David Syllabus

The Story of King David (1 & 2 Samuel)

Michelangelo. David, detail (marble), 1504. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence.

with

Dr. Bill Creasy

All rights reserved. No part of this course—audio, video, photography, maps, timelines or other media—may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval devices without permission in writing or a licensing agreement from the copyright holder.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

2 The Story of King David (1 & 2 Samuel)

Traditional Authors: Samuel, Nathan and Gad

Traditional Date Written: c. 1050-970 B.C.

Period Covered: c. 1050-970 B.C.

Introduction

Originally, 1 & 2 Samuel were one unified literary work. The division into two books derives from the Greek and Latin traditions of the text, not the Hebrew. Like all the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, 1 & 2 Samuel were written on scrolls of rather limited physical length, no more than about 27-30 feet, and because the story is too long to fit on one scroll, the narrative was split roughly at midpoint, at the death of Saul, the major character in the story’s first half.

In the Greek Septuagint, 1 Samuel is titled basileion a’, or 1 Kingdoms, since the Books of Samuel and Kings are grouped together in the Greek tradition as 1-4 Kingdoms, a grouping preserved in St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and transmitted into English through the sixteenth-century Roman Catholic Douay-Rheims translation. The title “Samuel” doubtless arose from the fact that Samuel is the leading character at the beginning of the story, although it creates the odd problem that he dies by the end of 1 Samuel and he is not mentioned in 2 Samuel! Attributing traditional authorship to Samuel, Nathan and Gad derives from 1 Chronicles 29: 29-30—“As for the events of King David’s reign, from beginning to end, they are written in the records of Samuel the seer, the records of Nathan the prophet and the records of Gad the seer, together with the details of his reign and power, and the circumstances that surrounded him and Israel and the kingdoms of all the other lands.”

The textual history of 1 & 2 Samuel is exceedingly complex, and establishing a critical text of the story is mind-bogglingly difficult. The Hebrew “received text” for most books of Hebrew Scripture is referred to as the Masoretic text, because it is based on the textual tradition of Jewish scholars known as the Masoretes. The primary manuscript is Ms. B 19A, copied in A.D. 1008 and housed in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, the text of 1 & 2 Samuel in this manuscript is in very poor condition, with countless copying errors and glaring omissions. To establish a complete critical text, then, textual scholars must draw upon other ancient manuscripts, in particular:

• Codex Vaticanus—a fourth-century A.D. Greek manuscript that seems to have escaped the systematic revisions of other Greek manuscripts and that provides a direct link to an older, fuller Greek text than that of the Masoretic text.

3 • Codex Alexandrinus—a Greek manuscript from the same period that shows systematic revision toward the developing Masoretic text.

• Lucianic Manuscripts—later than Codex Vaticanus or Alexandrinus, they demonstrate further revisions toward the Masoretic text, but they also provide a valuable witness to texts in the Old Palestinian tradition, which may be compared profitably to the Masoretic text and the Old Greek texts, establishing one stratum in the developing Masoretic tradition.

• Old Latin Translations—from the second and third centuries A.D., which often reflect original readings from the Old Greek tradition, which are not in the Masoretic text.

• Archaic Samuel Scroll (4QSamb)—from Cave IV at Qumran, provides original readings not present in any later manuscripts.

• Larger Samuel Scroll (4QSama)—from Cave IV at Qumran, a later manuscript than 4QSamb, which shares many of the same readings, but has a fuller text, it also provides expanded readings that then appear in later manuscripts.

A Samuel fragment from Cave IV at Qumran (4QSamb). The text is 1 Samuel 23: 9-13.

4 Using the Masoretic text and augmenting it with readings from the above manuscripts—as well as others—results in a critical Hebrew edition of 1 & 2 Samuel, published in Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997), edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph. This is the Hebrew text from which all credible modern translations are made.

I mention the textual issues in 1 & 2 Samuel for two reasons: first, to illustrate the extraordinarily complex work that must be done to produce the English text that we take for granted in our Bibles; and second, to deepen our appreciation of the text’s subtleties and nuances.

Reading the David Story

In King David, the Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel, Jonathan Kirsch observes:

At the heart of the Book of Samuel, where the story of David is first told, we find a work of genius that anticipates the romantic lyricism and tragic grandeur of Shakespeare, the political wile of Machiavelli, and the modern psychological insight of Freud. And, just as much as Shakespeare or Machiavelli or Freud, the frank depiction of David in the pages of the Bible has defined what it means to be a human being: King David is “a symbol of the complexity and ambiguity of human experience itself.”1

No two-dimensional pious character, David “played exquisitely, he fought heroically, he loved titanically,” as historian Abram Leon Sachar notes. “Withal he was a profoundly simple being, cheerful, despondent, selfish, generous, sinning one moment, repenting the next, the most human character of the Bible.”2 Like everyone else, from Samuel to Saul to Jonathan—to God himself—when we encounter David we are charmed by him, and we fall under his spell.

As a work of literature, the David story is one of the most complex and subtle narratives in the Bible, and it is among the greatest stories in world literature. When we approach it, we do well to bring all of our critical reading skills, sharply honed.

To understand any literary work, we have to answer several questions in the course of our reading: What is happening in the story? Why is it happening? What connects the present event to the preceding and following actions? What are the characters’ motives? How do they view their fellow characters? What are the cultural and social norms that govern the world of the narrative? The answers given by each

1 Jonathan Kirsch, King David, the Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (New York: Ballantine Books, 2000), pp. 1-2. 2 Abram Leon Sachar, A History of the Jews, rev. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 34.

