come to save will still show greater allegiance to Saul, and turn him over to the King once the fighting is over. He asks God, and is assured that it is the case. So begins a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between Saul and David, in which Saul spends a great deal of energy hunting down David to kill him, but David only wants to be left alone, as we see in the next chapter.

In the days of Abiathar the high priest (1Sam 21)

As we move into the final part of Saul's story here in chapter 21, the part of Saul's life where he spent much of his time chasing David around, we're going to come across a handful of related problems, all of which are at least in part tied to the first verse of this chapter. I'm getting ahead of myself in including some of this before the SAB does, but it seems clear that there's something confusing about this fellow Ahimelech the priest. Some of it's easy to address, but a lot of it is going to be harder, and take some looking into.

"Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?"

One issue here is whether this was Ahimelech at all, as when Jesus recounts this story in Mark 2, he calls the priest "Abiathar". While this issue doesn't come up until the next chapter, it seems clear to me that it must be related: Abiathar was another priest, and depending on which verse you read, he was either Ahimelech's son or father. What's going on? I'm not sure.

One thing that I think can safely be said is that it's certainly not uncommon for a father and son to both serve as priests at the same time. (There is often more than one priest, but only one high priest*, which in this case was Abiathar.) That being the case, David probably came to both, but talked specifically to Ahimelech. Jesus says it was "the days of Abiathar the high priest", but doesn't say that David talked to Abiathar. But who is the father? I think that's a question that can be answered, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out. I decided not to obsess over it, since whatever the answer is, the contradiction is still there, probably representing a scribal error. I'll come up with a verdict on the matter, but I think I'll let it drop for now, since it's a tough nut to crack.

The easy issue to address is that of whether or not David was alone. Yes, the priest comments that David is alone, while Jesus says he was travelling with others. I think this is almost silly though, and once again requires only looking at immediate context. Down in verse four, shortly after David asks for bread, the priest refers to "the young men" whom he assumes will be eating the bread. David is not travelling alone, but at the moment that he comes to the priest, he doesn't bring anyone with him into the house. In the immediate context of Jesus' comments on the matter, note that Jesus says "he entered the house", not "they entered the house". So was he alone? Yes, at the moment, but not on the overall journey.

So David gets the bread, but only after he assures the priest that neither he nor any of the men with him have recently had sex. The SAB seems to be saying that this is a bit sexist, and I'm inclined to agree, but I'm not sure what the reason for the priest saying this is. This is an unusual circumstance, David taking holy bread, and I certainly don't know what rules ought to be followed. It may be that the priest made the rules up.

The remaining issues in this chapter are mostly ones I have addressed previously. The killing of Goliath was in chapter 17, and the strange chant about body counts in chapter 18. The only thing not yet addressed is the story of David pretending to be insane, which I'm not sure what there is to say about it. Absurd? Well, he's pretending to be crazy, so crazy and absurd seem to me to be things that tend to go hand-in-hand. David's intention was to protect himself and make himself seem a non-threat to the Philistines, and apparently he succeeded, so what can I say?

* I know of a single exception to this general rule; I'm sure we'll get to it when we come across the particular verse in the New Testament.

It hath been already of old time, which was before us. (1Sam 19)

There's not much new in chapter 19. We're really seeing the SAB pick up on issues that we've seen before in this book.

Was Jonathan "totally gay" for David? Lacking better evidence for the claim, I say no.

Is David violent and intolerant for killing the Philistines? Well, they were an invading army; what was he supposed to do?

What's the deal with Saul and his "evil spirit"? I don't know, but I've given some thoughts.

Why do people say "Is Saul also among the prophets?" Perhaps various reasons.

Have a nice weekend, everyone.

Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women (1Sam 18)

In 1Samuel 18, we are finally introduced to the close relationship between David and Jonathan. The SAB takes the approach that so many do, assuming the implication that Jonathan and David were lovers. Now, whereas it's certainly possible, of course the conservative assumption among both Christians and Jews is that this is not the case. The fact is, there really needs to be a stronger case made if a reader of the Bible is to accept this claim. I think a lot of what is used by people to make this case is more of an implication from our own modern American biases, which frankly tend to be a bit homophobic.

People can love one another deeply and have it be a non-sexual love, even two heterosexual men. Taking off one's clothing in the presence of another is likewise not an instant implication of something sexual going on. (It's not clear whether Jonathan is stripping entirely nude here anyway, but rather he may be giving over his armor.*) I truly believe in this case, the fact that Jonathan took off his armaments and gave them to David implies that Jonathan is trying to symbolically affirm the fact that David is his superior (being now the true king of Israel), and someone that he trusts with his life. In many cultures of the world, it is common for men hold hands, embrace one another, and even kiss without it being considered at all sexual, and I think we'd be overstepping any clear understanding of ancient culture to assume more than what is explicitly stated here.

