King David

• II SAMUEL
• 1.1-5.10: David Comes to Power. This section belongs to a narrative which goes back into the last half of 1 Samuel, one concerned to justify David's behavior toward Saul and his family and to present him as Saul's legitimate successor.
  • Tears, Idle Tears.
    --David weeps over the death of Saul and puts to death the man who claims to have killed him (1.11-16. The account varies from what we were told in 1 Samuel 31.3-5, a discrepancy some resolve by assuming the man is lying. He is specified as an Amalekite, making David's treatment of him more sympathetic for the original audience. Sincere or not, David's lament for Saul and Jonathan is accepted as authetically David's by at least some otherwise skeptical scholars.
    --David weeps at the grave of Abner, the strong man behind the house of Saul (3.32), though he does not punish his henchman Joab, who was, after all, avenging a brother's death at the hands of Abner.
    David has the killers of Ishbaal strung up (4.9-12), explicitly reminding them of his reaction to Saul's death.
    --But all these unfortunate deaths, none of which is David's fault, do make him King of Israel (5.1-4).
  • Reaching Out. When David send thanks to the people of Jabesh-gilead for burying Saul (2.5-7), he is making an overture to an area nominally controlled by the heirs of Saul.
  • The Politics of Sex. Ishbaal believes that Abner is sleeping with Rizpah, one of Saul's concubines (3.7)--this would constitute an implicit claim to the throne, which is why the rebel Absalom goes into his father's concubines (16.22, and why Adonijah later (1 Kings 3.13-24) sets off problems by asking Solomon for one of David's concubines. When Abner wants to cut a deal with David, the latter insists on the return of his first wife, Saul's daughter Michal, whom Saul took and gave to another husband. The husband to be robbed follows her weeping to the border till sent back by Abner. (To make the transaction more legitimate, though less believable, Ishbaal gets involved in the negotiations.) David has plenty of wives by this time. He wants Michal back to help legitimize his claim to succeed Saul, and her wishes do not seem to have been consulted. (Notice, though, that some scholars doubt the historicity of the earlier marriage to Michal.)
• 5.11-12.31: The Reign of David. Once acclaimed King of both Israel and Judah, David still has to consolidate his power. His conquest of Jerusalem and victory over the Philistines validate his political and military role as king. Moving the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem gives a religious sanction to his role. Dancing before the ark in a linen ephod (7.14), David plays a priestly/prophetic role. Michal scoffs at him, but we have earlier been told of her father Saul in a similar ecstatic role (1 Samuel 19.24).
  • Nathan's Oracle. Through the prophet Nathan, David is told not to build a temple but promised that he will found a dynasty. In the final version, we are told his son will built a temple, but the Lord's words to Nathan in 7.5-7 seem to come from a tradition which resists tying Yahweh down to a fixed abode.
  • The House of Saul. The point is made that David befriends Jonathan's son Meriboseth. (The name was probably originally something like "Meribbaal")
• The Bathsheba Affair. It has been suggested that David was simply going through a mid-life crisis because he was now too old to go on all of the army's campaigns; he didn't really lust after Bathsheba, but only thought he did. That seems sort of unnecessary. How this rumor got to appear in a basically pro-David document is a real question. Nathan plays the Samuel role here in announcing God's judgment on David. As a prelude to the birth of Solomon, this story is particularly unheroic.
• The Tact of Joab. Joab is portrayed as rash and violent, but he is also loyal and capable of tact. In sending for David to finish off the siege of Rabbah (12.26-31), he shows a nice sense of how a commanding general can keep the trust of his king. Milcom (12.30) was not the king but the national god of the Ammonites.
• 13.1-20.22: Absalom's Revolt. The story of Absalom is a connected narrative of great skill.
