EMPIRES IN TURMOIL
In order to understand the motivations for the ideological transformation of the David and Solomon tradition, we must briefly describe the dramatic events that swept over the region during King Josiah’s reign. When Josiah came to the throne as an eight-year-old boy in 639 BCE, in the wake of his father’s assassination, Assyria was still at the height of its power. The territory of the former northern kingdom of Israel was still under direct Assyrian administration and the coastal Philistine cities were administered by Assyrian client kings. Just a few years later, however, by around 630 BCE, the Assyrian empire was in a state of rapid disintegration. Pressures in the north and east severely strained the empire’s resources. Its military might, though still formidable, had seriously declined.
Although the Assyrian chronicles from this period are fragmentary, the general picture is, nonetheless, unmistakable: after a century of unquestioned domination in the region, the power of Assyria became more distant as it withdrew to the east for its final—and ultimately unsuccessful—fight for survival. The once unchallenged and unchallengeable superpower that had dominated the economy and political life of the world gradually abandoned its claim to the provinces of the west.
The withdrawal of Assyrian garrisons and officials from the Philistine cities and the districts of the former kingdom of Israel created a power vacuum. A new, rising dynasty in Egypt emerged as Assyria’s successor, at least along the Mediterranean coast. During a reign of more than half a century, from 664 to 610 BCE, Psammetichus I, of the Twenty-sixth Egyptian Dynasty, gradually expanded his power base in the western Nile Delta to unite Upper and Lower Egypt, then marched north and annexed the prosperous trading cities of the Philistine plain.
This takeover seems to have been accomplished with tacit Assyrian agreement. In return for its control of the former Assyrian possessions, Egypt became Assyria’s ally, agreeing to lend military support against anti-Assyrian uprisings and the growing influence of Babylonia in the north. However, though the Egyptians were now in control of the Philistine coast and the international highway that led inland past Megiddo to Syria and Mesopotamia, the peoples and cities of the highlands were of only marginal concern. As in the earlier era of Egyptian imperialism during the Late Bronze Age, over a half millennium earlier, the Egyptians seem to have left affairs in the highlands—in Judah and the former territory of Israel—to take their own course, as long as they did not threaten Egyptian control of the international highway along the coast and across the valleys of the north.
We know almost nothing of events in the territory of the former kingdom of Israel after the withdrawal of the Assyrians. The loosening of tight control over the region’s people and agricultural production could have aroused hopes for political revival, but we have no indication of any attempt by the northerners to establish an independent kingdom again. In the south, on the other hand, we have the biblical reports of Josiah’s zealous religious reform in the kingdom of Judah, culminating in his destruction of the northern cult place of Bethel.
These events are described in the Bible as purely religious actions, but in the changing political conditions of Assyrian withdrawal, they hint at something more than that. As long as Assyria remained dominant in the region, Judah’s political independence and freedom of action was severely limited. With the Assyrians firmly in control of the northern highlands, there was no possibility of claiming rule over the remaining Israelite population, whose traditions had been at least partially incorporated in the pan-Israelite ideology of the south. Yet as the Assyrians withdrew, new possibilities beckoned. Archaeological evidence suggests that the kingdom of Judah took advantage of the new conditions by expanding both north and west.
The territorial expansion was apparently modest. Characteristic seventh-century BCE Judahite artifacts such as inscribed weights, pillar-shaped figurines, and distinctive types of ceramic vessels have been found only as far north as the area of Bethel, about ten miles north of Judah’s traditional border. It is nonetheless noteworthy that evidence of Judahite presence extends to the site mentioned so prominently in the biblical story of Josiah’s religious reform.
Archaeological finds also point to an expansion of Judahite influence in the west, in the area of the Shephelah—a movement that might even have started in the days of Manasseh. The major regional center of Lachish, which had lain in ruins for a while after its devastation by the armies of Sennacherib, was rebuilt and refortified in the seventh century, indicating the possible reassertion there of direct Judahite political control. Seventh-century BCE Judahite weights have been found throughout the surrounding region, suggesting the incorporation of this area into Judah’s distinct system of trade. The rich farmlands of the Shephelah were not only economically and strategically vital; they were enshrined in Judahite tradition. It is highly significant that 2 Kings 22:1 reports that Josiah’s mother came from Bozkath, a town in the Shephelah.
Can we say more about the goals of King Josiah and the opposition his attempts at territorial expansion would have faced? In the west, any hope of reasserting Judahite control of the lower Shephelah risked military confrontation with the emerging power of Egypt and the Philistine cities. To the north, successful Judahite expansion into the territories of the former kingdom of Israel, whose ruling dynasty had been deposed and exiled, lay in overcoming regional loyalties and asserting the claims of the Davidic dynasty over all the land of Israel. Indeed, when we examine the characteristic seventh-century BCE details that run through in the biblical stories of David and Solomon, a surprisingly clear picture of Judahite perceptions and intentions—and a new interpretation of the story of David and Solomon—can be seen.