Now, there soon comes to be some sort of thing going on where the women of Israel are heard to say "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." The SAB claims that this is the result of some sort of contest, but there are two things to say about this. First of all, no such "contest" is mentioned (although given the political situation, it might not be wrong to say that there was a prestige contest between these two men). Secondly, while they may indeed have slaughtered quite a few of their enemies, the saying is almost certainly hyperbolic in nature, still being early enough in David's military career that it's unlikely he has killed more than a few hundred at most, I would think. Essentially, David's reputation after killing Goliath has caused people to claim that David is ten times the warrior that Saul ever was.

The claim that Saul was taken by an "evil spirit from God" that made him prophesy is a strange one, and not actually a completely unique idea in the Bible. I'd stand on my previous comments concerning Saul's torment by spirits and prophesying.

Oddly to me, the SAB makes no note of violence for Saul trying repeatedly to kill David. I guess in the midst of all the warfare and slaughter, we're supposed to hardly notice a single murder? I don't know. (Discussion on this matter is in the comments below.)

Anyway, Saul wants to get rid of David, so he comes up with a plan that he figures will cause David to be killed my the Philistines. Saul says David can marry his daughter, but instead of a dowry, he will accept a hundred Philistine foreskins. David goes above and beyond, and brings two hundred. What can I say about this crazy story? The SAB labels this passage with the icons for Absurdity, Violence, Sex, Women, Family Values, and Injustice. Let's take them in that order: Absurd? Agreed heartily. Violent? Yes, but once again, this was in the middle of a war between Israel and the Philistines. Sex? Not particularly sexual other than the fact that it involved genitals, so if that's enough for you, so be it. Women? I assume we're once again talking about the idea of a person buying a wife, and yes, it's strange to our modern value system, but common in those days, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. Ditto on Family Values. Injustice? Well, unjust to whom? To the Philistines? I'd assume these were soldiers, who had to accept the possibility they were to die in war. To David? He didn't seem to mind. To Michal? That goes back to the previous issues. I'm simply not sure what the deal is here; this seems as just as anything else in time of war.

The fact that David is successful is apparently taken as a sign to Saul that God is with David, and as He clearly is not with Saul any longer, he suffers from a great deal of envy, becoming David's enemy from that time forward.

* Overall, the Bible has a number of interesting allusions to the symbolism of clothing. Note how in 1Sam.15:27-28, Samuel uses the tearing of his garment as an illustration of the tearing of the kingdom from Saul. In chapter 17, David is offered Saul's battle garb and rejects it, but here, he accepts Jonathan's. In the next chapter, Saul ends the story stripped naked. This is part of a longer literary thread in the Bible that goes from the creation of garments for Adam and Eve, to the life of Joseph which is punctuated with repeated awarding and losing of clothing, to the creation of special priestly garments for the Levites, to the passing of Elijah's cloak to Elisha, to Christ's robe being taken from him before He is placed on the cross, and so forth, to name a few. There are many more.

A Bethlehemite slew Goliath the Gittite (1Sam 17)

So here in chapter 17, we come to the infamous story of the giant Goliath. The Philistines and the Israelites are camped on opposite sides of the valley of Elah, and out comes Goliath, a man about ten feet tall. Now I've mentioned it before, but this is the most appropriate place to bring it up, so I'll repeat myself: while ten feet seems unlikely, it's not completely outside of the realm of possibility. There are men living in the present day whose height is in the neighborhood of nine feet, so personally, I find this comparable.

Something interesting about giantism that I heard about on a television special on the matter is that there is a form of giantism that is caused by a specific sort of brain tumor. This tumor causes three symptoms that are suggestive of this story. First, and most obvious, is that people with this tumor grow to great height with the only apparent limit being what their health can otherwise support (thus Goliath's height). Secondly, it causes problems with the vision centers of the brain, severely limiting peripheral vision (thus David may have come to an advantage over Goliath by moving in closer). Thirdly, it makes the brain more susceptible to serious trauma from a sharp blow, making someone likely to die if they were, oh, say hit by a rock in the forehead (thus Goliath's manner of death). Not all miracles are supernatural: consider the fact that I know all of the above, but David certainly did not.

Goliath challenges the Israelites to one-on-one combat. This may have been with the intention of simplifying the battle, but more likely, it was with the intention of breaking the spirit of the Israelites, who would no doubt be unlikely to stand up to so (apparently) formidable a foe. After all, according to the story, Goliath came out for forty days with nobody answering the challenge.

So David comes along at the bidding of his father to catch the latest news of his brothers who are serving at war. He overhears some people talking about how they are certain that Saul will richly reward the man who defeats Goliath. David decides that surely, he is that man.

David goes to Saul and says he will fight Goliath, and at first, Saul is having a hard time accepting that David has much of a chance. David tells Saul that in the course of his duties watching over his father's flocks, he has at various times had to fight a lion and a bear and in both cases, won. David says that fighting Goliath should be no more difficult.

