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Thursday, August 16, 2018

King David vs. Jonah Goldberg

It’s an interesting question.

 Should we judge a man on the totality of his works, or focus on his flaws?

 It’s worth looking at the historical King David, a person most Jews and Christians hold in high regard.

 There was much more to him than the juicy details we all know so well. He was a Peeping Tom with several wives and concubines, not uncommon for his time. What was not common was that he seduced a married woman.

He had the husband killed in a battle along with other Israelites as a cover-up for his crime of seduction.

 He raised an incredibly dysfunctional family. One son raped his half-sister. Another son murders his half-brother.

 Family troubles result in civil war during which the son rapes David’s concubines to motives his followers.

 He was politically divisive, creating friction between Judah and the other tribes of Israel which led to another rebellion in which one of David’s enforcers murders another one of David’s followers when didn’t follow orders quickly enough.

This is the guy that Jews hold in high regard?

 From a moral perspective, David was a monster making Trump angelic in comparison.

 A “Real Jew” with high moral standards would have opposed him and used every opportunity to denigrate him. He would have called on God to smite him, and given serious though to allying with Israel’s enemies to bring him down so that Israel could be reborn pure as the sands of the desert.

Despite his personal failures, we honor David because of what he accomplished. They are not an excuse for sin, but an explanation of why God can work through a very flawed individual to bring blessings to the people.

OTOH, Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian and led an exemplary personal life.

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