The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero

by Joel S. Baden

  Like Saul’s acceptance of David’s kingship, however, this too is confusing from a narrative standpoint: why should David have to deny so forcefully a desire to kill Saul? In the story to this point, David has never shown any aggression toward him. Rather, it has been quite the reverse: Saul has been constantly seeking David’s life. All David has ever expressed is a desire to be allowed to live. The text’s strong defense of David is at odds with the story, but it is absolutely comprehensible when understood as an apology. Saul would, after all, eventually die—in battle, just as David (coincidentally) predicts. David would become king after Saul, though he had no right to the throne. He had also already tried once to seize the kingship. Anyone in Israel may well have wondered whether David had a hand in Saul’s death, given the way things turned out. These stories address that issue directly: not only did David not have a hand in Saul’s death, but when he had the perfect chance to bring it about—twice—he didn’t take it. As we will see, this particular apologetic defense of David will recur later. For now, we can simply note that it raises the question: if the Bible goes to such lengths to argue that David wasn’t involved in Saul’s death, should we consider the possibility that he might have been?

  David and Nabal

  SANDWICHED BETWEEN THE TWO episodes of David sparing Saul’s life is the story of David and Nabal (1 Sam. 25).11 We have already discussed this episode in the introduction, but it is worth considering again, now that we have a better sense of David’s time in the wilderness. In this story, as a reminder, David sends ten of his men to the Calebite Nabal, a wealthy owner of flocks, indicating that since Nabal’s shepherds had come to no harm under David’s protection, Nabal might be inclined to give David some supplies. Nabal refuses, so David and all of his men arrive at Nabal’s door fully armed. Abigail, Nabal’s wife, greets David with some food and drink and denigrates her husband while proclaiming David’s future kingship. David agrees not to harm Nabal—and yet, miraculously, God strikes Nabal down a few days later. David immediately sends his men to take Abigail as his wife, to which she readily agrees.

  David’s motivations in sending his men to Nabal should be obvious. For some time they have been in the wilderness, a hard place in which to survive, and have been forced to move constantly, away from Saul and away from the various local communities that want nothing to do with them. Perhaps, as seems to be the case with Ziph, their reputation has preceded them. Rather than gaining strength, they seem to be losing it. And as David and his men grow more desperate, they have to seek out sustenance in more direct ways. Thus a thinly veiled threat, clothed though it may be in polite language, might be a way of gaining access to a supply of goods, one that could sustain them for a long while.

  Nabal knows precisely with whom he is dealing. David, after all, was once a reasonably well-known military leader, and his flight from Saul hardly could have gone unnoticed. David assumes that Nabal knows him, saying, “Greet him in my name” (1 Sam. 25:5). Though Nabal’s response makes it seem at first as if he has never heard of David, a closer look reveals that this is not the case. “There are many slaves today who run away from their masters” (25:10), Nabal says. This is a cutting remark, aimed squarely at the relationship between Saul and David. David, Nabal implies, is no better than a slave to Saul, and his flight is equivalent to running away from a master. Nabal not only knows who David is, he knows which side deserves his allegiance. Here again we see two key features of David’s wilderness experience: that he is known, and that he is unloved. As for David’s men, they “come from I don’t know where” (25:11)—the ultimate insult in ancient Israelite society. Almost everyone in the Bible is identified by his or her homeland, as kinship affiliation was the basis of personal identity. To be without a place and family of birth was to be virtually nonexistent. This is what it means to enter the wilderness—and we may note that once David enters the wilderness, he is never again referred to as being from Bethlehem. Like his men, he has effectively renounced his past affiliations. Even his father, Jesse, is mentioned again only as part of David’s name. He disappears from the narrative. Nabal knows who David is, but he knows him as a man who has given up all that identifies him as Israelite, as part of a community, and has chosen to make his way in the wilderness.

  To run a protection racket, one must be willing to do the dirty work if the victim refuses to pay up. David, never afraid to make the necessary effort, is certainly willing in this case, arriving with his men fully armed, even admitting his intentions to kill Nabal. Did Abigail really come out to greet David with provisions? It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she recognized what was about to happen and tried to forestall it. If this is the case, however, she seems to have miscalculated. By showing David that Nabal had plenty to spare, Abigail may have sealed her husband’s fate. It is possible that she delayed it—after all, Nabal doesn’t die right away, but a few days later. But once David’s men had gone through what she gave them, they would have known that there was more where that came from. We may speculate that Abigail’s gift tided David over for a moment but also ensured that he would return. And this time, there could be no further negotiations.

  In Israel, when a woman’s husband died, the husband’s family was responsible for providing a new husband for her from within the clan, so that the family’s landholdings would not pass to an outsider—a concept known as levirate marriage. This arrangement also ensured the security of the widow, for without protection from her husband’s clan, she would be vulnerable. If a widow could not find a husband, she was to return to her father’s house, for the same reasons.12 Deuteronomy repeatedly aligns the widow with orphans and resident aliens, the two other classes of people who would not have kinship protection.13 Abigail was particularly vulnerable, as she seems to have had no son and was therefore the sole inheritor of her husband’s property. It would have been unthinkable for her to go off willingly into the wilderness with David and abandon her familial security and kinship obligations. It is therefore far more likely that David married her by force—on the strength of the armed men standing around Abigail and her newly killed husband.

  But what advantage was it to David to marry Abigail? We can discount the possibility that he was in love with her—they had just met, after all, and under rather fraught circumstances. This being David, we have to imagine that he saw something substantial to be gained. And yet he had already taken Nabal’s property, the prize he was ostensibly after. Abigail could neither prevent David from seizing her husband’s possessions nor provide him with any additional goods. Something more must have been at stake.

  The key to understanding David’s motivation in marrying Abigail is to be found in the status of her husband. Nabal is described as extravagantly rich—he is said to own three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. For the purpose of comparison, when Solomon is said to receive tribute from his entire kingdom, it amounts to three thousand sheep per month (1 Kings 5:3). That’s coming from all corners of Solomon’s territory—Nabal is a single individual. In other words, Nabal is not merely wealthy—he is royally wealthy. In the independent territory of Judah, where there was no king yet, the only individuals who could possibly command such a fortune would be the chiefs of the various clans. It therefore seems likely that Nabal was not any old Calebite but was in fact the chief of the Calebite clan.14 As noted above, when a widow remarried, her former husband’s property—as well as, in theory, her husband’s position—passed to her new husband. In marrying Abigail, David gained something far more valuable than tangible property. He gained the title of chief of the Calebites.

  And yet David does not remain in Calebite territory to take advantage of his new position; he and his new wife, along with Ahinoam and David’s men, leave immediately. It is safe to say that, despite holding the nominal title of clan chief, David did not have the power to enforce his newly acquired status. If he was not allowed to stay even for a few days in the small towns of Keilah and Ziph, it is unlikely that the entire tribe of Caleb
would have permitted him to occupy the tribal leadership. David had, after all, killed their chief and broken the established custom of levirate marriage, thereby depriving the tribe of its rightful land. He was not prepared to impose his will on the Calebites, but he took what he needed and had prepared himself well for the future. Should the time ever come when David had enough power to return, he would bring with him Abigail, the living proof of his right to rule.

  As the physical embodiment of David’s newly acquired title, Abigail was the real prize. This raises the suspicion that the protection racket was not the endgame, but rather a preparatory move. What David needed was Nabal dead and Abigail to be his wife. It seems likely, then, that David knew very well that Nabal would never accept his terms. Nor should Nabal have been expected to; if he was the chief of the Calebites, he would have felt little threat from a band of hooligans, especially one that had been rejected at every previous stop. David must have known it would come to this.

  We may intellectually comprehend David’s actions toward Nabal and Abigail as part of his plan to gain power for the future. But we cannot simply pass over the death of Nabal. There is no moralizing to be done here. This was murder, plain and simple. David wanted Nabal’s property, and more important his title, and to get it he killed the man in cold blood. Not even the most ardent admirer of David could justify his actions here—which is why the biblical authors take the only way out and attribute the death to the unknowable and unimpeachable God. Nabal’s murder is disturbing also because, though it is not the only death for which David is responsible, it is the first. Up to this point, David has perhaps acted badly—in his attempted coup, in his unwelcome stay at Keilah—but he has not seriously harmed anyone, except perhaps himself. With the killing of Nabal, David has crossed a moral threshold. He can no longer be seen as put upon, as oppressed, as righteous. He is revealed as a thoroughly amoral individualist, concerned only for his own well-being. These properties serve him well in his attempts to gain and keep the throne, as we will see, but they are hardly the character traits one associates with the famous King David. From this point forward, we cannot be surprised by anything David does: if he could kill Nabal, he could well do something just as bad, or worse. And that is precisely what he does next.

  David and the Philistines

  THE WILDERNESS, INHOSPITABLE TO all, was even more so for David. He had to contend not only with the landscape, but with the inhabitants, who were more than ready to give him up, and Saul, who mounted regular campaigns to track him down.15 For these reasons alone, leaving the territory of Judah must have seemed a sensible decision. But there was also nothing David could accomplish in the wilderness. One could not find one’s fortune there—at best, one might find temporary shelter, as in Keilah, or a momentary bounty, as with Nabal. But these were fleeting successes, and once the welcome was worn out and the supplies used up, David was back where he started. There were not enough outlaws in the wilderness for him to bring together and mount an effective challenge to Saul, or even to defend against one of Saul’s search parties. Life in the wilderness was about survival, and David wanted to do more than just survive. He had to move elsewhere.

  But his choices were limited. The desert to the east, the Dead Sea region, was and remains one of the least habitable places on the planet. To the south was the Negev, which was almost as bad, and to the north was Saul’s territory. This left only the west—the heartland of the Philistines. And that is where David went.

