Wednesday Bible Study: Legitimate Political Discourse

Well, it kind of is. Absalom manages to usurp the throne basically by becoming more popular than David. But there a lot of plot twists in this. I ' ll make comments along the way.15 After this Ab ′salom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him.This first sentence seems a non-sequitur.2 And Ab ′salom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate; and when any man had a suit to come before the king for judgment, Ab′salom would call to him, and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,”3 Ab ′salom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right; but there is no man deputed by the king to hear you.”4 Ab ′salom said moreover, “Oh that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.”5 And whenever a man came near to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand, and take hold of him, and kiss him.6 Thus Ab ′salom did to all of Israel who came to the king for judgment; so Ab′salom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.Okay, so the idea here is that the king acts as what in modern societies is the civil judiciary. But obviously he can ' t fulfill that function all by himself for a society in which he can raise 100,000 soldiers.  As a reminder, if David existed at all, his realm was actually just a few small villages, not the might warrior kingdom depicted he...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs