The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero

by Joel S. Baden

  Absalom, some time after David had welcomed him back into his arms, “provided himself with a chariot, horses, and fifty men to run before him” (2 Sam. 15:1). The import of this may be lost on the contemporary reader, but it would have been very apparent to the ancient Israelite audience. Chariots and horses were distinctly royal possessions. In fact, they are almost always associated in the Bible with foreign kings: Pharaoh in pursuit of the Israelites after the Exodus; the coalition of Canaanite kings who engage Joshua in battle; the Philistines who confront Saul early in his reign, and again at Mount Gilboa; the Arameans whom David defeats in the battle against Ammon; and others.15 Solomon, famous for his wealth, is said to have had thousands of chariots and horses. These were so strongly associated with kingship that they are the first item in Samuel’s list of reasons why Israel will be unhappy with a king: “He will take your sons and appoint them as his charioteers and horsemen, and to run before his chariots” (1 Sam. 8:11). Absalom, in other words, has begun accumulating the trappings of kingship.

  Absalom took one further step toward the kingship. He would go to the city gates and meet those who came there to plead a judicial case. In Israel, the city gate was the traditional locus for judicial proceedings.16 The city elders would sit on benches by the gate, those with a case would come before them to have it heard, and the elders would render judgment.17 But ultimately, justice was the responsibility of the king. This was a common understanding throughout the ancient Near East. It is the principle behind the famous Mesopotamian legal code of Hammurabi, which begins by explaining that the gods had chosen Hammurabi from among all men “to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.”18 The same sentiment is found in 2 Samuel 8, at the conclusion of the record of David’s victories: “David executed true justice among all his people” (8:15).

  Absalom, however, seems to have felt that David’s justice was not quite good enough, that David was neglecting his judicial responsibilities.19 He would say to everyone who appeared at the gate with a case, “there is no one assigned to you by the king to hear it” (2 Sam. 15:3). But he went further, not only denigrating David, but suggesting that he, Absalom, could do better: “If only I were appointed judge in the land”—that is, king—“and everyone with a suit or a claim came before me, I would rule in his favor” (15:4). Absalom played on what must have been a popular sentiment that David was ignoring his subjects. Just in case this wasn’t convincing enough, however, Absalom also effectively promised everyone who showed up that he would decide in their favor: “It is clear that your claim is good and right” (15:3), he said to each person. He did not allow people to bow to him—instead, he embraced and kissed them. In this way, the Bible says, “Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel” (15:6).

  After four years of building up his image among the Israelite populace, Absalom made his final move. He told David that, when he was in exile in Geshur, he had made a vow to worship Yahweh if he ever returned, and now he wanted to fulfill that vow in Hebron. David, in a sure sign that he had no inkling what was going on, permitted Absalom to go. Had David had any idea that Absalom was planning a coup, he hardly would have allowed the prince to go to Hebron, of all places—the very city where David himself claimed the kingship. Sure enough, Absalom sent word to all the tribes of Israel, announcing that he had become king in Hebron. The Bible tells us that “the conspiracy gained strength, and the people supported Absalom in increasing numbers” (2 Sam. 15:12).

  That Absalom was able to amass enough popular support to declare himself king is a clear indication that David was unprepared for the insurrection.20 David had proved himself to have a remarkable gift for reading the political winds and riding them to success after success. Undoubtedly, he thought that he had settled the issue of his succession by making a deal with Absalom at Amnon’s expense. He would have had no reason to suspect that Absalom would be impatient. We should also be surprised, because no rationale is provided in the biblical narrative for why Absalom decided to stage a coup. What motivated him to take such a bold step? Perhaps he was irritated at having had to wait five years to return to his former position. Perhaps he realized that a man who could have his firstborn son murdered was not the most trustworthy of co-conspirators. Perhaps he thought that he would be relatively old by the time he gained the throne, should David have a long life. But perhaps the simplest answer is that shown by the course of events: Absalom declared himself king because he could. The real question is why Absalom was successful.

