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2011 Not "Who Is on the Lord's Side?," but "Whose Side Is the Lord on?": Contesting Claims and Divine Inscrutability in Samuel 16:5-14 Timothy F. (Timothy Frederick) Simpson
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
NOT “WHO IS ON THE LORD’S SIDE?,” BUT “WHOSE SIDE IS THE LORD ON?”:
CONTESTING CLAIMS AND DIVINE INSCRUTABILITY IN 2 SAMUEL 16:5-14
By
TIMOTHY F. SIMPSON
A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2011 Timothy F. Simpson defended this dissertation on October 6, 2011.
The members of the supervisory committee were:
Matthew Goff Professor Directing Dissertation
Dennis Moore University Representative
Nicole Kelley Committee Member
David Levenson Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii For Kathy
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It takes a village to write a dissertation. I am so grateful to my teachers over the years who have encouraged and inspired me: Lee Hahnlen and Stephen Strehle from Liberty University; James Mueller and Sheldon Isenberg from the University of Florida; David Gunn, James D. Newsome and Walter Brueggemann of Columbia Theological Seminary; David Moessner, Carl Holladay, Vernon Robbins and Luke Timothy Johnson from Emory University; John Carroll and William P. Brown of Union Presbyterian Seminary; and especially David Levenson, Shannon Burkes, John Kelsay and Matthew Goff of Florida State University, who labored for many years to get me through this process. I also wish to thank Nicole Kelley and Dennis Moore for agreeing to serve as readers on my committee. Also worthy of thankful mention are the members of the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church in Rock Island, IL. On my first day of work in my first church out of seminary, as my secretary left for the day, she hollered out “Don’t forget Wednesday night Bible Study at 6 o’clock.” My heart stopped because no one on the pastor nominating committee had ever mentioned that being one of my pastoral duties, since, it turned out, none of them ever attended. But others apparently did, and I was unprepared to teach them. So I went with what I knew best and wanted to study the most. I started that night with verse 1 chapter 1 of 1 Samuel, and for the next 39 months I and this intrepid group of Bible students went word-by-word, verse- by-verse through the books of Samuel. This gave me the reason and the opportunity to master the vast secondary literature on the subject, as well as to try out my readings on actual hearers, some of which have made it into the following pages. I am especially thankful for Jim and Barb Bertelsen, Brian Bollman and Sharon DeFrieze. Without their patience with me and their diligence in studying the text themselves, I would never have learned the material thoroughly enough to have written a dissertation on the subject. Many ministry colleagues have also encouraged me in my academic work. In particular, I want to thank the members of the “San Marco clergy group,” Vince Kolb, Betsy Haynes, Lou Lothman and John Ragsdale, as well as Paul Hooker and Gwin Pratt. In addition to sharing the burdens of pastoral ministry, these folks have challenged me for the last decade and urged me forward at every sign of progress, which were often few and far between.
iv I have had the constant support and affirmation of my family throughout my entire life, without which I would never have achieved anything. My grandfather, the late Rev. Wendell Zimmerman was a towering figure in my development. On a Sunday night in early 1992, while on the platform of the church he had founded, he slumped over in his seat in full cardiac arrest just prior to preaching the evening sermon. At the same time on that night, I was at seminary 400 miles away, in my room, hammering out an exegesis paper on 2 Samuel 16:5-14 for a class with Walter Brueggemann due on that Tuesday morning. My mother called me about 7:30 in the evening to tell me that my grandfather was taken to the hospital and was not expected to live. Brueggemann had a policy of not accepting late papers under any circumstances, which meant that my paper had to get done right then. So I stayed up all night working to finish it so that I could leave and be with my family as soon as possible. My grandfather died early the next morning, just minutes after I had printed the paper that nearly twenty years later is the nucleus of what has become this dissertation. I am also grateful to my parents, the Rev. Dr. Jerry R. Simpson and Wenda S. Nelson. My mother gave me a love for reading and made me believe that I could do anything. My father gave me a love for studying, and convinced me that a life of service and commitment to others was the best and most fulfilling way to live. There really is no substitute for giving a child both confidence and a sense of purpose in life, and I have been blessed to have had both in abundance. My step-father, Randy Nelson, was also an important figure in my life and that of my kids, contributing greatly to getting me through so many years of school. I also want to thank my brother and oldest friend, Jon Marc Simpson, for a lifetime of support and companionship. Everything I learned, good and bad, about being a leader, got tried out on him first, and he loved me always anyway. And I am most grateful for the support and understanding from my children, Stephen, Caitlin and Jacob, and to their mother, Sherri Patray. They, above everyone else, know all of the costs of undertaking advanced theological education and paid that out over many long years as I pursued my goal. Finally, I wish to thank my wife, the Rev. Kathryn A. McLean, apart from whose encouragement this project would never have made it off of a thumb drive. She gave freely of her time, even before we were married, driving me to Tallahassee to meet with the department faculty, and to Atlanta to use the library, and then later spent hours typing and formatting page after page of bibliographic material in order to make it all turn out right. When I felt like the
v obstacles to finishing were too high, which was quite often, she encouraged me to keep at it, never pressuring, always cheering. It was just what I needed, and the primary reason that this dissertation is finally getting done. It is to Kathy, with love and gratitude, that this work is dedicated.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Chapter One: “Confession Is Good for the Soul”: Owning up to Methodological and Theological Assumptions………………………………………………………………….1 1.1 Canonical Criticism: Privileging Theological Discourse and Reading the Text as Scripture………………………………………………………………….4 1.2 Reader-Response Criticism: A Diary of the Reading Process…………………...14 1.3 Intertextuality: Reading Scripture with Scripture..………………………………17 1.4 Summary……………..………………………………………………………….23 2. Chapter Two: “Out With the Old and in with the New”: Surveying the Work of Earlier Interpreters: What’s Worked, What Hasn’t and Why A Fresh Approach Is Needed…………………………………………………………………………………..25 2.1 Classical Historical-Critical Approaches to David……………………………....27 2.1.1 Leonhard Rost……………………………………………………………27 2.1.2 Martin Noth………………………………………………………………32 2.2 The Literary Reappraisal of the David Narratives……………………………….36 2.2.1 David M. Gunn…………………………………………………………..36 2.2.2 J.P. Fokkelman…………………………………………………………..42 2.2.3 Robert Polzin…………………………………………………………….46 2.3 Contemporary Historical and Literary Approaches to David……………………53 2.3.1 Baruch Halpern…………………………………………………………..54 2.3.2 Steven McKenzie………………………………………………………...57 2.3.3 Anthony Campbell……………………………………………………….59 2.3.4 Robert Alter………………………………………………………….…..62 2.3.5 Paul Borgman……………………………………………………………65 2.3.6 Robert Pinsky……………………………………………………………67 2.4 Walter Brueggemann…………………………………………………………….68 2.5 Summary…………………………………………………………………………72 3. Chapter Three: “The Lord Works In Mysterious Ways”: The Inscrutability of God and Attempts to Co-Opt It for Personal, Political Gain in 2 Sam 16:5-14………………74 3.1 The Story Thus Far………………………………………………………………75 3.2 The Fall and Rise of David: 2 Samuel 15-20……………………………………80 3.3 vv. 5-7a David on the Run from Absalom, Jerusalem………………………..…89 3.4 vv. 7b-8 Shimei Comes Cursing; Sounds Like a Prophet……………………..…94 3.5 v. 9 Abishai Speaks for Tradition; Offers to Settle the Matter Immediately…...110 3.6 vv. 10-12: David Affirms, Rejects Both Shimei, Abishai ……………………..119 3.7 vv. 13-14 Narrating the Exit from the Land; Dirt, Stones and Curses……...….133 3.8 Aftermath……………………………………………………………………….137 3.8.1 2 Sam 19:17-24 (ET 16-23): Shimei Begs David’s Pardon……………...138 3.8.2 1 Kings 2:5-9: David Instructs Solomon to Kill Shimei…………………140 3.8.3 1 Kings 2:36-46: Solomon Kills Shimei………………………………….143 3.9 Summary………………………………………………………………………..147 4. Chapter Four: Conclusion…………………………………………………………...……148 References………………………………………………………………………………………154 Biographical Sketch..…………………………………………………..……………………….175
vii
ABSTRACT Second Samuel 16:5-14 is an important text for defining the character of both King David and Yahweh, the God of Israel. In this scene, the points of view of the various speakers battle for control of the narrative, attempting in turn to align their perspective with some aspect of what has been revealed earlier about Yahweh in the larger biblical story. Shimei, relative of the dead
King Saul, paints David as a murderer and under a divine curse. Shimei presents himself as
God’s instrument of truth and vengeance. Abishai, David’s nephew, first paints Shimei as a seditionist worthy of death, and then David as a kind of moral weakling who has lost his previous vigor and resolve. Abishai presents himself as the upholder of God’s Torah, the traditional family and the values that David himself used to espouse. David, when it comes his turn to speak, cuts a middle path between Shimei and Abishai, agreeing and disagreeing with both in turn. He then makes a startling theological declaration about his relationship to Yahweh that has often been taken to be a sign of faith, but which can more easily be read as a sign of his own hubris, which in turn fundamentally shapes the way in which the reader comes to think about Yahweh.
viii CHAPTER ONE
“CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL”: OWNING UP TO METHODOLOGICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS
Reading biblical texts in the 21st century has been rendered far more problematic than anyone would have guessed half a century ago. The optimism of biblical scholars regarding the methods employed by such figures as Gunkel and Wellhausen in the late 19th and early 20th centuries pointed to great advances in our understanding of the world of the text and the development of methods that would compel the scripture to give up its secrets.1 Indeed, for much of the past century that optimism remained intact, as researchers pushed these methods to their limits and then devised new ones to pick up where the others had left off. Since the 1960s, however, we have witnessed a dramatic and productive change in the way biblical scholars understand their task, as the philosophical presuppositions of historical criticism have been increasingly undermined as the sole or even the primary object of biblical interpretation. This change is most evident in what many who study scripture within the academy are seeking to uncover: rather than trying to answer the former question of “What really happened?” they frequently seek instead now to answer the question “How is meaning produced by this text (as it stands)?” 2 So while there is no longer a univocal view within the academy of how one ought to read a text, thus removing the historical questions from their former position of dominance
1 For examples of the many new directions in which biblical studies has gone in recent years, see e.g., Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert, eds., Reading from this Place: Volume 1: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States; Volume 2: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in Global Perspective (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995); A.K.M. Adam, Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006); John J. Pilch, Social Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible: Essays by the Context Text Group in Honor of Bruce Malina (New York and Leiden: Brill, 2001); Silvia Schroer and Sophia Bietenhard, Feminist Interpretation of the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press 2003).
2 Lawrence Boadt, in his review of The New Interpreters Bible, vol. 1, General Articles on the Old Testament; Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus, BQ 58/2 (1996): 326-327, highlights the current situation in introducing the Pentateuch. Joseph Blenkinsopp carefully introduces the present state of historical scholarship regarding sources, editors, etc. all of which is utterly ignored in the commentaries on Genesis and Exodus by Terence Fretheim and Walter Brueggemann, spectively.
1 within the field, the application of newer methodological approaches has created a wealth of insights as the Bible has been read with fresh eyes. The present work seeks to extend the insights of this latent enterprise in the study of biblical texts by applying several of these newer methods to one such (mostly ignored) text from the Hebrew Bible, 2 Samuel 16:5-14. In it, David is on the run from his son, the usurper Absalom, during which he is accosted by one Shimei, a relative of the former King Saul, who insults David with curses and menaces him by hurling stones and dirt clods at him. It is Shimei’s actions and the responses to them by the characters in the scene, and one not in the scene, that will be the primary focus of this present work. For here we are presented with a variety of perspectives on how the various characters in the scene think that God views the this transition in the monarchy from David to Absalom and what the divine plans are for its immediate future. As we shall see, each of the perspectives presented in the scene has validity within the lager canon of scripture, which therefore can be understood plausibly as appropriate moral responses to the situation. Shimei, Abishai and David will offer their opinions in turn, each of them trying to get a hold of the narrative, each of them trying to reframe what has happened, each of them offering a piece of the truth as Israel’s story tells it and as they understand it. Although the matter gets sorted out directly as the story unfolds in later chapters and the question of the succession to David’s throne gets solved in one direction and not the others, the difficulty for the reader of the text at this particular point in the narrative comes in trying to figure out which one of the positions articulated by the characters in the scene most nearly represents what God thinks of the situation, because all of them appear to be reflecting some aspect of his value system as presented in the canon, either implicitly or explicitly. In this chapter I will describe the methodological issues that I intend to pursue in the process of reading, specifically intertextuality, reader-response criticism, and canonical criticism. As I will demonstrate, these three areas have a mutually reinforcing relationship to the development of my reading strategy. In advocating this kind of methodological pluralism, I will argue that the interplay between the individual, the community and the text is a creative and productive nexus of interpretation, which has its place in academic biblical scholarship. Rather than treating the text as a dispassionate object whose proper meaning can only be derived by holding it at arm’s length and then comparing it with other similar texts of the time and place, in this dissertation I will instead argue that owning up to a religious commitment to the text and
2 admitting one’s biases towards the text and then owning up to one’s responses in encountering the text in such a fashion can produce a compelling reading of the story that actually accounts for many of the nuances of it (see the summary of ch. 3 below). Moreover, although other scholars are now following such strategies in their work, most notably Walter Brueggemann, to date, no one has ever undertaken an extensive, monograph-length interpretation of this sort on 2 Samuel 16:5-14, a state of affairs this dissertation seeks to address. In chapter two, I will summarize the contributions to scholarship of a number of the pivotal voices who have shaped the discussion of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 and/or its surrounding context, including Rost, Noth, Gunn, Fokkelman, Brueggemann and Polzin. I will demonstrate in this chapter that while each of these interpreters has made fundamental insights into either 2 Samuel 16:5-14 or its context, each has made interpretive misjudgments or has had blind spots based on their inflexibility of method. I will also show that more recent interpretations, such as those of Anthony Campbell and Baruch Halpern, have evolved a more flexible approach and have begun to elicit stronger results from research, from which I have learned much. I will argue that the application of my approach which uses intertextuality, reader-response, and canonical methods, while at the same time incorporating the enduring aspects of earlier scholarship, provides a unique interpretation of the text which demonstrates that the inscrutability of Yahweh is the heart of the matter. Much time and energy has gone into trying to figure out how many redactions there have been of the Deuteronomistic History (DH) based on the point of view of the narrator relative to the monarchy, especially redactions which are either for or against David, or for or against Solomon. I will argue that, using 2 Samuel 16:5-14 as the frame of reference, it is possible to understand the difficulty in grasping the narrative’s point of view, as the various speakers in the scene give their own perspectives as a feature not just of this scene or of its characters, but rather of the indeterminacy of Yahweh himself. The fundamental unknowability of Yahweh is thus something hard-wired into the DH, as well as the entire canon. Finally, in Chapter Three, I will attempt a reading using the methods outlined in chapter one and extend the insights of these scholars summarized in chapter two. Up to this point, prior to this dissertation, scholarship has not taken much interest in this passage. It is a text in which David is moving between big events, between his ouster from power and his bittersweet return to it. Anyone who has read to the first chapters of the book of 1 Kings knows how Shimei ends up (executed by Solomon), and one doesn’t even need to get that far to find out that David is going
3 to be making a trip back to Jerusalem in the very near future, and under quite different circumstances than he has just left it. The story, read as history, does not seem to offer any insight into the current debate over the historicity of the figure of David, nor does it seem to offer anything relevant to the overall development of the DH. Because of these factors, this text has not been subject to the kind of close analysis given to much of the David story. This dissertation will attempt to slow down the reading process, much like instant replay does in sports television, and will look at both what the text says and to where it points backwards and forwards in the larger narrative, as well as how the reader reacts. Furthermore, I will argue that the questions asked by historians about the point of view of the DH, as to whether it is for or against David or Solomon should actually be subordinate to the question of how the character of Yahweh is presented and that the fight to place him on first one side and then another and then another in this scene is key to understanding how the DH can be understood.
1.1 Canonical Criticism: Privileging Theological Discourse and Reading the Text as Scripture Canonical criticism3 grew out of the growing disenchantment with academic biblical studies beginning in the 1960s among biblical scholars who wanted a closer relationship between their work and the religious communities that many of them served. The infamous statement by Walter Wink, with a Ph.D. New Testament in hand from Union Theological Seminary, that the academic biblical discipline, specifically the historical criticism in which he had been trained, was "bankrupt," captured for many the sentiment of scholars working in such contexts.4 Specialists in the field had been hearing that kind of thing from outside of the guild since the
3 Cf. some recent work in the area, e.g. Edgar W. Conrad, Reading the Latter Prophets: Toward a New Canonical Criticism (New York: Continuum, 2003); Mark G. Brett, Biblical Criticism in Crisis?: The Impact of the Canonical Approach on Old Testament Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); William G. Lyons, Canon and Exegesis: Canonical Praxis and the Sodom Narrative, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Rolf Rendtorff, Gerald T. Sheppard, and David Trobisch, Canonical Criticism (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Craig G. Bartholomew et al., Canon and Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006).
4 Walter Wink, The Bible in Human Transformation: Toward a New Paradigm for Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973).
4 seventeenth century,5 but such statements from an insider presaged a shift within the profession. Parallel to the evolution of canonical criticism was the development of narrative theology, also known as post-liberalism, as practiced by theologians such as Hans Frei, George Lindbeck and Stanley Hauerwas.6 Central to this effort was Frei's 1974 work, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, in which he made the case that, in the viewpoint of professional theologians, biblical scholars had left the story of the Bible behind in favor of a fragmented, compartmentalized jumble of forms and sources. Frei portrayed this state of affairs as unacceptable, since it was the biblical scholars who were supposed to be providing the basic materials for theological reflection for their churches and synagogues despite the fact that they become the least interested group in doing any such thing. Two pioneers in canonical criticism have shaped my own thinking in this present work. The first is James Sanders, who is responsible for coining the term.7 One of that rare breed of scholars whose work commands respect from colleagues specializing in both testaments, Sanders in 1972 in the space of a few short paragraphs formulated a series of questions, first directed to Torah, then to the Prophets, and then to the Writings that sought to learn something about the faith communities who generated and preserved the biblical texts and who ultimately came to
5 The battles of early historical critics such as Spinoza is recounted in Klaus Scholder, The Birth of Modern Critical Theology: Origins and Problems of Biblical Criticism in the Seventeenth Century (trans. John Bowden; London: SCM, 1990).
6 See Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974); George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Post-liberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984); Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward A Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1981); and idem and L. Gregory Jones, eds., Why Narrative? (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989). Mention should also be made of the important work by Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), which was in many respects the death notice of the earlier Biblical Theology Movement that gave way to the narrative theologians.
7 See James A. Sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972); idem, Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984); idem, "Adaptable for Life: the Nature and Function of Canon," in Magnolia Dei-The Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernst Wright (ed. F.M. Cross et al.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), 531-560; and idem, "Canonical Context and Canonical Criticism," Horizons in Biblical Theology 2 (1980): 173-197.
5 hold them as authoritative, and even revelatory, by examining the shaping of the canon in its various discernible phases down to its final form.8 These questions had primarily to do with issues of authority within the community that generated the texts and the criteria by which material was designated for inclusion within what became the canon. For Sanders this starting point of the text’s final form was, as he put it, “not to seek its unity...but its shape and function.”9 As he understood it, the Old Testament has a basic storyline, woven out of two antecedent stories, which he calls the early and late sources, around which the larger structure of canon came to cohere at about the time of the exile. Unlike Gerhard von Rad’s earlier proposal that the canon was formed out of core confessions of faith such as is found in Deuteronomy 6 and 26, Sanders works with larger units of text and seeks the values and cultural ethos of the community rather than its doctrine.10 Von Rad’s proposal, developed against the backdrop of the conflict between National Socialism in Germany and the Confessing Church which opposed it,11 had a compelling logic to it that garnered widespread support on the Continent and then in the US. This theory ultimately foundered on the issue of how wisdom literature, which had none of the “mighty acts of God,” so crucial to von Rad’s theory of canonical development, had ultimately become authoritative for the same community as the older Torah material, a lacuna which von Rad worked to fill belatedly near the end of his life.12 Sanders succeeded where the early von Rad had failed in integrating wisdom literature into his explanation because of his starting point-- the final form of the text rather than a few scattered “creeds,” on the basis of which he was able to formulate questions relating to community values, which abound in the wisdom literature and
8 Sanders, Torah and Canon, xvii-xix.
9 Ibid, ii. 10 Gerhard von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E.W. Trueman Dicken; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966); idem, Old Testament Theology (trans. by D.G.M. Stalker; 2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1975).
11 For a recounting of the relationship between Karl Barth’s understanding of credo, in particular found in his Barmen Declaration of 1934, and von Rad’s work, see Walter Brueggemann, The Book That Breathes New Life: Scriptural Authority and Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 66-69.
12 Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (trans. James Davidson Martin; London: SCM Press, 1972).
6 which can then be correlated to the values expressed in earlier portions of the canon. The most important contributor to the development of canonical criticism has been the late Brevard Childs. In 1979, Childs published his seminal work, Introduction to the Old Testament As Scripture, in which he laid out what he considered the objective basis for reading the Hebrew Bible as canon.13 Tracing the development of biblical studies since the Enlightenment, Childs showed how the discipline, as embodied in the content of its various introductions, had increasingly elided the religious character of the Old Testament to the extent that, by the 20th century, the concept of canonicity had been relegated to a few short paragraphs in these introductions, usually at the tail end of each book. For Childs, this was the very opposite of what should rightly have been the case: the primary reason that people had preserved this book was because it was canon to them and to fail to acknowledge this fact in historical critical scholarship was simply to ignore the central fact of its very existence. Childs' argument fell on very fertile soil among religiously oriented biblical scholars, as well as theologians, who had long been struggling to defend their disciplines in circles where it was felt that the historical-critical method was inimical to faithful reading of the Bible, i.e. not reading it as a unified text with a primary subject.14 Now, however, Childs had turned things around completely: rather than using critical methodology to tear apart the text, these same methods could instead be used to trace the process of canonization, how the final form of the text came to be, in order to grasp the canon’s theological “trajectory” and thus to enhance contemporary religious' communities' understanding of the core values of their forebears. This trajectory, once plotted, would then chart the course for modern believers to follow in their own spiritual journeys. His contention against his fellow biblical scholars was that they had, on the whole, failed to distinguish the difference between the text as source and the text as witness. As the vehicle of revelation the canon must not be carved up into a myriad of separate forms or logia, because the effect of such differentiation amounts to the defacing of the Bible’s overall
13 See Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress. 1979); idem, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), and idem, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection On the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993).
14 See, for example, Charles J. Scalise, From Scripture to Theology: A Canonical Journey into Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996) and Paul R. House, The Unity of the Twelve (JSOTSup 97; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990).
7 message. We might say that, as far as the Bible is concerned, the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For Childs, canonical criticism is never an end in itself but is instead the foundation upon which to build a proper biblical theology. The collapse of the Biblical Theology movement of the 1940s and 50s, which Childs famously documented15 and which had developed under the influence of the “mighty acts of God” theology of von Rad, was a primary influence on Childs’ work, inasmuch as he sought to re-conceptualize on a more solid footing the better elements of von Rad’s religiously motivated program. As I mentioned above, von Rad had been part of the Confessing Church movement under the Nazi regime, a status confessionis if ever there was one. At this moment in history he presented his theory of canonical development in which he suggested that the canon was grounded in several creedal statements, such as those found in Deuteronomy 6 and 26, around which stories of Yahweh’s saving deeds began to be arranged in what became the canon as we know it. This approach was ultimately unsatisfactory because of its inability to account for the existence of wisdom literature in the canon, as mentioned above, but the confessional impulse that drove it lived on in the work of Childs. The scripture must be read, Childs asserts, with regard to the object to which it refers, which is, namely, the one will of God made known in Christ the Risen Lord. This object, the canon’s kerygmatic center, is not fully disclosed in any one place but is the totality of the entire canonical witness: whatever one gleans regarding the one will of God in the risen Lord will only be an abstraction or a distortion unless seen in light of the entire scope of God’s self-revelation within the canon.16 One might expect, given such a canonical perspective, that Childs would eschew the critical enterprise of the last two hundred years and deal with the text as it stands. Sanders, too, was defensive on this point. Instead, Childs spends a great deal of time tracing the text’s history just as any historical critic of his generation would. His justification for this, he asserts, is not to
15 Childs, Biblical Theology.
16 In many ways, Childs has work has been undone by developments in recent years of studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which have presented us with multiple copies of the same text demonstrating how the kind of reshaping he talks about actually takes place. In short, there is some intentionality to the process, but nearly to the level that Childs imagines it. See Charlotte Hempel, “Sources and Redaction in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Growth of Ancient Texts,” in Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods (ed. Maxine L. Grossman; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010), 162-181.
8 deduce ancient Near Eastern parallels for the Old Testament in order to establish literary or cultural dependence of the text, as if by situating the text in its cultural setting one could somehow ascertain the will of God; rather, Childs examines the history of the text for evidence of what he calls canonical shaping (following Sanders) which, in his view, provides one with an important perspective on how the theological thinking of ancient Israel developed.17 Whereas for Sanders, the results of analyzing the process of canonization led inexorably to the conclusion of the pluriformity of the community and plurivocity of its message. Childs sees in the same process the singular concept of Jesus as the Christ around which both canon and community are centered, which, no doubt, is why his work is so highly prized in evangelical circles.18 By tracing the lines of the canon’s growth, one is thus able to discern its central ideas. In Childs’ view canon consciousness is deeply rooted in the text itself.19 That is, the canon was developed with an eye toward servicing the faith needs of future generations. It did not simply become gradually authoritative through continued use over time; it had authority hard-wired into it from the beginning. Its errors and omissions, its marginalization of certain matters as well as its elevation of others, and its diversity and polarity are all part of the shaping process that was intended to render the scripture sufficiently plastic so as to be useful to successive generations. The present dissertation will make use of a canonical approach pioneered by Sanders and Childs in several ways. First, canon will describe both the scope and limit of what I will examine when interpreting 2 Samuel 16:5-14. When searching for intertexts, or other canonical texts that illumine the passage, the canon will be where I look, though there are other places one could examine, such as curse formulae in antiquity20 when discussing Shimei’s ravings toward David, or modern agrarian writers21 when it comes to Shimei’s throwing bits of ha’aretz, namely
17 Childs, Old Testament Theology, 13, 15, 53, 78, 108, 115, 117, etc. 18 See James A. Sanders, “The Bible As Canon,” Christian Century (December 1981): 1250- 1255 and “The Modern History of the Psalms Scroll and Canonical Criticism,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emmanuel Tov (ed. Robert A. Kraft et al.; Leiden and New York: Brill, 2003), 393-410.
19 Childs, Biblical Theology, 70.
20 See, e.g. John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells From the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
21 See, for example, Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture and Agriculture: An Agrarian reading of
9 stones and dust, at the king. But reading within the canon as I am proposing to do also says something about the community that produced these texts, as well about my own position as an interpreter. Sanders and Childs are both correct in recognizing that the final form of the text tells us something about the community behind the Scriptures. Whatever else might be said about the historicity of the biblical texts, and for my part I am not nearly as sanguine about what can be known with any great degree of probability as are these interpreters, if anything can be agreed upon it ought to be that the Bible was understood to be explicitly religious literature that functioned in an authoritative way within a living tradition.22 My own presuppositions about the value of canon have been greatly shaped by Walter Brueggemann, particularly his Theology of the Old Testament, which takes the final form of the text to be normative for Christians and thus its proper object of study.23 Brueggemann is one of the few scholars in recent years who has done a full scale analysis of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, so I will be critiquing his work throughout this dissertation, but for now I want to focus on his larger methodological approach from which I have learned greatly and borrowed much. The central device which propels his account, drawn both from a form of Israel’s speech as well as an adaptation of the work of Paul Ricouer, is the metaphor of a trial in which Israel’s scripture is understood to be testimony.24 Though the primary subject of the Old Testament is God, that God is not disclosed in any “coherent and comprehensive offer” but is instead embedded in Israel’s texts and practices. Consequently, for Brueggemann, the object of Old Testament theology must therefore be Israel’s speech about God, rather than God himself. For most of the last two
the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
22 See Yairah Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 3, who states: “Once written down, the intention was not to while away long evenings in a world without electricity, movies or television but to educate the readers or listeners to persuade them to cling to the covenant and obey God’s precepts. There is no mistaking the purpose of putting these stories in writing--it was to secure their preservation for as long as possible and to try to ensure that they reflected their authors’ aims.”
23 Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).
24 Brueggemann anticipates his later usage of Ricouer in his Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1984).
10 centuries, the prevailing view in Old Testament theology has been that the locus of God’s activity has been history, thus necessitating the recovery of “What happened?” in order to understand something about God. Brueggemann, however, brackets all questions of historicity and instead focuses on the matter of “What was said?” The end toward which his study aims is not therefore to search for history but instead to listen to the rhetoric of the text. The complexity of Israel’s rhetoric mitigates against the common flaw of much of biblical theology, which is the imposition of alien categories from systematic theology onto descriptions of the contents of the Bible. What Brueggemann proposes instead is to examine Israel’s polyphonic testimony about God in all of its diversity. The main lines of its theological discourse, which the older examples of biblical theology referred to as “kerygmatic,” is what Brueggemann himself calls Israel’s core testimony.25 True to his goal of attending to the rhetoric of the text, Brueggemann does not examine this material through the theological categories of Protestant dogmatics, as has been the case with most attempts in biblical theology, but instead engages in an extensive analysis of first the verbs, then the adjectives, and then the nouns of this core testimony, insisting that his aim is the thematization and not the systematization of Old Testament theology. Israel’s core testimony is made manifest primarily in the verbs of which Yahweh is the subject26 in which he imposes his actions on Israel, the interpretive result being a distinctively different portrait of God as Agent, rather than as Being or Substance, which are the regular categories in which God has been largely envisioned in the traditions of imperial Christendom. He then goes on, particularly in dialogue with Jewish scholars Emil Fackenheim, Elie Wiesel, Abraham Joshua Heschel and above all Jon D. Levenson, to describe what he calls the counter-testimony of Israel, which signifies biblical texts that present Yahweh in an unfavorable light as either having been inappropriately absent or having abandoned the covenant altogether and where Israel bemoans this straitened reality, such as in Micah 2:5 and Amos 6:7.27 Here the post-Holocaust world forms the context for a contemporary reframing of the language and ethos of biblical Israel in exile. Lastly Brueggemann classifies as unsolicited testimony that portion of the scripture in which Israel, the witness in the dock, either from exuberance or a desire to instruct, makes
25 Brueggemann, Theology, 120-303.
26 Yahweh creates, promises, delivers, commands and leads; see ibid, 145-204.
27 Ibid, 317-406.
11 connections hitherto unseen in the core or counter-testimony.28 For Brueggemann, the biblical witness is a large-scale dramatization of Israel’s interaction with God and, as such, is a work of imagination, an aspect of interpretation on which the whole of his construal of Israel’s rhetoric is manifested. Building on the work of his Doktorvater James Muilenberg’s path-breaking rhetorical commentary on Isaiah,29 as well as the writings of Garrett Green,30 David Bryant31 and Richard Kearney,32 Brueggemann asserts that instead of treating imagination as an inferior and inadequate mode of interpretation, biblical scholarship should take its cue from the scripture itself and recognize that Israel’s deity and its relationship to him was presented in dramatic, rhetorical form, that this drama was singular in that no other form or presentation of this deity could ever be considered anything other than idolatry within the community. As such, imagination, instead of being an inferior category, may therefore be considered central to the interpretive enterprise, given that it is only by means of imagination that Israel is able to have any access to its God. This further invites later readers of the text who hold this scripture to be canon, as they would any other dramatic construal, to exercise their imaginations in inscribing themselves into its text and thus making sense of it. It is this feature of Brueggemann’s work, which is very different from the way Sanders and Childs approach the text for these latter scholars have as their aim the elucidation of historical processes of canonical shaping whose clues remain latent in its final form. For Brueggemann, however, whether or not the canon bears anything in it that can be demonstrated as historical, even its shaping, it is nonetheless normative, and further, whether it is history or myth, it comes to us in the form of a dramatic story so that no matter what can be demonstrated
28 Ibid, 407-413.
29 James Muilenberg, The Book of Isaiah. Chapters 40–66 (IB 5; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956).
30 Garrett Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989).
31 David J. Bryant, “Christian Identity and Historical Change: Post Liberals and Historicity,” JR 73 (1993): 31-41 and Faith and the Play of the Imagination: On the Role of Imagination in Religion (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989).
32 Richard Kearney, The Wake of Imagination: Ideas of Creativity in Western Culture (London Hutchinson Education, 1989).
12 about it either way, it may nonetheless be read like any other story. This last insight will be central to this present work, for while the current debate about the historicity of David may rage hot and heavy among historians, the drama that is before us in the text us still invites a reading which can be fruitfully undertaken though historical questions be set aside or at least bracketed. What I will ask is this: what does an interpretation look like of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 specifically, and the David story more generally, and the DH even more broadly still, if we limit the scope of the possible interpretive clues to the canon itself? As I will presently argue, the passage in 2 Samuel 16 is a deeply theological narrative treatment of the matter of whom God favors, and that the unsatisfactory ending of the scene in which everyone appears to gain partial validation is at the heart of the historian’s dilemma of trying to make sense of the political point of view of the DH. The complex characters, the plot, even the pace of the plot’s unfolding are all features of dramatic literature which utilizes the imagination as the mental hook to draw the reader into the vortex of the story and its worldview. Whether or not the scene and its characters are rendered historically by the author is an important question, but the text’s significance is in not exhausted by an answer to that question in either direction. The story of David is a fascinating and compelling one that has captivated new generations of readers for roughly the last twenty-five centuries for reasons beyond the questions of the historical sciences. They have mostly been drawn to the text because it is canon for them, but the canon itself is a broad canvas and so readers need not have lingered very long over this scene, for there are many other parts of the larger picture at which to look. As I will show regarding the passage of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, Yahweh, who does not even appear within the boundaries of the passage itself, is nonetheless the central character of the passage, as the various human characters in it compete against one another in their attempts to claim Yahweh’s favor. Using Brueggemann’s nomenclature, this text would fall into the category of countertestimony, that is, a text in which God’s absence is a central point in the plot. Yahweh is obviously not subject to analysis by any of the human sciences so is therefore only available imaginatively to the reader who intends to take Yahweh’s existence seriously. Rather than search for divine attributes when trying to understand Yahweh, I will be trying to grasp the text’s point of view from moment to moment, as I will describe shortly in section 1.3, which is precisely the way the canonical tradition prefers that God be read, as opposed to trying to read the various characters’ assumptions about Yahweh as variants of ancient Israelite religion, which
13 is something altogether different. Therefore, when I read this text canonically, it will be more with an eye towards rendering an “imaginative construal” of both Yahweh’s character and that of the other dramatis personae of the passage than it will be to answer whether, when or where this or that occurred.
1.2 Reader-Response Criticism: A Diary of the Reading Process As the limits of the historical-critical approach to biblical texts became clearer in the last quarter of the twentieth century, scholars began to return once more to the literary analysis that had looked so promising in the first quarter of the 20th century prior to the development of form criticism.33 In this section I will describe my reliance in this dissertation on reader-response criticism, one of the more fruitful approaches to literary analysis to come about in recent years.34 Developments in fields from philosophy to linguistics have established that the receiver of a given act of communication, written or oral, verbal or non-verbal, is not simply a passive receptacle into which the meaning of the sender’s message is deposited. Rather, the recipient is
33 See the collection of essays from this period: David M. Gunn, ed., Narrative and Novella in Samuel: Studies By Hugo Gressmann and Other Scholars 1906-1923 (JSOTSup 116; trans. David E. Orton; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991), in which the best exemplars of this approach are presented.
34 There has been a veritable explosion of books on reading the Bible through the lens of literary criticism in general and reader-response criticism in particular since the 1980s, often from the social margins. For example, see: Meike Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); eadem, Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre and Scholarship on Sisera's Death (Bloomington: University Press, 1988); eadem, Death and Dissymmetry: The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Regina Schwartz, The Book and the Text: The Bible and Literary Theory (London: Blackwell, 1990); Cain Hope Felder, Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); Mark Allan Powell, ed., The Bible and Modern Literary Criticism: A Critical Assessment and Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992); David M. Gunn and Danna Nolan Fewell, Narrative in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford Bible Series; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1990); Ilana Pardes, The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (Berkley: University of California Press, 2000); Yair Mazor, Who Wrought the Bible?: Unveiling the Bible's Aesthetic Secrets (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2008); Frank Yamada, Configurations of Rape in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary Analysis of Three Rape Narratives (Studies in Biblical Literature; New York: Peter Lang, 2008); and Raymond F. Person, Jr., In Conversation With Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism and the Book of Jonah (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2009).
14 an active meaning-maker herself, using the tool kit of her own subjective experience from which to reconstruct the meaning of a message. In some cases, we have various clues as to what that tool kit might contain, or what appears to be assumed by the sender to contain, from which we can then make some inferences as to how the process of constructing meaning might have occurred in the "inferred" reader's thinking. Here the questions raised by Sanders and Childs from canonical criticism will be most useful in attempting to imaginatively construe, however imperfectly, how an audience for this or that text might receive, or has received, it. How does this process of reconstruction take place? In some cases, it may take the form of what Meir Sternberg calls "gap filling."35 This occurs when the narrator leaves out essential details from a story without which a reader cannot make sense of it.36 One germane example of this can be found in 2 Samuel 15 concerning the reasons behind David’s flight from Jerusalem, as recounted by Anthony Campbell, from his excellent commentary that combines the very best of historical and literary analysis, which is worth quoting at length: Why should David abandon the reputedly impregnable Jerusalem? A possibly satisfactory answer would be that David had been kept informed all along of Absalom’s preparations and of the strength and numbers supporting the conspiracy. In such a hypothesis David could be expected to have laid his plans; he was ready to move to their immediate execution. Whether he was well informed or taken by surprise, we still do not know whether the strategy adopted was appropriate. We do not know the depth of support for Absalom among the tribes west of the Jordan. We do not know what support existed for David across the Jordan to the east ... Did the territory east of the Jordan offer a better opportunity for David’s mercenaries against Absalom’s supporters? We are not told. Did a campaign across the Jordan with the battle fought in the forest of Ephraim (18:6) have a better chance of sparing tribal lands from the ravages of war and its aftermath? We are not told. Were David’s chances better on the open battlefield than cooped up defensively in a besieged city? We are not told. We do not know what drove David’s strategic vision.37
35 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 186-189.
36 Gershon Hepner, in his taxonomy of intertextual “resonances,” includes what he calls “missing resonances,” which are intertextual connections that the reader makes based on the expectation what should follow in a particular passage based on a previously existing pattern encountered elsewhere in the Bible; see “Verbal Resonance in the Bible and Intertextuality,” JSOT 96 (2001): 15-19.
37 Anthony Campbell, 2 Samuel (FOTL 8; Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans, 2005), 138.
15
These are all important questions with no clear answers. Historians, as Campbell does here, will moot several options and move along, but for reader-oriented critics, this is an area of great importance, because, in one way or another, readers answer these questions, fill the gaps, and take the narrative in a particular interpretive direction. Even historians, including those who do not like to dwell on such interpretive strategies because they are acts of imagination, are nonetheless, as Hayden White has shown, operating with some form of this process, because they too have to make sense of the story when its facts fail to provide direct answers.38 As Susan Gillingham has shown in her work on comparative biblical interpretation, historical critics operating with a different (imaginative) theory of what literary critics would call the “implied reader” of a text can dramatically differ in their historical findings.39 Gillingham offers several familiar texts and their interpretations in demonstration of her argument that the text is capable of simultaneously sustaining widely varying interpretations generated by highly trained specialists in the field. For the first text on the Garden of Eden, she found a total of seventeen different historical and literary interpretations of the passage, with the historical interpretations each having a Sitz im Leben whose estimated differences of the time of composition spanned more half a millennium. Despite the obvious deconstruction of scholarship that occurs when she pits so many historians’ readings against one another, as well as against literary readings, Gillingham’s work does not come across as an assault on historical investigation in favor of a more (openly) subjective literary approach. She is not trying to diminish the importance of historical criticism, rather Gillingham understands such historical investigation, along with literary critical approaches, as similar exercises in subjectivity, which may have rankled an earlier generation of historians, but which allows her to treat such historical readings with as equal seriousness as she would a more literary treatment of the same material. Following Gillingham, the method employed in this paper will seek not to dismiss historical readings out of hand, but rather to embrace them within a new framework that recognizes the inexhaustible depths of the text. The imagination of the reader, particularly
38 Hayden V. White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).
39 Susan E. Gillingham, The Image, the Depths and the Surface: Multivalent Approaches to Biblical Study (JSOTSup 354; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).
16 his/her associative qualities, which we will further discuss below in the section on intertextuality, is an unavoidable part of interpreting any text, especially an ancient one, and ought to be brought into the foreground of the act of interpretation and reflected upon rather than trying to feign constant objectivity. Thus, in this present work, I will fill the gaps and make subjective associations in David’s story that will take my interpretation of it in a particular direction that will differ from traditional renderings of the passage. For example, in response to Campbell’s aforementioned wondering what the content of David’s “strategic vision” was in leaving Jerusalem, I will argue that David has none beyond that of saving his own life, for if he would have, he would have made provisions for his concubines, not because David cared about them, but because of the symbolism of another man, his son, violating the sanctity of the royal harem which would be a huge public humiliation. Moreover, the narration of the departure beginning in 2 Samuel 15 presents David with one case after another of having to determine the loyalty of members of his retinue. He seems to be deciding on the fly, making judgments in the moment, based on the incomplete data at hand and amidst the fog of war.
1 3. I ntertextuality: Reading Scripture with Scripture The third and most significant methodological lens through which I will view the text of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 is intertextuality,40 which has long been associated with postmodernism.
