David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (25 page)

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, combined with the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, offer a fragmentary picture of the early attempts at the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple—a start-and-stop process conducted under the watchful eyes of the Persian administration, the hostility of neighboring peoples, and the suspicions of the remaining local population, who feared dispossession or domination by the returning exiles. Nevertheless, it was in this small community that a major development in the western religious tradition occurred.

Zerubbabel, the Davidic heir, participated in the first act of restoration, when the foundations of the new Temple were laid. Yet some years later, when revolts were raging throughout the Persian empire, the house of David took center stage. The distress of King Darius in the face of rebellions in Media, Babylonia, Egypt, and Asia Minor brought hopes to Judahite prophets that the world order was about to be shaken again. Perhaps the moment had arrived for the long-awaited Davidic restoration. Zerubbabel, who had in the meantime been officially appointed governor of Yehud, became the focus of renewed messianic hopes. The prophet Haggai explicitly identifies him as the long-expected Davidic savior who would usher in a new era:

The prophet Zechariah links Zerubbabel with the successful completion of the Temple, using Jeremiah’s poetic metaphor “righteous Branch” to refer to the Davidic heir:

It is noteworthy that Zechariah sees the leadership of restored Jerusalem as shared by king and priest. The Jerusalem Temple was completed and dedicated by about 516
BCE
, after which Zerubbabel disappears from history. Whether his disappearance was due to unrest caused by these messianic expectations, or the fear of the Persian authorities (or hostile neighbors) that the growing prestige of a Davidic leader might endanger imperial interests, or some other forgotten reason, we cannot be sure. What is clear is that after the end of the sixth century
BCE
, the earthly house of David vanished as an element in Yehud’s contemporary political life. Never again would a lineal descendant of David seek to rule Jerusalem. And never again would the David and Solomon tradition serve the political aims of a family dynasty whose continuous existence could be traced back for five hundred years. David and Solomon now belonged to the ages. And a dramatically different vision of these founding fathers would be born.

FROM KINGS TO PRIESTS

Throughout the fifth century
BCE
, Jerusalem slowly revived as Temple city and capital of a small, remote imperial province. The archaeological remains of this period are modest: they are limited mainly to the ridge of the City of David, where the Early Iron Age settlement had stood. It is reasonable to assume, as suggested by archaeologist David Ussishkin, that the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem described in the book of Nehemiah (3:1–32) refers to the renovation of fortifications first established by Hezekiah, though the population of the city had dwindled greatly. From a relatively large city of about sixty hectares before the Babylonian destruction, Jerusalem shrank in the Persian period to a settlement less than one-tenth that size.

At its center—its main reason for existence—was the restored Temple and the cultic activities carried out in its sacred precincts. With no king to lead the nation, a dual system of rule was established in the province of Yehud. The Persian-appointed governor dealt with secular matters such as collection of tax and imperial administration, while the Temple priesthood, led by a high priest, supervised ritual sacrifice and oversaw the collection of offerings. This duality is already evident in the division of power between the governor Zerubbabel and the high priest Joshua in the late sixth century
BCE
(Haggai 1:1). The priests’ religious activities included responsibility for the sacred writings of the community, editing and revising them over the course of generations—but also producing new works as well. Among the most important of the new historical works are the books of Chronicles, in which—despite the disappearance of the Davidic dynasty—David and Solomon play central roles.

Most biblical scholars agree that Chronicles (a single work of two books) was written in Jerusalem Temple circles, but the precise time of its composition is less clear. Since it mentions the edict of Cyrus about the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple in its closing verses, it must have been written after 539
BCE
. Another clue places it still later: a reference to the Persian coin called the
daric
in connection with contributions to the Temple (1 Chronicles 29:7) could not have been written before the initial minting of that coin during the reign of Darius, in 515
BCE
. Estimated dates for its composition range from the very late sixth century
BCE
all the way up to the early Hellenistic period, around 300
BCE
. Yet Chronicles does not show any influence of Greek culture or Greek language, so it likely dates from before the Hellenistic period. Unlike the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles does not show much concern for the characteristic institutions of the Persian empire, which disappeared from Yehud with its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332
BCE
.
*
Considering these and other clues, most scholars opt for a mid-to-late-fourth-century
BCE
date, with the possibility that Chronicles includes somewhat earlier materials.

In any event, the books of Chronicles were written in Jerusalem, a long time—possibly three centuries—after the compilation of the Deuteronomistic History. These books were written under very different circumstances: there were no more Davidic kings in power; Yehud was part of a world empire; and the Jerusalem community was led by priests. No wonder these literary works express different goals and ideals than those of the earlier books of Samuel and Kings. With no Davidic king to lead the community, and no hope of independence in an era of world empires, the Temple became the center of community identity. Its priests took over Yehud’s spiritual and social leadership. Yet despite all these changes, David and Solomon remained central to the Chronicles narrative. Why?

