Deuteronomy, the fifth and last book of the Torah, ends on an elegiac note, full of the sadness that all true endings possess. Moshe is standing on the peak of Mount Nebo in Transjordan, looking out across the Dead Sea and the River Jordan to Canaan, the Promised Land that he will never enter. He can see the whole land of the Promise, from Dan in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Negev desert in the south. Opposite him across the river is Jericho, Moon City, “the city of palms” according to Deuteronomy—the oldest town on earth.
And YHWH said to him:
“This is the land
that I swore to Avraham, to Yitzhak, and to Yaakov, saying:
‘To your seed I give it!’
I have let you see it with your eyes,
but there you shall not cross!”
So there died there Moshe, servant of YHWH,
in the land of Moav,
at the order of YHWH.
He buried him
in a valley in the land of Moav,
opposite Bet Pe’or,
and no man has knowledge of the site of his burial-place until this day.
Now Moshe was a hundred and twenty years old at his death;
his eyes had not grown-dim,
his vigor had not fled.
The Children of Israel wept for Moshe in the Plains of Moav for thirty days.
Then the days of weeping in mourning for Moshe were ended.
Now Yehoshua [Joshua] son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom,
for Moshe had leaned his hands upon him,1
and (so) the Children of Israel hearkened to him
and did as YHWH had commanded Moshe.
But there arose no further prophet in Israel like Moshe,
whom YHWH knew face to face,
in all the signs and portents
that YHWH sent him to do in the land of Egypt,
to Pharaoh and to all his servants, and to all his land;
and in all the strong hand
and in all the great, awe-inspiring (acts)
that Moshe did before the eyes of all Israel.
To a large extent, the lives of Moshe and his patriarchal predecessors must remain opaque to us, almost as opaque as the lives of our dimmest ancestors, the hominids of prehistory. We know they looked up at the night sky in wonder, wandered ceaselessly with only a vague notion of a destination, and heard the promptings of an inner voice, which they associated with the terrifying marvels of nature. But the harsh and singular specifics of their lives were quite unlike our own, we who can scarcely close our ears to the ceaseless din of modern advertising, who never venture far from the familiar, for whom the night sky, eclipsed by round-the-clock electricity, is no longer a marvel at all.
But in this ending, in the death of Moshe, we can feel a basic human kinship beneath the dramatic differences. The description of the still vigorous old man must recall to us the ancient grandeur of Michelangelo’s Moses, huge-armed, straight-backed, eagle-eyed, who after so many harrowing meetings with God and disappointments with his people can face death without flinching. We, too, shall die without finishing what we began. Each of us has in our life at least one moment of insight, one Mount Sinai—an uncanny, other-worldly, time-stopping experience that somehow succeeds in breaking through the grimy, boisterous present, the insight that, if we let it, will carry us through our life. But like Moshe or Martin Luther King, though we may remember that we “have been to the mountaintop,” we do not enter the Promised Land, but only glimpse it fleetingly. “Nothing that is worth doing,” wrote Reinhold Niebuhr, “can be achieved in our lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; there-we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.” That accomplishment is intergenerational may be the deepest of all Hebrew insights.
It is Joshua, Moshe’s young general, who leads the Israelites across the Jordan into the Promised Land with the ark at their head, Joshua first sending his men through the camp with these instructions: “When you see the ark of the covenant of YHWH your God being carried by the levitical priests, you will leave your position and follow it, so that you may know which way to take, since you have never gone this way before.” This is the great moment, the moment of maximum anticipation—to go the way one has never gone before, and yet to go home:
The ole ark’s a-moverin’, moverin’, moverin’,
The ole ark’s a-moverin’,
An’ I’m goin’ home!
An is not long before Jericho is defeated, its walls collapsing at the sound of Joshua’s trumpets:
Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho, Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit de battle ob Jericho,
And de walls come tumbelin’ down.
Perhaps no one in all history has understood the liberation narrative of Israel as profoundly—and with such affection and joy—as the black slaves of the American South. There is even evidence that something like the destruction of Jericho may have occurred, since archaeologists have found that several Palestinian towns were flattened about the year 1200 B.C., to be succeeded by a new culture that from a material point of view was decidedly inferior—and may represent the Israelite occupation of ruined Canaanite settlements. But Jericho’s ruin apparently preceded Israel’s invasion of Canaan by centuries; and it may be that its ruined walls encouraged the Israelites of a later period to imagine that they had been its conquerors.