  For all of the praise that the biblical authors and subsequent tradition lavish on David, the main accomplishment that the Bible attributes to him as king is the conquest of foreign nations in 2 Samuel 8. Although their claims are exaggerated, as we have seen, they are not to be dismissed—David was undoubtedly a fine military leader. But if expanding Israel’s territory was worthwhile from a royal perspective, from the standpoint of the people David was not so admirable. He had claimed power by force in both Judah and Israel—in Judah disrupting the long-established independence of the various clans, and in Israel destroying the only royal line the people had ever known. He had seized the ark, a popular cultic symbol, and appropriated it for himself and his new capital. Military victories may have added to the nation’s glory, but most Israelites, farmers and shepherds for generations, hardly would have cared much. What was important to them was that their traditional way of life be preserved. They placed a high value on military protection; they were much less interested in military conquest.21 David had a vision for himself and the nation, but it was not one that played well in the hinterland.

  What Absalom promised was a return to the “good old days”—to the way things had been before David changed everything.22 This is the symbolic import of Absalom’s promise to restore justice at the city gates. His revolt was a populist movement, and David was anything but a populist. Absalom also may have represented for the Israelite people a chance to have a king of their own choosing again. Even though he was a son of David, he could be their son of David, a king acclaimed by the people, as Saul had been, and as David had not.23

  For the biblical authors, of course, the impression that David’s subjects did not love him or that his behavior on the throne in any way justified Absalom’s rebellion would have been unpalatable. They had tried to establish just the opposite throughout the account of David’s life. How, then, could they deal with the indisputable fact of Absalom’s uprising? If God had placed David on the throne, then only God should have been able to remove him from it. And so the authors claim. They found one crime in David’s life that they could admit really happened: his affair with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah (to which we will return at length in the next chapter). Of all David’s sins, this one was perhaps the least objectionable. Although a man died, that death was ostensibly a result of David’s all-too-human lust. And in the end, David’s affair with Bathsheba led to the birth of Solomon. In short, this was a place where the biblical authors could accept a depiction of David as less than perfect—and it gave them an opportunity to explain Absalom’s revolt. For when the prophet Nathan confronts David after Uriah’s death, the punishment he lays on David is none other than this: “I will make evil rise against you from within your own house” (2 Sam. 12:11). Absalom’s rebellion is divine retribution, and even as David is punished for one sin, he is absolved of having been hated by his subjects or of having been deficient in any way as a king.

  David’s Flight

  DAVID MAY NOT HAVE seen Absalom’s actions coming, but he knew a successful coup when he saw one—he still knew how to read the political winds. Upon hearing the news of Absalom’s self-coronation, David realized that he had no choice. He and his entire court packed up and fled the capital, leaving behind only ten concubines “to mind the palace” (2 Sam. 15:16).24 David stopped at the edge of the city and watched as those who remained loyal to him paraded past—not in victory, but in flight. He greeted
his courtiers, his bodyguards the Cherethites and Pelethites, and the six hundred Philistines under the command of Ittai who had been with him since his days in Ziklag. When David’s priests showed up bearing the ark, however, David turned them back. The Bible presents this as an act of faith, of David not wanting to remove the ark from its rightful home. In fact, however, in Zadok and Abiathar David had two perfect spies: men who were faithful to him but who had every reason to remain in Jerusalem to tend to the cult.

  To his priests David added one more crucial loyal servant to serve as a spy: his advisor Hushai. Across the ancient Near East, kings relied on a retinue of advisors, usually men of an older generation, who counseled the monarch on all matters related to the royal administration.25 The word of a trusted advisor was taken with the ultimate seriousness. If David could plant a high-ranking advisor in Absalom’s court, one whose advice would be to David’s advantage, the rewards could be enormous. Thus Hushai was instructed to present himself to Absalom as having defected from David. Hushai’s undercover work on David’s behalf was especially necessary because, much to David’s chagrin, another of his well-respected wise men had authentically gone over to Absalom’s side: a man named Ahitophel. With his best men remaining in the city as spies, and with his loyal militia at his side, David crossed the valley to the east of Jerusalem to enter, once again, the wilderness of Judah.