DAVID AND THE PHILISTINES
The biblical David won his fame as a great warrior, toppling the mighty Goliath (1 Samuel 17), killing Philistine troops by the “ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7), and outwitting the Philistine king, Achish of Gath (1 Samuel 27–29). As we have seen, some of these stories undoubtedly have their origin in a very early period, for the prominent mention of Gath—as the hometown of Goliath, the capital of Achish, and the leading force among the Philistine cities—reflects the perceptions of a period before Gath was conquered and lost its political importance, at the end of the ninth century BCE. But the general picture provided by the biblical stories of David includes a number of important elements that reveal how deeply their final form reflected Josiah’s time. Indeed, the Philistines whom David alternatively served under and fought against are described in terms dramatically different from what we know of the Philistines in the earlier phases of their history.
Our knowledge of the early Philistines, of the twelfth to tenth centuries BCE, comes from several sources, both historical and archaeological. An inscription and reliefs from the days of Pharaoh Ramesses III (1182–1151 BCE) commemorate his land and naval victories over a group named Peleset and other invading people, who “made a conspiracy in their islands” and simultaneously attacked Egypt by land and sea. A later Egyptian papyrus from the days of Ramesses IV (1151–1145 BCE) reports that these defeated foes were settled in Egyptian strongholds. At that time Egypt still dominated the southern coastal plain of Canaan—exactly the place where the Bible locates the cities of the Philistines. Therefore, it has been widely accepted by scholars that the Peleset and Philistines were the same group of warlike migrants who were settled by the Egyptians in their garrison cities along the southern Canaanite coast. Indeed, archaeological excavations of levels from the era following Ramesses III have revealed the appearance of a new ceramic style, unmistakable for its elaborate painted decoration of geometrical shapes and stylized birds and fish, which is closely related to the pottery traditions of Cyprus and the Aegean—the area from which the Peleset-Philistines are believed to have come.
Yet despite the contention of many scholars that the Philistine stories in the Bible reflect a reliable memory from the days immediately after their invasion and settlement in Canaan, many important details about
the early Philistines are inexplicably left out. There is no memory in the Bible of the upheaval that accompanied their arrival on the coast of Canaan; nor is their connection with the Late Bronze Egyptian administration in Canaan mentioned, except for a vague and contradictory assertion in the much later table of nations of the book of Genesis (10:13–14; also 1 Chronicles 1:11–12) connecting them genealogically with Egypt.* Nor is the Bible aware of other groups of Sea Peoples who arrived with the Philistines.† Special features in the material culture of the early Philistines—from pottery and cult to burial customs and culinary practices—also have no echo in the biblical text. The Bible could have been silent on many of these characteristics, but it is highly unlikely that it would have ignored all of them. While there is no question that the people of Judah were well acquainted with their Philistine neighbors, their historical knowledge about them seems to be based on oral traditions that were vague and imprecise.
Take the mention of King Achish, for example. Described as the ruler of the Philistine city of Gath, he plays a prominent role in the David stories, first barring the babbling David from admission to his city (1 Samuel 21:10–15) and then later welcoming him back as a trusted ally, even granting him his own territorial possession in the southern Shephelah at Ziklag (1 Samuel 27:2–6). And it was Achish who allowed David to depart in peace with his followers before the fateful battle between the Philistines and Saul (1 Samuel 29:6–11).
In the summer of 1996, a dramatic inscription was recovered by archaeologists Trude Dothan and Sy Gitin in their excavations at Tel Miqne in the western Shephelah, a site securely identified with the ancient Philistine city of Ekron. It was a late-seventh-century BCE dedication inscribed on a limestone block, bearing the name of Ikausu, ruler of the city at that time. This Ikausu is also mentioned in Assyrian records from the time of Kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal as one of Levantine rulers who paid tribute to Assyria. The name Ikausu is linguistically similar to the name of the Philistine king Achish; many scholars have suggested it was a traditional Philistine royal name that had been used since the tenth century BCE.
Yet there is an obvious problem in establishing a direct connection between the Philistine king Ikausu (who ruled close to the time of King Josiah) and David’s Philistine patron Achish. Ikausu was the king of Ekron, not Gath. Mighty Gath had been destroyed two centuries earlier; at the time of Ikausu, Gath was little more than a village; Ekron was by far the most powerful Philistine city-state. Perhaps the biblical authors simply used Achish as a convenient name for a powerful Philistine king. But in the seventh century BCE, the name Ikausu-Achish would have been too well known throughout Judah, with a clear contemporary significance. So the story of the alliance between David and an ancient Achish may have aimed at legitimizing the relationship between the “new David”—Josiah—and the city of the new Achish: Ekron.
