The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (11 page)

T
HE
B
IBLE PROVIDES LITTLE
explanation for how David finally came to push Saul over the edge. This is, of course, because the biblical authors try at every turn to downplay David’s role in his own rise to power, a rise that they want to attribute to the working out of the divine plan. Indeed, in the biblical account, there is no edge for Saul to go over—he has sought David’s life from the very beginning, and so David’s flight is merely the result of a long-simmering hatred. Since all of the stories exemplifying Saul’s hatred can be historically discounted, however, we are required to posit a moment when Saul realized that David was not simply a potential threat, but a very real one.

We can safely say that David was ambitious. Much of this may have been attributable to his position: being a military officer may have fueled his aspirations for the kingship. Saul became king because he fought off Israel’s enemies—David was doing the same. David also may have looked to the history of Israel’s political leadership and, reasonably enough, considered Saul to be no more than a glorified judge, destined to pass from the scene without leaving a permanent mark or a hereditary successor. As one biblical scholar has noted, “traditional societies . . . often do not move directly from a segmentary tribal organization to a hereditary, permanent, centralized monarchy.”
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It was not necessarily self-evident to all that Saul would have a dynasty, as it would be the first of its kind in Israel.
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And this may have been the perspective especially from David’s home, the independent territory of Judah, which had not participated in the selection or anointing of Saul as king. David may have seen Saul more as a model than as a monarch.

How did David’s ambition manifest itself? What did he do to deserve Saul’s wrath? Indeed, what could he have done? Regicide (the murder of a monarch) was an impossibility—not for lack of opportunity, but because it wouldn’t result in David’s gaining the throne. Saul seems to have been liked well enough by his people; as much as they may have appreciated David, there was no groundswell of support for deposing the king. But the biblical story does suggest that David made an attempt to change that, to gain allegiance for himself at Saul’s expense. Saul, in a moment of fury at his inability to capture David, screams at his courtiers: “Will the son of Jesse give fields and vineyards to all of you? And will he make all of you captains of thousands or captains of hundreds? Is that why all of you have conspired against me?” (1 Sam. 22:7–8). Saul’s accusation is a damning one: that David has attempted to buy off Saul’s closest supporters. In truth, this is less overt bribery on David’s part than an attempt to present himself as a royal figure. David is playing the role of patron, a role that normally belonged to the king. In the stage between tribal societies and full-fledged kingship—the stage that Saul and, to a large extent, David occupied in Israel—the leader may be defined as one who “redistributes goods (such as spoils of war and agricultural produce) that have come to him, and those who benefit from the redistribution wish to maintain the power of the chief so that they may continue to benefit.”
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David already had the military credentials to rule, at least in his own eyes; what he required was the allegiance of the powerful members of society. If he could provide them with grants of land and high position, they might transfer their support from Saul to himself.

If we can trust Saul’s statement as having some historical basis, we can suggest that David made overtures to members of Saul’s court, perhaps testing the waters.
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This would have infuriated Saul. Yet there is evidence that David’s fall from favor came as the result of an even more spectacular attempt to take the crown away from Saul.

It appears at first glance as if David fled to the wilderness alone—even Michal, his wife according to the narrative, does not go with him. In the wilderness, he takes a new wife, Abigail (Nabal’s wife, whom we met earlier; see also chapter 3). But after the notice of David’s marriage to Abigail, the biblical text says something curious: “David had married Ahinoam of Jezreel, so the two of them were his wives” (1 Sam. 25:43). This is unexpected news to say the least—we never heard of David’s marriage to anyone named Ahinoam, yet here she appears almost as an afterthought. And she will continue to appear throughout the story, always first in the mentions of David’s wives, and as the mother of his eldest son. She is thus more than an afterthought—but who is she, and when did David marry her? And why do the biblical authors bury the notice of their marriage here?

