Was King David a self-serving mercenary usurper or the innocent favorite of Yahweh?
In the Hebrew Bible, the story of the rise of king David is one of epic victory shadowed by darkness. A series of tragic deaths all seem to benefit David: from that of the rich man Nabal, whose beautiful wife ended up with David (1 Sam 25), to king Saul, whose royal daughter ended up with David (1 Sam 18) and the death of all of Saul’s heirs from Jonathan to Ishbosheth to Saul’s commander Abner. Yet, the text keeps on emphasizing, David is never responsible. Rather, the book of Samuel seems to insist, David rose due to his humility and talent, and God chose to aid his chosen king.
And yet…some ancient Israelites of David’s own time were rather suspicious of David–so much so that after he had established his power, a rebellion led by his son Absalom comes within an inch of defeating him, and then another rebellion immediately follows after it. Finally, immediately on the death of David’s son Solomon, the kingdom he built splits in two, never to be reunited. Some never forgave him for consolidating the tribes of Israel, feeling exploited by his kingdom’s assertion of control.
Now, by the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the figure of the controversial warrior King David had been totally reinterpreted into a purely scholarly and intellectual figure. He is described in the Qumran Psalms Scroll as
a “wise man and a scribe,” spiritually “luminous as the light of the sun.”
Similarly Acts 13 describes David as someone inexplicably chosen by God to succeed, replacing Saul as King, and found the lineage that leads up to Jesus:
21 Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years. 22 When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’ 23 Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised…
But these are much later interpretations, for by this time king David had been dead for a thousand years. When we go back earlier, we find the Bible curiously divided over his reputation, even containing attempts at what looks like Public Relations “damage control.” What was the damage that led to such conflicting views of David, and how historically real was the darkness around him? There are a number of great full-length books* about this issue, but there’s no good 10-minute summary.
Satan and the Census: Chronicles’ Early Reinterpretation of David
Some 400 years before Qumran and the New Testament, the Book of Chronicles rewrote history to lessen the blame on David for a puzzling act of misconduct that enraged God himself. In the earlier, presumably more original history of David and Israel (1-2 Samuel, written down by around 700 BCE from earlier sources), the Lord becomes mysteriously angry at Israel and incites David. But in the the rewritten version it is the ancient Hebrews’ heavenly prosecutor who incites David (Hebrew śāṭān,God’s attorney, later understood as God’s enemy Satan). And while in the original, David simply feels remorse for what he did, with no external cause, in the rewritten Chronicles version it is because his census immediately causes God to attack Israel.
Important original lines are in italics, changes in bold
2 Samuel 24: David’s census | 1 Chronicles 21: David’s census |
1 The anger of the LORD again flared up against Israel; and He incited David against them, saying, “Go and number Israel and Judah.” 2 The king said to Joab, chis army commander, “Make the rounds of all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beer-sheba, and take a census of the people, so that I may know the size of the population.” 3 Joab answered the king, “May the LORD your God increase the number of the people a hundredfold, while your own eyes see it! But why should my lord king want this?” 4 However, the king’s command to Joab and to the officers of the army remained firm; and Joab and the officers of the army set out, at the instance of the king, to take a census of the people of Israel….8 They traversed the whole country, and then they came back to Jerusalem… 9 Joab reported to the king the number of the people that had been recorded: in Israel there were 800,000 soldiers ready to draw the sword, and the men of Judah numbered 500,000. 10 But afterward David reproached himself for having numbered the people. And David said to the LORD, “I have sinned grievously in what I have done. Please, O LORD, remit the guilt of Your servant, for I have acted foolishly.” 11 When David rose in the morning, the word of the LORD had come to the prophet Gad, David’s seer: 12 “Go and tell David, ‘Thus said the LORD: I hold three things over you; choose one of them, and I will bring it upon you…. | 1 Satan (Hebrew śāṭān, “the prosecutor/adversary”) arose against Israel and incited David to number Israel. 2 David said to Joab and to the commanders of the army, “Go and count Israel from Beer-sheba to Dan and bring me information as to their number.” 3 Joab answered, “May the LORD increase His people a hundredfold; my lord king, are they not all subjects of my lord? Why should my lord require this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?” 4 However, the king’s command to Joab remained firm, so Joab set out and traversed all Israel; he then came to Jerusalem. 5 Joab reported to David the number of the people that had been recorded. All Israel comprised 1,100,000 ready to draw the sword, while in Judah there were 470,000 men ready to draw the sword. 6 He did not record among them Levi and Benjamin, because the king’s command had become repugnant to Joab. 7 God was displeased about this matter and He struck Israel. 1Chr. 21:8 David said to God, “I have sinned grievously in having done this thing; please remit the guilt of Your servant, for I have acted foolishly.” 9 The LORD ordered Gad, David’s seer: 10 “Go and tell David: Thus said the LORD: I offer you three things; choose one of them and I will bring it upon you… |
For a deep look at how Chronicles reinterprets David, see Ralph Klein’s David: Sinner and Saint in Samuel and Chronicles.
