some whining and some Bible meta
My technological woes, let me tell you them. My laptop has gotten weirder and weirder -- that is to say, worse -- and I've finally decided to abandon it and moved one of the PCs from home to my apartment. The upside -- I now have internet! And have backed up my stuff! And can type and everything, it's very cool. The downside -- the PC is actually 10,000 years old and matchingly slow. I can't read all my saved .docx files and have to convert them all online. And the PC is very weirdly unclicking windows I have open which makes it very hard to type, although I'v fiddled around and that problem may be partially solved -- I'm crossing my fingers.
I also have a new phone, and I can whine about that too. My old phone was old and falling apart, and for the new one I switched to Nokia which everyone recommended, and chose one of the simplest designs, since I don't use any of the special features anyway. But new phones are always hard to get used to, and the weirdest thing for me now is writing text messages. There are five end letters in Hebrew - that is, letters that look one way when they're in the middle of a word (כ, מ, נ, פ, צ) and another way when they're the last letters in the word (ך, ם, ן, ף, ץ). My old phone would change the middle letters automatically. The new phone doesn't, so I have to get used to clicking the letters differently. And seriously, if that was not the definition of whiniest whine ever, I don't know what is. Seriously, sorry about that.
I'm really hoping to post the Jack/OC PWP (Kings) I wrote posted tonight, because tomorrow is already Memorial Day Eve and I do not even want to think about posting porn on Memorial Day, let alone porn in a military setting. Until I do that, though, here's some Biblical meta to tide you over! Those of you who might be missing Kings, at least.
So I've already mentioned reading the book In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible by Meir Shalev, and even posted a few excerpts. I read some more last week, and there's a lot of really awesome meta/analysis concerning David in the chapter titled "The First Lover", except minds out of the gutter, lover is not lover but rather one who loves -- and more precisely, in this case, woman who loved.
Apologies in advance for the stilted translation -- anything that sounds bad or makes no sense I take upon myself; trust me that the original is beautiful.
From the chapter's intro:
Only three women who loved are mentioned in the entire Bible. Rebbecca, who loved her son Jacob. Ruth the Moabite, who loved her mother-in-law Naomi. And Michal daughter of Saul, who loved her husband David. Therefore Michal isn't just the first woman to whom the love of a man is ascribed, she's also the only one, and so the power and the tragedy of her love are emphasized. Unfortunately, this love was not only one-time thing, but went one-way, as can be expected given her husband's personality.
As we may recall, David was a 'handsome person, and wise, a man of great strength and fit for war, a skillful player, and the Lord was with him'. But he had one more quality, that isn't strictly mentioned but arises from the story: he was beloved. To be precise, he was the most well-loved character in the Bible. Maybe that was Michal's real tragedy, to love a man whom so many loved, a man who doesn't have to lift a finger to win over the hearts of others, and so his emotional world became twisted and corrupt.
David's first lover was Michal's father, King Saul. 1 Samuel 16 21 says: "Then David came to Saul and attended him; and Saul loved him greatly."
David's second lover was Jonathan son of Saul, Michal's brother. 1 Samuel 18 1 says: "...and the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself."
Later, in the same chapter, more lovers appear:
Verse 16: "But all Israel and Judah loved David, and he went out and came in before them."
Michal appears in verse 20: "Now Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David," and in verse 28: "And Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him."
In verse 22 David is told: "...and all [Saul's] servants love you."
And in 1 Kings chapter 5 1, it says: "For Hiram was ever a lover of David."
Hiram was King of neighboring Tyre, and his love of David is neither as important nor as influential as the other loves, but it testifies that the charm of the King of Israel crossed borders. And indeed, in all the Bible no other character has the verb "love" conjugated next to their name so many times. Further study shows that not only the number of loves is important, but also, and even mostly, its direction. The love is always aimed at David, and never turned directed from him toward someone else. Nowhere is there a mention of love that flows from David to his surroundings. All love him, and he loves no one.
