David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition

by Finkelstein, Israel

  Whether Elhanan or David did the killing in the original tale, the detailed description of Goliath’s armor reveals the famous biblical story to be a late-seventh-century BCE composition that expresses both the ideology of holy war and the particular enemies faced by Judah in Josiah’s time.

  HOMERIC COMBAT AND GREEK MERCENARIES

  Goliath’s armor, as described in the Bible, bears little resemblance to the military equipment of the early Philistines as archaeology has revealed it. Instead of wearing bronze helmets the Peleset shown on the walls of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III in Upper Egypt wear distinctive feather-topped headdresses. Instead of being heavily armored and carrying a spear, javelin, and sword, they use a single spear and do not wear the metal leg armor known as greaves. Yet the biblical description of Goliath’s armor is not simply a fanciful creation; every single item has clear parallels to archaeologically attested Aegean weapons and armor from the Mycenaean period to classical times. In all periods within this general time frame, one can find metal helmets, metal armor, and metal greaves. Yet until the seventh century BCE, these items were relatively rare in the Greek world. It is only with the appearance of the heavily armed Greek hoplites of the seventh through fifth centuries BCE that standard equipment comes to resemble Goliath’s. In fact, the standard hoplite’s accouterments were identical to Goliath’s, consisting of a metal helmet, plate armor, metal greaves, two spears, a sword, and a large shield. And this suggests that the author of the biblical story of David and Goliath had an intimate knowledge of Greek hoplites of the late seventh century BCE.

  What was the connection? Precisely at that time, Greek mercenaries from the coasts of Asia Minor came to play an increasingly important role in Near Eastern warfare. The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Carian and Ionian mercenaries served in the Egyptian army and were stationed in Egyptian border forts in the days of Psammetichus I, who took over the Philistine coast in the late seventh century BCE. This testimony is supported by Assyrian sources, which point to Lydia as the source of these troops, and by a wide range of archaeological evidence. Excavations in the Nile Delta revealed the unmistakable presence of seventh-century BCE Greek colonies through the evidence of imported Greek pottery and other artifacts. Greek and Carian inscriptions have been found at Abu Simbel; and a seventh-century BCE inscription found in the vicinity of Priene in western Asia Minor mentions Psammetichus I in a dedication left by a Greek soldier who served as a mercenary for him.* Although scattered units of Greek troops may have been used by the Babylonian kings in their massive armies of specialized fighting units, the Egyptian king Psammetichus I used them as a far more important striking and occupation force. With their heavy armor and aggressive tactics, the Greek hoplites embodied the image of a threatening, arrogant enemy that would have been all too well known to many Judahites of the late seventh century BCE.

  There is another source of Greek influence in the story. The biblical account of Goliath and his armor has been compared to the Homeric description of Achilles (Iliad XVIII. 480, 608–12; XIX.153, 369–85). The Iliad, in its epic descriptions of warfare between Greeks and Trojans, provides several additional comparisons to the scenario of the David and Goliath story, especially in contests of champions from the opposing sides. The duel between Paris and Menelaus (Iliad III.21ff.) is told in the genre of a single combat that, like the biblical tale, decides the outcome of a war. The duel between Hector and Ajax (Iliad VII.206ff.) can be compared to the David and Goliath encounter in both general concept as well as the sequence of the events: a hero is challenged; his people react in horror; the hero accepts the challenge; the arms of the heroes are described; the combatants give speeches; and fight begins. Nestor of Pylos also fights a duel, and his opponent is described as a giant warrior.

  Homeric influence on the biblical authors is highly unlikely before the very late eighth century, but it grows increasingly probable during the seventh century, when Greeks became part of the eastern Mediterranean scene. Interactions must have been fairly common. In places such as Ashkelon on the southern coast, and the small late seventh-century BCE fort of Mesad Hashavyahu north of Ashdod, Greek pottery testifies to the presence of traders, mercenaries, or immigrants. An ostracon written in Hebrew and found at the fort of Mesad Hashavyahu attests to the presence of Judahites at the site. In addition, a group called kittim is mentioned in ostraca, dated to c. 600 BCE, that were found at the Judahite fort of Arad in the Beer-sheba Valley. If the word kittim is understood—as some scholars suggest—to mean Greeks or Cypriots (from the place-name Kition in Cyprus), the ostraca may refer to Greek mercenaries in Egyptian service, guarding the vital trade routes that led to the coast. This would make Arad in particular and the Beer-sheba Valley in general other places of potential contact between Judahites and Greek hoplite mercenaries.*

  There is no reason to deny the possibility that there was an ancient tale of a duel between a Judahite hero (David or Elhanan) and a Philistine warrior. But what message did the Deuteronomistic historian try to convey by dressing Goliath as a Greek hoplite and telling the story in a Homeric genre? In the late seventh century BCE two great revival dreams collided: Judah’s fantasy to “reestablish” the united monarchy of David and Solomon and Egypt’s vision of reviving its ancient empire in Asia. But Judah’s dream of recapturing the rich lands of the western Shephelah was threatened by the power of Egypt that now dominated large parts of the Philistine plain. The duel between David and Goliath—dressed as one of the Greek hoplite mercenaries who protected Egypt’s interests and might—symbolized the rising tensions between Josianic Judah and Egypt of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty.† To the Judahites of that era, with their awareness of the threatening Greek presence, the implications of the story were clear and simple: the new David, Josiah, would defeat the elite Greek troops of the Egyptian army in the same way that his famous ancestor overcame the mighty, seemingly invincible Goliath, by fighting “in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45).

