by David Plotz
CHAPTER 1
Always a good weeper, David cries again about the death of Saul and Jonathan. It’s genuine sorrow. David, let’s remember, never touched a hair on Saul’s head, even when Saul was trying to kill him. David’s lament is gorgeous. It is the source of the phrase: “How the mighty are fallen.” David reserves his deepest sadness for Jonathan, of course: “Your love was wonderful to me, more than the love of women.”
CHAPTERS 2-3
David gets himself crowned in Hebron—but only as king of the southern territory of Judah. Saul’s son Ishbaal still rules the other tribes of Israel. You don’t have to be a champion linguist to notice something curious about Ishbaal’s name. Why would the king of Israel be named after Baal? Biblical scholars obsess over words that are based on the names of gods. Such “theophoric” names help reveal the true history of the text. As James Kugel points out in How to Read the Bible (a book I read after I read the Bible), Israelite names are often based on the two popular names of God in the Bible, “El” and “Yahweh.” Elijah, Bethel, Israel, and others are connected to El. Names such as Jonathan and Joab derive from Yahweh. So what about Ishbaal’s name? It suggests that at least some Israelites retained close ties to Baal, despite their nominal monotheistic worship of Yahweh.
War erupts between the rival kings, with David getting the best of it. David demands the return his first wife, Michal, who’s in her brother Ishbaal’s custody. When David and Saul had their falling-out, the king had remarried Michal to another man. In a heartbreaking scene, Michal is sent back to David, with her new husband, Paltiel, trailing behind her, sobbing.
Let’s linger for a moment on this episode. David has an exquisite ability to make husbands suffer. He got Nabal smitten by God and married Nabal’s widow, Abigail. Now he’s leaving Paltiel heartbroken to retrieve Michal, whom, as we’ll learn in a few chapters, he doesn’t even like. And pretty soon, he’ll get Bathsheba’s husband killed so he can marry her, too. It’s the nature of sexually voracious men to humiliate cuckolded husbands and boyfriends. But David is the world champion. His sexual pursuits leave men not merely embarrassed but dead.
Ishbaal’s top general, Abner, proposes to defect to David’s side. They meet for a secret dinner at which Abner vows to rally the other tribes to David’s side. David’s general Joab is infuriated at Abner’s ascendance, because Abner murdered one of Joab’s brothers. So Joab tricks Abner into meeting with him, then stabs him to death. Abner’s assassination infuriates David, who asks God to make sure that Joab’s male descendants will either (a) die violently; (b) go hungry; (c) catch leprosy; (d) have odious “discharges” (don’t ask!); or (e) be effeminate (the actual words are “handle the spindle”—which means do women’s work). Even so, David retains Joab as his top commander. The man knows how to kill.
CHAPTERS 5-6
Ishbaal is assassinated. David, who is thirty-seven years old, finally rules all of Israel. He quickly captures Jerusalem from the Jebusites and dubs it the City of David. Until now, Jerusalem has been the Sacramento or Memphis of the Promised Land, just another midsize town. Hebron, Bethel, and Shiloh have been far more important to biblical geography. But David turns Jerusalem into the holy metropolis. He settles there and has a grand palace built from cedar trees sent by the king of Tyre. He rapidly fathers eleven new kids by a variety of concubines and wives.
David decides to bring the ark to Jerusalem. He leads the expedition to fetch it, dancing and singing in front of the cart holding the ark. When the oxen jostle too much, the cart driver Uzzah steadies the ark with his hand. Bad, bad move. God smites him on the spot. David is furious about the Lord’s retaliation against Uzzah, and he should be. That’s an absurdly excessive punishment. My question for you, Lord: what if Uzzah hadn’t steadied the ark, but instead let it fall to the ground? Would that have been better?
