Another example of the confusion in the biblical text involves what actually happened to the severed head of Goliath, a large and rather unwieldy relic of David's miraculous victory. David is described as bringing the head as a prize of war to Jerusalem (1 Sam. 17:54)—but at this point in the biblical narrative Jerusalem still belonged to the native-dwelling tribe called the Jebusites, and the day when David would conquer Jerusalem by force of arms was still many years off. (2 Sam. 5:6–9) By then, Goliath's head seems to have disappeared; only his sword is preserved in a shrine of Yahweh as a war trophy. (1 Sam. 21:10)
Finally, the biblical account of David's single most famous exploit is undermined by a troubling line of biblical verse in the Second Book of Samuel, where a man called Elhanan is credited with the slaying of Goliath in a campaign against the Philistines that took place when Saul was long dead and David was king of Israel. As if to confirm the identity of the Philistine warrior who was slain by Elhanan, the biblical author assures us that he is, in fact, referring to Goliath, “the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.” (2 Sam. 21:19)
Much ingenuity has been brought to bear in solving the mystery of who killed Goliath, and the effort begins within the pages of the Bible. The author of Chronicles, whose self-appointed mission was to clean up the ancient text of Samuel several centuries after it was composed, insisted that the Philistine warrior whom Elhanan fought and killed was the brother of the famous Goliath, “the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam,” and not Goliath himself. (1 Chron. 20:5) The ancient rabbis proposed a neat solution to the problem by suggesting that Elhanan and David were one and the same man: “The two names belong to the same person: David was called Elhanan, ‘he to whom God was gracious.’ ”33
Some modern scholars have sided with the pious commentators in suggesting that David and Elhanan were the same man, although their reasoning is slightly different—perhaps, they suggest, “David” is the throne name adopted by the man called Elhanan when he ascended to kingship, just as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church will take a new and honorific name when he is raised to the papacy.34 Others are willing to entertain the idea that Elhanan did slay Goliath, and “the deed of a lesser warrior has been transferred to David” by some royal biographer who sought to glorify the king.35
A very simple and compelling solution is available. Here again, the various biblical sources—or was it the imagination of the bards and chroniclers who came long before the biblical authors?—may have decorated the life story of King David with fairy tales and folktales, if only to fill in the blanks in an otherwise rich biographical record. The human imagination abhors a vacuum, after all, and seeks to fill in the blanks in a life or a history. The same impulse appears to be at work, for example, in the biblical life story of Moses, whose miraculous survival in a little boat of reeds may have been borrowed intact from a far more ancient tale told about an Akkadian king of the third millennium B.C.E. All of these tales— the ones told about Moses and David and much else besides—were preserved and embellished by the authors and editors who compiled the law, legend, and lore of ancient Israel into the patchwork that we have learned to call the Bible.
This simple notion of how the Bible was composed, which encapsulates the consensus of the last hundred years or so of biblical scholarship, helps us to resolve the other flaws and contradictions in the story of David and Goliath. One of the traditional tales of ancient Israel suggested that Saul and David first encountered each other on the day the young man arrived at the royal household to serve as court musician. Another tale suggested that their first meeting took place on the field of battle on the day when David fought Goliath. And the biblical source who compiled the various tales of ancient Israel chose to include both versions in the sacred history of Israel.
Intriguingly, the very fact that the Bible preserves multiple and contradictory versions of the same incident has been cited by scholars as evidence that the Bible accurately and reliably preserves the oldest folk traditions of ancient Israel—the priests and scribes who compiled and edited the sacred texts of ancient Israel felt obliged to include all of the oldest traditions even when they conflicted with one another. Even more intriguing, however, is the suggestion that the inclusion of two inconsistent versions of the same story is really a wink and a nod from the biblical author, a way of signaling the reader that both versions may be purely fanciful. The biblical author generally provides a single version of an incident when he is confident that it happened just that way, or so goes one theory of the function of doublets in the biblical text. When two or three versions of the same incident are included, the author means to signal us that he is not quite sure how it happened or whether it happened at all.
THE LOVES OF DAVID
With the defeat of Goliath, David is poised to emerge from the mists of myth and legend and step into the full light of history. The fairy-tale prince will shortly be revealed as the flesh-and-blood figure who is a fugitive, an outlaw, a soldier of fortune, a traitor, and much else besides. But the romantic glow that surrounds young David in the opening passages of his biblical life story lingers for a few more moments. The biblical author pauses to describe a series of passionate encounters between David and two of the adult children of Saul—first Jonathan, the king's eldest son, and later Michal, the king's daughter. Each one, like Saul himself, falls suddenly and deeply in love with David. Indeed, the love of Michal for David is “the only instance in all biblical narrative in which we are explicitly told that a woman loves a man.”36
The name David has been interpreted by some scholars to mean “darling” or “beloved” in biblical Hebrew,37 and love at first sight is exactly what David seems to inspire in everyone who encounters him. King Saul has already fallen under his thrall. “And David came to Saul,” the Bible says of their first encounter, “and he loved him greatly.” (1 Sam. 16:21) Once David had distinguished himself in battle, he endeared himself to the rest of Saul's family—Jonathan and Michal, too, “loved David.” (1 Sam. 18:20) The charismatic David inspired the same passion in the general populace, not only his own tribe but the whole of the twelve tribes: “All Israel and Judah loved David.” (1 Sam. 18:16) But it is the love between David and Jonathan that is the most intriguing of all.