In the entire Bible, only one other woman is named Ahinoam. Remarkably enough, she lived at the same time as David. David even would have known her—for Ahinoam is the name of one of Saul’s wives, the mother of Jonathan and his two brothers (1 Sam. 14:50). Scholars have suggested that the two Ahinoams, Saul’s wife and David’s wife, are one and the same.
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The coincidence of names is telling on its own, but there is another indication that the two Ahinoams are one. Saul is said to have had two other sons born after Jonathan and his brothers. These younger sons, however, were born not to Ahinoam, but to Rizpah, Saul’s concubine (2 Sam. 21:8). In other words, after David is said to have married Ahinoam, she disappears from Saul’s household, replaced by Rizpah. It seems, then, that David took Saul’s wife for his own. But how could this have happened?

In ancient Israel, the wives and concubines of a king were markers of royal status. They were also indicators of the king’s power. If someone was able to sleep with a member of the king’s harem and get away with it, it meant the king had lost the ability to control even that which was closest to him. To sleep with a royal wife or concubine was to declare a coup—not metaphorically, but literally. It was to announce to the world one’s desire for the crown and one’s belief that the current king was incapable of holding it.
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There is no other logical scenario in which Ahinoam would have come to be David’s wife before he entered the wilderness. Saul would hardly have parted with her willingly—this is far less likely than the already improbable idea that he gave his daughter Michal in marriage to David. If Ahinoam became David’s wife, David must have taken her in an act of rebellion.

This, above all else, must have been the precipitating event for Saul’s attempt on David’s life. There is no doubt that Saul would have wanted David dead for it: it is unthinkable that he would have willingly let David survive to seek the crown another day. That David would even attempt such a rebellion implies that he must have enjoyed some popular support—not to the degree that the Bible suggests, but enough that he felt he might succeed in his venture. The fact that David was forced to flee, however, also means that his coup failed. He made the grand traditional gesture of usurpation, but it turned out that Saul had the power to fight back. David miscalculated his position. In one failed act, David went from popular military officer to exile, on the run for his life. This scenario explains other aspects of the story as well. Whether Ahinoam was a willing participant in David’s coup or not—it is impossible to know—once David had slept with her, she hardly could be welcomed back into Saul’s household. In biblical terms, she would have been seen as “defiled” (Deut. 24:4). Thus even without any formal ceremony, by sleeping with Ahinoam David effectively made her his wife, and she was forced to flee along with him—since the traditional punishment for adultery was death (Deut. 22:22). David’s coup attempt also explains why Saul went to such great lengths to hunt him down in the wilderness after he had fled. David was not just some ordinary criminal. He had tried to seize the crown from Saul’s head. He could not be allowed to live.

From the perspective of the biblical authors, this story simply could not be told. Their objective was to portray David’s kingship as an act of the divine will. If these chapters have no record—or even a hint—of David as ambitious, then surely the authors could not recount that he attempted a direct coup by sleeping with Saul’s wife. The entire narrative of David’s time in Saul’s service—from Saul’s crazed attempts on David’s life to the marriage to Michal to Jonathan’s love for David—is effectively in the service of covering up this one unspeakable fact. The Bible could hardly ignore the common knowledge that Ahinoam did become David’s wife. But it could defer the mention of the marriage until later in the narrative—in fact, until the very point when it became absolutely necessary, when David took Abigail as his second wife. Abigail couldn’t be cast as the first, for Ahinoam was the mother of David’s eldest son. So at the moment that David marries Abigail, then, and only then, are we told that he had been married before. And the authors took the further step of not mentioning that this was the same Ahinoam previously identified as Saul’s wife, though they could do little about the identical names. Ironically, however, it is the biblical authors themselves who provide us with one of the most substantial hints that David had indeed taken Saul’s wife for his own. In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan castigates David for his behavior with Bathsheba and lets this slip in the name of God: “I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives” (12:8). The house is obviously the kingship, but the mention of the wives is inexplicable—unless it is referring to Ahinoam. No cover-up is perfect. The most significant act of David’s time in Saul’s service is also the one the Bible seeks to hide. David attempted an outright coup.
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And he failed—for now.