  THE CONQUEST OF BETHEL

  There is a clue in the postscript to the Bible’s David and Solomon story that King Josiah was believed to be the descendant of David who would fully revive the glories of the united monarchy. It is reported that soon after the death of Solomon, at the time of the division of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the renegade northern king Jeroboam set up an altar at the ancient shrine of Bethel—thereby establishing a symbol of north Israelite independence and committing Israel’s original religious sin. We have suggested that the idea of the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple did not predate the reforms of Hezekiah and was certainly not codified before the compilation of the Deuteronomistic History in the late seventh century BCE. But what is important in the biblical account is not its lack of historical accuracy, but rather the retrospective prophecy that it makes. An unnamed Judahite prophet reacts to Jeroboam’s heretical declaration of independence from the Jerusalem Temple and the true religion of Israel by uttering the following oracle, in direct address to the idolatrous altar at Bethel:

  O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: “Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name; and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and men’s bones shall be burned upon you.” (1 Kings 13:2)

  Bethel was not merely an isolated cult place; it was one of the central shrines of Judah’s great rival, the kingdom of Israel. As a center of north Israelite ritual and tradition, located only ten miles north of Jerusalem,* it was an obvious place of pilgrimage and devotion that potentially competed with the Jerusalem Temple. The repeated, hostile references to Bethel in the Deuteronomistic History suggest that it remained an important and active cult place even after the Assyrian conquest of Israel.

  An odd story in the second book of Kings relates to the period when foreign settlers were brought to the area of Bethel and worshipped there:

  And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepha
rvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria, and dwelt in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD; therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land; therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.” Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away thence; and let him go and dwell there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD. (2 Kings 17:24–28)

  We have already mentioned how Hezekiah’s reform of the Jerusalem Temple, at a time of significant Israelite immigration from the area around Bethel, may have been intended to discourage pilgrimage to the rival shrine and to unify a diverse population by creating a single national cult. But as long as the Assyrians ruled the territory of the former northern kingdom—and as long as Judah remained an Assyrian vassal—the opposition to the Bethel shrine had to remain merely ideological.

  After the withdrawal of the Assyrians during the reign of Josiah, the situation changed dramatically. On the one hand, the population of the area would have been free to develop their own traditions and perhaps even dream of renewed independence under a resurrected northern kingdom of Israel. But at the same time, with no threat of Assyrian retaliation, Judah could begin to look northward and put its own dreams of a vast, “resurrected” Davidic kingdom into action. The account of Josiah’s reform describes his brutal takeover of Bethel and his desecration of the tombs around it as the fulfillment of prophecy:

  Moreover the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and he broke in pieces its stones, crushing them to dust; also he burned the Asherah. And as Josiah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. (2 Kings 23:15–16)

  To destroy the shrine at Bethel and restore the true faith of the Jerusalem Temple to that ancient place of infamy was the first, highly symbolic step toward undoing the centuries of northern apostasy and to resurrecting the vast, divinely protected united monarchy.

  In the absence of clear archaeological evidence from the site of Bethel, we cannot possibly tell if this story in all its details is true. But as we have mentioned, characteristic seventh-century BCE Judahite artifacts, such as inscribed weights, pillar-shaped figurines, and distinctive types of ceramic vessels, have been found as far north as the area of Bethel, suggesting a spread of southern influence there during Josiah’s reign. And two details in the Deuteronomistic History suggest that the conquest of Bethel was indeed closely connected in contemporary consciousness with Josiah’s fulfillment of his Davidic legacy. The only monument Josiah is reported to have left standing at Bethel was the tomb of the prophet who had “predicted” his destruction of the shrine. The second detail is no less telling: Bethel is mentioned as one of the places to which David distributed booty after his raid on the southern Amekelites (1 Samuel 30:27). Josiah seems to have been self-consciously acting the role of a new David. By his time, the elaborate Davidic tradition no longer was merely for internal Judahite consumption but had become the guiding doctrine of a holy war to bring all of the land of Israel under his rule.

