Abstract

If we attempt to find signs of messianism within the rebellion as such, if, for example Korah, "contrary to" but always "together with" Benjamin, is the "first left oppositionist in the history of radical politics," then the final and divine violence carried out by God would, in fact, be Benjamin's pure revolutionary violence perpetrated precisely against this first revolutionary. The circulation of the alternative title of this text ("Benjamin's 'Divine Violence' and the case of Korah") within the subtitle ("The Rebellion against Moses as the First Scene of Messianism [Numbers, 16]"), and conversely, is an accurate description of the "misunderstanding" in connection to the understanding of revolution in Benjamin, because the one who carries out revolutionary violence is not found where we, all this time, had expected him to be. Is it precisely this betrayed expectation that constantly brings us back to Benjamin's "Critique of Violence"? But what exactly do we expect? Do we expect a final violence of catastrophic proportions negating every future violence and time of expectation? Do we expect the subject of this positive violence – the noble [edle] subject of the revolution?