2 Samuel 18: A Recycled Story.

Absalom's fate is foreshadowed in I Samuel 18:8. The fighting is taking place in the forest of Ephraim. The narrator comments that the forest claimed more victims than the fighting. Sure enough, Absalom's hair is caught in the branches of a tree, allowing Joab and his soldiers to overtake him.

Like many biblical stories (including this one), Absalom has been appropriated for circumstances far beyond David's life in Israel. The embroidery below sets Absalom, Joab and David in pre-Revolutionary America.

Faith Robinson Trumbull (attrib.). The Hanging of Absalom. c. 1770. Silk and metal thread on black satin. 

New London, CT: Lyman Allyn Art Museum.

Rather than being the caring-then-distraught father, David (symbolizing King George III) is here the unseeing king, sitting in his palace playing his harp with no regard for what the people outside the palace (in the colonies) are suffering. Absalom is in the middle of the composition, indeed caught by his hair, his feet off the ground. Joab, David's commander in the scripture story, is wearing the uniform of a British redcoat. Absalom is the patriot, rebelling against an unfeeling monarch. 

The piece is believed to have been created soon after the Boston Massacre. On March 5, 1770, a British soldier was attacked by a mob in Boston. What started as a street altercation ended with the death of five American colonists at the hands of British soldiers. The creator of the piece - or at least the one to whom it is attributed is Faith Robinson Trumbull, wife of Jonathan Trumbull (Colonial Governor of CT) and mother of artist John Trumbull. 

The images of Absalom hanging from a tree can be disturbing, especially in light of the racial terrorist practice of lynching. This week on Art&Faith Matters on Facebook: a link to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

2 Samuel 11.26 - 12.13: David Has Slain...Two

"Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands." So sang the women as they danced and celebrated David (1 Samuel 18:7). A Renaissance manuscript and this reading from Hebrew scripture (2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a) help us focus on two of the tens of thousands. One is David's most famous instance of killing. The other his most infamous.

It is David's orchestration of Uriah's death that sets in motion the events in the text, which begins with the announcement of his death to David and then to Uriah's wife Bathsheba. She mourns for him, but when the mourning is done, David brings her into the palace as his wife. And Uriah is seemingly forgotten.

Clovio has chosen to imagine a moment after Uriah has been killed. Here he lies on the ground, nude, his horse, perhaps injured(?), beside him. The other soldiers have pulled back, leaving Uriah visible on the ground. David's plan has succeeded. Uriah is dead. David has slain this one.

Giulio Clovio. Farnese Hours (Folio 63v). 1546. NY: Morgan Library.

In the oval grisaille vignette below the central scene, David raises his sword to cut off the head of Goliath. The figure to the left of the central scene is David, wearing a helmet and some kind of armor. In his right hand he holds the severed head of Goliath. To the right of the central scene is David, slightly draped, carrying the sling in his left hand. Three of the four sections of the page are of David's triumphal, almost salvific killing of Goliath. But the central scene is one showing a David who seems hardly a man after God's own heart. The David whose faith in God made the impossible possible seems completely gone.

Nathan seems to think so, too. He calls David to account. Not for the thousands but for the one. 

This week on Art&Faith Matters on Facebook, considering Bathsheba.

2 Samuel 11.1-15: The Spring of the Year

They really do that? That was my response when I read my nephew's undergrad thesis. I had read 2 Samuel 11 before (Proper 12(17)/Pentecost +10), but the thesis confirmed it. It's right at the beginning of the text. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle. They really do that. And Americans have in our historic conscious (at least if you were in school around the time I was) an episode that helps illuminate that opening sentence in Hebrew scripture.

Do you know the building in the photo above? Any idea what it is? How about the one below? Any clues?

Does this painting help? Probably.

William T. Trego. The March to Valley Forge. 1883. Philadelphia, PA: Museum of the American Revolution.

We usually refer to it as just "Valley Forge." The winter that George Washington spent at Valley Forge, the Continental Army was in what was called Winter Quarters. According to my favorite historians, it was traditional to stop fighting in late October because the weather got worse. Some soldiers wound up doing low level operations such as raids and foraging for supplies, but for the most part the armies dispersed into winter quarters. Washington led his troops into winter quarters on December 19, 1777. William Trego imagined the scene as you see it above. The winter would not improve.

Around mid-April, after the spring rains died down, armies would come back out to resume their fight. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle...

Yes, they really do that. 

For thoughts on John 6:1-21, click here.