Evil working for God?

[Tellyontellyon]

1 Samuel 18:10
The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand.

*

So God can employ an evil spirit to do work for him?
Why would God do this? If he wanted to punish he could do it himself.
This is interesting, because it is not simply God's righteous goodness appearing as something bad to us because of our arrogance, or even a passive allowing of evil... This is the active sending of evil from God to do a job.
God is causing an evil spirit to do evil...
How then could evil be the absence of God, or of good.
God is the active director of evil here.

Please explain..

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Please explain..

The context here is basically that of a King and His Court. Which fits in with similar themes in other religions where Zeus or whoever has their court where other gods and other beings serve the monarch of the pantheon. In the case of the JudeoChristian tradition it is the angels, aka The Sons of God serving Yahew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Council

If he wanted to punish he could do it himself.

Absolutely, but he is still a King. All the stuff your talking about is based on later theology coming from the New Testament, the notion of God as King, monarch of the universe etc. is something older than that.
It also is kind of a meta theme that throughout the Bible from early Genesis to Revelation.

And by Old I mean "Older than Dirt"

Older Than Dirt - TV Tropes

 

[CuriousPagan]

Bad translation. It should be a "distressing" spirit which was sent to punish Saul for rejecting God.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

Bad translation. It should be a "distressing" spirit which was sent to punish Saul for rejecting God.

I've looked at a few translations and haven't seen that... is the Hebrew word 'distressing'?

Edit, on Biblehub the Hebrew word seems to be translated as distressing, but that seems to be the only place in the Bible where that Hebrew word gets translated that way.... it's almost universally translated as 'evil' or 'bad' where it is translated in other verses...
... but sus to be honest.

 

[ViaCrucis]

1 Samuel 18:10
The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand.

*

So God can employ an evil spirit to do work for him?
Why would God do this? If he wanted to punish he could do it himself.
This is interesting, because it is not simply God's righteous goodness appearing as something bad to us because of our arrogance, or even a passive allowing of evil... This is the active sending of evil from God to do a job.
God is causing an evil spirit to do evil...
How then could evil be the absence of God, or of good.
God is the active director of evil here.

Please explain..

In 1 Samuel 16:14 we are told that God lifted His Spirit from Saul, and instead a ruach-ra', a spirit of wickedness from God came upon Saul. This is the same ruach-ra' mentioned here in 1 Samuel 18 and in a few other places.

This isn't a case of God sending a demon to torment Saul, rather we are seeing God lifting His favor and blessing from Saul (which He then gave to David), and in the absence of this Saul is seized by a spirit (not necessarily a spiritual being of some kind) that increasingly makes him irrational and envious--leading to this incident here where Saul tried to murder David.

The author wants to be clear that God has no equal, God is in charge over everything; such as we see in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, "I create light and I create the darkness". So in essence we have a firmly non-dualistic emphasis going on. Saul's madness is attributed as from God because God has removed His special blessing on Saul.

Saul has clearly become mentally unstable, and this is also obviously long before modern psychology, so to speak of someone as having been possessed by a spirit of madness would be the way to talk about it in the ancient world. So rather than thinking that Saul has become demon possessed here is probably not the correct way to understand the text; rather Saul has fallen into madness.

So the short of it is simply that as Saul became distant from God, Saul also became increasingly more erratic, ultimately falling into madness. That's probably the take away here.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

I've looked at a few translations and haven't seen that... is the Greek word 'distressing'?

Hebrew. The Hebrew word ra' can mean "bad" "evil" "calamitous" "distressing" etc. Hebrew is less inclined toward the kind of explicit dualistic good-evil category we are more familiar with. The spirit is called "evil" not because it is a kind of demon; but rather it is called "evil" because it is an affliction upon Saul. Saul's mind is being eaten away by his own envy toward David.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[CuriousPagan]

Hebrew. The Hebrew word ra' can mean "bad" "evil" "calamitous" "distressing" etc. Hebrew is less inclined toward the kind of explicit dualistic good-evil category we are more familiar with. The spirit is called "evil" not because it is a kind of demon; but rather it is called "evil" because it is an affliction upon Saul. Saul's mind is being eaten away by his own envy toward David.

So, they named their word for evil after the Egyptian sun god? Glad to see they weren't bitter about that 400 years of slavery.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

Hebrew. The Hebrew word ra' can mean "bad" "evil" "calamitous" "distressing" etc. Hebrew is less inclined toward the kind of explicit dualistic good-evil category we are more familiar with. The spirit is called "evil" not because it is a kind of demon; but rather it is called "evil" because it is an affliction upon Saul. Saul's mind is being eaten away by his own envy toward David.

-CryptoLutheran

It says an evil spirit FROM God, this isn't saying that God removed himself and then this evil slipped in... It is clearly FROM God. And the word is almost universally translated as 'Evil' in the rest of the OT... so I'm not yet convinced of your explanation.