  In one fell swoop everything that David had built was torn down. He had abandoned the capital that he had conquered and established, and with it the kingship that he had fought so hard for so long to attain. He was right back where he had started. David had experienced two coups in his life: his own against Saul, and his son Absalom’s against himself. Both ended with David fleeing into the wilderness, which, as before, was a refuge for those on the run from the authorities. It must have been shocking to David to realize that he was no longer that authority. He had fallen from the greatest heights any Israelite had ever known. By entering the wilderness, David recognized that, for the first time in many years, he was powerless.

  This sensation was driven home by the sudden appearance of a man named Shimei in a small village to the east of Jerusalem. Shimei threw stones at David and his men, shouting at him, “Yahweh is returning upon you all the blood of the House of Saul, in whose place you rule” (2 Sam. 16:8). As David and his men continued to walk, Shimei continued to insult him and throw stones and dirt. The David of old hardly would have tolerated such outrageous behavior, as his warrior Abishai reminded him: “Why let that dead dog curse my lord the king?” (16:9). But David understood that he was in no position to fight back. The people had turned against him, and Shimei was merely their mouthpiece. David had been rejected, but the focus for the moment was on the rise of the new king, Absalom. To kill Shimei would be to arouse the wrath of the nation against David—far better to take the abuse and flee in relative safety.

  Shimei’s insults do more than prove David’s powerlessness. They also confirm for us David’s role in the deaths of Saul and his descendants. Shimei’s speech is the historical truth that the biblical authors have tried to counter. That his words have been preserved even by these same authors is explainable by the situation: unlike many of the stories and conversations that we have identified as apocryphal, Shimei leveled his charges against David publicly, and therefore undeniably. Shimei says what everyone must have known and been thinking for all of these years: that David had no right to the throne, that he had murdered Saul and all the other Saulides in cold blood to achieve the kingship. It is no wonder that the people sided with Absalom. Anyone was preferable to David, against whom they had harbored a deep-seated hatred every moment that he sat on the throne.

  As David leaves Jerusalem for the wilderness, Absalom arrives in the capital to formally take up his new kingship over Israel. The first man he encounters is Hushai, David’s trusted advisor and spy. Hushai acclaims Absalom as king, but Absalom is rightfully wary. Hushai convinces him, however: “I am for the one whom Yahweh and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen” (2 Sam. 16:18). This speech is telling. David is also said to have been chosen by Yahweh to rule, but nowhere is it said that the people of Israel chose David as their king. This is the difference between Absalom’s kingship and David’s—this is why Absalom’s coup was a success. The people’s voice was heard, for the first time since David went to Hebron. And Hushai’s speech was convincing, for Absalom allowed him to remain in Jerusalem as one of his counselors.

  The final act of Absalom’s coup was one that we will recognize. Absalom slept with the concubines whom David had left behind in the palace, in fulfillment of the second part of Nathan’s punishment for David’s affair with Bathsheba: “I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes and he shall sleep with your wives under this very sun” (2 Sam. 12:11). What David had tried and failed at in his coup against Saul, Absalom accomplished with ease. David’s downfall was complete: the entire nation now knew that David’s power had vanished, and Absalom was the unquestioned monarch.

  Absalom was truly his father’s son. Like David, he knew precisely how to go about achieving his desired results. Just as David had slowly gathered power, taking a series of well-calculated steps to become king, so too Absalom: his chariots and horses, his promises of justice, his call to the populace to join him—all were thought out and executed over a matter of years. David initially had been impatient and had suffered for it at the hands of Saul. Absalom did not make the same mistake. He had all of his father’s political gifts—including unvarnished ambition—and added to them a sensitivity to the desires of the people who would be his subjects. The combination was unstoppable.

