{"id":661,"date":"2025-05-15T17:28:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/criticalhistorianofreligionasdetective\/?p=661"},"modified":"2025-05-16T13:01:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T17:01:47","slug":"an-essene-midrash-on-the-wisdom-and-compassion-of-king-david","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/criticalhistorianofreligionasdetective\/2025\/05\/an-essene-midrash-on-the-wisdom-and-compassion-of-king-david\/","title":{"rendered":"An Essene Midrash on the Wisdom and Compassion of King David"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><figure id=\"attachment_688\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-688\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-688\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/2331\/2025\/05\/david-young-old-king-goliath-mosiac-gaza-synagogue-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-688\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stages of King David\u2019s life. Mosaic from archeological dig in Gaza, circa 400 CE. Image created in Adobe Photoshop and with some image material from Dalle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p class=\"p1\">When most hear the term \u201cEssene,\u201d they think of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran Community <em>Yachad,\u00a0<\/em>and the various Hellenists writing in Greek on the Jewish Second Temple Era sect. Catching the reader up on the post-Second Temple Era Diaspora forms of Essenic Judaism is far beyond the limited scope of the work at hand. For those sincerely interested, however, I know of no extant source which better documents even a limited amount of this history than my first master\u2019s thesis: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/People-Book-Religions-Earliest-Understanding\/dp\/1980292183\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\"><em><span id=\"productTitle\" class=\"a-size-large celwidget\" data-csa-c-id=\"xamjn0-ty5iw9-ibbn3x-37ph30\" data-cel-widget=\"productTitle\">People of the Book: What the Religions Named in the Qur\u2019an Can Tell Us About the Earliest Understanding of \u201cIslam\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">This, of course, is not the narrowed focus of that text. There are several intended future works-in-progress which will more robustly document the subject of the Essene <em>Yachad<\/em>, as it both integrated in some cases with the emerging Rabbanites, and in other cases become something of a revolutionary, Anti-Caliphatist secret martial society.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forwarding ahead, the task which I have been charged with by my beloved brother, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Way-Rabbi-%60Oseh-Ben-David\/dp\/B0CP6FPSH5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">Rabbi `Oseh of Gaza<\/a>, is composing the largely oral traditions of the\u00a0<em>Tariqat `Isawiyah\u00a0<\/em>today, into written form. Naturally, as a scholar of Near Eastern Religions, Linguistics and History, and as a somewhat prolific writer, he found me the natural choice for this task.<\/p>\n<p>The work at hand is but one of the <em>midrashim\u00a0<\/em>orated to me by my brother <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Way-Rabbi-%60Oseh-Ben-David\/dp\/B0CP6FPSH5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">Rabbi `Oseh<\/a> on King David. It is presented as \u201cAn Essene Midrash on the Wisdom and Compassion of King David\u2026 <em>and How It Wasn\u2019t Enough.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">We are told that the purpose of teaching in Talmud is to learn from students and thus one must teach for free for this reason and also so that the teacher might be hard on the student when necessary and not cater to them as a customer (<em>Tosafot Yom Tov<\/em> on <em>Mishnah Avot<\/em> 1:6:1; <em>Taanit<\/em> 7; <em>Makkot<\/em> 10).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">King David thus says in <em>Tehillim<\/em> \u201cfrom all my teachers have I learned mastery\u201d (Psalm 119:99).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">This indicates not only that he learned from teachers of an array of perspectives and teachings, but also that he took on students in secret who otherwise would have been taught by no Jew.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In fact his compassion and empathy was so unusual that even acknowledging the <em>Mitzvah<\/em> that one must kill `Amaleq in every generation, he encountered Amaleqites who wished to leave behind their vampiric cannibal culture of murder and terror, and make <em>teshuvah<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, just as Shlomo Ha\u2019Melekh was said to have controlled and commanded beings of a paranormal nature, we see a similar class of being described in these tales of the Amaleqim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, in<em> Shmuel Alef<\/em> 15, we read that supposedly all of the Amaleqim besides King Agag had been killed by Shaul\u2026 and yet, it is not long before there are more Amaleqim to be fought \u2013 even one who claims to have killed Shaul himself (who David subsequently has executed).