The Tanakh Podcast

Avner argues with the King, Ish-Boshet, and as he realizes that the northern faction led by Sauls' son, is weakening, he decides to capitalize on the moment and create a coalition with King David.

However Yoav, David's general, has a vendetta with Avner (Avner had killed Yoav's brother) and he murders Avner.

Now the peace deal is severely jeopardized. Will David manage to salvage the peace and reunite the kingdom under his rule?

David is crowned in Yehuda. But Avner crowns Saul's son, Ish-Boshet, over the Northern Tribes. 

For seven years the generals - Yoav and Avner - are engaged in conflict. We witness one particularly bloody day of fighting. 

Today we address two questions: 

1. Why do we receive two accounts of Saul's death?

2. Was Saul a success? Was he set up for failure?

Saul and his three sons die in battle on Mount Gilboa.

But whereas Saul's son's are killed by the enemy, Saul takes his own life. Was Shaul permitted to end his own life? What were the alternatives?

David and his men return to Ziklag. Amalek have attacked. The town has been burnt and the women and children taken captive.

David goes on the chase.

In this chapter we can understand more deeply what is problematic about Amalek, and we learn some important war ethics.

The Philistines are mobilizing to fight Israel. And David and his men are mobilizing with them!

Will David fight his own people? But if he doesn't fight, how will he retain his loyalty to Achish? Or will something else save David from this predicament?

War has broken out. The Philistines are attacking. Saul is terrified. He needs reassurance. God won't answer him!

He resorts to a necromancer, a woman who raises spirits from the grave. And Saul chooses to raise Samuel from the dead. What will Samuel say to him? The most simple truth, but the most devastating news that Saul could ever hear.

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Music. "Ghost Town" The Specials

Recorded February 2, 2023

David leaves the land of Israel and the jurisdiction of King Saul.

Now he is safe. But he still needs to play a double game - fighting the enemies of Israel on the one hand, and presenting himself as loyal to Achish, the Philistine king, on the other.

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Originally recorded January 31, 2023

Once again, David has a chance to assassinate Shaul, but he refrains from taking the king's life.

But Chapter 26 seems almost a repeat of Chapter 24! What is the need to relate both of these stories?

While an outlaw, David and his men have been patrolling the Southern Border and ensuring the safety of local farms and polulations.

When one of the local farmers - a rich sheep farmer called Naval - insults David and his men, refusing to share the bounty of the farm at the sheep-shearing, David decides to attack. It is the quick action of Naval's wife, Avigail, that saves David from performing a massacre. But this story reminds us of the violence that David can wield, and of the restraint that he has employed towards Shaul. 

In this chapter, David gets close enough to Saul that he can cut off the corner of his coat.

Why doesn't David murder Saul?

What moral principles guide David?

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Originally recorded January 28, 2023

From Ke'ila to the wilderness of Zif, David pursues the Philistines ; Saul Pursues David. David defends the country even while on the run; Saul is consumed by his fear and loathing of David. 

David has an Efod. He consults with God; another contrast to Saul.

After the massacre at Nov, Ke'ila and Zif are afraid for their fate, and inform against David.

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Originally uploaded January 25, 2023

A paranoid Shaul accuses his servants of conspiring against him. Doeg the Edomite informs Saul that the High Priest had given David food, a weapon, and even consulted God on his behalf.

Though the priests profess their innocence, Saul has the entire priestly town massacred, "men and women, children and nursing infants, oxen and donkeys and sheep, by the sword."  

David is on the run. He turns to the High Priest and has to lie in order to obtain some food supplies and a weapon. 

He tries to defect to the Phillistines, but soon realizes that he won't be safe there either.

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Recorded January 23, 2023

David and Jonathan make one final attempt to see if Saul is determined to execute David.

It all centers around a Rosh Chodesh feast and a secret message by means of Jonathan doing some (arrow) shooting practice.

In this podcast we discuss:

1. The centrality of Rosh Chodesh in ancient Israel

2. The love of David and Jonathan

3. Archery as a Benjaminite expertise.

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In our chapter, Shaul informs his inner circle that he intends to have David killed.

he chapter contains three attempts on David's life. He escapes two by his own means, and the third by divine means.

Music. "Run!" OneRepublic

Originally published Jan 21, 2023

David is a national hero. Shaul conscripts him to his army.

But with every success, Shaul's jealousy and suspicion intensify.

David is beloved. By Shaul initially; then by Yonatan, by the nation, by Michal.

But Shaul spirals downwards as suspicion becomes hostility, and then enmity. Shaul begins to plot David's murder.

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Our music is David and Saul

Youtube https://youtu.be/M_3OI-gpS9Q?si=zJsqOjACIiz0NOdQ

Lyrics - English - https://lyricstranslate.com/en/david-and-saul-david-king-and-saul-king.html

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Episode recorded...

David fights Goliath. The unarmed shepherd against the giant armour-clad warrior. Indeed this has become a cultural metaphor.

But what sort of David do we meet in this chpater? We shall see an ambitious, confident young man, brimming with religious faith, quite the opposite of Shaul. 

Recorded January 17, 2023

Samuel is sent to anoint a new king, and visits Yishai's family in Bethlehem. Seven sons don't find favour with God, but the youngest - David - is chosen as king and anointed by the prophet.

Meanwhile, King Saul is mysteriously being afflicted by an "evil spirit from the Lord". His solution is music. His minstrel will be none other than the young David!

Recorded January 17, 2023

Shaul is instructed by God to fight Amalek and to annihilate them.