  Absalom’s Downfall

  ONLY ONE THING WAS left for Absalom to do to cement his place on the throne. He had to kill David. As David knew when he murdered Saul’s descendants, it was impossible to rule in security when another legitimate claimant for the kingship was still alive. Eliminating David was the only way for Absalom to be certain that his father would not one day try to take back the throne. And Absalom could be sure that David would not rest until he had regained control—David had already invested too much in gaining the kingship to let it go so easily.

  Considering David’s state—with only a few hundred men by his side, all weary from flight—capturing and killing him should not have been a particularly difficult task. Absalom had the resources to pursue David. A quick strike with overwhelming force—an ancient campaign of shock and awe—and David’s men would be unable to resist. This, in fact, seems to be precisely what Ahitophel, Absalom’s chief advisor, recommended. Ahitophel even offered to lead the charge in Absalom’s stead, guaranteeing David’s death at his own hands.

  But Absalom wavered—once, and fatally—asking to hear also from Hushai, David’s former counselor. And here David’s sole advantage over Absalom—his web of loyal servants, those who had been with him and benefited from his patronage for so many years—came into play. Hushai was left behind for this exact reason: to provide Absalom with harmful advice. And Hushai played his part beautifully. The plan he suggested sounded perfectly reasonable: remembering that David was at his best in the wilderness, he said, it would be safer to call up troops from all the tribes, as many as possible, and attack him in an orderly fashion, leaving (in theory) no room for error. There was only one catch: if the tribes were all to be mustered for war, then their new commander in chief would have to march at their head.

  There were many reasons for Absalom to like Hushai’s plan. He could take up the traditional royal role of military leader. He could physically stand before his people as their king. And he could personally ensure that David was really dead. Hushai’s argument was convincing, but in accepting it, Absalom sealed his fate.

  With Hushai’s plan in place, David’s spy network went into action. Hushai passed the word to David’s priests, Zadok and Abiathar, who passed it on to a slave girl, who relayed it to Zadok and Abiathar’s sons, Ahimaaz and Jonathan, respectivel
y. These latter two were staying at a spring just outside the eastern walls of the City of David, and they ran the news to David in the wilderness. The instructions they gave David were clear: David had to get out of the wilderness and across the Jordan. So David did, arriving at the city of Mahanaim.

  Why did David have to cross the Jordan? Under Hushai’s plan, he would be pursued not only by a selection of troops, but by the amassed forces of all the Israelite tribes. This would include Judah, the territory in which David was hiding. Nowhere in Israel, even the wilderness, would be safe. And further, with so many troops set to take the field, David would need a place to regroup and resupply. We remember that the one significant non-Israelite territory that David had authentically managed to subjugate was to the east, across the Jordan. It was to these vassals that David went, and they dutifully supplied him and his men with food and a place to rest. This may, however, have had less to do with their treaty obligations to David—after all, he was no longer king—and rather more to do with the fact that he and hundreds of his best soldiers had just arrived at their door requesting provisions.26 Whatever the reason, the Transjordanian supplies probably made a significant difference. And, more important, David’s move across the Jordan shifted the field of battle out of Israel and into a terrain that David knew better than anyone.

  The battle is described very briefly in the Bible. David split his men into three divisions: one under Joab; one under Abishai, Joab’s brother; and one under Ittai the Philistine. David himself remained away from the field of battle for his safety (as Absalom, in his pride, did not). Absalom and his forces, the army assembled from the various Israelite tribes as per Hushai’s advice, engaged David’s men. Much of David’s military success, starting back in his days as an officer under Saul, was predicated on the advantages he gained from the terrain, and this battle was no different. The two sides met in the forest of Mahanaim. It is difficult enough for a regular trained military company to maintain order and position when fighting in the woods. Absalom’s army—a patchwork of men convened from the various Israelite tribes, virtually none of whom had any battle experience or practice fighting alongside one another—was undone by the landscape. David’s men, by contrast, were well trained, had fought together for years, and had experience particularly in the hills and forests of both Judah and the Transjordan. The biblical authors put it aptly: “the forest consumed more troops that day than the sword” (2 Sam. 18:8).