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Indeed, the Amaleqites were not normal humans in the Biblical account, but instead sorcerers akin to what is today called \u201cSkinwalkers\u201d amongst the Dine people. That is, it was said that they could transform or make themselves appear to transform into animals or even little children. Their own path of sorcery required them to sacrifice any and all children to the <em>sheddim<\/em> who they fed the energy of suffering and blood to. While their feats of sorcery were considered unparalleled in the region, they were far from the only Canaanite groups who practiced child sacrifice and immolation \u2013 as confirmed by countless archeological finds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Accordingly, because of the nature of the `Amaleqim as vampiric, child-killing, even shape-shifting sorcerers, the Torah commands that all `Amaleqites must be killed \u2013 even women, babies and animals. This is because any appearance in this way to the Children of Israel would merely have been of the appearance of such \u2013 and not actually children or non-human animals. Whether one today finds this story reasonable or not, this is the nature of tribal storytelling then as it is today amongst the Dine and other Indigenous peoples. Thus, the `Amaleqites, like the <em>Refaim<\/em> and <em>Nefilim<\/em>, are not described as regular human beings, but in fact supernatural or quasi-paranormal beings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As for the name `Amaleq, there has never in history been a people known by this name. No historians nor archeologists have found any record of such a people, and yet modern day minds tell themselves (and any who will listen to them), that they know the truth behind this story, and how the Tanakh teaches \u201cgenocide\u201d of the \u201c`Amaleqites\u201d. Little do they know \u2013 very little \u2013 that this term means `Am laq \u2013 or a blood \u201clicking people\u201d. That is, they are \u201cthe blood thirsty\u201d or even as we might say in more modern lore: \u201cvampires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Further Biblical confirmation that this was never an actual ethnicity, but a literal description of \u201cblood-lickers\u201d, is found in <em>Sefer Berashit<\/em> (Genesis 14:7). Therein, we read of the \u201cfield of the `Amaleqim.\u201d But this was long before the Biblical `Amaleq was born. Thus, it is clear that this was never regarded as a name for a particular tribe, but instead a class of paranormal, vampiric and cannibalistic sorcerer in the Biblical accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Imagine, then, self-deluded children today educated by their own conjecture and egos, speaking of the \u201cgenocide\u201d against shape-shifting vampiric sorcerers \u2013 as passed down Biblically from tribal storytelling. Even worse still, some have been so foolish as to postulate that this \u201cbrazen act of genocide\u201d invalidates the Indigenousness of the Children of Israel to the Land of Israel and Israelite ethnogenesis \u2013 the Land of Shem and `Eber before them. Again, they base this \u201cinvalidation\u201d upon Bronze Age tribal stories told around the fire by elders of the community, about shapeshifting vampires\u2026 and these youths of today see themselves as wise in their own eyes. May Ha\u2019Shem protect us from the beguiling of the <em>Nefesh<\/em> Ego, which is the chief of all idols.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In keeping with the <em>Mitzvah<\/em>, David instructed them that he could not teach them while they were Amaleqites, because he must first kill them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, it is written that one who emerges from the <em>miqvah<\/em> as a <em>ger tzaddiq<\/em> convert has been \u201cborn again\u201d (<em>Talmud Bavli<\/em>, <em>Yevamot<\/em> 62a; 97a; Rambam <em>Mishneh Torah, Issurei Biah<\/em> 14:11).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As well, we are taught that if one takes a new name, then they can alter their very destiny.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As such, King David taught that they must die before death, and thus, through his compassion and teachings, he killed these last remaining Amaleqites \u2013 as the <em>Tanakh<\/em> teaches \u2013 \u201c<em>kol nefesh<\/em>\u201d \u2013 every Ego-Self.