It would be an overstatement to call George Washington a talmid chacham -- an expert in Torah -- but he and his contemporaries were quite familiar with the Bible and often turned to it to understand or describe events in their own lives. 

Although raised in 13 separate colonies, 18th century Americans were bound together by shared knowledge of the English language, European history and Western religion. To find common intellectual ground, they often plumbed the Bible for stories which could be likened to their day to-day experiences. Throughout his lifetime, Washington was both the instigator--as well as the object--of such biblical analogies.

In reviewing Washington's remarkable life which spanned the more than 67 years between Feb. 22, 1732 and Dec. 14,1799, one encounters references to many familiar figures from the Bible, among them: Adam, Aaron, the builders of Babel, Haman, Isaiah, Micah, Moses, Noah, pharaoh, Samson, Saul, Sheba and Solomon. (In quoting these references, we use the King James Version of the Bible, as this version was familiar to Washington and his contemporaries.)

PASSAGE--George Washington, crossing of the Delaware is remembered by this commemorative sheet of stamps from the  United States Postal Service. Unlike Moses, who led the Hebrew's escape from Egyptian troops across the Red Sea, Washington's passage on the waters was in preparation for surprise attack against mercenary Hessians on Christmas Day.

Washington won early employment as a surveyor of property lying inland of Virginia, a vocation that gained him knowledge of the backwoods and of the American Indians. This in turn led to his being commissioned as a Virginia militia officer, who carried a warning from the governor of that colony to the French that their further encroachment upon lands claimed by Britain would not be tolerated. In engaging in a skirmish that left a French officer dead, Washington helped to touch off the French and Indian War, in which he later served as an aide to the British General Edward Braddock.

Although such momentous events might have provided Washington fodder for many a biblical analogy, the earliest I thus far have found occurred after the war was over, when Washington was focusing on the ordinary problems that might face any farmer. In a letter to a brother-in-law, he wrote in jocular fashion:

"...(O)ur growing prosperity--meaning the tobacco--is assailed by every villainous worm that has had an existence since the days of Noah. (How unkind it was of Noah, now I have mentioned his name, to suffer such a brood of vermin to get a berth in the ark) but perhaps you may be as well off as we are -- that is have no tobacco for them to eat..."

And from all that lives, of all flesh, two of each shall you bring into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female. --- Genesis 6:19

Soon enough, as a member of Virginia's House of Burgesses, Washington had other "villains" to worry about-- in particular members of the British Parliament who enacted taxes and other revenue measures designed to force the 13 colonies to help underwrite the cost of Britain's worldwide empire. As every American school boy and girl has learned since, not only were the taxes deemed by the colonists to be inimical to their interests, but were condemned as examples of "taxation without representation."

Washington was sent by Virginia to the Continental Congress which met in Philadelphia to consider unified action against the British, who had sent troops to Boston to enforce the taxes. Fighting had occurred in Lexington and Concord, and the citizens of Massachusetts wanted help from the other colonies.

Primarily so the struggle would be considered a continental concern, rather than simply a quarrel between New England and Britain, John Adams and other men of Massachusetts persuaded the Continental Congress to name the tall Virginian as "commander in chief" of the Continental Army, installing him over such New England generals in the field as Artemus Ward.

Thus, when Washington arrived in the Boston area in 1775 to take command of the colonial troops opposing the British, there was incredible curiosity about what manner of man he was. Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, was greatly impressed by Washington's bearing and dignity. After meeting the new commander-in-chief, she quoted to her husband what the Queen of Sheba had said when she first laid eyes on King Solomon: "The half was not told to me."

And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine  eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told to me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. -- I Kings 10:6-7

Washington found the British bottled up in Boston, surrounded in a semicircle by colonial troops. For many months, the two forces were in a standoff, until Washington was able in a daring night operation to fortify Dorchester Heights and thereby bring the British encampment within range of colonial artillery. 

That prompted the British to withdraw their troops from Boston, leaving behind considerable armament and other supplies. Eventually, the British would move their operations to a much stronger base -- New York -- but at the time, their withdrawal from Boston was cause for great celebration on the part of the American patriots. The mood of elation was captured in a sermon attended by Washington in which a chaplain likened the British decision to withdraw to the realization by the Egyptians that God had taken the side of the Israelites.

And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians. And took off their chariot wheels; that they drave them heavily: so that  the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians. -- Exodus 14: 24-25

Anticipating that the British would seek to make New York their next base, Washington marched his troops there ahead of them and tried as best as he could to fortify Manhattan Island against British attack. But from their base on Staten Island, the British were able to land their forces on Long Island, then muscle Washington's troops from the forts from which they guarded the entrance to New York Harbor. Throughout 1776 and 1777, Washington was forced to withdraw farther and farther from New York City.

WINTER OF DISCONTENT--Gen. Washington cheers on his troops at Valley Forge in this sheet of commemorative stamps.

With complete seapower at their disposal, and with greater knowledge of military tactics, the British in essence were able to reduce the American forces to guerrilla warriors. Not even Philadelphia, the colonial capital where the Declaration of Independence had been declared, could be protected from capture by the superior British forces. Colonial legislators began to mutter that maybe Washington wasn't such a great general afterall -- especially not when compared to American Gen. Horatio Gates who bested the British Gen. John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga.

One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, wrote to John Adams that perhaps it was time for Congress to question whether Washington was still suitable for the top job. "If our Congress can witness these things with composure and suffer them to pass without an inquiry, I shall think we have not shook off monarchical principles, and that, like the Israelites of old, we worship the work of our own hands" was the Rush judgment.

And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it  with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. -- Exodus 32:3-4

If the cold winter of 1777 spent in rude huts at Valley Forge, Pa., was the nadir for Washington's army, better times soon followed. The French recognized the independence of the United States and promised ships and troops to help in the fight against the British. An eventual American triumph, which once seemed a far-off dream, now was within the realm of reality. In his letters, Washington permitted himself once again to look forward to the day that he could return to his plantation and repose under his "own vine and fig tree."

And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig  tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon. -- I Kings 4:25

In 1778, the colonial troops broke out of Valley Forge, won a significant victory over the British at Monmouth Courthouse, N.J., and caused the British to retire back to New York -- in essence restoring the situation to what it was two years before, only this time it was the British on the defensive and the Americans on the attack.
Nevertheless Washington's troops continued to be hampered by lack of clothing, lack of equipment, lack of supplies, and lack of money -- a situation which the commander-in-chief ascribed in part to speculators who withheld their goods from his Army in order to claim greater profits.

"I would to God that one of the most atrocious of each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman!" he wrote angrily at the end of 1778 to Joseph Reed of Pennsylvania about such speculators and war profiteers.

And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman.  Then the King said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified. -- Esther 7:9

As the war continued inconclusively, in 1779, Washington invoked Isaiah's vision of peace in a letter to his young friend and near son, the Marquis de Lafayette, who had returned to France for a brief time after battling at Washington's side: 

"Whether in the character of an officer at the head of a corps of gallant French (if circumstances should require this), whether as a major-general commanding a division of the American army, or whether, after our swords and spears have given place to the ploughshare and pruning-hook, I see you as a private gentleman, a friend and companion, I shall welcome you in all the warmth of friendship to Columbia's shores...." 

In 1781, under the tutelage of the French General Comte de Rochambeau and the French Admiral de Grasse -- and with Lafayette again under Washington's command -- the combined colonial and French forces trapped the British General Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. Cornwallis's surrender was the last significant military action in the Revolutionary War. However, it was not until two years later that a peace treaty between Britain and its former colonies was completed and Washington felt free to take leave of his military position.

In a farewell letter to the governors of the 13 states, Washington offered a prayer "that God would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."

	He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God -- Micah 6:8 Washington already had been lionized during the eight years he had served as commander-in-chief, but in the glow of victory, delighted Americans sought to outdo each other in their praises for Washington.
SURRENDER AT YORKTOWN--The surrender of the British Gen. Cornwallis is depicted in this sheet of commemorative  stamps.

The retired general accepted the compliments in good humor. A letter written in 1783 to Mrs. Richard Stockton of New Jersey about her effusive poem about him indicates he did not allow such praise to go to his head.

"Fiction is to be sure the very life and soul of poetry -- all poets and poetesses have been indulged in the free and indisputable use of it, time out of mind," he wrote. "And to oblige you to make such an excellent poem on such a subject, without any materials but those of simple reality, would be as cruel as the edict of pharaoh which compelled the children of Israel to manufacture bricks without the necessary ingredients. Thus you are sheltered under the authority of prescription and I will not dare to charge you with an intentional breach of the rules of the Decalogue in giving so bright a coloring to the services I have been enabled to render my country." 

And Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their officers saying, You shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. -- Exodus 5:6-7

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor --- Exodus 20:16

Following the war, Washington returned to his beloved plantation Mount Vernon, but soon was sent again by Virginia to Philadelphia -- this time as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was unanimously elected as the presiding officer, and in that capacity made nearly no speeches.

Washington was in the chair when, at last, the work of the delegates was done, and Benjamin Franklin offered his conclusions about their efforts. "It ... astonished me, sir," Franklin said in address to Washington, "to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the builders of Babel: and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats."

And then they said, go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left off to build the city. -- Genesis 11:4-8

The work of founding a new government completed, Washington once again returned to Mount Vernon, celebrating by adding to the cupola of his mansion a new weathervane in the shape of the dove of peace.

And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from the earth -- Genesis 8:11

But if peaceful retirement was what Washington had in mind, his country had other plans for him. He was the unanimous choice under the new Constitution to become the first President of the United States. A year into Washington's presidency, his jealous vice president, John Adams, groused in a letter that Washington's popularity stemmed not from reading, thinking or writing, but from his fortunate marriage, his Virginia birthright and even a majestic physique "like the Hebrew sovereign chosen because he was taller by the head than the other Jews."

And he (Kish) had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. --I Samuel 9:2

America's old ally, France, in part inspired by the American revolution, overthrew its monarchy. But the French revolution soon went to excess, with dissenters carted one after another to the guillotine. 

Washington's Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton looked askance at the French Revolution, while his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson followed it with favor. At one point, Jefferson wrote that the Tree of Liberty sometimes requires watering with human blood. "Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is," opined the third U.S. President-to-be.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. -- Genesis 2:21-22

After France went to war with Britain, it called upon its old ally -- the United States-- for help. Washington, believing the United States needed to avoid foreign entanglements to be able to grow to maturity, proposed a policy of neutrality instead. But his Cabinet officers quarreled over what kind of neutrality it should be. Neutrality leaning toward the French? Or neutrality leaning toward the British? John Jay was sent by Washington to negotiate a treaty with the British. What he returned with enraged the friends of the French.

Commenting on a speech against the treaty by one friend of the French, Washington commented: "A Solomon is not necessary to interpret the design of the oration of Mr. Brackenridge."

And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom. -- I Kings 4:34

So bitter did the political division and factionalism become that it even followed Washington back to Mount Vernon after he laid down the burden of the presidency. Jefferson wrote a letter that generally was assumed by the newspapers which published it to be a sharp criticism of Washington: "Men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons in council...have had their heads shorn by the harlot of Britain."

And he (Samson) found a new jawbone of an ass and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. --Judges 15:15

Washington lived only two years after leaving office, missing by less than three weeks the opportunity to witness the turn of the 18th century to the 19th. In the years that followed his death, Washington's life became the subject of one legend after another -- perhaps none more familiar than that penned by Parson Mason Weems, who believed American boys and girls needed heroes whose lives could guide them positively down the road of life. Weems invented the tale about young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, then confessing to his father, "I can not tell a lie, father; it was I." What an irony! A lie was made up to teach children not to lie!

In writing about Washington, one must be careful not to follow in either the footsteps of Weems nor those of Mrs. Stockton, the erstwhile poetess. 

The man who is perhaps Washington's greatest biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, described the moment when Washington was awaiting confirmation that the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse had reached the Chesapeake Bay and would therefore be a participant in the planned campaign against Cornwallis at Yorktown: 

"As Washington talked of this, Rochambeau's vessel hove in sight," Freeman wrote. "The waiting American General forgot his dignity the moment he recognized the figure of the Count on deck. Washington took off his hat, pulled out his handkerchief and waved both with wide sweeps of his arms. When Rochambeau stepped ashore, Washington embraced his astonished comrade. Victory was ahead, the first clear-cut major victory he ever had won in the field. He had been waiting and working six years for that!"

I couldn't help but smile when I read that passage. It made me think of another excited leader who, in a time of celebration, completely forgot his dignity and danced and danced -- so exultant was he.

As it is related in II Samuel 6, "And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart."

Luckily, Martha Washington was no Michal. America's first First Lady apparently revered her husband throughout their days. 

Nevertheless, it seems to me that Washington had more in common with King David than any other figure found in Tanakh. He came upon the scene as an inexperienced warrior who defeated a mighty foe, overcoming incredible odds. He founded a government that defined a nation. And, he was a wise, though fallible, leader.