Ruth Series Interlude: The making of a midrash

This is part of the ongoing Forest Hills Ruth Series, with the focus being on midrash. The rest of the material can be found here:

https://www.sefaria.org/groups/FHJC-Megillath-Ruth-Series

We recently encountered quite the jarring idea; That of King David's royal Moabite lineage.

Before investigating further, it is worthwhile to address why this idea should be so difficult to begin with.

For starters, the Book of Deuteronomy is very clear, stating unequivically:

Why such unforgiving harshness???

Well, being in the book of Deuteronomy, these words are ascribed to Moses himself.

And in Moses's lifetime, the Moabites were held responsible for one of the most catastrophic and traumatizing moments throughout the entirety of the Israelite's desert wanderings.

In the beginning of Numbers 22, King Balak of Moab attempts to hire a prophet to bring a curse upon the Israelites, camping nearby. Here are King Balak's words:

When this prophet opens his mouth to curse, the ever-vigilant God of Israel has him utter a blessing instead. One of the beautiful passages that many Jews recite daily upon entering a synagogue is attributed to this moment. Perhaps you recognize it:

Eventually, King Balak realizes this plot is futile and seems to give up. But immediately after, at the opening of Numbers 25, we are told that the Israelites "profaned themselves by wandering after Moabite women and worshipped their god!"

With this, it is no surprise that the Israelites lose the Divine Favor and Protection that they had just enjoyed. A plague is let loose throughout the camp. Thousands die.

Moses instructs his officials to start marching throughout the camp, slaying those participating.

Pinhas, one of Aaron's sons, zealously acts first. The Torah graphically describes his use of a spear, killing two people in one powerful thrust. And with that, the plague comes to an end.

While the Torah does not say this explicitly - it is more than reasonable to conclude that King Balak set this whole thing in motion. And this would set the tone for the relationship between Moab and Israel throughout the reset of the Torah.

And yet - despite the above, we are left with the following midrash (which we saw two weeks ago):

What this means is that one of our most beloved heroes - David, the shepherd-poet-musician-king; The slayer of Goliath; The one who finally captured Jerusalem and established it as our eternal capital; The founder of our royal lineage and great-ancestor of the Messiah; He comes from King Eglon??? The Moabite King whom Judges credits with forging an alliance with the enemies of Israel and successfully subjugated them for 18 years!?

If the Torah does not tell us that King David came from Moabite royalty - why would the Rabbis say such a thing!???

It's important to note that Midrash never just appears out of nowhere. The sages were incredibly careful to read Torah with the strongest of microscopes - paying utmost attention to every little detail in the text. Where midrash might seem strange, random, or bizarre to us, it might very well be a response to a seemingly small and insignificant detail that the Torah gave us elsewhere. In this way, it can be answering a difficulty that we didn't even think to ask - because we did not even read all the texts to which it is responding!

A midrash might also be building upon another midrash somewhere else- which, in its own right, is ALSO responding to a close reading of texts.

In short - there could be many different seams within one midrash - and finding them, pulling them apart in order to attempt to find some of the different materials that the author of the finished product could have been working working with, while speculative, could be a difficult but incredibly rewarding endeavor.

Let's start by going back to Eglon's final moment in Judges:

The Hebrew term for Eglon's declaration - "Silence!" is הס (haas). It does not show up often in the TaNaKh. But out of the few examples we do have, there does seem to be a pattern. Below are some examples.

Do you notice a pattern? Is there anything the sages might have picked up on that could have contributed to the crafting of our midrash?

There might be another clue from the narrative above. Not in Eglon's words, but in Ehud's. Is there anything that he says above that you find strange, or surprising?

Later on in Judges, there is an episode when an Israelite hero gives false information to his Philistine wife. Not once - but twice! You would think that he would have forfeited his opportunity to be believed in the future. But that's not what happens!

Here is how the Torah relates the next fateful exchange between Samson and Delilah:

There are at least two questions to ask here. Firstly, as mentioned above - why should she believe him this time at all?

