Insurrection

Insurrection in the UPDV is named in the prayers of David against conspirators, in the narrative of armed risings against the throne, and in a lone passing notice of a Roman-period uprising in Jerusalem. The word names a specific kind of trouble — the people, or some part of them, in arms against their own king or order.

David's Prayers Against Conspirators

The petitions in the Psalms describe insurrection as it feels from inside. "Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers, From the tumult of the workers of iniquity" (Ps 64:2). Psalm 55 turns the description into a long lament. The trouble is internal: "For it is not an enemy who reproached me; Or I could have borne it: It is not one who hated me who magnified himself against me; Or I would have hid myself from him: But it was you, [a] common man like me, My companion, my familiar friend. We took sweet counsel together; We walked in the house of God with the throng" (Ps 55:12-14). The city is in violence and strife (Ps 55:9-11), and the petitioner names the betrayer as a man whose mouth was butter and whose heart was war (Ps 55:21). The psalm closes with confidence that God will bring such men down (Ps 55:23).

Absalom

The fullest narrative of risings against an anointed king is Absalom's. The setup begins with his beauty — "Now in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as good-looking as Absalom" (2Sam 14:25) — and the slow campaign at the city gate, where he intercepts every suit before it can reach the king (2Sam 15:2). Then the report: "And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom" (2Sam 15:13). David's response is flight — "Arise, and let us flee; for else none of us will escape from Absalom" (2Sam 15:14) — and the war that follows ends in the woods, where Absalom is caught by his hair in a great oak (2Sam 18:9), struck through the heart by Joab (2Sam 18:14), and mourned by his father with the cry, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom" (2Sam 18:33).

Sheba The Son Of Bichri

A second uprising follows immediately on the heels of the first. "And there happened to be there a base fellow, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite: and he blew the trumpet, and said, We have no portion in David, neither do we have inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel" (2Sam 20:1). Israel followed him; Judah stayed (2Sam 20:2). David called Sheba's revolt worse than Absalom's: "Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than did Absalom" (2Sam 20:6). Joab pursued, killed Amasa with a feigned greeting (2Sam 20:9-10), and besieged Sheba in Abel of Beth-maacah. A wise woman in the city brokered the end: "his head will be thrown to you over the wall" (2Sam 20:21), and the revolt was over.

The Northern Revolt Against The Davidic House

The pattern recurs after Solomon. When Rehoboam refused to lighten the yoke, "all Israel saw that the king didn't listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion do we have in David?" (1Kings 12:16) — the very slogan Sheba had blown the trumpet to. Sirach summarizes the outcome: "So the people became two scepters, And from Ephraim [arose] a sinful kingdom" (Sir 47:21). Other revolts in the Davidic kingdom follow the same shape. "In his days Edom revolted from under the hand of Judah, and made a king over themselves" (2Kings 8:20; 2Chr 21:8). And at the end, Zedekiah's break with Babylon is named as rebellion: "Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon" (2Kings 24:20).

Maccabean Risings

The same vocabulary carries forward in the wars of the Maccabees. After a Hasmonean victory, Bacchides "took vengeance on the men who had revolted, and they ceased to go forth any more into the country" (1Ma 7:24). Later, "King Alexander was in Cilicia at that time: because those who were in those places had rebelled" (1Ma 11:14). The risings shift in target — sometimes against foreign overlords, sometimes against fellow Jews — but the word stays the same.

Barabbas

The latest insurrection in the canon is named only in passing. "And there was one called Barabbas, [lying] bound with those who had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder" (Mark 15:7). The word does double duty there — first as the act, then as the historical event already known by name to the readers — and the man who made it is the one the crowd asks for in place of Jesus. "They cried out therefore again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber" (John 18:40); "Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas" (Luke 23:18).