It is highly unlikely that any of the victims were actually genealogically descended from the house of David, which had died out centuries before. But the power of the David and Solomon tradition would not be dimmed even by these liquidations. Jewish messianic rebellions would flare up again in 117 and 132 CE. More important, the veneration for David and Solomon now lay primarily in the religious imagination, where—invulnerable to Roman arrows, swords, or even the pain of public crucifixion—it would continue to flourish and take on new forms.
EXORCISING THE DEMONS
During the first century BCE, when Herod was building his great Temple and the stirrings of radical messianism arose among the underclasses of Judea, another fascinating development in the parallel and competing traditions of David and Solomon occurred. Drawing on the biblical hint that David’s skill with the harp was effective in stilling Saul’s tortured spirit (1 Samuel 16:14–23) and that such exorcistic powers were inherited by Solomon (who also, according to 1 Kings 4:33, possessed an extraordinary knowledge of nature), the belief began to spread that the “Son of David” was a unique protector against demons and evil spirits of all kinds. This belief would, much later, be expressed in Jewish folk traditions in amulets, magic bowls, incantations, and in the protective power of Solomon’s magic ring and the symbolic Shield of Solomon—also known as the Star of David. These beliefs and symbols would eventually descend into the secret lore of mystical brotherhoods and esoteric Judeo-Christian legends, but their origins lay very much in the mainstream of popular Jewish veneration for David and Solomon in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
These traditions originated in the gradual transformation of the image of David—and especially Solomon—into figures of Hellenistic royalty. The Greek traditions of philosopher-kings as men of extraordinary power, combined with the biblical tradition of Solomon’s wisdom and the rich postbiblical Jewish speculation about angels and demons, produced the image of Solomon as a figure to be summoned and appealed to by individual supplicants who sought relief from misfortune, disease, or insanity. Perhaps the earliest example of this vision, as the Spanish scholar Pablo Torijanos has pointed out, comes from an otherwise obscure document among the Dead Sea Scrolls, known to scholars as 11QPsApa. This small fragmentary text is one of several exorcistic compositions that demonstrate interest in rituals of what might be called black magic in Judea in the Roman period.
This document contains four psalms of exorcism, the last being the biblical Psalm 91, which is explicitly credited to David. In the second composition, the names of David and Solomon are mentioned, with Solomon, in a reconstructed portion, given the power of invoking God’s name to deliver sufferers from “any plague of the spirits and the demons and the Liliths, the owls, and the jackals.” The figure of Solomon addresses the attacking demons directly with the question “Who are you?” This question seems to be the beginning of a ceremony of exorcism. It appears in a later esoteric text called the Testament of Solomon that may include materials composed as early as the first century CE. In it, Solomon describes the secrets of controlling demons and explains that he had succeeded in forcing them to work for him in the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem! The similarity of the expressions indicates a shared popular tradition of Solomon, the “Son of David,” as the patron saint of exorcists—a very practical and powerful application of the wisdom that God had granted to him.
Flavius Josephus reflects this widespread belief in the occult powers of Solomon in his report that “God granted him knowledge of the art used against demons for the benefit and healing of men. He also composed incantations by which illnesses are relieved, and left behind forms of exorcisms with which those possessed by demons drive them out, never to return. And this cure is of very great power among us to this day” ( Jewish Antiquities VIII. 45).
What makes this image of Solomon as exorcist especially intriguing is its connection to New Testament literature. The gospel of Mark reports that when Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho in the course of their ministry,
Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; rise, he is calling you.” And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Master, let me receive my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way. (Mark 10:46–52)
The close correspondence between the title “Son of David” and the act of healing suggests an original identification of Jesus of Nazareth as an embodiment of Solomon’s exorcistic personality. This is quite distinct from the earlier belief in David and Solomon as the founders of the Temple or the long-awaited liberators of Israel.
Eventually, however, all the earlier strains of the Davidic tradition were powerfully merged in the person of Jesus, to make him, in the eyes of his followers, the ultimate inheritor of God’s promises to the Davidic dynasty and the long-awaited savior for all the people of Israel.
PROPHETS OF A NEW GOSPEL
Biblical scholars have wrestled for centuries with the meaning of Jesus’ various messianic titles. Little agreement has been achieved about whether, in the course of his ministry in Galilee and Judea in the late twenties and thirties CE, Jesus of Nazareth explicitly identified himself as the Son of David, as other figures of the time surely did. What is obvious is that the authors of the gospels and other early Christian literature, writing shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, went to great lengths to cement this identification. They did it with a major distinction from contemporary Jewish tradition: they stressed that although Jesus was born of the earthly line of David, his messianic legacy was much greater than that of Israel’s founding king.