Saul finally consents, and gives David his armor, which David decides he'd be better off without. So contrary to what people expect from a warrior, David goes into battle with no armor and no sword, and Goliath laughs at him. But as David says, "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied." David slings a single stone, and Goliath goes down. Did the stone kill him, or the sword? Who knows? Is it really important? If Goliath had not been hit by the stone, he wouldn't have died, but we weren't completely sure he was dead until David chopped off his head. All of this is violent, yes, but it's war.

Who killed Goliath? An interesting question for those not familiar with the Bible, who would be surprised that the Bible claims in 2Sam 21:19 that it was a man named Elhanan. As the SAB points out, the KJV translators inserted an unsupported phrase to fix the contradiction, except... Is it totally unsupported? 1Chron 20:5 reads "...Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite..." There's definitely some problems with this verse in 2Samuel, as the gist of the verse contradicts with our story, but the KJV translators were not totally without merit for inserting this fix. (I don't think most modern translations fiddle with this verse, nor should they.)

As I said previously, I think this story comes chronologically before most of the latter events in chapter 16, and this is actually the first time that Saul and David met. Note however that there is some oddity nonetheless in the phrasing of the latter part of this chapter, since Saul acts like he doesn't know who David is, even though he definitely had just met him minutes beforehand. I think it's quite likely that a fair amount of this confusion is not so much about not knowing David as it is about finding it hard to believe that someone as small and as young as David could have prevailed, and Saul is saying, "Wait, did I miss something? Who was that again? Where did you come from, kid?"

And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines (1Sam 14)

Chapter 14 introduces us more formally to the character of Saul's son Jonathan, the man who would have succeeded Saul had there been a proper Saulide dynasty, and frankly someone who seems to have been far more suited to be king. This guy's smart, kind, and a good warrior, which is everything an ancient king really needed to be. Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I don't seem to recall the Bible having anything bad to say about Jonathan.

So the men of Israel are trying to figure out how to best wage a battle against the Philistines, and while Saul is busy making plans, Jonathan has leapt into action, saying "there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few." This is fascinating, reminding us perhaps of Gideon's tiny army that overcame much larger forces; Jonathan is actually entertaining the idea that, what with God supposedly being on their side, they might as well go up against the Philistines as an army of two people (namely Jonathan and his armor-bearer) as thousands. This is pretty amazing faith.

Jonathan essentially asks God for a sign, saying that if the Philistines of the garrison call him up to them, it means God intends victory. They do, and Jonathan and his armor-bearer team up to take out twenty Philistines. As usual, the SAB calls this violent, unjust and intolerant, and I reply that well, this is war, and the Philistines are invaders, what do you expect?

Now apparently, there immediately follows an earthquake, which so scares and confuses the Philistines that they commence fighting each other. Saul watches all of this from a distance in wonder, and the Israelite army, which had largely scattered out of fear, regroups. Now Saul is apparently not making the best of the situation. He's brought the ark with him to war (perhaps this was twenty years later?) although at least he doesn't bring it to the front lines. Even with the ark and a priest present, he seems hesitant to take action.

Also, there is an interesting story that finishes out the chapter, reflecting further Saul's lack of sound decision making and understanding of spiritual things. Saul charges all of his men not to eat until they have achieved victory, most likely in some misguided attempt to make his men "spiritually cleansed". The SAB calls it absurd, and I agree. Apparently so does Jonathan, who, not knowing his father has pronounced this "curse", eats some honey; when he is informed of the situation, he points out how much better he feels after having eaten, and essentially points out that the army would probably fight better on a full stomach than an empty one.

In fact, this leads to a big problem, as the men finally break down to eat, and they are so hungry that they don't bother to take the time to drain the blood out of the animals, a serious breach of dietary law.

Saul decides it's time to go and finish off the Philistine army, but decides to inquire of God, I assume through the priest. God gives him no answer. Saul assumes that God doesn't want to talk to him because somebody in the army ate when they were still under Saul's pronounced curse, and it turns out to be Jonathan, so Saul and Jonathan both agree that Jonathan must die for simply eating honey. The people however point out that Jonathan was the hero of the day, and it makes no sense to punish Jonathan for being successful, so Jonathan does not die at this time.

The Philistines escape, and Saul ends up fighting them, and others, throughout his entire reign.

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears (1Sam 13)

The circumstances in chapter 13 indicate to me that perhaps I was too hasty in my evaluation of chapter 7. Let's see.

Saul has managed by this time, about two years on, to amass a regular army (sort of, we'll see some oddities later in the chapter) and has put a division under the control of his son Jonathan, who attacks the Philistine garrison in Geba. The Philistines gather their forces to retaliate, and Saul amasses the Israelite fighters at Gilgal, waiting for Samuel to come and bless them before they go out to battle.