But God’s anger may be a sign of the real issue: a tribal resistance to a kingdom’s political control. What’s so bad about a census? It turns out that this goes to the heart of the Israelite problem with kings. Because the census is here not a way of seeing who might need what social services, a tool for better government, but a tool for military enlistment: “in Israel there were 800,000 soldiers ready to draw the sword.” In other words, a census is a way of demanding people’s lives, that their military-age men fight for you. And so even as far back as the tribal society of Old Babylonian Mari, the Benjaminite tribes of ancient Syria were leery of a royal census. A letter from the king Samsi-Adad forbids it, it is a sign of betraying nomadic loyalties and saying that instead, the tribal headmen will make sure their own men show up to fight:
You wrote to me about taking a census of the Benjaminites. It is not a good idea to take a census of the Benjaminites. If you take their census, their kin, the Rabbû who live across the river …will hear (about it) and become provoked at them, so that they cannot return to their land. You must not take their census at all. (ARM 1 6:6-13, translation after Fleming)
What Did David Have to Apologize For?
Did the original controversy around David’s rise have its roots in tribal loyalty, or does it go even deeper? The Hebrew Bible scholar Kyle McCarter, author of a classic in-depth commentary on the books of Samuel, lays out what a number of historians see at its root in his “The Apology of David.” Journal of Biblical Literature 99, (1980): 489–504.
First, it’s important to see the story’s big picture. The history of David’s rise has two parts that show two different, contrasting attitudes toward kinship: 1 Samuel 1-15 “was composed from a prophetic perspective that was suspicious of monarchy in any form, committed to an ideal of prophetically-mediated divine selection of leaders, and thus opposed to hereditary succession” This problem with nepotism doesn’t stop at kings but extends to prophets too: remember that Samuel is picked out as a prophet in the first place because the prophetic office of Eli had become corrupt, with swinish sons who embezzled the offerings. This prophetic viewpoint “is represented in 1 Samuel by the story of Samuel’s career as a prophet in chaps. 1-7, which incorporates older material (especially the ark narrative), and the account of the inauguration of the monarchy in chaps. 8-15, which also incorporates older material.”
But the history of David’s rise in 1 Samuel 16-2 Samuel 5, as well as the promise to David in 2 Sam 7 has a very different point of view on kingship. It… “is a narrative that promulgates a political point of view supported by theological interpretation.” It argues–often by means of private conversations that might be hard to check up on–that David was politically blameless. And theologically, it argues that God’s hand was behind every extraordinary piece of luck in David’s rise to power. As we will see, the tone here resembles a well known kind of ancient narrative, the Royal Apology. the purpose of which is to justify the actions of a king to his current audience. In other words, it suggests at once that the story probably goes back to David’s time because it’s something that only an audience of his time would be worried about, but also that in the way it argues a little bit too hard for that audience, it might be covering something up.
A classic early study** argued that politically, the story takes pains to show that absolutely everyone, from northern tribes to royal rivals, either loved David or were demonically possessed. The goal was “to show by a careful presentation of the events of the early part of David’s career that his succession to Saul’s throne was lawful. There is particular emphasis, … on the legitimacy of the Davidic claim to the kingship of all Israel, north as well as south. Thus David, though a Judahite by birth, is shown to have been a favorite member of the court of the Benjaminite king; indeed he is presented us as the successful suitor of the king’s daughter (1 Sam 18:20-27) and the popularly acknowledged leader of the armies of both Israel a Judah (1 Sam 18:16). From this position, we are told, he eventual rose up to displace his father-in-law as king, and the intervening episodes as set forth in the narrative give no warrant for casting any blame upon David for the dark events that attended the transfer of power, including his estrangement from Saul, Saul’s death, and the deaths of Jonathan and Ishbaal, the sons of Saul who might have stood in his way; David was even innocent” in the affair that led to the assassination of Abner, Saul’s smartest and most ruthless general–and therefore one of the last possible threats to David. “In the end the northern tribes proclaimed him king as willingly and enthusiastically as Judah had earlier (2 Sam 5:3 cf. 2:4).” David, in other words, was pretty much universally loved and did everything by the book.