Jonathan was a man wholly governed by his appetites and passions. He took it upon himself to assassinate the Philistine governor of Gibeah, as we have already seen, and he risked his life in a nearly suicidal commando attack on a Philistine fortress. On yet another occasion, Jonathan impulsively gorged himself on honey on the very day when Saul had ordered the army of Israel to fast, and his impulse nearly cost him his life—his father had been ready to put him to death, and he was saved only because the army rallied to his support. (1 Sam. 14:24 ff.) Now we see another and still more provocative expression of Jonathan's impulsive nature: he was smitten with love for David on the very day that David smote Goliath.
The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
(1 Sam. 18:1)
Jonathan entered into a “covenant” with David, the Bible reveals, “because he loved him as his own soul.” To seal the bond between them, Jonathan stripped off his robe and the rest of his apparel—“even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle”— and tenderly draped them on the handsome young man. Significantly, Saul had tried to do much the same thing for David only moments earlier, but David had rejected the offer of armor and weaponry from Jonathan's father. Now, the gesture was accepted and fully reciprocated.
What's more, it was not only his armor but his more intimate garments, too, that Jonathan removed from his own body and placed upon David's. Such details have not escaped the attention of artists and writers over the centuries; D. H. Lawrence, for example, depicted David and Jonathan as stripping down to a “leather loin-strap” before tenderly exchanging their clothing. “If a man from the sheep dare love the King's son,” Lawrence's David says to Jonathan, “then I love Jonathan
.”38 The nature of the love between David and Jonathan is one of the most tantalizing mysteries of the biblical life story of David.
Exactly what does the biblical author mean when he writes that “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David”? A pious reading insists that the biblical text offers “the classic description of genuine unselfish love.”39 A more worldly reading suggests that the covenant (b'rit) between David and Jonathan was not a love pact but a political arrangement by which Jonathan, son of the reigning king, pledged his loyalty to the man who would ultimately replace his father on the throne of Israel.40 But something more heartfelt and more carnal may have characterized the love of David and Jonathan, even if the Bible dares not speak its name.
“We have every reason to believe that a homosexual relationship existed,” argues Tom Horner, Bible scholar and Episcopal priest, with rare bluntness. “Seminary professors must consider it, as well as must the diagnostician of ancient male love.”41
Later, the biblical author will cast the first encounter between David and Jonathan in a new and tantalizing light when he allows us to hear David's famous confession of love for Jonathan, so full of provocative meanings for the modern reader. “Wonderful was thy love to me,” David will sing of Jonathan from the pages of Holy Writ, “passing the love of women.” Indeed, as we shall see, some imaginative readers of the Bible wonder whether David captured the heart of Saul, too, and maybe even Goliath! For now, however, the biographer of David hastens on, and the account snaps into much sharper focus as Saul's “love” for David suddenly turns into fear and loathing.
AND DAVID HIS TEN THOUSANDS
King Saul, we are told, elevated young David to a position of command over his “men of war,” and David was no less competent and effective in his campaigns against the Philistines than he had been in single combat against Goliath. “Whithersoever Saul sent him, he had good success,” the Bible emphasizes, “and it was good in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants.” (1 Sam. 18:5) From the first moment of his new military career, David was hailed by the people of Israel as a war hero on the strength of his victory over Goliath.
And it came to pass as they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet the king, with timbrels, with joy, and with three-stringed instruments.
(1 Sam. 18:6)
The same words and phrases are used earlier in the Bible to describe how the prophetess Miriam and the women of Israel celebrated the victory of the Israelites over the army of Pharaoh at the Red Sea. “Sing ye to Yahweh, for he is highly exalted,” called Miriam in a transport of ecstasy, and the women responded as they danced around her: “The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” (Exod. 15:20–21)42 Perhaps the parallels between the two passages should be understood as evidence that circle dances and call-and-response songs were the traditional way of celebrating a victory in ancient Israel. Or, more intriguingly, Miriam's song and dance may have been written into the Bible by the biblical author as yet another foreshadowing of David.
But the two victory celebrations are very different in one telling detail. The song that Miriam sang praised God alone for the victory, even to the exclusion of Moses, but the song that the women of Israel sang after the victory over Goliath praised only flesh-and-blood warriors and did not mention God at all.
And the women sang one to another in their play, and said: Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands.