The situation looks bleak, and it seems that some of the men are deserting. Samuel is late in showing up, and Saul starts to get worried. So Saul decides to go ahead and start things without Samuel: he burns a sacrifice to God. As was suggested a few chapters back, it may have been wrong for Saul as a non-Levite to offer a sacrifice. Whether or not that was the problem here, it seems clear that he was not supposed to perform this action, and he gets in big trouble for it.

Samuel arrives, and he knows that Saul has done something wrong. Saul admits that he was afraid to go to battle without having given a sacrifice, and since Samuel was late in coming... Samuel won't have it, though, and tells Saul that God is going to give the kingdom to someone else.

Yes, that person was David, who was not exactly the paragon of virtue, but I'll reserve the bulk of comments on David's character to the chapters in which David actually appears. For now, let it suffice to say that Saul is losing the kingdom because he's not following the religious rules, which to God are extremely important. David expresses in quite a bit of his poetry that he would rather be a priest than a king, but never acts in a way that indicates he doesn't know his place in the end.

In the end of this story, we're told that while there are a lot of men ready to go to battle against the Philistines, there are at this point in history (generally) no swords or spears in Israel; as a bunch of farmers, they're going to war with sharpened farming tools.

Out of the house of Abinadab (1Sam 7)

Okay, I don't really have a good answer for the first point of contention in chapter 7. The second one, yes, but here, I'm admittedly stumped, so of course I'm going to write far more than I need to in order to express my being at a loss for explanation.

So when the ark comes back to Israel, instead of taking it back to Shiloh (which would have actually made sense) they take it to Kirjathjearim, and put it in the house of a man named Abinadab. Here in 1Samuel 7, we are told it stays there for twenty years. However, the SAB rightly points out that when we compare dates, it's pretty clear that from this time until the time that David comes to carry it off to Jerusalem in 2Samuel 6, over forty years have passed, so what's up with that? I can think of a few possible explanations, but not many of them are highly convincing, even to myself.

One possibility is that by "twenty years", the author really means at least twenty years. It's possible, but not really too likely, since, if you're trying to express "that the time was long", forty years sounds better, and it's not like the author/editor of the book of Samuel wasn't aware of the true time span involved, since he wrote the latter passage as well. Note however that since we can say that the author did know the full story, something else probably was meant.

Another possibility is that this story is not in strict chronological order. While a possibility (since there are some stories in the book of Samuel that are clearly out of sequence), it's not likely. We are presented with the pretty clear picture that Saul was king for forty years, and if this happened during Saul's reign, it seems strange that Saul should not be involved in the story in some way.

Or are we sure Saul was King for forty years? Maybe it's just an error not here, but in Acts 13. It could be suggested, but that's not a really satisfactory resolution, both because we are still left with an error anyway (of some sort), and because I'm thinking Acts isn't the only book that says Saul was king forty years, although I'm not 100% certain.

The most likely explanation, although admittedly still not a very good one, is that the time span of twenty years is the span between the return of the ark and the events outlined in verse three and following. Thus twenty years would not be the total time that the ark was there, but the time between bringing the ark there and bringing the hearts of the people back to God, as apparently the people were very disheartened after their defeat and loss of the ark. Once they do turn back, Samuel calls them together and offers a sacrifice. (Edit to add: I note that the Ark was at least temporarily moved during the fighting in chapter 14. Perhaps that was 20 years later?)

This is the second matter noted by the SAB in this chapter, but a much easier one to comment upon. Who may offer sacrifices to God? Is it only Levites? Well, first of all, I have already argued that Samuel is a Levite, so that's not necessarily a problem. However, I'm not sure I'm convinced that only Levites may offer sacrifices anyway. There are certainly examples of others offering sacrifices, although admittedly most if not all of these are before the Mosaic Law.

Perhaps more important is the location, which is also noted upon here. There does seem to be a sentiment that at least proper, official sacrifices should be at the Tabernacle, and Samuel is not there in this story. However, consider that this is a special occasion with odd circumstances, the sort of which Israelites have had to wrestle with throughout history. The tabernacle is in Shiloh, but the ark, which is the centerpiece of the Tabernacle, is in Kirjathjearim. Given the situation, it may not have been very clear what was the right place for a sacrifice. Seeing as things turned out for the best, I assume that Samuel, who tended to hear directly from God on such matters, was told that this was sufficient for the situation.

Immediately following this, there is a battle between the Israelites and the Philistines, and the Israelites finally start winning, assumedly because God is on their side. I notice the SAB does not mark this passage with the usual markings that battle scenes get, but no matter; I'd just have to give my stock answer anyway.