The conquest of Canaan, as presented in the Book of Joshua (which brings the Epic of Israel—from founding patriarch to final settlement—to its conclusion) is a grisly business, reminding us of just how primitive a society we have been considering. All the Canaanites—“men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys”—are put to the sword, their settlements burned to the ground, their objects of precious metal set aside as “holy,” “devoted” to the sanctuary of YHWH—that is, priestly booty. The Canaanites, too, are set aside as “devoted”—that is, marked for extermination. As far away from the Jordan valley as prehistoric Scotland, the sacrificial victim, the prisoner of war offered to a god, was called the “Devoted One.” What we have here is human sacrifice under the guise of holy war, compelling us to recognize how powerful a hold the need to scapegoat and to shed blood has on the human heart.
But this legendary “conquest,” described with such bloodthirsty relish in Joshua as an overwhelming victory, was actually a very gradual affair. From its base in Transjordan, the tribes that Moshe had led through the desert migrated into the central hill country of Canaan, overwhelming its Iron Age settlements when possible, but at other times entering into league with Canaanite villagers, sometimes to overthrow an oppressive tyrant, at other times in mutual protection pacts. Egypt’s Dusty Ones and Moshe’s kvetchers had indeed been toughened by adversity and now presented themselves as impressive warriors whom peaceful farmers had better not tangle with. Cutting a swath of conquest across a small area, these warriors no doubt attracted many new adherents to the religion of their conquering God, adherents who came to see themselves as Israelites, the people of YHWH, the God who could humble even Egypt.
But cultural exchange is seldom a one-way affair. After settling the central highlands and intermingling with the natives, “the Israelites then did what is evil in YHWH’S eyes and served the Baals.” Baal was the Canaanite storm god, who must have seemed rather like YHWH to unlettered Israelites, so what the hell. “To serve the Baals” was to worship one of Baal’s many images, metal bulls and phallic stones erected at various sanctuaries throughout Canaan. Baal’s consort was Astarte, the Canaanite form of the Mesopotamian fertility goddess Ishtar. Astarte (or Astoreth) was also called Asherah, a word that probably means “consort.” The pure religion of YHWH, under the influence of these local superstitions of vegetative, animal, and human fertility, was often to be compromised and combined with Canaanite cults in unexpected ways. Inscriptions have been discovered dating to the period of the monarchy, a couple of centuries after Joshua, that seem to be prayers to “YHWH and his Asherah,” leading many to the conclusion that the desert religion of YHWH underwent a kind of paganizing syncretism as soon as the hardened Hebrew warriors settled down to the business of farming and herding among their Canaanite neighbors.
The period after Joshua’s invasion is called the period of the Judges—local military leaders who also settled disputes between Israelites in the manner of Moshe’s desert judges. As described in the Book of Judges, this appears to have been a time of continuing settlement and consolidation, in which Israelite warrior-farmers gradually spread out through Canaan in loose tribal confederations till in less than two centuries they occupied most of the Promised Land. In the Books of Joshua and Judges, success is invariably linked to Israel’s faithfulness to YHWH, defeat to their prostituting themselves to “other gods … of the surrounding peoples.”
Despite the overall success of the settlement, the Israelites are never without enemies, especially the growing menace of the Philistines, the Sea People, who after the collapse of Mycene sailed across the Mediterranean and began to occupy coastal towns such as Gaza, then inland towns such as Gath. Their encroachments brought them uncomfortably close to the Israelites, who sometimes found themselves living in Philistine towns under the boot of these enemies, whose name will come to mean “crude and uncultivated” and will serve as the basis for the word “Palestine.” (The story of Samson, the magnificent Israelite strongman who harried the Philistines, belongs to this period.) At last, the Israelites reach the conclusion that what they need is someone to give them visible unity, someone capable of uniting them in greater emotional cohesion—a king.
But YHWH is their king. Since the days of the qahal, the desert assembly of the pilgrim people, Israel’s political understanding has been that they are the gathering of God’s people, led by his handpicked spokesmen and answerable to no earthly king, a sort of theocratic democracy. “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you,” God advises the reluctant Samuel, his prophet and priest, whom the people have asked for a king. “It is not you they have rejected but me, not wishing me to reign over them anymore. They are now doing to you exactly what they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt until now, deserting me and serving other gods.”
God is prepared to accept a monarchy, provided the people understand what they are getting themselves into. Samuel gives the people YHWH’S warnings: “This is what the king who is to reign over you will do. He will take your sons and direct them to his chariotry and cavalry, and they will run in front of his chariot. He will use them as leaders of a thousand and leaders of fifty; he will make them plough his fields and gather in his harvest and make his weapons of war and the gear for his chariots. He will take your daughters as perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his officials. He will take the best of your servants, men and women, of your oxen and your donkeys, and make them work for him. He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry aloud because of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but on that day YHWH will not hear you.”
YHWH’S percipient warnings, illuminating the unavoidable reality that when human beings invest one man with special power they simultaneously divest themselves, no longer resonate with the people. Because of their fear of the Philistines and other neighboring enemies they are willing to alter their constitution permanently. “No! We are determined to have a king,” they cry, “so that we can be like other nations, with our own king to rule us and lead us and fight our battles.”
YHWH’S choice is Saul, “a handsome man in the prime of life,” someone capable of symbolizing the people’s aspirations. “Of all the Israelites there was no one more handsome than he,” states the Book of Samuel. “He stood head and shoulders taller than anyone else.” Samuel anoints Saul, who is confirmed by the whole people. The ceremony of divine anointing (or deputizing), followed by popular confirmation, will become the pattern for the Israelite monarchy. The anointing by a priest or prophet is meant to signify that this man is YHWH’S choice, the confirmation by the assembly of the people that he is also the popular choice. In this way, Israel’s new monarchic constitution is to retain a democratic aspect, suggestive of the medieval maxim “Vox populi, vox Dei” (“What the people approve, God approves”). This same procedure will be copied by the early church in its election of bishops (but because power adheres to the powerful, confirmation by the people has fallen into disuse).
Saul proves himself an outstanding general, making war not only on the Philistines but on Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Amalekites, and all of Israel’s neighboring enemies, for “whichever way he turned, he was victorious.” But then Saul disobeys YHWH, first by offering sacrifice in Samuel’s absence, then by sparing the Amalekite king and the most precious Amalekite booty from “the curse of destruction”—that is, from universal extermination, one of YHWH’S less pretty injunctions. There probably lies behind these stories a tug-of-war for ultimate power between the old prophet and the young king. But the upshot is that Saul loses the favor of YHWH, who “regrets having made Saul king.”
Then YHWH says to Samuel, “Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have found myself a king from among his sons.” At Bethlehem Samuel meets seven of Jesse’s sons, but YHWH warns him to take no notice of their striking appearance or height, suggestive that they would all make fitting successors to Saul: “God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearances but YHWH looks at the heart.”
“Are these all the sons you have?” asks Samuel of Jesse.
“There is still one left, the youngest; he is looking after the sheep.”
“Send for him.”
When the youngest arrives—barely beyond childhood but “ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to,” according to King James—Samuel knows that this shepherd boy is God’s unlikely choice. “At this, Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him, surrounded by his brothers; and the spirit of YHWH seized on David from that day onwards.”
Ruach YHWH—YHWH’S spirit, or, more literally, his wind or breath—is as unpredictable as wind itself. On whom it will alight no one can say. And as with YHWH’S other choices—of wily Avraham, dissembling Yaakov, tongue-tied Moshe, the carping Chosen People themselves—his election is always a surprise. But most surprising of all is what the man on whom this Spirit alights will have to say. The modern word charisma, taken from the Greek for “grace” or “divinely conferred gift,” exactly describes what the Israelites expected from their leaders: a kind of inner glow, perceptible in a man’s physical demeanor, that captures the observer’s imagination and converts him to a partisan. But, more than his appearance, the charismatic’s divine inspiration is proven by the words he speaks. In Israel’s history, these words had always related to immediate need—as prophetic road maps to direct the people. Now, with the permanent settlement of the ex-nomads and the establishment of the monarchy, inspiration can take a new turn—as poetry.
Despairing Saul, who knows nothing of this second anointing but who imagines himself to have lost God’s favor, sinks by degrees into madness. He calls for a musician to assuage his troubled spirit; and the musician drafted for this purpose is none other than David, the secret shepherd-king. Whenever “an evil spirit from YHWH afflicted [Saul] with terrors,” David would be called to play his harp and sing his songs for the troubled king. “Saul would then be soothed; it would do him good and the evil spirit would leave him.” David’s music is completely lost; but his lyrics are still collected in the Book of Psalms, though we are no longer certain which psalms are David’s and which were attributed to him over subsequent centuries.
Though David first achieves fame as a skilled harpist and poet—“the sweet singer of Israel,” as later generations will call him—it is not long before he is tested on the field of battle. As Saul’s earlier successes against the Philistines are gradually reversed, David’s three eldest brothers are called to military service and find themselves in the Valley of the Terebinth in Judah, the Philistine battle line drawn up against them across the valley. At his father’s behest, David comes loaded down with farm products—loaves of bread for his soldier brothers, rounds of cheese for their commanding officer—arriving on the scene just as the Philistine champion steps forth to issue a challenge to Israel. The man, named Goliath, is a giant who stands almost nine feet tall: “On his head was a bronze helmet and he wore a breastplate of scale-armor; the breastplate weighed five thousand shekels [about 125 pounds] of bronze. He had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze scimitar slung across his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels [about 15 pounds] of iron.” He shouts across the valley, “I challenge the ranks of Israel today. Give me a man and we will fight it out!” Single combat, instances of which we also find in theIliad, was often used inancient times to avoid the bloodletting of group combat—and to decide who would be subject to whom, as Goliath roars: “If he can fight it out with me and kill me, we will be your servants; but if I can beat him and kill him, you will become our servants and serve us.”