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus perfectly fulfills contemporary Davidic expectations. The genealogy with which it begins traces Jesus’ lineage from Abraham through David, Solomon, and all the subsequent kings and postexilic heirs of the house of David—all the way down to Joseph, “the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born” (1:1–16). Later in the gospel, in its description of Jesus’ preparations for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he bids his disciples to bring him a donkey and a colt, in order to fulfill an ancient Davidic prophecy of Zechariah:*
Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass. (Zechariah 9:9)
According to Matthew, the crowds who lined the route of his procession understood this prophetic message, proclaiming, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (21:9). His subsequent cleansing of traders and money changers from the courtyards of the Temple (the place most closely associated with the postexilic Davidic tradition) is likewise greeted by the onlookers with a messianic acclamation that the Son of David had finally arrived (21:15).
The gospel of Luke also repeatedly stresses Jesus’ Davidic lineage through both his genealogical connections and the circumstances of his birth in David’s hometown of Bethlehem. Indeed, Luke’s quotation of the words of the angel Gabriel, announcing Jesus’ impending birth to Mary, makes the messianic destiny explicit:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end. (Luke 1:31–33)
For the early Christian community, Jesus was far different from any other messianic contender for the Davidic mantle. In his resurrection from death on the third day after his crucifixi
on, Jesus had shown himself to be greater even than David, who died and “slept with his fathers, and was buried in the City of David,” according to 1 Kings 2:10. This difference sparked a revolutionary reinterpretation; for Psalm 16, attributed by that time to David himself, seemed to predict that bodily resurrection was a clear prophetic sign of the Davidic legacy:
For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fullness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. (Psalm 16:10–11)
In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter explains the new gospel succinctly as he addresses the assembled crowds in the courtyard of the Temple of Jerusalem:
Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens; but he himself says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet.” Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:29–36)
Just as the significance of David had been shifted to the Temple and its rituals in the era after the Babylonian exile and to Hellenistic kingship in succeeding centuries, early Christians shifted the focus of Davidic expectations to become the foundation of their own faith. The reputation of David as the fulcrum of the history of Israel was now beyond dispute. But for Christians, the context was no longer just the history of Judah or even Israel. They now saw the figures of David, Solomon, and all other heirs of the Davidic dynasty as forerunners and prophets of the universal savior born in David’s hometown Bethlehem and crucified and resurrected in his capital city of Jerusalem.
Although the ministry, passion, and resurrection of Jesus were now seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the biblical story, David and Solomon remained, in the eyes of all believing Christians, supremely important religious personalities. As the ancient embodiments of true righteousness, wisdom, and repentance, they foreshadowed Jesus’ message. Given their role as eloquent prophets of his messianic mission, the psalms ascribed to them, their biblical legend, and the vivid images of sacred kingship they represented lived on powerfully, at the very core of Christian consciousness.
SCHOLARS OF THE LAW
Rabbinic tradition remained unfazed by Christian identification of Jesus as the true heir of the divine promise to David. Yet the Jewish David and Solomon tradition also underwent a dramatic transformation after the fall of Jerusalem. As the Jews gradually recovered from the shock and the trauma of the destruction of their Temple and holy city, David and Solomon continued to be seen as the definitive model for religious emulation. After 70 CE, however, the focus of Jewish spiritual life had changed. With the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple sacrifice had given way to study and observance of the biblical ordinances, as they were progressively elaborated and reinterpreted in homiletic commentaries known as midrashim and extensively analyzed and interpreted in the Mishnah and Talmud. David and Solomon’s religious role now shifted: in the traditions and literature of Rabbinic Judaism both were revered, each in his own way, to provide a guiding example for reverence and study of the law.
The American biblical scholar Jouette Bassler has collected a series of representative examples in which David can be seen as the archetype of the pious rabbinic scholar. David’s skill in playing the harp, for example, was seen as necessary for a specific purpose: to rouse King Saul from his slumbers and to encourage him to study the law. In the rabbinic midrash on the book of Leviticus, David himself was seen as a Torah scholar of unparalleled insight, who encouraged his contemporaries to do the same (Leviticus Rabbah 34.16). Indeed David’s devotion to the Torah and its observance, according to rabbinic commentators, caused God to bestow the kingdom on him. Even Solomon—who grew increasingly prominent in medieval Jewish tradition as a miraculous healer and exorcist—was likewise praised for his adherence to the legal tradition, and for his deep understanding of the reasons for the various laws.