(1 Sam. 18:7)
Just as Yahweh was a jealous deity, the Bible reveals, Saul was a jealous king. His dementia did not prevent him from parsing out the words of the victory song with care; indeed, the moments of paranoia only sharpened his perceptions. Saul did not fail to understand the subtle sting of the song that the women of Israel sang: they praised young David above the king himself, and they credited him with martial prowess that exceeded Saul's own by tenfold. So it was that King Saul marked the handsome young war hero as a man to bury rather than to praise, and so it was that the fairy-tale prince, even at his moment of triumph, fell into disfavor with the king he was destined to succeed.
“They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands,” Saul muttered in bitter complaint. “All he lacks is the kingdom.” (1 Sam. 18:8)
Abruptly, the fairy-tale glow of the biblical life story of David is extinguished, and something much darker asserts itself. “Saul eyed David from that day and forward,” the Bible reports (1 Sam. 18:9), and the two men entered into a long and deadly chess match that would leave only one of them alive.
Chapter Four
INNOCENT BLOOD
FIRST DEMON: Oh! What I should find most delightful,
after a sleepless night, is a sherbet of anise with a liqueur.
SEVENTH DEMON: As for me, I should rather hear David sing.
SAUL: God of David! Help me!
—ANDRÉ GIDE, SAUL
On the very day after Saul first heard the women of Israel sing David's praises, according to the rather woozy biblical chronology, the young war hero was back in the court of the old king, plucking the strings of his lyre in an effort to soothe the suffering Saul. Then, suddenly, King Saul rose to his feet, seized a spear, and hurled the weapon at David's head with one mighty thrust.
“I will pin David to the wall!” vowed Saul.
Only by sidestepping the spear and fleeing from the palace did the spry David escape with his life. The weapon hurtled past the spot where he had stood a moment before and planted itself deep in the far wall. (1 Sam. 18:10–11) (AB)
Here, Saul's murderous rage is traced by the biblical author to God himself: “An evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house.” Even in the grip of madness, Saul understood that God was siding with David: “Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul.” (1 Sam. 18:10, 12) Elsewhere, however, the biblical text suggests a wholly human motive for the attempted murder of David: Saul had already marked David as his rival for kingship in the overheated tribal politics of ancient Israel, and “so Saul became David's constant enemy.” (1 Sam. 18:29) (AB) A third explanation for Saul's failed attempt at homicide is provided by a psychiatric reading of the same text: Saul, after years of intermittent manic depression, had finally slipped into plain homicidal madness.
“There were spooky, tempestuous spells,” David says in Joseph Heller's God Knows, “in which killing me was just about the only thing Saul had on his rabid and demented mind, the poor fucking nut.”1
Whether it was politics or madness or a meddlesome God—or all three at once—that turned Saul's love for David into hatred, the biblical author now describes an exercise in political gamesmanship so convoluted, so treacherous, so deeply soaked in conspiracy that it reminds us of Shakespeare's Richard III or, for that matter, Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate. What seems especially and uncannily modern in the biblical life story of David is the sense of “fires within fires”—Arthur Miller's phrase for the paranoia that suffused the Salem witch trials. Just as conspiracy theories shaped politics and popular culture in America in the latter part of the twentieth century, the court history of King David as we find it in the Bible fairly crackles with the same tension and suspicion.
Even if Saul was mad, he was also wily, as we shall soon see for ourselves. The king devoted considerable effort and ingenuity to eliminating David as a rival without bloodying his own hands or alienating the considerable number of men and women in his little kingdom, including his own adult children, who had fallen so deeply in love with David. But David would prove wilier still.
THE HAND OF A KING'S DAUGHTER
Saul's first ploy was to remove David from the royal household by raising him to a yet higher rank in the army of Israel—“captain over a thousand” (1 Sam. 18:13)—and sending him off to fight the Philistines in the hope that he would be killed i
n action. Later, David would use the same ploy to murder a man whose wife he had seduced and impregnated. For David, the scheme worked perfectly. Not so for the unlucky Saul. David was victorious in battle again, the people of Israel came to love the war hero with even greater fervor, and Saul himself “lived in fear of him.” (1 Sam. 18:14–16) (AB)
So Saul made an even more calculating move against David. “Behold my elder daughter Merab,” he declared to David. “Her will I give you to wife—only be valiant for me, and fight the Lord's fight.” Saul figured that David would throw himself even more recklessly into the next battle with the Philistines if a royal princess was the prize of war. “Let not my hand be upon him,” Saul muttered to himself, “but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him.” (1 Sam. 18:17)
David now revealed a gift that would turn out to be even more central to his survival than his physical courage or his soldierly skills—he was a master of political intrigue, and he quickly grasped the motive behind Saul's new gambit.
“Who am I, and what is my life,” said David to Saul in words so modest that they approach sarcasm, “that I should be son-in-law to the king?” (1 Sam. 18:18)
So David foiled Saul's plot by declaring himself unworthy to wed a woman of royal blood, and Merab was married off to another man. But soon a new opportunity presented itself to Saul: the king learned that his youngest daughter, Michal, had fallen in love with David. Once again, Saul sought to use the hand of his daughter as a way of putting David in harm's way, and his new plan was far less subtle than the first one.
King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Page 7