The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

by Wangerin Jr. , Walter

  David rode beside him, skillful on a donkey, the captain of a thousand men. David rode in a busy silence, his red hair tugged by the wind, his copper-flecked eyes scanning the land ahead; for this captain had the ability to conceive battle strategies in his mind and to test them in imagination.

  Saul marveled. It was like this: both he and his new warrior could read the words on a scroll. But he read aloud. The young man read silently. Saul had never heard of such a thing before.

  David continued, too, to sleep in the king’s tent. And though no one else in Israel may have known when the black mood tormented him, David knew. David woke and stroked his lyre and sang. He sang in a soothing tenor. He sang—so Saul began to realize—for him as well as to him. That is, he sang to God on behalf of Saul:

  We call on thee, O Lord. Lord, hear our cry.

  Thou refuge both of shepherds and of kings,

  keep us as the apple of thine eye,

  and hide us in the shadow of thy wings.

  Always Saul was eased by the singing. Always he fell asleep before the music ceased. But sometimes he woke the following day disquieted. Some small thing nagged in the back of his mind. What was it?

  Saul and Abner and Jonathan and David defeated the king of Zobah. He was an Aramaean, an ancient relative of Abraham and Israel. Saul ordered his execution, and he was executed, but there was little satisfaction in the victory. This petty kingdom would rise up again. Moab had. And Ammon and Edom and Amalek. And three of these were kin.

  That night Saul woke himself by crying out the name of Samuel. His throat was thick with sobbing. His head was roaring like a waterfall, and he was crying, “Samuel, come back! Samuel, Samuel, I have sinned! Come back!”

  David was already singing. A complex song, so it seemed. Saul fought the noise inside his skull in order to hear the song.

  O Lord, rebuke me not in fury,

  nor chasten me in wrath!

  Thine arrows have found me! Their heads are buried

  in my heart, point and shaft!

  My wounds are foul and festering

  because of foolishness;

  O God, I’m sorry for my sin!

  My sin! Lord, I confess.

  Do not forsake me, O my Lord!

  O God, deliver me!

  I wait upon thy kinder word;

  O Lord, I wait for thee—

  In the morning Saul could repeat the entire song from memory. He went out of his tent whispering it. The song had become the cry of his heart. It gave expression to the furnace burning within him, and therefore it gave him comfort.

  But suddenly—just as he was reaching for his horse’s bridle—the king yelped and whirled around and glared back at the tent. A thought had just pierced him like an arrow, and he understood why David’s nighttime presence was so troubling: the man knew too much! With David the king had no secrets! Neither, then, could he maintain a personal privacy with that one—no, nor authority either! David had dared to give expression to the sins of his king!

  And how ever could he presume to talk about his, Saul’s, sin?

  AFTER HUNTING, JONATHAN HOBBLED the horses, and allowed them to graze in a green field. He took a long drink from his leather flask—a good, sweet wine—offered the flask to David, then threw himself down on the grass, lay back, and heaved a sigh of happiness. David came and lay beside him. They gazed into the blue sky.

  They had been gone from Gibeah three days. Though they could beg cakes from the villages because Jonathan was recognized as the crown prince of Israel, they had mostly eaten the meat of their hunting. They felt proud and independent.

  Jonathan said, “You know the old priest named Samuel, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” David said. “Why?”

  Jonathan shifted his shoulders and locked his hands behind his head.

  “The people of Ramah say that he has taken to his bed. They say he’s dying.”

  “He’s very old.”

  “Old like a skeleton. Have you ever seen him?”

  “Once.”

  “Well, until this sad news my father sent him regular invitations, but he never came. My father requested permission to go to Samuel himself. He never answered. Now the old priest is sick unto death, and my father has stopped asking altogether.”

  Jonathan lay quietly a moment, biting the inside of his lip. “I don’t know why Samuel wouldn’t come. It hurt my father. Now the wound is worse than before.”

  Jonathan turned his head and glanced at his friend. David had a scattering of freckles over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

  “Once?” said Jonathan. “When did you see the priest?”

  David sat up. “I’ve never told this to anyone else. Even my family doesn’t know the whole of it,” he said. “And I don’t altogether understand it either. It makes me feel sad.”

  David reached down and took Jonathan’s right hand in the gesture of a pledge. “You’ve got to promise to keep this between us,” he said. “You cannot tell it to your father.”

  David’s gaze was so penetrating and at the same time so full of pity that Jonathan responded as if in ceremony: “This is between us alone.”

  “Samuel came to Bethlehem several years ago just after your father had attacked the Amalekites. He said he came to sacrifice a heifer to the Lord with the elders of the city. ‘Consecrate yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘and come with me to the sacrifice.’

  “But to my father he said, ‘I will myself consecrate you and your sons.’

  David lay back down and closed his eyes. Jonathan was watching him closely. His friend’s voice had an undertone of urgency.

  “I was in the fields that day, keeping the sheep,” David said.

  “The priest performed the ritual washing of my father. Then he washed my brothers one by one, Eliab, Abinadab, Shammah—all seven. My father says that when the last had been washed, the priest asked if those were all the sons that Jesse had. It was then that they sent for me.