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">When King Shaul made the marriage to his daughter Mikhal conditional upon David retrieving 100 <em>P\u2019lishtim<\/em> foreskins, the obvious intent of Shaul was for this to be akin to a Native American \u201cscalping\u201d \u2013 proof that this number had been killed by his future son-in-law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In fact, Shaul wished not merely for 100 more dead <em>P\u2019lishtim<\/em> men, but to unleash darkness in David\u2019s soul which had already overtaken his own. He wanted to bring out bloodthirstiness in David.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">David, being far more clever than Shaul, thus set out into `Aza, where he encountered P\u2019lishtim, and challenged them to a series of contests \u2013 beginning with martial skill, and advancing to games of reason and deduction. For each whom he challenged, he wagered that the victor would have the other immigrate to their tribe. For those who would immigrate to the tribes of Israel, this meant <em>gerut<\/em>, just as David\u2019s own great-grandmother Ruth was a Moabitess, and even a descendant of incest between Lot and his daughters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, it is written that Ha\u2019Shem \u201chad three \u2018finds\u2019 \u2013 one of them was David, as it says (in <em>Tehillim<\/em>\/Psalms 89:21), \u2018I found David, my servant.\u2019 (<em>Berashit Rabbah<\/em> 29:3). And \u201cwhere did I find him?\u201d The <em>Midrash<\/em> tells of Ha\u2019Shem asking rhetorically, \u201cin Sodom!\u201d (<em>Berashit Rabbah<\/em> 50:10).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">David knew that if the P\u2019lishtim were challenged as a whole, they would act with treachery and would sabotage the contests or simply overwhelm him. As such, one by one he defeated the 100 P\u2019lishtim and then converted them for <em>gerut<\/em> immigration to the Tribe of Yehudah. When he returned to Shaul, he did so with a literal bag of freshly cut, bloody <em>P\u2019lishti<\/em> foreskins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">This sort of cleverness in contest showed that David mastered the Art of Fighting Without Fighting \u2013 <em>Chokhmat l\u2019hilacham bali l\u2019hilacham<\/em> (\u05d7\u05db\u05de\u05ea \u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d7\u05dd \u05d1\u05dc\u05d9 \u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dc\u05d7\u05dd) \u2013 as it is today said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">When Goliath challenged the Israelites, David thus accepted. But instead of taking up the bulky armor, which he knew would offer him no advantage, he chose instead to fight with the weapon of his intellect and reason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Now as it was, Goliath\u2019s <em>P\u2019lishti<\/em> helmet covered only the front and top of his head. This was because the Greek P\u2019lishtim invaders prided themselves on refusal to retreat \u2013 even in the most dire of circumstances. As such, the back of the helmet was merely strapped on to their heads \u2013 exposing the brainstem \u201ckill-switch\u201d, so to speak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">As the two faced off opposite each other, the first thing David did was cut and ran. Goliath instantly began to laugh \u2013 to cackle even!<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThis boy must have had a change of heart!\u201d He scoffed. The crowd of Greek P\u2019lishtim Colonizers roared with mocking approval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">From rock and boulder to hillside, David ran from one position of cover to the next \u2013 each time waiting for Goliath to launch his next attack. As the giant\u2019s projectiles landed, David ran for the next cover until finally, he had tricked the giant into believing he was trapped behind a rock \u2013 daring not to run again for cover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In reality, however, at this point the Youth had snuck down the hillside and crawled on his belly like a serpent until he made his way behind Goliath.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, it is that the gematria of <em>Nachash<\/em>, Serpent, and <em>Mashiach<\/em>, the Anointed King of the Jewish people, is the same: 358. In the case of one who would be king, they must be as wise as the <em>Nachash<\/em>, but as <em>Tahor<\/em> purified as <em>Yonah<\/em> \u2013 whether a dove, or the prophet \u2013 tried and tested \u2013 of this namesake. Indeed, in the tale of the Ninavite prophet, he was so called because of the purification he underwent. His proper name, given to him by his parents, is of no importance to the story \u2013 no more than that of \u201cAbraham\u201d or \u201cMosheh\u201d Rabbeinu for that matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Having outsmarted the Philistine, the giant P\u2019lishti Invader, David positioned himself and began slinging his shot. Though he had five smooth stones, he only required one. In this is the lesson that even with the utmost confidence and <em>emunah<\/em>, one should still provide ample backups as contingencies, in the event that the unforeseen causes the path to success to twist and turn and wind along longer than one had imagined. Thus, the Sages said that if you hear that Mashiach has come and you are busy planting a tree\u2026 finish planting it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The Youth, David, launched the single stone with such force that when the helmet was eventually removed from the severed head of the giant, it became apparent that David had caved in Goliath\u2019s skull from the brainstem all the way through the grey matter, into the inside of his very forehead \u2013 within the skull.