  Treason is a strong word. David had long since given up his position in Saul’s army, and with it any affiliation with Saul’s kingdom. He had been repeatedly rejected by the people of Judah. At this point, David was almost as much an enemy to Israel and Judah as the Philistines themselves. By seeking shelter among the Philistines, David was less a traitor and more a defector. And, like most defectors, he was welcomed with open arms. Surely, had a prominent Philistine gone to Saul and offered his services, Saul would have been quick to accept. So, too, Achish, the king of Gath, accepted the sudden influx of both bodies and arms that David and his men provided.

  Gath was a logical choice for David. The city was the closest of the Philistine Pentapolis to Judah (which is undoubtedly why it is featured most prominently in the Bible), so it was the easiest to get to and, should any trouble arise, the easiest to get away from.16 And unlike some of the more far-flung parts of Philistine territory, Gath was beyond Saul’s ability to capture, meaning that David knew himself to be safe there. Sure enough, “When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he did not continue to pursue him” (1 Sam. 27:4). Gath also controlled a large territory, especially to the south. This gave both David and Achish an opportunity. Rather than stay in Gath, where he and his men would be a drain on the royal resources and where they would have little to do, David asked Achish to grant him control of a small town near the Negev called Ziklag. This suited both parties. David could act as a vassal for Achish, as a garrison to the south, solidifying Philistine control over the area. He would finally have a secure base, and even some official power—albeit Philistine power—to wield from it.

  We have already seen what the typical Philistine practice was regarding the treatment of Judah. Between the relatively rare major attacks, for which both armies would mass in an open field, the Philistines launched a regular stream of small raids against small towns and fields. And this was to be David’s new career: raiding Judah. He was the perfect man for the job. He and his men had experience in raiding from their time in the wilderness, and they were familiar with the territory. And clearly Achish had no doubts that David would take up his new position without compunction, another reminder that no one—not Saul, not the Judahites, and not the Philistines—seems to have thought that David was allied with Judah or Israel. David’s strong independent streak was more than a character trait; it was an ethnic and political stance. To call him an Israelite at this point would be purely nostalgic. David was his own man.

  Still, it is understandably hard to imagine that David actually led raids against towns in Judah. This is the man who would one day become king of Judah, and of all Israel. Surely he could not have acted as Judah’s enemy. At least, this is what the biblical authors want us to believe. According to the Bible, David raided “the Geshurites, the Gizrites, and the Amalekites” (1 Sam. 27:8)—inhabitants of the southern wasteland leading down to Egypt. But he would tell Achish that he had raided regions of Judah. To ensure that the truth would not come out, David is said to have left “no man or woman alive; he would take flocks, herds, asses, camels, and clothing” (27:9). Thus, no survivors of these non-Judahite settlements would remain to reveal where David had actually been.

  This biblical scenario is thoroughly improbable. Although few people lived in the region to the south of the Philistine territory, it was by no means entirely deserted. The main trade routes between Egypt and Canaan moved through this area. An absence of dense settlements does not mean an absence of people. And trade routes carried more than just goods—they carried information. It seems unlikely that David could have raided this region, repeatedly, and wiped entire settlements off the map without word reaching the Philistines. The deception recounted in the Bible is only partially for the benefit of Achish. It is mostly for the audience—it is they who will be unable to find a Geshurite or Gizrite or Amalekite to contradict David’s story. Not because David left none alive, but because he never attacked them. Unlikely as it may seem, David was probably raiding Judahite communities, just as he told Achish.

  It should be remembered that Judah was not a unified tribe. Raiding one town would not have affected others. There was no collective defense, especially in the more sparsely settled south where David was located. And why should David not have raided Judah? It is only from a later perspective, after David has become king, that such actions become unthinkable. At this point, David was a Judahite, an Israelite, in name only. In practice—as an itinerant outlaw, a raider, a mercenary for hire—David was a habiru.

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bsp; David the Habiru

  NEARLY A THOUSAND YEARS before David, in the nineteenth century BCE, Sumerian texts describe a group of mercenaries, ethnically unaffiliated, who could be hired by local city-states. Other Sumerian texts from the eighteenth through fifteenth centuries fill out the picture somewhat: these people spoke a variety of languages, wandered the countryside, and yet had some semblance of internal military organization, such that it was necessary, on occasion, to treat them as a cohesive group—one text even records a treaty made with them. The Sumerian term used to identify this loose collective is SA.GAZ, which means “bandit” or “murderer.” The Sumerian word is translated into the Semitic languages as habiru.17

  On the other end of the Fertile Crescent, in Egypt, the habiru appear as well. In the fifteenth century BCE, an Egyptian general requested of Pharaoh Thutmose III that he be allowed to bring his horses inside the city walls of Joppa, out of fear that they might be stolen by the habiru. Around a century later, Pharaoh Seti I sent his troops in search of the habiru who had attacked one of his towns. The habiru appear to have been present also on the northern coast of Syria, in the city-state of Ugarit. Farther north, in Anatolia, the Hittites used the habiru as mercenaries as early as the sixteenth century BCE.