And they had emerods in their secret parts (1Sam 6)

In examining the story unfolding here in 1Samuel 6, Robert Alter points out that there is indication of a possible mistranslation. The Philistines make an offering to the God of Israel in the form of "Five golden emerods, and five golden mice". This is the first time we hear about mice, and it's suggestive to some scholars that there is an aspect of the affliction of the Philistines about which we're not being explicitly told. Think about it: hemorrhoids are bad, but they aren't generally fatal. It may be that rather than being hemorrhoids, it was the dark boils associated with the Bubonic Plague that we're really talking about (which often appear in the groin area), a plague also associated with rodent infestations. It seems like a resonable speculation, although admittedly, golden images of their "buboes" still seems silly.

This offering of "Five golden emerods, and five golden mice" is at no point in the passage indicated to be demanded by God, only that the Philistine priests thought it was the best course of action, along with the rest of what is done in this chapter. (The issues of the number of gods and who it is that hardens hearts are ones I have previously addressed.) They put the ark onto a cart and return it to the Israelites, taking the manner in which the ark returned as a sign, which, lacking any evidence for or against God agreeing with this method of divination, you can take as you will. The actions of the cows is unusual, so it may be taken as miraculous, but it's not such an exciting miracle if so.

The final tale of this chapter is that of the men of Bethshemesh, many of whom died because they looked into the ark. Apparently, this was not a right thing to do. (It may have been reserved for Levites only to look, or it might possibly have been for no man to see the contents of the ark, I don't know; no doubt Stephen Spielberg has some thoughts on the matter.) In all of the nation of Israel's dealings with the ark, once again, the issue is their failure to take the Holy things of God seriously. Clearly, God takes the ark very seriously.

Is God merciful? You just know I'm going to give the answer "Yes" but how does one deal with the details the SAB brings up, which are certainly confusing? One thing worth noting first of all is that the first verse given in both columns is from the very same chapter. When you get an apparent contradiction that follows so quickly on itself, you're probably misreading or misunderstanding. God is merciful, yes, but His mercy is not without limit. To some extent, this is simply logical; there are cases where two parties are in conflict, and to give mercy to one would logically deny mercy to the other. Also, there's a very strange quality to mercy that I feel I understand conceptually, but may not be able to put into words well. Mercy is of a certain nature that it lives in contrast to justice. It's been said that justice is getting what you deserve; grace is getting something good you don't deserve; mercy is not getting the punishment you do deserve. If justice is never served, then in some sense, it cheapens mercy, and stretches the limits of some sort of cosmic balance sheet, it seems. God is merciful, but we can't escape punishment forever if we keep on pushing it.

A great sacrifice unto Dagon their god (1Sam 5)

In chapter five, we see a series of rather humorous miracles.

First, the ark is taken to the temple of Dagon and left there. The following morning, Dagon's statue had fallen over, appearing to bow before the ark. Not liking this, the Philistines figure it's just an accident, and set Dagon upright again. The next morning, not only is Dagon on the ground, but his head and hands have been severed. The Philistines are apparently freaked out, and stayed out of the temple from then on.

But this is not enough. Apparently soon afterwards, many people died, and among most who did not die...yep, they were all struck with hemorrhoids. (I don't know why this triggers the "language" icon in the SAB; it is what it is!) So they take the ark and take it away from Ashdod to Gath, where the same thing happens. And again to Ekron. Death and hemorrhoids everywhere. What's a Philistine to do? Well, the situation is admittedly pretty absurd, and their response to it takes it to a new level of absurdity.

And great was the fall of it (Judges 16)

Ah Judges 16, and the story of Samson finally defeated. Here we see him fall to what must be his greatest weakness, his lust for women, and apparent unfailing trust of them despite all evidence against doing so. Yes, Samson goes to visit a prostitute in Gaza, but this is not his downfall yet, although one might wonder if the whole thing was a set-up for a trap. The Philistines fully expect to catch him in the morning and kill him, but in the middle of the night (I assume while the soldiers are asleep) he gets up and rips the city gate out of the wall and carries it to a nearby hill. There may have been an actual purpose to this act, such as the possibility that's easily suggested by the text that they were trying to trap him in the city by barring the city gate. The SAB marks the act as absurd, and asks, "Did God make him do it or was he just showing off?" I'd lean towards showing off, as practically, all he really needed to escape was to knock the door down. It's possible that the practical purpose was to leave the city unprotected, as fixing a city gate that is knocked over is easier than fixing one that's been carried off. All of the angry, showy things that Samson does in his life end up being to the general detriment to the Philistines in the end.

Into the story comes Delilah, a Philistine woman that Samson has a crush on. The Philistines continue their campaign to take advantage of Samson's weakness for women, and offer Delilah a reward if she can help them take Samson down. She proceeds to question Samson as to the source of his strength, to which Samson makes up several answers. Seriously, this has got to be the stupidest guy in the Bible; every time he tells her what can be done to defeat him, she proceeds to immediately do it. To tell this woman the true source of his power has got to be the biggest bonehead move ever. (Actually, for the first time I find myself wondering if, in fact, Samson didn't even mean it when he said his hair was the source of his power. In truth, the Bible never says it's the case that his hair is giving him power; I've always thought the possibility existed that this was all psychological on Samson's part.) Whatever Samson expected to happen, I truly marvel that he didn't know Delilah was out to get him. Despite what Hollywood has portrayed, there's also no evidence in the story here that Delilah was in it for anything but the money.