A second study argued that theologically–contrary to God’s total condemnation of kingship in 1 Sam 8 and 12– this kingship was absolutely God’s plan:*** “it is made completely clear in the narrative that the transfer of the throne from David to Saul was in accordance with the will of Yahweh. David is presented as a man generously blessed with divine favor, Saul as a man rejected by his god. Indeed the [theme] of the entire history is the assertion “Yahweh was with David,” which appears first in 1 Sam 16:18 and is repeated often thereafter, while the corresponding assessment of Saul’s situation is the narrator’s introductory remark to the effect that “the spirit of Yahw departed from Saul” in 1 Sam 16:14. The importance of the contrasting dispostion of Yahweh toward the two antagonists is demonstrated subtly but unmistakably by the development of the story itself. David succeeds in everything he undertakes (cf. 1 Sam 26:25), and even things he does with no intention of personal gain often work to improve his situation. On the other hand Saul’s undertakings, especially his plots against David’s life, seem to be not only unsuccessful but cursed with a dark irony, frequently resulting in further success for David and further grief for Saul himself.”
Apparently Sketchy But Ultimately Blameless
To get a flavor of this story’s apparently-sketchy-but-ultimately-blameless picture of David, we can take a quick look at how David got his beautiful second wife. In 1 Sam 25 we find out about a very rich man named Nabal (“fool” in Hebrew!) with a wife named Abigail and “The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man..was a hard man and an evildoer.”
David is hanging out in the wilderness with a large group of armed men–about 600–when he sends Nabal this friendly message: “Greetings to you and to your household and to all that is yours! 7 I hear that you are now doing your shearing. As you know, your shepherds have been with us; we did not harm them, and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel. 8 … So receive these young men graciously, for we have come on a festive occasion. Please give your servants and your son David whatever you can.’”
In other words, you’re lucky our guys were there to protect your shepherds, in fact we didn’t kill them or even steal anything from them–you should be grateful! We will accept payment from you as a sign of gratitude. In the 20th century (and lots of old Mafia movies) this was known as a protection racket.
But Nabal wasn’t having it, answering rudely:
“Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many slaves nowadays who run away from their masters. 11 Should I then take my bread and my water, and the meat that I slaughtered for my own shearers, and give them to men who come from I don’t know where?” 12 Thereupon David’s young men retraced their steps; and when they got back, they told him all this.
13 And David said to his men, “Gird on your swords.” Each girded on his sword; David too girded on his sword. About four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.
Unlike Nabal, Abigail understands the direction this is headed and picks the winning side, arranging a secret meeting with David.
1Sam. 25:18 Abigail quickly got together two hundred loaves of bread, two jars of wine, five dressed sheep, five seahs of parched corn, one hundred cakes of raisin, and two hundred cakes of pressed figs. She loaded them on asses, 19 and she told her young men, “Go on ahead of me, and I’ll follow you”; but she did not tell her husband Nabal….
This turns out to be a good idea because behind David’s nice guy image is someone who seems pretty comfortable murdering anyone who doesn’t pay him for protection.
21 Now David had been saying, “It was all for nothing that I protected that fellow’s possessions in the wilderness, and that nothing he owned is missing. He has paid me back evil for good. 22 May God strike me down if I haven’t killed everyone who pisses standing up (Hebrew: “who urinates against the wall”) by tomorrow morning!
Abigail is quick to sell her husband out, saying that his name, Nabal or “fool,” is an apt description of him and that she understands that he is doomed.
26 I swear, my lord, as the LORD lives and as you live—the LORD who has kept you from seeking redress by blood with your own hands—let your enemies and all who would harm my lord fare like Nabal! 27 Here is the present which your maidservant has brought to my lord; let it be given to the young men who are the followers of my lord. 28 Please pardon your maid’s boldness. For the LORD will grant my lord an enduring house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and no wrong is ever to be found in you.
David accepts her plea, and her loyalty. Abigail then waits til her husband wakes up from a drunken stupor the next morning and sweetly informs him of what’s in store for him.