It is especially ironic in the love that was expressed toward him by Saul and his children. Saul loved the competitor who weakened his spirit and his position. Michal loved the man who gave her up, demanded to get her back, fought with her and eventually avoided her proximity. Jonathan loved the one who was soon to sit on the throne destined for him, and accepted it with no objection or struggle. He and Michal even aided David in escaping the harm of their father.
This should not be taken lightly. Jonathan had the reputation of a man of war, the qualities of a leader, and could have inherited his father justly and successfully. But in his love for David, he gave that up. He even told him: "...and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth." But even before that, Jonathan made David swear never to harm his children when David became King. It was an especially peculiar oath, because Jonathan made David swear in the name of his love: "And Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life."
And indeed, David and Jonathan's love is treasured in our hearts and our consciousness as a symbol of love and friendship between men -- but no few readers have noted their opinions that even this love was one-directional: from Jonathan toward David, and not the other way around. This reveals itself in a surprising and touching way in David's own words, in his lamentation on Saul and Jonathan after their deaths on at the battle on the Gilboa, in the first chapter of 2 Samuel.
This lamentation, one of the most known and beautiful texts of Hebrew poetry, was a masterpiece of honesty and practicality, of genuine sorrow and calculated planning. When David praised the dead King he was thinking of his own kingdom, which was soon to rise. But when he mourned Jonathan his words became more personal, and then the truth came out.
"I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan," he said, "your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."
The reader's attention is naturally drawn to the expression "passing the love of women", but the important words here are "your love to me was wonderful". They describe the two men's true relationship and declare that we are speaking of Jonathan's love for David and not David's love for Jonathan.
"Your love to me was wonderful", said David, and not "My love to you was wonderful". "Your love to me was wonderful", and not even "Our love was wonderful". David himself was aware of the fact that it was Jonathan who loved and David, the beloved.
Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it calculated wording? When talking about David, the latter is certainly possible. Either way, things speak for themselves. David was loved and did not love, courted but did not court, and he understood and took advantage of it well. This emotional pampering led to his emotional corruption, and his emotional corruption led to his downfall.
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I'm skipping over a few sections here -- he describes Michal, and more about David and Michal's relationship, culminating with their big argument regarding David's dancing before the Ark. He then moves on to discuss David's greatest victims:
A bathing woman
Michal, and later her five sons, whom David handed over to the Gibeonites, weren't the only ones hurt by David. By the sides of his path more victims are strewn, some of them lifeless and some joyless and some hopeless, and all of them evidence that his relationships with other humans, men and women alike, began and ended on a solely instrumental level.
I do not mean victims like Goliath, who earned his death honestly, but innocent victims: Ritzpah daughter of Aya the mistress of Saul and her two sons, who, like Michal's sons, were handed over to the Gibeonites. And Achimelech, the head priest of Nob, whom David, as he fled from Saul, tricked by saying he'd been sent by the King. Achimelech equipped him with weapons and food, and for that was put to death along with all his priests by Saul and his soldiers. And Mephibopshet son of Jonathan, who was at first cared for by David and then abandoned. And also Joab son of Zruya, David's most loyal man, whom David ordered to kill in his will, if he indeed left such a will which was in my opinion nothing more than an invention of Solomon's.
But the most known of all his victims was Uriah the Hittite, a warrior with a reputation who is even mentioned in the glorified list of David's warriors in 2 Samuel 23. Unfortunately, Uriah the Hittite's fame did not come because of his bravery, but because he was the husband of a beautiful woman named Bathsheba, who conceived to David while he himself fought the Ammonite army for him.
The story is written in 2 Samuel 10-12, and I suggest that the reader not be satisfied with what I'm telling here, and read it in its entirety. It begins with a diplomatic delegation that David sent to Rabath Ammon, to comfort the heir to the Ammonite throne over the death of his father. The Ammonites suspected the delegation members of being spies. They tore their clothes, shaved their beards and banished them back to Israel. Such an insult can induce and even warrants a response, but of all possible responses -- from dipping the Ammonite ambassador in tar and feathers to closing off border passes and laying economic sanctions -- David chose, of all things, all out war. This went on and drew out and became complicated, and the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba started a year after it began, when Joab lay a siege on the Ammonite capital.