A
CLOSE READING OF
this period of David’s life gives us a picture quite different from that presented in the Bible. No great victorious general, David was in fact an officer in the relatively backwater territory of Judah, with the important but hardly glorious task of warding off Philistine raiding parties. Far from being innocent, David seems to have been keenly aware of his situation and how to manipulate those around him to serve his own ends. Saul, for his part, was not unstable or unfit to rule but was rather entirely justified in his pursuit of David. David was no idle threat.

Even while a young officer, David managed to combine ambition, a sharp knowledge of how to elevate his status, and a willingness to do whatever it took to reach his goals. As it turned out, he reached too far and was forced to flee. In the wilderness, however, without the constraints of custom or allegiance, these personality traits came to full expression.

Chapter 3
David in the Wilderness
F
ROM
I
SRAELITE
S
OLDIER TO
P
HILISTINE
V
ASSAL

T
HE WILDERNESS OF
J
UDAH IS
a forbidding place. In the northern and central regions, the landscape undulates with small hills. Rainfall is plentiful enough for the hills to be well covered with evergreen trees, though in biblical times these trees were an impediment to habitation. Settlements in this area were possible only by deforestation, yet removing the trees also meant destroying the natural network that held the water in the ground. Habitation therefore required the use of specialized agricultural techniques such as terracing along the hillsides, which prevented the rainwater from simply cascading down to the valley below, washing away the soil with it. Between the hills the valleys were, and still are, largely void of any significant greenery aside from grasses and the occasional shrub.

To the east, toward the Dead Sea, even minimal vegetation effectively ceases. The landscape is true desert, with more substantial rocky outcroppings and deeper rifts between them. The rocky ground and sometimes impenetrable passes between the cliffs make traversing this landscape by foot difficult. What little rain does fall in this region is immediately directed into channels that rage torrentially but only momentarily, drying up quickly into a trickle at best and more frequently merely into a dry bed. Only the occasional oasis provides any support for habitation.

Toward the south, the hills gradually give way to the Negev desert. Here the rainfall is significantly less than in the central wilderness, and agriculture and even pasturage are nearly impossible. The land is flat and broad, the temperatures high. In ancient times, habitation in this region was sporadic, with most settlements originating as military outposts or trading depots. Between the settlements was, and is, empty space.
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This is the landscape to which David fled to escape Saul’s wrath. Here, in the wilderness, David would manage not only to survive, but to accumulate substantial power. He entered the wilderness alone, but he emerged from it a king.

David at Nob

A
CCORDING TO THE BIBLE,
David’s first stop was at Nob, a small town east of Jerusalem, on the edge of the desert leading down to the Dead Sea. There, we read in 1 Samuel 21, he was given bread by the local priest, Ahimelech, as well as the sword of Goliath—though we are not told how the sword ended up wrapped in cloth and stored in a minor sanctuary. As it turned out, one of Saul’s officials, Doeg the Edomite, was at the sanctuary in Nob that same day. When Saul heard that David was there and had even been given provisions, he sent for Ahimelech and all the priests of Nob. The crazed king ordered his men to kill the priests for treason, but his servants refused. Doeg, however, was more than willing—he killed all eighty-five priests, and for good measure went to Nob and finished off the rest of the town: “He put Nob, the city of the priests, to the sword: men and women, children and infants, oxen, asses, and sheep” (1 Sam. 22:19). As is almost always the case in such stories, however, one priest managed to escape and fled to David. His name was Abiathar, and David promised to protect him.