 

[CuriousPagan]

In 1 Samuel 16:14 we are told that God lifted His Spirit from Saul, and instead a ruach-ra', a spirit of wickedness from God came upon Saul. This is the same ruach-ra' mentioned here in 1 Samuel 18 and in a few other places.

This isn't a case of God sending a demon to torment Saul, rather we are seeing God lifting His favor and blessing from Saul (which He then gave to David), and in the absence of this Saul is seized by a spirit (not necessarily a spiritual being of some kind) that increasingly makes him irrational and envious--leading to this incident here where Saul tried to murder David.

The author wants to be clear that God has no equal, God is in charge over everything; such as we see in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, "I create light and I create the darkness". So in essence we have a firmly non-dualistic emphasis going on. Saul's madness is attributed as from God because God has removed His special blessing on Saul.

Saul has clearly become mentally unstable, and this is also obviously long before modern psychology, so to speak of someone as having been possessed by a spirit of madness would be the way to talk about it in the ancient world. So rather than thinking that Saul has become demon possessed here is probably not the correct way to understand the text; rather Saul has fallen into madness.

So the short of it is simply that as Saul became distant from God, Saul also became increasingly more erratic, ultimately falling into madness. That's probably the take away here.

-CryptoLutheran

I've heard an interesting idea that ancients were unable to understand why they were feeling or thinking a certain way so they would ascribe emotional states to deities ir spirits. ("And then Athena whispered to Odysseus." "YHWH hardened the pharaoh's heart."

 

[Norbert L]

1 Samuel 18:10
The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand.

*

So God can employ an evil spirit to do work for him?
Why would God do this? If he wanted to punish he could do it himself.
This is interesting, because it is not simply God's righteous goodness appearing as something bad to us because of our arrogance, or even a passive allowing of evil... This is the active sending of evil from God to do a job.
God is causing an evil spirit to do evil...
How then could evil be the absence of God, or of good.
God is the active director of evil here.

Please explain..

None of us are totally aware of what happens in Heaven within its' jurisprudence. However in Job's instance, we know a fair bit more. God and Job's relationship was being slandered.

To reach the conclusion that God is the progenitor of an evil is a judgement based on only half the story.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

However in Job's instance, we know a fair bit more. God and Job's relationship was being slandered.

This is about 1 Samuel, not Job.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Bottom line is, all spirits are subject to the will and commands of God.

 

[Tellyontellyon]

In 1 Samuel 16:14 we are told that God lifted His Spirit from Saul, AND instead a ruach-ra', a spirit of wickedness FROM God came upon Saul.

FROM God

 

[Tellyontellyon]

Bottom line is, all spirits are subject to the will and commands of God.

This is an evil spirit doing evil... sent by God for that purpose.

 

[CuriousPagan]

FROM God

Why can't evil come from God? Everything comes from God. Hebrews were not Greeks, they weren't dualistic. If it existed, plenty or famine, war or peace, life or death, it all came from YHWH.

 

[Norbert L]

This is about 1 Samuel, not Job.

It's about what goes on in Heaven, why they do what they do. There's more than one person of that civilization involved.

The comparison shows we lack more background information in this case than we do for Job. That coming to judgements without hearing the whole story is more likely to reach an improper evaluation than the one that had actually occurred.

 

[Handmaid for Jesus]

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

 

[ViaCrucis]

So, they named their word for evil after the Egyptian sun god? Glad to see they weren't bitter about that 400 years of slavery.

The Hebrew word is רָעָה and is Anglicized as ra' (Resh Ayin Hah) which only very superficially sounds similar to the name of the Egyptian god R'. The Hebrew word comes from the root רַע, which simply means "bad", "adversity" "displeasure", etc. There's no etymological connection between the two.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

FROM God

Right, which is how the ancient Hebrews understood things--everything was from God. The moral cosmos wasn't divided between an all good power on one side and an all evil power on the other. There was God who made all and sustains all, and whether good or bad, all is from God.

As such this affliction of Saul's is likewise attributed to God.

It's important to understand this in its original Hebrew conception.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Right, which is how the ancient Hebrews understood things--everything was from God. The moral cosmos wasn't divided between an all good power on one side and an all evil power on the other. There was God who made all and sustains all, and whether good or bad, all is from God.

As such this affliction of Saul's is likewise attributed to God.

It's important to understand this in its original Hebrew conception.

-CryptoLutheran

Great Commentary Via! I will add I got a Jewish Study Bible that has a great article on "Inter Biblical Interpretation" it really has a lot to say on this sort of thing, when it comes to things like Theological Development in the text etc. How certain scriptures build on the older references, adding new levels of meaning etc.

Anyway we should not be surprised when an older text doesn't make distinctions that come later with such things as new revelation, theological development etc.