The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero
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10. The similarity between the narratives of Saul’s exploits as king and those of the Israelite leaders in the book of Judges has long been noted. See Alt, “Formation,” 240–43.
11. On the kinship structure of Israelite society, see Norman K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE (Biblical Seminar 66; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 237–341.
12. The standard work on the Sea Peoples is Trude Dothan and Moshe Dothan, People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines (New York: Macmillan, 1992).
13. Lawrence E. Stager, “Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World (ed. Michael D. Coogan; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), 113–24.
14. Stager, “Forging,” 90–91.
15. Stager, “Forging,” 126.
16. See Alt, “Formation,” 235–37. On occasion such raids would make the headlines, so to speak, especially in locations particularly prone to Philistine attack by virtue of their location or relative prosperity. Thus, e.g., a number of narratives recount the heroic actions of various Israelites against Philistine raiding parties at the town of Lehi. See N. L. Tidwell, “The Philistine Incursions into the Valley of Rephaim,” in Studies in the Historical Books of the Old Testament (ed. J. A. Emerton; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 30; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 190–212 (at 198–200).
17. A notable example, featuring a figure well known from the Bible, is the role of Nebuchadnezzar II as the head of the Babylonian army in 605 BCE, during the reign of his father Nabopolassar. See further Silvia Zamazalová, “The Education of Neo-Assyrian Princes,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (ed. K. Radner and E. Robson; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011), 313–30.
18. Some scholars have seen fit to view Jonathan’s exploits as parallel to those of the judges, which would suggest that he was quite the military leader indeed. See P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (Anchor Bible 8; New York: Doubleday, 1980), 251.
19. On the ’elep (“thousand”) military unit, see Gottwald, Tribes, 270–76.
20. Lawrence E. Stager, in his seminal article “The Archaeology of the Family in Early Israel” (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 260 [1985]: 1–35), suggests that in the wake of significant population increase in Israel around David’s time, the land was unable to sustain the population as it had before, with the result that many were forced to look for nonagricultural work, such as entering the military (at 25–28). This observation dovetails nicely with the tradition that David was the youngest of his brothers (however many there were). The family’s landholdings would devolve on the eldest of Jesse’s sons, with diminishing inheritance down the line. If the portrayal of David as the youngest is not merely a literary convention, then David would be more in need of another line of work than most. See also Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), 54, 59.
21. Baruch Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 124–32 (quotation on 126).
22. This phenomenon will be recognizable to anyone familiar with the famous tie between Harvard and Yale’s dominant football team in 1968, proclaimed in the headlines of the Harvard Crimson newspaper as “Harvard Beats Yale 29–29.”
23. On the Philistine population estimate, see Israel Finkelstein, “The Philistine Countryside,” Israel Exploration Journal 46: 225–42.
24. On this poetic phenomenon, see James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1981), 42–44.
25. In Mesopotamia, this may have occurred at the annual New Year’s festival, when officials from around the kingdom converged to celebrate the holiday and when royal appointments were reaffirmed or renegotiated. See Karel van der Toorn, “The Babylonian New Year Festival,” in Congress Volume Leuven 1989 (ed. J. A. Emerton; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 43; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 331–44 (esp. 334–35).
26. The Bible presents Michal as the second of Saul’s daughters offered to David, the first being Merab, Saul’s eldest, the offer of whom has to be withdrawn because she has already been engaged to someone else (1 Sam. 18:17–19). This rather useless detour from the narrative exists solely to fulfill Saul’s promise from the Goliath story, as recorded in 1 Sam. 17:25: “The man who kills him will be rewarded by the king with great riches; he will also give him his daughter in marriage.” The Goliath story being fictional, so too the episode of Saul offering Merab that depends on it. See McCarter, I Samuel, 306.
27. See Amélie Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 BC (2 vols.; London: Routledge, 1995), 1:63.
28. See Martin Noth, The History of Israel (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 184 n. 1.
29. For much of Israelite history, it was not uncommon for Israelites to keep idols, particularly of what are called household gods. The same word used here, teraphim, is found in the story of Jacob and Laban in Gen. 31, in which Rachel takes the idol from her father’s house to bring on her journey to Canaan, as well as in the lesser-known story of the Danite priest in Judg. 18, in which the idol is assumed to be part of the standard priestly inventory. It would not be until the seventh century BCE, during the reign of Josiah, that such personal idols were deemed inappropriate (2 Kings 23:24)—and even then most Israelites didn’t know about or ignored this condemnation of such idols. See Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah (Harvard Semitic Monographs 46; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001).