This story serves a number of literary purposes. It gives David a measure of cultic approval, as he is helped by a priest. It emphasizes that God is on David’s side, for Ahimelech gives David the bread only after having inquired of God whether to do so, to which God must have responded approvingly. It brings us back to David’s innocent youth through the reference to Goliath’s sword—David, we are to understand, is beginning again. It demonstrates the depth of Saul’s unhinged anger: the destruction of Nob is an explicit bastardization of the Israelite law of
herem,
or “the ban.” Israel, according to Deuteronomy and demonstrated throughout the book of Joshua, was to utterly destroy Canaanite settlements during the conquest. The description of Joshua’s destruction of Jericho should look familiar: “They exterminated everything in the city with the sword: man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and ass” (Josh. 6:21). This is precisely what Saul does to Nob—but this is long after the period of the conquest, and Nob is not a Canaanite town. In his rage, Saul has twisted Israel’s laws and customs.
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The story of David in Nob participates in the same literary program that we are now well accustomed to in the David story: the elevation of David and denigration of Saul. It has no historical value. When these elements are stripped away, however, virtually nothing is left of the narrative. David leaves Nob essentially unchanged: the bread digested, the sword a myth—and never spoken of again in any case. Only Abiathar’s presence continues through the rest of the narrative, and it hardly requires this elaborate story as justification. In short, the entire episode at Nob is a literary construction. There is no reason to think that David was ever there.

David and His Band

T
HROUGHOUT HISTORY, THE WILDERNESS
of Judah has been a refuge for those seeking to avoid the eyes of those in power. In the second century
BCE
, members of the Essene sect moved there to practice their unorthodox religious beliefs in peace, founding the community at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves in the nearby cliffs. The Maccabees fled to the wilderness at the beginning of their war against the Seleucid empire. During the Great Revolt against Rome in the first century
CE
, the Jewish rebels made their final stand from the forbidding mountain of Masada. A hundred years later, during the Bar Kochba revolt, some of Bar Kochba’s men fled to caves in the Dead Sea area.

David knew precisely where he was going: “David escaped to the stronghold of Adullam” (1 Sam. 22:1), a small site in the hills about sixteen miles southwest of Jerusalem.
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And he knew precisely what sort of people he would find there: “Everyone who was in straits and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was bitter of spirit joined him, and he became their leader” (22:2). The Bible makes no attempt to sugarcoat the fact that David surrounds himself with a band of misfits and outlaws. Given his whereabouts, he had little other choice. No one would willingly live in the middle of nowhere if there were any other alternative.

Israelite society was a kinship culture. People were expected to live with their close relations in a mutually protective group. Multiple generations lived under a single roof, or in adjoining houses. Marriages were endogamous, that is, people tended to marry within the extended family. Even when someone married outside the kin group, the two families would invent a common ancestry, a process known as fictive kinship, to maintain the kinship basis for relationships. Each kin group possessed its own land, and it was a priority to keep the land within the family at all costs. Communities were close, literally and figuratively, with each member responsible for the others.
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Only under dire circumstances would someone be forced out of that community: for committing a crime, for going deeply into debt, for bringing shame on the family—or for rebelling against the king.

Unlike the story of David at Nob, the gathering at Adullam therefore rings true (though the number of David’s band, four hundred, seems more symbolic than realistic). David would have needed others to help him survive in the wilderness, and the others would have recognized David as one of their own, on the run from the authorities—but also with a history of authority himself, making him a natural leader. David once commanded a royal military unit; now he commanded a private militia.

Just south of Adullam sat the town of Keilah. According to the Bible, Keilah was one day raided by a band of Philistines, and David took his men to protect it. It seems not to have been a particularly spectacular battle; all that is said is that “he drove off their cattle and inflicted a severe defeat on them” (1 Sam. 23:5). This is like the other reports of David’s victories over the Philistines: devoid of detail, except for the rather unimpressive achievement of having scared off some livestock. But David is given his due glory: “Thus David saved the inhabitants of Keilah” (23:5).
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Despite his efforts on their behalf, the people of Keilah do not appear to have been enthralled with David’s arrival. When Saul hears that David is there, and prepares to pursue him, David learns by divination that the inhabitants of Keilah will turn him and his men over to Saul, so David is forced to move along.

It is not unlikely that the Philistines might really have attacked Keilah. As we have already seen, Judah, especially those towns to the west, nearer the Philistine heartland, was probably subject to regular incursions. (Keilah is not so far from Socoh, where the battle against Goliath is set.) What seems improbable is that David and his men would venture into battle against an established military force like the Philistines. Whatever arms they may have had, they undoubtedly would have been outmatched. The only plausible rationale for engaging in battle at Keilah would be to win the trust and admiration of the inhabitants. But this is precisely what they failed to do. What, then, was David doing at Keilah?

