Paul Borgman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195331608
- eISBN:
- 9780199868001
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331608.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
Israel's second king, David, will commit what looks like far greater wrong than anything done by God's first choice, King Saul. But David proves much the superior leader. Why might God have given up ...
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Israel's second king, David, will commit what looks like far greater wrong than anything done by God's first choice, King Saul. But David proves much the superior leader. Why might God have given up so quickly on Saul, and what does this intimate about God's reversal of choices, for David? Possible answers begin to emerge with the narrator's presentation of Saul's three anointings and paralleled wrongdoing, the latter sandwiching a picture of Jonathan, of everything good that Saul isn't. With Saul we find an anatomy of failure that goes beyond mere wrongdoing. Something within Saul is tragically lacking, a flaw that will prove definitive as a contrast with David. Brought into a unifying vision by this and other patterns are “blocks” of material considered quite disparate by many biblical scholars.Less
Israel's second king, David, will commit what looks like far greater wrong than anything done by God's first choice, King Saul. But David proves much the superior leader. Why might God have given up so quickly on Saul, and what does this intimate about God's reversal of choices, for David? Possible answers begin to emerge with the narrator's presentation of Saul's three anointings and paralleled wrongdoing, the latter sandwiching a picture of Jonathan, of everything good that Saul isn't. With Saul we find an anatomy of failure that goes beyond mere wrongdoing. Something within Saul is tragically lacking, a flaw that will prove definitive as a contrast with David. Brought into a unifying vision by this and other patterns are “blocks” of material considered quite disparate by many biblical scholars.