The great variety of depictions and moral contradictions embedded in the scriptural David and Solomon tradition proved a fertile source of discussion and debate on the nature of humanity. The sometimes sketchy, puzzling, or contradictory descriptions of events narrated in the Bible became subjects for speculation and themes for often-contentious discussion about family relations, legal observance, and conduct in the community. In the midrash and the commentaries on the Bible, David becomes yet another indulgent father, chided for spoiling Absalom and Adonijah—and thus being at least partially to blame for their misdeeds. In a midrash on Samuel, the rabbis declared that Bathsheba was at least partially to blame for David’s act of adultery and all its consequences, since she knowingly undressed for her bath in a place where she knew she would be seen by the king. In such discussions, the founding fathers of the Davidic dynasty gradually are seen as objects for reflection and theological discussion rather than static ideals.
In the elaboration of this wide range of vivid personal anecdotes and events mentioned in the Bible, David and Solomon remained at the bedrock of Jewish tradition. The golden age they achieved and symbolized was central to understanding God’s intentions and Israel’s history. To deny or ignore the importance of David and Solomon was to demean one of Judaism’s central traditions. As one particularly colorful expression in the Talmud put it: “Whoever contends against the sovereignty of the House of David deserves to be bitten by a snake” (Sanhedrin 110a).
DAVID AND SOLOMON AS CHRISTIAN METAPHORS
Even as the Jewish traditions and legends of David and Solomon were elaborated by the rabbis, the church fathers brought the image of David and Solomon to a far wider audience. The earlier Christological interpretations of Jesus as the true inheritor of God’s promise—and the contents of David and Solomon’s psalms as explicitly referring to Jesus—were taken one important step further. David and Solomon, examined from a purely Christian perspective, were increasingly seen not as independent biblical personalities, but as powerful metaphors for the history of Christ and the church, in every anecdote and episode.
In his commentary on the book of Samuel in The City of God, Saint Augustine wrote with faith-filled conviction “of the promises made to David in his son, which are in no wise fulfilled in Solomon, but most fully in Christ.” The religious scholar Jan Wojcik has highlighted some of the most vivid patristic metaphorical interpretations of the David and Solomon tradition, noting, for example, how Augustine suggested that David’s betrayal by Achitophel during Absalom’s revolt actually concealed a veiled reference to Jesus’ betrayal by Judas. Indeed Augustine’s interpretations of the psalms can be read as a fascinating exercise in metaphorical theology, seeing every act and expression of David and Solomon related in an illuminating way to the many lessons of Christian doctrine. In Augustine’s view, the narrative of David and Solomon should be split into a sequence of thematic religious examples, completely detached from their original context in the biblical narrative.
Another church father, Eucherius, saw in David’s marriage to Bathsheba, the former wife of Uriah, a metaphor of the church’s wooing the community of true believers away from the grasp of the discredited Jewish faith. Many similar metaphors can be mentioned—David’s battle with Goliath as a symbol of Christ’s confrontation with Satan; David’s speech to his followers during his flight from Absalom as a mere shadow of Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples; and the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs) being not the erotic verses of an ancient monarch, but an express
ion of God’s love for his church.
By the fourth century CE, the Christian fathers were convinced that the psalms were really talking about Jesus and that David and Solomon’s lives were intended by God to be inspired metaphors. This reading of the David and Solomon tradition had become a matter of faith. But as Christian missionaries wandered from the intellectual milieu of the Roman cities around the Mediterranean into more distant pagan lands, a more down-to-earth meaning reappeared. The Bible that served as a pattern book of Christological symbols soon found audiences who listened to the colorful stories of ancient Israel and its glorious kings and absorbed them—quite literally—as examples to be followed by their own earthly leaders and as expressions of their own identity. In a sense, the process that began in the highlands of Judah in the tenth century BCE came to life again among new peoples and in new lands.
NEW DAVIDS AND SOLOMONS
The legendary cycle was adopted with new energy and with distinctive new variations across the vast plain of northern Europe, as a new civilization emerged. With the gradual disintegration of the once great Roman Empire, peoples were on the move and patterns of society were changing—not only in the former provinces of Britannia, Gaul, Pannonia, Illyricum, Dacia, and Moesia, but also across the vast stretches of forest, mountains, and steppe land of northern Europe that had never come directly under Roman rule. The historian Patrick Geary has traced this complex process of splintering, migration, and integration, in which the modern nations of Europe first reached their recognizable form. As he suggests, Franks, Goths, Lombards, Saxons, Avars, and Vandals (among many others) were not initially distinct or even recognizable peoples. They only gradually assumed their identities as the result of the crystallization of societies that were once blurred together by the Romans as “barbarians.”
David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition Page 22