5 reader enable him or her to reconstruct the reality devised by the text and to make sense of the world represented in it.3

Yet, a close look at a story often reveals how few answers the text explicitly provides. In most instances, the reader provides the answers, some temporary, partial or tentative, others wholly and completely. The act of reading fills in the gaps created by the narrative itself. This “gap-filling” may involve simply arranging textual information in a linear sequence, or it may be more complex, demanding that the reader develop an intricate network of associations, laboriously, hesitantly and with constant modifications as additional information is disclosed at later stages in the story. The placement of the gaps and their size are a direct function of the narrator, who chooses what to tell the reader, when to tell it, how much to reveal and in what sequence.

Take for instance, the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. After the intricate and complex story leading up to Isaac’s long-anticipated birth, we read in Genesis 22: 1-2—

Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.” Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

As readers, we know that God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12: 2-3, in which he says, “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” We also know that the blessing will be transmitted through Isaac, not Ishmael, for when Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away, God says, “Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21: 12). We can only imagine, then, Abraham’s shock when God tells him to sacrifice Isaac, and we can only stand puzzled— along with Abraham—at God’s motive for issuing such a command. Then, in the next two verses we read, “Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about” (Genesis 22: 3-4). Clearly, the narrator has inserted a large gap between verses two and three. Between these two verses an entire night passes, and by morning Abraham has determined to obey God’s command. As readers, we are left to puzzle over Abraham’s thoughts during that dreadful night, to imagine the depth and pain of his struggle and to reconstruct the reasoning that leads him to obey God’s command.

As the story continues, “On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you” (Genesis 22: 4-5). Again, our narrator inserts a gap between verses three and four, a gap that spans three

3 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 186.

6 days, from the time Abraham leaves his home until he arrives at Moriah to sacrifice his son. During that time, does he question his decision? Does he vacillate? Does he speak with Isaac, or does a grim silence shroud the three-day journey? The reader can only speculate, and in doing so, fill in the gaps, drawing from previous information about Abraham and his relationship with God, about his decision-making processes, and about what he has learned of Abraham’s personality. Then in verse 5, Abraham remarkably says, “We will worship and then we will come back to you” [italics mine]. With this additional information, the reader may now conclude that Abraham determined either: 1) God would intervene and stop him from actually sacrificing his son, or 2) he would go through with the sacrifice and God would raise Isaac from the dead.4 In either case Abraham confirms the decision he had made during the night prior to leaving for Moriah.

As Abraham and Isaac trudge together toward the mountain, another gap occurs until Isaac asks, “The fire and the wood are here . . . but where is the lamb for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22: 7). At this, Abraham’s composure cracks; he replies, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” In a dazzling moment of grammatical ambiguity, our narrator strikes a near-fatal blow at Abraham’s resolve, when we are unable to tell if—grammatically—“my son” is an appositive or a vocative; that is, will God provide an offering other than Isaac, or will he provide “my son!”

We could continue reading the gaps in the Abraham/ Isaac story, but you get the idea. As readers, it is up to us to fill in the gaps, and we do so by drawing from what we have previously learned of the characters, context and action, and we are forced to revise our conclusions as we learn what follows in the story. This is brilliant narrative technique, and all imaginative literature engages in it to one degree or another. At a structural level, the gaps enrich our experience of the text as we collaborate with the narrator in constructing the story’s narrative world and the characters that populate it.

To emphasize the reader’s collaborative role in constructing the narrative by no means implies that “gap filling” is an arbitrary process. Quite the contrary. For the process to be valid, it must be legitimized by the text itself and not by subjective concerns, personal desires, or by introducing later historical or theological thinking that is outside the narrative world. In the New Testament, for example, the Gospels present Jesus’ virginal conception as a fact of the narrative, but it does not support the perpetual virginity of Mary: this is a later development, which draws upon centuries of theological inquiry; it is not a part of the narrative world presented in the gospels. To impose the perpetual virginity of Mary on the gospel narrative is to introduce an anachronism, to distort the narrative and to produce a misleading reading. Please understand that I am not questioning the perpetual virginity of Mary, but I am saying that such a relatively modern

4 The previous occurs, in fact, in verse 12 when the angel of the Lord stays Abraham’s hand as he is about to slit Isaac’s throat. The latter may also come into play during the dreadful three-day journey, for in Hebrews 11: 19 we read, “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”

7 doctrine cannot be introduced into an ancient text to fill the gaps and produce a sound reading of the narrative itself.5

Likewise, in the David story, to which we will turn shortly, the rabbis confronted a formidable and very emotional problem: How could Israel’s greatest king—and a writer of the psalms, at that—be an adulterer? The most frequent solution imposed on the text is that David did not commit adultery with Bathsheba, for her husband Uriah the Hittite had divorced Bathsheba before leaving for the war! As Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman (3rd-4th centuries A.D.) argues, “Whoever says that David sinned is totally mistaken. . .. How could he fall into sin while the Divine Presence rested upon him? . . . Under the house of David, whoever went forth into battle would give his wife a letter of divorce” (Shabbat 56a). Besides, argue the rabbis, the alluring Bathsheba seduced David, not the other way around. Such an argument is pious and well-intentioned, but it has no support whatsoever from the immediate narrative—never mind Nathan’s sharp rebuke of David in chapter 12 and David’s own confession in Psalm 51. Again, for a legitimate reading, the gaps must be filled in a manner congruent with the text, not according to one’s wishes or to beliefs that postdate the narrative world.