Saul and “all Israel” are “dismayed and terrified.” But David, learning that the man who slays Goliath will receive riches, the king’s daughter, and exemption from all taxes (in that order), puts himself forward, declaring: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, to challenge the armies of the living God?” This sequence provides our first insight into David’s character, bold, relying on God in all simplicity, but always with an eye to the main chance.
Saul, at first, will not allow such unequal combat: “You cannot go and fight the Philistine; you are only a boy and he has been a warrior since his youth.” But as he listens to David’s recital of his complete faith in YHWH, who enabled this shepherd boy to batter to death both lions and bears who attacked his sheep, he cannot help but be impressed. “YHWH,” says David, “who delivered me from the claws of lion and bear, will deliver me from the clutches of this Philistine.” Saul consents, even dressing David in the oppressive royal armor. “David tried to walk but not being used to them, said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk in these; I am not used to them.’ ” So David is stripped and goes forth armed with only a sling and “five smooth stones”—and, like the wonder-boy of Michelangelo’s statue, full of relaxed strength ready to spring.
Goliath laughs him to scorn, but David retorts: “You come to me with sword, spear, and scimitar, but I come to you in the name of YHWH Sabaoth [the heavenly host or army], God of the armies of Israel, whom you have challenged. Today, YHWH will deliver you into my hand; I shall kill you, I shall cut off your head; today, I shall give your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the wild beasts, so that the whole world may know that there is a God in Israel, and this whole assembly know that YHWH does not give victory by means of sword and spear—for YHWH is lord of the battle and he will deliver you into our power.”
This is a wonderful speech—and a wonderful moment in the history of Israel and of the human race—a resounding assertion that God is on the side of the small and powerless, not the high and mighty. This is a confrontation that has fixed itself permanently in human imagination; and who could count how many supposedly hopeless causes it has given strength and comfort to? There is every reason to presume that David, Israel’s sweet singer, was capable of delivering such words. It is of a piece with his character as it will unfold throughout the historical Books of Samuel and Kings. With a wiliness more convoluted than Avraham’s, a charm more compelling than Joseph’s, a faith as deep as Moshe’s, and a confidence all his own, this born politician, always playing to the crowd, captivates us as does no other figure in the whole of the Hebrew Bible.
Of course, he wins the day. The death of Goliath, felled by one well-directed stone to the forehead, panics the Philistine army, who are easily butchered in their flight. David, bearing Goliath’s great head, returns in triumph with Saul. As the army marches along, “the women came out of all the towns of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tambourines, sistrums and cries of joy; and as they danced the women sang:
“Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.”
Saul’s angry reaction (especially in the King James Version) has the rhetorical quality of a Shakespearean soliloquy:
“They have ascribed unto David ten thousands,
and to me they have ascribed but thousands:
and what can he have more
but the kingdom?”
“And Saul,” concludes the chronicler, “eyed David from that day and forward.”
Saul offers David the hand of his daughter Merab in marriage, provided David “serve me bravely and fight YHWH’S wars,” but thinking to himself: “Better than strike the blow myself, let the Philistines do it!” David expresses reluctance, saying only: “Who am I in Israel, for me to become the king’s son-in-law?” David, indeed, as a southerner, a member of the tribe of Judah, will need northern connections if he is ever to rule effectively—and Saul’s Benjaminite family would be ideal in providing such. But before David can shed his ritual modesty, Saul humiliates him: “When the time came for Merab daughter of Saul to be given to David, she was given to Adriel of Meholah instead.”
When Saul’s second daughter, Michal, falls in love with David, he is ready to take advantage of the opportunity. But Saul proposes an odd exchange: “The king desires no bride-price except one hundred Philistine foreskins.” Since it is a tricky business to take the foreskin of a man without his consent, Saul’s proposal is meant to spell certain death for David. But David, rising to the challenge, thinks “it would be a fine thing to be the king’s son-in-law. And no time was lost before David got up to go,” returning in record time with two hundred Philistine foreskins, which he counts out before the king. By this savagely hilarious feat, David endears himself to the Israelites even more than by the slaying of Goliath.
But having humiliated the king, called his bluff, and married his daughter in the bargain, David has put himself in greater danger, for “Saul could not but see that YHWH was with David, and that the whole House of Israel loved him. Saul, more afraid of David than ever, became his inveterate enemy. The Philistine chiefs kept mounting their campaigns but, whenever they did so, David proved more successful than any of Saul’s staff; consequently he gained great renown.”
David, loved by all, is oblivious of the king’s resentment. But among his most fervent admirers is Saul’s son Jonathan, who “delighted much in David” and who tips him off to the royal plans for David’s assassination—as does Michal, who saves his life by placing a life-sized idol under the cover of David’s bed while he escapes. David, now in full flight before the king’s wrath, stays briefly with a Philistine king, who also grows to resent him for his prowess. David’s ploy for escaping the jealousy of this king is to feign a madness reminiscent of Hamlet’s, till the exasperated king kicks him out: “Have I not enough madmen, without your bringing me this one to weary me with his antics?”
David the outlaw comes to live among the outlaws of the Judean hill country, gradually building up a band of cutthroat mercenaries, fiercely loyal comrades who will one day become the nucleus of King David’s enormous personal bodyguard—an essential element in his later political success. Meanwhile, David has become an obsession with Saul, who sends his men to hunt David down—and even sets out on the hunt himself. During the course of one of these hunting parties, Saul, who has three thousand men scouring the desert of En-gedi, finds himself impelled to relieve nature and, spotting a cave along the route, enters it alone “to cover his feet,” as the Bible euphemistically puts it—that is, to let his loincloth drop around his ankles while he squats down in the cave.
And who should be occupying the recesses of the cave at that very moment but David and his merry men. David creeps up on Saul, intending to kill him, but at the last stays his hand and silently cuts off the border of Saul’s cloak, which the king had taken off and hung on an outcrop. After Saul has finished the royal business and left the cave, David leaves too, calling after the king: “My lord king!” Saul swerves around, astonished to see his prey bowing to the ground like any obedient subject.
David then declaims across the desert distance between them: “Why do you listen to people who say, ‘David intends your ruin’? This very day you have seen for yourself how YHWH put you in my power in the cave and how, refusing to kill you, I spared you saying, ‘I will not raise my hand against my lord, since he is YHWH’S anointed.’ Look, father, look at the border of your cloak in my hand. Since, although I cut the border off your cloak, I did not kill you, surely you realize that I intend neither mischief nor crime. I have not wronged you, and yet you hunt me down to take my life. May YHWH be judge between me and you, and may YHWH avenge me on you; but I shall never lay a hand on you!”
Another eloquent speech from a master wordsmith, who, though he may be canny enough to appreciate that his refusal to lay a hand on the present king may have most positive implications for the next king, seems unable to believe that anyone could actually dislike him, David, the wonder-boy. This young man’s sense of entitlement long preceded his anointing.
At David’s sudden appearance and startling speech, Saul, already unhinged, becomes incoherent, weeping loudly and calling David his son: “You are upright and I am not! … Now I know that you will indeed reign and that the sovereignty of Israel will pass into your hands.” He begs David not to kill his family or blot out his name “once I am gone”; and then he goes “home while David and his men went back to the stronghold.” For all its emotion, this is not a reconciliation scene; and the evidence for what happens next is equivocal. There is a second story of David’s sparing Saul, which is probably just a tamer, alternative account of the cave episode, but which the scrupulous chronicler could not bring himself to omit. Then David, who despite Saul’s hysterical confession does not feel it safe to go home, finds himself a job as vassal warlord to the Philistines. He has also picked up two new wives along the way—Ahinoam of Jezreel (of whom we are told nothing) and Abigail, “a woman of intelligence and beauty” whose rare pluck, generosity, and wisdom saved David and his men from hunger and brought her to the attention of this warrior chieftain, who never fails to respond to feminine beauty. Before David can consummate their union, her inconvenient husband, a churl named Nabal (whose name in Hebrew means something like “brutal fool”), providentially dies from fear of David, who never touches him. Michal, David’s first wife, we learn at this point, has been given to a new husband by the vengeful Saul.
David’s position as vassal to Israel’s enemies the Philistines is a most uncomfortable one, but it is hard to imagine how he could have survived without such protection; and, in any case, he uses his position to overcome such tribes as the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, who are at least as noisome to the Israelites as they are to the Philistines. When at last the Philistines muster all their forces for a final attack on Saul’s now-weakened kingdom, the desperate king consults a medium in order to raise the ghost of the recently dead Samuel, who tells Saul that all is lost and that “tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.” Luckily for David, the confederation of Philistine chieftains rejects his participation in the battle, “in case he turns on us once battle is joined. Would there be a better way for the man to regain his master’s favor than with the heads of these men here?” David, who has been pretending to be eager for Israelite blood, is secretly relieved. He could never have fought his countrymen.