40 For the application of intertextuality to “literary” works, see Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London and New York: Routledge, 2000); Patrick O’Donnell and Robert Con Davis, eds., Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein, eds., Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); and Pam Morris, Literature and Feminism (Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), especially 136-163. For the application of intertextuality to biblical texts, see Danna Nolan Fewell, ed., Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992); Sipke Draisma, ed., Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas van Iersel (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1989); Gail O’Day, “Jeremiah 9.22-23 and 1 Corinthians 1.26-31,” JBL 109/2 (1990): 259-267; Robert Carroll, “Intertextuality and the Book of Jeremiah,” in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (eds. J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup 143; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 55-78; Hugh S. Pyper, “Judging the Wisdom of Solomon: The Two-way Effect of Intertextuality” JSOT 59 (1993): 25-36; Stuart Lasine, “The Ups and Downs of Monarchical Justice: Solomon and Jehoram in an Intertextual World,” JSOT 59 (1993): 37-53; G. Savran, “Beastly Speech: Intertextuality, Balaam’s Ass and the Garden of Eden,” JSOT 64 (1994): 33-55; M. Juliana Claassen, “Biblical Theology As Dialogue: Continuing the Conversation on Bakhtin and Biblical Theology,” JBL 122/1 (2003): 127-144;
17 Coined by Julia Kristeva, and influenced by writers such as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida but above all, Mikhail Bakhtin,41 intertextuality is the foregrounding of the contingency of all texts. Each text is a tissue of other “secondary” texts which readers use, consciously or unconsciously, to make sense of the “primary” texts before them. Intertextuality, as I will use it, is therefore closely related to reader-response criticism, the difference being that, whereas in reader-response criticism the focus is on the reader, in intertextuality the focus is on the text, although this is a difference of emphasis rather than substance, since they are two sides of the same coin. Instead of primarily asking historical questions in an attempt to get behind the text, intertextual reading attends to the surface features of the text and to how the reader makes sense of the codes that comprise it. This way of reading can thus generate different results than readings oriented to those conventionally formulated questions found in critical biblical scholarship. As Kristeva puts it, intertextuality acknowledges the “otherness” in the sign that exceeds its boundaries. Since the meaning of a given text is never fully situated in the text before us, inquiry into that text’s significance will also entail tracing the signs of the other texts which comprise, but never exhaust, its potential interpretations, all of which really comprise one text. An intertextual reading is one that acknowledges the insight that meaning exists outside the text and seeks to find, often more imaginatively than scientifically, whatever meaning can be found. In essence, an intertextual reading is one that attempts to identify the collage of other texts from which the interpreter constructs the meaning of each individual text itself. The procedure for pursuing this strategy is broadly open-ended in acknowledgment of the fact that the “real text” in question is of such magnitude that it may include the totality of all human cultural practices, both discursive
Mark E. Biddle, “Ancestral Motifs in 1 Samuel 25: Intertextuality and Characterization,” JBL 121/4 (2002): 617-638; Roger Bergey, “The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32.1-43) and Isaianic Prophecies: A Case of Early Intertextuality?,” JSOT 28/1(2003): 33-54; Gershon Hepner, “Verbal Resonance in the Bible and Intertextuality,” JSOT 96 (2001): 3-27; Noah Hacham, “3 Maccabees and Esther: Parallels, Intertextuality, and Diaspora Identity,” JBL 126/4 (2007): 765- 785; Preston Sprinkle, “Law and Life: Leviticus 18.5 in the Literary Framework of Ezekiel,” JSOT 31/3 (2007): 275-293; and Paul R. Noble, “Esau, Tamar, and Joseph: Criteria for Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusion,” VT 52/2 (2002):: 219-252.
41 For treatments of Bakhtin’s value to biblical scholarship, see Walter L. Reed, Dialogues of the Word: The Bible as Literature According to Bakhtin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Barbara Green, Mikhail Bakhtin and Biblical Scholarship: An Introduction (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000); and Roland Boer, Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, (SBLSymS; Atlanta; Society of Biblical Literature, 2007).
18 and non-discursive alike. As James Voelz notes: Textual events or ideas are matrixed with other textual events or ideas that are in proximity, alike or contrasting in content or portrayed by the same vocables as signs. We may add that textual events or ideas which are repeated, related in time, or related by cause and effect are also subject to matrixing.42
Intertextual practice, therefore, is the comparing and contrasting of similar texts in what Voelz calls a “matrix,” which is a reading that acknowledges the inability of any one text to furnish the totality of its meaning by itself. As this quote implies, such a reading strategy is highly subjective: the intertexts that are evoked in one reader’s reading will not be the same as another’s insofar as the position of both readers as texts themselves is unique. The key word in Voelz’s definition is clearly the word proximity which each reader will no doubt construe differently. What is proximate to one may seem remote to someone else. I have already discussed the significance of the reader above. As I noted, it is important to recognize the individual course that a particular intertextual reading will take. Since it operates in a synchronic, rather than a diachronic mode, it is not necessary that the intertexts which are connected with the original text be earlier chronologically. Nor is it necessary that the intertexts one uses must necessarily be biblical, although for this dissertation that will be the case.43 Mary E. Shields, for example, employs two intertexts for her reading of Jeremiah 3, one textual (Deuteronomy 24) and one not (the cultural discourse of gender).44 The decision to limit or expand the scope of the intertexts used for interpretation is as much a decision of the reader as is the limitation or expansion of the
42 Voelz, “Multiple Signs and Double Texts: Elements of Intertextuality,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas van Jersel , 30.
43 Jean Delorme, in “Intertextualities about Mark,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writings, (ed. Sipke Draisma; Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok, 1989), 36, remarks: “The limits of the scriptural canon do not apply to intertextuality of the biblical books. Intertextuality of a text cannot be confined to previous or subsequent [biblical] texts presenting a similarity in expression or content. The Bible does not allow itself to be confined to the cultural heritage of the west whose art and literature have been inspired by it.” For an example of a biblical scholar who utilizes extracanonical and even modern literary works, see Frances Landy, “Tracing the Voice of the Other: Isaiah 28 and the Covenant with Death,” in The New Literary Criticism and the Bible (eds., J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines; JSOTSup 143; Sheffield: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Press (1993): 140-162.
44 Mary E. Shields, Circumscribing the Prostitute: The Rhetorics of Intertextuality, Metaphor and Gender in Jeremiah 3.1-4.4 (JSOTSup 387; London and New York: T & T Clark, 2004).
19 original text under analysis. This is demonstrated by one of the earliest and liveliest debates among literary critics just then beginning to use these methods in biblical research between Sternberg and Menahem Perry45 on the one hand, who thought that 2 Samuel 11 comprised an appropriate unit for study, and Uriel Simon46 and Boaz Appali47 who believed that 2 Samuel 11- 12 was the better unit of analysis, on the other.48 As this debate demonstrated, there is no set of principles which can definitively answer the question of where a text’s proper boundaries ought to be construed. Rather, all that we can say is that the results of the inquiry will be shaped by whatever choice is made: Sternberg and Perry gave an analysis of David's sin, while Simon and Arpali provided one of sin and its subsequent judgment – a similar but distinctly different result. The same is true for intertexts. If one uses a certain lens or frame, one will get a different picture than if one used other lenses or frames. How is intertextuality, as I am defining it, different from what scholars of previous generations (as well as the current one) have done? There are a number of recent works rooted in the historical-critical model which have very helpfully identified inner-biblical allusions to other texts, but these have primarily been in the prophetic and apocalyptic literature.49 Furthermore, the bounds of what constitutes an intertext in these works are drawn much more narrowly than those that I will draw. There are three perspectives which have influenced this present project that helpfully articulate the differences between allusion in historical-critical scholarship, as
45 Menahem Perry and Meir Sternberg, "The King through Ironic Eyes: The Narrator's Devices in the Biblical Story of David and Bathsheba and Two Excurses on the Theory of Narrative Text,” Hasifrut/Literature 1 (1968): 263-292.
46 Uriel Simon, "An Ironic Approach to a Bible Story: On the Interpretation of the Story of David and Bathsheba,” Hasifrut/Literature 2 (1970): 598-607.
47 Boaz Arpali, “"Caution, A Biblical Story! Comments on the Story of David and Bathsheba and on the Problems of Biblical Narrative,” Hasifrut/Literature 2 (1970): 580-597.
48 See the discussion of this debate in Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives, 15-18.
49 See, e.g., Marvin A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature (FAT 45; Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Benjamin Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); and Patricia Tull Willey, Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (SBLDS 161; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997).
20 demonstrated by the work of Marvin Sweeney et al., and intertextuality as I will use it. Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein contrast intertextuality with the older view, which they classify as influence. Influence, they say, “should refer to relations built on dyads of transmission from one unity (author, work, tradition) to another. More broadly, however, influence studies often stray into portraits of intellectual background context and other patterns.”50 That is, influence follows a more structured path, its boundaries for identifying legitimate associations being much more clearly drawn. Moreover, influence seeks as nearly as possible to place the document in its original setting by means of historical studies designed to bridge the gap between the author’s time and the reader’s time. By comparison, Clayton and Rothstein note that intertextuality can be understood in two ways: it can be either as an enlargement or as a replacement of influence. It can mean a simple expansion of what Voelz above calls proximity, that is, the available but still largely traditional material from which associations can be made; or it can mean the wholesale overthrow of the concept of influence by means of the introduction of heretofore out- of-bounds issues into the matter of interpretation, something which I will not pursue in this dissertation. Another way to understand intertextuality is to contrast it with the term more familiar to biblical scholars, Redaktionsgeschichte.51 According to Willem Vorster, the two terms are different in three specific ways. First, intertextuality has inaugurated a new understanding of what a text is, in that it is no longer the manuscript laying before the reader but rather a complexly interrelated symbols system whose meaning is found outside of said manuscript. Second, there is in intertextuality an interest in the production of the text as such, rather than the more formal approach of looking for sources. Third, the role of the reader as a meaning-maker rather than as one who uncovers the truth of a text marks a third difference. While these last two distinctives are significant in their own right, for Vorster it is the understanding of text in which the cleavage between intertextuality and Redaktionsgeschichte appears: The two methods of interpretation are incompatible in this respect. Viewing a
50 Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein, “Figures in the Corpus,” in Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 3.
51 Willem Vorster, “Intertextuality and Redaktionsgeschichte,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas van Iersel (ed., Sipke Draisma; Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok, 1989), 18-22.
21 text as a network of fragments of texts which refer endlessly to other texts because of the absorption of other texts is something totally different from studying the agreements and differences between a focused text and its source.52
Vorster’s distinction here mirrors the perspective of the influential scholar of the subject, Graham Allen,53 who also understands intertextuality as not being interested in demonstrating the dependence of one text, author, or tradition upon another, but rather in how meaning can be produced by readers, hence the importance of reader-response criticism for this present work. A third perspective on the difference between intertextuality and what she calls the comparative approach, is given by Ellen von Wolde. Agreeing with Clayton and Rothstein, von Wolde says that the first difference is “the widened scope of what is available as an intertext.”54 The unconfined imagination of the reader is loosened to make connections that the comparative approach would have disallowed. But with the opening of the interpretive horizon comes a boundary, which marks the second major difference between the intertextual and the comparative approaches. According to von Wolde, this is the increased sense of self-awareness that “we as readers/exegetes are stuck in our own epistème, stuck in our own codes and conventions, which still limit us in our study.”55 That is, the reader, though she may have wide latitude in connecting intertexts, is nevertheless constrained by her own finitude. In tandem, von Wolde shows that these two differences of the widened scope of the reader’s gaze as well as her awareness of her own limits, illustrates that intertextuality has thrust the reader into a place of importance hitherto not seen in the older paradigm, be it called influence, comparison, or Redaktionsgeschichte. As should be clear, I am using intertextuality in a very broad and practical manner, understanding it to describe a whole range of textual interrelations. My usage of the term thus differs from others, such as the aforementioned biblical scholars Sweeney, Willey and Fishbane
52 Ibid., 26.
53 Graham Allen. "Intertextuality" The Literary Encyclopedia (24 January 2005) Cited 7 May 2009. Online: http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1229.
54 Ellen von Wolde, “Trendy Intertextuality?,” in Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas van Iersel (ed. Sipke Draisma; Kampen: Uitgeversmaatschappij J.H. Kok, 1989): 45.
55 Ibid.
22 for whom intertextuality is imply a synonym for allusion, as well as others like Vorster and Allen, who narrowly construe intertextuality as absolutely excluding allusion or influence and instead use the term almost as a literary version of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, denoting only that interconnection in writing/speech that remains at the subconscious level to both sender and receiver.56 Clearly, Allen is correct that it was this more nebulous area of linguistic interrelation that Barthes and Kristeva sought to emphasize in their work. But that should not exclude other such connections that might be made which place a given communication, literary or otherwise, in a different light. Indeed, it is my awareness that, as sender, some of that which I intend to allude in my communication has been missed by its receiver, and that as a receiver of someone else’s communication. I am also aware that this communication sparks associations in my own thinking that lends credibility to Kristeva’s claim that all language is teeming with such intertexts. Therefore, my working assumption will be that intertextuality can encompass a range of possibilities, delimited only by the twin factors of an intertext’s appearance within the canon and by its intelligibility as such within the recipients’ interpretive community.
1.4 Summary How would 2 Samuel 16:5-14 be understood if read in the light of the larger canon of the Hebrew Bible, rather than by attempting to identify the Sitz im Leben of the hand(s) that produced it? What does an interpretation look like whose clues are drawn from within the boundaries of the text rather than without? Answering these questions is the distinctive contribution of this dissertation to scholarship. In Chapter Three of this dissertation I will present a reading that closely examines the narrative presentations of Shimei, Abishai, David and Yahweh, using the intertexts of the Old Testament as the material out of which to construct each one’s character. I will argue that most readings in the past have been undertaken with default understandings of both David and Yahweh as being positive characters, and Shimei and Abishai as being negative ones, based on the acceptance of some texts as definitive while at the same time overlooking others which might point in a different direction. The present work will be different from and an advancement of previous scholarship in that I will read the episode of Shimei’s curse in 2 Samuel 16 with an eye towards expanding the potential points of view of the various characters in the scene, which will then open up new directions of plot potential
56 Allen, “Intertextuality.”
23 development only hinted at in earlier interpretations. My task will be to identify those ignored intertexts and admit them into the database of information from which the character of each of the actors in the scene are constructed, a move which renders these actors in a different way than they have regularly been construed. The character of Yahweh, and the collection of intertexts which comprise what the reader knows about him within the canon will be particularly important. Moreover, I will argue that the more ambiguous reconstruction of Yahweh’s character, drawn especially from his earlier dealings with Saul and David, has the capacity for transforming my interpretive community’s understanding of this God in their own spiritual reflection upon the scripture. I believe that the potential for such powerful renderings of the biblical text that reframe reality remain latent throughout the canon. Moreover, I believe that, in however small of a way, even from this “out of the way” text of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, in which hardly anyone in biblical scholarship has taken much interest, can nonetheless reward us with, as von Wolde puts it, a “transformational understanding.” What if, rather than the DH being understood as a vexing tangle of perspectives, that we understand the very undecidability of the meaning of the text as being the central aspect of the character of Yahweh? What if the narrative is read as being not about who will succeed David to the throne of Israel, but rather who will succeed in finding favor with Yahweh? Moreover, what if rather than being at the periphery of the DH, the scene in 2 Samuel 16:5-14 is read as the central point in the whole story, containing in one obscure text, set in a second-rate town, the key to its understanding? This is the imaginative construal which I will pursue in this dissertation. In this chapter, I have outlined the methodology that I will employ in my reading of 2 Samuel 16:5-14. I have attempted to highlight my commitments and presuppositions in favor of a certain path that I will follow in which I will read this text closely in conversation with other passages (intertextuality) in the rest of the Old Testament (canonical criticism), as well to attend carefully and to note those places where my own subjective presence in the construction of meaning makes its appearance (reader-response criticism). In the next chapter, I will summarize the contributions of a number of important readers of my passage and its surrounding material whose interpretations of it have been the most noteworthy and with which academic biblical studies have wrestled most, including Rost, Noth, Gunn, Fokkelman, Polzin and Brueggemann. Finally, in the third chapter, I will present my own intertextual reading of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 in conversation with the canon and with other scholars.
24 CHAPTER TWO
“OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW”: SURVEYING THE WORK OF EARLIER INTERPRETERS: WHAT HAS WORKED, WHAT HASN’T AND WHY A FRESH APPROACH IS NEEDED
As the methods of biblical scholarship have flowered in recent years, creating divergent paths down which an interpreter can proceed, so have the conclusions developed out of those variegated approaches shifted the possible interpretations of the biblical text and the characters inscribed therein. In no case has the controversy been sharpest and results more divergent than in scholarly study devoted to David and his reign. Is David a historical figure? Did he ever actually rule over either kingdoms known as Judah and Israel? Or is the presentation found in the Bible simply an early form of religious fiction, containing enough verisimilitude to make the story real enough to hook a reader, but not necessarily accurate in terms of factual detail? Should the goal of scholarship be the elucidation of the religion of ancient Israel or defining the contours of God as a character in Israel’s sacred story? The quest for the historical David has increased in importance over the years as the earlier belief that the Old Testament contained facts of great antiquity has slowly begun to crumble. W.F. Albright’s argument that the patriarchal narratives were historical faltered first, as did subsequently the arguments of the so-called “Children of Albright,” regarding the Exodus story.57 The most recent line of defense has been drawn around David, and debates between those who accept a historical David in some form and the so-called “biblical minimalists” who don’t have been furious.58
57 See Burke O. Long, Planting and Reaping Albright: Politics, Ideology, and Interpreting the Bible (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
58 See Thomas L. Thompson, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (London: Basic Books, 1999); idem, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Philip R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992); idem, “‘House of David’ Built on Sand: The Sins of the Biblical Maximizers,” BAR 20/4 (1994): 54-55; idem, Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History--Ancient and Modern (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); Niels Peter Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998); idem, The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008); and Keith Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).
25 As I will argue in Chapter Three, the significance of David in the interpretation of the books of Samuel in general and for my passage in particular is crucial for the understanding of Yahweh, because God seems so taken by the shepherd-king and appears to back him in the most unlikely of circumstances. In particular, 2 Samuel 16:5-14, because of the multiple theological perspectives voiced therein by the characters in the scene, represents one of the most important texts in all of the David narrative for assessing the complex nature of both David and Yahweh, as well as their relationship. What has happened, however, is that the methods used by biblical scholars have led them to dismiss this text as unimportant for the ends toward which their work is directed. Because of how the story turns out, with David surviving as king into old age, and Shimei having first to grovel before David upon his triumph in 2 Samuel 19, and later being executed by Solomon early on in 1 Kings after David dies, the scene appears as simply an account of a disgruntled member of the former royal house. David magnanimously acknowledges the Saulides charges, graciously pardons his rudeness despite enormous stress, pointedly deflects his nephew’s aggression, and finally casts himself on God’s mercy. As I argued in Chapter One, the inadequacies of the current state of research on 2 Sam 16:5-14 can be ameliorated by reading the text canonically, as scripture, by attending to the process of how a reader makes meaning out of what is being read, and by attending to what texts are used by the interpreter to shed light on the passage. It is my intention in this dissertation to challenge previous assumptions about this passage and to reframe David’s encounter with Shimei as a central text in making sense of the characters of both David and Yahweh. This will have consequences for theological reflection in both Judaism and Christianity. Rather than being a peripheral text of little import, I will argue against existing scholarship that this passage presents a complex set of arguments which simultaneously present themselves to the reader as speaking for Yahweh, and that the elusiveness and inscrutability of the divine presence in the scene mirrors that of the DH as a whole, and is thus why scholarship continues to have so much difficulty in determining whether and to what extent the DH approves or disapproves of the monarchy. Explaining how other scholars have read this passage and its context is important for grasping the distinction between their findings and what I will propose in Chapter Three. The critical scholarship on David is far too massive to be surveyed here. Instead, I will focus on the methods of some of the most significant interpreters of the larger narrative in which my text is
26 situated. I will look first at the historical and then the literary interpreters, and then conclude with an analysis of the work of Walter Brueggemann, who is the only scholar to give this passage an article-length treatment in the past forty years.59 In this chapter I will examine the contributions of certain distinctive biblical scholars, both literary and historical, whose work both complements and, more often than not, contrasts with my own, in order to demonstrate how these earlier approaches to the text differ from the intertextual method which I will use in my reading of 2 Samuel 16:5-14. In the first section, I will review the core historical judgments that, whether they have been agreed upon or not, have dominated the historical-critical analysis of the section of the Hebrew Bible in which 2 Samuel 16:5-14 is situated. In the second section, I will review the literary turn away from historical critical studies which began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a move which pulled even historically-oriented scholars in a more fruitful direction. In the third section, I will survey the recent synthesis of the historical and literary approaches which grew out of historians embracing the literary turn, a move which has also resulted in a positive response among literary critics which acknowledges some of the results of the historians’ labors. And finally, in section four, I will address the seminal article on 2 Samuel 16:5-14 by Walter Brueggemann, whose body of work stands astride the worlds of both historical and literary criticism.
2.1 Classical Historical-Critical Approaches to David 2.1.1 Leonhard Rost In the last eighty years, there have been two critical judgments made by scholars which have dominated the discussion of the books of Samuel and which have thus shaped our understanding of David. The first is found in the work of Leonhard Rost, The Succession to the Throne of David, first published in 1926.60 Rost’s primary contribution was his isolation of the material of what he called the Succession Narrative (hereafter SN), which he believed was one of a number of “subsidiary sources” (Unterquellen) written by a member of Solomon’s court and
59 Walter Brueggemann, “On Coping with a Curse: A Study of II Samuel 16:5-14,” CBQ 36 (1974): 175-92.
60 Leonhard Rost, The Succession to the Throne of David trans. by Michael D. Rutter and David M. Gunn, with introduction by Edward Ball; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1982). For a thorough introduction to the discussion Rost’s thesis evoked, see Harold O. Forshey, “Court Narrative,” ABD 1:1172-79.
27 later stitched into a larger biblical framework comprising the text we have today.61 As Rost states explicitly, once he can determine the purpose of a given story and deduce its intended audience, he can then locate the author of that story,62 which will then give him a window into the religion of ancient Israel, which is his primary interest. I will not recapitulate the totality of his argument here, but it is important to note the confluence of three factors in his method: finding the story’s purpose, and then identifying the author, leads to the truth of history. The author, in particular, is a source of great interest for him, which he believes can be discovered by attending to the style of a text. Following the form-critical approach pioneered by Hermann Gunkel, Rost says that style is where an author is most clearly disclosed. “[S]tyle is and will remain a person’s most individual creation which is always being fashioned anew, creatively producing singularity and stubborn idiosyncrasy, the more singular and stubbornly idiosyncratic the writer’s own nature.”63 As I will discuss below, Baruch Halpern takes a similar but more nuanced position in his identification of authorial style, which is an essential aspect of any historical analysis intent on breaking down the text into its (alleged) constituent parts, since elucidating style is a key method for distinguishing one text from another. Stylistic analysis, which lays bare the ideology of the text in question and, in turn, identifies the author, bridges the time gap that exists between the reader and the events under scrutiny, thus making events long past seem present: No longer does the question of authorship have to do with lifeless stereotypes but with flesh and blood people, with living personalities. We can look into their
61 Rost identified 2 Samuel 6:16 and 20ff, 7:11b and 16, 9:1-10:5 (10:6-11:1), 11:2-12:7a, 12:13-25 (26-31), 13:1-14:24, 14:28-17.17, 18:19-20:22, 1 Kings 1:1-2:1; 2:5-10, 2:12-27a and 2:28-46 as a single unit which answered the question of how it came to be that Solomon succeeded his father on the throne and not one of his rivals.
62 Rost, Succession Narrative, 26, speaking of the Ark Narrative: “Without a doubt, we have here … the ‘cult legend’ of the shrine of the ark in Jerusalem. The story served the purpose of explaining the significance of the visitors to the shrine, most particularly the pilgrims, an aim of which could be best achieved by telling them of a miraculous past … Having thus established the purpose of the ark narrative by references to the circumstances of its creation and the audience for whom it was intended, we are now in a position to see which direction we should look for its author. Without doubt he must have belonged to the community of priests who looked after the ark. For they were the people to whom the visitors of the sanctuary could turn for information.”
63 Ibid., 4.
28 hearts and perceive their piety, nurtured in the Samuel soil but in each person shaped somewhat differently. The portrait of a period then becomes richer, livelier and more realistic.64
The impulse to identify the author is thus the methodological engine which propels Rost’s investigation forward. Rost’s search for the author and his seeming certainty of having found him seems a bit naive to later readers. But for Rost this is the controlling concern of his project. The motif of the movement of the Ark from place to place in 1 Samuel 5-7 is the thread which for Rost connects it with the story of David’s flight from Absalom in 2 Samuel 15, when the ark is again moved. He does not begin his investigation into the SN here, for this, as he notes, is the story’s midsection. Instead, he goes to its end in 1 Kings 1:13 which discloses to us “the wishes and intentions” of the author. The theme of the story, Rost argues, is “Who shall sit on David’s throne?”65 It is from this perspective, knowing as he does the story’s conclusion, that Rost then determines the essential contours of the SN. He works his way backwards from 1 Kings 1 judging whether the material in each section is necessary for the story to be brought to conclusion. Chapters 21-24 of 2 Samuel are, in his view, superfluous to the story and are thus another, later source added as supplement. Chapters 15-20, however, contain a number of elements necessary to the story, most especially the removal of Absalom as the chief claimant to the throne, as well as information about the subsidiary revolts which David shook off so as to be able in 1 Kings to name his successor. Chapters 13 and 14 Rost accepts as basically intact because they provide the facts about the demise of another would-be king Amnon, as well as supply the motivation for Absalom’s animosity towards his father. Chapters 10-12 are essential in that they relate how Solomon’s parents were joined together in the context of the Ammonite War.66 Chapter 9 is also basic to the story for it introduces Mephibosheth to the SN, whose character will become significant in chapter 16 and again in 19. Finally, Rost understands the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 6-7 to be the introduction to the SN since it introduces the motif of
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., 67-68.
66 The proof of the historicity of the SN is for Rost, located in this section. First, there is what he believes to be a historical report of the Ammonite War. Second, there is the story of David’s affair with Bathsheba, which in his view has to be historical in that any such story that was not based in fact would not have been publicly circulated. Cf. ibid., 103-104.
29 the ark’s movement that directed him to the sequel in 2 Samuel 15 in the first place. Significantly for this dissertation, Rost’s treatment of our passage, 2 Samuel 16:5-14, is limited to his discussion of the nexus of texts that feature Shimei (2 Samuel 16:5-14; 19:18-23; 1 Kings 2:5-9, 36-45) and how he is ultimately humbled and killed for having cursed God’s anointed. For Rost, this text functions first of all as one of the “ligatures” that connect the various stories of the SN. Secondly, the text discloses, in his opinion, a bit of the theological understanding of ancient Israel, which is namely that the cursing of God’s anointed, no matter in what dire straits that king finds himself, will not go unpunished. And finally, the passage is evidence of David’s simple faithfulness, which, unaccompanied by cultic practice, ultimately wins Yahweh’s favor. Though Rost does not substantively exegete our passage, his work is nonetheless significant for this study because of its influence in shaping the debate.67 Some scholars, as we will see below in our discussion of literary-critical approaches to the text, reject Rost’s slicing and dicing of the passage in principle and choose to treat the text of 1-2 Samuel as a whole,68 but even many of these scholars still make use of the term “SN,” even if what they mean by that significantly differs from how Rost understood it. John Barton, among others, has recently argued that the theme of succession can be found in numerous other places in the books of Samuel and thus setting the beginning of the SN in 2 Samuel 9, if succession is really the theme, is actually an arbitrary starting point.69 Others, who operate within the historical
67 See, e.g., Gerhard von Rad, “The Beginning of Historical Writing in Ancient Israel,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays (trans. E.W. Trueman Dicken; Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), 166-204; Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, I & II Samuel (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964); R.N. Whybray, The Succession Narrative: A Study of II Samuel 9-20, I Kings 1-2 (SBT 9; London: SCM Press, 1968); John Mauchline, 1 and 2 Samuel (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1971); J. Flanagan, “Court History or Succession Document? A Study of II Samuel 9-20 and I Kings 1-2,” JBL 91 (1972): 172-181; A.A. Anderson 2 Samuel (WBC; Waco: Word, 1989); and Gnana Robinson, 1 & 2 Samuel: Let Us Be Like the Nations (ITC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).
68 As early as the mid-60s, R.A. Carlson, in David the Chosen King: A Traditio-Historical Approach to the Second Book of Samuel (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1964), was arguing that the way to look at 2 Samuel, instead of carving it up into sources was through the lens of the Deuteronomist. He interpreted chapters 1-8 as being the effects of David under Yahweh’s blessing, and chapters 9-24 as being under Yahweh’s curse.
69 John Barton, “Dating the Succession Narrative,” in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar (ed. by John Day; London and New York: T
30 paradigm shaped by the work of Martin Noth, disagree with Rost over the evaluation of the author of the SN whom Rost believed tries to portray Solomon in a positive light.70 Van Seters has even suggested that what Rost has identified as the SN, rather than being some of the oldest material in the DH, is actually the latest and was constructed in the post-exilic era in order to persuade the people of Persian Yehud that they did not need a king.71 The difficulties that I have with Rost’s method are two. First of all, while the identification of the SN as a source earlier than the books of Samuel themselves might have utility as a historical matter, the isolation of the SN from the larger text of Samuel, the DH and the rest of the Old Testament collapses all other interpretive possibilities of the passage in favor of a single one, namely an answer to the question of who was going to be Israel’s next king. This myopic perspective has had a powerful influence in directing scholarship away from the kind of wide-scale macro-analysis of the Old Testament itself for which I am arguing. Second, Rost’s quest for the authorial intention of the SN as the key both to understanding the shape of what he claims is a pre-Samuel source as well as what that source means is a hopeless quest. What Rost has found, when he thinks he has found the author of the SN, is really just a sense of coherence in the text such that the text makes sense to him. The coherence that Rost detects may, in fact, have been the author’s intention, but as I will show, such coherence can be construed quite differently by widening the lens to include other texts.
& T Clark, 2004), 95-106. Gillian Keys, in The Wages of Sin:A Reappraisal of the Succession Narrative, (JSOTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), argues that the parameters of the SN should be limited to 2 Samuel 10-20.
70 See David T. Lamb, Righteous Jehu and his Evil Heirs: The Deuteronomist's Negative Perspective on Dynastic Succession (OTM; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), especially 249-51 and Jeffrey Geohagen, The Time, Place, and Purpose of the Deuteronomistic History: The Evidence of "Until This Day" (BJS; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006).
71 John Van Seters, The Biblical Saga of King David (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009); See also Albert de Pury and Thomas Römer, Die Sogenannte Thronfolgegeschichte Davids: Neue Einsichten und Anfragen (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 2000), and Lienhard Delekat, “Tendenz und Theologie der David-Salomo Erzahlung,” in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort: Festschrift Leonhard Rost zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres (BZAW 105; ed. F. Maass; Berlin: Toppelmann, 1967), 26-36, who understood the SN as undermining the monarchy.
31 2.1.2 Martin Noth The second critical judgment that has dominated the discussion of the historical David, albeit in arguing for the historicity of his son Solomon, is found in the study of Martin Noth on the Deuteronomic History (hereafter DH) , first published in 1943.72 Noth was the first to argue that the books of Joshua-Kings, which he called the DH, was a complete, self-contained work created by a single author out of available materials.73 This hypothesis was revolutionary in that previously scholars had treated the DH as if it were a disparate collection of materials thrown together in a less than orderly fashion. It is this widening of the reader’s lens to include more data that has led so many scholars to reject Rost’s view of the SN as pro-Solomonic, since including material on the totality of the dynasties of both North and South significantly colors the reader’s perception of that one king. What Noth argues is that there is coherence in the Deuteronomist’s (hereafter Dtr) work and that his purposes can be illuminated by careful reading.74 Older scholarship, says Noth, applied the insights gleaned from the study of the Pentateuch, mining the DH for pre-Deuteronomistic sources drawn from those texts, rather than focusing on the beauty of how those sources were stitched together in final form by Dtr.75 According to Noth, there are three things which obscured Dtr from the view of the biblical scholars: the interlocking of the last section of the Pentateuchal narrative onto the beginning of the DH, the placing of secondary accretions onto Dtr’s original work, especially at the end of books, and the division of the DH into those “books” themselves.76 Noth is concerned
72 Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History (trans. Jane Doull; JSOTSup 15; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981). For a discussion of the issues provoked by Noth’s thesis, see Steven L. McKenzie, “Deuteronomistic History,” ABD 2:160-168.
73 For more recent scholarship on the DH, see Gary Knoppers and J.G. McCannville, Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000); Albert de Pury, Thomas Römer, Jean-Daniel Macchi, eds., Israel Constructs Its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research (JSOTSup 306; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); and Thomas C. Römer, The So-called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007).
74 Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 10.
75 Ibid.: “Dtr was not merely an editor but the author of a history which brought together material from highly varied traditions and arranged it according to a carefully conceived plan.” 76 Ibid., 75.
32 that the insights of Pentateuchal criticism not be foisted wholesale onto the DH, because in his view, Deuteronomy begins an entirely distinctive narrative that is separate from that of Genesis- Numbers. The “Sinai tradition” is quite different from the “occupation tradition,” but this has been missed due to the fact that the book of Deuteronomy as it stands (rather than the way it was originally set down) looks like the conclusion to the older tradition rather than the introduction to the newer one. Not unlike Rost, Noth claims to discern the author’s purpose within the DH. In choosing the material for his work, Dtr “planned the history of his people in Joshua-Kings in accordance with a unified plan.”77 The method which implemented the plan, which was namely “the inserting of general retrospective and anticipatory reflections at certain important points,” was uniquely Deuteronomistic in the literature of the Hebrew Bible, an observation which to Noth served as evidence of the work’s unity.78 To his available sources, Dtr added 1 Samuel 7:2b, 7- 14; 8-12; 13:1; 2 Samuel 2:10-11; 5:4-12 as well as several other minor additions in the creation of this new work. All of the material about David is from the older strata of tradition that Dtr used as his primary source. So what was the theme of this unified narrative crafted by Dtr? Writing from the mid 6th century BCE when Israel was at the end of its glory days, Dtr developed the idea of an “ever intensifying historical decline.”79 Dtr divided his available material into four periods. Beginning with (1) the promulgation of the law and Moses’ warnings concerning the consequences for failing to heed it, then Dtr narrates (2) the occupation and conquest, (3) the time of the judges, and (4) the rise and decline of the monarchy all from the perspective of Israel’s relation to the law. Dtr’s understanding of David is thus that his was a dynamic and powerful reign that demonstrated what God was capable of doing in Israel and Judah when they followed Torah. Likewise, David’s flaws are the cracks in the foundation that foreshadow all that will go wrong
77 Ibid., 9. Noth adds: “[H]e selected consistently in accordance with the general approach taken in his history, drawing on the ‘Books of the Chronicles’ for material on a few topics which he thought important and, equally consistently, omitting all other material--including the political and military activities of the kings as rulers of the state--because it did not seem essential to the treatment of his general theme,” (84).
78 Ibid., 6.
79 Ibid., 79.
33 later. Dtr understood the law, according to Noth, to be the norm for the relationship between God and the people, and the yardstick for measuring human conduct. The entire history of Israel down to the 6th century is considered in terms of this relation to Torah. This date of composition is derived by Noth from the date of the final episode of 2 Kings in which the Judean king Jehoiachin sits at the table of the foreign despot (25:27-30). The present circumstance of exile, therefore, in Dtr’s judgment, is to be understood as the subsequent judgment for Israel’s continued disobedience.80 Noth does not treat our passage in his monograph on the DH. While many aspects of his thesis have been questioned and subsequently modified,81 his basic premise that the DH is a unified work has reached virtually “canonical status” among historical critics, according to one scholar, even if there is disagreement on the number of redactors involved in its composition.82 Still, from a literary-critical perspective, North’s work operates with presuppositions that have widely been rejected. That history has a discernible teleology or that authorial perspective and intention can be found in texts are questionable hypotheses. Though widely accepted, the DH hypothesis has also been questioned on historical grounds. Noth’s argument that the DH
80 The theme and purpose of the DH have been vigorously contested. See, e.g., Gerhard von Rad, “The Deuteronomic Theology of History in 1 and 2 Kings,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E.W. Trueman Dicken; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 205-221; Hans Walter Wolff, “The Kerygma of the Deuteronomistic Historical Work,” in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Hans Walter Wolff and Walter Brueggemann, eds.; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 83-100.
81 See, e.g., Dennis J. McCarthy, “II Samuel 7 and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History,” JBL 84 (1965): 131-138; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972); Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 274-289; Jon D. Levenson, “Who Inserted the Book of the Torah,” HTR 68 (1975): 203-233; Anthony Campbell, Of Prophets and Kings: A Ninth Century Document (1 Samuel-2 Kings 10) (CBQMS 17; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1986); and Steven McKenzie, The Chronicler’s Use of the Deuteronomistic History (HSM 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985). Richard D. Nelson, in The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 18; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1981), has persuasively argued against Noth’s idea of a unified narrative, noting the many discrepancies in perspective. Other scholars who see multiple hands at work in the DH are Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth, 274-289; and Thomas C. Römer, The So-called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007).
82 Steven McKenzie, “Deuteronomistic History,” 161.
34 recounts actual historical events has been strongly critiqued by John Van Seters83 and by Philip Davies,84 both of whom challenge Noth’s understanding of the DH’s author, whom they locate centuries later than he did. For our purposes significance of the author lies in the method he employed in his investigation and the complex of ideas regarding Dtr and the DH. Like Rost, Noth relies on the notion of a purpose to the work in question, to which he then subordinates all other questions of meaning and authorship, a method which as I have argued, is more reflective of the interpreter’s subjectivity than the putative author of the text. Noth’s work is an advance over Rost, however, in that he takes into account a much larger frame of reference for making sense of each of its individual parts. This is a move in the right direction, but, as we saw with Rost, a whole generation of scholars has given themselves over to the study of DH rather than trying to integrate it into the larger frame of the Old Testament, which is the method which I will employ below when reading 2 Samuel 16:5-14. Moreover, as Marc Zvi Brettler has pointed out, Noth’s detachment of the book of Deuteronomy from the other “books of Moses” and positing it as the theological introduction to an independent work extending through 2 Kings required him to focus not just on history, but on ideology, in order to show how Dtr shaped the material which had come down to him and melded to it his own views. This shift from history to historiography, Brettler argues, helped open up the space within the discipline of biblical studies for the more literary-focused efforts of recent times to make their appearance.85 Noth’s work was a powerful corrective for his time, which had been obsessed with form- critical analysis that broke the text up into the smallest of parts. Noth brought the text back together in his own fashion and read it in large sections, in what became known as tradition criticism, an approach which I prefer, even though the moment after he published his piece others began breaking it up again into smaller sections redacted by various editors. While I will read 2 Samuel 16:5-14 against the backdrop of the entire Hebrew Bible, I accept Noth’s insight that Deuteronomy-2 Kings presents a coherent story and is thus a useful frame of reference for interpretation. I am operating with the presupposition that, while I don’t think that the DH has a
83 John Van Seters, In Search of History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983).
84 Philip R. Davies, In Search.
85 Marc Zvi Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).
35 discernible “purpose,” as does Noth, it contains rhetoric which describes Israel’s understanding of its relationship to Yahweh, and that it is this relationship that is the most significant interest to the community which generated the text as well as the faith community that reads it today. Mapping that relationship, rather than history writing, is what I understand to be taking place in the DH. The differences that one finds in the perspective of the DH towards the monarchy are the vicissitudes of the character of Yahweh in Israel’s story, who supports and then withdraws support from, often seemingly without just cause, the leadership of the people, from the beginning with Moses in Deuteronomy to the end in exile in 2 Kings.
2.2 The Literary Reappraisal of the David Narratives To many scholars trained in the historical-critical method of the 1950s and 60s, there were far too many gaps in the interpretation of what was becoming a far too fragmented text. In this section, I will summarize the contributions of a number of the literary pioneers whose persuasive work in the DH pulled the historical critics in a more fruitful direction: David Gunn, J.P. Fokkelmann and Robert Polzin. The importance of their work can be demonstrated by examining how their commitment to maintaining the integrity of the biblical narrative brought round the historical scholars, who have adjusted their work accordingly. However, I will also argue that their methodological insights, though important, have not gone far enough, and thus scholarship has overlooked the importance of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, a text which should be central to any interpretation of the DH because of the complexity of the positions of the characters’ control both to control the direction of the narrative in favor of their own interests at the critical point of the first change of kings since the promise in 2 Samuel 7 and to have the pride of place in interpreting what they understand to be the purposes of Yahweh in that transition.
2.2.1 David M. Gunn One of the first commentators to question the historical-critical paradigm of the interpretation of the books of Samuel was David Gunn. His two volumes on Saul and David have been significant to a whole generation of biblical scholars who sought to view these stories through lenses other than those provided by historians.86 In The Story of King David, Gunn
86 David M. Gunn, The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation (JSOTSup 6; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978); idem, The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of A Biblical Story (JSOTSup
36 raises the issue of the genre of the SN. As he understands the term, genre is “simply a label which gives information about the form and content of a piece of literature and thus very crudely sets limits around the expectations a reader should bring to the piece.”87 He is not interested in identifying genre in terms of ancient rhetorical forms in the manner of traditional historical criticism, but instead uses the categories of modern literary criticism for his analysis. Rather than viewing the SN as political propaganda, as did Rost and, to a lesser extent, Whybray,88 or as an early attempt at history writing, as did Wellhausen,89 von Rad,90 Bright,91 and Tucker,92 or as an example of didactic wisdom literature, as did Whybray, Gunn proposes to treat the SN as a novella that was composed “as a work of art and entertainment.”93 As he points out, this is not a new proposal, having first been raised both by Caspari and Gressmann early in the 20th century.94 It was also raised by Whybray but then dropped in his monograph for no apparent reason.95 For Gunn, the SN is neither history, nor wisdom, nor even didactic literature, unless its educational aspect is understood in the sense that one is educated by reading and appreciating
14; rev. ed.; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989).
87 Gunn, The Story of King David, 19.
88 R. Norman Whybray, The Succession Narrative.
89 Julius Wellhausen, Einletung in das Alte Testament (4th ed.; Berlin: F.Bleek, 1879).
90 Gerhard von Rad, “The Beginnings of History Writing in Ancient Israel,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E.W. Trueman Dicken; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955).
91 John Bright, A History of Israel (2nd ed.; OTL; London: SCM Press, 1972), 179.
92 Gene Tucker, Form Criticism of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 36.
93 Ibid., 37
94 See Wilhelm Caspari, “The Literary Type and Historical Value of 2 Samuel 15-20,” in Narrative and Novella in Samuel: Studies By Hugo Gressmann and Other Scholars 1906-1923 (trans. David E. Orton; ed. David M. Gunn; JSOTSup 116; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991), 59- 88; and Hugo Gressmann, “The Oldest History Writing In Israel,” in Narrative and Novella, 9- 58.
95 R. Norman Whybray, The Succession Narrative, 81-83.
37 any literary work.96 It is simply a story.97 Gunn’s proposal stems from his frustration with the state of affairs in the interpretation of the SN. For one thing, the parameters of Rost’s hypothesized SN (2 Samuel 9-20 and 1 Kings 1- 2) are for Gunn too narrow. Gunn’s telling of the story includes the material of 2 Samuel 2:12- 5:3, an inclusion which he claims will affect the interpretation of the narrative in no small way, in that it includes all of the conflict with David’s nephews, Joab, Abishai, and the ill-fated Asahel, as well as David’s unsavory dealings with Abner, the northern general of malleable loyalty. By this emendation Gunn lapses back into the historicism that his work calls into question, a concern of which he is well aware. His judgment about expanding the scope of the SN is very tentative and almost apologetic, which defines the situation in which he wrote, which was yet not fully out from under the dominating hand of historical criticism. But if I share this dissatisfaction with the current state of historical-critical research I am unwilling to circumvent the method, ignore it, and reject it out of hand. It is not easy to be rid of historicism’s original setting, original meaning, or author’s intention without incurring, probably justly, the charge of subjectivism. Perhaps the best one can do is to try to keep this approach in perspective by learning better to recognize its limitations. Whether or not I have managed to do this in the present book is for others to decide. As I have said, it is about a postulated original text and not its final form, though I would hope that the amount of “reconstruction” involved would be regarded as minimal. Moreover I have devoted a good part of it to an argument about its original context and the possible purpose of the original author despite that person’s total anonymity.98
Even as he admits the impossibility of finding an author of the text99 and the tendentiousness of breaking a text down into sources, he nevertheless in the same paragraph announces his intention
96 Gunn, The Story of King David, 30.
97 Although he states that the SN was probably rooted in a form of oral storytelling, Gunn is agnostic about whether the narrative in its final form came directly from an oral stage or whether it first went through literary refinement; see ibid., 13-14.
