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.