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, we see that though he was one of five remaining sons of Yishai, alive at the time prophet Sh\u2019muel was called upon to select and anoint the successive king. It was only through David that a shoot would spring up from the root of Yishai. Accordingly, we see here the relationship between the words <em>Ben<\/em>, \u201cson\u201d and <em>Aben<\/em>, \u201cstone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">David\u2019s intelligence and empathy did not end there, but also extended to his desire for Bat Sheva. It is typically assumed that David was overwhelmed by hunger for her flesh, but the midrash here is that he saw her washing herself on the roof after her husband Uriah had beaten her. She washed blood off of her face, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, when David saw that Uriah had been abusing her, and that she was washing from injuries and not from menstruation \u2013 as is often wrongly assumed in tradition \u2013 he summoned her and asked her what had happened. As is typical of abused women, she made up an excuse for her injuries, even blaming her own supposed clumsiness. Finally, he ordered her to be truthful with him right then or he would have her husband executed. But she did not budge, nor say a word in protest of this threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">David replied to her silence, saying: \u201cYou don\u2019t care if I execute your husband? Why is that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">She answered, \u201che is my husband in contract only. He has refused to lay with me from day one. He has no desire for me whatsoever and has never consummated our marriage. When I asked him why he does not find me attractive, he aggressively took hold of me. Then, believing that he was going to lay with me, I reached to uncover him, only to find he still did not desire me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At this, he began beating me and harming me with anything he could find. I do not care what you do to him. Indeed, if I could kill him and not suffer the consequences of prosecution for murder, then I would do so myself. For I do not see this <em>qatal<\/em> (\u05e7\u05d8\u05dc) as <em>ratsach<\/em> (\u05e8\u05e6\u05d7) murder, but as <em>harag<\/em> (\u05d4\u05e8\u05d2), justifiable homicide in self-defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">When David heard this he was enraged at Uriah the Hittite, but his rage was cooled temporarily by his compassion for Bat Sheva, who he held to his chest. He said to her: \u201cAs he has refused to honor his end of the marital contract with you, know that your marriage was annulled and void from three months after he refused you. This I declare as the Anointed King Mashiach of the Children of Israel, and as a <em>Nevi<\/em>, a Prophet of Ha\u2019Shem. As such, I marry you now \u2013 calling Heaven and Earth as my witnesses before Ha\u2019Shem \u2013 that you are not to the Hittite, but I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me (<em>Shir Ha\u2019Shirim<\/em> 6:3).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The two then retired to bed, and the King merely held Bat Sheva, not wanting to impose himself upon her physically after she had been beaten.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Nevertheless, this sensitivity stoked a fire within her and in the night she consummated her marriage with the King \u2013 of her own initiative and desire. David Ha\u2019Melekh had only the desire to please her and glorify the <em>Shekhinah<\/em> of Ha\u2019Shem through pleasing his newly-wedded wife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">By morning, the two knew that that even their having conversed about the matters of abuse \u2013 without third-party witnesses \u2013 would be a matter highly suspect. Still, David, like Shlomo after him, was known to judge without the need of proof, using only his faculties of reason and inspiration of the <em>Ruach Ha\u2019Qodesh<\/em> to determine his ruling. As such, the had absolute authority to legally annul the marriage, but so that the justification and explanation for the annulment would not look as though it had been invented, David decided to allow the River of Destiny to guide them along the way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">After he rose for the day, David once again boiled with rage at Uriah the Hittite. Yet he knew that if he did not control that rage, and draw the energy out of it it and let it rest within his belly, any direct confrontation would look as though he and his new wife had been having an illicit affair, and that he murdered Uriah in a jealous fit of rage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Thus, being clever as David was, he assigned Uriah the Hittite to the frontlines in battle. David called out to Ha\u2019Shem and asked that the Divine Will be meted out upon him. If it was his fate, his <em>mazel<\/em> to live, then Uriah would indeed return home, as others on the frontlines had. If it was written for him to die for his own iniquities and cruelty, however, then that would be the day that he died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Still, just because David followed the rules of <em>halakhah<\/em>, this does not mean his actions carried no consequence. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And thus, as he caused the life of Uriah to be taken, so too was the fire of life within their child snuffed out at that time, within that body. This was, however, only for the Neshamah to return at a later time \u2013 as so often when there are miscarriages, stillborns, or premature births such as this, wherein the newborn fails to thrive or thereby contracts illness from which they cannot recover.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Indeed, it was Shlomo Ha\u2019Melekh who was to be born, and had he come at that time, he would not have learned from the same father with the same experiences, wisdom and even sadness and detachment from the physical world, that he had when he returned in incarnation later \u2013 to the same parents. As well, had he been born at that time, there would have been speculation about the date of his conception and whisperings about impropriety. Even if he were to explain to the people the true, behind-the-scenes story then, his explanation would sound like little more than a fabricated excuse to the masses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Similarly, though David was a righteous warrior, he still was an <em>Ish Milchamah<\/em> \u2013 a Man of War \u2013 and indulged in bloodshed. In those moments of battle, David delighted in killing. He told himself that this indulgence in violence was acceptable because these were evil men who he was cutting down. But because of this tarnishing of the mirror of his heart and the blunting of his empathy, he was deemed unfit to build the Temple, which his son Shlomo instead was charged with building on Mount Moriah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In this is a message for those who reflect\u2026 David Ha\u2019Melekh was as wise as the <em>Nachash<\/em> of Gan `Eden, and yet in many things he acted imperfectly \u2013 missing the mark. As such we have countless family tragedies. We have Abiyah contending for rule against Shlomo Ha\u2019Melekh, we have pilegeshim betraying David with his son Avshalom, and indeed the latter\u2019s schemings against his father. This fitnah was so great that it was carried on into subsequent <em>gilgulim<\/em>. If this is the case with a prophet and king, then how much more so does the general body of the <em>B\u2019nei Adam<\/em> error?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The Rambam was approached by a man just before Yom Kippur. The man said, \u201cRabbi, this year I have not sinned whatsoever! I have neither wronged Ha\u2019Shem, nor my fellow man, nor myself! What should I make teshuvah for? What should I repent for on Yom Kippur?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The Rambam replied: \u201cRepent for the fact that you believe you have nothing to repent for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When most hear the term \u201cEssene,\u201d they think of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran Community Yachad,\u00a0and the various Hellenists writing in Greek on the Jewish Second Temple Era sect. Catching the reader up on the post-Second Temple Era Diaspora forms of Essenic Judaism is far beyond the limited scope of the work at hand. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5649,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[142,139,115,118,136,124],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dead-sea-scrolls","tag-essene","tag-isawiyah","tag-judeo-sufi","tag-midrash","tag-qumran"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Essene Midrash on the Wisdom and Compassion of King David<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A mystical take on King David\u2014compassionate leader, warrior, and flawed man\u2014in a powerful Essene midrash about justice, repentance, and divine purpose.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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