37 The next morning, when Nabal had slept off the wine, his wife told him everything that had happened; and his courage died within him, and he became like a stone. 38 About ten days later the LORD struck Nabal and he died. 39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Praised be the LORD who championed my cause against the insults of Nabal and held back His servant from wrongdoing; the LORD has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.”
The story ends happily when David proposes marriage to Nabal’s grief-stricken widow, who immediately agrees! A classic boy-meets-girl, girl’s husband dies mysteriously 10 days after being told that the 600 armed men on his property have it in for him, boy-marries-girl romance. The only problem is that David already had two wives.
1Sam. 25:43 Now David had taken Ahinoam of Jezreel; so both of them became his wives. 44 Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish from Gallim.
Now, it so happens that there were a number of ancient Near Eastern royal histories like this, emphasizing a king’s remarkable rise from total underdog to total victory and total blamelessness. They are known as Royal Apologies and “composed for a king who usurped the throne… in order to defend or justify his assumption of the kingship by force.”
From Mercenary to Messiah: How an Ancient Royal Apology Worked
Of the surviving examples of Hittite apology, one, the 13th-century “Apology of Hattushilish III” is especially interesting here, “It tells the story of the early career of Hattushilish and his rise to power, describing his rebellion against his nephew and predecessor, Urhi-teshub.” McCarter summarizes it thus:
Hattushilish, after identifying himself and citing his royal lineage
(1:1-4), begins his apology with an introductory acknowledgment of the decisive role of the goddess Ishtar in what is to follow…: “I tell Ishtar’s power; let mankind hear it” (1:5). As the youngest child of Murshilish (II), he says, he was not expected to live and was assigned to the service of Ishtar; it was in this priestly role that he gained the divine favor that was responsible for his later success (1:9-21). His public career began with the death of his father and accession of Muwattallish, his brother, who appointed him to a high office and gave him the Upper Country, the northern part of the Hittite homeland, to rule (1:22-26). This early success provoked jealousy, especially on the part of a certain Armadattash, the previous ruler of the Upper Country, and malicious charges were made against him, eventually reaching the ears of Muwattallish (1:27-35). The crisis passed, however, when Muwattallish learned the truth of the matter (cf. 1:6-63), Hattushilish himself being sustained throughout the affair by Ishtar…
Safely back in the good opinion of his brother, Hattushilish enjoyed
success after success. He was now the chief military officer of the Hittites, building up a record of victories abroad while efficiently protecting the homeland from invasion (1:64-72). When Muwattallish retired to the Lower Country, a series of major rebellions and invasions began in the Upper Country, but Hattushilish, who was left in sole charge, thwarted them all (1:75-2:47), in each case, he says, with Ishtar’s help (2:24, 37, 45). He was appointed “king” or viceroy a number of Hittite principalities (2:48-68), whose troops he led battle alongside Muwattallish (2:69-72). He further consolidated position at this time by a politically advantageous marriage to priestess of Ishtar (3:1-4) and by a final legal victory over his old rival Armadattash (2:74-78; 3:14-27).
The critical series of events in Hattushilish’s rise to power began with his brother’s death. Muwattallish died without “a legitimate son,” as Hattushilish puts it, and was succeeded by Urhi-teshub, the son of a concubine. Hattushilish stresses his own restraint: “I… firm in my respect for my brother, did not act selfishly” (3:38). He took his nephew’s cause upon himself, he says, and installed him as great king of the Hittites, …keeping for himself only those territories that had been lawfully assigned him the past (3:38-45). Urhi-teshub, however, did not respond in kind. He was jealous of the favor of Ishtar, we are told, and soon deprived his uncle of all his possessions except a small home base (3:54-60). “…firm in (my) respect for my brother,” says Hattushilish, “I did not act selfishly. And for seven years I submitted” (3:61-62). But final when Urhi-teshub took away his remaining dominions and… “tried to destroy me” (3:63), he could submit no longer and declared war. There is great emphasis placed upon the fact that this was no furtive palace rebellion: it was an openly declared contest, an ordeal at arms, which would decide by its outcome whose cause was just (3:65-72). Ishtar, who “had even before this been promising the kingship” (4:7), marched with Hattushilish once again, and Urhi teshub was defeated, captured, and banished (4:7-35)….”
