The Bible as Mirror: Trump and the Gibeonites

The Bible as Mirror: Trump and the Gibeonites February 20, 2017

Our 45th president of the USA, Donald J. Trump, is a master of announcing and repeating lies, falsehoods easily disproved by the click of a computer key. How long, O Lord, will we need to hear that his electoral victory was the largest in recent history? In fact it was not, as a simple on-line search will readily reveal. How long must we be regaled with reports of the vast size of his inaugural crowds, far larger than those of Barak Obama, his predecessor? In fact, they were not, as any photograph of the two occasions make abundantly clear. President Trump appears to be an inveterate, unredeemed and unredeemable liar, purveying falsehood with every other breath. As Koheleth said so long ago, this constant prevarication is “a great weariness, a feeding on the wind.” Would that it would stop!

It seems so pointless, this continual lying. And it appears so trivial, making the president small and finally completely untrustworthy. If he lies about crowd size, who knows what else he may be lying about? It is one thing to lie about election victory size, a rather insignificant matter in the grand scheme, but might not this penchant for lying, this continual stretching and twisting of facts to serve some personal or political ends, become rather more dangerous, even deadly? Again, with this new president and his public actions, I am put in mind of the Bible. And again, I fear, the Bible holds a mirror up to Mr. Trump’s actions.

I turn today to the obscure story of David and the Gibeonites, found in 2 Samuel 21. The story is set very late in the reign of David, second king of Israel, long after he has secured the land against most of its usual enemies. The Philistines are in the main now vassals of David, their five rich coastal cities, long thorns in Israelite sides, thoroughly under his sway. The eastern Ammonites have been subdued, their capital city, Amman, defeated by Joab some years before. David reigns in his capital, Jerusalem, with his queen, Bathsheba, by his side, and their child, Solomon, set to follow his father to the throne, though David does have any number of other male claimants for his kingdom.

A terrible three-year famine descends on that kingdom, and in the manner of ancient peoples, the king sets out to discover whose fault it is that such a calamity has fallen upon them. Such disasters are always the result of foul play of one sort or another, it was thought, and so David learns (or it is revealed to him) that the famine is the direct result of King Saul’s apparent attempts, some years ago, to exterminate the Gibeonites from the land of Israel. With this so-called knowledge in hand, David summons some Gibeonites to his court to deal with the matter.

There is only one problem; there is absolutely no record at all that Saul had any dealings with the Gibeonites. It is true that AbnerGibeon_well_01, Saul’s general, had a deadly encounter with Joab, David’s general, at the great well of Gibeon, but all of that occurred after the death of Saul on Mount Gilboa. The truth is that David’s “facts” are not facts; they fall into what has come now to be called “alternative facts.” There was once a day when “alternative facts” were called what they really are, lies, but we seem not to be living in such a day. Still, David, armed with his lies about Saul and the Gibeonites, sets out to solve a problem that has not been appropriately approached from the start.

Donald Trump has decided, on the basis of alternative facts, namely lies and half- truths, that he must prevent all manner of immigrants and asylum seekers from entering the US, and further that he must deport those who have come to the US, first without papers, but now are living and working and paying taxes into our common treasury, thereby dividing long-established families, causing untold anguish and fear among many aspiring and real American citizens. Such a policy has lead to pain, and has already  lead to much worse. A woman facing deportation has committed suicide in her cell. These policies are death-dealing; those are facts.

David has become convinced that Saul’s actions against the Gibeonites have brought disaster to his kingdom, though the proof for thos'David'_by_Michelangelo_JBU03e actions does not exist. When the Gibeonites appear in David’s audience chamber, he asks them, “What can I do for you? How can I make expiation for the terrible things that mad Saul did against you in order that you may once again bless the heritage of Israel?” The Gibeonites respond, knowing full well that Saul in fact has done nothing against them, but sensing that they may get from King David something they have long desired, and at the same time do something that David will find joy in as well, “We want no silver and gold, David; neither is it our place to put to death anyone in Israel.” Of course, by raising the ideas of putting people to death, the Gibeonites have in fact announced what they really want. It is just that they do not have the right or the power to do so. But they know full well that David does have that power.

The king, surely no innocent in the ways of judicial murder, asks them, “Well, if not money, and since you do not feel you can have anyone killed, just what do you have in mind?” And here is what the Gibeonites have in mind. “The man who massacred us, who devastated us—we were destroyed from having a place in all the territory of Israel— let seven of his sons be given to us that we may display their corpses before YHWH at Gibeah, the home of Saul, YHWH’s chosen,” they add, dripping with sarcasm. Of course, David is only too glad to hand over any of the surviving sons of Saul to these bloodthirsty men; that way any Saulide claimants to his throne will be eliminated, and his own hands will be at least physically innocent of their deaths. This is of course reminiscent of his contract murder of Uriah by the hands of the Ammonites in battle. So, he replies quickly and coldly, “I will give them.” And he does. The sons are quickly dispatched, their bodies displayed in a public place as a warning to all who would stand against the power of the king.

It is a sordid tale, based on lies that lead to monstrous and innocent deaths. In the matter of General Flynn, Trump’s fired National Security Advisor, the president has again attempted to blame the entire affair on the media who major, he claims, in “fake news.” There have been no illegal contacts with Russia, he says, in the matter of the sanctions against that country imposed by the Obama administration. Those, says Trump, are patent lies; no one in his administration would do such a thing as to have illegal contacts, despite the fact that General Flynn has admitted his contacts were illegal and that he lied about it all in the ears of the Vice-President, Mike Pence. He further may have lied to the FBI, a felony if proved, worthy of prison. General Flynn, claims Trump, is a “wonderful man” who has been hounded out of office by a predatory press, or as he has now called them, “the enemies of the American people.”

The tale of the Gibeonites and David can become a salutary one for us in this age of Trump. Lies may be at first trivial and laughable, but when repeated and shouted in the wrong circumstances, they can by quite literally deadly. Remember the Gibeonites! And for all of you congress people, Senators and Representatives, all who aid and abet the lies, remember David, the master liar, who gained much by the death of seven of Saul’s sons at the Gibeonites’ hands. Whether or not he actually believed that Saul had in any way persecuted the Gibeonites is quite beside the point; it was to his advantage to allow them to do their worst. Lies may sound trivial; they can be murderous. (Images from Wikimedia Commons)Donald_Trump's_hair_from_behind,_2007


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