The SAB says of his hair being the source of his strength, "And I thought his strength was from God." Well, everything comes from God, particularly Samson's strength, which seems to be supernatural, but his hair seems to have been a part of it for whatever reason. The fact that his eyes were gouged out probably didn't help Samson much either (an act which the SAB does not mention as being cruel or violent, and I'm curious as to why).

Samson ends up killing more than 3,000 people (Wells, you may want to update your tally, as 3,000 is the number of people upstairs alone, while many others were downstairs, no doubt) in his death, taking down the building on top of them all. The SAB does not miss the chance to mark this as violent, cruel, unjust and intolerant, but I must question some of those. Sure, Samson was an awful guy, but does that make it alright to gouge his eyes out and bring him out to publicly humiliate him? Are the Philistines right in oppressing the Israelites? (Unlike many of the nations the Israelites had to contend with in Canaan, the Philistines were not locals, but invaders.) Violent? Yes, but as for the other things Samson is accused of here, this final thing is really the closest he comes to a noble act in his spotty life. This one time especially, the Philistines really have it coming.

So, what is the final lesson of the life of Samson? What is the answer to the question I put off answering a few chapters back? Why does God take one of the worst moral examples in the Bible and continue to give him power and blessing time after time? Actually, I already answered this question in the beginning of the book. The book of Judges and the life of Samson in particular should be an inspiration for anyone who is hoping to find favor with God. Why? Because if God wants to use your life to make a great thing happen, He's not going to allow your failings, even if they are catastrophic ones like Samson's, to stand in the way of that. No doubt God could have taken Samson, had he been an upright and moral man, and made him a brilliant military leader and inspiration to his people who would than have rallied around him like a king and rose up to drive out their oppressors. Instead, God used Samson's very weaknesses to maneuver him into a place where he would end up destroying the leadership of the Philistines in a surprise attack from within. Samson was chosen from before birth for this purpose and, despite his own free will subverting the best opportunity for resolving the conflict, the purpose of God was served. I'll say it again: the Bible is a book full of massively screwed-up people that God used to do great things despite themselves. It gives hope to billions around the world and throughout history. If I don't have the moral fiber to be a Daniel, maybe I have just enough faith in God that he'll make me a Samson? Something to think about, anyway.

They were burned with fire (Judges 15)

So with each new chapter in Samson's life, he looks worse and worse. Aside from Samson's one supposedly redeeming feature of hating the Philistines, we see what might be considered a redeeming feature by some, but in his case is perhaps a bit of foreshadowing to his downfall: Even after his wife has betrayed him, he forgives her and goes back to her (whether it be a sexual betrayal or not, the thing that we see about Samson here is that he can't seem to fathom the idea of a woman being bad or dangerous, which is a different sort of sexism than we usually see in the Bible, but sexism nonetheless). It turns out that Samson's father-in-law has assumed that Samson wanted a divorce, and married her off to someone else. The following offer of the younger sister is, I think, an act of self-preservation on the part of Samson's father-in-law, whatever else you might think of it. Samson is known for having a nasty, violent temper, and he's certainly not above killing.

Samson's response to this is that he's decided to get revenge on the Philistines as a whole for this grave injustice done against him. (I actually find myself wondering if he's really so angry, or if he's just looking for an excuse to commit violence against the Philistines. You can almost imagine a typical day for Samson: gets up...eats breakfast...toast doesn't have enough butter, so he bludgeons 20 Philistines to death with a stale loaf of bread...checks out the newspaper, etc.) He somehow catches 300 foxes for a Rube Goldberg-esque plan of revenge that destroys the Philistines' crops. (The SAB marks this passage with the Absurd icon, and I tend to agree, whether it be the strangeness of Samson's plan or the thought of a single man catching 300 foxes, this is pretty weird.) Destroying the crops leads to an escalation: The Philistines burn up Samson's wife and father-in-law, and Samson takes this as an excuse for more violence, and some unknown number of Philistines are killed.

The Philistines get smart, and realize that they have to deal with the root of their problem, and move in to capture Samson himself. The men of Judah are willing to give up Samson to save themselves, so they go to him and ask him to surrender. (You know, despite the fact that Samson is supposed to be some sort of leader in Israel, there's not much to suggest that even his own people liked him.) Samson agrees to go peacefully if his own countrymen promise not to harm him, and they agree. So Samson is handed over to the Philistines tied up with two ropes.