98 Gunn, The Story of King David, 15.
99 Gunn comments: “Without access to the author we cannot be certain that he [sic] may have intended his work to convey multiple meanings. In any case, whatever his conscious intention, we who live in a post-Freudian era can appreciate the possibility of meanings emerging from unconscious intention. Nor is it necessary to stick with the author. The critic is in business to read words, not minds. And if the work is to have meaning it must be meaning for us who live in the twentieth century. That means, though the historicist-purist may not like it, that the business of critical interpretation may be a somewhat messy compromise” (87).
38 to do just that. It will await other scholars to make the move of reading the text as a whole rather than simply reading it as a coherent whole that, as yet, to which Gunn displays reluctance. There are two other dissatisfying features of the state of research on the SN that concerned Gunn at the time. One was the way in which scholars had tried to answer the question of whether the author is pro- or anti-Solomon, since both positions seem to be found in the biblical texts.100 The standard approach had been to view such oppositions as contradictory, with all of the pro material being attributed to one source or set of sources, and the anti material being attributed likewise to another source or set of sources. He questioned the necessity of seeing such oppositions as contradictory or its author on one side or the other, as if all tension had to be removed from a text in order for it to make sense.101 His proposal for treating the SN as an entertaining novel, by contrast, embraces and even revels in conflicting interpretations. Gunn also disagrees with the historical-critical determination that the SN dates from the time of Solomon, stating flatly that there is neither internal or external evidence necessitating a connection to the 10th century BCE, arguing that it could have been any time between the 10th century and the exile.102 Here again, though quite correct in pointing out the paucity of data which had buttressed such a conclusion for nearly a century, Gunn remains, from a postmodern perspective, somewhat “unreconstructed,” in that he still seeks to adjust his reading of the text to its provenance, rather than simply reading it where he is. As I mentioned earlier, Gunn’s interpretation of the story relies on the fact that he extends the SN to include 2 Samuel 2-4. Rost, as we saw above, believed that the SN was composed to answer the question posed in 1 Kings 1:13 regarding who would succeed David on the throne. Gunn argues, however, that the story gains a higher level of coherence if it is extended to include the additional material. The story of 2 Samuel 2-4 of how David and not someone else came to sit on the thrones of first Judah and then Israel, resembles the SN in certain respects: “[I]t is relatively extensive and elaborated, its primary focus is upon the characters involved and their
100 Here Gunn is most specifically interested in the writings of F. Langlamet: “Review of Würthwein, 1974, and Veijola, 1975,” RB 83 (1976): 114-137; “Pour ou contre Salomon? La Rédacion prosalomonienne de 1 Rois, I-II,” RB 83 (1976): 321-379, 481-528; and “Absalom et les concubines de son pere. Recerches sur II Samuel., XVI, 21-22,” RB 84 (1977): 161-209.
101 Gunn, The Story of King David, 24-25.
102 Ibid., 32.
39 interrelations, and it makes superb use of direct speech.”103 Moreover, there are important narrative links between the two books of Samuel as well, opening the possibility that the SN might be even larger. The appearance of a Saulide in the SN (Mephibosheth), for instance, raises the question of whether there are any more Saulides who can lay claim to throne.104 Put another way, the question, notwithstanding 2 Samuel 7, is not which one of David’s heirs will sit on his throne but whether or not the next king will even be a Davidide.105 The story of the displacement of the Saulide Ishbaal by David in 2 Samuel 2-4 provides for Gunn an explanation of the significance of the Saulides later in the SN, which would be interpreted altogether differently if they were not included earlier.106 But Gunn’s inclusion of 2 Samuel 2-4 in SN is also important because he sees it as the bookend to the situation in which David finds himself in 2 Samuel 16. Just as David is dependent on factors outside of his control in chapters 2-4 for the acquisition of the throne, so is he also dependent upon events beyond his control for its reacquisition in chapter 16. In the former case it is untimely deaths and in the latter, cunning advice that will be required, but as ever, it will be Yahweh who is in control of events. This David recognizes with his statement in
103 Ibid., 67-68.
104 Gunn argues: “What 9.1 basically requires as an antecedent is an account of the death of any surviving Saulides of public or political standing whom, in terms of the narrative, David would be expected to know about” (68).
105 Gunn states: “The narrative itself, however, hardly goes out of its way to convey such an impression: we get little if any hint that we are to view either Amnon or Absalom as Solomon’s rivals, nor that what is taking place in chapters 13-20 is a steady movement bringing us significantly nearer to the point where only Adonijah (‘the remaining rival candidate’) will stand between Solomon and the throne. Solomon’s ranking amongst the many sons of David is never mentioned in the Absalom story; nor for that matter is the ranking of any other son with the possible exception of Amnon (the LXX at 16:21 notes that Amnon was the first born’). Any indication, therefore, of a line of succession (‘the alternative possibilities to Solomon) with or without Solomon can be barely said to exist in these chapters. It is not until 1 Kings 1-2, when the theme of the succession does at last emerge prominently, that Solomon and his candidature comes into view, but even here we never learn how many sons other than Adonijah stood between Solomon and the throne. The narrator is only interested in making it clear that Solomon was not expected to rule,” (83).
106 Ibid., 68-69.
40 16:12, that it is Yahweh who will determine whether Shimei’s curse will be effective or not.107 Gunn’s treatment of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 also provides an important insight into a future direction for research in his discussion of the nephews of David, known in the text as “the sons of Zeruiah.” He treats the repetition of this phrase (2 Samuel 3:3-9; 16:10; and 19:23) as an example of the unified style of the SN.108 More important is his analysis of the two surviving sons, Joab and Abishai, under what he calls the rubric of “traditional motifs.”109 Gunn points out the links between 2 Samuel 16:5-14 and other scenes both within and without the SN in which the brothers Joab and Abishai appear. Twice in the SN there is a scene involving David, a confronting enemy, and David’s nephew Abishai (16:5-13; 19:6-23). In both of these scenes, as well as in a similar one 1 Samuel 26:6ff (where the “enemy” is the sleeping Saul), Abishai offers to kill David’s opponent, whereupon David responds negatively with phrase “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah?” Gunn then links this with the scene in 2 Samuel 3 in which Joab, Abishai’s brother, avenges the death of their brother, Asahel, by executing his killer, Abner. In this scene, unlike the previous three, David was unable to prevent bloodshed, a fact which prompts his lament, “These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too hard for me” (3:39). Gunn further links this to the scenes dealing with the death of Absalom in 2 Samuel 18-19 in which, despite David’s plea to Joab and Abishai to “deal gently” (18:5) with his son, he is nonetheless killed. This “weakness” in David is further linked by Gunn to the scene in 2 Samuel 21 in which David, exhausted from fighting the Philistines is saved by the vigorous and dangerous Abishai (21:15-17).110 It is this synchronic stringing together of texts in an attempt to make sense of the story that is Gunn’s signal influence on this present work. Although he does not do a comprehensive analysis of our passage with regard to all of its possible connections, and although he does not call what he does “intertextuality,” his work is nonetheless a reflection of that procedure, albeit
107 Ibid., 102.
108 Ibid., 80.
109 Ibid., 39-49. This is similar to what Robert Alter, in The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), refers to as a “type scene.”
110 Ibid., 39-40.
41 in a less thorough form. In demonstrating this process, Gunn has craftily begun to shift attention from “What really happened?” and such similar questions, to more subtle matters which foreground the meaning-making process that takes place in the interchange between reader and text. As we saw, Gunn still inhabits a historical critical universe. But his work made great strides in changing scholars’ orientations from historical questions to those centered in more contemporary literary-oriented concerns.
2.2.2 J.P. Fokkelman The first sustained attempt to address 2 Samuel 16:5-14 using the tools of contemporary literary criticism in a post-historicist framework is found in the first volume of a four-volume work by J. P. Fokkelman.111 The methodological principles that he employs in his textual analysis are derived primarily from structuralism. For Fokkelman, the reader has both a negative and a positive impact on a given text’s interpretation. The problems that scholars see in the texts are not really the texts’ problems themselves, but rather problems that exist within us, its readers, which are specifically, the great difference in time between our present situation and the events which the text narrates, and more generally, our “scholastic habit of making things difficult.”112 But if readers constitute for Fokkelman, the problem of interpretation, they are also its solution. Like Gunn, Fokkelman sees the reader of the text as the central figure of the meaning-making process, through whom the text’s meaning is realized: The text is vulnerable and cannot defend itself against misunderstanding. Much is contingent upon the reader, perhaps even everything. After all, the text can realize itself through him [sic] alone. The unread story is a dead letter; it has no actual life, merely a potential one. The work functions only by virtue of his reading. This leaves us with important obligations. Whoever wishes to make any assertion at all about a text can only do so after and based upon the reading of the text. A sloppy reading of the text gives an interpretation which is full of errors or blind spots respectively. On the other hand, the more careful the reading, the more valid the interpretation.113
111 J.P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel. A Full Interpretation Based On Stylistic and Structural Analysis. Volume 1: King David (II Samuel 9-20 & 1 Kings 1- 2) (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981); Volume 2: The Crossing Fates (I Samuel 13-31 and II Samuel 1), (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1986); Volume 3: Throne and City (II Samuel 2-8 and 21-24), (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990); and Volume 4:Vow and Desire, (Leiden: Brill, 1993).
112 Fokkelman, King David, 5.
113 Ibid., 2.
42
Although Fokkelman breaks with the historicist perspective by focusing on the importance of the reader, his structuralist outlook still seems overly optimistic. That there can be, as Fokkelman puts it, a misunderstanding of a text implies that there is encoded in the text a message that the reader uncovers, which is a position not far removed from that of historical criticism. Moreover, we may ask with what level of certitude one is able to distinguish a “sloppy” reading from a “careful” one? And what constitutes a “valid interpretation” as opposed to one that is “full of errors”? Fokkelman is certainly employing far more sophisticated literary techniques in his interpretation than one finds in Rost or Noth but he has yet to get past the idea that there is a “right” reading of a text, an idea that is at the heart of some of his bolder assertions.114 As we saw with Gunn, Fokkelman has little regard for most of the history of interpretation of this text specifically or of Hebrew narrative more generally, in that much of what the scholar knows prior to coming to the individual text is not very helpful in disclosing its meaning: “The vast knowledge which a biblical scholar has acquired is not in the least useless but must be put in the background during interpretation, stowed away for service as though in a storage repository. Most of it is not relevant or productive for the one text with which he [sic] is occupied at any moment.”115 That he is by no means completely ignoring the critical judgments of historical criticism altogether is plainly evident in his demarcation of the boundaries of his text, 2 Samuel 9-20 and 1 Kings 1-2, which are in essence the same as Rost’s. Rather than approaching the text with a priori methodological presuppositions drawn from the scholar’s bag of tricks, Fokkelman argues for a positive, open-minded reading which both suspends such presuppositions and which at the same time draws its method explicitly from the text itself.116 Most important for his analysis are the two rhetorical features of Hebrew narrative in general that he identifies as most indicative of its art, which are (1) the distinction between narration and
114 See, e.g., ibid., 13: “The semantic potential of a work longs to become semantic actuality; themes and values wish to appear, as a blossom flowers and crowns a plant’s growth. The input of all our ‘subjectivity’ is necessary for the successful consummation of this enthralling transition in which we, like a midwife, help the actual interpretation see daylight with the assistance of, for example, our knowledge of life and human nature.”
115 Ibid., 3.
116 Ibid., 3-4.
43 direct discourse, and (2) the division of the text into scenes.117 The vicissitudes of the text are to be first and foremost experienced and appreciated in all of their complexity, rather than the customary scholarly practice of seeing a different editor or source behind every shift in perspective. It is only after all of the text’s movements have been analyzed, in the interpretive phase, that the scholar’s rational powers are to be brought out of “storage” and put to use.118 As his title suggests, Fokkelman is concerned with providing his readers with both a structural as well as a stylistic account of the SN. On the latter score he fares much better than on the former, insofar as his structural analysis, hardly drawn from the text itself as was his stated intention, carries with it an apparatus so cumbersome so as to be as virtually useless as that which he means to displace. It is rather in his stylistic analysis that the insights of his close reading are so powerfully produced. This is no more apparent than in his discussion of our text, 2 Samuel 16:5-14. Gunn, as we saw above, was a pioneer in interpreting this passage by laying other similar texts beside it. Fokkelman, though sparingly, also uses this procedure. He also notes, as did Gunn, without calling it intertextuality, the relationship of the phrase “sons of Zeruiah” in chapter 16 with its appearance earlier in 3:39.119 These sons of Zeruiah will figure prominently throughout the rest of the story and particulary so in 2 Sam 16:5-14, which I will discuss below. Although he does not string together all of the other intertexts in the SN as Gunn had, he does point out that the intertext in chapter 3 is indicative of the fact that 2 Samuel 9-20 is not “a completely independent text and requires integration in a wider context,” an important acknowledgement for him, given that he has chosen to follow Rost in reading chapters 9-20 as a separate source.120 In his reading of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, Fokkelman does not make use of other texts in an intertextual strategy to understand the text, but he does something very similar in his reading of
117 Ibid., 8-9.
118 Fokkelmann states: “Misunderstanding, caprice, excitement, and a lack of scope--these things are all in the game and need not cause any damage if we remain sober and critical of our escapades in the last stage of the work, the writing of the analysis. In this phase our reason has a formidable influence and can and must weigh everything we have experienced in the work on a fine balance,” (6).
119 Ibid., 199.
120 Ibid., n 47.
44 the conflict between the characters of Abishai, David and Shimei. What Fokkelman’s analysis does, in effect, is to make an intertext out of general human psychology. Shimei lacks a deep- seated sense of self, which is at the heart of his anger towards David, which dictates the fact that his perspective on the world, unlike David’s, is very limited: [His] identity is decided much less by his individual self than by his coming from such a Benjaminite village and his belonging to the House of Saul. Shimei’s mental horizon extends no farther than the clan, and he is not so much an individual as a representative.121
Shimei’s action, he says, constitutes a “psychic invasion” of David.122 His display of protest is evidence that Shimei is “totally on an ego trip, acting out his own frustrations … captive in his own frustrated world and cannot make real contact anymore.”123 Fokkelman also reads Abishai’s character in a similar manner: “This brother of Joab does what frequently happens to anyone who is the target of rage: i.e., he returns the stream of negative energy reaching him by also becoming angry, and preferably even more angry.”124 Abishai is reactive, operating at the level of the ego. David, who by contrast does not appear to react, Fokkelman describes as “responsive” and therefore, is acting responsibly for he is operating at the level of the self “in a way chosen by free men [sic] after considering alternatives.”125 The most stable of the three characters in the story from a mental health perspective, “David is successful in utilizing an unhealthy situation for his own growth process. He regards the incident as an opportunity of more thoroughly appropriating and accepting his existential truth of now, humiliation. Thus he comes to God.”126 As the summary of this scene illustrates, Fokkelman’s analysis makes liberal use of the jargon of contemporary psychology. For all of the updating of the taxonomy, however, Fokkelman’s basic understanding of the characters of Abishai, David and Shimei is hardly any
121 Ibid., 196.
122 Ibid., 199.
123 Ibid., 201.
124 Ibid., 198.
125 Ibid., 198-199.
126 Ibid., 201.
45 different from the standard Christian telling of the story learned from childhood, which is that David, though human like the rest of us (see Bathsheba) is nonetheless the real model of faith and that virtually everyone else in the story is either conniving, angry, jealous or some combination of the three. I will address the ways that the individual characters in the story are evaluated by particular commentators in my exegesis of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 in Chapter Three. For Fokkelman, David’s character is still evaluated in a positive light, primarily in my judgment, because he has not appropriated the previous material on David’s character into his telling of this story. We will recall that of his four-volume study, this one is the first, although the story it narrates (2 Samuel 9-20 and 1 Kings 1-2) is actually drawing towards its conclusion, with David’s children grown and vying with him and each other for ascendancy. Had Fokkelman analyzed David’s character intertextually from its opening presentation in 1 Samuel, with the ambitious boy who slays Goliath in order to win the hand of the princess rather than beginning the story with the king already on the throne ruling over a united kingdom, he might have understood David as a different character, more cunning, pragmatic, and self-serving. Likewise, had he read Abishai (as did David Gunn) in light of the totality of his appearances in the larger story rather than isolating his presentation in this scene, he might have also reached different conclusions about him. And finally, if he would have reflected on the content of Shimei’s claim relative to other such claims in biblical material, rather than reading him as a simple foil to the great faith of David, he might have seen aspects of his character that had hitherto remained undiscovered as well. As I will argue below, David can be read as a more sinister figure with self-serving motives and both Abishai and Shimei can be read as each possessing a far stronger claim to legitimacy and can thus be read as significantly more serious characters than Fokkelman will allow.
2.2.3 Robert Polzin The most substantive treatment from a literary perspective of our passage, as well as the DH as a whole, is found in the work of Robert Polzin.127 Before I turn to that, however, it will
127 Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. Part One: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges (New York: Seabury Press, 1980); Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. Part Two: 1 Samuel (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989); and David and the Deuteronomist: A Literary History of the Deuteronomic History. Part Three: 2 Samuel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993).
46 be helpful to review the larger scope of his work. His first book on the DH, Moses and the Deuteronomist, published in 1980, outlined what he called a “crisis” in biblical studies and contained a stinging critique of historical criticism. The scholarly study of the Bible had been dominated by a certain set of presuppositions that, though employed for nearly two hundred years, had not been successful in providing an adequate reading of texts like the DH.128 Like Gunn, Polzin points out that after all of the analysis of the DH by some of the most brilliant minds in the discipline (e.g., Noth, von Rad, Wolff) scholars could not even agree on such basic matters as whether the DH is about doom or hope, or whether there were two redactions or just one.129 Historical criticism, Polzin said, has long been understood within the academy to be “the cornerstone of modern biblical studies,” absolutely necessary for an adequate understanding of the material. On the other hand, he argued, biblical scholars have often been suspicious of literary criticism, wondering if those who practiced this should even be considered as engaging in a scholarly endeavor.130 What has really interested most biblical critics has been the historical data behind the text and not the text itself. It is this ignoring of the literary dimension of biblical texts that was for Polzin the explanation for the failure of historical criticism: “This literary lacuna is a primary reason why analyses of biblical material have so often produced disappointing and inadequate results.”131 Polzin’s methodological suggestion was not ahistorical by any means. Indeed, he defends historical criticism in the same terms that he does literary criticism, i.e. that it, too, is necessary for an adequate understanding of the text. The situation to which Polzin so strenuously objected was that one be practiced to the exclusion of other, as if one were
The most important section for the purposes of this paper, found in David and the Deuteronomist (149-168), also appears as “Curses and Kings: A Reading of 2 Samuel 15-16,” in The New Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup 143; eds., J. Cheryl Exum and David J.A. Clines; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 201-226.
128 Polzin, Moses, 13.
129 Ibid., 15. He adds: “If the best and most influential of modern biblical scholarship often base their arguments on weak and inadequate diachronic guidelines, what must be the case with works of lesser quality?” (14).
130 Ibid., 1-3.
131 Ibid., 5.
47 inessential to the task of interpretation.132 Both perspectives, Polzin argued, must rather be brought to bear on the text. But what of the historical critic who believes that what he or she is doing constitutes the appropriate method, that they already grasp the intricacies of the text? To those historical critics who thought that literary criticism was beneath them, that it was simplistic, Polzin added a word of caution. The modern critical study of the Bible has not until recently been challenged by sophisticated proponents of modern literary or hermeneutic studies. In fact, the biblical scholar who may find it easy to ignore or even to confidently criticize present efforts to subject the Bible to serious literary analysis is actually not so well equipped as he [sic] may imagine to take a definite stand on the issue.133
Polzin argued for a collaborative approach that takes into account both literary and historical matters. The appropriate method would be to do a complete literary analysis first and then turn to historical problems, which would then further refine and adapt the method to the text at hand. Again, literary criticism is not privileged above historical criticism in importance, as if the latter were inessential: “Synchrony over diachrony, not in rank, but in operation.”134 Failure to give operational priority to a synchronic literary perspective had blinded scholars to the meaning of the biblical text, which is precisely what was wrong with the state of affairs at that time: “For so many to believe that they were actually understanding the Bible’s claims on its own terms, when in fact they were not, represented, in his view, a true crisis in scholarship.” For most scholars, the first step in biblical interpretation is placing the text in its original setting by reconstructing its historical situation, of which he is highly critical.135 Polzin
132 Polzin comments: “Neither [historical criticism or literary criticism] occupies by intrinsic right an academic throne to which the other must bring its conclusions for scholarly approval” (2).
133 Ibid., 17.
134 Ibid., 6.
135 Polzin states: “Whether one’s ideal be ecclesiastical or scholarly or a combination of both, a basic dilemma is posed by the belief that the primary task of the biblical historian is to hear the biblical message in the sense it had for its writer and audience: once one subjects a biblical text to a literary or historical analysis, the conclusion is often inescapable that the typically biblical approach to the word of God it uncovers is apparently opposed to such an understanding of the scholarly task. To study the Bible with such an uninvolved and ‘objective’ stance is still to discover a message that was apparently not meant to be understood in such a way. One can even
48 believed that this quest for original settings is rooted in scholars’ own subjective need to do so rather than by any demand made upon us by the text for it to be meaningful, which makes the bias of what is constructed by historical criticism at least as biased as anything produced by a literary reading: For those who believe that an impersonal uninvolved scholarship is necessary even to assess the biblical message, necessary at least in the sense that one must first correctly perceive a message before one can assess it, there is no room left for the possibility that biblical messages might justifiably assess such a view of scholarship. Scholarship for these individuals involves a contract which includes a self-justifying clause that reads, “Attitudes toward the text that question the fundamental role of an uninvolved impersonal criticism are critically unacceptable. But critically unacceptable approaches to the Bible are too subjective to be taken seriously. Therefore, one can safely ignore such attitudes.” Catch 22. There apparently exists academic as well as religious fundamentalism, scholarly as well as theological dogmatism.136
According to Polzin, the interpretation of the DH is a prime illustration of everything that is wrong with biblical scholarship. In Deuteronomy, Moses receives the law from God and then interprets it in authoritative fashion to the people. This interpretation then becomes within the story the controlling interpretation for understanding Israel’s history. The DH is thus the application of that authoritative interpretation of Torah and as such foregrounds its explicit bias, which is namely, that everyone is called to see the events of their individual unfolding histories through the lens of this biased, authoritative interpretation. Biblical scholarship, however, since it goes out of its way to avoid the biases which are at the heart of the DH’s claims, cannot claim, according to Polzin, to be engaging the text in a very meaningful fashion. If the Deuteronomic History tells a story in which certain past events are considered important for men’s [sic] lives, it follows that when a literary and historical analysis of that which this work helps us understand, in a more profound way and in greater detail, what that story meant to its original audience, one effect of this scholarly retelling of the Deuteronomic story is to cast doubt on a scholarship that retells these stories but deliberately refuses to apply them, in Gadamer’s sense of application.137
Polzin points out that if it is legitimate to read the DH according to someone like Noth’s
phrase the dilemma in structuralist jargon: the result of this kind of decoding of the text is the recovery of an original message that reads: ‘Do not decode this in the way you have,’” (8).
136 Ibid., 9.
137 Ibid., 11.
49 understanding of history, then a similar evaluation of Noth should be possible in terms of the DH’s principles. But how many biblical scholars would acknowledge that point? Understanding the biblical text, on the DH’s terms, is less about objectivity and more about engagement and commitment, which can be unsettling to the dispassionate scholar. Rather than chopping the text up according to historical sources, Polzin argues for reading the present state of the text as it stands, if it “makes sense.” A passage can be said to make sense “if it repeats compositional patterns already encountered in what precedes it and foreshadows perspectives that lie ahead.”138 Having freed himself from the constraints of ever looking behind the text, Polzin can focus his attention on the movements of the text itself, from its patterns of organization to its points of disjunction in which “multiple voices” are evident. This is the premise which he follows consistently in his work, paying less attention in each successive volume on the DH to the scholarly discussion on the DH while paying more and more attention to the language and rhetorical structure of the text. Thus, his last volume of the trilogy, David and the Deuteronomist, is almost totally textual in content and was therefore an insightful, imaginative fund from which this present work draws frequently. Probably more so than any other scholar, Polzin’s three-volume work on the DH was the catalyst for bending the historical-critical wing of scholarship in the direction of literary criticism. By painstakingly showing numerous instances of inadequate interpretations from the historical critics of the DH, while offering up his own more holistic interpretation, Polzin is largely responsible for the more balanced field of interpreters that we have today, which I will discuss in section 2.3 below. His work has also been significant in encouraging my own intertextual exploration of 2 Samuel 16:5-14. Although he does not use the term “intertextuality” in his book, calling it instead “wordplay,” Polzin makes use of intertextual analysis in at least four instances with reference to 2 Samuel 16:5-14. First of all, Polzin points out that the complex of 2 Samuel 15-20 is an intertext of Joshua 3-5, which recounts Israel’s movements up to and including the crossing of
138 Polzin states: “[W]e are still responsible for making sense of the present text by assuming the present text, in more cases than previously realized, does make sense,” (18). Here he would agree with those who follow Brevard Childs’ canonical approach (Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture) which takes the text as it stands for explicitly religious reasons, although Polzin limits his religious engagement to the texts themselves rather than their boundaries or canonical status.
50 the Jordan. The stones which the elders of Israel place for a memorial in Joshua 4 upon the entrance to the land will be remembered later by the reader when such stones are thrown by Shimei at David upon his exit139 Second, he focuses on the repetition of the word b…wv, which appears multiple times in chapters 15 and 16. It is used in 15:19-20, 25, 27, 29, and 34 to refer to the return to Jerusalem. It is used in 16:3 to refer to the restoration of the kingdom. And it is used in our passage in 16:8 and 12 to refer to recompense for David’s actions from God.140 This repeated focus by the narrator on aspects of return, in combination with a number of other factors in the complex of 2 Samuel 15-20 give shape, according to Polzin, to an ideological point of view that is interested in themes of exile and return.141 Third, Polzin sees a connection between the cursing of David by Shimei and the later episode of Absalom and David’s concubines: The chapter characterizes Shimei’s cursing of David and Absalom’s taking David’s concubines in much the same way: Shimei curses David because, David believes, the Lord said he should; and Absalom humiliates David in the sight of all Israel because Ahithophel said he should. Since David and Absalom consider the counsel of Ahithophel equivalent to the Word of God (v. 23) not just the cursing of David in the first half, but even the humiliation in the second, are believed to be happening at the Lord’s behest.142
This illustrates the forward movement of intertextual analysis. Because it is not tied to a diachronic perspective, an intertextual reading strategy is not bound simply to look for the sources of a given text’s meaning, but can also at the same time examine how that given text becomes the (partial) locus of another text’s meaning, which when taken into account, then reflexively reshapes the given text’s meaning all over again. In this case, Polzin stitches the
139 Polzin, David, 156.
140 Ibid., 158.
141 He adds: “The central topic of his eventual return may be addressed in terms that mirror the complex situation of discourse between a Deuteronomic voice and its contemporary audience,” (159). Polzin picks his words very carefully here. He does not engage in historical speculation about who wrote the DH or for what reason or even when it was written. He simply points out grammatical affinities between these texts and texts in which the theme of exile and return is foregrounded, which may point in the direction of a Deuteronomic voice which could be speaking to a contemporary audience. Polzin has thus not left historical thinking behind, rather he simply employs such arguments with the greatest of caution.
142 Ibid., 160.
51 cursing of David by Shimei into a broader nexus of textual relations in which God’s work is done by persons who would perhaps not be readily thought of by readers as those known for carrying out the divine will, in ways which would perhaps not be readily identified by reader’s as “God’s ways.” This has the effect, at the very least, of shaping how the reader makes sense of God’s character, not to mention the characters of Shimei, David, Absalom and Ahithophel. Lastly, Polzin traces the significance of the word vaOr found in 16:9, as it appears in the books of Samuel around the figure of David: “David’s character zone from the beginning of his career to the end is intimately connected with the head (vaOr) as a locus of guilt and death and that blood flows from and upon the heads of David’s enemies more often than with any other character in the Bible.”143 Besides its proliferation in chapters 15-16 (15:17, 30, 32; 16:1, 9), he lists those heads who are bloodied in the DH (the Amalekite who claimed to have killed Saul, 2 Samuel 1.16; Joab, 1 Kings 2:32-33; and Shimei, 1 Kings 2.37), as well as those royalty “who suffer terminal violence to the head, whether by seizing, crushing, piercing, hanging, strangling or beheading (Sisera, Judges 5:26; Abimelech, Judges 9:53; Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:51; Saul, 1 Samuel 31:9; Ishbosheth, 2 Samuel 4:7; the sons of Rimmon, 2 Samuel 4:12; Ahithophel, 2 Samuel 17:23; Absalom, 2 Samuel 18:9, 10, 15; Sheba, 2 Samuel 20:22; seventy sons of Ahab, 2 Kings 10:7).144 We will recall that Fokkelman spoke disparagingly, as will Brueggemann, whom I will discuss below in section 2.4, of Abishai’s response to Shimei’s curse; both also use it as a foil for praising David’s faithfulness and mental health respectively. Having highlighted the extensive textual relations between related events within the DH, however, the speech of Abishai threatening violence to the head of Shimei certainly seems a reasonable response. Rather than seeming outlandish or faithless, Abishai’s statement seems instead, on Polzin’s reading, to be perfectly consistent with both his and David’s character. Three considerations make Polzin’s work, for me, the most valuable of those that I have surveyed. I appreciate first of all his insistence on asking literary questions prior to historical ones, although I believe that because his work is confined to the DH his field of vision is needlessly restricted. Second, like Gunn, and to a lesser extent Fokkelman, he makes a strong case for the reader’s responsibility to make sense of the final form of the text, a condition which
143 Ibid., 161.
144 Ibid., 165-166.
52 forces the reader to account for, rather than dismiss, gaps and inconsistencies. Third, although I find the DH to be too narrow as a field of focus, his demonstration of what can happen when one opens the boundaries of the text is evidence of the extent to which reading intertextually can critique modernist interpretations of biblical texts and thus arrive at altogether different conclusions. What Polzin does not do, however, is to press his method further by doing a full exegesis of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, instead using it to illumine aspects of the passage that fit with the other themes he sees in the DH. The DH is a theological narrative, however, and his failure to read it primarily as canon caused him to overlook the primary question that would stand out about the DH to members of a religious community, particularly one schooled in Deuteronomic, that is, covenantal thought and practice, which is namely, What does Yahweh think of all of this? Fundamentally, that is what is being wrestled with in 2 Samuel 16:5-14, but Polzin misses this.
2.3 Contemporary Historical and Literary Approaches to David I examined the work of Rost and Noth in section 2.1 as seminal figures in the ongoing historical-critical discussion related to our text. I will not exhaustively recount the various permutations of Rost’s and Noth’s work because the material is too vast and because the approach to which I am committed in this dissertation is not primarily a historical exercise. Where pertinent, in the final chapter I will engage the commentaries on 2 Samuel as they speak to the exegesis of 2 Sam 16:5-14. However, in what follows I will briefly discuss the work of three recent biblical historians who are representative of the broad stream of scholars who are of the opinion that David was an historical figure. In addition to fleshing out the methodological assumptions current in the historical scholarship on David, what I will attempt to show in this section is that while historians have learned a great deal from their counterparts who do literary criticism, which has then led them to scale back many of their craft’s claims, which, as a result, has greatly enhanced what the historians have ultimately produced in their studies on David, nevertheless, the historical-critical approach has largely overlooked or dismissed the significance of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, a lacuna this dissertation seeks to redress. I will now briefly consider the contributions of a number of writers whose works have in the last decade nonetheless been a part of the ongoing shift in biblical scholarship in its understanding of the biblical narratives of 1 and 2 Samuel in a literary direction. What each of these writers share is that, whether they are oriented historical criticism (e.g. McKenzie, Halpern
53 and Campbell) or literary criticism (e.g. Alter, Borgman and Pinsky) each to some degree or other has adapted to a new synthesis that has historians thinking more in literary categories and the literary theorists, if not accepting at least acknowledging the legitimacy of some historical inquiry into the text. Despite this welcome occurrence in the field, however, there is yet no comprehensive treatment of 2 Samuel 16:5-14.
2.3.1 Baruch Halpern Baruch Halpern has been a firm adherent to the traditional view that much of what is contained in the Bible is the work of early Israelite historians.145 Decrying all of the naysayers critical of the work of the biblical historian, from fundamentalists to literary critics, whom he repeatedly calls “Pyrrhonists,” after the ancient Greek school of skepticism, Halpern attempts to answer the growing list of people who have in recent years brought historiography into a “crossfire” by arguing that, whatever the factual accuracy of the final product, there is a clear standard, to him at least, for determining what is history and what is not: If the author, for example, attempts knowingly to perpetrate knowingly on the reader a fraudulent reconstruction contradicted or unsupported by evidence the author is not engaged in writing history. Quite the opposite, the author is trying to fob off as history a text known to be something else. Whether a text is history, then, depends on what its author meant to do...The line then, falls not between history and fictional history—all history is fictional, imaginative, as the literary critics say. The distinction is between history and romance or fable; it is a distinction in authorial intention, in the author’s adherence to sources.146
This is Halpern’s so-called “criterion of intentionality.” We have seen this kind of thing before with Rost and Noth, although perhaps not stated as baldly or boldly: authorial intention is of paramount importance to the historical enterprise and Halpern is just as certain as the previous two that this can be detected.147 As I have already made clear, it is my contention that this
145 Baruch Halpern, The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); idem, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004).
146 Halpern, First Historians, 8.
147 In support of this, see William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did they Know It? (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 273.
54 cannot be maintained as anything other than a fanciful suggestion,148 as there is no author available to provide an explanation of such an intention, and as John Collins notes, even among scholars who do think that such can be found there is certainly no agreement as to what that intention might actually be.149 Moreover, there is a kind of circular logic in Halpern’s position since identifying either the author or his sources require first having one of these as the essential condition of discovering the other. Yet Halpern has the utmost confidence that he is nonetheless able, like so many historians since Noth, to identify Dtr, to whom he compares the Greek historian Thucydides.150 What is different in Halpern’s work, however, can be seen in the last portion of the quote above in which there is to be found the crucial acknowledgement that will mark Halpern (and others who come after him) as a much more adept reader than many of his predecessors. For as the quote shows, Halpern recognizes that biblical writing is a fictional, imaginative enterprise, an acknowledgement which opens him up to construing the text in ways very different from earlier historians who have read the text as a much more favorable portrait of David.151 Halpern, perhaps more so than any other historically oriented biblical scholar before him, has read David as a much more ambiguous, if not sinister figure, as has been the case with many of the readings produced from a literary critical approach, in which such readings of David are now a regular occurrence. In David’s Secret Demons, for example, Halpern has an entire section called “King David, Serial Killer” that he cleverly subtitles “Ten Little Indians,”152 a not-
148 Keith Whitelam (The Invention of Ancient Israel, 24-25) describes Halpern’s view: “[T]he historiographic intention of the author is revealed through a comparison of the account with its sources, Unfortunately, as he recognizes, the sources are no longer extant, so he has to resort to the ‘probable nature of the sources’ … It is not clear what [Halpern] means by history or how far he believes it corresponds to some objective reality in the past or is history in the sense that the author believed it to have taken place.”
149 John J. Collins, The Bible After Babel: Historical Criticism in a Postmodern Age (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), 38.
150 Halpern argues (First Historians, 208): “[Dtr]’s history is sometimes wrong. Like others, it is much imbued by party passion and personal philosophy. Yet zealous conviction welcomes the test of evidence. However much he might twist contradictory detail or repress refractory fact into unease ideological service [Dtr] relied on a fair representation of the past to prove his point.”
151 Halpern comments: “All history is at best an abridgment--better or worse--of an originally fuller reality,” (7).
55 so-subtle reference to the murder mystery of the same name, in which he catalogues all of David’s murders. Believing that the narrative account we have in the books of Samuel comes from the circles of David and Solomon, Halpern asserts that what we have in the scripture is propaganda designed to answer the accusations of David’s critics.153 Therefore the biblical account has a decidedly negative cast, since what is presented is from the perspective of David's opponents, thus lending to the material a more realistic and vivid picture of the first king of the United Monarchy. This is a significant step in the development of the historians’ understanding of both the nature of history writing as well as the understanding of David among biblical historians, which is undoubtedly a result of the influence of the literary-critical readings of the David material which have challenged the dominant paradigm by reading David as a “bad guy.” In his interpretation of Shimei, Halpern understands David’s inaction against the Saulide when he curses as explanatory of two previous episodes in the narrative in which David seems unable to act, namely in not punishing Amnon for the rape of Tamar and in not striking down Absalom in his revolt. Halpern applies the response that David gives to Abishai, that perhaps Shimei is God’s agent doing his work to these two previous scenes.154 Halpern sees the Shimei episode as part of an “apology” of Samuel which tries to create a backstory to establish the paternity of Solomon, whom Halpern believes is not the son of David. All of 2 Samuel, Halpern asserts, is David’s “Broadway Alibi”—on numerous occasions David is nowhere to be seen when the killings go down and he shows mercy to people in his presence whom he should be taking out. Like Shimei. The death of Uriah, as Halpern sees it, is the primary clue as to what has been to tweak the narrative to suit circumstances. The story of the murder of Uriah, however, is different. It comes conveniently just after God’s promise of a dynasty for David, so that God has to keep the promise and give David’s child a spot on the throne, but making it so that David doesn’t get to build the Temple. Both of these points will be in Solomon’s favor. Pinning the murder on David also then makes all of the trouble that subsequently follows David part of God’s plan to punish him of which Shimei’s cursing is he last element. David’s response to Shimei’s curse, patiently hearing God’s judgment, “puts the brakes on the spiral of violence,”
152 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 77ff.
153 Ibid., xiv-xv.
154 Ibid., 358.
56 perceiving as he does the “underlying reality of events.”155
2.3.2 Steven McKenzie Steven McKenzie’s popular work, King David: A Biography, which presents critical biblical scholarship on David to a wide audience, continues this trend of disturbing portraits of David delivered by historians in the wake of similar readings produced by literary-minded scholars since the late 1960s.156 It is not distinctively different in kind, though perhaps in details, from other more suspicious portrayals of David that have appeared in recent years, such as the previously mentioned work of Gunn and Polzin, so I will not discuss that aspect of his book here and will save his textual insights for the exegetical section in the third chapter. I mention him here because of the way in which McKenzie justifies his case for writing a biography of David. He recognizes that we have nothing contemporaneous with David that would indicate that he was an actual, historical figure, and that the Bible, which is our only source for anything about him, was written and then collected decades or even centuries after the events it purports to describe. Yet McKenzie presses on, claiming that the confluence of the inscriptional evidence of the Shoshenq relief, the Mesha Stele, and above all, the partial inscription on the basalt facade at Tel Dan,157 combined with archaeological evidence showing a surge of building activity in tenth century BCE Judah, as well as cross-cultural data from the Ancient Near East documenting the rise of chieftains to the kingship, all create enough plausibility, for him at least, that a historical David existed such that we may proceed to analyze the biblical material in an attempted reconstruction of his life.
155 Ibid., 45.
156 Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2000).
157 On the Tel Dan inscription, see George Athas, The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Interpretation (New York and London: T&T Clark, 2005); Hallvard Hagelia, Tel Dan Inscription: A Critical Investigation of Recent Research on Its Palaeography & Philology (Studia Semantica Uppsaliensia 22; Uppsala: University of Uppsala Press, 2006). Even such a hard-boiled minimalist as Lemche is prepared to admit that the inscription bytdwd is indicative that there was some kind of dynasty known at the time but that this is no indication that such a dynasty ruled the territory we know from the biblical texts nor that the character of David related therein actually existed. See Niels Peter Lemche, The Old Testament Between Theology and History: A Critical Survey (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 112-115.
57 McKenzie is much more circumspect in his methodological claims as he approaches his task than have been previous generations of would-be David biographers, setting for himself two basic principles that will guide his investigations, the principle of skepticism (“When some aspect of the biblical story fits a literary or ideological theme we should be skeptical about its historical value”) and the principle of analogy (“The past was basically analogous to the present and to what is known of similar societies and circumstances.”).158 To these, McKenzie proposes a three-step process of “reading against the grain” to discern what is historical and what is not: 1) by asking “Cui bono?” in any given scenario, which gets to the motivation of the telling or recasting of an event; 2) by noticing the oddities within a text, the anomalies which don’t fit or which appear to be contrived and 3) by closely reading characterization with an eye towards aspects which seem out of place or unrealistic.159 Now these are sound principles for reading, but they could just as easily be utilized in reading Dickens, so why should the material gleaned from asking such questions be imagined to provide us with anything of historical merit? Despite this careful articulation of method, there is a very real sense in which McKenzie’s attempt, and that of any number of historically-minded colleagues, is essentially a leap of faith in terms of finding history, for virtually none of their conclusions can be sourced beyond the narratives of the Bible and all of that may be construed in multiple ways as being representative of varying political and theological opinions of their authors and thus more or less reliable as history, or even worse, all the material may simply be pious fiction, a myth of national origin as Thomas Thompson and other so-called “biblical minimalists” have suggested. Against this likelihood, McKenzie has no rejoinder, or at least none that has any force to it. These sources bring us close to David historically. That is, whatever their date of writing, they seem to contain genuinely historical information about David. It is hard to believe that they are pure fiction. Who would invent such allegations against David just to explain them away? Moreover, the events they relate have the ‘ring’ of authenticity. The
158 McKenzie, King David, 44. See Ersnst Troeltsch, “On the Historical and Dogmatic Methods in Theology,” Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II (trans. Jack Forstman; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1913), 728—753, especially his comments: “The observation of analogy between similar events of the past gives the possibility of ascribing probability to them and of ascertaining what is not known in the one from what is known in the other,” (730).
159 Ibid, 45.
58 authors could not simply deny these events or ignore the suspicions they raised about David. The best they could do was take on the role of spin-doctors, explaining that David’s motives were virtuous and his actions justified.160 All of this is an attempt to substitute longing for fact, as if the incapacity of the historian to think of an alternate scenario beyond what is presented in a text is prima facie evidence of its historicity. McKenzie is a fine scholar and is as careful as they come in his judgments, but he is attempting here to write a biography by assuming what he is looking at is historical, when all he can really be doing at this point is writing a character sketch of a figure within a story, which he could have done just as equally well by reading the text as fiction. There may come a day when someone can actually write a biography of David with some degree of confidence that the biblical material is an historical source but that day is not yet upon us.
2.3.3 Anthony Campbell In his two volumes on the books of Samuel, Anthony Campbell has produced arguably the finest commentary to date from a historical perspective on this material.161 Campbell recognizes that previous historical work is inadequate in both conception and execution, as the literary critics have long claimed: “At present we can no longer be satisfied with the old patterns of biblical exegesis. Ways are needed to combine appropriately the insights of literary analysis with those of developmental analysis in service of meaning.”162 Note that the course he seeks to follow, and which he believes the discipline itself must follow, is one not concerned with questions of “truth,” or even what happened. This desideratum “in service of meaning” could hardly have been stated more clearly by any faculty member in a university department of English so to have it from the pen of a biblical scholar in a form-critical commentary is extraordinary, but is evidence, nonetheless, of how compelling the new approaches have been even among scholars wanting to hold onto the text as history. Meaning, however, is not derived simply from a group of discrete facts--it may come even if some of the facts are incorrect. “It is possible that the historical reality of David’s kingship was different from that portrayed in the
160 Ibid., 35.
161 Anthony F. Campbell, 1 Samuel (FOTL 7; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003); and 2 Samuel (FOTL 8; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005). 162 Idem, 2 Samuel, 1.
