Kings are well, Kings!

      In the early history, people were ruled by kings, queens, emperors, pharaohs, kaisers, tsar etc. Most cultures revere their kings as gods while some are considered a servant of their gods. I can just imagine how their high place and authority above everyone else has led to extreme arrogance. These rulers are naturally at war with fate or God.  Their will might not necessarily fit the pre-ordained design.

I thought of an example of such in King David from the Old Testament.  He loved his people yet had innate desires which in turned fired back.  In 2 Samuel 24:13  David wanted a strong army to protect the nation. This resulted in David commanding a census, instead of completely relying on God to provide him with it.  Whats wrong with taking a census? It is an act of lack of faith in God.  Just like Tireseas warned Oedipus of his fate, Joab questions David's judgement. God gave him three choices of punishment: were 3 years of famine, flee for 3 months while pursued by enemies, or a pestilence for 3 days. For fear of a wrong choice, David asked God to choose for him. Pestilence was chosen and it cost him 70,000 men according to scripture.  God originally wanted to punish more people. David built an altar and burned costly sacrifices and prayed for mercy.  The plague was averted. His selfish desire for a strong kingdom, led him to a sin and a consequential calamity much like King Oedipus. Oedipus' nation would have faced a plague unless the killer of Laius was found. No doubt, he loved Thebes, but his love gave him a difficult choice. In both scenarios, king Oedipus and king David were at odds with God/fate but sacrifice was put forth.

I would say that Oedipus' sacrifice was more dramatic than David's, it shows that kings were very similar in how they deal with fate/pre-ordained destiny. They try to repair and alleviate the mistakes for the benefit of their own people. The inherent flaw of monarchy is not the fault of the one who sits on the throne, rather the system that bestowed them with such power.  Kings often have the right intentions, but not always the proper way of executing them. 








Left:King Oedipus

Left: King David and Joab arguing about the Census








Something unrelated that interests me right now

Scrambled Eggs

A seemingly simple breakfast item, that I try to elevate to make my morning a little more bearable.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You know what really grinds my Gears? Pt2

 Ok for most of y’all reading this, this doesn’t apply to you. However it will. Filing income taxes is a pain to do. Sometimes corporations will file them for you if you get lucky. But a majority of Americans have to file it themselves. First you print off the 1040 and grab the numbers from your W-2 and do the rest from there. However if you want to get a tax refund you have to report expenses relating to healthcare or tax deductible donations and a bunch of other things. After finishing the taxes your brain would probably be fried because of how complicated it is. The math isn’t though, but putting the right value on the right lines is straight up cancer. It’s like the IRS exists just to make taxes more complicated. Oh yeah and if you mess up you could get an audit, fined, even worse jail time. The real is reason is why? Well it’s all about money. Most countries have a system called “Return Free Filing” in which the government sends you the tax bill and you check it to see if it was d
Read more

Milkman's thoughts

Inside Milkman’s Thoughts Note: Temporarily moving away from modernism and looking through a different lens.  I was one of high class and with extensive wealth. When I saw the seven days, I took no pity on them, but rather judged them based on their attitudes and on how they took on others and blame but themselves for their disadvantages. I saw them as losers, failures and scum, going around harming others, mainly due to themselves being hurt by the same society. They have a mentality of entitlement, that this society owes them, due to what they’ve been through.   Guitar is a man who never made his dream of playing a guitar.   Porter, is the town drunk (pretty self-explanatory). With nowhere else to go, no one to call friends, made a group to mainly rebel against the dominating force, the white people. I had plenty to do and people to enjoy. I really didn’t care about the whites injustice towards members of my own community. I viewed Guitar as a radicali
Read more

Ways to Remember

Image
How History and People are Remembered There are countless means that people can keep the memory of others alive.  It is usually through tangible ways like writing, photographs, songs, plaques, building and more. Key events in history are relived in many books, movies and memorials.  We don't really pay attention or concern on how people are remembered, even when we come across an article, see or hear about a notable person from the past.  In class, I realized that besides memorials,  there are numerous ways to remember what is significant. As the world changed and evolved, so has how we remember the past. With modern technology, artists, architects, and writers have developed more abstract and more open ended avenues in doing so through tv, movie, and social media. Books  In class we learned about how the book The Things They Carried reflects the experience that the soldiers in the Vietnam war faced. The odd nonlinear structure of the book manifests the issues and the
Read more