30. Some viewed ecstatic prophecy in Israel and elsewhere through a distinctly negative lens. See Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 103–6, 182–83. Note particularly his observation that ecstatic behavior in tenth- to seventh-century BCE Assyria was “seen as a form of insanity” (103). See also Robert R. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy: A Reexamination,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979): 321–37.
31. See, almost unimaginably recently, George Stein, “The Case of King Saul: Did He Have Recurrent Unipolar Depression or Bipolar Affective Disorder?—Psychiatry in the Old Testament,” British Journal of Psychiatry 201 (2011): 212.
32. Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, I & II Samuel (Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 141.
33. The aforementioned Tel Dan Stele and the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, respectively. For the latter, see K. Lawson Younger Jr., “Black Obelisk,” in The Context of Scripture, vol. 2 (ed. William H. Hallo; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 269–70.
34. See Julian Morgenstern, “David and Jonathan,” Journal of Biblical Literature 78 (1959): 322–25 (at 322).
35. See the scholarship cited in Saul M. Olyan, “ ‘Surpassing the Love of Women’: Another Look at 2 Samuel 1:26 and the Relationship of David and Jonathan,” in Authorizing Marriage? Canon, Tradition, and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions (ed. M. D. Jordan; Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2006), 7–16 (esp. n. 1).
36. On the meaning of “love” as “covenant loyalty,” see the classic study of W. L. Moran, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963): 77–86. On this meaning as it relates to Jonathan’s love for David, see J. A. Thompson, “The Significance of the Verb Love in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel,” Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974): 334–38.
37. This is not the typical rendering of this verse, which is usually translated “More wonderful to me was your love than the love of women.” While both translations are syntactically possible, I prefer the one that, as elsewhere in the story, explicitly portrays Jonathan as the lover and David as the beloved, without any real sense of reciprocity on David’s part. The translation suggested here may have some support from the Septuagint, which renders this verse as “Your love fell upon me like the love of women.”
38. See Steven Seidman, The Social Construction of Sexuality (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).
39. O
n sexuality in the ancient world, see Eva Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World (2d ed.; New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2002).
40. Olyan, “ ‘Surpassing.’ ”
41. This may be another case in which “love” has political overtones: the people’s love of David suggests that they were already announcing their loyalty to his anticipated kingship. See Moran, “Ancient Near Eastern Background,” 81.
42. Jo Ann Hackett, “ ‘There Was No King in Israel’: The Era of the Judges,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World (ed. Michael D. Coogan; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), 132–64 (at 151).
43. See Morgenstern, “David and Jonathan.”
44. Hackett, “There Was No King,” 151.
45. McKenzie, King David, 106.
46. Jon D. Levenson, “1 Samuel 25 as Literature and as History,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 11–28.
47. This custom seems to have been known outside of Israel as well. See Matitiahu Tsevat, “Marriage and Monarchical Legitimacy in Ugarit and Israel,” Journal of Semitic Studies 3 (1958): 237–43.
48. That David probably attempted a coup was recognized by McKenzie, King David, 87–88, though without linking it to Ahinoam.
Chapter 3: David in the Wilderness
1. On the geography of ancient Israel, see Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979), 21–42; Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol. 1 (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1–9.
2. The story also serves a historiographical purpose that has little to do with David. It is part of a drawn-out explanation of how the family of Zadok came to be the priests in Jerusalem. The literary connections go back to 1 Sam. 2, in which the priest Eli was told that his priestly family would come to an end. One descendant will be spared, Eli was told, but eventually he too will be replaced by “a faithful priest” who will “go before my anointed one forever” (2:35). The sole descendant of Eli is Abiathar; the faithful priest is his rival Zadok, who replaces Abiathar during the reign of Solomon; the “anointed one” is David, or the royal descendants of David’s line. Eli’s priestly line, with the exception of Abiathar, is destroyed, as promised, by Doeg the Edomite in Nob. And when Solomon eventually dismisses Abiathar from his priestly duties, it says in 1 Kings 2:27, it “fulfilled the word of Yahweh regarding the House of Eli.” See P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (Anchor Bible 8; New York: Doubleday, 1980), 366; Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), 92.
3. Most Bibles read “cave” for “stronghold” here, but it has long been recognized that this is a text-critical error. Note that in the continuation of this brief episode, in 22:4, David’s hideout is referred to as a “stronghold.” It was therefore most likely a fortified settlement (see McCarter, I Samuel, 357). This unfortunately renders the modern tourist attraction of the “cave of Adullam” rather more symbolic than historical.
4. On kinship culture in ancient Israel, see Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 36–61.
5. It may be noted that the term used here, “saved,” is the same one used regularly to describe the actions of the judges in the book of Judges, thereby suggesting that David—rather than Saul, as one might expect—was taking on the role of the tribal leader. See Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg, I & II Samuel (Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 190.
6. See 1 Kings 22:10: “The King of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah were seated on their thrones, dressed in robes, on the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria.”
7. See N. L. Tidwell, “The Philistine Incursions into the Valley of Rephaim,” in Studies in the Historical Books of the Old Testament (ed. J. A. Emerton; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 30; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 190–212: “Behind the stories which . . . ostensibly refer to decisive encounters between David and the Philistines there lie accounts of what were originally nothing more than the successful routing of Philistine raiding parties engaged in foraging for supplies for local garrisons or intent on destroying the harvested crops of the Israelites as they lay exposed on the threshing floors” (202).
8. For a different, though equally unflattering, view of David’s time in Keilah, see Nadav Na’aman, “David’s Sojourn in Keilah in Light of the Amarna Letters,” Vetus Testamentum 60 (2010): 87–97.
9. McKenzie, King David, 107.
10. See Baruch Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 272–73.
11. It is certain that, whatever may be historically authentic in this story, the name of David’s victim, Nabal, is not. This name is descriptive of his character and is part of the literary agenda of the biblical authors. We have no way of ascertaining what his real name may have been. On Nabal’s name, see Jon D. Levenson, “1 Samuel 25 as Literature and as History,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 11–28.
12. On the institution of levirate marriage, see Eryl W. Davies, “Inheritance Rights and the Hebrew Levirate Marriage,” Vetus Testamentum 31 (1981): 138–44, 257–68.
13. See Deut. 10:18; 14:29; 16:11, etc.
14. See the brilliant essay of Levenson, “1 Samuel 25.”
15. See John Bright, A History of Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 193–94.
16. The location of Gath was long a matter of dispute, but recent excavations have firmly identified it as Tell es-Safi. See Aren M. Maier, ed., Tell Es-Safi/Gath I: The 1996–2005 Seasons (Ägypten und Altes Testament 69; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012).
17. On the habiru, see Moshe Greenberg, The hab/piru (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1955).
18. This parallel to David’s story was noted by Niels Peter Lemche, “David’s Rise,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 10 (1978): 2–25 (at 12). On Idrimi’s inscription, see Sidney Smith, The Statue of Idrimi (London: British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara, 1949).
19. See Greenberg, Hab/piru, 64–65.
20. On the Amarna letters, see William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1992).
21. Some of these were noted by Lemche, “David’s Rise,” 11–14. See also George E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1973), 135–36.
22. On the connection of habiru and Hebrews, see Nadav Na’aman, “Habiru and Hebrews: The Transfer of a Social Term to the Literary Sphere,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (1986): 271–86.
23. It is possible that even the description of Saul’s death is meant to denigrate him. Suicide, often seen as a noble death in the Greco-Roman world, was not viewed quite so positively in the ancient Near East. See W. Boyd Barrick, “Saul’s Demise, David’s Lament, and Custer’s Last Stand,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 73 (1997): 25–41.
24. This mechanism for calling the tribes to war was probably understood as an implicit curse—that the recipients should suffer the fate of the dismembered body should they not join their compatriots in battle. See McCarter, I Samuel, 203.
25. The motivation for the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead in particular to undertake this mission is found in the earlier narrative of how Saul became king: by defending the town against the attacks of the Ammonites.
26. See Meir Malul, “Was David Involved in the Death of Saul on the Gilboa Mountain?,” Revue Biblique 103 (1996): 517–45 (at 532–36).
27. See Keith W. Whitelam, The Just King: Monarchic Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 12; Sheffield: Journal of the Study of the Old Testament, 1979), 104–5.
28. See P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel (Anchor Bible 9; New York: Doubleday, 1984), 63. The best indication for this interpretation is the identification of the informant as an Amalekite, the archetypical evildoer in the Bible. Once he was identified as such,
the Israelite audience might well have assumed that everything the Amalekite said would be a lie and that he should be suspected of looting, a classic Amalekite behavior.
29. For details, see D. M. Gunn, “Narrative Patterns and Oral Tradition in Judges and Samuel,” Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974): 286–317 (esp. 286–97).
30. Pushing this idea further, Malul, “Was David Involved,” suggests that David had established a fifth column within Saul’s ranks and that Saul fell at the hands of his own men, who had betrayed him. This reconstruction is tempting, but it relies on taking much of the narrative of David’s time at Saul’s court as accurate historical representation, which, as we have seen, is problematic.
Chapter 4: David Becomes King
1. On the history of Hebron, see Avi Ofer, “Hebron,” in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (4 vols.; ed. Ephraim Stern; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 2:606–9.
2. See Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), 114–15.