But this war was unique in one other aspect. It was the first war in which David did not participate. In a different place, far earlier, David's men had demanded that he not risk himself in the battlefield; now he took the mitzvah one step forward and didn't even visit his troops to lift their spirits. He remained in Jerusalem, in his palace, and thus the reader concludes that of his six initial good qualities -- a handsome person, and wise, a man of great strength and fit for war, a skillful player, and the Lord was with him -- four are left. His wisdom, as witnessed by the decision to start this war, was no longer as great and impressive as it used to be, and he is no longer a "man of war". Upon the bad conclusion of this affair David will also lose the most important of his qualities -- the "and the Lord was with him", the one without whom none of the others have any meaning.
The writer deliberately emphasizes the fact that David stayed behind in Jerusalem. In the first verse of 2 Samuel chapter 11, it says "that David sent Joab", and also "And David tarried at Jerusalem". The next verse goes on to stress: "And it came to pass at eventide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house". As far as the reader of the history of the House of David is concerned, this is a new reality: the chief of the military, the king's slaves and all of Israel are fighting in the battlefield because of a stupid diplomatic insult, and the king is sitting in his house, and after his afternoon nap goes up to the roof to breathe in some fresh Jerusalem air.
From the roof he saw a bathing woman, “and the woman was very beautiful to look upon”. The woman’s beauty, her nudity and the forbidden voyeurism stirred his urges. His royal status, authority, the emotional indulgence of a man whom everybody loves - they released his inhibitions, if he had had any to begin with.
“And David sent and inquired after the woman.” That is, he asked one of his slaves to find out who she is. The man inquired and returned with the answer: “Why, is this not Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
[Um, note from me - I tried my best to find the best translation of this line so it also fits what Shalev is saying; if it’s still a bit shaky it’s because of the translation, sorry.]
The tone and the wording of the answer indicate reservation and wonder. First, in the words “why, is this not”, which mean - how dare you contemplate this possibility? And later in the information given to him -- Bathsheba is the wife of one of your warrior heroes, who is fighting for you in the battlefield at this very moment. And maybe it’s not one slave speaking here, but two or maybe three scandalized slaves, who interrupt one another’s words, not daring to rebuke the king, but warning him against his intents and possible consequences.
But the king didn’t flinch and didn’t retreat. The husband’s presence in the battlefield didn’t make him regret his decisions but the opposite; it gave him a rare window of opportunity. He returned and sent his messengers, this time to take the woman. The verb “and he took” proves that he was the instigator, and as for Bathsheba, it’s hard to know. It may very well be that she went of her own accord, but in the inflection of the verb “took” I feel aggressive coercion on his part and helplessness on hers. The verb “to take” appears in the Bible many times in the sense of marriage to a woman, but this situation is different. This is taking another man’s wife: “And he took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her.”
Send me Uriah
As I mentioned earlier, it was already in the start of that war that David didn’t show the same wisdom he’d had in his early days, and it continues in his carelessness now. Bathsheba, who was at that point just “purified from her uncleanliness”, that is just after her monthly period, conceived.
“And she sent and told David, and said, ‘I am with child’. And David sent to Joab: ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite’. And Joab sent Uriah to David.”
The high frequency of the root “send” is not coincidental, and in general, the number of sendoffs and errands in this entire story is noteworthy. The chapter opened with “and David sent Joab” to the war, continued with sending people to inquire after the bathing woman, followed by “and David sent messengers and took her”, and sending the news of the pregnancy from Bathsheba to David, sending the order to Joab, to send for Uriah, and the sending of Uriah himself.
The verb “to send” appears many more times by the end of the chapter. These sendoffs and errands are the author’s way of hinting and proving the lack of the previous genuine connection that David had with his people, that David had with reality: they are at the battlefield and he is in the palace. They are fighting and he is resting on his watch. They are on the ground and he is on the roof. They do for themselves, and he sends messengers and acts through them. They lay siege on Rabath Ammon and he lays eyes on a bathing woman, takes her and sleeps with her as her husband fights for him in that battle.
