The Death of Saul in the Book of Chronicles

July 26 2016

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.

Read more at First Things

More about: Chronicles, Hebrew Bible, Hezekiah, King Saul, Religion & Holidays

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023