Haftarah Breshit - Mahar Hodesh (I Samuel 20:18-42) October 5, 2002

Rabbi David Kimche, the 13th century Provencal commentator, makes note of an otherwise innocuous detail in Jonathan’s declaration. He points out that the three arrows must signify the three days that David was to hide in the field waiting for the results of the test. Rabbi David Altschuler, the 18th century Galacian exegete (Metzudat David) offers a more pragmatic explanations. He asserts that the purpose of the first arrow was to arouse awareness to the message; the purpose of the second arrow was to carry the message (either far or near); and the third arrow was to carry the message if the second arrow failed to provide the proper message.

Rabbi Meir Malbim, the 19th Polish commentator, saw in the three arrows an entirely symbolic message. Arrows are a symbol in Rabbinic literature for “lashon hara” (talebearing or slander). “Lashon hara” is also know as being “lisha tlitai- three tongued” - a symbol taken from the fact that a snake’s tongue looks as if it were three tongues when it darts from a snake’s mouth. (see Professor S. Lieberman’s Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, p. 192) The number three signifies that lashon hara harms three people because it causes death to the one who speaks it, the one who hears it and to its subject. For Malbim, the three arrows symbolically represent the cause of the quarrel between King Saul and David and the ultimate downfall of Saul’s kingdom, the destruction of his family and his line. This is a serious lesson to take into the new year.