These chapters are an epilogue to the book, covering David’s just response to the Gibeonites, neutralizing the Philistines and his praise hymn to God who gave him victory in battling Israel’s enemies.
Two years of full-scale war in Ukraine have reshaped the military alliance called NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): Finland and Sweden have now joined, an unintended consequence, as afar as Vladimir Putin was concerned, of his brutal aggression against Ukraine. It is probably correct to argue that NATO is now more united than it has been since the fall of the USSR in the 1990s. NATO announced this month that two-thirds of the alliance’s members have met the goal of spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. That is a marked increase from a decade ago. But, at the same time, former President Donald J. Trump, the likely Republican candidate, said this month that he was willing to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” against NATO allies that do not fulfill their commitments on military spending.
A regular columnist in The Economist magazine writes under the label “Lexington” and recently published an article summarizing a 1988 six month visit by a Chinese political scientist, Wang Huning, to America and his subsequent book, America Against America. [Wang is now Chief of Ideology and Propaganda in China.] Wang was mesmerized by the voluntary pursuit of financial wherewithal, rather than any ideology or political system of coercion in America. For him, this was a source of stability. He was astonished at public libraries, where people could access the knowledge of generations past.
David escapes Jerusalem and prepares for the battle with Absalom, who is killed by Joab.
There is one incontrovertible fact about America: We are a nation of immigrants. It is important to remember this even about former president Trump: His mother came from Tong, a remote Scottish settlement that was once Viking territory. His grandfather came from Kallstadt, a Bavarian village. In America, everyone is from somewhere else; even Native Americans crossed the Bering Strait millennia ago.
Like a modern politician, Absalom intentionally presents himself as an alternative king, and is crowned king in Hebron; David flees Jerusalem.
The Alabama Supreme Court clearly opened a new phase in the legal battle over when life begins. Embryos created and stored in a medical facility must be considered children under the state’s law governing harmful death, the Court ruled. The ruling involved three couples who had sued the Center for Reproductive Medicine, a fertility clinic in Mobile, for inadvertently destroying their embryos. The plaintiffs argued that they were entitled to punitive damages under Alabama’s 1972 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The Court argued that the embryos fell under Alabama’s definition of minors and that the negligence lawsuits could proceed. The case now goes back to the State District Court for further litigation.
David is paralysed by the guilt from his sin and cannot act decisively as the King or as a father regarding his sons Amnon and Absalom.
The Russian state blandly announced the death of Alexei Navalny. Navalny was Russia’s foremost dissident and opposition leader. Despite being poisoned and repeatedly punished with long bouts of isolation in remote prisons, Navalny stood unbroken. He continued to mock Putin and denounce the invasion of Ukraine. As Nicholas Kristof argues, “His wit and refusal to bow to authority made him a Kremlin nightmare.”
David mourns the loss of his son; Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar; but David refuses to discipline Amnon.