After the smiting of Uzzah, David is so terrified of the ark that he decides not to take it to Jerusalem after all. He parks it at the house of Obed-dom the Gittite. As soon as the ark arrives, everything goes right for Obed-dom. It’s as though he hit the holy lottery. When David sees Obed-dom’s good fortune, he rushes back to collect the ark and bring it to Jerusalem, dancing all the way. His wife Michal rebukes him as a “vulgar fellow” for cavorting in front of servant women. David snaps back that he was dancing for the Lord—the very Lord who chose him to be king instead of Michal’s father, Saul. And he says that the maids who saw him dancing would actually “honor” him for his exuberance. It couldn’t be any clearer: dancing and music delight God. This is very Footloose. Michal is viciously punished for her dance criticism: she’s barren, presumably because David now refuses to sleep with her—even though he broke up her other marriage to reposses her. Question: how do Christian denominations and colleges that forbid dancing reconcile their position with God’s obvious love of the cha-cha?
CHAPTER 7
This must be a chapter that’s important to Christianity. God says that one of David’s heirs “shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.” Surely this starts to explain why Jesus claimed descent from David. Again and again, the Hebrew Bible gives us stories that will be repurposed in the New Testament. Perhaps that’s because everything in the New Testament happened the way the book says it did, and Jesus really was descended from a king who ruled 1,000 years earlier. Or perhaps the authors of the New Testament wanted to link Christ to ancient messianic Jewish traditions, such as this verse.
CHAPTER 8
David’s a fabulous king—with military victories abroad, and fantastic domestic policy at home. He “delivered justice and equity to all his people.” Equity—that’s an interesting word. So far, the Bible hasn’t been much concerned with equity. The Good Book tends to celebrate the best men, most fearsome warriors, most godly prophets, and boldest kings. But this verse suggests that the Israelites cared about the little guy, too.
CHAPTER 9
Still missing his beloved, David searches for Jonathan’s surviving relatives. He hears about Mephibosheth, a son of Jonathan who avoided fighting in the wars because he has crippled feet. David gives all of Saul’s land to Mephibosheth and then summons him to live at court. David even insists that Mephibosheth eat with him every day. (Is this such a great reward? Would you really want to live at the house of a rich acquaintance, mooching his food and liquor, always having to thank him? It would be like Entourage, but without the girls or the Lamborghini.)
CHAPTERS 11-12
This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. All of 2 Samuel so far has been a roadblock on the path to these chapters, the tale of David and Bathsheba. Here’s how the story begins:
It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.
What a setup! A first paragraph couldn’t be more provocative. A man spying on his neighbor! And she’s in the bath! And she’s hot! Forgive me for revealing a bit more about my adolescent reading habits than I should, but isn’t this the world’s first Penthouse letter? (What would the headline have been? “Afternoon Delight,” of course.)
Her name is Bathsheba, and her husband is serving in David’s army. David sends for her and immediately sleeps with her. Now comes a part of the story I don’t remember from childhood, and it turns the episode from Penthouse to a Lifetime Channel Special Movie Event. Bathsheba announces: “I am pregnant.” Oops. The zipless affair has suddenly gotten complicated. David recalls Uriah the Hittite back from the front and does everything but spike the guy’s K-rations with Viagra to get him to sleep with Bathsheba, and thus become the putative father of David’s kid. But Uriah, stubbornly religious, won’t touch Bathsheba, because he has been ritually purified for war. David gets panicky and rolls out pla
n B. He dispatches Uriah to the front and orders General Joab to get him killed. Joab screws up, and lots of other soldiers die, too. David doesn’t seem to mind, because his rival is out of the way. David marries Bathsheba as soon as her mourning ends.
God sends the prophet Nathan to rebuke David. Nathan tells David a parable about a rich man who, when visited by a guest, steals the one lamb owned by a poor neighbor in order to feed his visitor. Though David’s a horndog, he has an innate sense of justice, and he recognizes that the rich man’s behavior is grotesque—“the man who did this deserves to die!” But he doesn’t realize that this story is about him till Nathan bellows: “That man is you!” Then, Nathan delivers God’s punishment: God will kill David’s son. David is genuinely remorseful, almost suicidal.