But Shaul is derelict in his fulfillment of God's instruction. God sends Shmuel to inform Shaul that the kingdom will be taken from him.

What leads him to fail?

Music: "Va-yavo Amalek"- a Breslev Niggun for Purim (Avraham Balti and Achiya Cohen)

Originally recorded Jan 15, 2023

The Philistines attack. Saul is left with only 600 men. It is looking dire. But then Yonatan demonstrates that one can win with just 2 soldiers!

Saul doesn't use the Ark when he should and could.

Saul makes inappropriate vows (a nd almost slaughters his son).

Yonatan leads with confidence; Saul seems confused and disoriented.

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Chapter originally published January 15, 2023

This is Saul's War of Independence.

Saul knows and Samuel knows that the King needs to wait seven days for the prophet before the war starts.

But Saul can't wait.

What does this say about Saul's leadership? What does it portend?

At the national assembly to crown King Saul, Samuel steps down from the national leadership.

But what does he want to impart to the nation and their new monarch as he spends his final few moments at the helm of the nation?

What are the critical messages he will communicate?

King Saul has been crowned, not once - but twice! But he is in denial. He returns to his farm and hardly acts as a king.

But our chapter represents a tipping point. Responding to an act of oppression on the Benjaminite town of Yavesh Gilad, the "spirit of God" rests on Shaul, and he leads the nation in a perfectly executed battle, defeating the enemy and proving that he can act as the national leader.

Samuel anoints Saul as king. He tells Saul that once he experiences three special "signs", he will become overwhelmed by the spirit of God and become a "new man?

What do these signs mean?

And does Saul become a new man?

His signature feature would seem to be his bashfulness or his humility. At the coronation that Samuel organizes, Saul doesn't occupy the limelight; He hides!

Why did God choose Saul?

God has decided to appoint a King. In this chapter we meet Saul.

But his persona is a far cry from what we might expect. Humble and unambitious, Saul goes looking for his father's donkeys and has an unexpected encounter with the prophet.

The people request a king. Samuel is upset. God views it as a rejection. But God tells Samuel to appoint a king anyhow. Why?

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Who was the person that managed to break the inexorable "Shoftim Cycle" - the constant waves of sin-invasion-salvation? It was Samuel!

Under his twenty-years of leadership, he brings the nation to a point at which they will consider abandoning their idolatry!

This chapter gives us a snapshot of Samuel in his role as national leader.

The Phillistines return the lost Ark. But when it arrives in Beit Shemesh, though the people bow and bring a sacrifice, 70 people lose their lives in a plague of God. Why? What did the people do wrong?

The Philistines perceive their defeat of Israel as a victory of their god Dagon, over the God of Israel.

But God knows how to retaliate!

The Ark of the Covenant unleashes a trail of havoc, destroying the Philistine's religious icons and causing death in their towns. The Philistines are petrified of the power of the Ark and decide to return it to Israel.

As we shall explain, there is a remarkable affinity between the plagues of Egypt and those unleashed against Phillistia.

Our chapter describes Israel's devastating defeat at the hands of the Philistines.

But worse than the military defeat and the 30,000 casualties is the capture of the Ark of the Covenant. Why was it taken to the battlefront? And why did God allow His Ark to be taken captive by the enemy?

In this chapter, Samuel receives his first prophecy. How does he know that God is calling him? What does God want to say to him?

Looking at the bookends of this chapter we understand that this is a turning point. Samuel's role as prophet signifies and represents a return of the word of God to the Jewish people.

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Originally published December 28, 2022

Samuel grows up loyal to God, a devoted servant in the Temple.

In contrast, the High Priest's sons, Hofni and Pinchas, are running a corrupt cartel, utilizing the Mishkan for their own desires.

A prophet comes with a devastating denouncement of the priestly family.

In this Chapter we witness a childless Channa praying desperately for a child. In our tradition, Channa is an model of how to pray effectively.

But Channa has visited Shilo before. Each year, she cried, she did not eat. This year she prays. 

Why this year? What changed?

The moral disarray of Shoftim comes to a climax in our chapter as vows and abductions take us to an absurd finale.

This podcast ends with some concluding comments about Shoftim as a book.

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Brother against brother. In this chapter, after hearing about the horrific rape in Givah, 400,000 soldiers wage war, a war of decimation and destruction, against The tribe of Benjamin. But they consult with God twice and each time they lose the battle. Why does God allow them to lose if this is a holy war, a legitimate cause? Or possibly, it is illegitimate?

In one of the most horrific episodes of the Tanakh, a rape, reminiscent of the Sedom story, transpires in Giv'ah. Israel has become like Sedom!

Originally published - December 21, 2022

The Tribe of Dan are in transit. They are looking for land. What happened to their tribal lands?

The chapter described how they fund an quiet unsuspecting region in the North of Israel and, clothing their actions in religious language, sieze the land (and lives) of innocents. But this is not the only violent action that they perform.  

First published: December 20, 2022

Stolen money, a curse that becomes a blessing, an idol that becomes a center for asking questions of God, an unemployed Levite who functions as a priest in an unauthorized Temple.

All of this represents the chaotic world of a society in which religion is influenced by pagan standards of other nations and in which Jewish leadership has broken down.

Originally published: December 19, 2022

Samason meets Delilah and gives her the keys to his remarkable strength - his hair which is expressive of his Nazirirte status. The Chapter ends with Samson's suicide in which he "kills more in his death than during his life."

We spend this podcast trying to offer some frameworks to understand this challenging personality.

Originally recorded December 18, 2022