The Israelites are routed at Mount Gilboa; and both Saul and Jonathan, David’s loving friend, die in the battle. The Book of Samuel records David’s lament on hearing this news, in words that are almost certainly authentic, magnanimous in victory, respectful of the kingship, and full of the camaraderie of Bronze Age and Iron Age warriors, who valued the fellowship of men far above the love of women. David’s description of his love for Jonathan is virtually a direct quotation from Gilgamesh’s lament for Enkidu:
“The beauty of Israel is slain
upon thy high places:
how are the mighty fallen!
“Tell it not in Gath,
publish it not in the streets of Askelon;
lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
“Ye mountains of Gilboa,
let there be no dew,
neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings;
for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away,
the shield of Saul,
as though he had not been anointed with oil.
“From the blood of the slain,
from the fat of the mighty,
the bow of Jonathan turned not back,
and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives;
and in their death they were not divided;
they were swifter than eagles,
they were stronger than lions.
“Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights,
who put on ornaments of gold
upon your apparel.
“How are the mighty fallen
in the midst of battle!
“O Jonathan,
thou wast slain in thine high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:
very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
thy love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.
“How are the mighty fallen,
and the weapons of war perished!”
David is publicly consecrated king at Hebron, where the bodies of his Abrahamic ancestors lie and which now becomes the capital of the southern kingdom, for he is, as yet, acknowledged only by his own people—by Judah. A war ensues between the northerners and southerners—between the House of Saul and the House of David—but it is not long before the northern kingdom of Israel capitulates and David is anointed once more at Hebron, this time with the warrior nobles of the north in attendance. The politically astute king, now but thirty years old, realizes that Hebron, deep in southern territory, will not do as capital of the United Kingdom of Israel. He marches on the Jebusite town of Jerusalem, an enclave between north and south—and a capital that will suit his purposes admirably. He captures the town, also known as the “citadel of Zion,” strategically situated on a hill and ever after called the “City of David.” He meets a final Philistine attack, and victory again is swift. David is now the unchallenged ruler of Canaan, a land which can for the first time be called Israel and which will soon stretch south into the Sinai and north to the Lebanese mountains, west to the Mediterranean (along a part of which the defeated Philistines are contained in a narrow coastal strip) and east of the Jordan to the borders of Gilead. Farther southeast lie the kingdoms of Edom, Moab, and Ammon from which David exacts tribute; to the northeast Aram, from which he may have done the same even as far as the Euphrates.
THE UNITED KINGDOM OF ISRAEL
Noted are the approximate areas of settlement of the Twelve Tribes, as well as the border between the ten tribes of Israel and the two tribes of Judah.
To Jerusalem he brings his three wives, Michal having been restored to him, and many sons are born to him in his new home, where David, adding to the harem already established by Saul, acquires wives and concubines at a steady rate. To his new capital, David, ever the astute pol, also brings the ark of the covenant in a great procession from the south, thus confirming his control over Israel by physical proximity to its God, who was believed to dwell above the ark. “David and the whole House of Israel danced before YHWH with all their might, singing to the accompaniment of harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.… David danced whirling round before YHWH with all his might, wearing a loincloth.” The music would have included a Davidic psalm, one of the popular poems that were becoming part of the young conqueror’s escalating reputation:
O clap your hands, all ye people;
Shout unto God with the voice of triumph!
For YHWH most high is terrible;
he is a great King over all the earth.
He shall subdue the people under us,
and the nations under our feet.
He shall choose our inheritance for us,
the excellency of Yaakov whom he loved.
God is gone up with a shout,
YHWH with the sound of a trumpet!
Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises unto our King, sing praises!
For God is the King of all the earth:
sing ye praises with understanding.
God reigneth over the heathen:
God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness.
The princes of the people are gathered together,
even the people of the God of Avraham;
for the shields of the earth belong unto God:
he is greatly exalted!
The new king, at the acme of his vigor and enjoying his triumph to the hilt, must have presented a thrilling sight to his people. But not to Michal, the twice-traded wife, herself the daughter of a king but now just an elder member of the expanding harem. “When she saw King David leaping and whirling round before YHWH, the sight of him filled her with contempt. They brought the ark of YHWH in and put it in position, inside the tent which David had erected for it; and David presented burnt offerings and communion sacrificesin YHWH’S presence. And when David had finished presenting burnt offerings, he blessed the people in the name of YHWH Sabaoth. To all the people, to the whole multitude of Israelites, men and women, he then distributed to each a loaf of bread, a portion of meat and a raisin cake.”