A son is born to Bathsheba, and he immediately falls deathly ill. David weeps, fasts, and pleads with God to spare the child, but on the seventh day the boy dies. This prompts one of the most extraordinary scenes in the Bible. If you ever want proof that the Bible is psychologically complex, that its characters are as rich and nuanced as any ever described, read the back half of 2 Samuel 12. When David learns the baby is dead, he briefly prays, then returns home, and promptly sits down for a big meal, his first in a week. His servants, both curious and shocked at his apparent callousness, ask him: “While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but now the child is dead, you rise and take food!”
While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, “Who knows? The Lord may have pity on me and the child may live.” But now that he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will never come back to me.
Just imagine the traffic in David’s brain at this moment. He’s sorrowful at his son’s death. He’s gloomy because the Lord—for the first time—did not answer his prayers. He’s feeling profound self-disgust at his own sin. But finally, above all else, he recognizes that he has to keep going. He must eat, he must remain strong, for he is still the king.
David consoles Bathsheba, then immediately sleeps with her. She conceives and gives birth to another son. They call him Solomon. The name means “replacement.”
CHAPTERS 13-19
There hasn’t been any incest for several books, so we’re definitely due. David’s eldest son, Amnon, falls in love with his gorgeous, virginal half-sister Tamar. (Wait a second! One of our previous victims of incest was also named Tamar. Note: Don’t name daughter Tamar.) Amnon pulls the old pretend-to-be-sick-so-she-brings-you-chicken-soup trick. (Admit it: when you were in college, you tried it on that pretty sophomore! And it worked, didn’t it?) Tamar shows up with the soup—cakes, actually—and Amnon says, “Come, lie with me, sister”—which, when you think about it, is just about the yuckiest pickup line imaginable. Tamar resists: “Don’t do such a vile thing!” Apparently trying to buy time, she suggests that he hold off because their father, David, might actually let them get married. Amnon doesn’t listen and rapes her.
What follows is even grimmer: “Then Amnon felt a very great loathing for her; indeed his loathing for her was even greater than the passion he had felt for her.” He sends her away. She begs him not to, arguing that sending her away is even worse than the rape. Can someone explain this to me? Why would she want to stay with him after the rape? Does she think that (l) being sent away is awful because it stigmatizes her as a rape victim and thus as spoiled, unmarriageable, and a shame to her family, or (2) having raped her, he at least ought to marry her—a dismal outcome, but better than being discarded?
Enter the other villain of the piece, Tamar’s full brother Absalom. He also seems to be curiously obsessed with her. There’s no incest between them, but their relationship is definitely weird. From Tamar’s behavior—the torn robe, the ashes she smears on her head, etc.—Absalom figures out that Amnon has raped her. Absalom tells her to keep quiet. She holes up in Absalom’s house, “a desolate woman.” We hear no more of Tamar after this: having been raped, she might as well be dead.
King David learns about the incestuous rape but, because Amnon is his firstborn, doesn’t punish him. Absalom bides his time before taking revenge. After two years, Absalom invites Amnon to a sheepshearing feast. While Amnon is drunk, Absalom has his servants murder him. (Pretty cowardly not to strike the blow himself, don’t you think?) Absalom flees into exile.
After three years, David rescinds Absalom’s banishment, but the king still refuses to see his estranged son. After two more years of sulking around, Absalom becomes frustrated. He tries to get Joab to intercede for him, but Joab won’t answer his messages. So Absalom burns Joab’s field to the ground—that’s a nice way to send a message—and Joab finally listens to him. With Joab’s intercession, David finally agrees to meet Absalom, and they kiss and make up.
Absalom is one of the most puzzling characters we’ve met so far. He’s full of resentments, and he bears grudges. He craves his dad’s approval, yet having regained it, he immediately subverts David. Absalom stands outside the palace door and intercepts everyone coming to David for justice. Absalom issues his own legal decisions instead, and soon steals “the hearts of the people of Israel” from King David. Absalom has the patience of the truly cunning. Having waited two years to seek revenge on Amnon and three years for his banishment to be lifted, he now spends four years undermining David and building his own reputation. Finally, Absalom conducts his coup. He travels to Hebron and declares himself king. David flees Jerusalem, leaving ten concubines behind at the palace. (Remember these unfortunate ladies.) David weeps again. (I’ve got an idea for a great Bible drinking game. Have a shot every time David cries.)