First, the ability of Hattushilish to rule is shown by reference to his various administrative accomplishments and military successes. Second, it is made clear that he was the favorite of his brother, Murshilish, and his viceregent in the rule of the Hittite dominions. Third, he is shown never to have acted out of self-interest though presented with frequent opportunity to advance his own cause, but instead to have conducted himself accordance with a deep respect for his brother. Fourth, he is exonerated from all blame in the incessant personal conflict that attended his rise to power, and the source of the antagonism is shown to have been the jealousy of his rivals, especial Armadattash, and the groundless suspicions of Urhi-teshub. Finally, as already mentioned, the decisive factor in his ascent at every stage shown to have been the effective power of Ishtar’s favor, by which he was protected from every danger (“Ishtar always rescued me” [1:4 etc.]) and given success in all his undertakings.”
It is this pattern of “political self-justification with its accompanying claims for the legitimacy of the usurper, his ability to rule, his moral rectitude, and his divine election” that we can trace in the inscriptions of a number of kings, from Hittite to Persian, And as McCarter argues, this is strikingly parallel to the David story itself.
“David’s ability to rule is illustrated by reference to early military successes, the spontaneous loyalty of the people of Israel and Judah, and the skill and restraint with which he wages the long war with the house of Saul after his accession as king of Judah. Second he is shown to have begun as Saul’s trusted lieutenant and to have the loyalty of the royal family. Third, he is depicted as thoroughly loyal to the king, never seeking out the power that steadily comes to him and indeed refusing at least one opportunity to secure his position by slaying Saul. Fourth, he is shown to have been blameless in all dealings with Saul, whose jealousy and groundless suspicions were responsible for the alienation of David and the conflict that ensued. Finally, it is made clear that David’s rise to power was made possible, indeed inevitable, by the special favor of the god of Israel, “Yahweh is with him” being, as already noted, the leitmotif of the entire composition.
Nevertheless, the charges against which the author of 1 Sam 16-2 Sam 5 is working so hard to defend are easy to recognize in the story of David’s rise. McCarter counts 7:
“Charge 1. David sought to advance himself at court at Saul’s expense. The extraordinary attainments of the young Judahite at the Benjaminite court, especially in light of his subsequent fall from favor, might suggest that he acted out of a strong and perhaps unscrupulous self- interest while in Saul’s service. The narrator, however, shows that David came to court at Saul’s behest (1 Sam 16:19-22) and that as long as he was there he was completely loyal and indeed did much to help Saul’s own cause (cf. 1 Sam 19:4-5). He did not seek out his marriage to the princess Michal, the most conspicuous sign of his elevated position, but instead protested his unworthiness of the match (1 Sam 18:23), which was in fact Saul’s idea (vv 20-21a), until persuaded by the insistence of Saul’s courtiers.
“Charge 2. David was a deserter. The circumstances of David’s deparure from court might lead to the suspicion that he shirked his responsibilities to Saul and deserted. The narrator of the history of David’s rise, however, takes special pains to show that David was forced to leave in order to save his life (1 Sam 19:9-17) and that he did so reluctantly, having first explored every possibility of remaining. In short, he was driven away from the place of his true loyalties Saul’s hostility (cf. 1 Sam 26:19). Moreover, Saul’s own daughter and his son, the crown prince, saw the rightness of David’s side and aided his escape (1 Sam 19:11-17; 20:1-21:1).
“Charge 3. David was an outlaw.” Remember that even in the official story, David is depicted as ruthless enough to have his band of armed men “kill everyone who pisses standing up” overnight if they don’t pay him. It seems as if the fact that David was at one time a bandit leader was too well known to deny. “The narrator is careful to show, however, that David at that time was a fugitive from Saul’s unjust pursuit and that he earnestly sought reconciliation (cf. 1 Sam 26:1 20). Saul even recognized this state of affairs himself in his rare lucid moments (v 21).”
“Charge 4. David was a Philistine mercenary. The public knowledge that David had served in the army of a king of the Philistines, Israel’s most hated foe, would certainly have provoked objections. Again this must have been too widely known to be denied. The narrative, however. makes it clear that David was forced into Philistine service as a desperate last resort. “Any day now I might be taken by Saul,” he says to himself in 1 Sam 27:1. “There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up on me and no longer seek me throughout the territory of Israel, for I shall be safely out of his reach.” It is scrupulously shown, moreover, that while he was in the Philistine army, he never led his troops against any Israelite or Judahite city, though he deceived Achish of Gath, his lord, into thinking so (1 Sam 27:8-12). Indeed he took advantage of the power of his position to attack Israel’s enemies and thereby to enrich Judah (1 Sam 30).