As David returns to bless his own household, Michal steps forward:
“Much honor the king of Israel has won today, making an exhibition of himself under the eyes of his servant-maids, making an exhibition of himself like a buffoon!”
“I was dancing for YHWH, not for them. As YHWH lives, who chose me in preference to your father and his whole family to make me leader of Israel, YHWH’S people, I shall dance before YHWH and lower myself even further than that. In your eyes I may be base, but by the maids you speak of, by them, I shall be held in honor.”
This sour exchange is full of the resonance of real life. David’s endless vitality and enthusiasm are the very qualities that have endeared him to the common people. He knows it, basks in their love, and returns their ardor. Though he is quite happy with himself, he is humble in his way, crediting God with everything. But a man who loves a crowd is seldom as effective in intimate relationships as he is in the midst of the throng. The histories of politics, sports, and entertainment are replete with such figures, triumphant in public, tragic in private.
______
David will dote on his sons, spoiled brats brought up in uncommon luxury, not the stuff of which warrior-kings are made. One of them, his beloved Absalom, will try to usurp the kingship, wooing the northern nobles to his cause and to a bloody battle in the Forest of Ephraim between David’s immense personal guard and an easily routed army of northerners. Absalom’s undignified demise in the course of battle leaves David a broken man, beset by political dissensions that threaten the future of the United Kingdom. David’s inconsolable grief for this unworthy son is one of the most touching scenes in the whole of the Bible, as the king wanders from room to room, repeating over and over, “Oh, my son Absalom! My son! My son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! Oh, Absalom my son, my son!”
But long before this happens, David engages in another sortie that can hardly have made for domestic peace. It was spring, the chronicler tells us, “the time when kings go campaigning.” Something, however, has kept the king in Jerusalem—business, weariness, complacency?—while his soldiers have gone off on the proper business of massacring Ammonites. The restless monarch is pacing back and forth on the palace roof when he sees a woman bathing, and “the woman was very beautiful.” He makes inquiries and learns that she is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a member of the king’s guard, just now off campaigning against the Ammonites. David sends for Bathsheba. Then, in terse recital, the chronicler tells us: “She came to him, and he lay with her, just after she had purified herself from her period. She then went home again. The woman conceived and sent word to David, ‘I am pregnant.’ ” In short order, David arranges to have Uriah sent to the front lines of the battle and the rest of the men fall back, so that Uriah is killed. The moment Bath-sheba’s mourning is over, David sends for her: “She became his wife and bore him a son. But what David had done displeased YHWH.”
Enter the prophet Nathan to tell the king a story:
“In the same town were two men,
one rich, the other poor.
The rich man had flocks and herds
in great abundance;
the poor man had nothing but a ewe lamb,
only a single little one which he had bought.
He fostered it and it grew up with him and his children,
eating his bread, drinking from his cup,
sleeping in his arms; it was like a daughter to him.
When a traveler came to stay, the rich man
would not take anything from his own flock or herd
to provide for the wayfarer who had come to him.
Instead, he stole the poor man’s lamb
and prepared that for his guest.”
Hearing this, David flew into “a great rage,” demanding to know who the man was who did this “thing without pity.”
“You are the man. YHWH, God of Israel, says this, ‘I anointed you king of Israel, I saved you from Saul’s clutches, I gave you your master’s household and your master’s wives into your arms, I gave you the House of Israel and the House of Judah; and, if this is too little, I shall give you other things as well. Why did you show contempt for YHWH, by doing what displeases him?”
One can only cringe before the accusation, which is exactly what David does. “I have sinned against YHWH,” he admits immediately. Even at his worst, David’s spontaneous honesty makes him lovable. One of life’s recurring sufferings surely derives from the chronic inability of human beings to own up to what they have done, but David’s grief for his sins is as genuine as any in the long history of contrition:
“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness:
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
“For I acknowledge my transgressions:
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done this evil in thy sight:
“that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity;
and in sin did my mother conceive me.”2
“Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts:
and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
“Make me to hear joy and gladness;
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all mine iniquities.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence;
and take not thy holy spirit from me.
“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation;
and uphold me with thy free spirit.
………………………………
O Lord, open thou my lips;
and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
“For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:
thou delightest not in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
David is no visionary. When he “consults” YHWH, he does so by casting pebbles drawn from the ephod, using a method not unlike that of the Ouija board, or he listens to prophets like Samuel and Nathan. For all his anointings, he is not a religious leader but a political one; and from this time on, the leadership that was once embodied in a single prophet like Moshe will be divided between prophets, acknowledged men of God, and kings, taken up with more secular concerns. Even David’s “inspiration,” poured forth in his Psalms, is of a more earthly variety than the Voice that spoke to Avraham and Moshe. For David is not the mouthpiece of YHWH but a man on his knees or a devotee dancing in a public procession. One reason that he has always captivated readers of the Bible is that he is closer to our own experience than are the solitary prophets. He is the captain of the football team, the supersalesman, the engaging entertainer, the charismatic politician. We know the man.