59 text. The interpreter’s challenge remains the same: to explore the articulation of the experience offered by the text.”163 Experience, this record of the effect of the factual or fictional data found in the text, is what the historian studies and interprets, as Campbell sees it. Campbell does believe that there is preserved in the text something of the historical, although his assertions of this are more circumspect than even those of Halpern and McKenzie, who, as we have seen, are also, like Campbell, aware that things have changed dramatically. Like Halpern, Campbell says that stories do not necessarily contain accuracy; they only have to be plausible for them to be treated as historical, however, which distinguishes them from the mythical. And when we encounter such plausible but inaccurate stories we should not imagine ourselves to have been lied to. Stories have to be plastic to suit the needs of the storyteller. “It was once all too easy to assume that stories recounted what happened with the result that from stories the sequence of events could be recovered … Stories are not driven by what happened but by the plot around which the storyteller has chosen to weave the story.”164 Unlike Halpern, however, who believes that we can discern the political and ideological contours of the biblical writer’s times reflected in the text and from this subsequent reconstruction his world and its sources, Campbell is much more subdued in his conclusions when speaking of the DH: “What we are exploring here is not so much a question of our becoming aware of the development within the text. It is rather a matter of our developing an awareness of how much of the political and social context of both the events and the narratives reflecting them are hidden from us.”165 For Halpern, our learning helps us see better; for Campbell, our learning shows us how much we can’t see. Despite these caveats, Campbell does offer some clear but tentative historical judgments in the traditional mold, building on the work of himself and Mark O’Brien.166 The material of 1 and 2 Samuel, which provides multiple perspectives on the rise of David,167 down to 1 Kings 10
163 Ibid., 9.
164 Ibid., 3.
165 Ibid., 214.
166 See Anthony Campbell and Mark O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History: Origins, Upgrades, Present Text (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).
60 is composed of a wide variety of source material that comes from something they call the Prophetic Record, which is namely the interaction between the court and the various prophets who either supported or opposed the court and its king at a given time.168 Along with the Conquest Narrative, (Joshua) the Deliverance Collection (Judges), the Ark Narrative, the Hezekian King List, Records of Northern and Southern Kings, as well as Deuteronomistic revisions, these and the Prophetic Record were all compiled by the DH during the Josianic period (the Josianic Deuteronomist) with a further revision occurring during the exile.169 There are positive and negative evaluations of the monarchy evident in the editing of DH all of which have the death of Josiah as their tipping point, the favorable comments being from the hopeful period prior to his death, the negative ones as a result of family failures who drive the monarchy and the nation into the ground after it.170 Campbell’s treatment of 2 Samuel 16:5-14 assumes that David’s encounter with Shimei is at the very least historically representative of a competing faction in Israel which opposed the Davidic monarchy in favor of claims of legitimacy from the House of Saul.171 The charges that Shimei makes against David for shedding the blood of the House of Saul Campbell attributes to the narrator’s statement in 2 Samuel 3:1—“ There was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David; David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul became weaker and weaker”— despite the fact that no details of this war are given.172 Shimei’s groveling before David in chapter 19 after David triumphs over Absalom is indicative to Campbell of the northern tribe’s capitulation and acquiescence to the Davidic monarchy.173 Despite my differences in orientation to Campbell’s overall project, there is an abundant
167 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 4.
168 Campbell and O’Brien, Unfolding, 24-31, 62.
169 Ibid., 1-37.
170 Ibid., 14.
171 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 21-22; 176-177.
172 Ibid., 51.
173 Ibid., 162.
61 store of valuable insights into the texts, of which I will make use in the pages that follow. His prudence and humility in making his historical claims are a model of judicious scholarship which, if emulated throughout the biblical studies, would make cross-disciplinary conversations with the literary critics much more fruitful and productive than they have been, the literary types being much put off by the certitude that has dominated historical-critical scholarship for generations.
2.3.4 Robert Alter Turning to recent contributions from literary critics, there is first the prodigious offering of Robert Alter, from whom all who study the biblical texts have learned so much.174 His translation and commentary, The David Story,175 combines a beautifully evocative reading of these texts with spare but insightful comments on the biblical story, which he extends to 1 Kings 12.176 As far as historical critical judgments are concerned, they are few in this book but nonetheless decisive. Alter accepts the basic historical hypotheses of Dtr and the DH, although unlike historians such as we have just seen in the work of Campbell et al. who have identified layers of sources, Alter instead sees a very light-handed, unobtrusive redaction by the Dtr, as opposed to Polzin, whom he criticizes on this point, who sees Dtr at every turn.177 Methodologically, this will still be for Alter, as well as Borgmann and Pinsky, whom I will discuss below, the greatest difference between his understanding of the text and that of the historians: Biblical scholarship by and large has badly underread this book by imagining that ideological strands can be identified like so many varieties of potatoes and understood as simple expressions of advocacy.178
174 See, especially, Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative and The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1987).
175 Robert Alter, The David Story: A Translation and Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1999).
176 Ibid., x.
177 Ibid., xii.
178 Ibid., iii.
62
Alter argues that the writer of the David Story crafted complex, multidimensional characters whose political preferences and ideological values often zig and zag in much the same people as real life characters do.179 Thus, while there has been significant movement on the part of historians in their attempt to read the text as literature, and while literary scholars have come to accept at least in principle some basic assumptions of the historians, there are still differences at least in extent, even with such a conservative reader like Alter, a conservatism which can be seen, for example, in his criticism of the historical minimalists, in which his dismissal of their efforts sound little different than that of historians such as Halpern or Dever.180 For purposes of this paper, however, Alter’s most instructive methodological contribution comes from a chapter in The Pleasures of Reading entitled “Multiple Meanings and the Bog of Indeterminacy.” In it Alter explores how a text can end up being read so many different ways and catalogues them first within the realm of the text: The restless multiplicity of meanings and implications is engendered not merely by the numerical abundance of aspects that constitute the literary text but, more crucially, by the fact that many of these aspects belong to qualitatively different categories; because they are heterogeneous in relation to each other, the ways each reader will link them are inherently unpredictable. A bare listing of some of the principal aspects of the text will suggest this heterogeneity: structure, style, diction, imagery, syntax, perspective, tone, allusion, repetition, convention, genre, segmentation, typography, characterization, motif, theme, extra-literary reference.181
In addition to the possibilities for multiple readings that exist in the text, Alter further enumerates those within each individual reader: “[T]he mass of heterogeneous aspects of the text is generally determined by more than a conscious intellectual project, owing something in varying degrees to his or her personal history, psychology, sensibility, education, belief system and even mood.”182 This is a basic insight which I discussed above in the first chapter on reader-response criticism.
179 Ibid., xiv.
180 Ibid., xvii.
181 Robert Alter, The Pleasures of Reading: In an Ideological Age (London and New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), 215.
182 Ibid., 218.
63 Alter further points out that even the historical epoch into which each reader is born, with its politics, economics and other cultural patterns all have bearing on how different each individual reading of the same text can be. Yet for all this difference, Alter argues that not everything goes. Alter vigorously critiques the work of literary critic and sometime biblical commentator Meike Bal for taking textual indeterminacy too far, as if a text can mean anything. Hebrew words can have many meanings, he says, but they cannot be stretched to say whatever one wants to say with them. Likewise, the world of antiquity is often known to us only in fragmentary fashion, but what we do know about it cannot be ignored or stood on its head, as when Bal refers to Boaz’ coming to the city gate in the book of Ruth as his entrance into the domain of the female, which Alter says is contradicted by everything known from studies of the Ancient Near East which say exactly the opposite, namely that it was a place at which male judges and political leaders sat to sort out the problems of their subjects.183 So while he himself reads the text within fairly defined limits, Alter acknowledges the prospect, at least, of the kind of intertextual reading I will pursue here, so long as it can be supported by the available grammatical, linguistic, historical and cultural evidence available to us. Alter understands Shimei’s grievance against David to be rooted in the deaths of Abner and Ishbosheth, and perhaps even Saul and Jonathan, rather than as do some scholars, who speculate that Shimei is referring to the events narrated in 2 Samuel 21, when David accedes to the vengeful request of the Gibeonites to kill the remaining members of the House of Saul.184 However, when commenting on David’s response to Abishai, namely that God has led Shimei to do the cursing, Alter says that what David is acknowledging is not the truth of Shimei’s assertions about the House of Saul, but rather the failures within his own house, the adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, the rape of Tamar, and the murder of the rapist Amnon by his brother Absalom. Alter describes David’s response as on one of “fatalism,” in response to this “humiliation,” this “sacrilegious act.”185
183 Ibid., 226.
184 Idem., The David Story, 292.
185 Ibid., 292.
64 2.3.5 Paul Borgman Paul Borgman’s recent work on the books of Samuel, David, Saul and God, continues his practice of close, literary readings of biblical texts that he began in his two previous books on Luke-Acts and Genesis.186 Borgman’s thesis is that the story of these three figures constitutes a complex but coherent narrative, a case which he makes by highlighting of a series of patterns often missed by modern readers, unschooled in listening and unused to the cyclical aspect of oral storytelling which predominates in oral cultures.187 While neither in this nor in his other works does Borgman even discuss intertextuality, as I am using the term in its broadest sense, what Borgman does is a kind of intertextual practice in which meaning develops through a series of repetitions of the dozen or so patterns that he sees within the text. The purpose of these narrative patterns, Borgman argues, is the unfolding of the answer to the question which appears in various forms within the biblical text itself, and which dominates the plot of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, regarding the identity of David (cf.1 Sam 17:55, 58; 25:2; 2 Samuel 7:18), who remains enigmatic until the very end of the narrative.188 Borgman’s central claim is that the narrative of 1 and 2 Samuel exhibits both “coherence and unity” and he is therefore highly critical of any readings, historical or literary, which end in ambiguity. He believes that, whereas modern scholarship has chopped the text up into pieces that make no sense when looked at either individually or in linear fashion, the intended audience would have grasped what was being presented because it understood oral techniques and would have been able to make sense of the story, although he mostly asserts this rather than proving it beyond some mention in the notes. This is an interesting but problematic assumption, given his implicit claim that the roughly dozen patterns he identifies could be held in mind and tracked by a hearer over some sixty chapters of material. Nevertheless, the patterns that he identifies, for the most part, do have a compelling logic to them, although some of them seem a bit strained, and even though some of the material of the books of Samuel, as even he admits, such as 2
186 Paul Borgman, David, Saul and God: Rediscovering an Ancient Story (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2008); The Way According to Luke: Hearing the Whole Story of Luke-Acts (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006); and Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
187 Borgman, David, 4.
188 Ibid., 3-5.
65 Samuel 21-24, do not fit readily into anyone’s scheme of interpretation as anything other than an appendix. The requirement of unity and coherence, the need to tie up all the loose ends, is from my perspective, too great a demand to place upon either text or reader, a demand which ultimately flaws Borgman’s work. Nonetheless Some of what he sees as cohering has a powerful impact on interpretation. Perhaps more so than any other writer other than Gunn and Brueggemann, Borgman has correctly seen the relationship, not just between David and Saul but between David and God as well. The question about who David really is emerges as a corollary to the mystery of who God is, or at least who God is relative to divine initiative, response and thinking vis-à-vis Israel and its leadership. To solve the mystery of David is to better understand the mind of God, as represented in this narrative. (Emphasis his)189
Borgman, like other commentators, does not hesitate long over either Shimei or Abishai in his analysis of 16:5-14, but is completely focused on David. He connects David’s response to Shimei first of all with David’s comments regarding his sending the ark back to Jerusalem in chapter 15, as well as with the importuning of Abigail regarding her husband Nabal in 1 Samuel. For Borgman, David’s response to Shimei after the conflict is over in chapter 19, when Shimei comes begging forgiveness, is a sign of David’s political savvy—who better to have at court than a compliant member of the former monarchy?190 But there is no such conniving going on, as Borgman sees it, in chapter 16, when David first encounters the Saulide. Borgman glosses over about whom Shimei is referring with respect to the “blood of the House of Saul,” noting only that David does not argue about his guilt. It is far from obvious, Borgman notes, that David will regain the kingship in the wake of this debacle, so David’s response, according to Borgman, is quite surprising to the reader, in this “exemplary instance of true repentance” is not what we might have expected him to manifest at this moment in the narrative.191 Borgman is not able to host any ambiguity either in David’s or God’s characters, which is some ways echoes the results of Fokkelman, who sees the story all coming together in the end with reasonable coherence. Borgman disdains what he calls the “hybrid approach” of
189 Ibid., 6.
190 Ibid., 144.
191 Ibid., 86.
66 Brueggemann and Gunn which stand astride the literary and historical reading strategies and which thus present the character of David as ambiguous and perspective of God as inscrutable.192 Not surprisingly, having had both Gunn and Brueggemann as my professors, my own approach, while placing the character of God at the very heart of my interpretation, will read the figure of God, and by extension, the figure of David, as ambiguous and mysterious. I will, therefore, unlike Borgman, see in the text a myriad of loose ends. Despite these deficiencies, Borgman’s book is dripping with insight and will repay the careful reader with great insight into 1 and 2 Samuel.
2.3.6 Robert Pinsky Finally, the very recent work by former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky should be mentioned because it models more closely than any other modern book about this material the kind of intertextual reading that I am attempting to present on a small scale of the passage 2 Samuel 16:5-14.193 After having given a perfunctory nod to historical-critical biblical scholarship and even to a historical David,194 Pinsky proceeds in decidedly unhistorical fashion to range far and wide across the canonical landscape, in typical midrashic fashion, picking up threads of David wherever he finds them. A good illustration of this can be found in his extended discussion of David’s great-grandmother, who was the Moabitess Ruth, according to the biblical book of that name,. Now one will read the modern historical criticism on David in vain for such a discussion, because Ruth is classed in the Hebrew canon among the Kethuvim and, though it is presented in the canon as a history-like document, the story it relates is not treated as history by the professionals, although it is useful for understanding social-historical elements of antiquity, such as marriage customs. But the Bible nonetheless presents Ruth as being the relative of the great king, so Pinsky reads her as such, thus giving David an outsider’s
192 Borgman fixates throughout the book on Gunn’s contention that David ends up being “lucky” due to his being chosen over the more ethical but fated Saul (see especially 12, 14, 86, and 272).
193Robert Pinsky, The Life of David (Jewish Encounters; New York: Schocken, 2008).
194 Contra Borgman, Pinsky says that the so-called “Early Source,” which he dates from the time of Solomon, was a decidedly secular source. It is the “Late Source,” he says, which comes from hundreds of years later, that has the overlay of divine judgment, including Samuel’s warning in 1 Samuel 8 about the evils of the monarchy; see Pinsky, Life of David, 7.
67 roots, to say nothing of the foreigners with which he surrounds himself.195 He hypothesizes that Ruth’s father was Eglon, the King of Moab, picking up on a suggestion of Hayyim Bialik who in turn leans on a discussion from the rabbinic sages, imagining that her sister, Orpah, whose name reminds Pinsky of the talk show host, Oprah,196 marries one of the descendants of the Nephilim of Genesis 6, who are still said to be dwelling around Gath (cf. Josh 11:22), thus making the contest of David and Goliath one of cousins.197 Most of this, the references to the extra biblical sources included, maps how most readers of the Bible have read the story for centuries, making such connections in their attempt to piece the story together, even though this seems naive to historians. Readers make connections with whatever is at hand within the text, as well as out of their socio-cultural context, and this is how Pinsky’s David takes shape. What is amazing about Pinsky’s effort, however, is that he is a master reader, who sees things in the text and weaves together connections more disparate that would be missed by most others, the result being anything but naiveté. It is both playful and deeply insightful at the same time. I will return to his insights in Chapter Three.
2.4 Walter Brueggemann The most significant treatment in the last half-century of the passage 2 Samuel 16:5-14 is in an article by Walter Brueggemann that appeared in 1973.198 Brueggemann was trained at a time when the historical-critical method was at its zenith among biblical scholars, but he had the good fortune to do his Ph.D. dissertation at Union Theological Seminary in New York under the
195 Pinksy states; “His world is a realm of multiple tribes. More than piety might like, the Jewish and non-Jewish designations blur: Ephraimites, Amalekites, Maacathites, Hardies, Gileadites, Zebulonites, Carmelites, Pherethites, Ammonites,” (5).
196 According to a 1991 interview given by Winfrey, her birth certificate does say “Orpah,” but because so many people could not pronounce it correctly, they swapped the “p” and “r,” and she became “Oprah.” Retrieved from internet: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0int-1
197 Pinsky, Life of David, 9-22.
198 Walter Brueggemann, “On Coping With A Curse.” See also by Brueggemann, “On Trust and Freedom: A Study of Faith In the Succession Narrative,” Int 36:1 (1972): 3-19; First and Second Samuel, (ICC; Louisville: John Knox Press, 1982); and David’s Truth In Israel’s Imagination and Memory (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).
68 direction of James Muilenberg. His teacher’s path-breaking commentary on Isaiah, using rhetorical analysis, in The Interpreter’s Bible,199 was one of the first attempts to, as Muilenburg understood things, to take the Old Testament on its own terms by classifying its own rhetorical features and making this the goal of interpretation, rather than finding history. Brueggemann, over time, has come to be, for his generation of scholars, the champion of that approach in its contemporary manifestation, as was his teacher before him. The title of his monograph about David, David’s Truth in Israel’s Imagination and Memory, bears witness to what extent Brueggemann was willing to go beyond his teacher and completely un-tether interpretation from historical claims even twenty five years ago. In his CBQ article “On Coping with a Curse,” however, Brueggemann was still, as it were, on the way to where he would ultimately be in terms of method, and was thus at that point standing astride the worlds of historical and literary criticism. It is this mixture of his method, as well as his detail in discussing the 2 Samuel 16:5-14 that are the reasons for my treatment of him separately from the other historical and literary scholars earlier in the chapter. Brueggemann challenges interpreters to think about the text in three important ways: rhetorically, socio-politically, and theologically. From a rhetorical perspective, building on the work of G.P. Ridout, who elucidated the chiastic structure of the scene of verses 5-14,200 Brueggemann argues that within the chiasm the three speeches of Shimei, Abishai and David, function rhetorically to create a contrast between the points of view of the first two characters, Shimei and Abishai, and the speech of David. He notes that Ridout and others have largely dismissed Abishai’s comments as being insignificant, arguing correctly “any analysis of structure which neglects Abishai’s speech must be regarded as incomplete.”201 The significance of this move sets up the socio-political point that he wishes to make. Shimei, David, and Abishai are in his view, not simply giving voice to their own concerns but
199 James Muilenburg, “The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66,” in IB, edited by George Buttrick, New York: Abingdon, 1956), 381-773. See also Muilenburg’s famous Presidential Address at the 1968 SBL Annual Meeting in Berkeley entitled “Form Criticism and Beyond” reprinted in Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament Literary Criticism, vol. 2 (ed. Paul R. House; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992).
200 G.P. Ridout, Prose Compositional Techniques In the Succession Narrative (PhD diss., The Graduate Theological Union [Berkeley], 1971), 212.
201 Brueggemann, “Coping,” 178.
69 are also to be understood as “representative of broader social opinion.” Their speeches stand for the positions of various “parties” in 10th century Israel, that is, “characteristic ways of perceiving issues which must have been accepted as functional by a significant group of persons” who in this case disagree over matters of both national policy and theological belief.202 The points of view being expressed, then, become significant at another level of discourse, since this private conversation for him mirrors a much greater one in society at large that proceeds along similar lines. Leaving aside for a moment the problems to which I have alluded above as to whether or not any of this material can be traced to anything historical, Brueggemann’s use of parties as an interpretive strategy is nevertheless an innovative proposal which I will adopt in modified form in Chapter Three of this paper dissertation. There I will show where I differ from Brueggemann, apart from matters historical in which I am far more agnostic than he, over the basic question of which of the characters can be assigned to which party. According to Brueggemann, Shimei, who curses the king, represents the politics of the past which, though out of power, is nonetheless still a force with which to be reckoned. “Shimei casts himself (or is cast by the narrator) as the defender of the old order, the Saul establishment which was far from dead. Politically, seen from this perspective, David is an unacceptable usurper who must be rejected.”203 This political stance contains a concomitant theological one as well: Shimei expresses a social view of the world in which divine curse and intervention to punish is an awesome threat which is taken seriously and regarded as effective. … . Guilt will be punished. This is the simplest form of confidence in the efficacy of the divine will and consequently divine curse. Only it does not reckon with the radicalness of the Davidic claim.204
Abishai, on the other hand, whom Brueggemann was adamant be included as a factor in the interpretation, turns out to represent the new political wave about to sweep through Israel. Refusing to let pass the slight done to the king by the disrespectful Shimei, Abishai proposes instantaneous royal justice. “[In Abishai’s view] any repaying to be done will be done by human
202 Ibid., 179.
203 Ibid., 179.
204 Ibid., 179.
70 hands. As champions of a new order of ruthless men of power, he rejects both the old faith of Saul and the fresh buoyancy of David. Thus, he prefigures the calloused self-aggrandizement of Solomon.”205 Juxtaposed between these two figures is the wise David, who turns out to be, on Brueggemann’s reading of him, the golden mean between two extremes. [T]he text places David shrewdly and precariously between the old order (embodied by Saul and Shimei) which was boxed in by sacral presuppositions and the new order (soon to be embodied by Solomon as well as Abishai) which rejected any meanings beyond those shaped by human effort and power. And delicately he makes a response which sets him apart from both.206
Herein lies Brueggemann’s theological point: “In this pericope, David is apparently pushed to his extremity and makes his most vigorous confession of faith.”207 In making this confession, found in 2 Sam 16:12, David does not contradict the divine judgment uttered by Shimei, nor does he give in to the vengeful impulses of Abishai. Instead, David appeals to God’s freedom and places his trust in it, believing that God will change the curse into a blessing, which has, according to Brueggemann, the effect of answering the rhetoric of both prior speeches: “David affirms against Shimei the freedom of Yahweh and against Abishai the sovereignty of Yahweh.”208 This “radical claim” of David is “cast in the language of high, noble and trusting faith.” As for David himself, Brueggemann believes his character is portrayed “as a cunning strategist with all his wits about him, and as a devoted subject who willingly yields to God’s grace.”209 But is this the only possible way to make sense of this text? Is David really that innocent here? David’s claim may indeed be called “radical,” but is it necessarily radically faithful? Can one read it another way coherently and make sense of it? I will not treat all of these matters here, but will rather wait for the demonstration of my own method below. For now, let me say that if David’s character is read solely within the narrow twin parameters of the SN and the
205 Ibid., 180.
206 Ibid., 180.
207 Ibid., 177.
208 Ibid., 187.
209 Bruegemann, First and Second Samuel, 309.
71 hypothetical social conditions of 10th century Israel (for which there is no corroborating extra- biblical data), then perhaps Brueggemann’s reading can be sustained.210 But if, as I will argue in Chapter Three, one breaks open the boundaries of the SN and lays a number of other related intertexts beside the characters Shimei, Abishai, and David, in an attempt to make sense of them, one is left with a remarkably different interpretation, an interpretation which in fact, stands Brueggemann’s evaluation of both their theology and their party affiliations on its head.
2.5 Summary
In this chapter, I have discussed the methods of a number of scholars who have been influential in both my own thinking as well as the broader discussion regarding 2 Samuel 16.5-14 and its surrounding context in the DH. Rost and Noth worked within the parameters of historical criticism and were concerned with matters such as authorship, date, purpose of writing, and distinguishing underlying source material from the final product. Brueggemann also worked largely within this framework, although his analysis contains insights from a social scientific perspective. Gunn, Fokkelman and Polzin, in varying degrees adopted more contemporary methodologies, although none was completely divorced from historical concerns. Of these last three, Polzin more so than the others, reflects my own attempts to read the text, as will become evident in the following section. From Brueggemann I will use in my reading of the passage the device of “parties” to describe the positions staked out by the characters in this scene. Also following Brueggemann, Gunn and Borgmann, I will read the passage canonically, as a theological narrative, whose primary subject is Israel’s God. Following Gunn, I will attempt to keep in view his generic classification of this material as “story.” From Fokkelman I will draw
210 I do not have much of a quibble with Brueggemann’s views on historical criticism, which he has now largely set aside. For example, see his comments (Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 58): “An accent on the little story also requires us to violate much we have learned in historical criticism. The methods in which we have been schooled inevitably operate with hidden criteria (modern rationalism) that decide beforehand what would be included in a text. This method has devised respectable strategies for disposing of what is unacceptable to the modern consciousness, so that issues of artistry that constitute new reality have been handled either by dismissive labels of literary genre or by source divisions that divide and conquer ironies and contradictions in the text. The outcome of historical criticism is most often to provide a text that is palatable to modern rationality, but that in the process has been emptied of much that is most interesting, most poignant, and most ‘disclosing’ in the text.”
72 on his perceptive stylistic comments, and from Polzin and Pinsky. I will try to expand in more complete detail on their preliminary intertextual analysis. I have also examined the methodological approaches to some recent historical and literary scholarship on the books of Samuel, which have moved considerably in recent years in what I consider to be a more positive direction in terms of reading the people in the Bible as literary, rather than historical characters, even among those scholars whose approaches are more historically oriented, and with whom, as I have shown, I am often in fundamental disagreement. Although I have only dealt with their efforts in broad terms, in what follows, in my reading of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, I will make use of each of these writer’s comments on my passage, inasmuch as their turn towards the literary has given each of them a deeper reading of this particular scene of the encounter between David and Shimei while the king is on the run from Absalom.
73 CHAPTER THREE
“THE LORD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS”: THE INSCRUTABILITY OF GOD AND ATTEMPTS TO CO-OPT IT FOR PERSONAL, POLITICAL GAIN IN 2 SAM 16:5-14
In this chapter, I will be closely examining the characters in the scene--Shimei, Abishai, and David--and how these characters’ perspectives line up with that of a fourth character, Yahweh, who does not himself appear in this scene but who is waiting in the wings and who, as we shall see, is invoked by all of those who do. I will also briefly examine the perspective of the narrator of the scene, who offers a fourth, albeit limited perspective on the characters and their relation to Yahweh. In examining the characters of the scene I will use relevant intertextual connections between this text and other parts of the canon as a means of attempting to demonstrate how a reader might “build” a character out of the available materials. There has, to date, never been a reading of this passage that brings together what I have argued are the essential methodological elements required of this text. I will show in the following chapter that the application of this approach which I have outlined in Chapter One will present the reader with a different and more nuanced understanding of the characters in the story, particularly with respect to their stance as it pertains to the central character of scene, Yahweh, who is nowhere yet everywhere present. Shimei, rather than being the embittered family member of the displaced monarchy, will be read as a conduit of Yahweh’s word to the king, and thus with more sympathy and credibility. Abishai, instead of being seen as David’s violent and reactionary nephew, will be read as the keeper of the old traditions whom David’s cosmopolitan outlook has significantly eroded. And David, rather than being read as a shining example of faith and submission to God’s purposes, will instead be read as a more Machiavellian figure, out to pursue his own interests with little thought for the consequences for others. Finally, I will argue that the attempt to harness the power of the divine favor is central to the understanding of the scene, and that it is the inscrutability of God which, both here and throughout the DH, being the fundamental question with which the faith community that produced this text wrestled, is the driving force of the story’s plot.
74 3.1 The Story Thus Far The setting of our text broadly construed is 2 Samuel 11-20 in which David is still reaping the rewards for his misdeeds with Bathsheba, most of which will be embodied in the suffering of his children, which he will be forced, powerless, to watch.211 The more immediate context is chapters 15-20, which deals with both the coup of Absalom as well as the much simpler revolt of Sheba.212 The nearer context is chapters 15-18, which deal with Absalom. 2 Sam 16:5-14 is a discrete scene which comes at the end of a series of encounters which David has with certain individuals on his way out of Jerusalem, from which he is hurrying ahead of the advancing forces of the usurper.213 At this point in the larger narrative, the seemingly endless predicaments which embroil his royal house have reduced David to an utterly defensive posture, though from his crouch he nonetheless takes some shots at his son which may well hit their mark in the near future, sending spies back to the city to provide intelligence for the battle that he hopes might soon come. This is a remarkable shift from earlier in the story, for David, having been portrayed as virtually invincible up until the time when he united Israel and Judah under his kingship, finds himself in the painful position of contending for his throne against his own son.214
211 Rost is certainly correct that there are important threads of the story that go back to 2 Samuel 9, as is Gunn who says that it really extends back to chapter 6, because the ark is so important for the rest of the story, inasmuch as it is the tangible sign of divine favor. For me, it is simply a matter of the scope of one’s camera shot, whether to open the angle or narrow it. I could have chosen, as Antony Campbell does, to draw the line at 13-20. But for me the Bathsheba episode has to be “in the shot” as its effect on the reader is so shocking and paradigm-shifting (even for David) that it cannot be left out of any account of anything that happens with respect to his character thereafter. I will, in any case make use of all of this material in my reading, as well as the entire canon.
212 I am including chapters 11-12 as the theological explanation for what will befall David in the revolts to come.
213 Although everyone agrees that v. 5 is the passage’s proper beginning point, there is disagreement as to whether v. 13 or v. 14 is its end, the latter being understood by some scholars to be a turning of the page in David’s new position as deposed monarch. In favor of v. 13 see Gunn, The Story of King David, 39-40. In favor of v. 14, see Hertzberg, I and II Samuel, 345-46. Brueggemann (First and Second Samuel, 307-9) and Fokkelman (Narrative Art, 195-201) split the difference, reading v. 13 as the end of the passage, and v. 14 as the end of the larger section, which begins in 15:1.
75 The buildup to these circumstances is quite intense. Not only does David accomplish the astonishing feat of uniting the northern and southern tribes (2 Sam 2:14; 5:15), he also manages to negotiate for his heirs a dynastic arrangement with the deity without any preset conditions (2 Samuel 7).215 The present scene, which finds David running from the heir apparent to the dynasty after David had arranged for its permanency, is thus heavy with irony. What by all accounts had been a very successful run for the throne has now devolved into virtual chaos. David’s affair with Bathsheba had not only compromised his personal integrity, it had also damaged, in a dramatic way, his relationship with Yahweh (2 Sam 11:27-12:15), who, unlike Yahweh’s relationship to Saul, had been David’s protector and champion from the very beginning (cf. e.g., 1 Sam 16:13; 18:14; 23:14; 25:39; 2 Sam 3:18; 5:12; 7:16). Instead of continuing on his upward trajectory as Yahweh’s “golden boy,” David found himself swirling in a sea of family controversy that threatened not just family unity, but the entire nation-building experiment as well. From the time of his discovery by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, David had been successful in all of his endeavors and had been kept safe from every peril and danger, even scandal. He is the original “Teflon” man--nothing sticks to him, and he excels at everything to which he puts his hand. The little shepherd boy from Bethlehem first made his way to the royal court of Saul (16:14-23), and then slew the Philistine nemesis Goliath (17:1-58). His position at court was strengthened by his close relationship with the heir apparent, Jonathan (18:18; 20:1-42), and by his marriage to Saul’s daughter, Michal (18:17-29), going Saul one better by giving him two hundred Philistine foreskins for her hand, when all Saul wanted was half of that. As David’s popularity with all Israel continued to grow, however, his relationship with Saul declined (1 18:19). For most people, having the king as an enemy would have been an ominous occurrence. David, however, has little trouble eluding the early schemes of Saul to take his life, either
214 Polzin (David and the Deuteronomist, 119) states: “Whether David originally served God but now seriously fails him, or whether readers only now find out the kind of calculating and self- serving person David has always been, is perhaps one of those gaps in the story that must remain unresolved.” 215 Contra Lyle Eslinger (House of God or House of David: The Rhetoric of 2 Samuel 7 [JSOTSup; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 164) who has argued against the thesis that the covenant was unconditional, citing the usage of Sinaitic language in the Davidic scene, as well as what he believes to be a parallel arrangement with Israel in 1 Samuel 8, where Samuel foretells what will befall Israel under a king. Whatever other accounts of the covenant, however, there are no conditions in this one. Cf. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 253-59.
76 directly (dodging Saul’s spear in 1 Sam 18:10-11) or indirectly (when David has to acquire one hundred Philistine foreskins to win the hand of Saul’s daughter (18:25-29).216 When Saul turns up the heat of his attacks on David, first Jonathan and then Michal, both offspring of the king, turn against their father to protect David (1 Samuel 19-20). Nor is the protection offered David limited to Saul’s household alone: the priests of the shrine at Nob and finally Israel’s mortal enemy themselves, the Philistines, in a scene rich with comedy and irony, also harbor the fugitive (1 Samuel 21). David appears to live a charmed life. When it seems that his rash behavior toward Nabal is about to do him in, he is saved at the last moment by Nabal’s wife, Abigail, whom he then adds to his list of wives (25:2-43). His willingness to let Nabal off the hook will foreshadow the scene in 16:5-14, when he will also, for whatever reason, similarly let Shimei off the hook as well, though both will die once David is safely off-stage. When Saul, Jonathan, Abner, and Ishbosheth all (again, conveniently for David) die, he is amazingly “out of the loop” in each instance (1 Samuel 31-2 Samuel 4) despite the fact that he has the most to gain from their deaths. He is anointed king, first of Judah (2 Sam 2:17) and then of Israel (5:15) in a bloodless takeover, as if he had had the kingship virtually fall into his lap unbidden. It is a convoluted path that he takes to the throne, but the narrative supplies him with plausible deniability whenever anyone in his way just happens to die. David makes his mark by establishing his own capital city, Jerusalem (5:6-13), and then by moving the ark there after it had been stuck in the middle of nowhere for decades (2 Samuel 6). Not too busy with his personal triumphs to deal with matters of state, David is triumphant in saving the city of Keilah (23:14), and, more importantly, by defeating the Philistines (5:17-25) and the Ammonites (2 Samuel 10). Through all of this David ostensibly maintains his goodness and kindness, sparing the life of Saul on two occasions (1
216 Robert Pinsky (The Life of David [New York: Schocken, 2008], 29-30) weaves the tale of the two hundred Philistine foreskins throughout his telling of the story of David, lugubriously commenting here: “This is the first stage of a great love story that ends with equally great hatred- -a story eloquent and enigmatic, and a true marriage worthy of the horrible and compelling image which endorses, even sanctifies it. Hard enough to imagine the grisly bundle of foreskins, a butcher’s package, and perhaps more difficult to envision the harvesting from those corpses for the fastidious modern reader who may not have seen so much as a chicken killed. Synthetically toughened by the Technicolor of combat or horror movies, can we visualize so many pounds of flesh severed from the flaccid bodies of the dead? Was it a complement to the bride? A foreshadowing of her stormy, thwarted life?”
77 Samuel 24, 26), the second of which will prominently showcase his nephew, Abishai, who makes an important bit of dialogue in our passage in 2 Samuel 16. Additionally, he shows kindness to the hobbled son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9), a kindness that may well be self-serving, since keeping a close watch on the former heir to throne is always in a king’s interest, even if that former heir is a cripple. As a result of his conquests, in which he has ostensibly managed to avoid killing any of the House of Saul whom he is ultimately supplanting, though the people seem to love him to death, Yahweh promises David that he will have a “house,” which is to say, a dynasty.217 This is the commonly understood portrait of the character David up until the incident with Bathsheba, when things begin to unravel. But is this the only portrait that the narrative can sustain? Peter Miscall has cogently argued that David’s character, rather than being the uniformly righteous figure one learns of in Sunday school, is ultimately “undecidable,” which is a theme that I will take up in my discussion of this text.218 Using the Goliath episode in 1 Samuel 17 as an illustration, a microcosm of the David story writ large across the books of Samuel and into Kings, Miscall argues that the text can support multiple readings: The text permits us to regard David as a pious and innocent young shepherd going to battle the Philistine because of the latter’s defiance of the Lord and as a cunning and ambitious warrior who is aware of the effects that his defeat of Goliath will have on the assembled army, i.e. as a “good” and a “bad.” Biblical commentaries and studies decide the issue, usually in favor of the former portrayal, although arguments from the latter are not unheard of. However, regardless of the specific portrayal, the assumption is that David is being portrayed in some specifiable, some definitive, fashion, i.e., ultimately David is “good” or “bad.” This is where I locate the undecidability, the indeterminateness: David is not being portrayed in a definitive fashion. David is “good”
217 Pinsky (The Life of David, 114) poetically comments on the deep desire, among both authors and readers, for an innocent David: “In such weird exonerations of David, inventive almost beyond belief, sometimes transgressive of ordinary decency as well as common sense, in such insistent need for David’s ultimate or transcendent righteousness, in tortuous efforts to reverse Nathan’s denunciation, we can read the hungers and terrors of the Diaspora. In Babylon, and later oppressed and vilified by the European inheritors of an offshoot sect grown universal, at best tolerated and often enough tortured, these Jewish scholars need their king. They crave David as the Light of Israel, and to defend him they engage in moral twistings and outlandish inventions as distorting as the privations of Babylon, or the vicious pronouncements of Christendom itself.”
218 Peter D. Miscall, The Workings of Old Testament Narrative (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) and 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
78 and “bad.” The text at the same time supports both and does not support a final decision in favor of only one219
As I shall argue, this sort of ambiguity is evident in both the character of David as well as in the other main characters of 2 Samuel 16:5-14. When disclosed by an intertextual reading strategy, such ambiguity will undercut the certitude of traditional interpretations of that text regarding what has traditionally been taken by scholars to be the faithfulness of David, but which in recent times has been eroding in the face of literary critical readings of his character.220 Although David’s rise to power is portrayed in spectacular terms, his downfall is depicted equally so. The would be “House of David,” so recently promised him by Yahweh, now seems to come apart like a house of cards following his affair with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of Uriah. Nathan’s prophetic words (12:10-14) came quickly to pass in David’s life.221 If the death of his infant son were not enough (12:15-23), David is forced to be a spectator to the undoing of his erstwhile “dynasty.” Beginning with the Uriah-Bathsheba episode, he has been either blocked or helpless at every turn. He was unable to get Uriah to cooperate with his schemes, refusing as he did to copulate with Bathsheba his wife while his men were at war (11.6-13). Furthermore his nephew and top commander Joab did not follow his instructions to dispose of Uriah, but rather adjusted them, in order to protect or, perhaps, to spite the king (10:14-25). Instead of putting Uriah in the front of the battle line and then retreating upon encountering the enemy, leaving Uriah to be killed, Joab pressed the attack all the way to the gates of the city so that not only Uriah died, but others did as well. Thus, the king was thwarted in his cover-up by his nephew the general. From here, his troubles snowball. Though he had repented of his sin, David’s prayers to
219 Ibid., The Workings, 2.
220 I will address the comments of more recent scholarship under my treatment of David’s speech below. For some of the earliest attempts in this direction, see Sean McEvenue, “The Basis of Empire, A Study of the Succession Narrative,” ExAud 2 (1986): 35-45, and Leo G. Perdue, “‘Is There Anyone Left of the House of Saul …?’: Ambiguity and the Characterization of David in the Succession Narrative,” JSOT 30 (1984): 67-84, who make similar argument regarding ambiguity in the SN. See also David Gunn, The Story of King David, and Kenneth Gros Louis, “The Difficulty of Ruling Well: King David of Israel,” Semeia 8 (1977): 15-33.
221 On Nathan’s parable and prophecy, see especially Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist, 120-130, and Jeremy Schipper, “Did David Overinterpret Nathan’s Parable in 2 Sam 12:1-6?,” JBL 126/2 (2007): 383-407.
79 God on behalf of his newborn son went unheeded (12:16-19). He was stunned to inactivity by the rape of his daughter Tamar by his son Amnon (or does he condone the deed by his silence? or does his silence bespeak his shame over Bathsheba?)222 nor did he raise a finger when his other son Absalom murdered Amnon in revenge (13:1-38). When Absalom rose against him he had to flee his capital, the so-called “city of David” (15:13-18; cf. 4:9), with the royal palace shortly to become a public spectacle as David’s concubines whom he did not take with him will all soon be had by his son (16:21-22). Finally, in the midst of flight he has made only the feeblest attempt to counter an impending coup d’etat from the House of Saul reported to him by Ziba (16:1-4). The impression on the reader as we come to this juncture in our story is that David has reached the very nadir of his reign.
3.2 The Fall and Rise of David: 2 Samuel 15-20 2 Samuel 15-20 details the overthrow by Absalom, David’s flight from his son and his subsequent regaining of the reins of power, as well as the tumult surrounding the revolt of Sheba and its repression.223 The near context, however, is chapters 15-19 in which the complete telling of the usurpation by David’s son unfolds. In these chapters, the recurring theme of loyalty predominates.224 Alter describes one rhetorical feature of the Hebrew Bible as “an elaborately
222 See Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 37-64; Gary Stansell, “Honor and Shame In the David Narratives,” Semeia 68 (1994): 55-79; and Mark Gray, “Amnon: A Chip off the Old Block?: Rhetorical Strategy in 2 Samuel 13:7-17: The Rape of Tamar and the Humiliation of the Poor,” JSOT 77 (1993): 39-54.
223 Following Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 329. Gressmann (“The Oldest Writing”) and Caspari (“The Literary”) both see 15:1 as a major break, but they connect the uprising of Sheba in ch. 20 with the revolt and aftermath of Absalom’s revolt.
224 Following Perdue, in “Is There Anyone Left of the House of Saul... ?” 74, who says: “The specific technique used by the narrator is the frequency of deceptive speeches by the king which involve explicitly or implicitly the motif of ḥesed, especially taken in the sense of ‘loyalty.’ In matters public and private, one may argue that David is consistently motivated by self-interest, not altruism. This approach regards David as a static character who does not change and develop within the movement of the plot.” My own approach differs from Perdue in a couple of respects. For one thing, in his discussion of the loyalty issue in the SN he mentions the scenes involving Mephibosheth, Ittai (15:19-23), and Hushai (15:32-37; 16:17), but leaves out the scenes involving Absalom (15:1-11), Ahithophel (15:12; 16:15-17:4), the ark (15:24-29), Yahweh (15:30-31), Ziba (16:1-4), and Shimei (16:5-14). This is due to the fact that Perdue limits his
80 integrated system of repetitions, some dependent on the actual recurrence of individual phonemes, words or short phrases, others linked instead to the actions, images, and ideas that are part of the world of the narrative we ‘reconstruct’ as readers but that are not necessarily woven into the verbal texture of the narrative.” One of these repetitive structures is the theme which I am utilizing to describe the context of 2 Sam 16:5-14. Alter defines theme as “An idea which is part of the value-system of the narrative--it may be moral, moral-psychological, legal, political, historiosophical, theological--is made evident in some recurring pattern.” 225 Ostensibly, the narrative is about the various characters’ loyalty to David, but as my analysis of 16:5-14 will demonstrate, it is also about loyalty to Yahweh, and conversely, whether and to whom Yahweh is loyal in return. The first verse of chapter 15 marks an abrupt shift from the tenderness of the previous chapter, which ends with Absalom on his face before his father and the king kissing (q¶AÚvˆ¥yÅw) his son (14:33).226 David, whose emotional presence was so strongly felt in 14:33 is now absent from both his paternal and royal posts (as he was in 11:1) and the work of the king of Israel now goes undone and the activities of the heir apparent unnoticed. In contrast to his father, Absalom is presented as a prince sympathetic to the plight of the people, whose judicial cases heartlessly go undecided in the absence of the great king: “If only I were judge (f™EpOv) in the land! Then all who had a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give them justice,” Absalom would say (15:4). Even though he could not lawfully judge, Absalom could still act the politician in a campaign, showering kisses (qAv¶Dnw◊ ) upon each who brought suit, which perhaps is the narrator’s clever way of pointing out the mixed up love and loyalty of the characters in the story. As king,
analysis to passages in which dRsRj or its synonym occurs. As I have suggested above, however, the theme of loyalty need not be tied directly to vocabulary. Moreover, in his treatment of both Ittai and Hushai, Perdue takes their professions of loyalty at face value, despite the fact that the thesis of his entire paper is that one cannot take the professions of David in that manner! 225 Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 95.
