The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero

by Joel S. Baden

TO BE MORE ACCURATE, David stood nearly alone. One descendant of Saul remained alive—not by chance, but very much by David’s choice. Jonathan, Saul’s eldest son, had a son of his own. His name was Meribbaal, probably meaning “the lord is my master.” At least, this is how he is known in Chronicles. In Samuel, his name has been changed, just as Ishbaal’s was. We know him as Mephibosheth.30

  Meribbaal may have been Saul’s grandson, and thus in line for the throne, but he almost certainly would never have held it, even in the absence of David. For Meribbaal was disabled, his feet having been crushed in an early childhood accident. Modern notions may abhor the idea that such a disability should prevent someone from achieving high office. But it was less than a century ago that Franklin Roosevelt felt compelled to hide the fact that he needed to use a wheelchair because of the debilitating effects of polio. In the ancient world, it was even less thinkable that a physically impaired person should rule. Kings were, in ancient Israel and everywhere in the Near East, servants of God, divinely ordained and anointed. For Israel, which saw God as the perfect power behind all creation, imperfections in that creation were a problem. Though people with such imperfections obviously could not be eliminated, they could be withheld from positions where they would remind others of God’s creative mistakes. Thus priests, who served before God in the sanctuary, could have no physical impairments (Lev. 21:17–23). Sacrificial animals, brought before God as offerings, could not be blemished in any way (Lev. 22:17–25). So too the king, who stood before God as the leader of God’s people, was expected to be physically perfect. Consider the description of Saul, who “stood a head taller than all the people” and of whom Samuel said, “There is none like him among all the people” (1 Sam. 10:23–24). Or consider David, who, even though God tells Samuel to “pay no attention to his appearance or stature” (16:7), is described as “ruddy-cheeked, bright-eyed, and handsome” (16:12).

  It is not that a physically impaired person was of no use to society. An ancient Sumerian myth called “Enki and Ninmah” tells of the creation of humans by the god Enki.31 Rejoicing in his accomplishment, he and the goddess Ninmah relax with some beer and find themselves playing a drinking game: Ninmah creates imperfect humans, and Enki finds a place for them in the new human society. The blind man becomes a musician, the eunuch becomes a courtier, and the one whose feet are crippled becomes a metalsmith. This is essentially the same notion that we find in Greek mythology, in which the physically impaired deity Hephaestus spends his days forging the weapons of the gods. These myths, distant from each other in both time and place, agree not only on what the disabled man’s role is, but also on what his role is not: he is no king, even if he might be a deity. In large part, this was probably due to the fact that the disabled man could not perform the most important task of the king: to lead the nation to war. Meribbaal may have been of royal descent, but he could never take on the practical duties of being king.32

  The situation could hardly be more perfect for David. He did not need to eliminate Meribbaal, for Meribbaal posed no real threat. Quite the contrary: it was entirely in David’s interest to keep him alive. After Meribbaal, the next in line could well be someone with the physical ability and ambition to challenge David. As long as Meribbaal remained safe, however, the royal succession would be in a holding pattern: Israel might desire that one of Saul’s descendants reclaim the throne, but the sole remaining heir was incapable of doing so.

  Keeping Meribbaal alive also would provide David with another opportunity to score political points with his new kingdom. With the deaths of Saul and his descendants, David must have seemed not only cruel, but also deeply insensitive to the attachment that Israel felt for its only royal family. Meribbaal provided an opportunity for David to demonstrate the opposite: that David had never been anti-Saul, but that the previous deaths were merely the result of circumstance. Given the chance to display royal generosity, David could point readily to Meribbaal. Thus the Bible presents David as asking, “Is there anyone still left of the House of Saul with whom I can keep faith for the sake of Jonathan?” (2 Sam. 9:1). No one could accuse David of seeking to obliterate Saul’s name from history. His care for Meribbaal would prove his affection for the traditions of the north.