Of course, this is one of the more well-known parts of the story of Samson: it was all just a ruse. Samson knows that he's too strong to be bound by mere ropes, so once he's tied up and unarmed in the midst of his enemies and they think they have the upper hand, he breaks his ropes, picks up a donkey's jawbone (once again, a no-no for a Nazarite), and kills 1,000 men with it. (1,000 is such a round number that it may be an exaggeration, but surely, he killed several hundred.) Then he makes a pun about the whole thing, saying, "I made a chamorah (heap) of bodies with the jaw of a chamor (donkey)!" That's not just messed up morals, but a sick sense of humor.

Then, to end this little story, Samson whines to God that darnit, mass murder is thirsty work! So God gives him some water out of the hill where he found the bone (not out of the bone itself, despite the confusing language of the translation). He calls the place "Enhakkore", or "the spring of the one who calls". Why is God helping Samson? I hope as I finish his story, I can explain on some level, but it's not bound to be pretty.

It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory. (Judges 14)

So with Judges 14, Samson's personal story begins. If Samson seems like an unlikely Biblical hero, that's because he is. He's a jerk, a drunk, a womanizer, and he's prone to fits of violent outburst that have a lot more to do with a sense that he's been personally wronged rather than a desire to see the will of God carried out, as with most of the other characters we've seen in this book. I'm not going to defend Samson much, as he's admittedly not a very nice person.

The story of Samson is an early example of what has been come to be called in our age the "anti-hero". The first time I'd heard the term used, I thought it was a modern concept, but I soon realized that history and literature is littered with such people. There is no doubt that Samson is the hero of the story that unfolds here and in the next few chapters, but unlike the sort of heroes we ideally expect from the Bible (squeaky clean paragons of virtue such as Joseph or Daniel) or even the sorts of heroes that we more realistically expect from the Bible (mostly good folks who have personal flaws, but a strong faith in God such as Noah and Jacob), this guy has pretty much no redeeming features other than the fact that he really hates the Philistines, who happen to be Israel's oppressors. Is that one thing enough to redeem him? In the end, it's really a matter of opinion.

Now despite the fact that Samson is so often portrayed as a strong, forceful man, you might note that when he gets the hots for a Philistine woman, instead of going after her himself, he whines to his parents about her. The violence, lust and drunkenness are obvious character flaws of Samson, but a more subtle one that we really see a lot of is that despite his strength, he's sort of an emotional wimp. He can't just go and talk to the woman himself? You get the impression (or at least I do) that while Samson's parents seemed like good folks at first, they don't seem to be very good parents; I think Samson is a spoiled brat, even as a grown man.

Samson is very strong, though, and in the middle of this story, he manages to kill a lion with his bare hands. At a later date, passing by the carcass of the lion, he finds that some bees have made a hive inside its dead body, and he eats some of the honey. Aside from being sort of gross, this is the first instance we see of Samson doing something expressly forbidden of a Nazarite: touching a dead animal. (The SAB marks the passage with the Science icon, although I'm not sure why. Maybe Wells knows something about bees that I don't.) Actually, eating something that had come from the body of a dead animal would be unkosher to anyone, and yet he feeds some of the honey to his parents, not telling them where he got it.

Later, at a feast, he takes the story and makes a riddle out of it. It seems to me that this riddle is akin to Bilbo Baggins' famous riddle, "What have I got in my pocket?" It was really not an acceptable riddle, it was essentially unsolvable, and in the end, the person challenged with the riddle solved it, but the poser of the riddle didn't abide by the rules of the original challenge. Really, would anyone have been able to solve this riddle without cheating? I don't know if the phrase "plowed with my heifer" really is meant to imply that Samson thought his wife was having sex with the men, but he certainly knows that she's the only one who knew the solution.

Samson, being a sore loser, goes off and kills thirty men and takes his payment off of them. The SAB is pretty much right here in that whenever "the Spirit of the LORD came upon him", he seems to do something nasty and violent. What's up with that? Honestly, I don't know.

And he said, Take now thy son (Exod 13)

I think this may be covered in more detail elsewhere in the Mosaic Law, but God wants the people to "sanctify" their firstborn sons to God. Here, it's not entirely clear what that entails, and I'm not going to bother to look it up elsewhere, just because I'm feeling lazy. The only thing I care to respond to at this point in time is the issue of sexism in verse 2. There may be a number of reasons for this, including a number of ones that indeed would be considered sexist no matter how I put them. I'd like to suggest a couple that I don't think are quite so sexist.

First of all, it seems to be hinted heavily that much of what is set upon the ancient Israelites as law was given to be in contrast to the pagan nations they intermingled with. In this particular case, I believe that this may be at least in part a response to the killing of baby boys by Pharaoh. The Egyptians kill the baby boys of the Israelites, God kills the baby boys of the Egyptians, and in order to remember that God avenged their blood and saved future generations from genocide, they have to remember to "sanctify" their sons that would have been killed if they had not been saved from their Egyptian captivity.