226 The word translated “kissed” (qAvÎn) can also be translated “to be armed” as in Ps 78:9; 1 Chron 12.2 and 2 Chron 17.17 (BDB, 676). Read in this double sense, the reader could also see David as “arming (himself) against Absalom,” although not well enough as the story demonstrates. Interestingly, the only other time in the Hebrew Bible where this word is used to describe a father kissing a son is in Gen 27:26, where Isaac kisses Jacob in the prelude to his son’s deception and betrayal. Cf. also Joab in 2 Sam 20:9, who reached out to kiss Amasa, only to murder him by the sword.
81 David was supposed to love the people; instead he kisses Absalom. On the other hand, as son, Absalom was supposed to love his father; instead, he kisses the people. For their part, the people, who are supposed to love the king, instead have their “heart” (bEl) stolen by a younger rival once again, as David had once done to Saul.227 In 15:7-12 Absalom dupes David into allowing him to travel to Hebron, where, out of the watchful eye of the king and his handler, Joab, he is able to establish a significant base of operations from which to launch his assault on his father’s kingdom, suborning one of David’s chief advisors, Ahithophel, raising once again the question of loyalty.228 That David himself began his rule in Hebron (2 Samuel 2:14) is not lost on the reader, for the narrator seems to be portraying Absalom as walking the same path as his father before him. Loyalty questions also appear in the next major section of 15:13-31 in which the revolt comes out of the shadows into the light of day, driving David from his capital out into the wilderness.229 As he makes his departure, David is followed by Ittai the Gittite, who speaks in sincere tones of his desire to follow the king: “As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be” (v. 21). One would expect a monarch on the run to grasp at such an offer of fidelity, but David will not. Does David perhaps mistrust Ittai’s loyalty even as he wishes Yahweh’s loyalty (dRsRj; v. 20) upon the Philistine? Most commentators, even those who question David’s and other character’s motives elsewhere, do not question either David’s blessing or Ittai’s pledge,230 but
227 Cf. 1 Sam 18:12-16 where David had the affection of the people and Saul did not, and 1 Sam 20:41 where Jonathan and David, both heir and subject, who should have directed their love and loyalty to the king, are instead kissing each other in the midst of a plot to undermine the king’s rule.
228 Ahithophel is turned against David as Jonathan was turned against Saul: both advisors had close access to their respective kings and are absolutely necessary for the success of their rebellious enterprises. Since David was so successful in his deployment of Jonathan’s advice, an expectation of a similar victory is created by Ahithophel’s switching sides. Ahithophel’s motive for turning against David only divulged later in the story: he is Bathsheba’s grandfather (compare 2 Sam 11:3 with 23:34).
229 Robert P. Gordon, I & II Samuel (NCB; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976) 273, lists five “meeting scenes” from 15:19-16:13, whereas I prefer the term “loyalty stories,” inasmuch as the latter gets to heart of the tension and undecidability of the narrative in each of these encounters. 230 See, e.g., Baldwin, 1 and 2 Samuel, 260; Robinson, Let Us Be Like the Nations, 232; Hertzberg, I and II Samuel, 342; and P. Kyle McCarter, 2 Samuel (AB 9; Garden City:
82 the possibility of either or both being suspect, given what we have been reading about betrayal is not at all beyond imagination. In narrative-time, events happen in this section one upon another and there is no time for anything but intuitive judgments for either character or reader. David sends Ittai and his followers on their way, with the demurral that as resident aliens from Philistia they had not been in the land long enough to owe him such allegiance. Read innocently, David looks like the benevolent king who does not want any fuss made over his troubles.231 However, read in the light of David’s previous dealings with Philistines where he consistently lied to them (cf. 1 Sam 21:10-14; 27:1-28:2; 29:1-11); and that nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible is there ever given a favorable portrait of Philistines either as a group or as individuals; and read in light of the fact that he can no longer trust even his inner circle of advisors (e.g., Ahithophel), David’s rejection of Ittai’s offer may be motivated by his concern for his own, rather than Ittai’s, welfare. The next scene continues to put before the reader the loyalty issue. In 15:24 Zadok, Abiathar and all the Levites appear with the ark. The ark had been for Israel, far earlier in the story,232 the seat of Yahweh’s dwelling in Israel’s midst. It had gone before Israel as it went forth in ritualized holy war (Josh 3:1-5:1; 6:1-25; 1 Sam 4:1-17; 2 Sam 11:11) and from which
Doubleday), 375.
231 Contra R. N. Whybray, The Succession Narrative, 46, who notes the contrast between the treachery of the son, Absalom, with the loyalty foreigner, Ittai. See also Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, Faithfulness in Action: Loyalty in Biblical Perspective (OBT 16; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 31-32.
232 Here I am referring to “narrative-time” rather than a historical chronology outside of the narrative. See Shimon Bar-Erfat, Narrative Art In the Bible (JSOTSup 70; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 143-164. Part of the problem with interpretations of this passage is that historical criticism has so divorced the ark from the story by attributing its appearance to sources that it loses many of its meaningful possibilities. See, for example, C.L. Seow, “Ark of the Covenant,” ABD 1:386-93, who breaks down the theology of the ark by sources — “The Ark Narrative,” “The Ark in P,” “The Ark In Deuteronomy,” etc. — which results in conclusions like the following: “The ark is associated with some form of the divine name 112 times in the Bible; but it never once occurs with the divine name in P. It appears that P was reacting to a misconception of divine immanence” (392). This is an example of the diachronic framework that I have been criticizing in this dissertation which overlooks the story in its search for an author that will never be found. Rather than examining how the ark functions in the narrative as a whole, Seow instead obscures such a possibility by looking behind the story, as if it was insignificant, in search of what really matters, which is history. For a much more narratively-oriented approach to the ark, particularly as it relates to the scene of 2 Samuel 16:5-14, which has important points of contact with my own approach, see Borgman, David, Saul and God, 97-120.
83 oracles were sought in preparation for holy war (Judg 20:26-27; 2 Sam 5:19-23).233 Earlier in 1 Samuel 4, its departure from out of Israel into the hands of the Philistines had been a sign of “glory departed” (v. 21) because of the apostasy of the house of Eli. When the Philistines tried to domesticate the God of this ark, they were struck down fiercely, as were all who came into inappropriate contact with it (1 Samuel 5-6).234 Only David, of all those characters in the books of Samuel who try to use the ark to their own ends, is able to move the ark without incurring great harm, holding it virtually hostage in his newly captured city, Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6).235 David, however, rather than taking the ark with him, tells the two priests to take it back to Jerusalem, stating that “If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD he will bring me back (b…wv) and let me see both it and the place where it stays” (2 Sam 15:25). Why does he send it back? Is this an act of faith, fear, or fatalism? Is he abandoning the ark or does he perhaps fear that Yahweh has abandoned him and abrogated the promise of 2 Samuel 7? Most commentators treat this as an example of great faith on David’s part, but in so doing they have to ignore the fact that never before in the story of Israel has one of its leaders intentionally left the ark of God behind.236
233 On holy war, see Susan Niditch, War In the Hebrew Bible: A Study In the Ethics of Violence (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
234 See the important study of this passage, Patrick D. Miller and J.J.M. Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the “Ark Narrative” of 1 Samuel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
235Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 249, comments: “The transport of the ark from its obscure place of storage to its new place of prestige and significance is an enormously important event for David. The coming of the ark signified two things for the king. Looking back, it meant a reengagement with the taproot of Israel’s religious vitality. David here gets in touch with the most elemental dimensions of Israel’s traditional faith; it is no wonder that that the movement of the ark evokes such a stupendous celebration. Looking forward, the reclaiming of the ark is an opportunity for a powerful propagandistic effort to assert the new regime as the rightful successor to the old tribal arrangement. At the same time, the narrative looks back to tribal vitality and forward to royal legitimacy. This capacity to look both ways introduces into our interpretation of the narrative an unavoidable ambiguity. Insofar as the event looks forward, there is a hint of political calculation and manipulation in David’s act. Both factors are present. The wonder is that David is able to hold them together in a kind of personal authenticity that resists choosing one factor or the other.”
236 So Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 1.186; Brueggemann, “On Trust and Freedom,” 14; Robinson, Let Us Be Like the Nations, 234; Hertzberg, I & II Samuel, 343; Mauchline, 1 and 2
84 Moreover, they have to ignore the ease with which David himself has already moved it. David claims to be trusting solely in God, content to leave the decision in divine hands,237 but how does this square with his attempt to turn Zadok and Abiathar (and later Hushai) into spies? If David can leave the ark behind, are Yahweh and David still on the same side? If they are, has Yahweh, who has never before been content to be left behind, abandoned his longstanding practice of accompanying Israel in conflict in order to accommodate the dire straits into which David has fallen? Or does David believe that Yahweh has become “settled” in his place in Jerusalem, as he will appear to be later in Israel’s story? And would that then mean that Yahweh has now moved his allegiance from David to Absalom, thus fulfilling the covenant promise made in 2 Samuel 7, albeit in a way never expected by David? Although the issue of divine favor is in view here, as distinct from the members of the court and the previous dynasty depicted in the surrounding scenes, this question of who is on whose side continues to propel the narrative forward without any definite closure. The dispatching of Hushai to confound the counsel of Ahithophel before Absalom continues this theme (15:30-37). Here we find a former counselor of David, Ahithophel, now providing counsel to the rebellious son. The seemingly loyal Hushai is sent by David to subvert that counsel.238 Just before Hushai arrived, David had prayed a prayer (v. 31) asking Yahweh to
Samuel, 274; Peter R. Ackroyd, The Second Book of Samuel (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 147; and Joyce G. Baldwin, 1 & 2 Samuel (TOTC; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 261. McKane, 1 and 2 Samuel, 254, believes David has doubts about taking the ark with him because of his sin, as does James Wharton, “A Plausible Tale: Story and Theology in II Samuel 9-20, I Kings 1-2,” Int 5 (1981): 352. Anderson, 2 Samuel, 204, says that David is cognizant of the danger inherent in Yahweh’s nearness. He also recognizes the deep contradiction inherent in what David says and what he does: on the one hand, he says he trusts Yahweh to do whatever he wills, yet still seeks to establish a network of spies.
237 Robert P. Gordon, I & II Samuel, 274, raises a fascinating intertext. He says that David’s statement here is similar to Eli’s comment in 1 Sam 3.18 (“Let him do to me what seems good to him.”). Read intertextually, this would put a decidedly negative spin on the present scene given that Eli and his house were doomed figures who went from the pinnacles of power to oblivion in one short day--a day in which the movement of the ark was also a prime factor.
238 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 149, comments: “The remarkable thing about the portrayal of this episode is that David is the sole speaker. Hushai is not given any profession of loyalty or even acceptance of his commission. This is spare narrative at its sparest.”
85 “turn the counsel of Ahithophel to foolishness (lR;kAs).”239 Here again, one is still left in the dark: is David hedging his bet on Yahweh’s help by enlisting the support of a loyal friend or is he acting out a version of conventional theological wisdom contemporary to our own times, i.e., “The Lord helps those who help themselves”? We do not know because Yahweh has not yet spoken. That the LORD is at work in the story was claimed earlier in 1 Sam 15:24, 2 Sam 11:27 and 12:1, but such claims have been missing from the narrative ever since.240 That is about to change. The question of whose side Yahweh is on is of paramount importance whether one is trying to understand the story of David or the larger story of Israel itself as contained in the DH. David only became king over Israel because its previous king, Saul, had the rug pulled out from under him despite a situation of relative stability. Yahweh decided that he could no longer do the job and started grooming someone else to fill the slot. Is this what has happened here? Has Yahweh, unbeknownst to either David or the reader, found another like Samuel to anoint a new king even while the current one is still living? David, who is presiding over chaos even within his own household, appears to be losing his grip on power, but it is not yet clear whether his abdication is due to his own bungling of things or because Yahweh has turned on him. So tracking Yahweh’s support or its removal is fundamental to understanding the trajectory of this scene. But it is just as important from the perspective of the larger narrative, the DH, has as one
239 Whybray, The Succession Narrative, 68, notes that nowhere in the SN does David inquire of the LORD. He also points out the last time David prayed was in 2 Samuel 12.16 for the life of his infant son. In that instance, his prayers went unanswered. Awareness of this intertext, in my judgment, creates in the reader an expectation for a negative outcome, or at least a very serious doubt about whether one will occur. Most commentators, though, as they do elsewhere once they get past 2 Sam 14, do not even raise such a possibility, as one can clearly see demonstrated in Whybray’s assessment of the meaning of the two texts when laid side by side: “These might be taken to suggest that the author set more store by private prayer than by more formal cultic activity.”
240 But as Wharton, “A Plausible Tale: Story and Theology in II Samuel 9-20. I Kings 1-2.” Int 5 (1982): 347, points out, even these statements do not have absolute credibility: “Each of these ‘interventions’ is sufficiently modest to allow for quite different interpretations. The child might have died from any number of causes. Children regularly do. The prophet Nathan might have confronted David on his own as any decent person might have, without any special commission from the Lord. Nathan’s speeches and his later affirmation of Solomon’s status as the ‘Lord’s beloved’ could have been his own contrivance. Concede these points and it becomes a matter of indifference in the story whether the Lord was pleased or displeased with David’s behavior.”
86 of its primary interests, the presence or absence of divine favor upon its kings. The loyalty theme gets a new wrinkle in 16:1-4, in which David runs across Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth. Ziba, weighted down with a load of supplies,241 presents David with a quandary when asked to explain himself. Is Ziba acting properly in his capacity as servant to great persons, as he claims, or is he a looter? Is Ziba an opportunist, or does his story (that he was gathering supplies on behalf of David’s men) check out?242 Before deciding, David presses Ziba for further information concerning the whereabouts of his master, Mephibosheth. Again, Ziba comes back with a compelling answer: Mephibosheth, grandson of the first king, Saul, is nowmaking the most of the confusion rampant in the land to reassert his claim for the throne (16:3), thus triangulating the possibilities for who will now come out on top in this conflict. Now the stakes are much higher for David’s decision of what to do with Ziba. Is he telling the truth about Mephibosheth or is the servant trying to divert David’s attention from the loot that he was carrying?243 As von Rad noted half a century ago, the matter is irresolvable on both counts.244 Ziba could be either lying or telling the truth regarding either question asked of him by David, but no one, either character within the story or reader without, can yet discern the truth. David, having no time to investigate the matter, plays the odds and seems to take Ziba at his word, perhaps believing that if he was mistaken all he has to lose is the material wealth that he had just transferred from the master to the servant.245
241 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 149, helpfully notes an intertext here, contrasting Ziba’s “miserly” supplies with those of Abigail (1 Sam 25:18; cf. also 1 Sam 17:17-18; 2 Sam 17:28-29). 242 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 149, picks up on the undecidability in the narrative, asking questions for which he acknowledges there are no clear answers, only the reader’s suppositions. “Did Mephibosheth really think Israel would give him back Saul’s kingdom and on what grounds could he have thought that? . . . [W]hat benefit was it for Ziba to have David, in full flight, transfer the estate to him? . . . What benefit did Absalom’s rebellion hold out for Mephibosheth? What benefit was there for Ziba in having David’s good will?”
243 J. Cheryl Exum, Tragedy and Biblical Narrative: Arrows of the Almighty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 94, says that David may have never trusted Mephibosheth in the first place and that his supposed dRs$Rj towards him in chapter 9 may have been simply an attempt to keep an eye on the Saulide. See also Sternberg, The Poetics, 255.
244 Von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch, 192.
245 We have already had a foreshadowing of what David thinks about the “blind and the lame.” See Anthony R. Ceresko, “The Identity of 'the Blind and the Lame' in 2 Samuel 5:8b,” CBQ 63/1
87 Thus, as we come to 16:5-14 we have just read almost breathlessly through a series of scenes piled rapidly one upon another by the narrator in which the loyalty of the characters is virtually undecidable.246 Each scene, to one degree or another, raises questions of loyalty that to this point in the story have not been answered, in that resolution and closure have been repeatedly deferred.247 Most importantly, as I have mentioned, the loyalty of Yahweh to David, given the incredible promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7, is pointedly in question, perhaps now more than ever because of the possibility of a re-emerging threat from the gone but not forgotten house of Saul.248 3.3 vv. 5-7a David on the Run from Absalom, Jerusalem Having explained the context of 2 Sam 16:5-14, we come now to reading the text itself. In what follows, I will show how the theme of loyalty, of who is on whose side which we have just discussed in the previous, is even more pervasive in that the character whose loyalty will be most
(2001): 23-30. See also Jeremy Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (JSOTSup 441; New York and London: T & T Clark, 2009).
246 Contra Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 194-195, who appears to read the end of the story first then provides his assessment for each of the characters in this scene as he goes along, spoiling things by telling us up front who is loyal to David and who is not, rather than reading the text as a reader would, or as the characters in the story would be perceiving things, for whom the jury would remain out on the characters until the revolt is over and the results of the re- establishment of David as the king occurs.
247 The most significant discussion of gaps and ambiguities in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the David narratives, is by Sternberg, The Poetics, esp. 186-229. Although he works completely within a literary, rather than a historical framework, Sternberg’s work suffers from an overly optimistic belief in the reliability of the narrative voice in the Hebrew Bible. As I have argued throughout this paper, such optimism is ill-founded: narrative voice is never disclosed via any other media than signs, and signs are inherently polyvalent. The narrator, if she is disclosed to us at all, is to be found in the words on the page, which always point in multiple directions simultaneously. Thus, the narrator, in my judgment, is unavailable for interrogation as to her reliability.
248 Exum, Tragedy of Biblical Narrative, 138-142, demonstrates the ambiguity of the deity’s character as Yahweh moves in the story from being David’s unqualified protector to being his punisher. At this point in the story, however, it is clear that even David has doubts as to the ground rules of this new economy in which he lives. Cf. David’s statements in 2 Sam 12:22; 15:25; 15:31; 16:12; and 17:14, which Exum connects to show that even David does not know. See also Gunn, The Story of King David, 110.
88 at stake is Yahweh, the central figure of Israel’s story. In doing this I will also show how the characters of David and Shimei both contain subtle dimensions which can lead the reader to construe them in diametrically opposite fashion. Whereas David, who has frequently been read in this scene by commentators as exhibiting great faith, will be read by me as more sinister, Shimei, who has been read almost exclusively as a villain, will be interpreted as a figure more akin to the biblical prophets, I will also address the character of Abishai, David’s violent and impetuous nephew, whom I will argue represents a traditional approach to Torah piety indicative of David when he is younger. And finally, throughout the remainder of the chapter I will be constantly referring to how the character of Yahweh, who never speaks himself in the scene, but nonetheless gets spoken for by everyone else, each of whom tries to gain control of the narrative. We know what has just happened in Jerusalem. In 2 Sam 16:5-14 the characters try to tell us, like the punditocracy in contemporary media, what it all means, trying to reframe the situation in ways that suit their purposes, and which portray them on Yahweh’s side of things. Between vv. 4-5 there is a shift in both space and time. From the Mount of Olives (15:30; 16:1) the scene shifts to Bahurim, an outpost somewhere on the edge of the desert.249 The irony is apparent as the narrator announces the approach of “King” David, who has been forced from his palace into the wilderness. Bahurim was last mentioned in 2 Sam 3:16, when Michal’s husband followed her after she was mercilessly stolen from him by Ishbaal for David, “weeping as he walked behind her all the way to Bahurim” (MyóîrUj`A;b_dAo Dhyä®rSjAa höOkDb…w JKw¬ølDh ;h#DvyIa). In an ironic turn of events, it is now David who comes to Bahurim in a disposition of mourning (cf. 15:30) having just had something that he loved (the kingship, as well as the royal harem, 15:16) stolen from him, the fact of which he will soon be reminded. The next character, one who has as of yet not appeared in the story is introduced in a threefold manner: his name is Shimei, son of Gera,250 his
249 McCarter, II Samuel, 115-116, says that the modern site is Râs et-Timîm, east of Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem. “It seems to have been kind of a border town, guarding one of the main roads connecting Israel with Judah and Jerusalem.” Wolfgang Zwickel has argued that Bahurim and Nob are one and the same place. See his “Bahurim und Nob,” BN 61 (1992): 84-93.
250 Another story with similarities to this one is the story of Ehud in Judges 3. Like Shimei, Ehud was also “a son of Gera,” who had a “word from the Lord” for a “king,” namely that of Moab, which, as Pinsky, Life of David, 13, reminds us, may make him a distant cousin of David. Like Shimei, Ehud’s “word” also entailed the use of lethal force — a sword, however, instead of stones. The difference between the two stories is that the servants of the Moabite king left he and Ehud alone, giving Ehud an opportunity to perform his deed, while David’s servants, on the
89 primary moniker of introduction is that he is from a clan of the house of Saul.251 It is this fact that will integrate this scene into the overall plot of the story, for the fact that a relative of Saul will openly defy David continues the conspiracy theme begun in 15:13, as well as adds to the prospect of an insurrection by the Saulides as suggested by the account of Ziba concerning Mephibosheth in 16:1-4. Moreover, in this scene, there will be an echo of an earlier turning point in David’s life when he also went on the lam and left the country, as he is doing here. As a Saulide helped him escape as a young man in that scene (Michal, Saul’s daughter, in 1 Samuel 17:8-17), so now a Saulide is going to send him on his way once again in middle age, albeit in a less tender manner. David was highly successful when he first left the country with the assistance of Saul’s family. The reader who understands the echo of the previous scene of escape (16:1-4) with the help of a Saulide can imagine two possible developments out of this present situation. Focusing on David’s exit from the land, will the fact of his leaving portend an equal “comeback” from near disaster, as was the case before? Or, focusing on the House of Saul, will the forthcoming vitriolic sendoff portend trouble for David to the extent that no “comeback” will be possible? As with so much else of what has led up to this scene, there is no clear answer, but the echo of the earlier departure, as with every other undecidable element of the story, ratchets the tension for the reader ever so slightly upward. In v. 5 the three uses of the verb “to go out” (aDxÎy) denote the movement of Shimei towards David,252 indicating to the reader a relentless, aggressive stance on the part of Shimei, who is unintimidated by the presence of a king. This is in stark contrast to the picture given of David, who is surrounded by retainers. In announcing the coming of David to Bahurim, only David is mentioned, as if to give the impression that David leads his followers; yet in v. 6 we find that he is shielded on both sides from the stones of Shimei by troops and warriors. I have already mentioned Polzin’s suggestion that the stones Shinei hurls will be a reminder to the reader of the
other hand, closed ranks around their king.
251 See Fokkelman, Narrative Art, 196: “It is as if the narrator is trying to put off mentioning his name as long as possible.” 252 Fokkelman, Narrative Art, 96, calls Shimei a “filmic figure” in that the repetition gives one the same sense that one would have were one actually watching Shimei’s movements towards the king. Pinsky, The Life of David, 146, says the scene has the marks of a Kurasawa film, Kurasowa being the pioneer of filming the same scene with multiple cameras from different angles and perspectives.
90 stones set up by the Israelite elders in Joshua 4 upon crossing the Jordan on their way into the land, now being flung at David upon his exit out from the land.253 The scene has several other ironic elements to it that make it distinctive and thus memorable to readers, as the lone Shimei, a relative of the dead monarch from a third-rate town, is portrayed as stalking the king and his entire entourage.254 The narrator takes great pains to describe for us who got hit in addition to David: “all the servants of the king ” (JKRlR;mAh∞ yäédVbAo_lD;k_tRaw◊ ), “all the people” (MDoDh_lDkw◊ ), and “all the warriors” (My$îrO;bˆ…gAh_lDkw◊ ). Especially ironic is the use of the word “warriors,” whose root (rAbÎ…g) means “to be strong”255: the slightness of Shimei and his slighting of David are juxtaposed with the “strength” of David which surrounds him but which in the end he will not, or perhaps, cannot use.256 In a way, Shimei looks like the younger David who takes on seemingly insurmountable odds without thought for his personal safety, while the David portrayed here looks like the old king Saul who cowered back at camp behind his coat of armor. Although this is the first scene in which Shimei will appear, it will not be the last. And although he takes a confrontational stance with David here, all of his bluster will have vanished by the next time he appears. In 2 Sam 19:16-23, Shimei, instead of throwing dirt at David (cf. v.13), will be groveling in it before him. David, whether out of magnanimity or fear that what Shimei says in 16:5-14 might in fact be the word of Yahweh, promises to spare Shimei’s life. But when Solomon becomes king, Shimei violates the terms of his house arrest and is therefore executed in 1 Kings 2. Shimei is thus a doomed character in the narrative, but at this point in the story, the reader does not yet know this and is therefore forced at least to consider whether what Shimei claims about David is in fact the case and whether or not what he says has the divine sanction that Shimei will claim. Shimei’s actions toward David are related in an A-B-A form: curses (v 5), stones (v 6),
253 Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist, 156. See also section 2.2.3 above. 254 Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, describes the scene as humorous, which, as I will demonstrate below shows a surprising lack of awareness of the power and threat that a curse would have been understood to possess within the story world.
.TDOT, 2:367-82, says that the root is always about superior power ”,גבר“ ,H. Kosmala 255
256 I would also point out that David hiding behind his men in this passage is an inversion of his dancing before the ark in 2 Samuel 6. He just sent the ark back to Jerusalem, however, so all he has are his men.
91 curses (v 7a). The word here translated as “curse” comes from the verb lAlq∂ which means “to slight,” being closely related to the adjective låq, which means “light,” i.e., not heavy, which is the opposite of dEbD;k, which as a noun is usually translated “glory,” but which as a verb literally means “to be or make heavy.” In the Piel stem lAlq∂ means “to curse,” or more specifically, “to make contemptible.”257 Shimei is thus doing the exact opposite of what a good subject ought to do, “making light” of the king when he should be “making heavy.” Ironically in the only other instance in which someone quite famously cursed David, it cost the individual his head: in 1 Sam 17:43, Goliath the mighty Philistine curses young David (lªE;låqyÅw◊ ) as one of the last statements the giant will ever utter.258 As a rule, people do not generally talk this way to David and live past the end of the scene. Making such an intertextual connection heightens a reader’s expectations for what will then take place. If David the shepherd boy, alone and unarmored, will respond with such decisive force against such a more powerful opponent, what more will he do to the utterer of this present threat, given the fact that David now wields genuine power? We must, however, note the crucial shift that has occurred between the two scenes. In comparing the two encounters of David with Goliath and David with Shimei, what seems to have taken place is an interesting reversal of roles. David, who was formerly the (under)dog in the Goliath episode, is now the power figure (though he still receives the insults), and it is the solitary figure of Shimei, who defies the power of the mighty, who throws the stones as David had done while but a boy (1 Sam 17:49), who is now cast in the part of David’s boyhood role, the other half being played by Abishai, who will beg to do the beheading, as David had once done unbidden (1 Sam 17:51). Thus, the narrative creates an alternate set of expectations out of the same intertext. We can, as readers, recall the Goliath episode, remembering David as the recipient of a curse, who then struck a blow to the head of the one who delivered it, in which case we may expect the same fate to befall Shimei in the present scene. On the other hand, we can recall the Goliath episode, remembering David as the underdog, who plays a deadly game against a seemingly insurmountable foe and prevails, in which case we may expect Shimei to come out of this encounter unscathed and David mortally
257 BDB, 886.
258 Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist (as I discussed in chapter 2) sees the connection between the present passage and the Goliath episode with regard to the matter of “violence to the head.” He does not, however, make the connection with regard to the matter of cursing David.
92 wounded. The question for the reader is whether David is half the man he used to be and thus which of these two trajectories should be expected to come to pass. There is a bit of awkwardness evident in the narration of v. 7a. The standard introductory formula for direct discourse (rRmaø¥yÅw∏ -- cf. v 9) has been modified to the more descriptive “Shimei shouted while he cursed” (NRSV) (wóølVláåqV;b y™IoVmIv r¶AmDa_háOkw)◊ . The effect is that the narrative voice is more prominent in what follows than is normal in direct discourse, as if the narrator him/herself is telling in the form of narration exactly what Shimei said in vv. 7b-8. This means of introducing direct discourse (rAmDa∞ hO;k + a verb of speaking) by the narrator is employed four other times in the DH (2 Sam 19:1; 2 Kgs 1:11, 9:18, 9:19). Some scholars have seen here the narrator signaling the reader about Shimei that something is awry with the man and his message. Fokkelman, for example, says that the narrator does this here in order to distance himself from the position of Shimei, which is no doubt possible, but in my view is more a result of Fokkelman’s own negative evaluation of Shimei’s character as being deranged--which as I see it stems more from having read ahead to know Shimei’s fate then reading it back onto him in “narrative-time”-- than any requirement within the language. A slightly different tack is taken by Bar-Efrat, who also interprets the narrator as tipping his hand against Shimei: “[B]y defining Shimei’s words as a curse--the author does not write: ‘And he said’ but: ‘And he said as he cursed’--the narrator hints that they should not be regarded as a balanced pronouncement.”259 I view this quite differently than both Bar-Erfrat and Fokkelman. They are manifesting here the kind of pre-determined judgment about the character of Shimei common in the scholarly literature which allows what he says to be dismissed so easily. The narrator’s agreement or lack thereof is immaterial. In 16:7, as well as in 2 Samuel 19:1, and 2 Kings 9:18, 19, there are several features common to each text: there is a change in physical space (out from the city, up to the chamber), some kind of intense activity in which the speaker is also engaged (cursing, weeping, riding horseback) and then there is the direct speech itself (r∞AmDa hO;k immediately or nearly thereafter following a verb of speaking). Therefore the doubling observed in these instances may be understood as the narrator’s attempt to create a verbal depiction of what we might today call multitasking, rather than some covert attempt by the narrator to signal disapproval of what is being said to the reader. Finally, though readers might wonder about David’s grief over Absalom in 19:1, which has the same kind of construction as 16:7, would they
259 Bar-Erfat, Narrative Art in the Bible, 56.
93 really want to say that the narrator is distancing himself from David’s grief in that passage (pace Fokkelman) or that the narrator thinks that David’s grief is somehow biased and not to be taken seriously (pace Bar-Erfat) based solely on this grammatical construction? Because there is no reason to imagine that David’s grief is not real or that the narrator is trying to signal the reader to discount the king’s emotions 19:1, there is likewise no reason to read the similar construction in 16:7 as a sign that the narrator disagrees with what is about to be said by Shimei. It is certainly an awkward and infrequent construction, but it is a stretch to project a negative view of Shimei onto the narrator based on such slender evidence.
3.4 vv. 7b-8 Shimei Comes Cursing; Sounds Like a Prophet The reader is left to .צֵא צֵא ,Shimei’s cursing of David begins with the double imperative fill in the gap of what Shimei means by this. “Get out! Get out!,” as translated by the JPS Tanakh, implies that Shimei fears the village of Bahurim might be David’s destination, that he may be forced to share his territory with the one who deposed his clan from the throne. Or it could be interpreted as a taunt, or as a challenge, “Come out! Come out!,” (cf. the exact same usage in 2 Sam 19:8) as from behind David’s entourage which guarded both his right and his left. as well as the three uses noted above of aDxÎy in v. 5 recall and emphasize David’s expulsion from Jerusalem, even as he is being bid to depart from this town as well. From a literary standpoint, the ambiguity of aDxÎy is pleasing, for certainly both interpretations complement one another and are congruent with the portrayal of Shimei by the narrator: Shimei certainly would not want David for a neighbor, lest David set up his new base of operations in Bahurim, nor, as a Saulide, would he even want him in the land (translating the term “Get out”), nor would he seem to be reticent about taunting David for hiding behind his men (translating the term “Come out”). In any case, then, Shimei’s belligerent movement, gestures and vituperative language all demonstrate his unabashed willingness to confront David in the sharpest possible manner. Shimei derogatorily refers to David twice as “a man of blood” (My™Im;d∂ vy¶Ia) and once as “a man of Belial/worthlessness” (lAo`D¥yIlV;bAh vy¶Ia)◊ . “A man of blood” is an epitaph only ascribed to David in the Hebrew scriptures, being used by Shimei in this scene, both opening (v. 7b) and closing (v. 9) his speech. Calling David this is to label him as a murderer. The shedding of blood, any blood, is a significant issue in Israelite society and the way that it is handled is quite
94 different from that of surrounding cultures.260 Taking the life of any person or animal requires the shedding of blood for purposes of expiation for the taking of that life. Blood thus acts as a kind of detergent to expunge the sin of killing either human or beast. Life resides in the blood, and belongs to God, not the individual person. Thus the shedding of blood is an assault on God, and the institutionalization of vengeance is designed to act as a deterrent to murder. Blood, therefore, is sacred, of whatever sort, which is why it must never be ingested. And when innocent blood is shed, it is only the spilling of the blood of the one who has taken the life of the innocent one which can set things right again.261 For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel: No person among you shall eat blood, nor shall any alien who resides among you eat blood. And anyone of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside among them, who hunts down an animal or bird that may be eaten shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth.(Leviticus 17:11-13)
Likewise, in Genesis 9:4-6 there is the prohibition against murder rooted in the sanctity of blood. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind.
Thus, as a family member of the people who have allegedly been slain, Shimei is doing precisely what any good Israelite would do under the circumstances, based on the requirements of Exodus 21:12-14.262 Someone’s blood has to be shed for the killing of his family, even if Shimei is the
260 See David Biale, Blood and Belief; The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians (Berkley: University of California Press, 2007), 10, who says: “There were, to be sure, magical and medical rituals mentioned in Akkadian, Sumerian, and Hittite texts that used blood to feed bloodthirsty demons, and one Hittite text mentions the use of blood as a ritual detergent (similar to its use in the Bible) but blood played no other significant role in the sacrificial offerings of the ancient Near East. Those offerings were intended to feed the gods, and blood was not usually the main course on the divine menu...”
261 See William K. Gilders, Blood Ritual in the Hebrew Bible: Meaning and Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
262 See Pamela Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 23, who states: “In biblical Israel, the victim’s family assumed primary responsibility for ensuring that the slayer was held accountable for his offense.
95 only one left of his clan who is willing and able to do the deed. Thus, the reader familiar with the purity laws would likely see Shimei as a kind of “blood avenger” (Mä;dAh∂ l¶Eaø…g—cf. Deut 19:12). The problem with this is that all the reader has to go on as to whether or not David actually is a murderer at this point is Shimei’s accusations and a lot of suspicion around the dead Saulides, whose convenient expiration has led to David’s kingship. The narrative has not disclosed any such killings. Most scholars jump to the end of 2 Samuel, where in chapter 21, David clearly wipes out the better part of what remained of the House of Saul.263 To this point in the story, however, though David has been surrounded by death, he has managed to keep his hands relatively clean from the reader’s perspective, having been given at least plausible deniability for responsibility for the deaths of each of his main rivals save Uriah. But Shimei is clearly not referring to the death of Uriah, for he claims in v. 8 that Yahweh is punishing him instead for the blood of the House of Saul and not just what he purportedly shed in 2 Samuel 21, but as Baruch Halpern notes, all of it.264 The reader is thus implicitly asked to “read between the lines,” as it were, and see the hand of David guiding the events that led to the deaths of the Saulides, even if he did not do the killing himself. The meaning of the other phrase, however, is somewhat less clear. Although “Belial” is used numerous times in the Hebrew Bible,265 the precise expression lAo`D¥yIlV;bAh vy¶Ia is used only two other times, both in connection with opponents of David: it is used by Abigail, David’s soon-to- be wife, of her then-current husband, Nabal (whom God conveniently strikes dead immediately thereafter) in 1 Sam 25:25; it will also be used by the narrator to refer to the insurrectionist Sheba in 2 Sam 20:1. Both Nabal and Sheba are doomed characters in the narrative, and both are acting
A member of the family had the right and responsibility to kill the slayer and could do so with impunity under certain conditions.”
263 See, for example, Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 86; McCarter, II Samuel, 120-122; and Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup 196; Sheffield : Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 97-99.
264 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 86.
265 In Deuteronomy 13:13 the term is associated with idolaters; in Judg 19:22 and 20:13 the “men of Belial” are those who rape the visitors to the community; in 1 Sam 1:16 Hannah distinguishes her virtuous self from the “daughters of Belial” of loose character. Cf. 1 Sam 2:12: 10:27; 30:22; 2 Sam 23:6; 1 Kgs 21:10.13; 1 Chron 13:7.
96 contrary to the divine will; having been thus named, David is not in good company. The precise meaning of the term is not quite clear: BDB renders it as “worthless”266; the JPS Tanakh renders it variously, “wretched fellow” (Nabal), “villain” (David), and “scoundrel” (Sheba). McCarter, believing that it is a composite word meaning “(the place of) not-coming-up,” connects it with the previous epitaph and thus vividly (and excessively) translates the entire phrase as one complete insult: “you bloodstained fiend of hell.”267 Whatever its precise meaning, neither it nor “man of blood,” whether each is a singular insult or together a compound idiomatic expression, are designations which one ought to give to a king, particularly one as violent as David, as Polzin noted, much less one who is guarded by so many warriors.268 The reader of these insults would likely expect two possible outcomes of such a scenario: either the king stifles his adversary in a display of royal power, or the king’s honor is forever tarnished by allowing such an insignificant figure to continue to exist. And clearly, the greater expectation lies in the first option, for David, as the reader well knows, has killed for far less provocation. The most important association for understanding what lAo`D¥yIlV;bAh vy¶Ia is the aforementioned Nabal in 1 Samuel 25. Here one can see clearly the benefit of the methods of reader-response criticism and intertextuality which I highlighted in chapter 1. The reader will not fail to miss the inversion taking place here, inasmuch as the distinctive phrase lAo`D¥yIlV;bAh vy¶Ia, previously used of the weak and ineffectual former husband of one of his wives is now being hurled back at David himself. It should be clear by now that the scene appears to be crafted as an intertextual deconstruction of the figure of David. The triumphs of David on the field of battle are being mocked and undone, as we saw in the intertextual reference to the Goliath episode. And as we saw already with the pathetic figure of Michal’s husband Paltiel, whose mourning of her being snatched by David extended all the way to Bahurim, is evoked by the location of this present scene, so again has the sexual prowess of David been mocked with reference to another stolen wife, Abigail, with the words spoken by Shimei as insult directed at David. It isn’t just his kingship that David has lost; his character is deflating before our very eyes.
266 BDB, 116. 267 McCarter, II Samuel, 373. For a thorough summary of the possible meanings of the various possible roots of the words that scholars have thought may make up “Belial,” see S.D. Sperling “Belial,” DDD (2d ed.), 169-171.
268 Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist, 164.
97 In cultures such as our own, name-calling is easily dealt with simply by ignoring it. However, in a culture in which honor and shame are constitutive elements in the construction of the social world,269 name-calling on the part of a commoner towards a king cannot be tolerated, as the prohibition in Exod 22:27 demonstrates (“You shall not revile [l¡E;låqVt] God, nor curse a ruler of your people.”).270 This passage is from a section (Exod 22:27-30) in the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20-23) which contains commandments regarding that which is God’s due.271 The archaic language of the command, which does not refer to a “king,” but instead a “chieftain” or “ruler,” highlights the foundational quality of the command, which came about, as the narrative relates it, in a time of relative egalitarianism within the pre-monarchic Israelite community.272 Even then, both Yahweh and the leader had to be given their proper respect. Yahweh gets the best of the harvest, the wine, the first-born of all the animals, as well as the first-born male child of the children of Israel themselves, which he had first demanded of everyone in Egypt and the Land of Goshen in Exodus 12. God gets first dibs on everything from now on, but he isn’t solely interested in their possessions. This deity also demands respect, and that respect is to be manifested publicly for Yahweh himself, but also for the chieftain or king who rules as Yahweh’s representative among the people. The requirement to deliver God’s due portion must also be seen in this light, for, as will be made clear as the Torah unfolds, God’s portion ends up being that which sustains the priests who preside over the Tabernacle cult. In other words, Israel is required to show respect for God--“to give him glory” (dEbD;k, literally “to make him heavy”), which is how the scripture often phrases it--by being in proper subjection to the divinely established order of the community. Respect for the chief/king is congruent with respect for God. Thus, Shimei has not simply called David a name; rather, he has also
269 See the otherwise fine article by Gary Stansell, “Honor and Shame in the David Narratives,” Semeia 68 (1994): 55-79, who omits the particular instances of lAlq∂ in this scene in his treatment of the term.
270 This will be the false charge made against Naboth by Jezebel. Cf. 1 Kgs 21:16.
271 See Nahum Sarna, Exodus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 107-108.
272 Moshe Weinfeld, “The Ban on Canaanites in Biblical Codes and Its Historical Development,” in History and Traditions of Early Israel: Studies Presented to Eduard Nielsen (ed. André Lemaire and Benedikt Otzen; New York and Leiden: Brill, 1993), 142, comments: “The most important clue to the antiquity of the [Covenant] code is the law in Exodus 22:27.”