  The Deuteronomistic History thus can be read as a political program, from the conquest of Joshua to the days of the judges, to the rise of David, through the united monarchy and its breakdown to the days of the two separate states, and to the climax of the story with the reign of Josiah, the most pious of all the Davidic kings. The Assyrian empire had crumbled, Egypt was seemingly interested only in its coastal possessions, and Judah was free to fulfill its pan-Israelite dreams. It was evidently a time of great exhilaration and expectation. Under the righteous rule of the new David and under the auspices of the Temple of Solomon, all Israelite territories and people would soon live in one state, worship one God in one Temple in Jerusalem, and inherit all the eternal blessings of God.

  RESHAPING DAVID AND SOLOMON

  The book of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History, which contains the David and Solomon epic, were written to serve Josiah’s cult reform strategy and territorial (or state) ideology. Who were the people responsible for this essential contribution to the biblical tradition? Though there is no scholarly agreement on the identity of the leaders of this movement, the basic coalition of forces is relatively clear. The deep concern for the sanctity of the Jerusalem Temple suggests that its priests played an important role in formulating and promoting the Deuteronomic ideology. The concern for equitable social relations between rich and poor expressed in the laws of Deuteronomy suggests that a popular resistance against the excesses of the Assyrian period and those who profited from them was also involved. But at the core was a deep veneration for the Davidic dynasty that could only have been expressed by those with wholehearted sympathy for the welfare of the royal court. And the stories of David and Solomon—which describe the days of the pious founder of the dynasty, the establishment of Jerusalem as his capital, his great conquests, the glamour of the united monarchy, and the building of the Temple by his son—were put in the heart of the Deuteronomistic History.

  The earlier stories of the founding fathers of the kingdom of Judah were largely taken over and accepted. Yet the vivid accounts of the personal flaws of David—which would have doomed any other leader by Deuteronomy’s own strict standards—could not simply be discarded in the compilation of the traditions, myths, tales, memories, and historical accounts of ancient Israel, south and north alike, into a single definitive history. The Deuteronomistic editors seem to have kept all or much of the previous material, which was first put in writing in the late eighth and early seventh century BCE, only adding formulaic speeches (such as David’s challenge to Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:45–47), editorial comments, details of contemporary culture, and, of course, plotting the stories to serve their theological goals.

  The new, composite epic drew in a wide range of traditions as a proven way to continue cultivating a national consensus among formerly separate circles—and to further Josiah’s plan of expanding into territories that formerly belonged to the northern kingdom, a plan that actually materialized in the case of the plateau of Benjamin and the area of Bethel. Hence the northern traditions about Saul—even if containing a negative tone about David—were retained in the story, though in comparison to David, tarnishing and diminishing the stature of Saul.

  The Deuteronomistic historians also retained the earlier stories of the wealth, wisdom, and greatness of Solomon drawn from the high age of Assyrian imperialism. Those elaborate descriptions of unimaginable riches and power could be used to show what the future might again hold for Judah, if the law was obeyed and a united monarchy of all Israel could be constructed “again.” But the Solomon story (1 Kings 11:1–10) also provided a lesson that global trade and internationalism could breed apostasy—and endanger Judah’s age-old tradition and identity.

  In accordance with this ideology, the author of Deuteronomy’s “Law of the King” seems to have used Solomon’s greatness and opulence to express a message of condemnation about kings who sought majesty above righteousness:

  When you come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me”; you may indeed set as king over you him whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not multiply horses f
or himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, “You shall never return that way again.” And he shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply for himself silver and gold. (Deuteronomy 17:14–17)

  The lesson was clear and unambiguous: only Solomon’s wisdom and his Temple were important. All the other trappings of worldly power that he cherished so greatly—horses, wives, and wealth—were sinful diversions from observing the true will of God, past and present.

  The long and complex description of the construction and inner layout of the Temple, which—as we hinted in the previous chapter—could have dated a bit earlier than the days of Josiah, may have served to bolster his thorough cleansing of all idolatrous objects by showing that the current, purified Temple resembled Solomon’s original, divinely inspired sanctuary in every way. And indeed it is noted, in the characteristic phrase of the Deuteronomistic historian, that the poles of the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s Temple “were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside; and they are there to this day” (1 Kings 8:8).

  This layer of Deuteronomistic revision substantially completed the biblical story of David and Solomon in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings that is so familiar to us today. Minor elements were inserted later, but the spirit and general tone of the story—as well as the traces of all its previous layers of creative mythmaking, storytelling, memory collection, ideological development, and literary activity—remained intact.

  THE MESSIANIC LEGACY

  As things turned out, the original Deuteronomistic dream came to nothing, at least on the earthly plane. In 609 BCE, Pharaoh Necho, the son and successor of Psammetichus I, embarked on a massive military expedition to assist the dying remnant of the Assyrian empire in recapturing the city of Harran, far to the north. The second book of Kings offers a laconic account of an event that would have enormous implications, not only for Judah and its Davidic legacy, but for the subsequent religious history of the western world: