The most important figure at the court of Saul was his cousin Abner,
the son of the witch of En-dor. (83) He was a giant of extraordinary
size. A wall measuring six ells in thickness could be moved more easily
than one of Abner's feet. (84) David once chanced to get between the
feet of Abner as he lay asleep, and he was almost crushed to death,
when fortunately Abner moved them, and David made his escape. (85)
Conscious of his vast strength he once cried out: "If only I could
seize the earth at some point, I should be able to shake it." Even in
the hour of death, wounded mortally by Joab, he grasped his murderer
like a worsted ball. He was about to kill him, but the people crowded
round them, and said to Abner: "If thou killest Joab, we shall be
orphaned, and our wives and children will be prey to the Philistines."
Abner replied: "What can I do? He was about to extinguish my light."
The people consoled him: "Commit thy cause to the true Judge." Abner
thereupon loosed his hold upon Joab, who remained unharmed, while Abner
fell dead instantly. God had decided against him. (86) The reason was
that Joab was in a measure justified in seeking to avenge the death of
his brother Asahel. Asahel, the supernaturally swift runner, (87) so
swift that he ran through a field without snapping the ears of wheat
(88) had been the attacking party. He had sough to take Abner's life,
and Abner contended, that in killing Asahel he had but acted in
self-defense. Before inflicting the fatal wound, Joab held a formal
court of justice over Abner. He asked: "Why didst thou no render Asahel
harmless by wounding him rather than kill him?" Abner replied that he
could not have done it. "What," said Joab, incredulous, "if thou wast
able to strike him under the fifth rib, dost thou mean to say thou
couldst not have made him innocuous by a wound, and saved him alive?"
(89)
Although Abner was a saint, (90) even a "lion in the law," (91) he
perpetrated many a deed that made his violent death appear just. It was
in his favor that he had refused to obey Saul's command to do away with
the priests of Nob. (92) Yet a man of his stamp should not have rested
content with passive resistance. He should have interposed actively,
and kept Saul from executing his blood design. And granted that Abner
could not have influenced the king's mind in this matter, (93) at all
events he is censurable for having frustrated a reconciliation between
Saul and David. When David, holding in his hand the corner of the
king's mantle which he had cut off, sought to convince Saul of his
innocence, it was Abner who turned the king against the suppliant
fugitive. "Concern not thyself about it," he said to Saul. "David found
the rag on a thornbush in which thou didst catch the skirt of thy
mantle as thou didst pass it." (94) On the other hand, no blame
attaches to Abner for having espoused the cause of Saul's son against
David for two years and a half. He knew that God had designated David
for the royal office, but, according to an old tradition, God had
promised two kings to the tribe of Benjamin, and Abner considered it
his duty to transmit his father's honor to the son of Saul the
Benjamite. (95)
Another figure of importance during Saul's reign, but a man of
radically different character, was Doeg. Doeg, the friend of Saul from
the days of his youth, (96) died when he was thirty-four years old,
(97) yet at that early age he had been president of the Sanhedrin and
the greatest scholar of his time. He was called Edomi, which means, not
Edomite, but "he who causes the blush of shame," because by his keen
mind and his learning he put to shame all who entered into argument
with him. (98) But his scholarship lay only on his lips, his heart was
not concerned in it, and his one aim was to elicit admiration. (99)
Small wonder, then, that his end was disastrous. At the time of his
death he had sunk so low that he forfeited all share in the life to
come. (100) Wounded vanity caused his hostility to David, who had got
the better of him in a learned discussion. (101) From that moment he
bent all his energies to the task of ruining David. He tried to poison
Saul's mind against David, by praising the latter inordinately, and so
arousing Saul's jealousy. (102) Again, he would harp on David's Moabite
descent, and maintain that on account of it he could not be admitted
into the congregation of Israel. Samuel and other prominent men had to
bring to bear all the weight of their authority to shield David against
the consequences of Doeg's sophistry. (103)
Doeg's most grievous transgression, however, was his informing against
the priests of Nob, whom he accused of high treason and executed as
traitors. For all his iniquitous deeds he pressed the law into his
service, and derived justification of his conduct from it. Abimelech,
the high priest at Nob, admitted that he had consulted the Urim and
Thummim for David. This served Doeg as the basis for the charge of
treason, and he stated it as an unalterable Halakah that the Urim and
Thummim may be consulted only for a king. In vain Abner and Amasa and
all the other members of the Sanhedrin demonstrated that the Urim and
Thummim may be consulted for any on whose undertaking concerns the
general welfare. Doeg would not yield, and as no one could be found to
execute the judgement, he himself officiated as hangman. (104) When the
motive of revenge actuated him, he held cheap alike the life and honor
of his fellow-man. He succeeded in convincing Saul that David's
marriage with the king's daughter Michal had lost its validity from the
moment David was declared a rebel. As such, he said, David was as good
as dead, since a rebel was outlawed. Hence his wife was no longer bound
to him. (105) Doeg's punishment accorded with his misdeeds. He who had
made impious use of his knowledge of the law, completely forgot the
law, and even his disciples rose up against him, and drove him from the
house of study. In the end he died a leper.
Dreadful as this death was, it was not accounted an atonement for his
sins. One angel burned his soul, and another scattered his ashes in all
the house of study and prayer. (106) The son of Doeg was Saul's
armor-bearer, who was killed by David for daring to slay the king even
though he longed for death. (107)
Along with Abner and Doeg, Jonathan distinguished himself in the reign
of his father. His military capacity was joined to deep scholarship. To
the latter he owed his position as Ab Bet Din. (108) Nevertheless he
was one of the most modest men known in history. (109) Abinadab was
another one of Saul's sons who was worthy of his father, wherefore he
was sometimes called Ishvi. (110) As for Saul's grandson Mephibosheth.
He, too, was reputed a great man. David himself did not scorn to sit at
his feet, and he revered Mephibosheth as his teacher. (111) The wrong
done him by David in granting one-half his possessions to Ziba, the
slave of Mephibosheth, did not go unavenged. When David ordered the
division of the estate of Mephibosheth, a voice from heaven prophesied:
"Jeroboam and Rehoboam shall divide the kingdom between themselves."
(112)
IV.
DAVID