THE CHRONICLES VERSION

The books of Chronicles present an entirely different David and Solomon, shorn of complex personality traits and stripped of all human frailties. At a superficial glance, one may think that the description in Chronicles repeats the account of the books of Samuel and Kings in different words, merely omitting some original material and elaborating certain other themes. Yet the story of the founders of the Jerusalem dynasty as portrayed in Chronicles is far from being a dutiful repetition. Major parts of the story that appear in Samuel and Kings—such as the description of David’s rise to power, the succession of Solomon to the throne of David, and the apostasy of the aged Solomon—simply do not appear in Chronicles. There is no mention of David’s service as a Philistine vassal; not a word about all the murders and conflicts in the course of his rise to power; no reference to his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and its tragic aftermath, or to Absalom’s rebellion. There is no discussion of Solomon’s pagan ways or his foreign wives. This is not simply a matter of abridgment. All critical or unflattering stories about David and Solomon have been intentionally and selectively omitted. Every story that could have shed negative light on David and Solomon is carefully excised in order to depict them as flawless, almost saintly monarchs. The material
added
by Chronicles—which does not appear in the Deuteronomistic History—deals almost exclusively with the Temple and its personnel.

In the books of Chronicles, the Temple is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, not a distant hope but a living reality. Over half of the historical chapters of the two books of Chronicles (if one excludes the genealogies in the beginning of 1 Chronicles) are devoted to the time of the united monarchy. The account is almost entirely preoccupied with the construction of the Temple, its furnishings, and its rituals. This is not merely a matter of elaborated detail. The significance of David’s election and Solomon’s reign is shifted from earthly power and territorial conquest to the establishment of the Temple cult. David and Solomon’s dynastic prestige is now placed entirely in the service of ecclesiastical legitimation: showing the people of the province of Yehud and the communities of their kinsmen scattered throughout the Near East—now increasingly known as “Yehudim,” or Jews—that the long-awaited redemption should be sought not in dynastic restoration but in the rituals and laws of the Temple of Jerusalem.

For the authors of Chronicles, the Temple was the very heart of Israelite existence, an essential fulfillment of God’s eternal plan. David plays a far more significant role in the building of the Temple and the activities of its personnel than he had done in the earlier Deuteronomistic History. The story of his bringing the holy Ark to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 15–16) is filled with detailed instructions about the proper roles of priest and levites in ritual activities of music making, sacrifices, and psalm singing, which are utterly lacking in the account of the same event in 2 Samuel 6. Moreover, David takes a far more active role in the building of the Temple. While the earlier scriptural version had disqualified him from this action “because of the warfare with which his enemies surrounded him” (1 Kings 5:3), the David of Chronicles dedicates himself wholeheartedly to the project, as organizer, architect, and master engineer. In short, he is depicted as the founder of the Temple cult.

David summons a great assembly to announce the beginning of the project and to hand over a detailed blueprint:

All these elaborated elements were part of the Temple ground plan and ritual as it was carried out in postexilic Jerusalem. The account of David’s central role in its construction directly linked the authority of the priesthood and the sanctity of the cult with the actions of the founding father. Its effect was to substantially elevate and empower the priesthood as the true bearers of the Davidic promise—in place of the now-discontinued monarchy.

Solomon, too, serves as a founding patron for later Temple practice, even more than in the earlier scriptural account. In Chronicles, Solomon’s wealth, power, and wisdom are almost entirely directed to his involvement with the Temple. The intrigue surrounding his succession to the throne is omitted. He reigns with one overarching mission: to complete the building of the Temple and initiate the complex plan for its operation in much the same way that Joshua inherited the leadership over the children of Israel to put into action the laws that Moses had received at Sinai. For the authors of Chronicles, the Temple and the Dynasty are inseparably intertwined; the promise to David is conditional on the completion of the Temple and its proper functioning according to law. The inheritance of the people of Israel is no longer just an earthly Davidic kingdom but—through the laws and rituals of the Jerusalem Temple—a kingdom of God.

Thus by the time of the writing of the books of Chronicles in the fourth century
BCE
, we see a fundamental reversal of the significance of the David and Solomon tradition. Whereas the Temple and its cult had served to boost the political prestige of the Davidic dynasty during its rule of the kingdom of Judah, nostalgic memories of independent kingship now served as support for the centrality of the Temple and its rituals in the life of postexilic Yehud and in the spiritual imagination of communities of
Yehudim
—Jews—all over the ancient world.

SAMARIA, AGAIN

Many biblical scholars have suggested that the transformation of the image of David and Solomon in the books of Chronicles is based not only on the efforts of the Jerusalem priesthood to secure their position within Yehud, but also to overcome political and religious rivalry from the north. The Persian kings retained the administrative division established by their predecessors the Babylonians and Assyrians and they organized the territory immediately to the north of the province of Yehud, the core of the former northern kingdom of Israel, as the province of Samaria. Its mixed population of former Israelites who did not go into exile and of foreign groups resettled in the area by the Assyrians were now known as Samaritans.