The journey through the wilderness is being gradually transformed into a journey to the unknown recesses of the self—to “the inward parts.” This new spiritual journey will prove as eventful and unpredictable as the physical one, full of pitfalls and surprises. God forgives David; but there are consequences for the king, whose household, as Nathan prophesies, “will never be free of the sword” and whose wives will be given “to your neighbor”—Absalom, as it turns out, who during his rebellion will need to assert his royal prerogatives—“who will lie with your wives in broad daylight.”
There is through all the biblical writings we have considered thus far an assumption that whoever obeys YHWH will be rewarded with prosperity and long life, and whoever does not will be punished with suffering and death. Saul’s case is especially instructive in this regard. Because he lost the kingship, succeeding generations had to find something he did wrong, since his failure could be accounted for only by YHWH’S abandonment of the king, which in turn could be accounted for only by some royal transgression. What they came up with—two ritual sins—are pretty lame excuses for YHWH’S wrath. David’s sins—adulterous theft and the vindictive murder of an innocent commoner—should be far more consequential, but since David died a natural death in old age, the only important political consequence that could be discovered for his sins was Absalom’s rebellion. This harsh outlook, that worldly success and prosperity are certain indicators of God’s favor—long before the Calvinism with which it is usually associated—must leave both mind and heart unsatisfied and will gradually be revised as the biblical journey is transformed from a physical adventure to a spiritual one. As the Israelites look more deeply into their “hidden part,” the crudeness of this tit-for-tat morality will become more obvious to them.
But it is with David that the interior journey begins. A sense of the self is notably absent in all ancient literatures. I, as we commonly use it today to mean one’s interior self, is seldom in evidence before the humanist autobiographies of the early modern period (such as The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini). Before these, we can count only a few instances from earlier literatures: The Confessions of Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century A.D., some fragments from the sixth century B.C. attributed to Sappho, and—oldest of all—the Psalms, which are filled with I’s: the I of repentance, the I of anger and vengeance, the I of self-pity and self-doubt, the I of despair, the I of delight, the I of ecstasy. The Psalms, some of which were undoubtedly written in the tenth century by David himself, are a treasure trove of personal emotions from poets acutely attuned to their inner states, from ancient harpists dramatically aware that spirit calls to Spirit—that their pain and joy can find permanent satisfaction only in the Creator of all: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; … keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.… O taste and see that YHWH is good.… My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned.… My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? … For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.… As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.…” “Be still, and know that I am God.”
In this bubbling spring of self-reflection, this unparalleled resource of prayer drawn on repeatedly by Jews and Christians over the millennia, there is no poem more cherished than the Psalm of the Good Shepherd, the world’s favorite prayer:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
for ever.
This song of trust, this affecting attitude of childlike confidence in God, must be the work of the great shepherd-king, who danced naked “only for YHWH” and was not ashamed to humble himself before his people. David may share some attitudes with the warrior-kings of Sumer, but they would only have been, like Michal, appalled at his willingness to play God’s fool, a king who always retained something of the playful humor of the shepherd boy who counted out the Philistine foreskins, who played the madman in Philistia, who watched the squatting monarch with twinkling amusement.
David remains always God’s little fighter, exhibiting the same scrappy confidence he showed when he stood up to the giant before all Israel. In Jerusalem today, as a pilgrim approaches the ramparts of the Old City, one can almost imagine that David still stands upon his great conquest, his citadel of Zion, easy, confident, his tight muscles rippling as he laughs, shaking his head in disbelief that the City of David, so often razed, has grown so huge. In his day it occupied one hill, its roofs could be counted from afar, and it housed scarcely more than two thousand souls. But it is still there; and its continued existence brings us back to its royal founder, the little king of the little city, and the God he served—
Holy Zion’s help forever,
And her confidence alone.
1 To lean (or lay) hands on someone by embracing his head was thought to make vital power pass from one person to another In the case of a great leader, this enabled the charism of leadership to pass from the leader to his successor
2 This line is one of the sources for Augustine of Hippo’s doctrine of original sin, incurred by Adam and Eve in Eden and passed to all subsequent generations by sexual intercourse Pace Augustine, the line does not mean that David’s mother committed sin by conceiving him through sexual intercourse. It is just an instance of the common ancient assumption that human beings are evil. See the words of Ut-napishtim et al., this page; also the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:11.