There is clear archaeological evidence for this: the excavations at Tel Miqne have revealed an impressive period of urban development that transformed Ekron from a small town to one of the most important cities in the region by the time of Josiah. From the late eighth century BCE, and especially in the first half of the seventh century, under Assyrian domination, Ekron grew in size to become the most impressive olive oil processing facility known anywhere in the ancient Near East. Within its imposing city walls, over a hundred olive oil production units have been uncovered, including storerooms, presses, and vats. This ancient industrial zone stretched around the entire city, having an estimated production capacity of about a thousand tons a year. In the Assyrian economy, this was a significant asset.
Throughout the seventh century BCE Ekron experienced unprecedented prosperity as the center of oil production because of its convenient location on a main road network and its proximity to the olive groves in the Judahite hill country and the upper Shephelah. Indeed, the olive growers of Judah must have provided a significant part of Ekron’s supply, first as part of its tribute to Assyria after Sennacherib’s invasion and later, under Manasseh, as he sought to expand Judah’s participation into the Assyrian imperial economy.
The ancient Near East
Though there was a certain decline in the olive oil production at Ekron after the Assyrians withdrew from the region around 630 BCE, the industry continued throughout the late seventh century BCE under the hegemony of the Egyptian Twenty-sixth Dynasty. For both economic and political reasons, Judah probably continued to send its harvested olives to Ekron in the time of Josiah. There was no better way to legitimate this continued economic connection with outsiders (clearly an abomination in the eyes of the puritan Deuteronomistic historians) than to “remind” the people of Judah of the friendship and cooperation between the founder of the Jerusalem dynasty—the pious David—with a Philistine king named Achish.
NEW TERRITORIAL CLAIMS
The biblical stories of David and Achish contain another element of direct concern in the days of King Josiah. Archaeological finds suggest gradual Judahite expansion westward to recover the lost lands of the Shephelah, and it is significant that the authority of Achish is marshaled in the biblical story to justify seventh-century Judahite territorial claims. One of the most characteristic literary devices of the Deuteronomistic History, betraying its seventh-century origins, is the phrase “to this day.” It is used on dozens of occasions, scattered through the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, to point out ancient landmarks or explain unusual situations that could still be observed in the time of the compilation of the text. A typical use of this phrase is the description of David’s lawful acquisition of territory from the hands of the Philistine king Achish:
Then David said to Achish, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be given me in one of the country towns, that I may dwell there; for why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you?” So that day Achish gave him Ziklag; therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. (1 Samuel 27:5–6)
Ziklag was located in the lower Shephelah, on the southwestern boundary of Judah, facing Philistia, in an area of major concern to the ruling circles of Judah in the late seventh century BCE. The biblical stories of David’s time at Ziklag contain some other striking seventh-century anachronisms. After returning from the Philistines’ war council, David finds that Ziklag has been plundered by the desert-dwelling Amalekites, whom he pursues, defeats, and from whom he claims abundant booty—which he subsequently distributes to his fellow Judahites (1 Samuel 30:26–31). Of the places that received the booty, a number were especially prominent in the time of Josiah, notably Bethel (which was apparently annexed by Judah after the withdrawal of Assyria), as well as Aro‘er and Ramath-negeb in the Beer-sheba Valley on the southern border of Judah, facing Edom. Excavations have shown that both Aro‘er and Ramath-negeb flourished only in late monarchic times. And significantly, another one of the places on the list, Jattir—identified with the site of Khirbet Yattir to the south of Hebron—was not even inhabited before the seventh century BCE.
All in all, the text reveals an elaboration and expansion of early traditions with a specific seventh-century purpose in mind: to validate Judah’s territorial expansion toward the territory of the Philistine cities. It is the period of Josiah, indeed, that provides a surprising context for the single most famous story of David’s early career.
WHO KILLED GOLIATH?
The mighty Philistine warrior Goliath of Gath is David’s most famous foe. The mention of that long-destroyed city as Goliath’s hometown reflects an early tradition, but at the same time, this timeless story also conceals a surprising chronological clue.
In the Bible, faith fuels the shepherd boy David’s encounter with the Philistine giant, who is described in frightening detail:
And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. And he
had greaves of bronze upon his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. And the shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron; and his shield-bearer went before him. (1 Samuel 17:4–7)
While Goliath rages and taunts his puny opponent,
David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone, and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground. (1 Samuel 17:49)
This encounter bears all the marks of a distinctively Deuteronomistic story, including a faith-filled speech from the young David, declaring to the arrogant Goliath as he reaches the field of battle:
You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s and he will give you into our hand. (1 Samuel 17:45–47)
The problem is that hidden in an earlier collection of heroic folktales about David’s mighty men is another, quite different version of the death of Goliath, tucked away as an almost forgotten footnote:
And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaareor-egim, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. (2 Samuel 21:19)
Scholars have long speculated that either “David” was a throne name and he was originally called Elhanan, or another man named Elhanan was the real hero of the story, whose glory was stripped from him in the subsequent appropriation of the legend by the supporters of the Davidic dynasty.
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