“And Adoni–bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.”
And Adoni-bezek said, 'Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to gather scraps under my table; God has now repaid me according to what I did.' And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there. — Adoni-bezek's confession acknowledges a divine principle of retributive justice operating through Israel's conquest: his own cruelty returns upon him through the same degradation he inflicted on seventy defeated rulers. The phrase 'scraps under my table' evokes the ultimate humiliation of subjugation, yet Adoni-bezek's recognition of God's judgment suggests that even pagan kings perceived the divine order operating through Israel. His death 'in Jerusalem' introduces the holy city into the narrative as a place of judgment and transition. This scene encapsulates a paradox: Israel's violence accomplishes God's justice, yet the very cruelty revealed in this passage foreshadows the moral ambiguities that will plague Israel's settlement period.
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