Atrocities at Christmas
We wouldn’t be surprised if families who lived in Bethlehem around the time of Jesus' birth were conflicted by news of Messiah's coming because of what Herod had done to their young sons. They couldn’t help but associate the visit of the magi with the slaughter of all boys aged two years and younger. That massacre wouldn’t have happened if the wise men seeking Jesus hadn’t brought the mad king’s attention to the city of David. Because of the atrocities of our day, we can imagine how Herod’s terrible decree would have created ongoing trauma for the villagers.
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.” —Matthew 2:16-18
It’s not pleasant to think about the slaughter of innocent children at Christmas, but the two are sadly linked. We owe it to the slain to pause over these sentences in Matthew and consider what that tragedy would have been like.
In those days it was hard enough for a baby to survive birth, let alone infancy and childhood, so when sons who'd been healthy enough to reach the age of two became the object of Herod’s wrath, it had to seem absurd. Why would a king send soldiers to kill babies? Loved ones would never be able to comprehend how a child could be perceived as a threat. It didn’t make any sense.
Massacre at Nob
Yet there was precedent. Another king had been responsible for another atrocity many years earlier, and for a similar reason. King Saul wanted to kill David, a perceived rival. His motivation was the same as Herod's. If either king had succeeded, they would have prevented the coming of the Messiah!
But Saul did not succeed in killing David. He was, however, responsible for the massacre of a village suspected of conspiring with David against him. The account is found in 1 Samuel 22:6-23. While there’s a long lead-up to this savage attack in preceding chapters, we should pause to feel the horror of verse 19's brief summary:
Doeg the Edomite … put to the sword Nob, the town of the priests, with its men and women, its children and infants, and its cattle, donkeys and sheep.
Nob was a city of Israel, situated a short distance from Saul’s seat of power (Gibeah). It was populated by priests, and thought to have been the location of the tabernacle and altar at that time. The townspeople were alleged to have helped David when he was on the run from Saul.
Doeg was the one who reported the “crime.” An Edomite, he was of Abraham’s family, but not in the covenant with Israel. He'd been in Nob when David was there, apparently for worship (1 Sam. 21:7), but he didn’t seem to love Israel, respect the priesthood, or fear God.
Miscarriage of justice
As king, Saul served as the Supreme Court for Israel, but he forgot there were limits on his authority, namely God’s law. He knew David was God’s choice to succeed him on the throne, and that he'd been anointed for that purpose, but Saul resisted God’s will until his own death.
In this case of supposed treachery by Nob, he placed himself above God’s authority to ordain and anoint priests. In contrast, David had great respect for the Lord’s anointed, and on that basis he refused to kill Saul when he had the opportunity (1 Sam. 24:10, 26:16).
Saul perverted justice by...
- Basing conviction of guilt on the word of only one witness—Doeg who twisted the truth and should have himself been punished (Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 19:15-19).
- Failing to investigate thoroughly in order to determine exactly was guilty parties (Deut. 19:18).
- Sentencing all priests to death when only one was "guilty" of helping David (1 Sam. 21:1-9).
- Exacting a punishment that exceeded the crime, treason against a king not being one of the crimes punishable by death according to God’s law.
Because his servants seem to have recognized the injustice of the verdict and were reluctant to carry out the execution of priests, Saul made the witness against the priests their executioner. Doeg single-handedly slaughtered 85 “men who wore the ephod”—priests unlikely to be armed—and then he turned against the town. Only one man lived to report the atrocity (1 Sam. 22:20-23).
Saul was not displeased with Doeg’s excessive zeal, nor did he chastise him for going too far. He appears to have been satisfied that a peaceful town was treated as though it was one of his country's worst enemies.
How did the rest of Israel feel about this slaughter? Were they appalled? Heartbroken? Did they demand an investigation? Did they turn against Saul? We’re not told.
Killing priests was an extremely serious thing for Saul to have done. Unlike David, Saul did not live by the biblical pro-life ethic.
We know David felt its full weight of this atrocity because he wrote about Doeg in Psalm 52:
Why do you boast in evil, O Mighty Man?
The lovingkindness of God endures all day long.
Your tongue devises destruction,
Like a sharp razor, O Worker of Deceit.
You love evil more than good,
Falsehood more than speaking what is right. Selah.
You love all words that devour,
O Deceitful Tongue.
Parallel passage
In 1 Samuel 15:3, Saul had been commanded by God to kill all the Amalekites in words eerily similar to how the deeds of Doeg were described: “Kill both men and women, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
The language connects the two passages, but the command in chapter 15 was no justification for Saul's vendetta against Nob. The two instances must be contrasted.
The campaign against Amalek was not an act of personal vengeance but God’s righteous judgment on an idolatrous nation. Amalek had taken advantage of Israel's weary stragglers as they exited Egypt. (See Exodus 17:8-16 and Deut. 25:17-19 for the record of what happened, and Leviticus 27:28-29 and Deut. 20:16-18 for Israel’s divine legal authorization for acts of total annihilation.)
Saul and his army did not carry out God’s judgment as specified. They executed the common people, but spared the king—an act of unholy partiality; they slaughtered all the “worthless and despised” animals, but kept the best alive for themselves—an act of theft from God. Saul failed in this instance as in the later one concerning Nob because he put himself in the place of God, taking upon himself the selection of who should live and who should die (1 Sam. 2:6).
Comparing the two episodes in Saul’s life, we see that it was just as easy for him to kill people (who are made in God's image) as to kill animals (who are not made in God's image). What's worse is he found it harder to kill a valuable animal than an innocent person.
There is no defense for a man who would execute priests—people who belonged to God and the nation of Israel—and who not carry out God’s righteous judgment on wicked Amalek. These episodes in Saul’s life demonstrate that he had little or no regard for the holiness of God and the pro-life ethic.
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Image credit: Massacre of the Innocents, by Nicolas Poussin, c. 1628, public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21846183.
Hi Michele,
ReplyDeleteAgain, thank you!! There is so much in this post to think about but I will just mention my appreciation of your treatment of the `dark' side of Christmas: the massacre of the little boys by King Herod. I think our culture--even our church culture--forgets this very important part of Christmas: Jesus entering our world in human flesh was an act of holy war. Saul did not `get' holy war--he destroyed for personal reasons not for defending the holy causes of our holy God.
As we take our stand for the sanctity of human life, we can expect tension from the surrounding culture which tells women that it's okay to dispose of a baby for personal reasons. I hope and pray that we speak about how precious life is to God in a way that pleases Him.
Well put! Thank you. It's hard to deal with darkness at any time of year. In my next post I'm planning to deal with the problem of total conquest. I don't want to, but it must be done!
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