And secondly - there is a sense in the text that she even believed him this time around with a conviction that she did not have before - even when Samson didn't have a history of lying! For in neither of the previous cases does the Torah say "Sensing that he had confided everything to her..." Why would this be?

The Abarbanel (Lisbon, 15th century) says the following:

I think this can help direct us to yet another one of the seams that make up our midrash. Take another look at Ehud's words, which he uttered right before making his move against Eglon. What do you notice now?

There is yet another major key piece in this puzzle.

Before there was King David, there was just David. A boy who would become a shepherd turned courageous soldier, and then a popular, widely admired and loved war-chief.

As oftentimes happens, popularity can evoke jealosy and fear in the reigning power. Sure enough, the then-King Saul felt threatened. And David found himself on the run.

Naturally, David was not only concerned for his own safety, but that of his family as well. But what he does to ensure the protection of his parents is shocking:

In an article on thetorah.com, Dr. Yael Avrami points out the incredible difficulties with this story - and then in suggesting an answer, ties it directly back to our puzzling midrash on David's origins! Here are own words:

Why would a simple shepherd from a Judahite family hold such intimate connections

with the king of Moab?

...

That the king of Moab agrees to protect David's family is even more puzzling when we

consider that Moab is described as a major enemy of the tribes of Israel in preceding parts of the Tanach.

The king of Moab's behavior would make more sense, however, if we assume that this account was part of a David tradition, which assumed David's family ties to the Moabites.

In their midrash on Ruth, the sages pick up on this problem and explain that David's great-grandmother Ruth was the Daughter of Eglon king of Moab, who was himself, according to the Sages, the grandson of Balak. (!!!)

--https://www.thetorah.com/article/book-of-ruth-recasting-davids-foreign-origins

There is one other midrash that has a few commonalities with our story from Megillath Ruth, which just might have influenced the author of our midrash's reading. Recall that the book of Genesis recounts that Abraham, in addition to having his wife Sarah, also had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar - with whom he eventually has Yishmael. We are not given any more information from the Torah about Hagar's background.

But consider this passage of midrash from Genesis Rabbah:

Are there enough similarities that the author of our original midrash could have read the book of Ruth in light of this midrash about Abraham's maidservants?

Bringing the Evidence Together

We began with a midrash which makes a very bold claim - without bringing any evidence. The Book of Ruth tells us that David is Ruth's descendant. The midrash takes this a major step further and traces this ancestry back to the Moabite Kings.

But with everything above, here are some observations and traditions that the author of the midrash perhaps was using as source material.

1. The relatively unusual choice of the word הס! - silence! Which in most other places is associated with some kind of revelation from God. So, here too there should be a divine revelation. (This is similar to to a technique of Rabbinic interpretation called a gezeira shava, which is used in deriving Torah-law. If the same word is used in two different contexts, then laws given in one context can be deduced to apply in another, as well.)

2. David's unusual relationship with the royal Moabite family as seen in the book of Samuel. Dr. Avrami even suggests that our midrash is an attempt to answer those difficult questions!

3. Ehud's invoking of Elohim, stating that he is bringing the word of God to Eglon. As the Abarbanel points out in the context of Samson - is is heavy, indeed, to do this. Perhaps the midrash was uncomfortable with the idea that an Israelite chieftain, chosen to be one of our saviours, would brazenly make such a claim as to be bearing the word of God - but for it to be completely false! Even with good intentions.

4. We have precedence from another midrash about women of royalty leaving their home, their privilege, and their opportunities, all for the sake of joining their fate with that of Israel. The sages tell us that מעשים אבות סימן לבנים - The deeds of the forefathers foretell what will happen to their children. Perhaps Ruth's leaving to accompany Naomi was seen as a parallel to Hagar's leaving to accompany Abraham.

Remember that this is all conjecture. The author of the midrash might have had some of this in mind, all of it in mind, or even none of it in mind! But the fact is that this midrash can certainly answer, or respond to all of these questions and difficulties.

With that, here's the big question;

Is this midrash a case of someone "making something up?" Or, can it be said to be a valid means of Biblical interpretation? Or, would you categorize this endeavor completely differently?