  David summoned Meribbaal to him, an invitation that undoubtedly would have been terrifying for the young man. After all, the last northerner to be personally invited to see David was Abner, and the previous heir to the throne was Ishbaal—both now dead. Meribbaal could have no idea what David’s intentions were. Thus he made his fealty to David as clear as possible. Upon arriving, he “fell on his face and prostrated himself” (2 Sam. 9:6), in the standard Near Eastern gesture of subjugation.33 When David spoke his name, Meribbaal’s response was equally abject: “At your service” (9:6). But Meribbaal need not have worried. David had no intention of harming him and told him, “Don’t be afraid, for I will keep faith with you for the sake of your father Jonathan” (9:7). Then, in an act of ostensible generosity, David laid out the terms of this faithfulness: “I will give you back all the land of your grandfather Saul, and you shall always eat at my table” (9:7).

  Most readers understand this as true kindness: David is promising to care for Meribbaal, even perhaps to treat him as part of the royal court. David’s actions are, however, less altruistic than they appear. By decreeing that Meribbaal would eat with David “always,” David was in essence confining him to house arrest in the palace. Though Meribbaal would not die, he would be a glorified prisoner, kept constantly under David’s watchful eye. This practice of royal house arrest is known from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. In fact, ironically, it is precisely what happens at the end of the Davidic dynasty. In the very last verse of the books of Kings, after the kingdom of Judah has been destroyed by the Babylonians and its leaders killed or exiled, we hear of the fate of the last surviving Davidic monarch, Jehoiachin. Jehoiachin, who had long been imprisoned in Babylon, was released from his cell and brought to the court of the Babylonian king Evil-merodach. There, “he ate before [the king] always, all the days of his life” (2 Kings 25:29). The parallels between that story and the story of Meribbaal are apparent. The Babylonians had conquered Judah, just as David had vanquished the north. There was no surviving administrative structure to support the return of the Davidic monarchy, just as there was no structure to support the return of Saul’s family to power. And just as the Davidic monarchy would never resume after the house arrest of Jehoiachin, so Saul’s line would never regain the throne after the confinement of Meribbaal. In both cases the historical status of the royal line is acknowledged, but at the same time a firm statement is made that that royal line’s time has passed. David’s actions toward Meribbaal are only an outward show of generosity. In fact, they are a death sentence for the House of Saul.

  What should we make, then, of David’s promise to grant to Meribbaal all of Saul’s land? This appears to be a kindness, as Saul’s royal lands would have been quite considerable, at least by the standards of ancient Israel. Yet this too is deceptive. After all, Meribbaal, confined to David’s court, could hardly take advantage of the property. In fact, David did something quite clever here. He struck a deal with a man named Ziba, Saul’s former steward: “You and your sons and your servants shall work the land for Meribbaal and shall bring in its yield to provide food for your master’s grandson to eat” (2 Sam. 9:10). That is, Saul’s landholdings may belong nominally to Meribbaal, but they will be worked by Ziba and his family, who are thereby indebted to David. What’s more, this arrangement means that even though Meribbaal is eating at the king’s table, he is not eating of the king’s food. He is, in effect, paying for his own imprisonment.34 Again, David has turned an ostensibly kind gesture to his own benefit.

  The fact that David had the authority to grant Saul’s former lands to Meribbaal is also revealing. Traditionally, Israelite property was inviolable, held in perpetuity by the family, clan, and tribe. Even if it was necessary to sell the land, it was to be returned to
its original owners after a time (Lev. 26:10–34). Israel’s territories were considered to have been granted to them by God himself at the moment of Joshua’s conquest. This was a cultural understanding that Saul never violated—nowhere is it intimated that he claimed any authority over the landholdings of his subjects. David, on the other hand, arrogated this authority to himself, in line with the regular practices of other ancient Near Eastern monarchies.35 This must have been a shock to the Israelite population, who would have felt that their ancestral lands were suddenly in jeopardy of being seized by the crown.36 But David’s power was such that he could overturn this long-standing tradition without fear of retribution.37

  Given David’s well-established tendency to dispatch by the sword those who stood in his way, it is revealing that he took another path with Meribbaal. The value of Meribbaal’s life must have been higher for David than his death. And indeed, David’s treatment of Meribbaal is a stroke of brilliant diplomacy. With one deft move he elevated to prominence an heir who could never become king, kept under close watch his most obvious opponent (even if Meribbaal was only a symbolic threat), financed Meribbaal’s imprisonment with Meribbaal’s own land, created a dependent in charge of Saul’s property in Ziba, and in all of this displayed to Israel his implicit loyalty to the memory of Saul’s kingship.