Now that Bathsheba had informed him of her pregnancy, David did not leave her a response. He left her expecting, anxious, suffering, afraid - what would happen now? What would be her fate? David sent a messenger to Joab, the chief of his army, and demanded that Uriah be sent to him. His intentions were clear: Uriah would come to Jerusalem, sleep with Bathsheba, and take credit for the pregnancy. David’s regard to Bathsheba is clear as well, he had satisfied his urge and had no use for her anymore.
Uriah arrived in Jerusalem and reported at the palace, and David pretended to have summoned him to report about the siege. He asked him “how Joab did, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered” and then he sent him to his home: “Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet,” he commanded affectionately. As mentioned, his intent is clear and transparent to the reader, but it might also have been obvious to Uriah, for he did not go down to his home. He stayed within the confines of the palace and went to sleep with the king’s slaves.
Had Uriah understood what had happened? At this point the reader can’t know for sure, but there are many reasons to answer positively, based both on what is written and what is unwritten in the story. Uriah did not parachute into the king’s chambers, nor sneak in from the window. He’d passed through the city gate, he’d reported and identified himself at the palace entrance, several of the king’s slaves had escorted him in and announced his arrival to the king’s chamber. Many eyes saw him, and he saw them too: staring, looking away, lowered to the ground. He’d understood that something had happened.
It is not a usual occurrence to be called back so, from the battle to the palace. Uriah had asked himself, naturally, what he had been summoned to the king for, and there were quite a few people in the palace who knew the answer well. David, we recall, had not been especially careful. He’d sent people to inquire about Bathsheba and people to bring her to him. She’d been seen pacing the halls as she arrived and left. Servants had made the king’s bedchambers the next day, exchanging sheets and glances. Who knows, maybe rumors had reached the battlefield too. The distance from Jerusalem to Rabath Ammon is not that great. A fast rider would make it in two days, and there was probably a system of runners between the palace and the battlefield.
And above all that stands the undisputable fact that Uriah did not go down to his house and did not visit his wife. Is any other proof even needed that he’d suspected, maybe even known, that something had happened that had to do with her?
As for David, his people reported to him that Uriah had stayed within the walls of the palace. He sent for him and asked him to explain his actions, and the answer he was given gives the reader yet more proof. Before I go into the details, I advise the reader to read it in full.
The king asked: “Wherefore didst thou go not into thy home?”
Uriah replied: “The Ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in booths; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open field; shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.'
The answer is smart and layered, and indicates that its speaker was wise and not naïve. With all the caution necessary due to the difference between them in power and station, Uriah told the king what he thought of him and his behavior. In the explicit, candid section of his words, he declared that while his commanders and friends live in field conditions, he won’t enjoy the luxuries of his home. But beneath his words we can already hear a criticizing reproach: I will not be like you, who sent us to war and remained in your palace.
But Uriah wasn't just describing the virtues of warrior brotherhood. He opened with a mention of the Holy Ark, that had gone to war as well. And Uriah himself was a Hittite, and had no personal interest or connection to the Hebrew Holy Ark. David, on the other hand, did. Both as a servant of the Lord, and as the man who had delivered up the Ark to Jerusalem and orchestrated the great celebration I described earlier.
When Uriah emphasizes the Ark thus, immediately at the start of his words, he isn't expressing his own belief in the God of Israel, but reminding David of the first days of his own reign, when the Holy Ark had mattered to him, when his fighting brothers had been important to him. His voice admonishes the king, rising between the written words: once you were a man of values, faith and morals, you left with us and with the Ark to the battlefield. Once you fought with us, were with us in the campaign and in the tents, didn't stay in your palace.
I imagine David freezing on his throne. The things said were subtle, but difficult and clear to both sides, and the other truth, the one not uttered yet, was already hovering in the air. And indeed, it was now that Uriah added the last hint that he knew and understood what was going on: "shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?"
To remind you, the kind had never mentioned eating and drinking, much less mentioned Uriah lying with his wife. He'd only said, "Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet", that is go home and enjoy its luxuries. Uriah deconstructs the suggestion into details -- to eat, and drink, and then drops the bomb: "and to lie with my wife," as if saying: I knew what you're really after, I know what happened.