“Charge 5. David was implicated in Saul’s death. Some must have suspected, if only on the ground of cui bono, that David was involved in the demise of his predecessor, especially since Saul died fighting against the Philistines at a time when David was in the Philistine army. Indeed the forces of Achish were known, it seems, to have participated in the battle of Mount Gilboa (cf. 1 Sam 29:1-2)! Nevertheless, David was not, we are told, with Achish at Gilboa (1 Sam 29:11), and it is subtly but clearly implied that if he had been, he would have fought with Saul rather than against him. In 1 Sam 29:8, having been told by Achish that he must quit the march north, David expresses a wish to “go out and fight against the enemies of my lord, the king.” Though Achish assumes the reference is to him, the irony is not lost on the audience. Elsewhere in the story, moreover, David is shown to ha been fastidious about the sanctity of the person of Saul, the anointe of Yahweh, refusing an opportunity to slay him when it is offered 1 Samuel 26) and strictly punishing the violator of his person (2 Sa 1:14-16).
“Charge 6. David was implicated in Abner’s death. Suspicion must have fallen on David in regard to the death of Abner, inasmuch as it was he who set Ishbaal on his father’s throne (2 Sam 2:8-9) and seemed, therefore, to have been the major obstacle to David’s kingship over the northern tribes. The narrative shows, however, that David and Abner had reached an accord before the latter’s death, inasmuch as Abner, having quarreled with Ishbaal (2 Sam 3:7-11), had actually begun to champion David’s cause in the north (vv 17-18) and had offered him the kingship of Israel (v 21a). In particular we are informed three times (!) that after their last interview Abner left David “in peace” (vv 21b, 22, 23). In other words, the narrator means to show us that here as in the previous cases suspicion of David is groundless. Instead Abner died in consequence of a private quarrel with Joab, David’s commander-in-chief (2 Sam 2:12-32; 3:22-30), and David knew nothing, as we are explicitly advised in 2 Sam 3:26b, of the deception that finally cost Abner his life. When he learned of Abner’s death, we are told, David declared, “I and my kingship are innocent before Yahweh forever of the blood of Abner, son of Ner!” (2 Sam 3:28).23 Furthermore, he pronounced a curse upon Joab’s house (v 29) and led the mourning for Abner himself (vv 31-35), much to the approval of the people (v 36). “All the people and all Israel knew at that time,” says our narrator (v 37), “that it had not been the king’s will (k o16′ hayeta mehammelek) to kill Abner, the son of Ner.”
“Charge 7. David was implicated in Ishbaal’s death. As in the cases of the deaths of Saul and Abner, David must have been suspected of treachery in the murder of Ishbaal. The narrative shows, however, that Ishbaal was slain without David’s knowledge by a pair of Benjaminites (2 Sam 4:2-3), opportunists who hoped to gain David’s favor by tak the life of their master (vv 5-8). But David was not pleased by news and indignantly condemned the assassins to death (vv 9-12 was David, moreover, who arranged for the honorable burial of Ishbaal’s remains.
McCarter concludes that “the history of David’s rise or the apology of David, as we are now entitled to call it, shows David’s accession to the throne of all Israel, north as well as south, to have been entirely lawful and his kingship, therefore, free of guilt. All possible charges of wrongdoing are faced forthrightly, and each in its turn is gainsaid by the course of events as related by the narrator.” These issues concern David’s basic decency and qualifications for kingship, so they would have been most urgent during the early period of the Davidic dynasty. It is the very specific details that the story takes so much trouble to deny that, ironically, argue that its source is an early and authentic apology for David.
In the end the apology worked, and David ended up as the model of a Messiah (from Hebrew mashiach “(royally) anointed one.” He was indeed a remarkable figure, a military and political (and perhaps a musical) genius. Yet the Bible preserved both the ancient royal PR for David and the historical darkness it came from. While this does not make for a simple political or religious story, it makes for a profoundly interesting one.
References
*The most in-depth study is Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King. W.B. Eerdmans, 2001. A good recent popular study is Joel Baden’s The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero. HarperCollins, 2013, and a vivid earlier one is Jonathan Kirsch, King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel Ballantine Books, 2000.
**Artur Weiser, “Die Legitimation des Konigs David: zur Eigenart und Entstehung der sogenannte Geschichte von Davids Aufstieg,” VT 16 (1966) 325-54
***J. H. Grønbaeck Die Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids (1. Sam. 15-2. Sam. 5), 1971 esp. 271-73