  But one final step needed to be taken with regard to Saul’s family, now that they were no longer a threat. David collected the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh-Gilead, where they had been resting since the battle at Mount Gilboa, and the bodies of Saul’s other descendants killed at Gibeon and buried them in the family tomb of Saul’s father, in the territory of Benjamin. This postmortem repatriation was highly symbolic. Family tombs were of great significance in ancient Israel. They formed a major part of a family’s title to the land: if one’s descendants were buried there, then no one else could claim possession. The family tomb was effectively a deed of ownership. The tomb was also a locus for religious observance. In early Israel, there was a well-established cult of the dead. Living descendants offered sacrifices and poured libations at the gravesites of their ancestors, in the hopes that the deceased would protect them from the great beyond.38

  It was thus of utmost importance that those who died be returned to their family tombs. At the same time, it meant that David had every reason to want to prevent Saul and Jonathan (and Ishbaal, who was buried in Hebron) from being buried in Benjamin. Without the body of the king there, the claim of Saul’s descendants to their land was weakened. And, more important, there could be no cult of the dead on Saul’s behalf. As long as the king remained elsewhere, there would be no place for anyone to rally to Saul’s memory. The one physical location where Saul could be venerated would be empty.

  For David to be willing to return the bones of Saul and his descendants to the family tomb, then, signals his growing sense of security. The threat of a Saulide uprising had passed, permanently. Returning the bones would have no adverse consequences and might just score David some points on the political front. It was a prudent and gracious move.

  FROM THE MOMENT OF Saul’s death to the moment his bones were returned to Benjamin, David had come a remarkably long way. He began as a vassal of the Philistines, a servant of foreigners, and ended as the king of a newly united Judah and Israel. At every step, David took advantage of his changing situation. He used the powerful support of the Philistines to consolidate his rule over Judah. He used his new power over Judah to confront and wear down Abner and Ishbaal. He used the increasing weakness of the north against itself, driving Abner to defect and Ishbaal’s killers to turn traitor. He used Ishbaal’s death to become king in Israel. He used the combined forces of Judah and Israel to declare his independence from and to fend off the Philistines. He used both murder and diplomacy to control the remainder of Saul’s line.

  David was a brilliant and ruthless tactician. Nothing he did was unexpected or particularly innovative within the larger standards of the ancient world in which he lived—he was simply good at what he did. Of course, attaining the throne and removing the threat of Saul’s descendants was just the beginning. We now turn to the question of what David actually achieved while he was on the throne. How did he create his new kingdom in his image?

  Chapter 5

  David’s Kingdom

  THE MYTH OF NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS ORIGINS

  TO BE REMEMBERED AS A glorious king, one must have reigned over a glorious kingdom. In Israel’s cultural memory, no kingdom was more glorious than the united Israel and Judah under David. This was an easy period to glorify—not only was it the only time when the northern and southern kingdoms were ruled by a single monarch, but it lasted for only two generations, under David and then Solomon, before disintegrating. The best times are always those of the irrecoverable past, largely because that past can be reshaped in our memory, made finer than it ever really was or could have been.

  David is credited with the creation of the nation of Israel. He established the eternal capital, Jerusalem, where he inaugurated the worship of Yahweh. And he expanded Israel’s borders through the conquest of many neighboring nations. Some of this is true; some is false. Much of it is either exaggerated or misunderstood. It is our task to understand what David actually accomplished, and why.