  “Jonathan, when I stood in front of that old man he grabbed my head with such strength in his hands that I thought he would crush me. He whispered a few words so softly no one could hear them except me: The Lord sees not as people see, he said. People look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

  “Then he drew from his robes the horn of a wild ox. He held it over my head and tipped it and I felt oil soaking my hair. As if it came from a great cut, oil ran like blood down my temples, down my forehead and my face. It dripped from my chin. Oh, Jonathan, there was so much oil and the ancient priest seemed so furious that I felt afraid. I smelled smoke, and I thought we were both going to die.

  “All at once he was done. He put his things away, and he left. The priest never did sacrifice the heifer, though most of the village had consecrated themselves. They said, ‘He is old and forgetful,’ and they forgave him.

  “Well,” David said, standing up and staring toward the hills. “That is the time I saw Samuel.”

  Jonathan followed David with his eyes. “No,” he said, “I will never tell anyone this story.” He, too, stood up. “But I think you will know when the time has come to tell it aloud yourself, and then everyone will know its meaning.” He looked at the back of his friend, the tangled red hair, flesh so white and vulnerable.

  Suddenly Jonathan turned and ran to the chariot. He reached into the dashboard case and drew forth his sword and his best black lacquered bow. Then he returned to David, softly calling his name.

  The two men faced each other.

  Jonathan said, “You have just given me a thing of inexpressible value, a gift like nothing anyone has given me before. Now I want to give you something.” Jonathan paused. He was more than ten years older than his companion, taller, darker, more rugged. Yet his manner grew bashful. “David,” he said, “can these gifts make a covenant between us?”

  David bowed his head.

  Jonathan said, “I want us to make a covenant together, you and me. Friendship unshakable and everlasting. Becaus
e I love you, son of Jesse, as I love my own soul—”

  Jonathan stopped speaking. Abruptly he stepped forward and held out his sword and his bow that David might take them.

  But for a long while David didn’t move. He stood with his head bowed so low that his face was hidden. Then he made a small sound, and Jonathan realized that his friend was crying.

  Immediately he dropped his weapons and went to David and embraced him.

  “Let’s go home,” he whispered. “It’s time to go home.”

  THE PHILISTINES ATTACKED VILLAGES in the Guvrin valley of the Shephelah. Three villages, one right after the other.

  Saul blew the trumpet of war. A militia was mustered.

  West of Keilah, which would have been the next town attacked, Israelite warriors rushed out of the hills in a blunt, head-on counterattack. The valley was narrow at this point. Rock rose on both sides to create a bloody corridor.

  Saul and Jonathan and Abner all charged the enemy on horses.

  David rode a mule.

  Saul argued that the horse was larger and faster than any other mount. He said it had military advantages, especially for the tall, long-legged man. But in those days, a rider controlled his horse by the bridle alone. It took a warrior of volatile temperament and genuine strength to make the horse work well in the midst of battle. For all its speed, the horse was a fractious, shivering, nervous beast.

  Mules may have been stolid and lower-slung. But they were steadfast creatures, altogether dependable—and in the hills of Judah, surefooted.

  On a mule, then, David brought his division down difficult rock into the valley, surprising the foe at its left flank. David’s division struck the telling blow of the battle—and David, in the thick of things, slaughtered Philistines with such dazzling dexterity that the people of Keilah, huddled on the top of the rocks, broke into cheering.

  David killed with a minimum of motion and of blood. His sword was shorter and sharper than most. So quickly did he slip his blade in a heart and out again, his victim seemed merely puzzled before he died. And he fought silently. David neither laughed nor cursed nor taunted his foe. His eyes were not angry, but alert. And because of the lack of tumult where he went, Philistines were unaware how near they were to dying.

  But the people on the ridges saw. Israelites screamed their admiration. And when the enemy turned in retreat, they leaped up and began to shout a certain refrain in unison. Saul heard the rhythm of their voices, but at this distance he couldn’t make out the words.

  The next day, after Israel had broken camp and the militia had demobilized, Saul and his captains mounted their horses and began to ride back to Gibeah.

  As they passed through cities on the way, women came out with timbrels to meet King Saul, singing songs of joy and dancing. But in every city one refrain dominated the music of the women—the same one Saul had heard from the rocks surrounding the battlefield. This time he heard the words, and his face fell:

  Saul has killed his thousand again,

  and David his ten thousand men!

  That same night Saul woke in his chambers, filled with the black mood, grabbing things and breaking them, a table, a clay basin. He couldn’t remember beginning; neither could he stop. His mind bright with hatred. And as always when Saul woke, David was sitting in the corner of his bedroom singing, strumming his instrument and singing some sweet song:

  —A thousand foe may fall at thy right,

  ten thousand at thy left;

  yet the pestilence that stalks by night—

  The song was a damnable outrage! Saul grabbed a jar of water and smashed it to the floor. He seized a spear. He flung it at David, screaming: “I’ll pin you to the wall!”