98 challenged the hierarchical structure of his society and has thus done something dangerous, which requires everyone to examine his or her loyalties. In cursing the king, Shimei has committed a capital offense. But if Shimei, who claims that Yahweh has brought all these calamities upon David is correct, this would imply that Yahweh, in wreaking vengeance on David, may have shifted his loyalty once again to someone else, like he had shifted it earlier to David from Saul. Everyone’s role, under such circumstances, would thus have to be reevaluated. Cursing the king, to whom I must be loyal, requires me to oppose the one who curses him. But if the one cursing does so in the name of Yahweh, and if the present circumstances indicate that he may be correct, given the collapse of the monarchy, then one has to wonder whether or not opposing the one who curses will have one on the right side of Yahweh. If the calamity which has befallen, David, is in fact, the hand of Yahweh, what would it mean to oppose that curse and try to thwart its effects? Normally one would support the king and oppose any such person who cursed him. But these are not normal times. This is the dilemma for the entourage following David out of Jerusalem. Should they continue to follow him? And if David doesn’t exercise swift and decisive judgment against Shimei for his cursing, isn’t David literally desecrating both Yahweh and his own royal office, since it was Yahweh who gave him his office in the first place? How does David have any credibility if he doesn’t act and how could he ever live down such infamy in a society built on increasing honor and limiting shame? And as the entourage must ask about its loyalty, so must then the reader. Does she continue to “follow” David, identifying him as the one upon whom the divine favor rests? Or should she start expecting another shift as happened before with Saul and David? But there is another important aspect of what Shimei has done which must be discussed. Certainly he has done something extraordinary by publicly challenging the king by calling him to account for the blood of the House of Saul; under regular circumstances, the reader would expect that that alone would be cause for Shimei to suffer David’s wrath. But one must also examine the understanding of curses in the intertextual world of the Bible in order to better grasp how a reader might make sense of what has just taken place here. When the text says that Shimei “cursed” David (vv. 5, 7, 9, 11, 13) the matter is raised to a new level beyond that of the simple insult or affront.273 “In the Hebrew Bible blessings and curses are differentiated from idle
273 Cf. Josef Scharbert, “rra,” TDOT 416, whose comments on cursing demonstrate the precarious situation in which Shimei has placed himself: “A curse is considered to be unlawful
99 chatter. They were words spoken from the heart and with intent. They were like arrows shot from a bow. Once shot, they cannot be recalled, but must reach their target and be effective.”274 In the world of the story, therefore, the curse is the medium of real, effective power that is capable of doing great harm to the person upon whom it is named.275 H.W. Wolff, following Rendtorff, goes so far as to say that in the Piel,276 which is the way Shimei uses the term, is more than just a curse, but includes along with that the implication that the one being cursed has in fact been cursed by God.277 This can be seen clearly in texts such as Judges 9, in which God sets an evil spirit between Ahimelech and the lords of Shechem (9:23), who then curse (…wälVlåqy`Aw◊ --9:27)
as a magical spell for producing destruction, i.e., as a means of personal revenge to smite a personal enemy, or as a means of gaining personal advantage by getting rid of other people, and therefore is prohibited by law. By way of contrast, a lawful curse is connected very closely with the deity, whether it take the form of a wish that the deity would ‘curse’ the evildoer himself, or a curse formula in which the deity somehow is mentioned by name, or curse formulas connected with religious rites or deposited at a sanctuary on written records ratified by a curse.”
274 Robinson, Let Us Be Like the Nations, 237.
275 See R.A. Carlson, David the Chosen King: A Traditio-Historical Approach to the Second Book of Samuel (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1964), 131-193, esp. 142, who, though working from a diachronic perspective, sees close ties between the “blessing” and “cursing” passages in Deuteronomy and the David narrative which are extremely suggestive for intertextual analysis. Although Deuteronomy itself prefers the synonym rårAa rather than lAlq∂ as it is used here in our text, the two are often used interchangeably (see David J. A. Clines, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993], 397). Cf. Exodus 22:27 (Eng. 22:28) where both are used in parallelism in the same sentence.
276 The HALOT (Retrieved from Accordance 9 Bible Software) relates the following: “lAlq∂ ,” state that in the Piel “apparently has both a declarative and a factitive function; for “declarative” is identical here with “factitive.” To declare someone “light,” i.e., despicable, insignificant, meaningless, means nothing other than to make the person despicable … The word that represents another as contemptible results in the actual, one might say final, reprehensibility of the one concerned. Word and deed are entirely identical. The situation may be clarified by reference to the vital role of “weight” for the Hebrews, i.e., “honor,” “reputation.” To lose such “importance” and thus to become “light,” i.e., despicable, dishonored, is synonymous for the Hebrews with the loss of existence.”
277 Hans Walter Wolff, “The Kerygma of the Yahwist,” in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (2d ed.; ed. Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 152 n.7. So also James C. VanderKam, “Davidic Complicity in the Deaths of Abner and Eshbal: A Historical and Redactional Study,” in From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Leiden and New York: Brill, 2002), 47-48.
100 Ahimelech and subsequently defeat him.278 If this is the case, then the cursing of David here by Shimei raises again the question of the loyalty of Yahweh: the kingdom and its attendant divine sanction, may have been snatched away by Yahweh from David already, and given to his treacherous son. Or perhaps, in abrogation of the promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7, might it even revert back to the crippled Saulide, Mephibosheth, who is physically impaired, but very much alive, as Ziba purports in 16:1-4? In two statements of judgment verse 8 closely connects the displacement of David by Absalom and raises the prospect of a further dynastic shift by bringing up the sore spot of the previous regime: Yahweh has “returned” (·byIvEh) upon David “all the blood of the house of Saul” (l…w#aDv_tyEb yEm∞ ;d√ lâO;k) 279 and has “given the kingdom” (h$Dk…wlV;mAh_tRa ‹hÎwhy◊ N§E;tˆ¥yÅw) to Absalom. The displacement from both his kingship and his royal city are the substance of Yahweh’s vengeance upon David that Shimei heralds. The reader will naturally make a larger connection with everything that has gone awry in David’s life since the Bathsheba incident. Nonetheless, from Shimei’s perspective, this is not about the chaos that has reigned in David’s house, except insofar as this is the result of the wrong done to his family. It is about bloodguilt for the deaths of members of the House of Saul, although the reader is not yet sure specifically to which whose blood that might refer, even though Shimei seems to be quite certain about it. The appearance in the narrative of these two Saulides, Mephibosheth (16:1-4) and Shimei, amid the chaos of a coup raises the prospect that further change might also be in the offing. Absalom may be in control at the moment, but since the reader has just been reminded a few verses earlier that the House of Saul is still extant even beyond the presence of Shimei, in the form of Mephibosheth, it is quite easy to imagine a scenario in which an untested leader like Absalom might conceivably be toppled under the right circumstances by those favorable to the heirs of Israel’s first king. That this is plausible is shown by David’s reaction in 16:4 to Ziba’s claim that this is in fact what Mephibosheth was plotting. Ziba may have been lying to save his own skin, but it sounded true enough that David gave Ziba control over all of Mephibosheth’s holdings. So the reader has to take a coup by the grandson of Saul at least as seriously as David does, and therefore factor that possibility into the interpretation of yet another Saulide, Shimei, entering the stage. The issue
278 Cf. also Gen 8:21; 12:3; 2 Kgs 2:24. 279 Jacob Weingreen, “The Rebellion of Absalom,” VT 19 (1969): 263-266, cites a Rabbinic tradition found in Midrash Tanhuma on Kî Tissa’ 4 which states that David was notorious for sacrificing his troops in battle.
101 becomes all the more pressing since that Saulide comes pronouncing Yahweh’s judgment on David, not once but twice in the same verse. Thus, the choices for the reader become complex. The reader can easily see two possible ways in which Shimei’s message might also be self-serving, either as Schadenfreude at David’s fall, or as the words of someone who is angling to bring his family back to power. But those are tough options, given the way that Shimei has upped the ante by invoking Yahweh, for speaking in that name requires all to sit up and take careful notice. Shimei purports to come speaking two interrelated words of judgment, that David is being punished by God and that this punishment is because of his responsibility for the blood of the House of Saul, both attributed to Yahweh in v.8, which may be true or not. Given that nowhere else thus far in the Hebrew Bible has anyone allegedly spoken on behalf of Yahweh and it not turned out to be the case, it would very hard for a reader to deny Shimei’s claims that Yahweh was behind at least the judgments of which Shimei speaks, if not his deliverance of those judgments themselves. In fact, however, the reader will soon have confirmation on that point in v. 10 from no less an authority than David himself. Thus, however unsettling it is to hear what Shimei has to say, to whom he says it, and the manner in which it is said, his credibility with the reader at this point by all rights should be quite high, no matter what happens to him in later scenes. A number of scholars, as we mentioned above, have concluded that this last phrase “all the blood of the House of Saul” refers to the story of 2 Samuel 21 where David appeases the wrath of the Gibeonites by giving them seven of the remaining Saulides in revenge for Saul’s earlier attempt to exterminate them.280 The problem with this is that the vengeance of the Gibeonites does not occur until after the cursing of Shimei. Some have answered this problem by proposing that originally chapter 21 stood before the Shimei scene.281 Rather than rearranging the text, Brueggemann, as I mentioned earlier, argued that Shimei represents a “party” who held David responsible for the deaths of the earlier Saulides,282 an argument that is made in similar fashion
280 See, e.g., Birch, NIB 1226; Anderson, 2 Samuel, 206; and Simon Cheval, “Composition and Creativity in 2 Samuel 21:1-14,” JBL 122/1 (2003): 23-52. 281 See Hertzberg, I and II Samuel, 345; Carlson, The Chosen King, 178; Anderson, 2 Samuel, 206; Pinsky, The Life of David, 92; and McKenzie, King David, 136.
282 See my discussion of Bruegemmann’s argument above in section 2.4.
102 by McCarter283 and VanderKam.284 This seems more in keeping with how an actual reader would read the text, reading from the beginning of the story to the end, and since it therefore does not require too much from the reader in the way of imagination, is thus the simplest way to read the text and therefore to be preferred. The reader can scarcely find a point with which to disagree with Shimei’s assessment about what has befallen David.285 Twice he invokes Yahweh as the agent of David’s current difficulty. Indeed it is Yahweh who “has returned” (byIvEh) the blood of the house of Saul on his head and Yahweh who “gave” (N§E;tˆ¥yÅw) David’s “kingship” (h$Dk…wlV;mAh_tRa) to Absalom. This portion of the verse recalls Samuel’s similar statement to Saul: “The Lord has this day torn (o°årq∂ ) the kingship (t…w¬kVlVmAm_t`Ra) over Israel away from you and has given it (;hÁÎnDtn…w◊ ) to another who is worthier than you” (1 Sam 15:28). The similarities of these statements and the reader’s knowledge that in the case of Saul the word from Yahweh via Samuel came true, given that David ultimately ascends to Saul’s throne, create an expectation in the reader’s mind that what has just been spoken may also in fact occur, if it is not even now unfolding, all of which further enhances Shimei’s credibility. The closest scene parallel to this is one in which the character who speaks in the name of Yahweh is in fact a prophet--Nathan in 2 Samuel 12. While the connection between the cursing of David by Nathan and Shimei is regularly cited, this has not been a significant factor in most commentators’ assessments of the character of Shimei.286 While Shimei might not actually be a
283 P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., “The Apology of David,” JBL 99 (1980): 489-504, esp. 501. 284 VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon, 31-51. See also Fokkelman, Narrative Art, 186.
285 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 151, lays out the various options for how Shimei has arrived at his conclusion: “In vv. 7-8 here, Shimei gives utterance to a diametrically opposed view of David from the one presented in 1 Sam 16-2 Sam 18. He is a man of blood; he has killed his way to power; he is now paying for the blood of the house of Saul. If we focus on “the blood of the house of Saul,” a number of possibilities can be brought under Shimei’s accusation. David might be accused of having abandoned Saul and his sons to their deaths at the battle of Gilboa (I Samuel 28-31). David might be considered responsible for the death of Ishbaal (2 Samuel 4). David could be accused of the death of seven of Saul’s descendants (2 Sam 21:6-9). If we view Shimei’s accusations more widely, it is an accusation that David clawed his way to power, aggregating superior military power to himself until he was finally in a position to force the house of Saul from the throne of Israel. It is a totally different picture from what we might call the authorized Davidic tradition. Where truth lies we are not told and do not know.”
103 prophet, his words here are quite prophet-like which the reader is certain to perceive, given the proximity of what Nathan has just said to David in chapter 12, as well as the way he couches his comments to David. But declaring a curse that claims divine sanction is not the only characteristic that Shimei shares with the biblical prophets. Gnana Robinson, has suggestively commented on the passage: Shimei, being attached to Saul’s family, is probably making a protest demonstration against David. Cursing, along with throwing stones and flinging dust on the enemy, are elements in symbolic acts invoking evil on the enemy. By throwing stones on the king single- handedly and inflicting physical harm on him, Shimei could not have expected to achieve anything except immediate reprisal. Shimei was walking right into the middle of David’s men. He was probably in a state of ecstasy so that the people did not dare stop him or attack him.287
There are three “motifs” in Robinson’s interpretation of the episode that I find particularly useful for intertextual reading that I believe can offer insights into how a reader might construe the character of Shimei. The first motif is Robinson’s point concerning symbolic action.288 In the Hebrew Bible the prophets undertake such acts in communicating their message from Yahweh to the people. In 1 Kgs 11:29-31, the prophet Ahijah tore a brand new garment into twelve pieces before Jereboam to represent the rending asunder of the united monarchy. Isaiah walked through the streets of Jerusalem naked for three years to symbolize the Assyrian threat against Egypt (Isa 20.3). Jeremiah wore first a wooden and then an iron yoke to symbolize the bondage into which Judah was going under the hand of the Babylonians (Jeremiah 27-28). The most eccentric of all the prophets, however, was Ezekiel who groaned aloud (Ezek 21:11) and clapped his hands and stomped his feet in order to get people to ask him what he was doing (6:11); laid on one side for 390 days (4:15); cut his hair into three piles burning one, stabbing another with a sword, and scattering a third into the wind (5:14); and dug through the wall of his house at midnight while wearing a back pack (12:5); all this in an attempt to make plain the word of Yahweh to the people. For this present study, the most important intertext of one engaging in symbolic action is
286 See, e.g., Fokkelman, 201-2. Eugene Peterson, 1 and 2 Samuel (WBC; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999), 212, refers here to what he calls an “ad hoc prophecy …formed from a poison brew of resentment and envy and lust for power.” 287 Robinson, Let Us Be Like the Nations, 236.
288 W. David Stacey, Prophetic Drama In the Old Testament, (London: Epworth Press, 1990), 260-282.
104 none other than Shimei’s relative, Saul, whose bloodguilt Shimei comes to avenge. Saul was recognized earlier in the narrative as a prophet (1 Samuel 10:5-12) who cut up a yoke of oxen and sent the twelve pieces to all the tribes of Israel in attempt to pressure them into lifting the siege of Jabesh-Gilead (1Sam 11:7). This was the constitutive act that established Saul’s legitimacy, so it can hardly be emphasized too much. It, like those of the other prophets, captured the imagination of the people and at times, galvanized them to action. As these examples illustrate, symbolic action was thus the province of the biblical prophets who employed it in carrying out their charge. In addition to reminding the reader of the stones set up by the elders upon the entrance to the land in Joshua 4, Shimei’s hurling of stones in this present text, since his is not a serious bodily threat, can be read as a symbolic act designed to emphasize the assault of Yahweh, in whose name he comes, on David’s royal pretensions.289 The second motif of Robinson’s quote that I want to utilize intertextually is the lone figure who speaks truth to royal power. The most obvious character who does this in the larger narrative’s past is Moses, who demands the release of the children of Israel from their bondage (Exodus 5-12), but even he does not go alone, or even speak, having his brother sent along for just that purpose. It is rather the prophets who undertake this task most regularly in the Hebrew Bible and with whom Shimei is most readily identifiable. We have already mentioned the incident involving Nathan and his word of judgment to David in 2 Samuel 12 as resembling the present scene, but there are others that are as equally evocative, including well-known scenes involving Ahijah (1 Kgs 14:116), Jeremiah (e.g. 21:1-10), Elijah (1 Kgs 18:18), Amos (7:16- 17),290 Isaiah (2 Kgs 20:1-11), Jonah (3:6), Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:13-28), Huldah (2 Kgs 22:11-20), as well as incidents involving unnamed prophets in 1 Kings 13. This brief survey demonstrates that there is no lack in the scripture for intertextual material from which a reader might make reasonable associations in order to get a sense of what Shimei is up to here.291 Read this way,
289 Stacey, Prophetic Drama, 273, argues that not all symbolic activity was oriented towards events to come: “Some of the dramas are best understood, not as introductions of future events, but as dramatic expressions of present ones.”
290 Although spoken to Amaziah the priest, the story represents Amaziah as a lackey for the king.
291 An important form of prophetic behavior which is described by David Petersen, The Roles of Israel’s Prophets (JSOTSup 17; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981), 31, as “engrossed acting” which
105 Shimei stands with the great tradition of those who fearlessly opposed the wrongdoing of Israel’s and Judah’s kings. Even thinking from the diachronic perspective of the existence of a Dtr and the DH, particularly given Polzin’s discussion of the concept of return from exile being foreshadowed in the language of passage,292 Shimei could be read as a cipher for Jeremiah pronouncing judgment on the last dying days of the Judahite monarchy four hundred years later. Shimei’s rebuke of David and his claim that Yahweh’s vengeance was being meted out against him will be echoed by later prophets who say the same kinds of things to his offspring for the next four centuries. Once more, reading intertextually provides a rich background for understanding Shimei’s character that points us again in the direction of the striking similarities between him and the prophets.293 Shimei’s humiliation in chapter 19, and his ignominious end in 1 Kings 2 in no way detract from the figure that he cuts here, particularly because in v.10, whatever doubts the reader might have about the validity and source of Shimei’s verbal assault, they must be set aside by David’s endorsement of the Saulide as being Yahweh’s messenger. This reading is further bolstered by reflecting on a third motif in Robinson’s quote, which describes Shimei’s actions in terms of ecstatic behavior.294 This points us again to prophecy as a possibility for understanding the figure of Shimei. Under normal circumstance it would be suicidal to speak to a king in this manner, so the reader has to utilize some frame of reference for understanding how it is that a character might act in this way, and a prophetic frenzy is one such available frame in the larger story. It is important to remember that he does not have to “be” a prophet. All he has to do is evoke in the mind of the reader a kind of prophetic presence in order
he associates with the activity of Elijah (1 Kings 21), Elisha (2 Kgs 4:8-37), Amos (Amos 7:10- 17), Isaiah (Isaiah 7) and, most instructive for our passage, Nathan (2 Samuel 12).
292 See section 2.2.3 above.
293 Eugene Peterson, 1 and 2 Samuel, 212-13, says that “Shimei takes on the post of doomsday prophet … interpreting current events as acts of God in favor of the Saul party.” Just as important, he says that David registers this as well: “David is able to hear God’s word in Shimei’s rants, and what he hears brings David to himself … Shimei’s curses peel the royal veneer off David and expose his soul. David lets Shimei’s become the word of God to him-- kerygmatic Shimei.”
294 See Helmer Ringgren, “1 and 2 Samuel,” ABD 2:280, from which many of the biblical references are drawn. See also Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980).
106 for his character to be understood in this manner. This is also the case with frenetic behavior of Shimei, which while not being labeled explicitly by the narrator as ecstasy, nonetheless evoked by the depiction of his character in this scene. In times past, the boundaries for what was considered prophetic ecstasy were quite narrowly construed, but in the last generation the field has shifted significantly and the range of behaviors associated with ecstasy has now widened significantly.295 The expanded categories of what might constitute ecstasy have thus opened a window into a reader might have made sense of what was happening with Shimei. Although it is difficult to describe exactly what took place when a prophet was under the influence of a spirit, it was sometimes linked with “madness” (NwøoÎ…gIv--2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26; Hos 9:7). Here we may recall the argument made by Fokkelman, who essentially argued that Shimei was unbalanced, though without the textual support.296 Other times, ecstasy is associated with crying, dancing and bodily mutilation (1 Kgs 18:26-29), which makes ecstasy suspect as an alien practice of foreigners.297 It is important to recall, however, the references to Saul in which the Israelite prophet-king, dramatically participates in some sort
295 B. Uffenheimer, “Prophecy, Ecstasy and Sympathy,” in Congress Volume, Jerusalem 1986 (ed. J.A. Emerton; Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1988), 261-262, states: “[T]he semantic field of ecstasy is far broader than can be guessed from its etymology. . . already the classical and Hellenistic use of this verb and its nominal derivative alludes to he broad phenomenological orbit of what we call ecstasy. So, when biblical scholars went in the footsteps of Plato by identifying ecstasy with Dionysian frenzy, they mistook the etymology for its phenomenology or its semantic field. Consequently, the problem we are facing is not whether prophetic ecstasy is a historical fact or a scholarly invention, but what kind of ecstasy or how many kinds of ecstasy can be traced in prophetic literature for it is evident that ecstasy is inextricably linked with creativeness of any kind.”
296 Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 196. Pinsky, The Life of David, 144, refers to Shimei as “comically ineffectual” and “half-crazy,” again, not taking into account what such a curse meant within the story world.
297 See Max Weber, “The Psychology of the Prophets,” in Psychological Insight Into the Bible: Texts and Readings (eds. Wayne G. Rollins, and D. Andrew Kille; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007), 199-203; Robert R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Re-examination,” in Community, Identity, and Ideology: Social Science Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (eds. Charles E. Carter and Carol L. Meyers; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 404-422; Thomas Overholt, Channels of Prophecy: The Social Dynamics of Prophetic Activity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989); and Johannes Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973).
107 prophetic psychic ritual himself (1 Sam 10:5f; 19:20-24). The first of these occurred right at the time of his anointing as king and thus before any breach with Yahweh had occurred. This is significant for understanding what Shimei is doing and how his behavior might be understood by the reader because the narrative already has an antecedent Saulide—the head of the family, no less—engaging in ecstatic behavior while under the explicit sanction of Yahweh and within his good graces. In short, Shimei, the relative of Saul, can be read as a figure who is engaging in the same sort of conduct as both his more famous relative and the more familiar prophetic tradition, which the reader who continues reading canonically will soon encounter. He is manifesting the kind of improvisational symbolic behavior that would naturally be associated by readers of the text with the behavior of prophets. Apart from his cursing of David, Shimei’s actions in this scene have elicited little response from scholars,298 and even the cursing has been treated in--one almost hates to say it--cursory fashion, beyond describing what in the narrative we as readers should have been expected to grasp in order to validate what the Saulide says about David as a killer. Highlighting his stone- slinging and dirt-dusting (another creative, symbolic act which will be revealed by the narrator in v. 13), changes the way in which the text can be understood. Reading against the intertextual backdrop of 1) symbolic activity, 2) confrontations with rulers over moral issues and 3) ecstatic behavior, allows Shimei’s character to be seen in an altogether different light than he has been seen before. In his symbolic attack upon the king with stones and curses, he acts out the assault that Yahweh has prepared for him. This has the effect, in my view, of altering the possibilities of what has been a largely negative portrayal of him in many older, but still quite common readings of this story.299 Instead of seeing him as the jealous, unbalanced figure of the traditional reading
298 The dirt and stone-throwing are not discussed, for example, in the commentaries by Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 1:1200-202; Brueggemann, 1 and 2 Samuel, 307-309; Birch,“1 and 2 Samuel,”1325-1327; McCarter, II Samuel, 372-377; or Campbell, 2 Samuel, 149- 151.
299 Gordon, 1 & 2 Samuel, 276, describes Shimei’s accusations of David as having “gone awry.” Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 196, describes him as “comical.” Ackroyd, The Second Book of Samuel, 116, describes Shimei’s cursing as “sinful.” Mary Evans, 1 and 2 Samuel (NIBC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000), 205, speaks of Shimei’s “unpredictable aggression and violent hatred” of David.
108 who kind of wanders into the truth by accident or in spite of himself,300 I am proposing that he can be understood in a more positive light by reading his character as being prophet-like in its presentation within the scene. This has important implications for the thorough reading of the passage by Brueggemann. As I mentioned earlier, Brueggemann reads Shimei as a representative of a party that speaks for the displaced order, who “as the champion of faith of a dependent variety,” advocates an antiquated theology of retribution.301 As I have argued, the text can be read quite differently by listening to the cues given by the intertextual threads scattered throughout the passage. Rather than representing the old order, Shimei instead can be understood, picking up Brueggemann’s idea that the narrative’s characters are stand-ins for political “parties” in the life of Israel and Judah, looking and sounding a lot like the new order of prophets who will faithfully confront Israel’s and Judah’s kings declaring God’s word of judgment later in Israel’s and Judah’s story. While I agree with Miscall and Alter that the text, like all texts, can support both multiple readings simultaneously,302 I would argue that the intertextual connections in the scripture which I have drawn would make more sense of the figure of Shimei than any previous attempts offered by Brueggemann or other commentators, who have paid little attention to all of the aspects of his appearance in this scene. As we will see in our examination of the rest of this scene, the character of God looms large in its background. Here, Shimei’s credibility rests on the reader’s sympathy with him as someone who either himself or at least his family has been surpassed by David's house.303
300 Pinsky, The Life of David, 146, describes Shimei as “crazed.” Cf. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry, 196. 301 Brueggemann, “Coping,” 191.
302 See Miscall, The Workings, 2 and Alter, The Pleasures, 215.
303 Pinsky, The Life of David, 143, reads the scene as eliciting sympathy from the reader for David: “In the curving secret logic of all narrative, in imitation of life itself this moment of restraint is like an assurance that David will triumph over the rebellion … And so it will come to pass. Politically, David knows that the spectacle of the unseemly curing will create his moment of sympathy, a longing for the restoration of the king’s dignity. Theologically, it is as if David eagerly pays this price of the Lord, enduring the spitting and stone-throwing for his sins, in order again the greater goal.” I don’t believe it has to be an either/or here — my whole point is that the text is capable of sustaining mutually exclusive perspectives within the story, and thus my view is that the individual reader is capable of holding such multiple perspectives even within herself.
109 Readers are also inclined to give him a hearing because we know how awful David has behaved in the past, thus giving Shimei’s tongue-lashing to David the ring of truth. But the most arresting aspect of Shimei’s antics is that he speaks in the name of Yahweh, who seems to have been on David’s side for so long in the narrative, but who has now, according to Shimei, changed his mind yet again. Just as significantly, Shimei looks and plays the part of an instrument of divine judgment. Only someone who purports to know the workings of Yahweh in this instance would publicly curse the king; only someone certain of his moral rectitude and ultimate protection would hurl the lethal shepherd’s stones back at the king while he was surrounded by his security detail. The reader is left with the impression that, if what Shimei asserts is correct, that once again, Yahweh has switched sides; he has taken the kingship from David, like he took it from Saul, and instead of giving it to the son-in-law, now gives it to the son. The reader has to evaluate the fullness of Shimei’s presentation, his cursing, his stone-and dirt throwing, his claims of divine judgment and the political conclusions he has drawn from recent events. Shimei might be just and upright in all of his actions, true in his assertions and correct in his conclusions. Or he might be correct in some aspects, wrong in others. The reader has barely absorbed this one persuasive attempt to frame political events, when another perspective is offered.
3.5 v. 9 Abishai Speaks for Tradition; Offers to Settle the Matter Immediately The pushback against the barrage by Shimei comes instantly from David’s nephew, Abishai, who has been one of the king’s bloody enforcers throughout the narrative. Abishai, though his suggestion is ultimately rejected by David, has a very valid point in his offering of it. His words echo the Torah on the subject, and his belligerent behavior carries with it both the single-mindedness and swagger of David in his earlier years. The combination of these two aspects to his brief appearance in the narrative, as I will show, further blurs the morality of the scene by placing the focus on Shimei’s actions against David, rather than on David’s actions against the House of Saul. Additionally, this change of focus, which highlights Shimei’s culpability, further complicates the question of whose side Yahweh is on in the dispute. All of this combined, lends to the growing tension of the scene. Verse 9 reintroduces the character of Abishai to the narrative. Previously, Abishai had demonstrated his loyalty and bravery by going into the camp of Saul with David while Saul slept (1 Samuel 26). He also was involved in battling the forces of Saul, along with his brothers Joab
110 and Asahel (2 Samuel 3). The most significant aspect of the character Abishai, however, is the identifying matronymic, son of Zeruiah, who was David’s sister (according to 1 Chron 2:16). Abishai (whose name means “my father is Jesse”) and his brothers were thus the nephews of David. A number of elements of the plot line of the near context of this story, both before and after this scene turn on issues of honor and shame, from the raped Tamar who can never marry, to the public conquest of David’s royal harem, to David’s refusal to honor his troops after defeating Absalom, a situation that required an intervention by Joab to save the king’s honor--all of these, to say nothing of not being spared the indignities of a foul-mouthed, stone-throwing relative of a dead king-- present to the reader complex social interactions whose outcomes are determined by who is esteemed and who is humiliated “after the dust settles” (cf. 16:13, where Shimei throws that as well as stones and curses) and the interaction is over.304 When King Saul is berated by the prophet Samuel, we can imagine the humiliation that would accompany such a dressing down, especially in the presence of another king. This is the world Abishai inhabits, a world in which a man’s honor is his most important possession. And he knows what has just happened. As I noted in section 3.5 above, curses carry power, sometimes lethal power. What Shimei had just said to David was tantamount to an assassination attempt, a coup de main, designed to topple the government in one breath. Recognizing this, Abishai thus reacts as one would expect--he is not at David’s side to be a political consultant, after all--by calling for an unmistakably swift and decisive response to the threat of the curse in order to protect both the king’s honor, as well as his person. He speaks to that same awareness in his uncle of the meaning of what just happened when he asks permission to cut off Shimei’s head (wáøvaør_tRa hry¶IsDa∂ w◊ a™D…n_hrV;bVoRa∂ ) as well as by the way he addresses his uncle as “my lord, the king” (JKRl¡R;mAh y™InOdSa), which is precisely what a reader would expect in such a situation where familial and national honor has been besmirched. He can do no other, for to fail to offer to avenge this curse on behalf of his near kinsman, who is also his lord and his king, would be to bring dishonor down upon his own head.
304 Johanna Steibert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The Prophetic Contribution (JSOTSup 346; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Ken Stone, Sex, Honor and Power in the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 284; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); and T. Raymond Hobbs, “Reflections on Honor, Shame and Covenant Relation,” JBL (1997): 501-520.
111 Abishai is known to the reader as a man unafraid to kill. Moreover, in the past, David has expressed his incapacity to control him and his brother.305 Abishai refers to Shimei as being “this dead dog” (hY‰zAhΩ ‹tE;mAh bRl§R;kAh), which is important for two reasons. First, the only other time the term “dead dog” is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible it is also in reference to a relative of Saul, Mephibosheth in 2 Sam 9.8. Second, it is ironic that Shimei should be referred to as “dead” for though he does not die in this particular scene, and though Abishai will once more ask in vain to kill him in a later scene (2 Sam 19:22-24), Shimei will later die a violent death by order of David’s son Solomon (1 Kgs 2:36-44) after receiving instructions from his father to do this after his father was dead (1 Kgs 2:8-9), thereby maintaining the fig leaf of David’s “innocence” with regard to Shimei even in death. Thus the adjective “dead” is proleptic of Shimei’s ultimate fate, which the reader will only grasp in hindsight. More importantly, however, this segment of the scene also has resonances with the episode of David and Goliath with respect to the hurling of both objects and curses. In the previously discussed rant of Shimei, I pointed out above that prior to this present scene, the only person in the larger story extending back to 1 Sam 16 to have ever cursed David was the Philistine giant. In that scene, Goliath ironically asks David the rhetorical question “Am I a dog?” (1 Sam 17:43; yIk$OnDa bRlRkSh∞ ), to which David responds with the threat to Goliath “I will cut off your head” (v. 46; ‹ÔKVvaíør_tRa y§ItOrIsShÅw) a threat upon which the boy soon makes good after he hurls the “stone” (v. 49; NRb‹Ra). The reader will remember this intertext, and will look unfavorably on David’s character. Instead of presenting himself as being in control and in charge, as was the case in the Goliath episode, David now looks weak. By contrast, Abishai is taking up the role that David once had, defending the monarchy itself from insult and the people from the dishonor of having someone publically shame their king. There was a time when David would have been the first to pipe up with a response to a curse like the one Shimei offers here, but not anymore.
305 Stanley Jerome Isser, The Sword of Goliath: David in Heroic Literature (Studies in Biblical Literature 6; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 26-27, surveys the character of Abishai in the story of David: “Abishai is consistently the personal companion and defender of David. He is the one closest to David in his daring raids on the battlefield, in dishonorable retreat and in victory. In the more detailed legends of David and his men, Abishai must have been a prominent and well-developed character, the stereotypical loyal companion of the king. We don’t know what happened to him. He is absent from the story of Adonijah and Solomon’s rivalry for the throne (1 Kings 1) and he is not included with Joab in David’s list that Solomon should kill for having crossed him (1 Kings 2).” This last detail lends credibility to the case that I am building of Abishai as embodying a righteous, prophetic perspective.
112 Yet the scene also raises doubts in the mind of the reader about Shimei, for if the last guy who cursed David in such a fashion ended up as a “dead dog,” does that not indicate something about Shimei’s credibility? And if Shimei is not, as he claims, properly interpreting the actions of Yahweh, who then in the scene will? Is Abishai’s challenge to King David akin to the challenge of the young David to the armies of Israel in 1 Samuel 17, and thus a foreshadowing of the downfall of his tottering uncle, in addition to the demise of Shimei? Reading Abishai’s speech through the intertextual lens of that famous scene between David and Goliath creates a dramatically different way of understanding David’s character. Brueggemann reads him, as I noted in chapter 2, as a representative of the coming new order in the story-world that will come into full bloom under Solomon, an order that is typified by the actions of ruthless kings and their minions who have no respect for any life save their own. As I interpret it, by contrast, Abishai’s speech represents a series of three voices that when traced intertextually will add new dimension and texture to his presentation in the narrative. First of all, Abishai here, as well as his character’s portrayal throughout the narrative, represents the voice of family honor. In 1 Sam 26:6-9, David took Abishai with him to sneak into Saul’s camp while Saul and his troops slept. Abishai argued at that time forcefully for killing Saul as a means of ridding David of the threat to his person, but David restrained him. In 2 Sam 2:18-24 and 3:30 Abishai, along with his brother Joab, pursue and then ultimately kill Saul’s general Abner in revenge for killing their brother Asahel. In both instances, Abishai takes with deadly seriousness those who threaten the future of the clan, placing it before all other interests. David, who has political realities in mind rather than traditional familial interests, as do his nephews, is portrayed in conflict with Abishai on both occasions. Commentators are quick to read Abishai as brutal306 and David as merciful,307 but they do not attend to the shift that David has made into the realm of geo-politics as the narrative has progressed. In the world of the story, it is David who has changed, from an ambitious shepherd boy to a political insider to
306 See, e.g., James E. Smith, 1 and 2 Samuel (College Press NIV Commentary; Joplin: College Press, 2000), 485, who says that Abishai is “fierce and impetuous” but “technically correct” in his urging to kill Abishai. Peterson, 1 and 2 Samuel, 213, adds that Abishai was “for David’s cause without understanding David’s God.” Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 307, comments: Abishai is “always ready for a killing.” 307 See Michael A. Eschelbach, Has Joab Foiled David?: a Literary Study of the Importance of Joab's Character in Relation to David (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 49; Borgman, David, Saul and God, 144; and Pinsky, Life of David, 193.
113 the holder of the reins of power himself, who increasingly ignores the interests of family and clan in favor of that which is expedient for his own career and the development of the state--his state. David, with whom Abishai is contrasted, is clearly no family man by anyone’s measure. Apart from the death of his sons--his potential heirs and thus the keys to his own legacy308--he shows only minimal interest in his own or anyone else’s family for that matter. I have already catalogued many illustrations of his self-centeredness and lack of respect for family: the recognition by his older brother, Eliab, that he was operating in his own interest (1 Sam 17:28);309 his subversion of the family of Saul (1 Sam 18:18; 19:8-17); his wife-stealing (1 Sam 25; ; 2 Sam 11 );310 his deal-making with Abner and abdication of familial blood vengeance obligations for the death of his nephew Asahel (2 Sam 3:12-16); the blatant sexual display before the ark which shamed Michal, his wife (2 Samuel 6);311 and his inattention to and poor parenting
308 Contra Shimon Bar Erfat, Narrative Art in the Bible, 174, who says this: “The comparison between his son and the Benjamite, which the king makes in an outburst of emotion, provides telling evidence of the fact that David’s mind is continuously preoccupied with thoughts of Absalom. At the moment that Shimei curses and humiliates him mercilessly, the king is not concerned solely with the disgrace he is experiencing, but Absalom, who is far away, is as much at the forefront of his thoughts as Shimei, who is shouting at him at close range.” But David has done nothing in the narrative to merit this analysis. He let the prince languish for years without showing any evidence of concern for him. My argument, which is easier to make given the clues of the plot, and which also squares with Paul Borgman’s analysis of the lager repetitive pattern of “failed fathers” in 1-2 Samuel is that David’s alleged concern for Absalom, when it does appear, is actually concern for what Absalom means to his own dynastic desires, which require a credible leader who can replace him. Cf. Borgman, David, Saul and God, 121-50. Halpern, David’s Secret Demons,73-106, perceives the ruthlessness of David in the killing of anyone who gets in his way, including family.
309 17:28 reads: “His eldest brother Eliab heard him talking to the men; and Eliab’s anger was kindled against David. He said, “Why have you come down? With whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart; for you have come down just to see the battle.”
310 Mark Biddle, who is working more from a diachronic perspective, although he uses the kind of intertextual method that identifies obvious parallels which he asserts were intended by the author, reads 1 Samuel 25 as being a kind of satire, which was not designed to be understood as part of the apologetics of David, because the scene presents David in an unflattering light. See his “Ancestral Motifs in 1 Samuel 25: Intertextuality and Characterization,” JBL, 121/4 (2002): 617-38.
114 of his own children, which led to their destruction (2 Samuel 13-15).312 This portrait of David as an individual less than interested in so called family values stands in sharp contrast to the one painted of Abishai, who in the story represents the traditional mode of treating family concerns first, a posture which will allow no threat to family to go unchallenged.313 Within the story’s world, such kinship networks were essential for survival at the level of family and clan,314 as individuals living on the land doing the kind of small plot, small herd farming that texts of both the Torah and the DH describe,315 would have required support, particularly in times of distress. But kinship networks were also important in military terms for the defense of the land, which in turn further functioned to assist in the formation of a larger identity that, as the story unfolds, ultimately becomes the nation of Israel gathered around a monarchy. The small bands of fighters, when gathered in force, could present a formidable opponent, whether it be an aggressor from within, as was the case with the Benjaminites in Judges 20, or from without, as in the case of Jabesh-Gilead in 1 Samuel 11. Like men throughout the whole of the biblical narrative, Abishai’s response to the cursing and pelting of David is
311 See J. Cheryl Exum, “Michal: The Whole Story,” in Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)Versions of Biblical Narratives (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993), 42- 60, and McKenzie, King David, 138. Exum, Fragmented Women, 94,connects Michal’s outburst (2 Sam 6:20), Shimei’s curses, Sheba’s revolt (2 Sam 20), and Rizpah’s silent resistance (2 Sam 21) as “protest against David’s royal privilege at the expense of the House of Saul.” See David J. A. Clines and Tamara Eskanzai, eds., Telling Queen Michal’s Story: An Experiment in Comparative Interpretation (JSOTSup 119; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).
312 Paul Borgman, David, Saul and God, 121-50, sees David’s character as being presented within the larger framework of a narrative pattern of “failed fathers” running through the books of Samuel, a pattern which also includes both Eli and Samuel, who likewise could not control their children.
313 McKenzie, King David, 54, speculates that perhaps David is not Abishai’s and Joab’s uncle at all, based on their late appearance in his rise to the throne.
314 See Leo G. Perdue et al., eds., Families in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), esp., 13, 37-38, and 177, on the military role played by families, as well as Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1979), 270-276.
315 See Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 2008), for an extensive presentation of the Israelite farming practices.
115 exactly what a reader would expect from someone who had been functioning throughout this story as part of the same ’elep, men of the same clan who have banded together to fight for a common interest, as they had since the days of Moses.316 Secondly, Abishai’s speech represents the voice of devotion to Torah. A canonical reader at this point opens the aperture to include more than just the Deuteronomistic corpus and thus includes elements of the larger biblical story that the historical-critical approach might have disregarded. Earlier, I quoted Exod 22:27 in order to demonstrate the risk that was involved for Shimei when he cursed the king. Abishai’s proposal to take off the Benjaminite’s head represents a commitment to the Law as it was revealed to Moses and although the punishment for such an offense is not listed in the Exodus account, it would certainly be congruent with what is prescribed for other such curses. Moreover, as I demonstrated above, the prohibition against cursing the king is embedded both within an individual commandment as well as grouped in a series of commandments each of which deals with the specifics of what is due Yahweh by his people. As I have shown, cursing the king was tantamount to cursing Yahweh, for the king ruled only at the divine behest. This meant that revolt against the king, which is what Shimei is fomenting, if not embodying that revolt himself with his curse, could moreover be easily construed as open rebellion against Yahweh, unless, of course, the one cursing is Yahweh’s representative. Recognizing this sheds further light on Abishai’s resort to militancy as a response to Shimei, because what he just did to the David the king was also understood within biblical faith as being also a threat to one who made him king, which required that the men of the land rise up and fight.317 He does not think that Shimei is representing anyone but himself. To
316 Christopher Wright, God’s People in God’s Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1990), 72, states: “[I]n the early period, before the organization of professional and standing armies under the monarchy, the military levy was based on the mutual units of society—‘kin groups’ (or ‘clans’) and households. The term ’elep was used for the military contingent of a mišpāhâ and was the basic unit of tribal levies.. . . An ’elep was the ‘kin-group-at-arms,’ (emphasis his) the complement of troops provided by the ‘kin group’ for the tribal levy.” Often appearing in military contexts, as Wright’s quote indicates, PRlRa is usually translated “thousand,” but it is often not clear whether this refers to an absolute head count, or simply the number of military units, particularly in cases in which the numbers are tens of thousands of troops. Cf., e.g., Exod 18:21, 25; Num 1:16; 10:4; 31:14; Josh 22: 21, 30:1 Sam 10:19; 18:13; 23:23; 1 Kgs 5:13.
317 Wright, God’s People, 76, says: “The role and importance of the family in the military sphere therefore flows into the theological realm, for its obligations were not only loyalty and assistance
116 use Wright’s language, the reader would expect that Abishai understood that “fighting for Yahweh [was] a duty such that failure to fulfill it merited censure or the curse (cf. Judg 5:16-17, 23).”318 Abishai, therefore, has no option but to try and take down Shimei, for he himself will be cursed if he doesn’t. Abishai’s speech also represents the voice of David’s past. I have already pointed out the similarities between this scene and the one involving David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17: in both scenes David is cursed by someone; both contain the insult “dog”; and both utilize the threat of being beheaded against the one who utters the curse against David. Abishai looks like David as he used to be. The old David would have taken off the Benjaminite’s head without a second thought. Indeed, he cut off Goliath’s head without encouragement from anyone on his own initiative, yet here he cannot bring himself to do what the situation seems to require, even though he is publicly prodded by his nephew.319 At this point David appears but a shell of his former self, being either unwilling or unable to act, having to be counseled on the proper course of action by his nephew. This is the absolute low point of his character in the whole of the Hebrew Bible. This makes Abishai’s speech very compelling to the reader, particularly if they identified with the presentation of David in 1 Samuel 17, where it was clear that the boy was going places. But it also further presses the issue upon both David and the reader regarding the divine favor: does Yahweh love the middle-aged David like he used to love the young shepherd boy into whose heart he once looked and saw a king? How does reading Abishai’s speech as the voice of family honor, the voice of remembrance of Torah and the voice of David’s past affect how we understand his character? Instead of reading him as a representative of a new order of ruthless, power hungry men who have little respect for human life, as Brueggemann does, I am reading Abishai as exactly the opposite, following the codes which point me in another direction. He can easily be understood by the canonical reader as the representative of the old order, prior to the age of kings, which privileged family and Torah above all. He also reminds us of David as he was in his youth, brash and bold,
to fellow tribes and tribal leaders (Cf. Judges 5:15) but also to “come to the help of the Lord against his enemies (v 23).” Thus one has the makings of a theology of holy war. Cf. Susan Niditch, War in the Hebrew Bible. 318 Wright, God’s People, 76.
