The name Maacah occurs several times in Scripture, most frequently in connection with Absalom. Maacah is David’s wife, the mother of Absalom (2 Sam 3:3), and Maacah is also the DAUGHTER of Absalom who is also the wife of Rehoboam (2 Chron 11:20-22) and mother of Abijah and Asa, successors of Rehoboam (1 Kings 15:2, 10, 13). This makes a quaint little family scene: Rehoboam marries his cousin, daughter of his father’s half-brother. Abijah and Asa are doubly Davidic. Then... Read more
Why is the location of Joab?s house mentioned (1 Ki 2:34)? The wilderness is the place of Israel?s 40-year sojourn, prior to the entry into and conquest of the land of Israel. Thus, the reference to the wilderness connects with the Joshua typology that is evident elsewhere in the chapter (eg., in David’s instructions to Solomon). Joab is part of the generation that falls and is buried in the wilderness, while Solomon is the new Joshua, who leads Israel to... Read more
Why is the location of Joab?s house mentioned (1 Ki 2:34)? The wilderness is the place of Israel?s 40-year sojourn, prior to the entry into and conquest of the land of Israel. Thus, the reference to the wilderness connects with the Joshua typology that is evident elsewhere in the chapter (eg., in David’s instructions to Solomon). Joab is part of the generation that falls and is buried in the wilderness, while Solomon is the new Joshua, who leads Israel to... Read more
Solomon clearly considers his execution of Joab to be an act of justice: Yahweh is bringing the blood that Joab shed back on his own head. And Solomon also indicates that the execution of Joab is necessary to clear David’s house of blood-guilt. This is suggested in two ways. First, David uses unusual language to describe Joab’s actions in 1 Ki 2:5. Joab, David says, is guilty because he ?shed the blood of war in peace?E(v. 5). The phrase ?shed... Read more
Solomon clearly considers his execution of Joab to be an act of justice: Yahweh is bringing the blood that Joab shed back on his own head. And Solomon also indicates that the execution of Joab is necessary to clear David’s house of blood-guilt. This is suggested in two ways. First, David uses unusual language to describe Joab’s actions in 1 Ki 2:5. Joab, David says, is guilty because he ?shed the blood of war in peace?E(v. 5). The phrase ?shed... Read more
A rough and wooden translation of 1 Kings 2. And drew near the days of David to die. And he commanded Shlomoh his son, saying, ?I myself walking in the way of all the earth. You be strong. And you be as a man. Do the guard duty of Yahweh your God To walk in his ways To guard his ordinances His commandments, And his judgments And his warning signs According to the written things in the Torah of Moses... Read more
The late Allan Bloom points out in his interpretive essay on Plato’s Republic that Socrates’ attack on poets is qualified by the fact that he ends the Republic with a myth, the reincarnational myth of Er. Socrates banishes the poets, but offers a return if the poets will submit themselves to the disciplines of philosophy, especially to the crucial belief in the immortality of the soul. Here are a couple of quotations: ?The poets are the authentic, the only, teachers... Read more
According to Robert Solomon’s account, Romanticism did not LEAD to nationalism; it was nationalism. In particular, it was a German nationalist reaction to the perceived threat of French and English Enlightenment thought: “Cosmopolitan philosophers in London or Paris might pretend that they could speak for all humanity, but equally serious thinkers stuck in the small, fragmented, still largely feudal states of Germany could not easily do so. English and French culture ruled, or aspired to rule, the world. It was... Read more
Solomon?s Kingdom Established, 1 Kings 2:1-46 INTRODUCTION 1 Kings 2 consists of two large scenes. First, David gives his final instructions to Solomon (vv. 1-12); these verses are bracketed by the word ?days?E(vv. 1, 11). Second, Solomon carries out David?s instructions, enabling him to establish his kingdom (vv. 12-46); these verses are surrounded by the word ?establish.?EJust as David?s word in chapter 1 ensured that Solomon would sit on the throne, so Solomon?s fulfillment of David?s word secures the throne.... Read more
Wilfred McClay reviews two recent biographies of Nathaniel Hawthorne in the August 23 Weekly Standard , and argues for a rehabilitation of Hawthorne’s reputation. He gives a superb short summary of Hawthorne’s characteristic tone in a brief discussion of the 1837 short story collection, Twice-Told Tales : “One could plausibly argue that Hawthorne was at his most inspired in his early short fiction. Certainly the reader can see the characteristic lines of his thought, in ways that would not be... Read more
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