  David ducked. The spear shattered against stone. And suddenly Saul was overwhelmed with remorse. He stood gaping at his hands and gasping as if he could not breathe. Then he rushed to David, crying, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  David opened his mouth to speak, but Saul clapped his hand over it. “No, no,” he cried, “it’s not your fault. It’s my fault.” Then he stumbled backward and turned and lifted his hands as high as he could and wailed, “Lord God, where are you? Why have you taken your spirit away from me?”

  King Saul collapsed to the floor. He felt no hatred now, except as one hates himself. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his great arms around them and rocked side to side.

  “Why, why?” he sang. It sounded like a song. “Why has this evil spirit come upon me? O God, won’t you tell me what I am to do?”

  IN THOSE DAYS Saul’s youngest daughter came to him and asked for something.

  “What is it?” he said.

  As far as Michal’s memory went, she had always been the daughter of a king, and her father loved her by giving gifts.

  “David,” she said, “the son of Jesse.”

  “What?” Saul stared at his daughter. “What are you asking?”

  “I want you to make David my husband.”

  Saul caught his breath. For a moment he trembled to think of his flesh joined to David. But then he began to smile. He took Michal into his arms and said, “Yes. Yes, I will offer you to David. Of course. Yes.”

  She beamed and kissed her father and ran from the room.

  But Saul was thinking: Let Michal be the snare that turns the hand of the Philistines against David.

  That same day he sent servants to David, saying: “Behold, the king delights in you. All his servants love you. Even his youngest daughter, Michal, loves you. Now, then, David son of Jesse, at the king’s request, become his son-in-law.”

  Within the hour they returned and reported David’s response: “He says he is a poor man and of no repute. He asks whether it seems a little thing to become the son-in-law of a king.”

  Saul said, “Tell him I desire no expensive marriage present, just the proof that a hundred Philistines have perished. Ask him whether he thinks he is valiant enough to enter the territories of the Philistines for a hundred foreskins.”

  The servants went again to David. Saul paced in his chambers and waited to hear the fate not so much of his daughter as of his captain.

  In the evening the servants came and said, “David has accepted the offer. He has left with some men for the cities of the Philistines.”

  “Already?” the king said, frowning. This was good, of course. It was his plan for the killing of David, and the sooner, the better. Why, then, did Saul feel as if the affair had just outrun him?

  Three days later he heard a shout go up outside the fortress, the voice of his warriors praising a hero for some wondrous accomplishment.

  King Saul rushed outside, and there came David, leading an ass and a simple cart and ten sacks filled—so everyone in Gibeah knew—with Philistine foreskins.

  Gibeah? Why, everyone in Israel knew. And everyone knew that David had done double the king’s request. City to city, rumor flew and Israelite pride had burst in Israelite bosoms: David invaded the strongholds of the Philistines and killed two hundred men and took two hundred foreskins and then escaped unscratched! David!

  In the merriment of the moment, some soldier presumed fellowship and slapped his king on the back. Saul, with a backward shot of his elbow, broke the man’s jaw.

  He kept his promise, of course. King Saul gave David his youngest daughter for a wife, and he granted them a room upstairs in his fortress. But the unrestrained affection with which the kingdom now greeted David—that caused in Saul a dynastic fear.

  IN THOSE DAYS Samuel died, and the elders of Israel assembled to mourn him. Priests came from the north and the south. Soldiers gathered with their captains, men and women, young and old. But not the king.

  Samuel was but a wisp at death, sunken eyes and bones like dry reeds.

  His face was fixed in an expression of sorrow.

  They buried him where he had lived, in Ramah.

  WHENEVER AN ARMY MARCHED through Israel, it was the farmers who suffered most. Troops plucked
their fruit, ate their grain, stole their cheeses and cream, butchered their cattle. The battles themselves were engaged in cultivated fields, destroying crops even before they could be harvested. Friendly armies commanded, enemies stole—but David the son of Jesse distinguished himself from either of these. He honored the common farmer. He asked for his food.

  And when his fighting men had been fed, he blessed his benefactors, saying, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, and blessed be your kindness, and blessed be you who kept us this day from hunger and thirst.”

  Soon everyone in Israel knew David on sight. And more than the women sang his praises. Men, too, the young and the old, farmers and shepherds and shopkeepers: the common folk of Israel shouted:

  Saul has killed his thousand again,

  but David his ten thousand men!

  Lately David was making slower and slower marches home. It was not just that he met with adulation; he also chose to stop at various homes along the way in order to share the spoils of his victory with those who had supported him.

  Thus it happened that after a brief skirmish against the Philistines Saul went home, but David delayed.

  On the third day the king asked why David had not yet returned and it was told him that the son of Jesse was visiting all the cities of Israel. “He eats with the people and then he blesses them. They rejoice in his presence.”

  The king said, “How do you know that?”

  And it was told him: “Wherever David stays, there is dancing in that village.”

  That night King Saul sat inside the door of his room with a spear across his knees. He did not light the lamp. The only sound he made was a harsh catch of breath, struggling to control himself. His muscles all were taut. He was waiting for the door to open, waiting to see the silhouette of David returning.