This concept of “reading the gaps” is essential to reading all literature; it is especially important in reading the Bible; and it is critical in reading the David and Bathsheba episode. I would like to work through the episode in some detail to illustrate the process.

As we read the David story in 1 & 2 Samuel, David is God’s “golden boy” through 2 Samuel 10: God has anointed him king to replace Saul; David has triumphed again and again in his battles against Israel’s enemies; he has conferred with God at every crucial moment; he has proven himself to be a brilliant strategist and tactician; and he has shown himself an altogether magnificent warrior/king.

And then we encounter 2 Samuel 11.

Let me present the first five verses of 2 Samuel 11 in a literal translation of the Hebrew [mine] to emphasize their diction, grammar and syntax:

In the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, David sent Joab and the king’s men and all Israel and they destroyed the Ammonites and they besieged Rabbah and David was sitting in Jerusalem and it happened at evening that David got up from his bed and was walking about on the roof of the king’s palace and he saw from the roof a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful and David sent and inquired about the woman and the one he sent said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the

5 The perpetual virginity of Mary was proposed officially at the first Lateran Council in A.D. 649, and it was defined as church doctrine in Constantinople at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in A.D. 681. As a Roman Catholic, I happily adhere to the teaching of the Church on this issue.

8 daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite?” and David sent messengers and he got her and she came to him and he lay with her (now she was purifying herself from her uncleanness), and she returned to her house and the woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, “I am pregnant.”

Most modern translations eliminate the repetitive words and smooth out the syntax to make the verses more palatable to our modern stylistic tastes. It is important to retain the sense of the original, however, if we are to understand how our author crafts his narrative.

Notice several elements in these five verses. First, they recount a terrible failing on David’s part. In every chapter leading to this episode, David is the warrior par excellence; he leads from the front; he is the tip of the spear: after all, that is why the people wanted a king to begin with, “a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles” (1 Samuel 8:20). Here, David sends out “Joab and the king’s men and all Israel and they destroyed the Ammonites and they besieged Rabbah.” In sharp contrast, “David was sitting in Jerusalem,” is wholly uncharacteristic of David, if we may judge from everything we’ve read to this point. The very structure of the sentence highlights the sharp contrast. We may view it in two parts: 1a) “In the spring, at the time when kings go out to war, David sent Joab and the king’s men and all Israel and they destroyed the Ammonites and they besieged Rabbah;” and 1b) “and David was sitting in Jerusalem.” In the first part, the Hebrew consists of twenty-three words that pile up the action, beginning with “Joab” and moving to “the king’s men” and “all Israel” (from one person, to many, to a multitude), who “destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah.” In purely informational terms, this may make an appropriate prelude to a war story centered on Joab and his army, but this is not a war story; it is a story of David’s intimately personal life. As readers, we reach this realization abruptly in part two of the sentence, when we read, “and David was sitting in Jerusalem.” In Hebrew, the verb “was sitting” is an active participle, indicating that as the action in 1a is taking place, David “was sitting in Jerusalem” the entire time. The contrast between Joab and his men “going out” and “destroying and besieging” with David “sitting” in Jerusalem is magnified by the sharp contrast between the twenty-three words in the first phrase and three words in the second. The dynamic action of the first phrase spotlights by contrast the static action of the second. As readers, the abruptness stops us short. It catches our attention. Something is wrong.6

In addition, the information our narrator gives us is purely objective, with no probing of motive or thought. Admittedly, biblical narrative is often sparse to the point of frugality, but the glaring omission of David’s motives and thoughts (the very information we want) prompt us to ask, “Just what is David doing in Jerusalem while everyone else is out fighting a war?”

6 As Robert Alter observes, “The verb for ‘sitting’ also means ‘to stay’ . . . but it is best to preserve the literal sense here because of the pointed sequence: sitting, lying, rising, and because in biblical usage ‘to sit’ is also an antonym of ‘to go out’” (The David Story, p. 250).

9 The answer arrives in the next four verses. Verse two intensifies the contrast between David and his men with a movement from general to specific (“In the spring” to “and it happened at evening”) and an “innocent” telling of a sequence of events: David rises in the evening and strolls about on the roof of his palace, where he sees a beautiful woman bathing. Such “objective” information causes the reader to fill in the gaps that we clearly sense: while Israel fights a war, its king lounges in luxury, napping in the late afternoon, rising in the evening, strolling about on the palace roof on a balmy spring evening and watching a naked woman bathe. Although the narrator remains objective about the scene, we don’t. Clearly, the narrator has led us ever so subtly to begin making judgments about David, about his motives and about his actions, rather than impose them upon us.

The technique continues in verses three, four and five as we follow David’s actions: “. . . and David sent and inquired about the woman and the one he sent said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite?” And David sent messengers and he got her and she came to him and he lay with her . . . and she returned to her house and the woman conceived and she sent and told David and said, “I am pregnant.” The string of coordinating conjunctions “and” highlights the linear action, as does the sequence of verbs: “sent,” “inquired,” “sent,” “got,” “came,” “lay with,” “returned,” “conceived,” “sent,” and “told.” The narrative’s objectivity seems stunningly inappropriate, given the content of David’s actions, causing the reader to probe beneath the surface. Just who is “Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, wife of Uriah the Hittite.” It is up to us to investigate. In 2 Samuel 23 we find a list of David’s “mighty men,” thirty- seven in all: Eliam, Bathsheba’s father, is the son of Ahithophel, who himself will play a pivotal role in the rebellion of David’s son, Absalom, later in the story, and Uriah the Hittite is the last in the list of David’s “mighty men,” one of his key officers (vv. 34-39). In these verses—withheld from us by the narrator at this point in the story—we learn the magnitude of what David is about to do: He not only “takes” another man’s wife, but he also betrays one of his own officers and sets in motion a series of cascading consequences that will manifest themselves later in the story.

As the episode continues, I quote from the NIV translation:

So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.”

When David was told, “Uriah did not go home,” he asked him, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?”

Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open

10 fields. How could I go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

Here, David summons Uriah from the battlefield to Jerusalem. But why? Again, the narrator confines himself simply to reporting events, offering no hint at motive and making no judgments. He leaves that to us. When we read, “So David sent word to Joab: ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite,’” the motive may be either benign or malignant: perhaps David wants to confess to Uriah and make right the wrong he has committed; perhaps he wants to make restitution; or perhaps his motive is darker.

When Uriah arrives, David seems polite enough, asking, “how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going.” Again, our narrator simply reports the conversation: “how . . . how . . . how,” offering no motive and no judgment, leading us down a path that can go in either direction, a path that continues when David tells Uriah to “go down to your house and wash your feet” and sending a gift after him (literally, “and the king’s provisions came out after him”). David’s suggestion entails a delicious double entendre: washing one’s feet is customary after traveling on hot, dusty roads; it is tantamount to saying, “go home, clean up and refresh yourself”; but “washing your feet” is also a euphemism for having sex, since “feet” in biblical usage also refers to the male genitals, a suggestion that is reinforced by David sending—in effect—a catered dinner of food and wine to create a romantic evening! Is this simple kindness to a loyal soldier? Or is it something else?

When David learns that Uriah did not go home, he asks, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?” and Uriah replies, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!” So, the ambiguity continues: if we follow a positive interpretation, Uriah appears noble and rather innocent; if his men are in the field, he couldn’t possibly avail himself of marital pleasures at home in his own bed.

David then asks him to stay a little longer, and he invites him to dinner and he drinks with him before sending him back to the field.

As we move from David’s sending for Uriah to sending him back to Joab, the narrator’s simple reporting of facts, while withholding motive and judgment, lulls us into following a benign interpretation of David’s actions. Yet, as the narrative proceeds, an uncomfortable awareness emerges: David has summoned Uriah on a long journey from Rabbah, and no substantive conversation transpires between them, only polite banter that moves over four days from general conversation to a night of dining and carousing.

The very lack of substance raises troubling doubts about David’s motives, doubts that are then confirmed like a thunderbolt when we next read: “In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so that he will be struck down and die” (11:14-15). Here, a positive reading of the narrative boomerangs upon us as David’s diabolical plot snaps into sharp focus. David had sent for Uriah in order that he would go home, have sex with his wife, and cover up what David has done. When the plot fails, David blatantly orders Uriah’s murder.

With this sudden realization, we can now go back and fill in the gaps that our narrator has left open. Clearly, David recalls Uriah from the front, solely to cover up his own crime. What seemed like innocent banter, now becomes inane prattling to get Uriah in his wife’s bed. When Uriah doesn’t go home, we must ask: “Does he know what David has done?” Recall the number of servants involved in the story: 1) David sends a servant to find out who the woman is, and the servant returns with an answer (11: 3); 2) David sends servants (plural) to get Bathsheba (11: 4); 3) Bathsheba sends a servant to David telling him that she is pregnant (11:5); 4) David sends a servant to get Uriah, who then returns with him on the two-day journey from Rabbah to Jerusalem (11: 6); and 5) a servant (or servants) bring a gift from David to Uriah’s home (11: 8). The more people involved in a conspiracy, the greater likelihood that the conspiracy will be made known. If it is, then we must see Uriah—and David—in a very different light. If Uriah learns of David’s actions before he arrives in Jerusalem, then David’s inane conversation on his arrival and his suggestion that Uriah go home and “wash his feet” along with the gift he sends reveal David as a genuine scoundrel. And if Uriah learns of David’s actions after he arrives, then we must see Uriah’s transformation during the night from a noble and rather innocent soldier to a wronged husband and a warrior betrayed by his own king. In either case, both David and Bathsheba clearly know the truth, and if David could see from his roof Bathsheba bathing, then both David and Bathsheba can see each other, and both can see Uriah sleeping at the king’s gate. If such is the case, and if Uriah knows what David has done, then his words to David take on new and dramatic meaning: “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents [as opposed to you, who are lounging in your palace], and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open field [as opposed to you, who dally in your bed]. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife [as you have done]? As surely as you live [which may not be much longer], I [as opposed to you] will not do such a thing!”

When David orders the murder of Uriah, any possibility of a benign reading on our part vanishes; we are propelled back into the narrative to fill in the gaps, given the new information we have; and David is revealed as a particularly loathsome villain.

This is dazzling narrative technique—a work of genius—which offers insight into how we should approach all of Scripture. “Reading the gaps” is a fundamental skill we should develop if we are truly to understand Scripture. Reading the gaps requires a thorough knowledge of narrative technique; a comprehensive understanding of context; a

12 close reading of the text itself; and the ability to dismiss preconceived ideas and operate solely within the world of the narrative.

Such is the task of becoming an educated reader.

13 The Story of King David (1 & 2 Samuel)

Outline

1 Samuel

I. Samuel: the Last Judge (1: 1 – 8: 22) 1. Samuel’s birth (1: 1 – 2: 10) 2. Samuel and Eli’s sons (2: 11-36) 3. Samuel and Eli (3: 1 – 4: 1) 4. Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant (4: 2 – 7: 1) 5. Samuel and the beginning of the Israelite Monarchy (7: 2 – 8: 22) II. Saul: the First King (9: 1 – 15: 35) 1. Samuel and Saul meet (9: 1 – 10: 16) 2. Saul chosen as king (10: 17 – 12: 25) 3. Saul’s poor judgment (13: 1 – 14: 52) 4. Saul and the Amalekites (15: 1-35) III. David: From Hero to Felon (16: 1 – 31: 13) 1. King Saul meets David (16: 1-23) 2. David and Goliath (17: 1 – 18: 5) 3. King Saul’s Jealousy (18: 6-30) 4. David on the Run (19: 1 – 28: 2) 5. King Saul’s Death (28: 3 – 31: 13)

2 Samuel

IV. David’s Rise to Kingship (1: 1 – 10: 19) 1. David learns of Saul’s death (1: 1-27) 2. David anointed king (2: 1-7) 3. David secures the throne (2: 8 – 10: 19) V. David’s Great Sin (11: 1-26) VI. Consequences (12: 1 – 20: 26) 1. David’s guilt revealed (12: 1-31) 2. David’s son, Ammon, rapes Absalom’s sister, Tamar (13: 1-39) 3. Absalom’s exile (14: 1-33) 4. Absalom’s revenge and death (15: 1 – 19: 9) 5. David’s kingship restored (19: 10 – 20: 26) VII. Flashback (21: 1 – 24: 25) 1. Gibeonite vengeance (21: 1-14) 2. David’s warrior days end (21: 15-22) 3. David’s song of thanksgiving and final words (22: 1 – 23: 7) 4. David’s mighty men (23: 8-39) 5. David’s census (24: 1-25)

14 1 Kings

VIII. Epilogue (1: 1 – 2: 12) 1. Rise of Solomon 2. Death of King David

15 The Story of King David Syllabus

Lesson #1: Introduction to “The Story of King David”

In King David, the Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel, Jonathan Kirsch observes:

No two-dimensional pious character, David “played exquisitely, he fought heroically, he loved titanically,” as historian Abram Leon Sachar notes. “Withal he was a profoundly simple being, cheerful, despondent, selfish, generous, sinning one moment, repenting the next, the most human character of the Bible.” Like everyone else, from Samuel to Saul to Jonathan—to God himself—when we encounter David we are charmed by him, and we fall under his spell.

As a work of literature, the David story is one of the most complex and subtle narratives in Scripture, and it is among the greatest stories in all of world literature.

In Lesson #1 we introduce the story.

Lesson #2: The Birth of Samuel (1: 1 – 3: 21)

Samuel is the last of the judges and the transition from decentralized, ad hoc authority to centralized, permanent kingship. Recall that in the latter days of the judges, after the time of Samson, “there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own sight” (Judges 21: 25). Although the judges started out well, they ended badly: Israel and its ad hoc leaders had become corrupt on every level—moral, political and religious. They were terrible times, and if the times had gotten worse, Israel—as a loose confederation of competing tribes—would have collapsed into chaos and been put under the ban by one or more of the many enemies who surrounded them.

It was time for God to intervene!

16 Lesson #3: Philistines Capture the Ark of the Covenant! (4: 1 – 7: 1)

In our study of Exodus, we built the Ark of the Covenant, and in Leviticus, we learned that the Ark resided within the Tabernacle’s “holy of Holies,” above which the pillar of cloud and fire rested—a theophany, the physical manifestation of God.

Indeed, only the High Priest could enter the holy of Holies, and only once a year on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Even then, he filled the holy of Holies with incense smoke before he entered, for his eyes were not permitted to view the Ark and the presence of God.

The Ark of the Covenant was the holiest, most sacred object in the entire world.

In Lesson #3, the Israelites carry the Ark into battle against the Philistines, as Joshua had it carried before his army when he crossed the Jordan River to attack Jericho.

This time, though, things go horribly wrong: the Philistines capture the Ark!

Lesson #4: Samuel and Saul (7: 2 – 10: 27)

In Lesson #4, Samuel defeats the Philistines (for a time), but he is old and his sons, Joel and Abijah, are corrupt, “accepting bribes and perverting justice” (8: 1-3). The people are fed up with crooked judges: they demand a king.

This is not a good idea, for God was to be Israel’s king, not some person. Samuel takes the people’s demand to God, who relents—but he warns Samuel what a king will do: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have seen it happen with the judges; with a king, corruption will escalate exponentially.

But the people insist.

Saul, who is young, tall and handsome, with long, flowing dark hair—a king straight out of central casting—is their man. Tall Saul.

Lesson #5: King Saul Put to the Test (11: 1 – 14: 52)

Kingship is no easy task, and although Saul fares well initially, rescuing the people of Jabesh-Gilead, he crumbles quickly. As Samuel steps out of the limelight into retirement, Saul struggles, botching battles with the Philistines and becoming erratic in his thinking and behavior. In a moment of astounding instability, he even orders his military officers to execute his heroic eldest son and heir to the throne, Jonathan.

Saul’s officers flatly refuse the king’s direct order.

17 As Shakespeare said in King Henry IV, Part II, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” (III, 1, 26-31), and Saul wears a heavy crown, indeed. Although it rests on broad shoulders, the weight of the crown begins to crush king Saul.

Lesson #6: King Saul, Fired! (15: 1 – 17: 58)

King Saul, sinking deeper into anxiety and depression, continues making mistakes, and he becomes ever-more defensive and erratic, now afraid of his own men.

God finally fires Saul as king, and he sends Samuel to Bethlehem in search of another. Recall, it was the people who wanted a king, and it was the people who choose Saul. Now, God is going to give them a king worthy of the name: David.

He is an unlikely choice: the youngest of Jesse of Bethlehem’s sons, a shepherd and a musician!

Meanwhile, Saul slips deeper into paranoia and madness. Not knowing that Samuel has anointed David as a fledgling king, Saul brings David into service as a court musician and harpist to sing to him when “an evil spirit” comes upon him.

At the same time, the Philistines gain ground and facedown the Israelites in the Valley of Elah. Thousands of men will die . . . until a heroic Philistine, a magnificent, seasoned warrior named Goliath, issues a mano a mano challenge: “there is no need for hundreds of men to die today, send out a man to fight me, winner take all.” Of course, Saul should accept the challenge: he is king, after all, and a head taller than anyone else, and the people had chosen him to fight their battles.

But Saul is hiding in the ranks.

The young musician, David, answers the call: he is not more than 15 years old. And we all know the result: David defeats Goliath with a single blow, and David becomes a national hero.

Saul’s paranoia deepens.

Lesson #7: David and Jonathan (18: 1 – 20: 42)

With David’s defeat of Goliath he rises quickly in Saul’s army, becoming a “general” before he is twenty years old: like Alexander the Great, David is a prodigy at the art of war. Saul, sinking ever deeper into paranoia and feeling evermore threatened by David, sends him on impossibly difficult, suicidal missions—and David prevails every time. David’s troops are fiercely loyal to him and Saul’s officers look to David, not to Saul, for leadership.

Jonathan, Saul’s son, is among them, a band of brothers, forged in brutal warfare. Jonathan knows a king when he sees one, and even though he is the heir apparent to Saul’s throne, Jonathan becomes David’s most intimate and loyal friend. Like John the Baptist to Jesus, Jonathan must decrease, that David may increase.

Here, we witness one of the two great friendships in Scripture: Ruth and Naomi; David and Jonathan.

In Lesson #7 we examine closely this most intimate of friendships, the friendship between two superb warriors, David and Jonathan.

Lesson #8: David on the Run (21: 1 – 24: 23)

Seething with jealousy and rage, Saul is determined to kill David. With Saul, hot on his heels, David “gets out of Dodge,” fleeing in the middle of the night as Saul’s assassins close in on him. Leaving with only his shirt on his back, David makes a midnight visit to Ahimelech, the priest of Nob, where the Tabernacle resides. Awakening Ahimelech, David asks for food and a weapon (with a ridiculous story about leaving on a mission so secret and urgent that he forgot his own sword and rations!). Ahimelech gives David the consecrated bread from the Tabernacle and the sword of Goliath, a relic that was kept at the Tabernacle (but a really fine sword, as David knows, having lopped off Goliath’s head with it!). But Ahimelech is compromised: later, Saul executes him and his entire family for helping David.

Israel is a very small country, about the size of present day New Jersey. Where can David go to evade Saul? Gath. Yes, Gath! One of the five fortified Philistine cities on the coastal plain, home of Goliath, the giant of Gath. David ingeniously enters the city, and he goes to work for Achish, king of Gath, as a mercenary. Who better to fight the Israelites than their now disgraced, criminal hero?

David forms a mercenary army of 600 men, and he goes on Gath’s payroll.

Lesson #9: The Death of King Saul (25: 1 – 31: 13)

With David now working for the Philistines, Saul redoubles his efforts to hunt him down and kill him. Easier said than done!

Meanwhile, David is gaining quite the reputation as a dashing and daring outlaw, posing as a mercenary working for the Philistines, while covertly raiding Philistine outposts, conferring with Jonathan, and playing a very dangerous game as a double agent, a spy in the Philistine camp. All the while, with Samuel’s death, Saul sinks ever-deeper into paranoia and madness. Twice he thinks he has David cornered, and twice David turns the table on Saul, sparing his life.

As Saul and David play at cat and mouse, the Philistine kings marshal their forces for a final battle with the Israelites at the foot of Mount Gilboa. Achish, king of Gath, insists that David and his men form the tip of the spear in the attack against Israel, putting David in an impossible position: if he refuses, he will expose himself as an Israelite spy; if he accepts, he will slaughter his Israelite kinsmen, including Saul and Jonathan, who are leading Israel’s army.

Lesson #9 throws us right into thick of David’s dilemma.

Lesson #10: David’s Rise to Kingship (2 Samuel 1: 1 – 6: 23)

With the death of Saul and his three sons—Jonathan, Abinadab and Malchishua—the door opens for David to become king. But it’s a door he must walk through very carefully, for David has no claim whatsoever to the throne of Israel. Kingship lay with the house of Saul, within the tribe of Benjamin. Saul and his three sons may be dead, but Saul had one remaining legitimate son, Ish-bosheth, and a grandson (Jonathan’s son), Mephibosheth, both of whom have legitimate claims to the throne.