David’s men were not fit for any sort of regular military engagement. Life in the wilderness did not lend itself to organized preparations for battle. Like most small militias, what David and his men had to their advantage was speed and mobility. Relatively few in number, relatively lightly armed, they had the capacity to move from place to place with ease. Facing the Philistines head-on was out of the question, but going to Keilah directly after the Philistines had finished plundering it would be no problem. Such an arrival would make sense on two fronts. First, David could, with some imagination, position himself as the one who drove the Philistines away. Keilah was a fortified town—“a town with gates and bars” (1 Sam. 23:7)—and the Philistines seem not to have actually entered it: they were only “plundering the threshing floors” (23:1). Threshing was an activity done in an open space, where the wind could blow away the chaff as it was tossed into the air. For a fortified city, this almost certainly meant that the threshing area was outside the city walls.
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The arrival of the Philistine raiding party would have driven inside the city walls for protection those in the fields and at the threshing floor, leaving the Philistines free to plunder the agricultural produce left behind. As the people of Keilah watched, the Philistines finished the job and left of their own accord, at which point David and his men could have appeared and claimed responsibility for scaring off the enemy—driving away their cattle, securing provisions for which may have been the Philistines’ primary goal.
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Second, David may have seen in the freshly attacked Keilah an opportunity. The town was vulnerable, as the Philistines had demonstrated. David and his men could provide a measure of security in case of future raids—in exchange for some security of their own. It seems that David did in fact enter the town with his men, for otherwise Keilah would not have had the chance to give him up to Saul. But it is hard to imagine the circumstances under which a settled community would willingly let a band of ne’er-do-wells into its walls. Such a group would be outside the usual kinship bonds and therefore accountable to no one in the town. They would have to be fed from the town’s supplies—supplies that, given the landscape, hardly could have been abundant. They would have to be housed somewhere—either with resident families or in public spaces, neither of which would be desirable. This, of course, is just what David and his men needed: food and shelter, the very basics that were hard to come by in the wilderness. If after an attack by the Philistines this second armed band showed up at the gates of Keilah, perhaps a polite but forceful request for entrance would have been difficult to decline.

But it is unlikely that the inhabitants would have seen David as a hero. Indeed, the moment that a greater power threatened to arrive on the scene, the people of Keilah were more than ready to turn David in—not only because his men were sapping their resources, but perhaps out of fear that sheltering him would lead to retribution against the town by Saul. Sheltering a rebel was a crime not taken lightly. In Judges 9 we read of a rebellion against the local ruler Abimelech. The leader of the rebels takes refuge in the city of Shechem, where the people are in league with him. Abimelech’s response is to destroy the city: “he razed the city and sowed it with salt” (9:45). Whether this story is true or not, it reflects a common understanding of how rebellious towns are to be treated (and one that will recur later in the David story). The inhabitants of Keilah wanted none of this. It was in their best interest to make clear that they were not aligned with David. And David, it is clear, was not in any position to take on Saul’s forces. His only choice was to leave.
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The western part of the wilderness having proved inhospitable, David and his men traveled southeast, toward the Dead Sea, into the wilderness of Ziph, named for its most prominent town. This place, however, was even less welcoming than Keilah had been. Saul did not even need to threaten to come down; the Ziphites themselves went to Saul to offer David up. Perhaps they had heard of David’s behavior at Keilah, or perhaps they were better equipped to fend off his requests. In any case, David seems to have found no town to take him in but was rather moving around the wilderness of Ziph in search of hiding places. When the Ziphites returned from meeting with Saul, David had already shifted from the hill of Hachilah, where he had previously been, to the area of Maon, a bit to the south. The biblical account makes the arrival of Saul a very close thing for David, with Saul and his men on one side of a hill and David and his men on the other, each trying to outmaneuver the other—one trying to capture, one trying to escape (1 Sam. 23:26). David escaped only when Saul was called away to defend a new Philistine attack.