Posted: May 31, 2015 8:44 pm
tolman wrote:iskander wrote:The story tell the Israelites that to kill the anointed king will never be allowed , and also that no one should ever even think that David is happy to benefit from the death of the king. David is a righteous man.
Well, the story also says that God got pissed off with Saul for his sins, so he got some Philistines to shoot, even mortally wound Saul, who then ended up finishing himself off due to a bizarre dread of other people's dirty foreskins.
Surely a righteous man should have been happy at God doing the Right Thing?
To disapprove is to suggest God did the Wrong Thing, and that a Leader should be able to do anything to anyone, however barbaric or genocidal, without fear of consequence, which doesn't really seem very righteous.
David wanted to project the image of a righteous man for political reasons, and that is also compatible with a genuine religious belief.
The prohibition of killing the anointed king was also political, but in this case we know that David believed this to the right thing to do. David , when he was on the run from Saul, had spared the King's life on one occasion. ( I don't remember the verses).Foreign wars may kill the king of the opposing army .
For a religious mind god is the judge of all. In a religious book bad deeds bring the justice of god into operation .
I don't know why Saul killed himself. People killing themselves when they are defeated is a common occurrence in pagan history, Cato the Younger to avoid capture by Octavian is such one case.