You may say: “Just a moment! God anointed David king when he was a boy, back in 1 Samuel 16: 13. Of course, he is Israel’s legitimate king. God said so!” Be that as it may, most Israelites viewed David as a traitor from the tribe of Judah, a vicious mercenary who had worked for Israel’s enemy, the Philistines, for the past decade.

No. If David is to become king, he will have to walk a very dangerous path of treachery, deceit and murder, all the while wearing a patina of innocence and righteousness, a path of Machiavellian subtlety, duplicity and shrewdness.

Lesson #11: Forging a United Monarchy (7: 1 – 10: 19)

With David firmly ensconced as king on his throne in Jerusalem—and with his political enemies eliminated—David must now subdue his foreign enemies and gain control over the major south-to-north international trade routes: the Via Maris and the King’s Highway, along with the east-to-west linking roads that span his territory. David knows—as did many before him and since—that to control the power and wealth of the ancient world, he must control the land bridge linking Europe, Asia and Africa, the land bridge that runs from Egypt to Aram (Syria) and from the Mediterranean Sea to the eastern mountain range. Only then will David rise from a tribal warlord to a monarch, from gaining wealth through plunder to controlling international commerce.

And that is precisely what he does.

20 Lesson #12: David’s Great Sin (11: 1-27)

Willem Drost. Bathsheba Holding David’s Letter (oil on canvas), 1654. Louvre Museum, Paris.

21 Lesson #13: The Chickens Come Home to Roost (12: 1-31)

In the parable of the lamp, Jesus says: “There is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light” (Lune 8: 17). And that is true of David’s sin: not simply the rape of Bathsheba, but the murder of her husband and David’s senior officer, Uriah the Hittite, along with the murder of Uriah’s men to cover it all up.

Nathan was a court prophet and one of David’s closest confidants. When Nathan learns of the Uriah/Bathsheba incident, he confronts David face-to-face. Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly), David did not know he had done anything wrong! When Nathan confronts David, David is stunned into silence, his face turning a deathly pale, and he stammers: “I have sinned against the Lord” (12: 13)!

And then Nathan lays into David, telling him exactly what the consequences of his sins will be. God forgives David, but importantly, God forgiving sin does not cancel the consequences of sin.

And the consequences will shape dramatically the rest of David’s life, horrible consequences that he could never have imagined.

Lesson #14: The Rape of Tamar (13: 1 – 14: 33)

David had many sons: Amnon, his firstborn, was born to Ahinoam of Jezreel; Absalom, his third son, was born to Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. David had many daughters, as well, including Tamar, Absalom’s sister, the daughter of Maacah.

In Lesson #14, the consequences of David’s sin cascade upon him. His eldest son and heir to the throne, Amnon, rapes his half-sister, Tamar. When Absalom, her brother, finds out, he is livid with rage. For two years, he simmers, as David does nothing to punish Amnon. Finally, Absalom takes matters into his own hands: he murders Amnon, his brother, and Absalom flees to Geshur for protection by his grandfather, Talmai, king of Geshur.

David grieves for Amnon, but he grieves even more for Absalom in exile. Amnon was a rat, but Absalom was a mirror image of his father David: if David’s sister had been raped, there would have been blood on the ground. If given the choice, David would have chosen Absalom to become king after him, not Amnon.

Ultimately, Absalom returns to court, but he is not allowed to see David. Absalom stews . . . and he begins plotting!

22 Lesson #15: “O, Absalom, my son . . .” (15: 1 – 19: 9)

Once Absalom returns to court from Geshur, his anger and resentment toward his father festers and grows malignant. Asking to go to Hebron to “fulfill a vow,” Absalom rallies the people there, along with his agents in the other tribes, and they proclaim him king. Recall that Hebron is the central city of the tribe of Judah, and David spent the first seven years of his reign there as king. Ahitophel, David’s senior political advisor, joins Absalom in the rebellion, and Absalom marches on Jerusalem.

David faces a terrible dilemma: either fight Absalom and kill his own son, or capitulate and flee Jerusalem. David flees.

As David hurries down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, weeping bitterly in sackcloth and ashes, pelted with dung and filth by Absalom’s supporters, Absalom enters Jerusalem unopposed, enters David’s palace and—at the advice of Ahitophel— has sex with David’s concubines on the roof of the palace, in full view of the people. Absalom has crossed the Rubicon.

Ahitophel advises Absalom to go after David at once and kill him, for David is distraught, weeping uncontrollably: assassinate him now, while he’s distracted and disoriented; give him time to recover and to muster an army, and David will prevail. Stupidly, Absalom ignores Ahitophel’s advice, and he waits, forming a large army to attack his father and finish him off.

It is a fatal mistake.

Absalom falls in the fray, speared by David’s general, Joab, as he dangles by the head and hair from a pistachio tree.

Rudolf von Ems. “Absalom’s Death,” The Chronicle of the World (miniature 174, fol. 286r), c. 1350. Hessische Landesbibliothek, Fulda, Germany

When David learns of Absalom’s death he is inconsolable, crying out in the most appalling grief in all of Scripture. David will never recover from Absalom’s betrayal and death.

Lesson #16: David, a Broken Man (19: 10 – 20: 26)

With the death of Absalom, David faces the unenviable task of rebuilding his fractured kingdom. How to deal with those who supported Absalom? How to recover from the shame of his own son having sex with David’s concubines in public? How to overcome the terrible guilt, knowing that Absalom’s death was the direct result of David’s great sin? Nathan had prophesied to David:

“The sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised [God] and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus, says the Lord: I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives before your very eyes, and will give them to your neighbor; he shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have acted in secret, but I will do this in the presence of all Israel, in the presence of the sun itself.”

