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The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero

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by Joel S. Baden


  This is all to say that if we take the superscription le-David as attributing authorship, then we are faced with a large number of psalms that are either attributed to someone else or jointly attributed, including the very many Davidic psalms that also mention “the conductor”—thirty-nine of the seventy-three, in fact, or more than half.12 This is problematic enough for the claim of Davidic authorship. The more substantial difficulty is that the Hebrew preposition le- has a fairly wide range of meanings, but “by” is not among them.

  Nowhere outside of the book of Psalms does le- signify authorship. It means, rather, “to,” “for,” “regarding,” or “belonging to.” These meanings open an entirely new array of possibilities for understanding the superscriptions to the psalms. At this point, however, it is necessary to look briefly at the way that Chronicles presents David’s relationship with these songs. Chronicles repeatedly claims that David was the first to institute the regular praising of God through song in the sanctuary in Jerusalem.13 As David was, by all accounts, the one who initiated the formal worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem, this is perfectly sensible as a historical premise. Nowhere in the Chronicles account, however, does it say that David actually wrote any of the songs. Rather, his innovation was to assign certain Levites, the priests who ministered in the sanctuary, to be in charge of the singing. The premise of Chronicles here seems to be that these songs were already in existence and that David simply organized their formal recitation as part of the cultic ceremonies.

  More striking are the names of the Levites whom David picked to lead the singing, names that ought to be familiar to us: “Heman son of Joel and, of his kinsmen, Asaph son of Berechiah; and, of the sons of Merari their kinsmen, Ethan son of Kushaiah” (1 Chron. 15:17); “Heman and Jeduthun had with them trumpets and cymbals” (16:42). Heman, Asaph, Ethan, Jeduthun—these are precisely the names we find in the superscriptions in the book of Psalms. As for the sons of Korah, they are mentioned later, during the reign of Jehoshaphat, but with the same function: “Levites, from among the sons of Kohath and of the sons of Korah, got up to extol the Lord God of Israel at the top of their voices” (2 Chron. 20:19). These figures are not presented as authors of psalms; they are, rather, professional singers and likely represent guilds of cultic singers that bore their names. The superscriptions that mention them should not mean “by Asaph,” for example, but rather something like “of Asaph,” in the sense of “to be performed by” or even “according to the style of ” if we imagine that each guild had its own particular manner of singing. This rendering conforms well also to “the conductor”: “to be performed by the conductor” is far more sensible than “composed by the conductor.” It also explains the frequent addition of “with instruments”: these superscriptions are instructions, detailing who is to perform the psalm and how.

  Can this understanding apply also to the superscriptions that say le-David? It is certainly possible. The phrase might signify that there was a particular style of performance that was attached to David’s name—maybe with a lyre?—or that there was a guild, perhaps part of the royal court, that took David’s name to signify the guild’s origins. Some scholars have suggested that these superscriptions signify psalms that were meant to be performed by the king himself during the cultic ceremonies, just as we know that in neighboring cultures the king regularly offered certain sacrifices as part of the ritual proceedings.14

  Alternatively, we might understand the phrase le-David to mean “regarding David” or even “about David”—that is, the psalms bearing this heading were viewed as particularly appropriate to certain experiences in David’s life. As we noted earlier, the psalms capture virtually the full range of human emotions—and no character in the Hebrew Bible had nearly as many ups and downs as David. Since these cultic songs were already associated with David in Chronicles, and since David was a talented musician according to 1 Samuel 16, the association of particular psalms with David’s life is almost obvious. Thus in the Psalter we find headings that are remarkably specific—not just “about David,” but, for example, “A psalm about David when he fled from his son Absalom” (Ps. 3:1). There is, however, nothing in Psalm 3 that explicitly mentions either David or Absalom, or anything else related to that biblical narrative; it is simply a song of lament, asking God to save the speaker from his enemies—one among many such laments in the book of Psalms. Such a song fits perfectly with that episode from David’s life, however, and it is easy enough to see how someone might intend the reference to David to illustrate the type of situation in which one might recite this particular psalm.15

  If these sorts of superscriptions seem rather haphazard—after all, many psalms could say “about David” but don’t—this impression is justified. The very randomness of the Davidic headings is highlighted by the Septuagint. Its version of Psalms has not seventy-three but eighty-five psalms with David’s name in the superscription. We can hardly imagine that the Septuagint was trying to ascribe Davidic authorship to these extra twelve psalms; if that were the case, we would expect that all of the psalms without any superscription would have been treated in the same manner. The Septuagint seems not to have equated the entirety of the book of Psalms with David; rather, it continued the recognizable trend of associating particular psalms with their famous promulgator. The process of linking psalms with David’s name, it seems, was ongoing, stretched over centuries.16

  The superscriptions to the psalms, so often taken as proof of Davidic authorship, therefore show themselves to have been rather unfixed in ancient times. They are not the only element of the book of Psalms that is unfixed in this way, however. There is evidence that the entire book is made up of smaller collections of psalms, each of which once had its own independent existence. Note the concluding line of Psalm 72, not even halfway through the book: “End of the prayers of David son of Jesse.” The use of the plural, “prayers,” in this verse shows that it is intended to conclude not merely the psalm to which it is attached, but an entire group of psalms. The problem is that this is not at all the end of the Davidic psalms; indeed, they appear again beginning with Psalm 86. The existence of independent collections within the Psalter may help to explain why one psalm seems to be repeated: Psalms 14 and 53 are virtually identical. The same psalm, it seems, was taken up into more than one collection. This may suggest yet another rendering of le-David: the phrase may identify those psalms that were, at some point, included in a collection that was understood to have been compiled—but not necessarily composed—by David.

  Even more remarkable is the evidence from outside the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint not only has some of the psalms in a different order, but actually includes a psalm that is not found in the Hebrew, Psalm 151—a psalm that even has a good Davidic superscription: “About David, when he fought Goliath in single combat.” The Dead Sea Scrolls also present the psalms in a radically different order and include not one but seven psalms unknown to the Hebrew Bible. In short, the evidence strongly suggests that the Psalter was not a closed collection of authentically Davidic compositions, but was rather an open assembly of cultic poetry that was constantly being reshaped and supplemented, right down to the beginning of the common era.

  The final piece of evidence that explodes the notion of Davidic authorship is the presence in the psalms of anachronisms: references to things and events after David’s death. Thus we find mention of the temple (Pss. 27:4; 42:5; 48:10; 65:5; 66:13; 116:19; 117:26), which was built by Solomon after David had died; the destruction by the Babylonians of the temple and the cities of Judah (74:7–8; 79:6–7), which occurred in 586 BCE, nearly four hundred years after David; and hopes for the subsequent rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (51:20) and the cities of Judah (69:36). Most famously, there is Psalm 137, which also recalls the Babylonian exile: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. . . . Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall” (137:1, 7). The recognition that David did not write the psalms emerged relatively ea
rly in biblical scholarship and was the source of some embarrassment, considering how well entrenched the idea was in tradition. As one commentator—a Christian bishop, no less—said in 1798, “the misapplication of the Psalms to the literal David has done more mischief than the misapplication of any other part of the Scriptures, among those who profess the Christian religion.”17

  With all of this evidence, we may well wonder how it is that tradition came to claim that David was in fact the author of the psalms, such that this is usually the first, and sometimes the only, thing that is known of him today. It is possible to trace at least the outlines of how this belief developed, beginning where we began: with the story of David playing the lyre for Saul, which established David as a musician. The narrative of David’s life in Samuel and Kings, however, makes no mention of David writing the psalms. Even in 2 Samuel 22, where David sings what we know also as Psalm 18, the text does not actually say that David composed the song himself; it says only that “David recited to Yahweh the words of this song” (22:1). As far as the narrative is concerned, David may just as well have taken up a preexisting song of thanksgiving, one that he found, correctly, to be appropriate to his situation.

  It is, in fact, even more likely the case that the biblical author, or a later hand, inserted this psalm into the narrative of David’s life. It is the introduction to the song that gives this away: “David recited to Yahweh the words of this song, on the day that Yahweh had saved him from the hands of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul” (22:1). As an original part of the David narrative, this deliberate contextualizing of the song seems unnecessary. We know precisely when in David’s life these words were spoken—why do we need it stated so explicitly? Notably, the very same introductory line is found in the book of Psalms, where it makes far better sense, as it matches with all of the similar superscriptions there. Thus it appears likely, if not provable, that 2 Samuel 22 was lifted entirely from Psalm 18, complete with its superscription, and inserted into the David narrative at the appropriate moment. The earliest records of David’s life mention only the youthful lyre-playing, and nothing of the psalms.

  In the later books of Chronicles, dated by most scholars to around 400 BCE, the psalms do seem to appear in connection with David, though not explicitly by name. In Chronicles, as noted above, we are told that David assigned certain Levites to be in charge of the cultic music—a notion that is not found in Samuel. As a whole, Chronicles is particularly invested in the cult and in arguing for David’s role in instituting virtually every part of it except for the physical structure of the temple (which was left for Solomon). This is an innovation of the Chronicler; in Samuel, David is credited only with bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. We may understand why the Chronicler goes to such lengths to link David with as much of the temple and cult in Jerusalem as possible: in the fourth century BCE, when Chronicles was written, Israel no longer had a king. The recently rebuilt temple was the sole cultural and political center of society. By associating the temple with David, the beloved first king of the united Israel, Chronicles positions the temple as the functional continuation of the Davidic dynasty, even as the actual line of David has ceased to rule. In the absence of a king, the temple carries on the tradition of David. It is therefore easy to recognize the political utility of the Chronicler’s portrayal of David as instituting the cult and all its trappings, including the cultic music, that is, the psalms. This at least suggests, if it does not demonstrate conclusively, that even this depiction may be without any historical basis. At the same time, whether it is true or not is less important for our current purposes than the fact that it was claimed at all. The claim of Chronicles, that David instituted the cultic music of the psalms, entered tradition and contributed to the link between the two. After Chronicles, the songs of the cult, the psalms, become David’s songs—not by authorship, but by patronage.

  When, two or three centuries later, the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the psalms by David’s name alone, this sort of patronage may well be what is intended: David is not necessarily the author of the psalms, but his name is synonymous with them. The step from there to authorship is a small one: David became viewed as the author of the psalms just as Moses became viewed as the author of the Torah, though in neither case does the Bible actually make these claims. Indeed, there is a consistent and quite ancient trend toward associating essentially anonymous texts with famous figures from the past, especially those already linked somehow with a particular corpus. If one wanted to lend authority to a work, for instance, it was typical to do so by putting it into the words of a founding figure: Moses, as in the case of Jubilees, a Jewish text from the second century BCE that introduces itself as having been dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai; or Ezra, as in the late first-century CE composition known as 4 Ezra, written in the first person in Ezra’s voice.

  This process can be witnessed also within the Bible: an anonymous prophet of the sixth century BCE who gave eloquent voice to the hopes of the exilic Jewish community attached his work to, and thereby borrowed the authority of, the writings of the famous eighth-century BCE prophet Isaiah.18 It is likely, then, that as the association of David with cultic poetry increased over time, more and more such poetic material was attributed to him—and, as we have seen, there is even evidence that this was the case, in the expanded attributions of psalms to David in the Septuagint. What we see, then, is a shift from the psalms having been authorized by David to the psalms having the authority of David, from text perceived as associated with David to text perceived as authored by David.

  It is not my intention to suggest that the shift from David as lyre-player to David as author of the psalms was actually accomplished by these aforementioned texts; texts are, more often than not, reflections of the changing traditions in the societies from which they emerge, rather than instigators of change themselves. Thus it is most likely that the view of David’s authorship of the psalms developed gradually over time, from the simple playing of the lyre for Saul to the full-blown composition of the entire Psalter. What is important, however, is that the notion of Davidic authorship of the psalms is not rooted in any historical fact—not even in the ostensibly historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible itself. It belongs, rather, to the growth of traditions, about the psalms and about the figure of David. When the traditions are unraveled and the evidence examined, it becomes apparent that David did not write the psalms.

  With this realization the traditional image of David is irrevocably altered. The lyre has dropped from his hands; these magnificent songs, full of joy and suffering, hope and faith, have vanished from his throat and pen. The psalms have lost none of their power, nor, for the most part, their great antiquity; but they can no longer represent David. Without them, the David we have inherited as a culture becomes something of an empty vessel: the words that we have for so long associated with his inner life, that have for generations provided us with a direct link to his heart and mind, serve that purpose no more. This newly created vacancy in the standard portrait of David provides us with an opportunity, however—a chance to understand the man anew, without any preconceptions imposed by the accumulated weight of tradition.

  We also may now take a step back and ask whether there is any truth to the story that lies at the root of the notion that David wrote the psalms, that is, the narrative of his coming to Saul’s attention in 1 Samuel 16. There are two distinct elements to this story, each of which plays out independently in the rest of the David narrative. The first is that David soothed Saul’s spirit with his lyre-playing; the second is that he entered Saul’s military service as his arms-bearer. It seems probable that the second of these has some historical veracity. As the rest of the story demonstrates, and as we will see, David’s rise to greatness in Israel was largely the result of his military prowess. At some point, therefore, David almost certainly joined Saul’s army.

  As for David’s playing of the lyre, it is important to recognize the circumstances under which this is said to
occur. According to the biblical narrative, the only reason David needs to play the lyre for Saul is because the authors deem Saul to be, in essence, mentally unfit to rule: “the spirit of Yahweh had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh overwhelmed him” (1 Sam. 16:14). In the next chapter, we will have the opportunity to critically examine the biblical depiction of Saul’s mental state. Suffice it to say for the moment that the popular notion of Saul’s insanity is dubious at best. And if Saul’s “evil spirit” is an invention of the biblical authors, so too is David’s lyre-playing, for the two are always linked.

  What we can say at this point is that the evil spirit said to descend on Saul is carefully counterposed in the Bible with the claim that “the spirit of Yahweh gripped David” from the day that Samuel went to Bethlehem to secretly anoint him as king (1 Sam. 16:13). The narrative intentionally constructs Saul as David’s foil, and David as predestined to replace Saul as king. And it does so by means of a historically unverifiable indicator: the invisible, indescribable “spirit of Yahweh.”

  From a faith perspective, such a thing cannot be challenged; from a historical perspective, it cannot be substantiated or corroborated. The “spirit of Yahweh” is a theological explanation for the historical circumstance of Saul’s eventual downfall and David’s rise in his place. It is also an explanation unique to the narrative of Samuel, as it is absent from the history of David’s life presented in Chronicles. It is a literary construction, not a historical record.

 

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