Another possibility, which is not so far removed from the above, nor entirely free of sexism, is that God is simply following a societal standard. I think many of us find it distasteful at times, but it seems that God was sometimes in the practice of doing things in a manner that was according to the times. If something was outright sinful, He'd demand it stopped. If something was less than ideal, but not *evil*, then he'd allow it to continue at times. A case could be made for polygamy being within that sort of domain. It's not bad enough to outright ban, but not really God's ideal, either, so it's neither banned nor sanctioned. One thing that ought to be noticed, however, is that when the time was right for it, God would sometimes throw in exceptions.

Now this sanctification of firstborn males also seems to apply to livestock, although in this case, there's a very straightforward application given right here: they have to be killed by breaking their neck. The SAB notes this as violent, and I would agree and disagree. The issue of sacrifice aside (which I have addressed many times previously) it occurs to me that if you are going to kill an animal, breaking its neck is probably relatively fast and painless. So while one might find sacrifice in general barbaric perhaps, I'm not sure what would be a better method, other than perhaps beheading the animal, I don't know.

In response to all of this, and as an observation on verse 15, the SAB says, "The Lord killed so you should too". Well, yeah. We're talking about animal sacrifices here, and God saving an entire nation... Maybe it's just a matter of perspective, but I don't see a great problem here.

In verse 17, there is mention made of "the land of the Philistines", which causes some concern. Once again, not being fully aware of the historical backdrop of all of this in full, I can only take the SAB's claims about the Philistines on faith at this point, not knowing where to research this info. Something I can say, though, is that aside from the possibility of an anachronistic label used intentionally as I felt might be the case elsewhere, there is something going on in the language here that is worth noting. The Bible does not say, "that God led them not to the land of the Philistines" says "that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines". Wherever the Philistines may have been at this time, it may be that going through that area might have been nominally convenient as a route to their final destination. God felt that it would be best to go a different route, however. The "land of the Philistines" at this time may not have been Canaan, but an area near Canaan.

The final note that is given for this chapter is the "absurdity" of God appearing as/in a pillar of smoke and/or flame to lead them through the wilderness. Once again, there is no explanation as to why this is absurd, so I'm not sure how to respond. Unlike many of the previous times something was called absurd, I really have no idea what the problem is here.

They returned into the land of the Philistines (Gen 26)

The Bible does not say that Isaac visited the king of the Philistines "in the days of Abraham", it says that he visited them at a time "beside...the days of Abraham", but the point still stands about the anachronism of Philistines in this time period. I think I already touched on this topic, but I can't find it, so I'll have to brave the possibility of repetition. The thing to remember is that when the Bible writers write about certain things, sometimes they're writing hundreds of years after the events, so they use terms that are anachronistic. There's a certain area of the Middle East that eventually comes to be known as the land of the Philistines, so if a person living in a time when Philistines lived in that area wrote about it, they might call those people Philistines even though the label was technically wrong, just because it makes it easier for the "contemporary" reader to understand. For instance, I might say that before Europeans came to the area where I grew up, the area was the territory of one of the most powerful Californian tribes, the Pomo. This is essentially correct even though the area would not be called "California" for hundreds of years after the Pomo were at the height of their power.

God "appears" to Isaac and tells him to stay in that land like his father. I already touched on the subject of God being "seen" in a previous post, but while not mentioned in the SAB I have to admit that it occurs to me at this point that I'm a little perplexed as to why God cares where exactly Isaac stays since he never gives him any land.

Now, Isaac goes to Gerar, and we largely see a replay of what happened to his father there. It's almost one of those things that a Bible critic might take as a mistakenly-placed story that only belonged in one of their lives and not the other, if not for the fact that the Bible actually admits that this is a similar story, but assures the reader it's a different one. This time, it doesn't go so far as someone taking Rebekah away from Isaac, but instead, the king catches Isaac and Rebekah making out in public. Isaac is not recorded to make any excuses like "Well, by 'sister' I meant 'cousin' really..." It's hard to say whether Rebekah was not as hot as Sarah, or Abimelech knew from what had happened last time (probably to his father) that this family was to be handled carefully, because God seems to like them despite their being pathological liars.

Many of the other issues in this chapter have been covered before, such as slavery, the naming of Beersheba, and polygamy, the last of which deserves the added note here that virtually nothing Esau does is set up as a good example.

This leaves only the issue of Bashemath's parentage. Honestly, there are a number of different ways that one could explain it away, but in the end, it's probably an actual error of some sort. It's a matter of personal taste whether or not a person wants to view the Bible as completely free of errors such as this one that really aren't of significance, or whether or not such errors are troubling. Did a scribe get it wrong, or did Esau have two wives with the same name? Or maybe there was another group of "Hittites" that were descended from Ishmael? As for me today, I'm tired and don't really care that much. Maybe I'll revisit it in chapter 36 if I feel ambitious a couple weeks from now.