Tanach Thoughts

An Assyrian inscription from the time of Tiglath Pilesser III describes a list of kings that were conquered and subsequently gave tribute to the Assyrian king reads: "I installed Idi-bi'li as a Warden of Marches on the border of Musur. In all the countries which...[I received] the tribute of Kushtashpi of Commagene ( Kummu ḫ u ), Urik of Qu'e, Sibitti-be'l of Byblos,...Enil of Hamath, Panammu of Sam'al, Tarhulara of Gumgum, Sulumal of Militene,...Uassurme of Tabal, Ushhitti of Tuna, Urballa of Tuhana, Tuhamme of Ishtunda,...[Ma]tan-be'l of Arvad, Sanipu of Bit-Ammon, Salamanu of Moab,...Mitinti of Ashkelon, Jehoahaz ( Ia- ú - ḫ a-zi ) of Judah ( Ia- ú -da-a-a ) , Kaushmalaku of Edom ( Ú -du-mu-a-a ), Muzr[i...] ( Ḫ a-a-nu- ú -nu ) of Gaza ( Ḫ a-za-at-a-a ) (consisting of) gold, silver, tin, iron, antimony,4 linen garments with multicolored trimmings, garments of their native (industries) (being made of) dark purple wool...all kinds of costly objects be they pr...

 A quick thought I had last night, before getting on to part 2 of the Barak/Devorah posts: I've been troubled in recent months as I realized that I was moving away from my old comfort zone of favoring both P'shat and Drash in understanding Tanach, and moving towards almost an entirely P'shat mentality, grounded in archeological findings and word etymologies, among other things. I was bothered by this because it felt like I was beginning to see the aRDeS part of PaRDeS (P'shat, Remez, Drash and Sod) as meaningless, which I know it's not. But in a sense, it felt like I no longer saw any point in these aspects. Well, I'm still making my through this forest, but I wanted to share a thought I had last night: I was listening to a class on the story of Palti ben Laish and Michal. The question is an oldy: How could Palti marry a married woman (it doesn't say that David divorced Michal) and how could David take back Michal, after all, a man cannot take back his wife ...