by
Damien F. Mackey
The biblical estimation of Saul appears to have much in common with
the way Saul’s son, Jonathan, viewed his father:
‘My father has made trouble for the country’.
The prophet Jeremiah will place Samuel on a level similar to Moses, as a powerful intercessor between God and the people of Israel (Jeremiah 15:1): “Then the LORD said to me: ‘Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go!’”
Jeremiah’s contemporary, Ezekiel, will speak similarly regarding three other great men (Ezekiel 14:14): ‘… even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign LORD’.
(Cf. Ezekiel 14:20)
And, indeed, when the people of Israel demanded a king to rule over them, to replace the aged Samuel, the great prophet will remind them of what this very Moses had said about what a king would do to them (I Kings 18:10-18; cf. Deuteronomy 17:14-17):
Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
But the sage warnings of the priests Moses and Samuel were not heeded, and so the Lord agreed to the wish of the people (vv. 19-22):
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. ‘No!’ they said. ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles’.
When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. The LORD answered, ‘Listen to them and give them a king’.
Be careful what you ask for.
King Saul like Chenephres
King Saul, the most reluctant father-in-law of David (I Samuel 18:27), reminds me very much of Chenephres, the foster father-in-law of Moses, whom I have amalgamated into Chephren-Sesostris, the husband of Meresankh, the Egyptian foster-mother (traditionally Merris) of Moses himself.
Perhaps the Great Sphinx which he (Chephren) constructed is a fitting image for this Chenephres, as it may also be for the enigmatic King Saul.
Consider how Saul, incandescently jealous of the young David (I Samuel 18:5-9), tried to get rid of him by assigning him impossibly dangerous military tasks (vv. 17-30), only later to welcome back and embrace him (19:1-7), but then, again, seeking to kill him (vv. 8-22).
And that is exactly the kind of jealous and murderous attitude we find in the behaviour of Chenephres towards Moses, as we read in the following:
The author then reverts to the narrative of an adventure tale—and an altogether novel one. Chenephres the Pharaoh, jealous of Moses’ accomplishments, took a dislike to him, and sent him off to war against the Ethiopians with a makeshift band, expecting to see the last of him. But Moses proved to be as successful a military hero as a bringer of culture. He conducted a ten year war of epic proportions and not only returned victorious but won the hearts of the Ethiopians themselves, even introducing them to the fine art of circumcision. …. That bit of whimsy gives a clue to Artapanus’ mindset: a writer of some mischief. The wicked Chenephres pretended to welcome Moses’ homecoming, even asking his advice on the best breed of oxen to plow the fields, whence came the origin of Apis worship among the Egyptians. But, all the while, he plotted against the hero. He appointed assassins, most of whom declined the task, and the one who agreed was duly overpowered by the swifter and keener Moses. The adventures accumulate. A sojourn in Arabia brought Moses to the attention of an Arab leader whose daughter he married but whose importunings to march on Egypt he declined out of regard for his countrymen. Moses returned to his homeland only when the conniving Chenephres perished of elephantiasis, a fitting end, for he was the initial victim of that disease. ….
{This accords perfectly with my revision that the Twelfth Dynasty (same as the Fourth) died out while Moses was still in Midian}
Just as Chenephres would hound Moses out of Egypt and into the foreign Midian, when seeking to kill him, so would David be forced to flee a murderous Saul, to take refuge amongst, of all people, the hated Philistines (I Samuel 27).
King Saul was, like Chenephres, highly superstitious, and would even have recourse in the end to witchcraft (I Samuel 28).
He was also clearly a man who needed the support of the crowd.
http://www.growthingod.org.uk/saul-and-david.htm
Saul defeated the Amalekites and liberated a vast area from their control, but, under pressure from his people, he spared Agag their king and kept all the best of their livestock.
He was disregarding the plain commandment of God. God revealed this to Samuel who went to face Saul with his sin. Saul greeted him with the words: “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord” (1 Sam 15:13). In the ensuing interview we have Samuel’s well-known words:
“Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam 15: 22, 23).
Saul’s reply reveals his heart: “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice” (24). Then he says, “I have sinned; but please honour me before the elders of my people and before Israel, and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord your God” (30).
The primary motivation in Saul’s life was the crowd. If he was with a crowd of prophets, he could prophesy. If the crowd was deserting him in battle, he could not trust God. If the crowd wanted the spoils of war, he could not stand in their way. Even now he was rejected by God, the crowd must not know it.
This also was the underlying motivation at Babel. “Let us make for ourselves a name,” they said, “lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Gen 11: 4). They found security in a crowd, while they ignored God. Multitudes of people today will only follow where the majority leads”.
And the biblical estimation of Saul appears to have much in common with the way Saul’s son, Jonathan, viewed his father: ‘My father has made trouble for the country’ (I Samuel 14:29).
Famously, Jonathan will side secretly with his beloved friend, David, against the vengeful Saul.
King Saul’s despicable nature was perhaps most evident in his treatment of his son, Jonathan, one of the most noble characters of the Old Testament, and of the mother who bore him (I Samuel 20:30): “Saul boiled with rage at Jonathan. ‘You stupid son of a whore!’ he swore at him. ‘Do you think I don’t know that you want him to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother?’”
Not only was the life of David constantly at risk with the ever changeable King Saul, but the life of Jonathan also, without whose assistance David would not have survived.
No wonder their two hearts were knit close together in friendship.
Dr. I. Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos series), a Jewish nationalist, tended to favour types like Saul and Ahab over the likes of Moses (whom he hardly mentions) and Isaiah.
On this, see Martin Sieff’s brilliant article, “Velikovsky and His Heroes” (SIS Review v5 No. 4, 1984).
One wonders what Jonathan might have told Dr. Velikovsky about the latter’s great hero, Saul, had the two of them had the opportunity to discuss this first king of Israel. Saul and Ahab, not David and Elijah, were the real ‘troublers of Israel’ (I Kings 18:17).
No comments:
Post a Comment