2 SAMUEL 14:17 — KING JAMES VERSION 0 0
“Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee.”
The woman's ascription of divine wisdom to the king—that "your servant knows that you will give a favorable answer"—represents the rhetorical completion of her appeal, her acknowledgment of the king's power and her confidence in his wisdom and justice. Her appeal to the king as a person who discerns between good and evil, capable of wise judgment, invokes the ideals of the monarchy and the king's role as the earthly manifestation of God's justice. The woman's confidence in the king's decision represents a form of pressure—the expectation that the king will live up to his own principles and the standards of justice he has established. The verse demonstrates the power of flattery and appeal to the king's self-image to reinforce the persuasion that the rhetorical case has established.
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