Drunk With Blood (19 page)

1 Samuel 23.5

Estimated Number Killed: 10,000

Philistines

This one is pretty simple. David heard that the Philistines were fighting the city of Keilah and robbing their threshing floors. So he asked God if he should go and smite them. And God said, “Yes, go smite them.”

David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the LORD said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah. 1 Samuel 23.2

But David’s men were afraid of Philistines.

And David’s men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah. 23.3

David asked God again, and God said, “Go smite them; I will deliver them into your hand.”

Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand. 23.4

And so David went to fight the Philistines and he “smote them with a great slaughter.”

So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. 23.5

(Since this was “a great slaughter, I added another 10,000 to God’s total.)

1 Samuel 25.38

Number Killed: 1

Nabal

After his last killing (
69
), David tracked down Saul and snuck in while Saul was “covering his feet” (the biblical equivalent of “going to the bathroom”) and cut off the end of Saul’s skirt.

Saul went in to cover his feet … Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe privily. 1 Samuel 24.3-4

This feat impressed Saul so much that he said:

Thou art more righteous than I ... And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king. 24.17-20

And I suppose that I’d be pretty impressed too, if someone cut off my shirttail or something with a sword while I was doing my business without me even noticing.

After David’s amazing bathroom caper, he hung out “in the wilderness” with a gang of outlaws. While there, he heard about a rich man named Nabal and decided to send ten of his “young men” to pay him a visit. So they went and introduced themselves to Nabal and told him to give them whatever he owned.

Give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. 25.8

But Nabal was on to their protection racket. He refused to give his belongings to people he didn’t even know just to get them to go away and leave him alone.

Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be? 25.10-11

When David heard about it, he swore he’d kill Nabal and all of his men (everyone that pisses against a wall).

So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 25.22

Meanwhile, Nabal’s wife, Abigail, decided to go visit David and try to smooth things over a bit. She brought lots of food and wine.

Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. 25.18

And the bribe worked. David said that he no longer planned to kill every last swinging dick (those that piss against the wall).

Except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 25.34

Abigail returned home and found that Nabal was partying with his friends, celebrating his freedom from David’s extortion. She waited until he woke up the next morning, since he was too drunk the night before to tell him what had happened. (That she gave David a huge bribe to keep him from killing Nabal and his men.) When she told him, he had a stroke or heart attack and was paralyzed.

In the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 25.37

About ten days later, God killed him.

And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD smote Nabal, that he died. 25.38

When David heard that Nabal was dead,

He said, Blessed be the LORD ... And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife. 25.39

So God killed Nabal and David got his wife and all his other stuff.

(Actually he got two new wives, Abigail and Ahinoam, along with five other “damsels.” But Saul gave away his first wife to some other guy. So, for those keeping score, I guess he gained seven wives and lost one. I don’t know what happened to all the wall pissers.)

1 Samuel 27.8-11

Estimated Number Killed: 60,000

Six genocides

In 1 Samuel 24, David snuck in and cut off Saul’s skirt while he (Saul, that is) was defecating. And Saul didn’t even notice.

Yeah, well, that worked out so well for David that he decided to try something like it again. This time, though, he snuck into Saul’s camp and stole his sword and water jug while Saul was sleeping.

So David and Abishai came to the people by night: and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his spear stuck in the ground at his bolster: but Abner and the people lay round about him … So David took the spear and the cruse of water from Saul’s bolster; and they gat them away, and no man saw it, nor knew it, neither awaked: for they were all asleep; because a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them. 1 Samuel 26.7-12

Not nearly as impressive, I’d say. Especially when you consider that “a deep sleep from the LORD was fallen upon them.” That sounds like cheating to me.

But Saul went gaga over it, just like he did for David’s last trick. Here’s what he said when David waved Saul’s sword and water jug in front of him:

I have sinned: return, my son David: for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day: behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly. ... Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do great things, and also shalt still prevail. 26.21- 25

But David still didn’t trust Saul, so he decided to join up with the Philistines. And every day he and his men would go out and slaughter people. The Philistine king would ask him, “Hey David, who’d you slaughter today” and he’d say, “Oh the south of Judah, or the Jerahmeelites, or the Kenites, or the Geshurites, or the Gezrites, or the Amalekites, or the Egyptians.”

And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites ... even unto the land of Egypt. ... And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to day? And David said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the Kenites. 27.8-10

He was a killing machine. Every day he slaughtered thousands of people for the Philistines. And he killed everyone: women, children, babies, the aged, the sick, the poor. Everyone.

And David saved neither man nor woman alive. 27.11

So the Philistine king, Achish, loved David because David killed Israelites along with everybody else.

And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant for ever. 27.12

(David brags about at least six genocides in 1 Sam 27.8-10. So I’ll add another 60,000 to the total, 10,000 for each genocide.)

1 Samuel 30.17

Estimated Number Killed: 1,000

Amalekites

While David was hanging out with the Philistines performing daily acts of genocide for them (
71
), disaster struck. The Philistines were attacked by the Amalekites.

That’s right, the Amalekites. You know, the ones that God hates more than any other people, and that’s saying something since God hates everyone except for the Israelites (and he hates them sometimes, too).

How much does God hate the Amalekites? Well, just listen to him.

The LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Exodus 17.16

Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it. Deuteronomy 25.19

Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15.2-3

So we know for sure that God hates Amalekites. That’s why he ordered the Israelites to kill them all. And the Israelites did just that (
65
,
66
).

Yet here, just a few years after they were completely killed in a God-ordered genocide, they attack the Philistines. I guess sometimes you have to kill people several times to make sure they’re not merely dead, but positively, absolutely, undeniably, reliably, and sincerely dead.

What I find especially interesting in this story, though, is that the Amalekites show some mercy to the Philistines. Rather than utterly destroying them, slaying “both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” as God told the Israelites to do (
65
), they “slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way.”

The Amalekites … slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way. 1 Samuel 30.1-2

Yet the most common excuse that believers give for God’s genocidal commands on the Amalekites is that the Amalekites were so evil that they all had to be killed—even their woman, children, infants, and babies.

When David and his merry men return to Ziklag (the Philistine city that the Amalekites destroyed), they wept until they couldn’t weep any longer.

So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep. 30.3-4

Then they got up and talked about stoning David to death.

David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him. 30.6

Meanwhile, David asked a priest to use his ephod to ask God what he should do. (An ephod is sort of a biblical version of a magic eight ball or a coin toss. It only works on yes or no questions.)

David said to Abiathar the priest, Ahimelech’s son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David. And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? 30.7-8a

So the priest got out his trusty ephod and asked God if David should kill the Amalekites. God said “Heck Yeah. Go kill the Amalekites (one more time) and get back all your wives and other stuff.”

He answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. 30.8b

So that’s what they did. David and 400 of his men (he left 200 behind because they were just too tired to kill people) spent the day killing Amalekites. They killed them all, except for 400 guys who escaped on camels.

David smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and fled. 30.17

So David got back all of his stuff, including his two wives.

David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away: and David rescued his two wives. 30.18

And he shared the plunder will his men, even those that were too tired to kill.

David was such a nice guy. You can see why God liked him so much.

(The text doesn’t say how many Amalekites were killed. I’ll just say 1000.)