The Lion of Judah

by michael sympson

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. I Sam. 28: 12-13 5/27/2012 Gondola Press Ltd., 2,450 words, all rights reserved

King David made his enemies pass under saws and harrows of iron, and under axes, before incinerating them in the brickkilns alive (II Sam. 12: 31). He was a serial philanderer going after the skirts of other mens wives and if he could not get what he wanted he had their husbands murdered (II Sam. 11: 115). He was the armor bearer of Saul and betrayed his king. I am a child of the cold war; propaganda was the air we were breathing. I always had a hard time to buy into the vilification of King Saul. In the fifth century BC an increasing number of Jews in Babylon and the Diaspora began clamoring for the abolition of the House of David so not to take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ever again (Jeremiah 33: 2426). An unknown partisan of the Davidic bloodline therefore commissioned a whitewash of King Davids image the Books of Kings. This has succeeded and posterity remembers only the iconic image of David, the man after the heart of God. The story begins when a body of elders and judges presided over the fortunes of a loose confederacy of halfdomesticated tribes. The coalition was so loose in fact it didnt stop at blood feuds and sometimes erupted in downright genocidal warfare among members (Judges 21: 17-21). The body of elders and clan chiefs, like the Ephors in Sparta, held more of an advisory position as the executive arm of the women controlling the economy from behind the scene. Just as their neighbors of Canaanite stock and the Philistines, the Hebrew tribes lived under a matriarchy. (Even in our days you are still a Jew through the blood of your mother.) After

generations of service to the mothers this advisory body of appointees began making it a habit to pass on their privileges only to club members. So, when it became Samuels turn to name a successor, he, too, found nothing wrong in making his own sons judges over Israel. It was a poor choice. They turned aside after lucre, took bribes, and perverted the law. Things became so bad that the elders of Israel gathered and gave Old Shmul an earful about this kind of taxation without representation. And they 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. Not surprisingly The thing displeased Samuel (I Sam. 8: 1-6), but what could he do? Reluctantly he grabbed a vial of olive oil from his wifes larder and in 1025 BC Samuel singled out a man from the smallest of the twelve tribes, the tribe that should be the least likely to dominate the confederacy. He anointed Saul as prince of the people. It was the choice of a tribal politician, streetwise enough but with a singular lack of vision. The Philistines ruled the land and the Hebrew tribes were not even allowed to have their own blacksmiths, lest they make the Hebrew swords or spears, instead they traded their entire supply of nails, hoes and plows from Philistine trading posts (I Sam. 13: 19). Inevitably this became the cause for a gnawing resentment, feelings that can become the forge of new nations. All it takes is a people feeling oppressed, be it by the Philistines or by the Inquisition, and if a genocidal psychopath like the Duke of Alba continues pouring fuel on the fire,

a national hero may rise, like Prince Wilhelm of Orange, and shoulder the burden of excruciating disappointments and demoralizing defeats, even give his own life. And lo and behold the world is made to marvel with envy at the ultimate triumph, the birth and prosperity of a new nation, the people of the Netherlands. Roused by the slogan of no taxation without representation the disgruntled colonials in distant America followed examples already set, and George Washington shouldering the burden of excruciating disappointments and demoralizing defeat before the ultimate triumph, probably knew whom he was impersonating. Again the world was made to look on with envy when George Washington inaugurated Capitol Hill in full Masonic regalia. Thats how new nations are made; yet I am not altogether sure whether Prince Wilhelm or George Washington had been aware of the distant forerunner. King Saul was a nation-builder (I Sam. 11: 7) and a charismatic leader, acting the role of a shaman himself (I Sam. 19: 24). He was the anointed, the Messiah, the last of the judges and the first of the princes, the rock against the Philistines. If the record of his sudden fits of exuberance and deep depression is anything to go by, King Saul also was a tad bipolar. Not surprising, 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 they complained (I Sam. 8: 11-18). The wily Samuels idea was of

course to use Saul as a puppet with himself pulling the strings, but the young prince soon followed his own counsel instead of playing the game of a bygone age and refused to commit senseless slaughter to no purpose (I Sam. 15: 14). So, Samuel resorted to scare tactics and proclaimed the will of [the] God[s] from his shrine at Shiloh (I Sam. 9: 9; 14: 3546, 15: 11, 23). Still not satisfied with the effect on the brave but superstitious prince, 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 Samuels approving eye the young man was introduced to Saul as a harp player (I Sam. 16: 23) and somewhat illogically advanced from a musician to the office of the kings armor bearer. The kings oldest son, Prince Jonathan, immediately fell under the spell of Davids handsome looks and stripped himself bare the very first time he laid eyes on him (I Sam. 18: 4). David, although he preferred women, played along, even commemorated this relationship in one of his songs very pleasant have you been unto me: your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women (II Sam. 1: 26) and so recruited the infatuated prince as the unwitting accessory to his conspiracy. (Apparently Moses interdictions against homosexuality (Lev. 18: 22-23 and 20: 13) didnt carry much weight; presumably because nobody at the time knew they existed.) Old Shmul, with all his guile must have been a particularly poor judge of character. This new protg of his as well began developing his own ideas.

Davids exilic biographer surely was a shrewd propagandist. We all know the story how David slew Goliath. The young mans admittedly courageous exploits soon commanded a following in Sauls army (I Sam. 17, 18: 7). Yet just when all his pieces fell into place the plot was discovered and David had no choice but run for dear life. He escaped not without companions; the young thug became a highwayman and leader over six hundred malcontents and mercenaries (I Sam. 25: 10 27: 5). The Philistines, who should have been his archenemy, needed good soldiers and David had no compunctions of going on the Philistines payroll (I Sam. 27: 1-7). Betrayed and increasingly isolated, King Saul and Prince Jonathan were left to the prospect of facing an overwhelming force against hopeless odds. Why the two didnt decide to leave it by that and fight another day is not quite clear. Instead the biblical narrator alleges that in his heydays King Saul had been prosecuting sorcery and witchcraft, which is not likely in a period where witchcraft and sorcery was the religious mode of operation. The term prophet is just another name for a sorcerer casting spells and pronounce blessings (Numbers 22: 21-38). So it seems very unfair to censor the prince for asking an omen from a sorceress the Witch of Endor. Her sance confirms his impending doom; the only comfort she can offer to King Saul is a meal. Sore in his soul but unflinching, the King rises and goes out into the long night (I Sam. 28), a true hero all the way. The Good Book doesnt approve of nobility and tragedy.

What seems to annoy the bigoted editor is the fact that a man can live by his own honor and choose 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 considered choice in the face of unfavorable odds, and King Saul chose not to do what is easy. In 1011 BC, it came to the final showdown with the Philistines. King Saul fell on his own sword, Jonathan was slain and the Philistines hung their corpses from a gibbet. The narrator alleges that David took no part in this. The Philistines had their suspicions about this potentially treasonous ally (I Sam. 27: 11). With their main forces engaged, they rather not risked an unpleasant surprise (I Sam. 29: 3-7). Yet a nagging doubt remains: King Saul may not have fallen on his own sword after all a mysterious young man, an assassin conveniently recruited from a foreign tribe, gave him a helping hand, then stripped the royal corpse of the regalia and delivered them to guess who, guess again David his lord (II Sam. 1: 610). In and by itself that would already be suspicious enough, but when David followed suit with one of his trademark murders after a histrionic display of sudden rage killing the assassin foul play seems certain; David was covering his tracks (II Sam. 1: 15-16), no matter what his dance and song proclaims: Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on or-

naments of gold upon your apparel. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, you were slain in your own high places (II Sam. 1: 23-25). To maintain an appearance of legitimacy for his own claim to the vacant throne, David then collected King Sauls remains for a decent burial; a mere charade lets not kid ourselves, David had no claim whatsoever. But the lion had come to years and now did what lions do when they take over the pride: kill all the cubs from the predecessor. Between David and the throne stood the bloodline of the House of Saul. Abner, King Sauls old general, was Davids most dangerous adversary (II Sam. 3: 27) and therefore the first to be murdered. Next on the list was Prince Ishbaal, a man capable not only of restoring the fortunes of the House of Saul, but of going after the man responsible for Sauls fall (II Sam. 4: 6). After Ishbaals assassination we see the same pattern as after the death of King Saul himself: David, fainting outrage, murders his own hit men (II Sam. 4: 12), only to continue where the assassin had left a few loose ends: David had the remaining seven male descendants of King Saul rounded up and handed them over to the Gibeonites for execution (II Sam. 21: 8-9). Only one of the house of Saul, Mephibosheth, the son of the late Prince Jonathan, a cripple afflicted with polio was allowed to live for old times sake, even after the young man had joined the rebellion of Prince Absalom. In the end nobody was left to stand between David and the throne. Albeit as a mere puppet of the Philistines, which his predecessor never had been, David became the new king. In

decades of incessant warfare David turned tables on the Philistines, even subdued the former overlord, but throughout Davids rule, foreign mercenaries held key positions in the Hebrew military (II Sam. 11: 3ff), a sure sign how little trust David did put in his own people (II Sam. 13-18). Even the able propagandist of the Books of Kings couldnt gloss over the fact of an endemic instability in King Davids regime, of incest (II Sam. 13: 1) and rebellion in his own house (II Sam. 15: 1-12). In 969 BC the body-warmth of the maiden Abishag did no longer suffice to keep the King alive, and the days of David drew nigh that he should die. The prophet Nathan and Solomon, the son of a Hittite concubine, plotted against the legitimate contender Prince Adonijah and in a last minute coup Solomon was declared the designated successor, just in time to hear the final instructions of the dying David whispered to his ear: 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, but I swore to him, saying, I will not put you to death with the sword. Hold him not guiltless: bring his hoar head down with blood (I Kings 2). And So David slept with his fathers, and the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon (I Kings 2). (The scene has inspired Mario Puzos Godfather.) The alleged popularity of the new successor was a myth from the beginning. Following his own example one of the freelancing prophets who superfluously roamed the land, a

certain Ahijah, was not at all afraid of offending the mighty Solomon and took it upon himself to anoint instead Jeroboam as king over the Hebrews. Ahijah earned his fee: immediately ten of the twelve tribes (I Kings 11: 29-37) associated with the new contender and seceded from Solomons dominions. Jeroboam established his kingdom in Israel and Samaria; the epigraph on an Assyrian stele still testifies for the prosperity of the House of Omri. King Solomon found himself reduced to the state of a petty prince, an old man dictating garrulous letters to his overlord in Egypt while ogling the tits and pretty faces in an amply stocked harem.