Of crucial note, this—the author of Genesis and Exodus wrote toward the last years of Solomon, whose reign ended around 922 CE. And one wonders—does our literary genius stand in a kind of shamed collusion with the assimilationists, the kings of Israel?
After the aborted revolution of the Maccabees, three generations of clan wars achieved only this—creation of an apish imperium.
After that debacle, our text takes its final form.
¶
If that were all, why open the scroll? Or why indeed compose it?
One ventures—by way of warning and sane prospect, both. In hope of other, better things to come. Other, far different consequences. Almost one thinks, a different species of humans walking our tormented world. The great prophets.
Who will salvage—something. Will prepare a way (as Christians believe)—for Someone.
¶
Meantime, a salutary warning. In the centuries from Exodus through Judges and Kings, a violent leadership begets a double phenomenon: a war god in its own image, and a succession of ethical clones. The latter bear arms, kill wantonly, die in battle. Multitudes pay heavily for royal follies, in forced taxation, poverty, generational hatreds.
¶
And today, at the turn of another millennium?
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