Goliath Puts Tariffs, but not on Oil (I Samuel 17)
by Lowell Bliss, Director of Eden Vigil Institute for Environmental Leadership
GlobalNews.ca Headline: “Trump says Canada can’t avoid Feb. 1 tariffs, floats 10% oil rate.”
One of the ways that I believe climate change shapes our interpretation of Scripture is that, for those who hold a high view of Scripture relative to partisan politics, we begin to loosen our hero-villain hermeneutic. What do I mean? I grew up in American Sunday Schools where I was told, explicitly or tacitly, that there wasn’t a story in the Bible where I couldn’t automatically insert myself, or my portion of Christendom, or even my country into the role of the hero. Egyptian chariots chasing the Israelites in the Red Sea? We identified with the Israelites. Roman oligarchs oppressing young families like Joseph and Mary’s? We were the ones to whom an archangel might appear to warn us. In the Book of Revelation, the US is among the witnesses and not Babylon.
“The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small— and for destroying those who destroy the earth”
Saints and servants duly rewarded? Yes, that’s us. Destroyers of the earth in turn destroyed? Impossible, and perhaps even blasphemous.
One of the problems of the hero/villain narrative is that it borrows so heavily from “chosen people” exceptionalism. However much Jeremiah might protest, “no, it doesn’t work that way!” before Israel was taken into exile… however much Paul might protest, “no, it doesn’t work that way!” about salvation… however much Jesus might protest, “no, it doesn’t work that way!” when choosing a donkey with which to enter his triumph… it’s a hard mindset to let go of. What we miss out on as a result is growing in wisdom as we read Scripture. What we miss out on is any authentic engagement in the real world—either theirs in ancient Israel, or ours now in the year 2025.
I’m in a unique position this month. On Wednesday, January 15, I was sworn in as a Canadian citizen. (You can read my two related Substacks here (about freedom) and here (about climate change)). I am actually a dual citizen. On January 20, my birth country, the United States, inaugurated someone who has trolled my new naturalized country as the “51st state.” On the day that I’m writing this--Saturday, February 1--Trump announced he will impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada, except he will wait until “around” February 18 to decide about tariffs on oil, and only then at 10 percent. Perhaps by the time you read this, the situation will be different, but I’ll stick with today’s announcement because the main point is: Trump is a bully, and what am I to do with the hero/villain narrative when I love both the US and Canada?
Consequently, how am I supposed to read my countries and my churches into the story of David and Goliath from I Samuel 17? Who is David in this case? Do we look for the character who is God’s anointed, or for the one who is the underdog—which are both traditional ways to apply this story? Who is Goliath in this case? Is he the all brawn, no brain, heavily-armed aggressor? Or is he the cunning might-wielder able to single-handily win the art of the deal for the greatness of his country? Heaven forbid that I should point out that Goliath was born in what is now modern-day Gaza, and David was born in what is the present-day Palestinian West Bank. Oops.
Neither the U.S. nor Canada are either the David or Goliath of I Samuel 17. David and Goliath are the David and Goliath. And the flawed sinfulness that we see in David’s relationship to Bathsheba, Uriah, and his children is likely present in this story too, if we lay down the hero/villain hermeneutic and poke around some. For our purposes today though, I want to point out just one obscure detail in this story that has nothing to do with either combatant’s character, but with God’s. The name for God that David uses in this passage—first to his cowardly compatriots and then later to the aggressive Philistines-- is Elohim Khayim, “the living God.” This name for God appears only five times in the Old Testament and seems juxtaposed to the tribal gods of other nations who were idols. Honestly, there seems to be so much about Donald Trump and these tariffs that can be traced back to idolatry. MAGA’s idea of the United States of America is an idol. The worship of power—military, political, or economic—is an idol. (David challenges this idol by declaring “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves” v. 47). Money is an idol. Even Donald Trump himself seems to come close to demanding that Trudeau (or Episcopal bishop Mariann Budde) “bow down and recognize my greatness!” Finally, there is the issue of oil, the one exemption that Trump makes to his tariffs on Canadian goods. Apparently, fossil fuels are the one IDOL among us to which even the other idols bow down.
Hebrew scholars are actually divided on the translation of Elohim Khayim. Many believe that the proper rendering is “God of life.” Either way, whether we start calling out idolatry or death-dealing in the climate crisis, it’s time to start courageously engaging the battle, and it’s probably time we start reading our Bibles differently as well. February 1st, the day that Trump announced his tariffs, is also the Feast Day of the Celtic saint Brigid. She is recognized as the saint of thresholds. The legend is that she was born in the doorway of a barn at dawn, and thus at the threshold between darkness and light, inside and outside, winter and spring. The winter of 2025 certainly feels like a threshold, or more accurately: thresholds. One it seems we are getting shoved through. The other one we can choose to cross, the threshold of doing the work of the Living God of Life.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell
On behalf of Climate Intercessors Leadership Team