319 I am indebted to my professor, Dr. Matthew Goff, for this insight.
117 rather than the monarch on the run that he has become. More importantly, Abishai still believes in that old David. Despite the upstart Absalom, and the sour grapes of Shimei, Abishai indicates not a hint of wavering in terms of his faith in the legitimacy of David’s kingship, for whom he is as willing to kill now as he was when he made his first appearance at David’s side in 1 Samuel 26. In my treatment of Shimei in section 3.3 above, I noted that his statements, as a Saulide, regarding Yahweh’s vengeance for the blood of the House of Saul, cast him in the biblical role of “blood avenger.” Abishai’s response here in v. 9, however, brings the reader up short on this point. Abishai does not explicitly answer Shimei’s charges, but his response to David is an implicit dismissal of all that Shimei has just alleged. Shimei made a convincing case to frame what is happening politically in theological terms. But Abishai counters that, offering the reader a whole different take on things, which blunts the momentum of Shimei to control the narrative with his viewpoint. Abishai is clearly unfazed by anything Shimei has said or done. He reminds the reader that David is still the king, and offers to administer the punishment requisite in such cases. His unflinching stand against the onslaught of Shimei opens up the prospect for the reader that either some or all of what Shimei has just said and done may not, in fact, be divinely inspired, and that his demonstration may be, to some degree or other, an occasion for the settling of a personal grievance rather than a lawful attempt at blood vengeance. There is more than a little traditional theology implied in Abishai’s defense of David, of which David can quite reasonably avail himself, in both the peoples’ and the reader’s eyes. An attack on the king is an attack on the divine order itself, for God has placed the king in authority. So responding to this assault is both justified and necessary. What looks like a bad situation, Abishai offers, can be made in an instant to look altogether different. The swift execution of Shimei for his cursing of David can send a message that the king has not lost his “mojo” and that people who purport to be explaining what Yahweh is doing in the political sphere will not come to a happy end. More importantly, it can send the message, at least implicitly, that Yahweh is still on David’s side. In adopting the stance of one who properly protects and upholds the monarchy, Abishai is not behaving in a reckless fashion but is, in a manner similar to Shimei, attempting to align his perspective with that of Yahweh, as it has been manifested in texts such as Exodus 22 and 2 Samuel 7, for example. This pits two persons in the scene against one another, each of whose responses frame the meaning of what is happening politically in terms that present the reader
118 with opposing theological rationales, both of which possess a degree of legitimacy. Yahweh does not appear in this scene, but everyone else in it appears to be speaking on his behalf as they attempt to gain control of the narrative and frame theologically what has just happened in Absalom’s unseating of David. Yet even as Abishai blunts Shimei’s attack in his attempt to shore up David’s position, his very speaking undermines David’s legitimacy. For it is Abishai who speaks, not David, in response to Shimei. And the very fact that Abishai has to ask David as to how he should proceed is a hint that something is not right here, for David should have cut the man down himself, or at least had an implicit understanding with his top commanders as to what should be done in such a situation. Abishai’s decisiveness contrasts with David’s passivity, which the reader has to resolve in order to make sense of what is going on both politically and theologically. Why doesn’t the king defend himself from the charges of the Saulide?
3.6 vv. 10-12: David Affirms, Rejects Both Shimei, Abishai In the previous three sections I have examined the introduction to the scene by the narrator as well as the speaking parts by Shimei and Abishai. In this section, I will examine David’s response to Abishai’s offer to kill Shimei, in which he backhandedly replies to the substance of Shimei’s assertions. I will show here that David’s response, though having the veneer of faithfulness to God as well as compassion and mercy toward others, can also be read as self- serving, even Machiavellian, a prospect often ignored by commentators on this passage, who have historically been mesmerized by his words here. Moreover, I will show how David’s response cleverly finds a place alongside those already expressed of Shimei and Abishai in which he too, like them, will attempt to reframe theologically the “events on the ground” for the as-yet ongoing project of bolstering his kingship. Now, more than ever, David needs all the help he can get, and in this portion of the scene David will attempt to align his point of view with what he perceives is Yaweh’s, thus further problematizing the issue of who understands the purposes of Yahweh, since all of them will appear to be claiming this at least implicitly for themselves. David now has his turn to speak. He does not now, nor will he in this entire section address Shimei. Instead he speaks to Abishai, “What do have I to do with you (M™RkDlw◊ y¶I;l_hAm), O sons of
119 Zeruiah,?”320 making it clear that he is not in agreement with his nephew on the question of vengeance.321 The phrase “sons of Zeruiah” (h¡DyürVx yEnV;b∞ ) takes one a little off guard for seemingly only Abishai has asked permission to dispatch Shimei, but it may be that the reader is expected to understand that his brother Joab is present also. In any case, David’s response reminds the reader of the long-standing conflict that is apparent in more than this story alone. Thus the conflict is not simply between Shimei and David, but appears also to include both sons of Zeruiah, Abishai and Joab.322 I have already mentioned the conflict between Abishai and David in the narrative. There has also been a parallel conflict involving his brother Joab and the king that intersected in the episode involving the assassination of Abner, in which Joab and his brother executed the Saulide general against the orders of David (2 Samuel 3). This conflict continued with the situation surrounding Uriah, in which Joab modified David’s order concerning the disposal of Uriah the Hittite and then attempted a bit of chicanery in sending a message to David that the deed was done.323 Joab had also been forced to prod David into action on two occasions, first in the battle
320 So Alter, David Story, 293, rendering the awkward Hebrew, which may mean more like, “What am I gonna do with you?” as a colloquial English expression of exasperation framed as rhetorical question.
321 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 45, is typical of commentators: “David prudently prohibits the killing. He thus returns to the policy of his youth, when he forbade his subordinates to kill Saul. In the case of Shimei, David reasons that Yahweh may have ordained the taunting as part of his own humiliation. Hoping in extremis for mercy from Yahweh for bearing his punishment, he now applies the brakes to the spiraling cycle of violence that has hitherto raged about him. He now perceives the reality underlying events.” The problem with this is that David has already sent spies back to reconnoiter Jerusalem and is now leading his mercenaries into the wilderness to regroup. He does not appear to be anywhere near giving up his killing.
322 In a penetrating article that makes use of intertextual analysis, J.W. Wesselius, “Joab’s Death and the Central Theme of the Succession Narrative (2 Samuel IX-1 Kings II),” VT, 40/3 (1990): 336-51, raises the prospect that the reason for the recurring conflict between Joab and David is that when Joab is killed by Solomon in 1 Kings the justification for the act is minimal, if one only attends to what happens in 1 Kings. If one, however, traces the problem backwards through the narrative, one encounters a situation in which the narrator, by overstressing the conflict, signals the final outcome that will soon be coming via Solomon. Also see Michael A. Eschelbach, Has Joab.
323 See Sternberg’s fine reading of this section, in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 213-18.
120 against the city of Rabbah (2 Sam 12:28); and again, in chapter 14, where he proceeds by means of trickery to see that David recalls Absalom from exile. The sons of Zeruiah seem more attuned to the Realpolitik than their uncle, who appears to be losing his ability to read accurately what is going on, much less to lead. They do not take orders well and are more than willing to pursue their own interests when it suits them, even if at variance from the king’s wishes. Indeed, they were strong-willed and hot-tempered when David’s power and influence were at its zenith. They have had to clean up David’s messes at least twice before and now it looks to them as if David might be leaving another one behind which will have to be dealt with, an opponent of David from the former royal family whose public expression of antipathy towards the king threatens to merge his grievances with those of Absalom and his supporters. Success in battle no doubt has bolstered the confidence of the sons of Zeruiah. They must also sense the weakness in David at this point and see this failure to respond to Shimei as a sign that he is no longer fit for command, which could cause them either to wonder about their own safety with the collapse of their patron’s kingship, or perhaps more likely, to wonder whether or not they might be able to run things better than either David or their cousin Absalom. David’s response to Abishai, being a stronger than necessary answer to the latter’s request, demonstrates that David has not underestimated the full measure of his nephews’ nascent interest in power. Both of the conflicts in this scene turn on the issue of kinship.324 Shimei is only introduced here because he is of a clan whose honor has been tarnished by losing the throne. He attacks David as a usurper, not on his own behalf, but on behalf of his clan. Likewise, the conflict between David and the sons of Zeruiah exists because David cannot simply dismiss these ambitious men, for they are the sons of his sister. He has been angry with them for their failure to understand and embrace his governing style but appears to be saddled with them because they are family. On another level, the only reason that David is even in Bahurim and not Jerusalem is that his son Absalom has broken the rules of filial piety in attempting to seize the throne. Thus, kinship is the framework within which the author has developed each of the conflicts of this scene. David’s burst of frustration in v. 10a surprises the reader with yet another change in
324 See Joel Rosenberg, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 164-71; and William H. Propp, “Kinship in 2 Samuel 13,” CBQ 55/1 (1993): 39-53.
121 perspective, as was the case with Abishai’s response to Shimei in v. 9. David is not completely passive, as the reader might have expected, given his silence thus far. Rather, he is clearly able to show the flare of anger as the need arises. But the reader will also be surprised at the substance of David’s rebuke of his nephew, which proves to a certainty that he is not siding with Abishai’s arguments for a summary execution of the Saulide. David rejects the implicit theological framing of the current crisis which Abishai’s bristling posture offered. Abishai threw David a lifeline, a solution to ameliorate how bad the situation looked with the king being publically cursed, the response to which would have been readily intelligible to the people and face-saving for the king. But David throws the lifeline back in Abishai’s face. The rest of David’s response to Shimei in v. 10b is surprising in that he follows the path trod by the previous two speakers in the scene. Not only do Shimei and, more implicitly, Abishai invoke the divine point of view to make their case, here David does so as well, but in startlingly different fashion. Against all expectation, David admits that Yahweh has directed Shimei in his cursing (dYˆw;d_tRa∂ lE;låq∞ ‹wøl rAm§Da ‹hÎwhy◊ yIkw◊ )325 and that therefore, no one should question, “for the Lord has bidden him” (N`E;k hDty¶IcDo Ao…wë;dAm r$Amaøy yIm…w∞ ; v. 11). This statement by David provokes more comment than any other portion of this passage. Most, like Robert Alter, wax rhapsodic about David's “faith”: This is one of the most astonishing turning points in this story that abounds in human surprises. The proud, canny, and often implacable David here resigns himself to accepting the most stinging humiliation from a person he could easily have his men kill. David’s abasement is not a disguise, like Odysseus’s when he takes on the appearance of a beggar, but a real change in condition--from which, however, he will emerge in more than one surprising way.326
For Brueggemann, this statement is the sign that David is pleading “no contest” to Shimei’s accusations. For Birch, David’s statement “reveals his trustful faith in the face of grave challenge.”327 The Saulide’s integrity had been questioned by Abishai’s speech, but scholars have failed to note how David’s response dramatically tips the balance in the mind of the reader
325 Alter, The David Story, 293, translates this as “If he curses, it is because the LORD said to him, ‘Curse David.”
326 Ibid., 293. So also Birch, “1 and 2 Samuel,” 1226: “In the midst of what is almost a Davidic passion narrative, we begin to see the power of God to bring new life.”
327 Ibid., 1226.
122 in favor of Shimei’s credibility as a witness for the House of Saul against David but also for Yahweh against David.328 Shimei’s words cannot simply be construed as either a false accusation or even sour grapes when even David himself tells Abishai to back off, acknowledging the correctness of what Shimei says. Thus, there is for a brief moment, a confluence of the points of view of Shimei, David and most importantly, (in absentia) Yahweh-- they all agree that David deserves this. The remaining question, however, is what does this mean for the future of the kingship? Has it been snatched permanently from David and given to another, or will he somehow regain his footing and crawl back into power? Will Yahweh continue to side with him or does this punishment signal the end of the line? David’s response to this situation in v. 11 is both poignant and informative. Poignant, because we hear for the first time from his own mouth an acknowledgment that Absalom has murderous intentions in his heart: his “son” (y¢InVb), his “offspring” (y™AoE;mIm a¶DxÎy_rRvSa), wants him dead (y¡IvVpÅn_tRa vâé;qAbVm). It was not just David’s throne which Absalom sought to take. But his statement is also informative, for David acknowledges that he understands the curse of Shimei to be, however symbolic the act on the surface, a threat against his life--“[H]ow much more now may this Benjaminite?” (yGˆnyImyAh_NR;b◊ h%D;tAo_y`I;k P°Aaw),◊ i.e., “If Absalom whom I have not tried to strike down wants me dead, how much more this Benjaminite whose relatives I have slain?” The prohibition in Exodus 22 against cursing a chieftain, coupled with David’s understanding of the curse of Shimei to be a lethal threat reminds us of how curses were thought to work within the story. Thus David acknowledges that both royal houses of Israel, his own and Saul’s, want him dead. Though it seemed for a moment in v. 10 that David was siding completely with Shimei’s perspective, David’s response in v. 11 to Abishai just as surprisingly tips the momentum back in his nephew’s favor and away from Shimei on several points. First, as I have just discussed, David acknowledges that the curse is lethal, which was what was implied in Abishai’s request to David to kill Shimei for uttering it. This is the first alignment of David’s point of view with Abishai. At the time, I noted how David’s failure to act made him look weak and ineffectual, even as Abishai’s swift response calls forth the “old David” to take decisive action. And indeed, the “old David” does, in fact, appear in v. 11, although not in the manner in which Abishai might
328 Paul Borgman, David, Saul and God, 141, reads Shimei as a semi-positive character in that he genuinely helps David: “Shimei’s cursing, it turns out, functioned positively, awakening--or bringing to the point of articulation--David’s sense of wrongdoing: perhaps I am blameworthy.”
123 have wanted. This is the “old David” who will not “touch the Lord’s anointed” (1 Sam 24:1-10; 26:1-12; cf. Ps 105:15). As David would refuse to kill Saul earlier in the story even though that king raged about in murderous fashion against him, so now David will spare Shimei. It is not the same manifestation of David’s former self for which Abishai had been looking, but to the reader, this tendency of David’s character to extend mercy to the House of Saul when he has them dead to rights will hark back to those earlier times of great success, which Abishai’s comments in v. 9 also evoked. This is the second alignment of David’s perspective with that of Abishai’s. The third and most important point of alignment with Abishai’s perspective is David’s raising of the prospect in v. 12 that his kingship might still have some life left in it, that Yahweh might not be through with him completely, and that what looks like a disastrous situation might somehow yet be turned around. David has thus threaded the needle quite deftly. On the hand, he sides with Shimei against Abishai, agreeing that Yahweh is ultimately behind the curse. He does not, however, agree with Shimei’s framing of the recent political events and therefore sides with Abishai in continuing to press for the continuance of his kingship. Yahweh may be cursing him as Shimei asserts, but that does not mean that he believes he is finished as the monarch. How David responds here can be illumined by an important intertext earlier in the story. When Saul is confronted by Samuel in a similar situation, and the old priest tells the former king that he’s finished, Saul simply takes it, and never argues back (1 Sam 15:24-25). He immediately openly confesses his sin (“I have sinned”—1 Sam 15:24 and 30), but pins his hopes for restoration on forgiveness (“pardon my sin” [¡y¡ItaDÚfAj_tRa a™Dn a¶Dc]—1 Sam 15:25). Samuel then utters a brief, almost creedal affirmation of the bounds within which Yahweh is restricted. “‘[T]he Glory of Israel will not recant or change his mind; for he is not a mortal, that he should change his mind.’” David’s words in 2 Sam 16:10-12 could hardly be more opposed to the confession of Saul and the profession of Samuel. Encompassing both aspects in his response to Abishai in vv.10-12, David by contrast as I will argue, makes a confession of guilt and then brazenly professes hope in the face of his sin that the divine judgment has not yet been determined and that God is not bound to any standard that would constrain and limit his choice of outcome. Why does David not seem to fear the curse? Upon what does he stake his hope that he can get out from under its seemingly automatic effects? Not only is he unafraid of the curse but also he even forbids Abishai to bring the cursing to a halt by killing Shimei, as the reader would have
124 expected, implying that Abishai need not regard what Shimei has said as an imminently lethal threat. David cannot be sure when Shimei will cease to be an agent of Yahweh’s punishment, so he keeps his hands off of him until the very end of his life, when he is certain. David does not fear the curse because the source of the curse is Yahweh--and Yahweh really, really loves him.329 Curses may be lethal weapons, but a curse from Yahweh to him might be rescinded. As Brueggemann has pointed out, David by his response calls into question the worldview advanced by both Shimei and Abishai, in which vengeance is meted out in equal response to offense. This is seen most sharply in David’s words in v 12: he acknowledges his “iniquity” (yˆnOwSoV;b)330 and thus agrees with God and Shimei; but he believes that instead of punishing him further for his misdeeds, God might repay (by°IvEhw◊ ) him positively, against all odds, in place of the curse (wäøtDlVlIq tAj¶A;t h$Dbwøf) of Shimei. Thus, cleverly David uses the key words of the curse of Shimei (b…wv and lAlq∂ ) to reconstruct an alternate worldview in which Yahweh makes great or slight (lAlq∂ ) according to his own standards of justice, punishing or overlooking “iniquity” as he sees fit.331 My interpretation of the textual problem in v. 12 is to prefer the harder kethib,yˆnOwSoV;b, rather than the qere, y¡InyEoV;b. Some translators, as also did the rabbinic scribes of the MT, are uncomfortable with David agreeing with the Saulide in such harsh language about himself, and thus prefer either the qere or the LXX’s variant. The qere, by referring to David’s “eye” appears to be a kind of oblique reference to his calamitous situation in more neutral terms. i.e., having taken David’s full measure by seeing inside him, Yahweh will be compassionate towards David,
329 Pinsky, The Life of David, 136, states: “As David says to Michal when she denounces his dancing, he is the beloved of the serving girls and the soldiers and the people who chant his praises, but of God. The Lord loves him, and so do people. This is in David, like a talent: deeper than ambition and superior to calculation, with mere political usefulness a by-product, a corollary of his larger character or destiny.”
330 Reading the kethib yˆnOwSoV;b (“on my iniquity/guilt”), rather than either the qere, y¡InyEoV;b (“in my eye”), or the LXX and other ancient versions,yIynDoV;b◊ (“on my affliction”), as discussed further below.
331 James C, Nohrnberg, “Princely Characters,” in Not in Heaven: Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (ed. Joel Rosenblatt and Joseph C. Sitterson; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 58-97, notes the important theological parallels between David and Joseph, in particular Joseph’s statement to his brothers regarding their treachery against him early in his life (“You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good”--Gen 50:20) which is similar in sentiment to the words spoken by David here.
125 recognizing his circumstances. The LXX attempts to solve things in this direction but in a clearer fashion, using the word tapeinw¿sei, which means “a reversal of fortune” or, “humiliation, affliction, distress.”332 This appears to be rooted in the idea that the kethib originally read yIynDoV;b◊ (“on my affliction”), rather than yˆnOwSoV;b (“on my iniquity”). This rendering is also the direction taken by the translators of the Vulgate and the Syriac, as well as how many modern English translations understand thet can be explained by an appeal to an error in spelling, it keeps David clear of Shimei’s charges, and it makes a certain amount of sense. David is certainly in bad circumstances from what can arguably be described as the “sinful” actions of Absalom, who has placed before David the impossible choice of either to flee or to kill his own son. Thus, reading David’s words here as asking for divine intervention as a remedy to what has been done to him here and the straits in which he finds himself on the way out of the land has a certain plausibility to it, and thus many through the ages have settled for this reading. However, to have David refer to his “distress” or “affliction,” if one follows the LXX after just having agreed with Shimei that the curse had its origins in Yahweh, seems quite incongruous. It makes him sound pathetically out of touch and in denial as to who got him into the state that he is in, as if Yahweh was cursing at random. Affliction or distress connotes that which happens to one, and is something against which one struggles, but not something for which one takes responsibility, as in Ronald Reagan’s infamous formulation, “Mistakes were made.” But David has just admitted otherwise in saying that Yahweh is origin of the curse (v. 11), so why would he use such language in the very next breath, as if this was something that had befallen him? The kethib makes far more sense in context because it answers the question of what precipitated the curse. It is understandable why the later tradition would not want David to admit his “iniquity.” He would be admitting to responsibility for the deaths of the Saulides, which means he achieved the throne by treachery. The reader knows that David is a killer, having already absorbed the sad tale of Uriah. But Uriah’s death comes after David’s ascent. Furthermore, David has already been punished for the death of Uriah (2 Sam 12:1-23). Admitting that he has the blood of the House of Saul on his hands as well is a totally new twist in the narrative which pushes the date of his slide into immorality much further back, before he has completed his political ascent, at a time when the reader still may have thought that David was clean (cf. e.g., 2 Sam 1:11-27). As I
332 BDAG, 900.
126 have closely detailed, there is a lot in the narrative which presents David in an unfavorable light. But this confession of his “iniquity” in v 12 is the smoking gun, self-incrimination being as strong of a proof of culpability as is possible to present. Even worse, from a theological point of view, is the realization that, since the canon explicitly presents David’s rise to the throne as being the result of the Divine will (beginning in 1 Samuel 16), not only David, but Yahweh himself, are both implicated in the killing of the Saulides. Having David admit to the reader that he is guilty in such a baldly straightforward manner appears to have caused no small amount of consternation among later interpreters who could not abide such a reading, which paints Yahweh in an unfavorable light morally. But neither the qere or the LXX variant, though working out the theological problem, do not make nearly as much sense in the flow of the narrative, which would present David agreeing that the curse is from God in v.11, but then not accounting for why this should be. Reading the kethib as “my iniquity” however, presents David as a sober-minded realist who grasps his situation completely and comes clean, hoping for a positive outcome. I do not take this to be faith on David’s part, because, in addition to the sordidness of the story from chapter 11 onwards, there has been a noticeable decline in the sort of religious language that had been more frequent earlier in the story. He has not said or done a thing in a long time that could be construed as any kind of faith with which a reader might identify, apart from his self-serving prayer to Yahweh to confound the counsel of Ahithophel (15:31). What we have instead is simply a descriptive insight, into the most complex character in all of scripture, Yahweh, delivered by the second-most complex character in all of scripture, David, who speculates that Yahweh’s anger may be as fickle as his favor. But what an insight it is. Verse 12 is clearly the most important verse in the passage, and arguably the most important in all of the DH, though it has largely been ignored, except as an illustration of David’s “amazing faith.” Yet as I have argued, David in the books of Samuel is presented as an egocentric, power-hungry, fawner and climber, who will say or do whatever is required to advance his own interests, and that portrait should not be abandoned here. It is understandable why the traditions of both the qere and the LXX variant developed, inasmuch as the portrait of David elsewhere in scripture is much more glowing, particularly when one reads the Psalms as his personal compositions to Yahweh. Moreover, reading the text in either of these two ways solves the problem of fending off the direct accusation of killing the Saulides, which
127 the reader will not discover until the end of the book (2 Sam 21). But the rest of the narrative does not support that kind of David, full of faith and trying to hide his faults. By contrast, understanding David here to be openly confessing his sin (to the reader) and expecting God to give him that which he does not deserve is congruent with the way his character has been portrayed heretofore. Reading “my iniquity” has David appealing, not to God’s mercy or pity, as would the qere or the LXX but rather to God’s power and self-interest: Yahweh can overlook what David has done and nullify the effects of the curse, simply because he is who is. This is not an appeal to some form of randomness in God, but a recognition by David that God has long had an interest in cultivating him for the monarchy, has long known of David’s extensive faults, but who still has an interest in securing his future which may cause him to act in David’s favor to nullify the effects of the curse. Indeed, although this may be the place where the reader finds out about what David has done, if David is in fact admitting publicly to having killed the Saulides in order to take the throne, the reader quickly realizes that Yahweh will have already known this. Thus what David is asserting here is not hope in forgiveness but an already established awareness within himself that Yahweh doesn’t play by anyone’s rules but his own. Both David and Yahweh have known for a long time that David was a killer, yet Yahweh blessed him with the throne and the promise of an everlasting dynasty on top of that (2 Samuel 7). Yahweh can work with a killer, with someone who flouts the commandments, as David well knows. Despite what the various legal codes in the Torah, (e.g. the Covenant Code, the Holiness Code, Deuteronomy) say about Yahweh, he follows his own path and may subvert conventional wisdom in letting him off the hook if it serves the Divine interest, just as he had in promoting a bloody David in the first place. Reading the kethib (“my iniquity”) rather than either the qere (“my eyes”) or the LXX (“my affliction/distress”) gives us a David that fits better with what has gone before in the narrative, whose lines mesh with those that he has uttered previously, as opposed to a David borrowed from the Psalter, whose misdeeds are blunted by their poetic setting. Moreover, understanding him challenging Yahweh in this fashion connects with the most important lines of thought in the DtrH. In a single verse David makes as profound of an assessment of the character of Yahweh as is ever uttered in whole of the tradition, one that maps the contours of the divine inscrutability. In political terms, if David’s perspective is correct, 2 Samuel 7, the promise of the everlasting Davidic monarchy, is not something with which Yahweh is stuck.
128 Even Deuteronomy itself, with its promise of curses if covenant fidelity is not maintained, is not worth the paper it is written on. It doesn’t matter what has been said or promised before. There are no certain conditions under which Israel can assume that Yahweh is on their side, or that the monarchy will be stable, or that the borders will be secure. But on the other hand, this also means that if the divine judgment does come and the monarchy collapses and the borders are overrun, that there are no certain conditions under which Israel can assume that it will not be repaid with blessing instead of the curse promised in Deuteronomy. Put theologically, unless the divine will decides that it must be so in the moment, it cannot be assumed how Yahweh will act one way or another. Yahweh will not be bound to what has been said before, either in terms of blessing or of cursing. He keeps his own counsel, owes no one any favors. In short, David’s insight suggests that Yahweh stands above the text, should never be confused with it, and remains sovereign and free to revise and extend his previous remarks and act even in ways which may be utterly contrary to what was said before, either by him or on his behalf. The reader is therefore presented with an ambiguous result of the scene. On the one hand, David the king is desperately weak politically, in dire straits, surrounded by his own ambitious son, willful nephews, and the family of the deposed monarch. Juxtaposed with this is David’s statement which both condones and condemns certain aspects of the previous two speakers’ statements, Shimei and Abishai, as well as his attempted alignment with the point of view of Yahweh in agreeing that he deserves Shimei’s curse in an effort to neutralize its long term effects on his kingship. The character of David in this scene as he has been presented to the reader is weak but insightful, being unwilling simply to give in to the power of the curse. Consistently, David’s only saving grace, and that which has always sharply distinguished him from his predecessor Saul, is that at crucial moments he has always managed to so align himself with Yahweh. Along with Brueggemann, I am arguing that David’s response to Shimei’s curse is a bold theological stroke that asserts against all odds the freedom of Yahweh to do whatever Yahweh wills. But as I said above, I do not see this as faith.333 The reader is left with a picture of David as simul iustus et peccator, with Shimei and Abishai being both partly correct and incorrect in their framing of political events, and Yahweh as completely inscrutable.
333 Campbell, 2 Samuel, 150, compares David’s reaction to his response to the death of his child in 2 Samuel 12.
129 Most of what has been written about David by scholars concerning this episode has been that his faith and courage in the face of disaster is a model of virtue.334 This picture of faithfulness, however, stands alongside a portrait of him elucidated by Miscall and others as a political opportunist who is out to gain all of the advantage for himself that he possibly can.335 That he accepts the anointing of Samuel in the first place is an act of political treason that should have merited execution should he have been found out (1 Sam 16:13). Having secured a stronghold in the royal house in covenant with Jonathan the heir and marriage to princess Michal, he co-opts the priesthood to the extent that they were all subsequently executed (1 Samuel 21).336 Against the national interest and even contrary to his own stated anti-Philistine beliefs he then makes deals with the Philistines for personal advantage (1 Samuel 27). On the way he takes multiple wives and plenty of the spoils of war (1 Samuel 25; 2 Samuel 3:12-16), the most significant booty being the possessions of the defeated Amalekites. It was for taking such spoils earlier in the story that Saul supposedly lost the kingship (1 Sam 30:19-20).337 David the king of Judah makes deals with the man who killed his nephew, Abner, in order to steal the
334 See the previous chapter on Brueggemann and Fokkelman, as well as Baldwin, 1 and Samuel, 263; Hertzberg, I & II Samuel, 346; Ackroyd, The Second Book of Samuel, 147; and Anderson, 2 Samuel, 207, who treat the mourning garb of 15:30 as sins of penitence, therefore demonstrating the transformation of David’s character. However, McCarter, II Samuel, 375, places more emphasis on resignation to Yahweh’s will than on David’s faithfulness. Interestingly, Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 308, while still seeing this overall as an an act of faith on David's part, nonetheless suggests, somewhat more nuanced than his 1973 position, that David’s actions may be “cunning politics” designed to keep the Saulides out of the arms of Absalom. Birch, “The Books,” 1226, says that this act is “more than pragmatism” on David’s part and is rather “a juxtaposition of political realism and trusting faith.”
335 Pinsky, The Life of David, 143, who as I noted above, also thinks that David is a sympathetic figure in addition to being the opportunist.
336 See Gunn, The Story of King David, 86. Miscall, 1 Samuel, 132, suggests that the taking of the holy bread from the priests and the sword of Goliath from behind the ephod in this scene are evidence that David is bound by neither sacred or secular constraints.
337 See Miscall, 1 Samuel, 180. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 203, states: “It is as though David has now transcended the old Torah regulations. It is not only acknowledged that David took spoil, but the taking is celebrated. Israel says proudly, ‘This is David’s spoil’ (v. 20). The Amalekites are resented for taking spoil; Saul is rejected for taking spoil; David is saluted and championed for doing the same! David is subject to none of the same restrictions, held accountable to none of the old norms.”
130 kingship of Israel from the Saulide Ishbaal (2 Samuel 3), even though he had made a pledge to Saul not to wipe out his descendants (1 Sam 24:21). Upon his success in uniting the monarchy he made Jerusalem his capital city (2 Sam 5:5-10), established foreign trade (5:11), built a palace though he craved a temple (5:12; 7), brought the ark to Jerusalem, essentially holding it hostage (2 Samuel 6), established a bureaucracy at home and embassies abroad (8:9-11, 15-17), expanded the military and subjugated enemies (8:14), each of these being unique events in the life of Israel.338 Through all of these incidents he met with no divine opposition whatsoever. To the contrary, Yahweh, for unknown reasons overlooks his keeping of the Amalekite spoil and his broken vow to Saul, among other things, and actually intervenes to save David from bloodguilt when he was about to murder Nabal (1 Sam 25:26, 32). In that scene, which the present verse (2 Sam 16:12) concerning Shimei recalls, David “blesses” (JKårD;b the opposite of lAlq∂ ) the LORD for having “returned” (by¶IvEh) the evil of Nabal “upon his head” (wóøvaørV;b-- cf. the speech of Abishai, 2 Sam 16:9). Thus it is no surprise that David sees himself as being somehow special. For much of the story, David’s kingship has been the very inversion of Saul’s. As God turns on Saul in a way never seen before in the text339 so Yahweh forbears with David with inestimable longsuffering.340 And as the incident with Nabal demonstrates, David was all for retributive justice whenever it suited him, but nonetheless felt himself above its constraints when he himself
338 Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 262, comments: “David has preempted the faith of the old Israel for his new venture. The powerful ideology of the monarchy can redefine faith and transform obedience into power. This theological, ideological achievement illustrates the problem of every nation-state in any period of history that tries to legitimate itself in terms of old religious tradition. There is a clear mismatch between old religious tradition and new political- military ambition. That mismatch in ancient Israel is between the old notion of being ‘God’s holy people’ and the ambitious state of David and Solomon, which did not order its policies according to covenant.”
339 See Gunn’s comments, The Story of King Saul, 124, that “God chooses to find Saul guilty” (see also 128-131). Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist, 180, states: “However clearly Saul may be condemned by the narrator’s words we cannot avoid repeating that Saul is still as much sinned against as sinning, that he is still being driven by the mysterious actions of God, as he was once manipulated by the self-serving schemes of Samuel.” 340 P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (AB 8; Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 366-367, points out that at the beginning in chapter 23 between David who constantly receives divine guidance “at every turn” and Saul to whom Yahweh refuses to speak at all.
131 merited it under the law. On my reading of him, David’s character is not the courageous servant of Yahweh who appeals to Yahweh’s freedom in faithfulness as drawn by Brueggemann, but is rather one who is so intoxicated by the power that he has wielded and by the favor he has been shown by Yahweh that he believes that he may still be in fact beyond good and evil in a zone all by himself. As several historical-critical commentators have argued, the cursing of Shimei should be understood as representative of what a whole swath of Israelite and Judahite public opinion thinks about David.341 But whether or not this account is the result of the bias of David’s opponents, displaying only his faults for all to see but downplaying and omitting his virtues, it is all the reader has to make a judgment about David’s character, and that does not present a pretty picture. Based on this summary of some important points in his history, David’s perspective here should not be read as one of faith, but rather in more politically and theologically calculating terms. Politically, as Brueggemann says, the last thing David needs is to create a situation in which supporters of the former regime merge with the supporters of his son in a perfect storm of opposition.342 Theologically, what David seems to be asserting here, as I argued above, is an expression of the sovereignty of Yahweh, which, is the central tenet of Yahwistic faith. God’s character has been largely unpredictable in the larger narrative of 1 and 2 Samuel, both for the way he first chose and then dumped Saul, as well as for the way he took a liking to such a bloody fellow as David. Why does Yahweh find him so compelling and how does David manage to keep on the right side of divine favor so much? In 1 Sam 16:7, Yahweh looks into David’s heart (b`DbE;lAl h¶Rarˆy√ h™DwhyÅw) and sees something he likes. Perhaps in this text the reader has encountered something like this once more, only this time it is David’s sin into which Yahweh has looked, and which David hopes he will ultimately overlook. For in his words David’s point of view gives voice to that which Yahweh, deity of an aniconic faith, would seem to want to hear the most. Namely, he desires an acknowledgement by his followers that his support cannot be assured beforehand, that he serves no interest or political party, endorses no one or no thing.
341 So McKenzie, King David, 110, 155; Campbell, 2 Samuel, 150; Gordon, I and II Samuel, 178; Birch, “The Books of First and Second Samuel,” 1226; and Peterson, First and Second Samuel, 213.
342 Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 307.
132 David seems to have gotten this,343 as Saul perhaps had not, and thus despite everything else he does wrong in his life, he has this one thing that he does which pleases Yahweh above all else, and when he needs to, he falls back upon it as that which may save him in the end.344 It is that which got him a house in the first instance, that which will save him now in his present difficulty, and that which will make him the paradigm for all future kings of the chosen people, all of his other conduct notwithstanding.
3.7 vv. 13-14 Narrating the Exit from the Land; Dirt, Stones and Curses As narration opened the scene, so it now closes it. Verse 13 offers little in the way of new information: David and “his men” (wy™DvÎnSaÅ) go “on the road” while Shimei “cursed as he went, throwing stones and flinging dust at him.” (r`DpDoR;b r™AÚpIow◊ w$øtD;mUoVl ‹MyˆnDbSa`D;b l$E;låqyÅw◊ ). The phrase, r`DpDoR;b r™AÚpIow,◊ literally “dusting with dust,” is unique in the Hebrew Bible. The use of the infinitive absolute JKwølDh carries with it the sense of something ongoing—the reader can imagine the dusting, stoning and cursing continuing until David is out of sight. The narrator’s addition of “dust” to the list of projectiles being hurled in the direction of the king is new and significant information and provides further explanation to the symbolic action undertaken by the prophet-like figure Shimei. Throwing stones, as I discussed in section 2.2.3 in my treatment of Polzin, seems to be the inversion of the entrance of the children of Israel into the land in Joshua 4, when the elders set up stones as a memorial. In addition, hurling dirt, along with curses, while leaving the land has strong connections to two strands of the old covenant traditions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In each strand there is the stark warning that if Israel does not engage in covenant
343 Brueggemann, “Coping,” 183-89, places David’s remarks (following Whybray’s suggestive monograph, as well as the work of von Rad) primarily within the context of wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible but elsewhere as well (e.g., Gen 45:5; 50:20; Job 9:12; Prov 16:2, 9, 33; 19:21; 21:2; Dan 4:32). In each of these texts there is an acknowledgement that whatever people do, or intend to do, that it is God who is nonetheless in control.
344 Borgman, David, Saul and God, 62, in comparing the pattern of Saul and David, comments that “David does what Saul cannot, namely reign successfully amidst the possibility that God might have given his kingdom to someone better. There is no irreversible fate in Saul’s handling of his kingship. Knowing that he is to be replaced in his role as king, while still reigning, Saul has a choice. In fact, the story will highlight David’s capacity to do just what Saul cannot: face the possibility of God’s disfavor and the resulting loss of his reign as king with grace and resignation” (cf. 2 Sam 15:24-26 and 16:9-12.).
133 fidelity that they will be removed from the land.345 Indeed, as Robert Carroll has said, “We may read the Hebrew Bible from beginning to end as a series of narratives, tales and depictions of deportation and displacement.”346 In Deut 29:26-27 (27-28 ET) the language of the curse, which had just been so prominently featured in the warnings of chapter 28, is invoked as the reason for the hypothetical expulsion of the children of Israel from the land: “[S]o the anger of the Lord .lDlV;qAh_lD;k) written in this bookה) was kindled against that land, (X®rDaD;b∞ ) bringing on it every curse The Lord uprooted them from their land (M$DtDmdAa√ ) in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land (t®r™RjAa X®r¶Ra_lRa M¢EkIlVvÅ¥yÅw) as is now the case.” The children of Israel are threatened repeatedly in Deuteronomy that they will be destroyed for their disobedience (6:15, 7:4: 8:19-20; 11:17; 30:17-18) while in other texts they are specifically told that they will face exile if they do not keep the covenant (4:25-31; 28:36-37: 63-64, 29:27-28).347 Meanwhile, in Leviticus, the imagery is even starker: You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them, so that the land to which I bring you to settle in may not vomit you out. You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I have said to you: You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples. (Leviticus 20:22-24; cf. 18:24-30)348
In the passage from Deuteronomy, the allusions to “curses” resulting in expulsion from the land have strong resonances with 2 Samuel 16:13. In this passage from Leviticus, such resonances
345 See note 275 above regarding Carlson’s work on this.
346 Robert Carroll, “Exile, Restoration and Colony: Judah in the Persian Empire,” in Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible (ed. Leo G. Perdue; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 103. See also Lester Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive: 'The Exile' As History and Ideology (JSOTSup 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).
347 See Daniel L. Smith-Christopher A Biblical Theology of Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002).
348 Aidan Schenker, “What Connects the Incest Prohibitions with the Other Prohibitions in Leviticus 18 and 20,”in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (eds., Rolf Rendtorff, Robert A. Kugler and Sarah Smith Bartel; New York and Leiden: Brill, 2003), 176-78, states that the presentation of the land as a living being who vomits out its inhabitants has three functions: to tie together all of the stipulations of chapters 18-20 together as a unit, to connect this section with the whole Pentateuchal story which contains several stories of displacement, and to function as a warning against future misbehavior. See also Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus: A Book of Ritual and Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004).
134 are even stronger, for there is the promise that the land itself would do the expelling, bits of which are being thrown by Shimei at David. Furthermore, there is in Leviticus a reminder of displacement by others, which is the clear threat of the passage if Israel does not keep itself holy, a state of affairs which has already occurred in 2 Samuel 15 but which is now being brought to consummation as the scene closes with David leaving the land and Absalom, the reader assumes, taking over as king. Here, however, there is little subtlety at all: the narrator piles on, as it were, rehashing all of that which Shimei has already thrown and adding something else to the list, dust, which opens up a new interpretive window on David’s exit. The levitical tradition holds that the land will vomit out the unjust and those who do not practice holiness before Yahweh (Lev 18:28; 20:22), and here, in symbolic fashion, Shimei uses the land itself to bid the departing king good riddance. In choosing to use “dust” (rDpDo), rather than the more common place X®rRa or hDmdSa∂ as the form of the land which vomits out the king, the narrator has chosen the more evocative term. For in Hebrew “dust” has deep associations with death and destruction. It is what the dead go down to (Isa 26:19; Job 20:11), it is what the humiliated sit in (Isa 47:1; Ps 119:25), it is what conquered cities become (2 Kgs 13:7; Isa 25:12; 26:5). The reader cannot fail to grasp the overwhelmingly negative ending to David’s time in the land as he prepares to exit, the parting image that we have of this interaction of David and Shimei being one of ongoing shame and humiliation, despite his hopes expressed in 16:12 for something quite different. Which, if it is to come, will have to wait. As I said earlier, David cannot do anything to end this humiliation, at least within his own theological framing of what has happened. He understands Yahweh to be behind Shimei’s actions, but he can’t be sure when Yahweh will be finished using Shimei like this. If he kills the Saulide, he would be presuming to know the mind of Yahweh at best or at worst, outright opposing him, so instead he must sit in his “dust” for the time being, in the liminal space between Yahweh’s judgment, which he is experiencing, and Yahweh’s favor, for which he hopes. David, as I said, can only map the contours of Yahweh’s ambiguity and thus has to live with not knowing whether he is leaving the land of Israel for the last time. Shimei will very shortly be begging David’s pardon for all he has said and done, but David sees Shimei as simply the messenger of what Yahweh is doing, and thus only fears Shimei in that capacity, rather than as a threat in his own right from the house of the former king. Only when David is sure that
135 Yahweh is done with this member of the House of Saul will he move to take him out. So the scene ends with David fully in the “dust” of his humiliation. By v. 14 “the king and his retinue” (wäø;tIa_rRvSa M¶DoDh_lDkw◊ JKRl¢R;mAh) have moved on to their destination. They are “tired” (My¡Ip´ySo) and stop to “rest,” (v™EpÎ…nˆ¥yÅw) literally, “be refreshed, which is of the same root as the word which David uses to describe his life, y¡IvVpÅn in v. 11, which in that text is threatened. Yet he has not lost it, and v. 14 finds him shoring up his hold onto it. The special location of David’s resting place is not stated in the text (M`Dv) (although some LXX manuscripts read “at the Jordan”). Given my reading of v. 13 as to the apparent view of the narrator on David’s expulsion, we have a new perspective on what might otherwise be seen as an insignificant text. The reader can imagine that the place where David and his band stopped for the night was meaningless, hence the absence of the name. For an Israelite, much less for an Israelite king, Eretz Yisrael was the only place that mattered. It was the land of promise, the land of the ancestors, the dwelling place of Yahweh. To the Israelite, anywhere else but Israel really was of far less significance. Though we cannot precisely locate Bahurim, it most assuredly functions in the narrative as some sort of boundary of the royal domain, as we saw in the scene with Paltiel, Michal’s husband, who went all the way there with her but not a step further when she was summoned back by Ishbaal in 2 Samuel 3. What lies to one side of Bahurim is Israelite tradition, as well as royal power and authority, while what lies on the other is the utter absence of all of that. Bahurim thus signifies to the reader, both a geographic limit to the boundaries of the kingdom, as well as the practical limit of his kingly authority. Thus, regardless of the precise geographic location to which David has traveled in going to Bahurim, within the story-world, socially and politically he has moved into the realm of the obscure, off of the center stage, perhaps never to return again, with only the flickering footlight of his hopeful words in 16:12 as countertestimony to what might be otherwise.
