Weighing in on a dispute between two modern interpreters of Chronicles, Peter Leithart argues that the book deliberately highlights similarities between Saul, the first Israelite king, and the wicked Ahaz, who ruled the kingdom of Judah many generations later. Each was succeeded by an archetypal good king: respectively, David and Hezekiah. And this isn’t the only internal parallel regarding Saul:

[Rudolph] Mosis . . . finds a contrast between Saul and Josiah with regard to the “word of the Lord.” Saul’s failure to guard the Lord’s word is one dimension of his transgression [“against the word of the Lord” which, according to Chronicles, brought about his demise], and King Josiah’s righteousness is evident in his insistence on following “the word of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 34:21). These are the only two places where the phrase “the word of the Lord” appears in Chronicles [in conjunction with the Hebrew word for “keep” or “guard.”] Josiah is the last to [follow God’s word], and Judah goes into exile because she rejects and mocks the prophets, the Lord’s messengers. The collapse of Saul’s house because of his transgression . . . foreshadows the complete collapse of exile.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”