(2 Samuel 12: 10-12)

24 David spends his final years in solitude, composing his later psalms and obsessed with building a beautiful temple for God: to honor him? Yes. But perhaps to make restitution to God, as well.

In the end it seems, David finds peace, if only in the composition of his most famous prayer: Psalm 23.

Lesson #17: Flashback! (21: 1 - 24: 25)

In the 1969 movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Academy Award winning film ends with a freeze frame of the pair charging out of a building, guns blazing, as the entire Bolivian army opens fire on them. On the freeze frame, a series of flashbacks recalls memorable moments between the two antiheros, illuminating their characters and their antics.

In the same way, 2 Samuel ends with a series of six flashbacks into David’s life:

A A young king David making a wise, but difficult, decision regarding Gibeonite vengeance; B King David past his prime, retiring from the battlefield, exhausted; C David’s “Song of Thanksgiving and Praise”; B’ David’s “mighty men,” the brotherhood of warriors in their prime; A’ A mature king David making a poor, but difficult decision regarding a census he took.

It’s a brilliant conclusion to the Samuel narrative.

Lesson #18: Epilogue: David’s Death and the Rise of King Solomon (1 Kings 1: 1 – 2: 12)

The Story of King David ends with an epilogue, two chapters in 1 Kings chronicling David’s death and Solomon’s rise to the kingship. It’s a remarkable ending. 1 Chronicles 3: 1-8 tells us that David had 19 sons: 1) six born in Hebron (Amnon, Daniel, Absalom, Adonijah, Shephatiah and Ithream); 2) four born to Bathsheba (Shimea, Shobab, Nathan and Solomon); and 3) nine others born in Jerusalem (Ibhar, Elishua, Elpelet, Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama, Eliada and Eliphelet).

David’s firstborn, Amnon, is murdered by his brother Absalom; Daniel apparently dies in infancy or childhood, since we know nothing of him in Scripture; Absalom is killed during his rebellion against David; leaving Adonijah as the legitimate heir to the throne.

25 And Adonijah tries to get it, but he’s thwarted by his own arrogance and palace intrigue. Told that Adonijah is about to proclaim himself king, Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet plot to elevate Bathsheba’s son, Solomon (who is son #10 of 19), to the throne. And they succeed.

But it’s one thing to capture the throne; it’s another to keep it. On his deathbed, David gives Solomon advice, advice worthy of a Mafia Don. David’s story ends like Godfather I, with all of Solomon’s potential enemies murdered, including Solomon’s brother.

Then “David rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David” (1 Kings 2: 10).

Lesson #19: The Psalms of King David, Part 1

In these final two lessons on The Story of King David, we turn to the Psalms. Seventy-three of the 150 psalms are attributed to David, and many of them illuminate David’s inner life: as a collection, we might dub them—“The Davidic Psalms: A Journey into the Heart of a King.”

Here, we investigate some of them.

Lesson #20: The Psalms of King David Part 2

We continue investigating the Davidic psalms, concluding our series.

Bibliography

Robert Alter. The Art of Biblical Narrative (Revised and Updated). New York: Basic Books, 2011.

_____. The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel. New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1999.

A. A. Anderson. 2 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 11). Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1989.

Shimon Bar-Efrat. Narrative Art in the Bible (Understanding the Bible and Its World). London: T & T Clark, 1992.

Adele Berlin. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. Warsaw, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994.

Walter Brueggemann. David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002.

Kenneth M. Craig, Jr. Asking for Rhetoric: the Hebrew Bible’s Protean Interrogative (Biblical Interpretation Series). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005.

Edward F. Edinger. The Bible and the Psyche: Individuation Symbolism in the Old Testament (Studies in Jungian Psychology, #24). Toronto: Inner City Books, 1986.

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition. New York: Free Press, 2006.

J. P. Fokkelman. Reading Biblical Narrative. Leiderdorp, The Netherlands: Deo Publishing, 1999.

Everett Fox. Give Us a King!: Samuel, Saul and David. New York: Schocken Books, 1999.

Barbara Green. How Are the Mighty Fallen?: A Dialogical Study of King Saul in 1 Samuel (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series, #365). Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.

27 D. M. Gunn. The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament). Sheffield: Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield, 1978.

Baruch Halpern. David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.

Colum Hourihane, ed. King David in the Index of Christian Art (Publications of the Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

David Jobling. 1 Samuel (Berit Olam, Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry). Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1998.

Robert Kawashima. Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature). Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 2004.

Jonathan Kirsch. King David: the Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

Ralph W. Klein. 1 Samuel (Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 10). Dallas, Texas: Word Books, 1983.

Jerry M. Landay. David: Power, Lust and Betrayal in Biblical Times. Berkeley, California: Ulysses Press, 1998.

Larry L. Lyke. King David with the Wise Woman of Tekoa: The Resonance of Tradition in Parabolic Narrative (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series), reissue edition. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.

Steven L. McKenzie. King David: a Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Samuel A. Meier. Speaking of Speaking: Making Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1992.

Craig Morrison. 2 Samuel (Berit Olam, Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry). Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2007.

Elton E. Smith. My Son! My Son!: King David and Prince Absalom. Lancaster, England: Carnegie Publishing, 1999.

Meir Sternberg. The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature). Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 1987.

28 Marti J. Steussy. David: Biblical Portraits of Power (Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

David Wolpe. David: the Divided Heart. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.