3.8 Aftermath 3.8.1 2 Sam 19:17-24 (ET 16-23): Shimei Begs David’s Pardon The conflict between David and Shimei does not end with disgraced king’s trip over the mountain. There are several other important texts that extend into 1 Kings in which the matter is brought to a conclusion. The first text after the curse encounter in which David and Shimei are again in the reader’s view is in 2 Sam 19:17-24 (ET 16-23). The difference between this passage
136 and 2 Sam 16:5-14 could not be more stark. The rebellion of Absalom has been quelled and now that it is clear that David has triumphed it will now be time to consolidate this victory, in part by revisiting the situations and circumstances that had brought him low in the first place. In chapter 18, the reader had already gotten a sense that the “old” David was back and that the inaction and reaction that came in the wake of the Bathsheba episode was being supplanted by a more vigorous posture of the guerilla fighter he used to be. In particular, there are two signals at the beginning of chapter 18 which indicate this to the reader. First, there is going to be a fight (18:1), rather than another retreat (15:14), and second, David is willing to go out and lead it (18:2), rather than stay at home and chase his warrior’s wives (11:1-5). His men squash the idea of having the all- too-valuable Commander-in-Chief that close to the front, but the gesture is not lost on either his soldiers or the reader, who remember all too well that it was his blasé attitude towards his royal duty to engage in war at the proper time that he had taken him down this precipitous path in the first place (11:1). There is a significant moment when David’s comeback looks doomed when he gets the news that his son Absalom has been killed (18:32-19:1 [ET 18:32-33]; 19:5 [ET 4]). But he looks way more self-assured and rational as he gathers himself, replacing Joab, who had long been a thorn in his side (3:20-31; 11:14-25) and who had just berated him (19:6-8 [ET 5-7]), with Amasa as the commander of the army of Judah (19:14-15 [ET 13-14]), despite Joab’s part in the military victory that saved the kingship for David (18:5-7) and the fact that he had saved David yet again in his advice about encouraging the troops rather than making them feel guilty for Absalom’s death (19:8 [ET 7]). So David appears, on the surface at least, to be back in the kind of form that the reader saw him in prior to chapter 11, and the response of Shimei as he reappears in the narrative bears ample witness that things are different than they were at their last encounter. With the throngs of Judah jumping back onto David’s bandwagon, (v. 16 [ET 15]) and along with another sketchy figure, Ziba, as well as a thousand other Benjaminites (v.18 [ET 17]), Shimei “hurried” (r#EhAmyÅw◊ ) to the Jordan and as a result of his alacrity was the last person whom David encountered before crossing back into the land (v.19 [ET 18]). Whereas Shimei had been moving parallel to David as the king retreated from Bahurim, hurling curses and throwing dirt (16:13), now he bows before the king with his face groveling in it. Referring to himself as “your servant,” (ÔK;dVbAo√ ; also v. 21 [ET 20]) and to the king twice as “my lord” (yˆnOdSa), in the space of two verses, Shimei both confesses his sin three times and begs for mercy in three different ways for the manner in which
137 he treated David in their previous encounter (v.20-21 [ET 19-20]).349 Importantly, Shimei never takes back what he said about David’s deeds. What is left hanging in the air, then, is what Shimei understood to be the sin for which he was now confessing—lying about the king, or cursing him? In any case, David clearly has the upper hand in this encounter; about this there is no ambiguity. The inversion of the scene in 16:5-14 is made all the more explicit in light of two key verbal linkages. First, Shimei’s uses the same word to describe his misdeeds (NOwDo) in 19:20 (ET 19) as David used himself in 16:12. And second, the narrator skillfully layers a subtle statement in 19:18a between the introduction of Shimei in v.16 and his encounter with David just before David crosses the Jordan in 18b, in which it is disclosed that David’s retinue has already crossed in order “to do his pleasure (wÎnyEoV;b bwäøÚfAh).350 The appearance here of the word bwøf reminds the reader of David’s statement in 16:12 which used the same root, unmistakably signaling that David, whether he was predicting or praying in the earlier text, ended up getting what he wanted from Yahweh. As in chapter 16, the predictable Abishai again asks to administer the coup de grace, and as before, not because he finds anything wrong with what Shimei has said, but “because he cursed the LORD’s anointed” (k;I¶y qIl;E™l aRt_mVvI¶yjA yhwD`h◊ ) (v. 22 [ET 21]), raising again the challenge for David to adopt his old values.351 And as before, David once again refuses him permission with the rhetorical question “What have I to do with you, sons of Zeruiah,” using the same language he used in 16:10 to do this (hYÎy…wrVx yEnV;b∞ ‹MRkDlw◊ y§I;l_hAm) (v. 23 [ET 22]). Moreover, as in chapter 16, David rebukes Abishai, but in his rant embraces both of the brothers. David may have regained his footing somewhat politically and militarily, and he has been able to replace Joab (temporarily)
349 Note that the words “guilty” (~NOwDo) “[I] did wrong”(hDwToRh∞ ) and “I have sinned” (yIta¡DfDj) are each preceded by an imprecation: “do not hold [me accountable]” (yIl_bDvSjÅy_lAa∞ ), “do not remember” (r#O;kzI;t_lAa◊ ) and “may the king not bear it in mind” (wáø;bIl_lRa JKRl™R;mAh M…wñcDl).
350 Once again with an extremely similar qere, wy¡DnyEoV;b.
351 See 1 Sam 24:6; 26:9; 2 Sam 1:14. Hertzberg, I & II Samuel, 366, thinks that Abishai has thrown Shimei a lifeline in allowing David to show his magnanimity: “Abishai’s intervention is thus to Shimei’s advantage rather than his detriment. The sons of Zeruiah are not much in favor with David, and at this moment Abishai’s role as that of a satan.” Perhaps, but it doesn’t explain why David would make an oath to Shimei, which is far stronger than simply letting him go, nor does it explain why if David is interested in displaying his forgiveness as a political move, that he would give the pardon out of earshot of the people on whom it would have had an impact.
138 with Amasa, but he still can’t bring himself to speak on the record against him, something he won’t do until his deathbed (1 Kings 2:5-6). The reason that David gives for not ordering the execution of Shimei incorporates in himself an important aspect of the character of Yahweh that David inferred in 16:12. Because he is the sovereign (l`EarVcˆy_lAo∂ JKRl¶Rm_yˆnSa Mwäø¥yAh y¶I;k yI;tVo$ådÎy) David is free to withhold the requisite punishment for the offense. Just as Yahweh set aside the Torah requirements for David, giving him bwøf instead of a curse just as he had hoped, so now David sets it aside in the case of Shimei. This is the prerogative of sovereigns. The matter looks very different, however, when one reads v. 24 (ET 23), in which David swears (obv) to Shimei that “you will not die” (t…wómDt aâøl). It is one thing for the king to magnanimously show mercy, especially on this kind of public occasion where he has subdued by force the opposition. But why would he make an oath about it? Brueggemann suggests that this is a strategic political calculation designed to mollify the north: a king my take out his enemies but he doesn’t execute his subjects, so the north should rest easy that there will be no retribution.352 But Israel is already subdued, is no longer on a war footing (18:17; 19:9 [ET 8]) and is well disposed to accept David again as king (19:10-11 [ET 9-10]). If Shimei is any indication, people are quaking in their boots in fear of David, not simmering for another round of conflict. A thousand of them came with Shimei are waiting just the other side of the Jordan in order to be among the first to greet the king as soon as he sets foot in the land again.353 McCarter, on the other hand, suggests that there was a practice of a general amnesty at the coronation of a king.354 But why does he need an oath to make the point, when simply granting Shimei mercy would have accomplished the same thing? And why here, now? If it is for political effect, what good is making an oath of amnesty to an enemy in front of David’s own supporters, when the people who really might be swayed by such a gesture are all on the other side of the Jordan? In my judgment, the reason that David doesn’t kill Shimei here is the same reason that he doesn’t kill him in 16:10-12: despite the “good” that has come to him in this turn
352 Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 327.
353 Simon DeVries, 1 Kings, (2nd ed.; WBC; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 36, claims that the men with Shimei are armed and that David promises not kill Shimei because he needs Shimei’s help in trying to maintain control. But the text does not present them as armed and it does not have them on David’s side of the river.
354 McCarter, II Samuel, 421. So also Hertzberg, I &II Samuel, 366.
139 of events, he cannot know with absolute certainty whether or not the curse of Shimei that he asserted was directed by Yahweh in 16:11 was still in force or whether David’s willingness to live with and not react to the agent of the curse was the very thing that was holding the consequences of the curse at bay. The oath can therefore be understood as being as much to Yahweh as to Shimei. “I promise I won’t kill him,” David seems to be saying, “in order to show you that I don’t take for granted your mercy in not fulfilling the curse.”
3.8.2 1 Kings 2:1-9: David Instructs Solomon to Kill Shimei The conflict between Shimei and David next re-appears in 1 Kings 2:1-9, although here the scene will exclude Shimei and will only involve David giving his son Solomon, now the new king, his last will and testament. My reading of the previous passages in which David forgoes the chance to kill Shimei will be reinforced all the more in light of this passage, in which the heart of David is exposed in all its malignancy. In 1 Kings 1, the whole business of who will succeed David is brought to denouement. Out of the courtly intrigue and sibling rivalry, Solomon, son of Bathsheba, backed by Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the warrior, Zadok the priest and amazingly, Shimei, (1:8) emerges as the winner, and Adonijah, son of Haggith, backed by Joab (and presumably Abishai) and Abiathar the priest (1:7), the loser. The passage 2:1-9 is presented as David’s last will and testament given to his son and successor. After giving Solomon the Deueronomist’s boilerplate about following Yahweh (vv. 2-4),355 David gets down to the real business at hand in which he gives Solomon advice that, without a trace of irony, seemingly overturns in the very next breath what he had just said about following Yahweh (vv. 5-9). It is payback time and David shows that, although the remainder of his life may be short, his memory is long and that it has great venom still left within it. The first score that he intends to settle is his longstanding beef with Joab, which David says is related to his killing first of Abner (2 Sam 3:26-30), and also his later execution of Amasa (2 Sam 20:8- 10). Abishai has also been indicted in the first instance (2 Sam 3:30) and implicated in the second (2 Sam 20:10), but for some unknown reason has been left off of the king’s final hit list. The reader cannot help but wonder, therefore, if there is additionally a residue of animus in the old king’s heart for the way in which Joab took down Uriah (2 Sam 11:14-25) and more
355 John Gray, I & II Kings (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 97, notes that this language is consistent with the divine charge given to Joshua (Josh 1).
140 importantly Absalom (2 Sam 18:9-15), both of which were in direct contravention of David’s orders, which may explain why David does not issue the other son of Zeruiah’s death warrant. In any case, in each of these four killings, the reader knows that the net result for David’s kingship was overwhelmingly positive, in that Joab removed the people that at crucial times threatened the monarchy’s future. But David wants him dead anyway.356 And in his reasoning to Solomon he lets slip evidence of his own twisted perspective. Not only does he fail to acknowledge the contribution which Joab has made to keeping David’s reign alive so that he might be having this conversation with his son and heir, he also expresses his belief in 2:5 that the murders of Abner and Amasa357 were slights done to him and implying that Solomon shares this view of the matter as well (y%Il hDc°Do_rRvSa ·tEa D;tVo&ådÎy)!358 Thus, again without irony, David instructs Solomon “according to his wisdom” (ÔK¡RtDmVkDjV;k) to kill Joab before the general dies. David next graciously acknowledges the contributions of his retainer Barzillai, who had sustained David during his sojourn in exile while on the run from Absalom (2.7). This is the kind of magnanimity one would expect of the dying monarch of the chosen people, but this posture is all too brief, and David reverts to form almost immediately. The last thing that David ever said, according to the DH, was an attempt to persuade his son to kill Shimei. In calling for the murder of Shimei in vv. 8-9, David exhibits here a peculiar brazenness, which for him is saying something. He notes the fact that Shimei “cursed me with a terrible curse” (tRx$®rVmˆnD ∞ hlDlVq ‹yˆn‹AlVláîq) but omits the fact that, at the time, he had admitted that Shimei had done so at Yahweh’s bidding (2 Sam 16:11). Furthermore, he admits in v. 8 that “I swore to
356 Gray, I & II Kings, 99: “Strong men like Joab who have laid the royal house under obligation are notoriously embarrassing in the infancy of a dynasty…” This implies that David is telling Solomon to kill Joab in order that he can be “his own man.” But this does not seem to fit with David’s words here which are about the offense done to David, not what will happen to Solomon at the hands of Joab, who is an old man with gray hair (wöøtDbyEc) now, and whom David does not want to see die a natural death.
357 Iain Provan, 1 and 2 Kings (NIBC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 33, notes that not a word about anyone having any problem whatsoever with the death of Amasa appears in the text until right here, when it is turned into an existential matter of blood guilt.
358 Against Simon DeVries, 1 Kings (2nd ed.; WBC; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 35, who claims that “[C]rimes done to persons for whom David was responsible were done to him.” In other words, L’etat c’est moi. But DeVries offers not a shred of textual evidence for this.
141 him by the LORD” (hÎwhy`Ab wôøl o`Ab°DÚvRaÎw) that he would not kill Shimei.359 Despite the obvious implication that given that what Shimei had done had been directed by Yahweh, David insists that Solomon “not hold him guiltless” (…wh$é;qÅnV;t_lAa). Furthermore, despite the fact that David himself had sworn by Yahweh that he would not kill Shimei, he nevertheless, as with his advice concerning Joab (v.6), tells Solomon that as “a wise man” (M™DkDj vy¶Ia) he must bring Shimei to a violent end (lwáøaVv MädV;b∂ wöøtDbyEc_tRa ªD;tdårwøh√ w◊ ), thus breaking his oath and selfishly putting his son in the unfortunate position of having to kill one of his own supporters in order to avenge a slight from long ago done to the father.360 David’s blatant actions here fit nicely with my reading of him in 2 Sam 16:5-14. I argued that David did not previously kill Shimei, either when Shimei cursed him or later when Shimei groveled before him (2 Sam 19:16-23), not because he was merciful, but because he did not know for sure whether the effect of Shimei’s curse was still in force and whether Yahweh meant the whole episode as a test of David’s recognition of Yahweh’s sovereignty which was not to be taken for granted. But all of this is now over. David knows that he is going to die of old age and that the curse hurled against him will not be his undoing. Shimei is not going to be the divine agent of David’s demise. Being under a curse and having bloodguilt on his hands, he should, by all rights, have died long before. But Yahweh has indeed returned him “good” despite his “iniquity” and thus David is free to exact revenge. David, whom Shimei had once called a “man of blood” (2 Sam 16:7-8) and a “man of Belial” (2 Sam 16:7) will have the last word, urging his son to send his old rival himself in blood down to Sheol.361
3.8.3 1 Kings 2:36-46 Solomon Kills Shimei The final text in which the David-Shimei conflict comes to a close is in 1 Kings 2:36-46. By now, David has died and Solomon has set about consolidating his empire. He does this by
359 Yael Ziegler, “’So Shall God do…’”: Variations of an Oath Formula and its Literary Meaning,” JBL 126/1 (2007), 59-81, notes that while biblical oaths are frequently broken, none of the oath-breakers fares well as a result.
360 Provan, 1 and 2 Kings, 32, says that David is pressuring Solomon because he fears that Shimei’s support for his son in the succession fight (1:8) will be leveraged into a “comfortable death,” which David cannot abide.
361 See S.D. Sperling, “Belial,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 169-171.
142 first settling the score with those who had previously stood in his way to the throne and with those who had been thorns in his father’s side. The first to go is his brother, Adonijah, who had the temerity to ask Bathsheba to request of Solomon that he be allowed to marry Abishag (2:13- 20), the virginal attendant of the now dead king (cf. 1:3-4). Adonijah acknowledges to Bathsheba that the change in fortune that led to his ouster and Solomon replacing him as king was from Yahweh (wáø;l hDty¶Dh◊ h™DwhyEm◊ y¶I;k) (v.15) and Bathsheba appears to be convinced of his sincerity such that she even repeats the language used by Adonijah that Solomon would not refuse his mother (vv. 17, 20). It is such a reasonable request made in a deferential manner that the reader is surprised by Solomon’s outburst of temper at his mother and his reductio ad absurdum of his mother’s entreaty, “Ask for him the kingdom as well!” (wvA`aSlIy_løw‹◊ aRt_hAm;Vlw…kD$h) (v.22). With these words, and with what follows,362 it becomes instantly clear that the apple has not fallen far from the tree, that Solomon is most definitely his father’s conniving son, and that he will be as ruthless in maintaining his own grip on power as David. Like his father, his word is meaningless, for he had promised Adonijah that if he behaved, he would be spared (1:52), but on this pretext he decides otherwise. In addition, displaying the plenitude of his malevolence, Solomon lets slip in v. 22 that he will use this request by Adonijah as the occasion to roll up the whole leadership of the Adonijah faction, Joab and Abiathar and not just his former rival. And he wastes no time in following through with his plan. Next to be dispatched is the priest Abiathar (vv. 26-27), who had been a longstanding supporter of his father (cf. 1 Sam 22, 23, 30; 2 Sam 15) but who had more recently bet on the wrong horse in the contest for the throne (1:7, 19, 25). He is not executed by Solomon but suffers the symbolic death of exile presumably for having supported Adonijah, even though the text attributes his banishment to be a fulfillment of the divine judgment told to Eli (v. 27; cf. 1 Sam 3:12-14). The addition of this rationale from earlier in the story clouds the issue of whether or not Solomon is acting justly or not. As with the killing of Adonijah for requesting a wife, this looks like an excuse cooked up as an expedient for what the king already wanted to do in the first place. In any case, Solomon is now on a roll and seemingly anyone who had a major part in backing the heir presumptive has to be eliminated. It is important to recognize the harshness of Solomon here, for none of these men whom he dispatches are presented in the text as opposing him. All they did was support Adonijah, which
362 Jerome T. Walsh, 1 Kings, (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996), 66, notes that the double oath found in vv. 23-24 is unprecedented in all of scripture.
143 is not the same thing, who by right of primogeniture was assumed by the nation as being the next in line for the throne. Apparently wisdom in this instance is not capable of grasping the distinction.363 Moreover, as his father before him, Solomon believes that he has the divine favor and that he can act with impunity. For when Joab heard the news that Adonijah had been executed, he reasoned, correctly it turns out, that he was next and so retreated to the sanctuary and grabbed the horns of the altar, which was a place where someone could expect to be granted refuge (v. 28; cf. 1:50; Exodus 21:12-14).364 Even Solomon’s hit man, Benaiah, recoils at the prospect of doing the deed then and there, and comes back to Solomon for clarification (v. 30). Solomon, seemingly secure in his belief that there would be no heavenly blowback, had the old general struck down anyway. The text presents this as Solomon’s idea of justice, the rationale for which is laid out in vv. 31-33. Echoing Shimei’s curse of the bloody David in chapter 16 Solomon says regarding Abner and Amasa, “So shall their blood come back on the head of Joab and on the head of his descendants forever” (M¡DlOoVl wäøorÅz√ vaõørVb…w b$Dawøy vaêørV;b ‹MRhyEmd√ …wb§Dvw◊ ) (v.33) so vehemently self-righteous is the presentation of Solomon’s actions.365 Although in dealing with each of the three previous characters who have to be removed the narrative has provided at least some modicum of justification for Solomon’s actions, in the disposition of the final figure, Shimei, even greater pains will be taken to preserve his innocence. This is undoubtedly because, unlike the others, Shimei supported Solomon in his efforts to wrest the throne from Adonijah (1:8). That he is dealt with last and longest, moreover, is congruent with my contention that Shimei, because he is acting as the divine conduit for the curse of David, must be treated with greater care, lest the conduit be taken up again by Yahweh to deal with the first of David’s house just as it was used to chasten the father. So rather than simply sending him away or summoning his executioner forthwith as Solomon had with Adonijah, Abiathar and Joab, care must be taken to concoct a pretext for removing Shimei, lest the new king seem
363 Walsh, 1 Kings, 67: “On what basis does Solomon impose the death sentence in the first place? Certainly Abiathar committed no crime by supporting the heir apparent The only possible reading is that anyone Solomon perceives as opposed to him deserves death.”
364 This is a clear violation of Torah. See Provan, 1 and 2 Kings. 42.
365 Provan, 1 and 2 Kings 39: “[T]here is something rather repellant about a king born of a union forged in innocent blood (2 Sam 11-12)—a union made possible through the very man pursued in this passage—claiming to occupy the high moral ground waxing lyrical about the difference between the house of Joab and his own.”
144 ungrateful for his support and presumptuous with respect to the divine will. So Shimei is given a set of circumstances which the reader assumes he will not be able to live under indefinitely. The outcome will be the same as if Solomon had struck then, but there is a point to the exercise of doing it in a certain way. Shimei is essentially being placed under house arrest, being told to “build a house in Jerusalem” (MÊ$AlDv…wêryI;b ‹tˆy‹Ab ñÔKVl_h´n`V;b) and stay put (v. 36) Specifically, he is forbidden to “cross the “Wadi Kidron” (Nw$ørdIq√ lAjAn_tRa∞ ), for if he does it will be his own fault: “your blood will be on your own head (ÔK`RvaørVb h¶RyVhˆy äÔKVm;d∂ )” (v. 37). Shimei does not argue with this sentence, even though there is nothing in the text to indicate that he has done anything wrong other than the first encounter with David so many years before. For three years, Shimei lives under these conditions (v. 38), using the same deferential language which he used to speak his apology to David in 2 Sam 19:20 [ET 19], “my lord” (yInOdSa∞ ) and “your servant” (ÔKó®;dVbAo). This is someone whom the text presents as having been long on the straight and narrow path when it came to supporting David and Solomon, but both men have it in for Shimei nonetheless, his earlier slight not making up for a lifetime of support afterwards. It must have galled Solomon, whose father’s last words had been to make sure that Shimei did not die in peace, but rather violently, to be watching Shimei for three years and to have never once had the chance to catch him doing what he wasn’t supposed to. So when an opportunity availed itself, Solomon jumped at it. Shimei left the city to collect two of his laves who had run away to Gath. This is significant because the intent of the house arrest would have been reasonably understood to be out of concern that Shimei not be involved in any threat to organize a revolt among his fellow Banjaminites. But Shimei does not go to the Benjaminite territory. He does not cross the Wadi Kidron.366 And he isn’t plotting a coup. He’s an old man collecting his property, ironically following the path to Gath earlier trod by David himself while Saul was still king(cf. 1 Sam 21, 27). Notwithstanding the circumstances Solomon summons Shimei and tears into him n a passage dripping with ambiguity. On the one hand, he is treating Shimei’s alleged breach of his house arrest with overweening perspicacity, while on the on the other hand declaiming with hyperbolic vigor what was originally agreed to in the first place. For Solomon surprisingly alleges, with chutzpah, “Did I not make you swear by
366 Crossing the Wadi Kidron would have been the normal route home for Shimei. See Provan, 1 and 2 Kings, 40.
145 the LORD…?” (aElD%yw hSlø¬wa hIvVb;AoVt;IyKÔ∞ bA`yhwÎGh), to which both the reader and presumably Shimei must strenuously object.367 The whole story has thus been turned upside down. The only oath made to Yahweh about the life or death of Shimei was made by David in 2 Sam 19: and its content was a promise that Shimei’s life would be spared, yet Shimei is now to be handed a death sentence based upon what appears to be a false accusation of him having made such an oath given as bond for his acceptance of Solomon’s sentence.368 And instead of the original “man of blood” paying for his crimes, the one who named those crimes in the first place (2 Sam 16:7-8) is about to bring down his own blood on his own head. Yet according to Solomon, this is Yahweh’s doing, not his: “the LORD will bring back your evil on your own head” (ÔK`RvaørV;b äÔKVtDor_tRa∂ h¢Dwhy◊ byªIvEhw◊ ). Though trying to present this as an objective breach of a divine oath, Solomon once again cannot contain himself, just as he was not able to do in v. 22, and inadvertently makes known the real reason for the impending execution, asserting that “you know all the evil that you did to my father David” (y¡IbDa dIw∞ dVl∂ Dty™IcDo r¶RvSa $ÔKVbDbVl∞ ‹oådÎy r§RvSa h#DorDh_lD;k∂ tEa∞ ‹D;tVo‹ådÎy h§D;tAa) (v. 44). Shimei, however, is forbidden to speak, either here or any other place ever again, for his last words in the text were to accept the conditions of his house arrest (v.38) which Solomon now redacts to suit his imperial designs. For his part, Yahweh does not speak in any of the three Shimei episodes after 2 Sam 16:5- 14 , any more than he spoke in that earlier text. As in that scene, however, David and then Solomon feel free here to invoke him at will, asserting his sanction on whatever happens and whatever they want to do. And from what vantage point can the reader protest? There are objective pointers in the text that suggest that what is being done is, by conventional standards as well as Torah proscriptions, flatly immoral. But at each point, the text also provides a veneer of respectable piety, which injects a certain degree of ambiguity into each scene. Yahweh seems to like this family, or at least is willing to allow them to have their day. How far that commitment to them extends and under what circumstances that commitment will be honored seems to be clearly enumerated in Deuteronomy. But when one examines the actions of David and Solomon in light of the Deuteronomist’s worldview, one is struck by the discrepancies between the ideal
367 See DeVries, 1 Kings, 43: “The story has no hint of a motivating divine revelation: Yahweh is named but only to sanction oaths and receive credit for a fait accompli. Thus God’s will is nonoperative. He is not directing Israel’s destiny, but is simply being used to sanction deeds of naked power.”
368 Provan, 1 and 2 Kings, 40, calls the scene “a fairly sordid story of power-politics thinly disguised as a morality tale.”
146 and the reality. So where does this put Yahweh? The only response the reader can make is that David and Solomon both seem to know that he’s on their side. But what that means, then, is very troubling, both for what it says about the Davidic dynasty, as well as about Yahweh himself. 3.9 Summary In this chapter, I have shown that the passage of 2 Sam 16:5-14 represents a pivotal point in the fortunes of David in his quest to maintain his kingship, but it is one that is more fraught with possibilities for varying interpretations than has previously been understood. In particular, I have shown that both Shimei and David, and to a lesser extent, Abishai, have subtleties of characterization latent within the text which can allow them to be read differently than in previous biblical scholarship. Moreover, I have shown that the most important character in the scene, and indeed the whole of scripture, Yahweh, is being fought over by the various persons in the scene, a contest that ultimately remains undecidable to the reader, despite David’s last minute play for his affections and favor. The effect on the reader, I have argued is therefore one of continued unsettledness, as it remains unclear, from the beginning to the end of the scene, who the good and bad guys of the scene are, as well as whose side Yahweh is going to finally come down on. Lastly, I have demonstrated that, in the aftermath of 2 Sam 16:5-14, as the conflict between David (then Solomon) and Shimei continues, that the reactions of the house of David to Shimei are consistent with my reading of David in their first encounter. David continues to the end of his life to be wary of Shimei, lest Yahweh’s curse through Shimei on David still have some residual effect. That wariness extends to his son Solomon, who is determined to kill Shimei, but who must do so with stealth and plausible deniability. Likewise, the character of Yahweh remains in the background for the rest of the Shimei episodes, although David and Solomon will invoke him as being on their side and validating actions that the reader finds often to be immoral.
147 CHAPTER FOUR CONCLUSION
It is my contention that diachronic reading strategies (i.e., historical criticism in its various incarnations) limit interpretive possibilities of biblical texts. What I have proposed and have attempted to model in this present work instead is an intertextual method of reading the text canonically that focuses on the process of meaning-making within the reader, rather than on an attempt to recover what may have happened, although the approach I have used in no way mitigates against the historical-critical method. To do this, I have demonstrated how such a reading strategy might proceed, particularly with reference to characterization and point of view as expressed by both the dialogue and narration of the scene of 2 Sam 16:5-14. In reading this passage intertextually, I have endeavored to connect it with other related texts not only within the cycle of narratives that treat Saul and David but with the broader textual world of the Hebrew Bible as well, piecing together phrase by phrase how a reader might understand it in fresh perspective. As I argued in chapter in my discussion of intertextuality, it is important that interpretations that utilize a synchronic approach, which values imagination as much as it does information, should advance our understandings of a given text rather than just producing novelty for novelty’s sake. In this dissertation I have striven to meet that important standard. The success of this approach can be seen most clearly in the ways in which my reading of Shimei, Abishai, and David subverts the traditional historical understanding of these characters by Brueggemann, among others. Whereas Brueggemann read Shimei and Abishai as representative of the old covenantal and new power hungry orders respectively, I have demonstrated that they can be read in exactly the opposite fashion. Shimei’s character can be read as foreshadowing the coming Hebrew prophets who will pronounce Yahweh’s judgment on the rulers of Judah and Israel, in that he appears as one who is a purveyor of symbolic activity, as the lone figure who speaks truth to royal power, and as one who engages in ecstatic behavior. Abishai, on the other hand, rather than standing for the ruthlessness of the coming age of kings, recalls Israel as it used to be, speaking in the narrative as the both the voice of family and the voice of reliance on Torah, while at the same time speaking as the voice of David’s own past when he would not have let such an
148 insult go by unchallenged. Moreover, I have read David in a different fashion, which challenges traditional assumptions of the faithfulness of David’s statement in 16:10-12. Instead of understanding David’s response as evidence of faith, I have connected this passage with a host of other texts in which David manifests royal arrogance and hubris since his days as a young shepherd boy. As I have shown, the plot of the story is advanced by specific conflicts which have threads running the length and breadth of David’s life. These conflicts, including the ones preceding our text, revolve specifically around the issue of kinship. Absalom, David’s son, is the primary violator of kinship boundaries and is therefore the primary antagonist in the section of chapters 15-19. The sons of Zeruiah, Joab and (in our text) Abishai, both nephews of David, test the good will of their uncle the king, who seems increasingly intolerant of both his nephews’ forthrightness and their well-documented penchant for violence. And finally Shimei, and at the edges of the text, Ziba and Mephibosheth, appear as kinsmen and servants of the dead King Saul, who still, though deceased, represents a not inconsiderable threat from beyond the grave in the form of his family, who seek to reclaim their lost honor, if not the throne itself. Indeed, honor/shame is the other axis on which conflict in our scene turns, informing the perspective of Shimei as well as that of Abishai. Shimei, though his curse may be thought to possess lethal power, also seeks to shame the king by publically cursing him, while Abishai seeks to redeem Yahweh’s and the king’s honor, and his own, by taking Shimei’s worthless life, thereby demonstrating Abishai’s fidelity to the long-standing communal understanding of the roles and expectations of members of the ’elep. The most interesting aspect of this scene, though, was not an examination of its conflict, but rather the various points of view which were expressed within it. Specifically of interest was the alignment of each of the speakers with the point of view of Yahweh whose ultimate perspective is never disclosed. Each of the characters in their turn, speak legitimately on behalf of Yahweh, either directly invoking his person or with greater nuance by means of identifying with certain positions or interests previously mandated by Yahweh in Torah, or by assuming the language and posture of one of Israel’s soon to be stable of prophets: Shimei follows this latter approach and twice directly invokes the deity. Abishai, on the other hand, speaks implicitly for Yahweh by evoking Torah commands and by modeling David’s responses at a time when David was just a boy, but during which the reader knows David to have been acting under divine
149 sanction. David, albeit in a more oblique and subtle fashion, aligns himself with the point of view of Yahweh by not protesting the curse of Shimei and thereby validating its premise; but rather than simply accepting the outcome of the curse, David further attempts to align himself with Yahweh by confessing Yahweh’s sovereign power over his future, recognizing that Yahweh had already had a long history of playing outside of the conventional rules of morality. Finally, even the narrator’s point of view seems to shift in the direction of Yahweh by presenting David’s flight from the land as the embodiment of the Deuteronomistic and Levitical warnings about not keeping Torah and holiness respectively. Whether this is a sign of faithfulness or not on David’s part is determined by what texts one places beside 2 Sam 16:5-14 in an attempt to make sense of it. If one places the Psalms or Second Isaiah beside it, or even the New Testament, all of which contain many positive affirmations either of David directly, or indirectly by positive assessments of the monarchy or messianism, one will read his character in this scene from a decidedly positive perspective. Since this is the nexus of canonical texts most favored by Christian communities, we should not at all be surprised that David’s character is widely acknowledged as a man of great faith in such circles. The same result will occur if one lays beside our passage the wisdom tradition of Israel, as Brueggemann, following Whybray, does. If, however, one lays much of the rest of the prophetic corpus next to this passage, in which Shimei sounds like a prophet who will later rail against David’s descendants, as well as the old covenantal traditions which make Abishai sound so good, then one will get a dramatically different framing of David in which his character looks more self-centered at best, and more sinister at worst. The same comparison can be made even within the David narratives themselves, some of which appear to evaluate David more negatively than others. In short, whatever text one chooses to have at hand while one reads will shape the resulting characterization of both David, Abishai and Shimei: if Shimei sounds like a prophet, and Abishai like a defender of Torah, then they will be evaluated positively, David negatively; but if Shimei sounds like nothing more than a jealous Saulide, and Abishai sounds impulsive and vengeful like the ruthless Solomon and his descendants, then they will be evaluated negatively, and David positively. The inadequacy of previous interpretations of the characters in this scene is due, in particular, to the general failure in biblical scholarship to read the passage canonically. As I showed in Chapter One, there are sound methodological reasons, rooted in the theology of the faith community that produced and preserved the text as canon which legitimate such an
150 exegetical approach which I have pursued here. Thus, the character sketches derived form this approach are far more detailed, nuanced and in congruity with the rest of the canonical presentation than those studies which have heretofore attempted to interpret the passage. The more difficult character to assess, as I have argued throughout this dissertation, and the one about which both characters and readers are ultimately unsure, is Yahweh, whose slipperiness is manifestly evident in the strategies by which each of the personalities in the scene attempt to leverage his favor in their direction, thus mirroring the readers’ own experience of trying this tack or the other to untangle the mystery of his character in the face of his relentless inscrutability. David, whether by faith or by calculation, or whether by simply stumbling into the truth inadvertently, seems to have nailed the matter correctly in his confession, which is that Yahweh is not locked into any long-term contracts or even predictable patterns of behavior but remains endlessly wild, sovereign, and free, even amongst those with whom he has so vigorously cast his lot. He is never fully grasped or understood, either by the characters in the story or the readers outside of it, instead persisting in keeping his hand very close, disclosing his views on his own terms, always reserving the right to change his mind and pursue a different course, sometimes even under new management. Read this way, David really is the greatest of all kings, the one after Yahweh’s own heart, after whom the mold broke, because he “gets it,” despite being, to use contemporary language, an egocentric, murdering bastard or to use Shimei’s (via McCarter), a blood-stained fiend of hell. In this story, if you are favored by Yahweh, you can ultimately get away with being all of that--you can even outrun a seemingly deadly curse sent by Yahweh himself in one of his moods--if you can just get this one basic feature of his personality down, which is that Yahweh resists domestication in any form or fashion. David appealed to that inscrutability when things got tough and it looked like divine punishment was inevitable, knowing full well from his own experience that Yahweh isn’t bound to anything, including his own previously stated commitments. Projected forward onto the larger narrative, David’s response in 16:10-12 stands as a rebuke to many of the later kings who are unable to fill their ancestor’s shoes. When Jeremiah is running around like a man with this hair on fire telling anyone who would listen that destruction was imminent, the offspring of Josiah, another of the few who “get it” in the larger story, confessed, not Yahweh’s freedom but instead, his unchanging character, especially as it related to God’s previous promises, which cannot, it turns out, be counted on. After having trampled on his laws, statutes, decrees and commands, they
151 would nonetheless fall back on what they thought was his utter predictability in preserving the Davidic monarchy and his home in the Temple on Mt. Zion. They counted on his unchanging favor and continued presence, and paid the price for it. David, by contrast, though at times impulsive in his actions with people, and though as guilty as Saul before him and many of the kings who come after him, does not risk it where Yahweh is concerned, and thus ends up ultimately winning the divine favor paradoxically because he beforehand disclaims it here, albeit in a subtle fashion. He does not appeal, as he might have, to the Divine promise of 2 Sam 7, but instead to the inscrutable sovereignty which operates untethered to previous utterances. I was drawn to 2 Samuel 16:5-14 and have been endlessly fascinated by it because of its capacity to represent in such a small space so much of what is taking place within scripture, as well as to mirror life in the communities that read this text as scripture. That some two billion people on the planet now consider these ten verses to be canon ought to give one a clue as to the elasticity of interpretation that is required in order to get that many different people from every conceivable background on board. We know this implicitly, yet there is no end, even as interpretations proliferate to meet the demand of fast-moving, ever-shifting, over-populated societies and their cultures, to the attempts to foreclose the reading strategies of others, whether they are rooted in critical methodology or deeply-held faith. Nevertheless, this passage, as I see it blunts such attempts at foreclosure in that its repeated assertions by its characters to be speaking on behalf of God are never finally validated and thus the political and economic hopes that such claims had sought to leverage by divine endorsement likewise never fully materialize, for Yahweh never appears in the scene or after it to declare the winner or loser of this contest, leaving each character, as well as the reader, with a sense of incompletion. At the same time, though, neither are their claims ever fully repudiated, for the perspectives of each character continue to be manifested in the larger story as it unfolds, thus lending credence after the fact to at least the partial truth of what they represent. The irony facing communities which accept the Bible as canon is that the text which points in multiple directions at once is also the vehicle of revelation of a God whose ways and motivations are themselves unpredictable. Moreover, this has dawned on us at a moment in history in which such communities’ collective desire to nail down each of these elements, the text and the God it reveals, is inversely proportional to their capacity to do so. There is a growing awareness, evident even among the diachronically-oriented wing of the biblical guild, as
152 my examination of some of the leading interpreters of the David story demonstrated, that the reading process is more complex, but also more richly endowed with possibility than ever before, and that narratives exhaustively-studied and passages long-disregarded as not germane, like the one I have been examining in this dissertation, have layers to them that have not hitherto been noticed, not because of the carelessness of scholarship but because of the realization that, as Heisenberg noted with the atom, looking at a text changes it. Each reader’s peculiar angle of vision and the tool-kit which she or he brings to their reading will forever be unique, as will be, therefore, the readings they produce. This will be hardest for religious communities insistent on their own investment in construing a text one way to the absolute exclusion of all others, but also for academic scholarship, which, although evolving as we have seen to a greater methodological flexibility, has itself all too often mimicked religious belief in its determination to hold fast to some cherished idea or other about a text. Thoughtful readers, however, will thus not bemoan the fact that there is not a “right answer” to the questions of “What does this text mean?” or even “What really happened?”, but will instead content themselves with having wrestled with and exposed as fully as possible the mixed messages that the text sends. Such readers will also acknowledge the open-endedness of this type of project as I have undertaken it here, which is to say that David’s, or Shimei’s or Abishai’s characters will always await a re-reading by others who will place a new set of texts beside this passage in an attempt to make sense of it, creating something altogether distinct and fresh from the way that I and others have read them thus far.
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174 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Timothy Frederick Simpson was born on July 18, 1963 to Jerry Randolph Simpson (b. 1940) and Wenda Sue Simpson (Zimmerman) (b. 1943) in Owatonna, Minnesota, where his parents were students at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College. His paternal grandfather, Frederick Gardner Simpson (1901-1980) was an engineer for General Motors and then later for the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, and was one of the engineers who designed and built the great iron ship, the Edmund Fitzgerald. His maternal grandfather, Rev. Wendell Zimmerman (1916-1992), was the founder of the Kansas City Baptist Temple and editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune. With his parents preparing for and then engaging in ministry, he moved as his father served churches and attended school in Minnesota, Missouri and Florida. His parents divorced in 1975, and at age 14 he moved with his mother and stepfather, Randy Nelson (b. 1946) to California, where he attended high school, returning to Jacksonville, Florida in his senior year. He is a graduate of Liberty University (B.A., M.A.), Columbia Theological Seminary (M.Div., Th.M.), the University of Florida (M.A.), Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education (now Union Presbyterian Seminary) (Th.M.) and Florida State University (Ph.D.). In 1988, he was married to Sherri Lynne Patray (b. 1966) in Nashville, TN. They had three children together: Stephen Frederick Simpson (b. 1988 in Jacksonville, FL), Caitlin Elizabeth Simpson (b. 1991 in Jacksonville, FL) and Jacob Carter Simpson (b. 1995 in Moline, IL). He was originally ordained in the Baptist church (April, 1984) but subsequently transferred his ordination to the Presbyterian Church (USA) (June, 1994). In 2008 in Jacksonville, FL he married the Rev. Kathryn Ann McLean (b. 1959), who is also ordained in the PC (USA). In his pastoral work, he has served churches in Florida, Virginia, Alabama, Illinois and Indiana. As a teacher, he taught courses as a graduate assistant at Candler School of Theology (1992-1993) and at Florida State University (1998-2004). He was an adjunct professor at Scott Community College (1995) and St. Ambrose University (1995-1997) in Davenport, IA, and online at Saint Leo University (1998; 2003-2006). In addition, he has been an adjunct professor at the Florida Community College at Jacksonville, FL (now Florida State College at Jacksonville) (2002-2005) and the University of North Florida, also in Jacksonville (2003-2011). He was also an instructor in the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary’s online Commissioned Lay Pastor program for a number of years (2002-2009).
175 In 1995, Walter Brueggemann asked Tim to construct the indices for his Theology of the Old Testament. This began a decade-long association working with Brueggemann, editing and indexing his many book projects. This opened up the opportunity for Tim to work as a freelance editor and indexer books for other authors with Abingdon, Fortress, and Westminster/John Knox Presses. This then further led, in 2002, to be being named an editor of the journal Political Theology, published by Equinox Press, a position which he still holds as of this writing. In addition to his editing work, Tim was also able to publish some articles and reviews in American Sexuality, Christian Century, Koinonia, Lectionary Homiletics, Journal for Preachers, and the Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Bible Societies. In addition to active service in his presbytery, from 2006-2009, Tim served the Presbyterian Church (USA) as a volunteer itinerate mission co-worker under the sponsorship of the Office of Peacemaking of the General Assembly, going to churches, presbyteries and synods around the country lecturing on nonviolence in early Christianity. Moreover, in 2009 and again in 2010, he served as editor of the denomination’s Bible Content Exam given annually to ordination candidates of the PC(USA). Also in 2010, he co-authored an overture to that year’s General Assembly which directed the denomination to engage in a six-year study on what the church’s stance ought to be on the issue of war in contemporary times. Since 2005, Tim has been engaged in significant levels of political activism. From 2005- 2007, Tim was the spokesperson for the progressive advocacy organization the Christian Alliance for Progress, giving frequent interviews for print, TV and radio for media outlets all around the world on justice and peace issues. The most prominent campaign in which he was involved was in the boycott and protest of the video game based on the “Left Behind” series of books, which included a debate on the BBC with the president of the game company as well as an interview on ABC’s World News Tonight on Christmas Eve, 2006. Tim’s blog, Public Theologian, which ran from 2004-2007, was mentioned in the New York Times in 2007 as one of the most influential progressive Christian blogs of the period. Under the auspices of Political Theology, in 2010 he established a new online presence called “There Is Power in the Blog.” In 2006, he co-founded the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq (now simply Christian Peace Witness), which is a consortium of peace groups from denominations all over the United States who meet for worship and direct action and who collaborate on educational and other projects together.
176 This led in 2010 to his election to the board of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, on which he currently serves. On September 16, 2011, Tim became a grandfather with the birth of his grandson, Alexander Frederick Simpson, child of his son, Stephen. Tim lives in Jacksonville, FL with his wife and two youngest children.
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