  The Rape of Tamar (13). David has six sons while in Hebron (3.2-5. The oldest, Ammon, is by Ahinoam of Jezreel, one of the two wives with him in Ziklag. Absalom is the third son, by the daughter of King Talmai of Haggith, to whom he flees after killing Ammon to revenge Ammon's rape of Absalom's sister Tamar. Ammon's sudden hatred of the woman he has just terribly wronged is a nice touch. David's own failure to punish Ammon creates this problem and anticipates his reluctance to punish Absalom later. Although sons remain, the errors these commit help clear the way for Solomon's succession. David's nephew Jonadab does not play a helpful role, first advising Ammon on how to get Tamar and later defending Absalom's killing of Ammon. This presumably absolves David of any complicity in the death of Ammon, and his own refusal to go may suggest that he has his suspicions of Absalom's ambition, despite his love of him.
  • A Note on Ahitophel. In defense of Ahitophel's going over to Absalom, the combination of 11.3 and 23.34 indicates that he was Bathsheba's grandfather, which might well give him some reason to have reservations about David.
  • More Tears. David weeps again at the death of Absalom, till Joab insists that he come out and thank his army. Joab is not surprised, having foreseen (18.20-22 how David will react. As in the death of Amasa (20.10), who had commanded the army for Absalom, Joab is much more insistent on revenge than his leader.
• 20.23-24.25: Miscellaneous Notices about David. These closing passages interrupt the story of David's last days.
  • The House of Saul Again. A plague provides a convenient pretext for disposing of the remaining sons of Saul (21.1-14), except for one non-threatening cripple. It's not clear when this occurs, perhaps before the earlier notice of David's favorable treatment of Mephoboseth. Rizpah appears again, seeming to shame David into giving her sons proper burial. It may be significant that this passage is introduced only as an afterthought.
  • Psalm 18. The Psalm found here in chapter 22 is pretty much the same as Psalm 18 in the book of Psalms. The first section (2-20 is a general song of deliverance. It may go back to the early monarchy, though some scholars claim that it has northern associations on the basis of linguistic considerations. Most of the last section (29-31, 33-50) is a royal victory song that presumably had long been association with David. The remainder of the poem and the stitching together of its two parts is said to have Deuteronymistic language dating it to the seventh century or later. http://www.opencroquet.org

• I KINGS
• 1.1-3.28: Solomon's Succession. Solomon was the not the oldest of David's remaining sons, and he did not have the support of the commander of the army or the high priest who had been with David throughout his flight from Saul. But he becomes King. This requires some explanation.
  • The Coup. As the eldest living son, Adonijah might seem to have a logical claim to the throne, and he has the support of such tried and true companions of David as Joab and Abiathar. Like Absalom (2 Samuel 15.1, Adonijah flourishes chariots and horsemen (1.5), and his rivals interpret a dinner he gives for his supporters as an attempted coup. The more successful coup is by Nathan and Bathsheba, who remind David of a previously unmentioned promise to make Solomon king, so that the high priest Zadok is summoned and Solomon is crowned king while his father yet lives.
  • Solomon Consolidates Power. The dynasty is new, and Solomon does not want to suffer the fate of heirs like Abimelech or Ishbaal. Potential opponents are eliminated, though there is an effort to absolve Solomon himself of blame. David, we are told, instructs Solomon on his deathbed to see to it that Joab and Shimei suffer for sins which David himself had forgiven in his lifetime (2.5-9). Even so, Solomon does not act immediately. Even Adonijah is forgiven until he asks for the beautiful Abishag as a wife. We've been told (1.4) that David did not know her sexually, but the request is still suspicious, and Solomon has Adonijah killed because of it, banishing Abiathar for good measure. Joab flees but is struck down, and Shimei is put under a form of house arrest and killed when he violates it. [Later Jewish tradition had it that David would have married Abishag because of her beauty, but that he already had the maximum 18 wives and would not divorce any of his existing wives to give her a place.]
  • Solomon's Wisdom. After the first couple of chapters, we leave the succession narrative and enter into a description of Solomon as an ideal king, minus a foreign wife or two. His prayer for wisdom is answered and his wisdom demonstrated by the famous anecdote of the two prostitutes' quarrel over a child (3.23-28).