David is a shell of his usual arrogant self, resigned and plagued by doubts he never had before. As David travels through the countryside, a relative of Saul named Shimei chucks rocks at him and screams curses: “You criminal. You villain!” David’s men ask his permission to kill Shimei, but David—weary and philosophical—tells them not to. David says the man is cursing him because the Lord told him to curse David, and maybe some good will come of it.
Back to those ten poor concubines. When Absalom captures Jerusalem, he immediately and publicly beds them—thus fulfilling an earlier prophecy that David would lose his wives to another man.
Absalom and David finally fight a battle, and David’s men are easily victorious. As Absalom rides away on his mule, he runs into the low branch of an oak tree. His hair gets caught in the tree, the mule keeps going, and Absalom is left hanging preposterously from the oak by his hair, like one of the Three Stooges. David had ordered his generals to “deal gently” with Absalom, so when one of David’s soldiers sees Absalom hanging, he doesn’t kill him, but merely reports it to General Joab. Joab, who doesn’t know from “gently,” immediately races to the tree and thrusts three spears into Absalom’s heart.
A messenger brings David the news of his death, which prompts his famous cry of mourning: “My son Absalom, O my son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son.” Again, we feel the force of repetition in the Bible, though it’s slightly different here. Usually in the Bible, the name is repeated. Here it is “my son” that gets doubled up. The plaint suggests that David is mourning the loss of a son, any son—not that David had a special love for Absalom, who, after all, was a scoundrel. (William Faulkner, unlike the Bible, doubles up Absalom’s name for the title of his book. I don’t know why, because that’s another book I’ve never read.)
As David keeps weeping and keening, Joab rebukes him. Joab complains that David cares more for the son who hated him than for all the soldiers who love and fight for him. Joab says, “You have made it clear today that commanders and officers are nothing to you. I am sure that if Absalom were alive and the rest of us dead, you would have preferred it.” Joab tells David to pull himself together and start appreciating his loyal soldiers. Joab is an awful man in many ways—violent, impatient, suspicious—but he’s one of the Bible’s great pragmatists. He is more interested in results
than in methods, more interested in rough honesty than foolish sentiment. In this way, he is arguably the first true Israeli.
When David recaptures Jerusalem, he locks his ten unfortunate, now slightly used, concubines in the palace, keeping them under house arrest till they die. The sexual taboos were rough, back in the day.
CHAPTER 21
Giants. Lots and lots and lots of giants. David is challenged by the Philistine giant Ishbibenob, but the king is too old for slingshots. He ducks combat and has someone else fight in his place. Then we learn that maybe David didn’t even kill the Philistine giant Goliath. According to verse 19, someone named Elhanan killed Goliath. What are we supposed to make of this unexplained contradiction? Could there have been two giants named Goliath? And now here’s a third enemy giant. He’s my favorite one yet, because he has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.
CHAPTER 24
The book of 2 Samuel finishes with a baffling story. It’s a flashback to early in David’s reign. The Lord orders David to take a census. David does so, but when he finishes, he feels guilty for having done the count. The Bible doesn’t explain, doesn’t even hint at, why David would feel bad for taking a census. Then it gets even harder to follow. The prophet Gad informs David that the Lord is furious about the census—but this makes no sense, since He ordered it. Gad tells David he can mollify God’s anger by choosing one of three punishments—the divine retribution version of Let’s Make a Deal. Behind curtain number one: three years of famine for Israel. Behind curtain number two: three months harried by enemies. Behind curtain number three: three days of pestilence.
Perhaps figuring that three days is a pretty short time, David picks the pestilence. But he forgot the kind of God he is dealing with. This is no seventy-two-hour flu. The Lord’s angel kills 70,000 Israelites in three days. David, seeing the carnage, begs the angel to lay off the Israelites and punish him instead. “I alone am guilty, I alone have done wrong; but these poor sheep, what have they done?” (I think “sheep” is meant as a compliment to his people, referring to their gentle, innocent spirit, not their stupidity.) David finally ends the plague by building an altar in the barn of a local farmer.