  The New Capital

  ONE OF DAVID’S FIRST acts upon becoming king of Israel was to conquer Jerusalem and establish it as his new capital. It was a smart choice. Jerusalem was an ancient city, and in fact an ancient capital city.1 Archaeological discoveries have revealed that the city was probably inhabited as early as the fourth millennium BCE.2 Its location, atop one of the higher hills in the area and fed by a reliable water source, made it a natural place to settle. There are references to Jerusalem in Egyptian texts from the twentieth century BCE, and in the fourteenth century BCE Jerusalem was the capital of a significant territory in the hills of Judah, complete with a king (albeit a vassal of Egypt). As with his choice of Hebron in Judah, David’s choice of a capital had historical and cultural resonance.

  Before David arrived, however, Jerusalem and its surrounding area had fallen under the control of a people known as the Jebusites. Like the Gibeonites, the Jebusites were a non-Israelite population. They were well enough ensconced in Jerusalem that the expansion of the Israelites throughout the surrounding region was not sufficient to displace them. This is reflected in the biblical account of the conquest, in which, among the lists of the many regions Joshua conquered, we find the notice that “the people of Judah could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Josh. 15:63). Thus Jerusalem goes unmentioned in the stories of Saul’s reign, because, like Gibeon, it was not part of Saul’s kingdom. For David, this presented an opportunity: rather than make his capital in part of Saul’s former territory, or in the backwater of Judah, he could establish his own place, one with historical power but without any baggage from the Saulide legacy. Moreover, David could capture Jerusalem with his personal militia, rather than with any Judahite or Israelite help, and thereby turn the city into something of a private royal fiefdom—rightly called the “City of David.”3

  Jerusalem was also well located for David’s purposes. As David was the first king to rule both Judah and Israel, it was important that he choose a capital that would not appear to show favoritism toward either. Jerusalem is situated almost directly on the border between the two. The obvious modern analogy is the choice of Washington, D.C., as the new capital of the United States, positioned as it is on the line between the northern and southern states. We see David’s choice of Jerusalem as almost divinely inspired, since we know that the city became the spiritual capital of the Judeo-Christian faith. The Bible, written after Jerusalem was well established as the holy city of Israel, takes the same perspective. But for David, the choice was purely tactical, a considered political move.4

  The actual conquest of the city is narrated quite briefly in the Bible. As David and his forces were strong enough to withstand the a
ttacks of the Philistines, it is reasonable to assume that the capture of Jerusalem was a relatively straightforward affair. What is perhaps lost in the brevity of the narrative is the way that David undid centuries of Jerusalem’s independence. We are accustomed to thinking of the Jebusites as the enemy—after all, they are frequently listed as one of the indigenous nations that the Israelites were to dispossess during the conquest and are therefore aligned with the Canaanites. Yet in reality, the Jebusites had lived peacefully among the early Israelites for generations, and Jerusalem had been a proud and independent city for millennia. It is not surprising that David should have wanted it as his capital, nor that he would have taken what he wanted. But if we put ourselves in the place of the Jebusites, we may recognize just how sudden and violent an upheaval the conquest of the city was. It is hard to mourn a people who no longer exist. But the Jebusites, like every other ancient populace, had their own culture, their own history, their own narratives that had been cultivated for centuries. The mutual understanding between the Jebusites and the Israelites was undone in the flash of an eye. The creation of David’s kingdom meant the destruction of the Jebusites. In fact, the Jebusites would become a metaphor for an obliterated people. In the book of the prophet Zechariah, the destruction of the Philistine cities is predicted, and of Ekron it is said, “Ekron shall be like the Jebusites” (9:7). David created a new nation, but in doing so he wiped another clean off the map. The Bible, and the traditions that emerged from it, consider this justified by the results, by the transformation of the city into Israel’s glorious capital. But if it happened today, we would call it genocide.

  Jerusalem

  The modern tourist walking the streets of Jerusalem’s old city can still feel the power of the ancient site. As one passes through one of the seven gates embedded in the mighty walls, a few short turns lead to the Temple Mount, where the Wailing Wall supports the enormous platform on which the temple once stood, now dominated by the Dome of the Rock. From the top of the Temple Mount one can see the full panorama of hills and valleys all around, and one can sense how this place would have been the center of the kingdom. It all appears utterly befitting the capital city of the great David.