Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Vort: Did David actually kill Shaul?

This week follows on a bit from last week. To me, the book of Shmuel (Samuel) is one of the most interesting books from a historical perspective. The book is set in that area between things we know have a solid historical backing (later monarchies), and things that clearly belong to the world of myth and legend (Joshua and prior). Specifically, there is no doubt that there were kings of Judah who traced their lineage to the house of David. The Tel Dan Stele provides us with proof of that. But the Tanach indicates that the accession of David to the throne, and the succession of his son Shlomo (Solomon) after him were not clean. Therefore, we are left with a historical account, written by the eventual winners, in which they justify their right to the monarchy. First let's summarize the biblical story.

A Checkered History

Here, is a very quick runthrough of the major events of the book of Shmuel regarding the transition of the monarchy from Shaul to David.

  • Shmuel is approached by the people to appoint a king (1 Sam 8)
  • Shmuel appoints Shaul as king (1 Sam 9-12)
  • Shaul and his son Yonathan (Jonathan) fight against the Plishtim (Philistines) (1 Sam 13-14)
  • Shaul fights with Amalek, has mercy on the king, and Shmuel says he will lose the kingship because of this (1 Sam 15)
  • Shmuel secretly anoints David as king (1 Sam 16:1-13)
  • David is appointed as a harp player for Shaul (1 Sam 16:14-23)
  • David slays Galyat (Goliath) (1 Sam 17-18:5) Note that in this episode Shaul does not know who David is. A contradiction I discussed here.
  • Shaul becomes jealous of David and tries to kill him (1 Sam 18:6-20:42)
  • David escapes, winds up in Gath where he pretends to be crazy (1 Sam 21)
  • Shaul orders the slaughter of the priests of Nob at the hands of an Edomite because they helped David escape (1 Sam 22)
  • Shaul continues to chase David (1 Sam 23)
  • David has the opportunity to kill Shaul but does not, moved by this, Shaul essentially agrees that David should be the king and asks that his descendents are not killed (1 Sam 24)
  • David seduces the married woman Avigayil. Then her husband Nabal (who is evil mind you) conveniently dies (for unrelated reasons) so that David can marry her himself (1 Sam 25)
  • A doublet of the story in 1 Sam 24. David has the opportunity to kill Shaul, but does not. And Shaul recognizes David as the true king (1 Sam 26)
  • Despite the previous chapter ending with peace between David and Shaul, this one starts with David fearing for his life so much so that he goes and becomes a mercenary for the Israelite's arch-nemesis, the Plishtim! David only kills non-Judahites though, and lies to the Philistine king about it. (1 Sam 27-28:2)
  • Shmuel dies and Shaul confronts a prophetess to speak to the dead. Shmuel confirms that Shaul is no longer king (1 Sam 28:3-25)
  • The Plishtim go to fight the Israelites. But David does not go with them, and instead goes to fight the Amalekites (1 Sam 29-30)
  • The Plishtim defeat the Israelites and kill Shaul (1 Sam 31)
  • David learns of the deaths of Shaul and Yonatan and heartfully laments their passing (2 Sam 1)
  • There is a civil war between David and Shaul's son Ish-Boshet won by David (actually, the rival's name is Ish-Baal but changed to Ish Boshet because it was embarrassing that Shaul named a child after Ba'al.) (2 Sam 2-4)
  • Everyone happily accepts David as the king over all of Judah and Israel (2 Sam 5-rest of book)
  • Later, after David's death there is a succession crisis and another civil war, with eventually Shlomo (of questionable birth) defeating Adoniyah and capturing the monarchy.
  • After the death of Shlomo the north secedes from the south under Yerav'am (Jeroboam)
Obvious Propaganda is Obvious

It is obvious from the text of the Tanach that there was some real questions surrounding the legitimacy of the Davidic line. The authors of the text try to head this off at every possible place. They assure us several times that Shmuel took the kingdom away from Shaul because of his leniency regarding Amalek. They indicate in several places that Shaul recognized David's right to the throne, even though he never took action to transfer the kingship, and his surviving children didn't seem to get the message either and actively opposed David in armed conflict. They assure us that David wasn't in the Philistine army that killed Shaul even though he was a mercenary for them at the time. Furthermore, there were two occasions where he could have killed Shaul but didn't, so he almost certainly didn't kill Shaul during the battle. He even avenges Shaul's death! When David killed Ish-Boshet it was because David was the rightful heir to the throne and Ish-Boshet was the usurper, despite being the heir apparent. And everyone sure was relieved and unanimously supported David when he accepted the kingship over everyone.

If you read between the propaganda lines, you get a different story. Here David is a conspirator against the crown, who signs on with the Israelite's enemies and even goes to war with them against Israel in the battle where Shaul is killed. He then murders the king's descendents and captures the kingship for himself. Now, we can read every story in the book of Shmuel is an attempt of supporters of David to paper over the seedy side, casting everything in the best of light for David and the worst of light for Shaul. For example, Shaul is responsible for the Edomite slaughter of the priests of Nob. He's also not a real prophet, but a madman who strips naked and blabbers and is prone to fits of anger.

You can't get rid of everything though, invent a fake history out of thin air. Presumably when these accounts were written, people still remembered that there were open hostilities between David and Shaul. This is why the result is propaganda and not fiction. There are real events underlying this, they've just been distorted to favor one side explicitly. And in many cases it's obvious because, unlike modern authors, biblical authors aren't really all that subtle with their allegiances. Just read the doublet stories again in 1 Sam 24 and 26 and see what I mean.

So did David actually kill Shaul? No one knows. But it sure as hell looks suspicious, and it almost definitely looked suspicious to the ancient Israelites. It was so suspicious that the author(s) of Shmuel really go way over the top in attempting to prove that he didn't.

7 comments:

  1. Great point about sefer shmuel being the bridge between history and mythology. I hadn't thought of it that way. That being the case, it really elevates the importance for the final authors to 'set the record straight' at this important juncture. I will definitely take some time to study the book b'iyun. One of the most outrageous sins of my yeshiva education was almost complete deprivation of the study of nevi'im. There's an old saying in yeshiva: "Navi is for girls and Christians".

    And btw Kefira, you balked at the idea of continuing your blog into nevi'im... please continue

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  2. Very good summary - Per my recollection - was there not a section all but saying David dancing naked before the Lord. Hmmm.

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  3. And there is the Jonathan - David "very close relationship" that needs to be added to the equation.

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  4. @ACJA

    There is no section of David dancing naked. You are thinking of the section of 2 Samuel 6 where David dances when the aron is brought into Jerusalem. It explicitly says he's wearing an ephod bad. Commentators imply that there may have been indecent exposure which is why Michal was disgusted by it, but it's not in the text at all. Regardless, the author of this section clearly comes down on the side of David being correct in this matter.

    The relationship with Yonatan is indeed very interesting. There are several possible ways to view this. You can view the description as legit history, that David did have a strong friendship with Shaul's son. You can view it as a later author adding in something like, "see even Shaul's son supported David" Of course Yonatan went to war alongside his father and did not side with David when there were open hostilities between then. Or you could even view it etiologically as an explanation why Yonatan's lame son Mephi-boshet (Mephi-Ba'al) enjoyed the auspices of David after the death of his father and grandfather. (From David's perspective, Mephi-Boshet was clearly not a threat, so he could afford to keep him alive.)

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    2. @ Kefirah - Verse 14 And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.

      Verse 16 And it was so, as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, that Michal the daughter of Saul looked out at the window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart

      Verse 20: And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said: 'How did the king of Israel get him honour to-day, who uncovered himself to-day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!

      When did David uncover himself ?

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