In the forefront of the hottest battle
"Tarry here today also, and tomorrow I will let thee depart," said the king. For the first time in his life we see him embarrassed, no counsel or solution in sight. He hoped that Uriah would go to his home nevertheless. But Uriah did not go, and the next evening David invited him to a meal again. This time he took care to give him wine, hoping he'd get drunk and forget his principles. And Uriah indeed got drunk, but even in his drunkenness he did not go down to his home and his wife, and in not doing so he condemned his own fate to death. David wrote Joab a letter, in which he commanded him to place Uriah "in the forefront of the hottest battle", to retreat behind him and leave him with no support, so that he is wounded and dies in battle.
This letter was carried by Uriah himself as he returned from Jerusalem to the battlefield. We can assume it was sealed, as is proper for a letter from the king to the military leader. But did Uriah himself guess what it said? I cannot answer that, of course, but if he did correctly guess its content, his return to the camp and delivery of the letter testify that he no longer had a wish to live, that it was suicide, as simple as that.
Thus, like a carrier pigeon delivering its own death sentence, Uriah brought the king's orders to Joab. Joab fulfilled them, although not word for word. He did station Uriah in a dangerous position in the front, but not by himself. Uriah fell in battle, and with him more warriors.
Joab sent a messenger to tell David about the incident and the multiple casualties. And he guided him what to say: "And if the king's wrath arise, and he say unto thee: Wherefore went ye so nigh unto the city to fight, knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? [...] Why went ye so near the wall? Then shalt thou say: Thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
Thus Joab hinted to David that obeying his command as it was phrased would have raised suspicion, and that it was an irresponsible and careless order, just like David's behavior throughout this entire war, starting with its outbreak, and ending with his adultery with Bathsheba and his decision to kill her husband.
The messenger didn't even wait to be asked by the king. He informed him of the death of the soldiers, and immediately added of his own accord: "And thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also." In other words, he too understood what had happened and feared his fate would be the fate of messengers bearing bad news. But David's response to the information proves that this wasn't just a rash act, but a complete transformation of his personality. "Thus shalt thou say unto Joab," he directed the messenger, "Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devours one as well as another." And in today's words: That's war. People die. C'est la vie.
And Bathsheba? She had probably heard about her husband's presence in the city and that he hadn't come to visit her. She understood that he knew what had happened and her anxiety grew. Now, when she found out about his death, she grieved him properly. The days of mourning passed, "And David sent and collected her to his house and she became his wife."
We could have ended the story here, with that word, "and collected her", that like its predecessor "and took her" indicates genuine unwillingness. Last time the unwillingness belonged to Bathsheba, and this time it's David's. But this "and collected her" also indicates Bathsheba's new station, she who was "the wife of Uriah" and will now be another item in the collection of royal wives. On this matter, it's worth remembering that she isn't the first wife David took after the suspicious death of her husband. In a similar sentence the Bible tells of a similar event: "And David sent and spoke concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife" -- after the death of Nabal the Carmelite, her husband, who'd fallen out with David in the days David had fled Saul.
Fortunately, the author added one more line, with which he chose to seal the affair: "And the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." The line is simple and clear, and it's good that it's so. It's good that these things were added and it's good that they're so clear and unequivocal. It's as if the author who wrote them foresaw the flood of denials, cover-ups and pretended innocence that were to come, and that will always come to clean up David's character and to cover for his sin.
And indeed, generations of wise men, commentators, and rewriters put on their work clothes, one hand holding the putty knife and the other erasing, and became the whitewashers and the cleaners of the chronicles of the House of David. They claimed that Bathsheba had seduced the king, hinted that Uriah had divorced her before the war, gossiped that he was a eunuch and could not have children, and other such lies that are directly opposed to the spirit of the original Bibilical story and the facts in it.
But the trend of erasure and concealing begins in the Bible itself, in the Book of Chronicles, which completely blotted out the story and name of Uriah from the history of the House of David, and even changed Bathsheba's name to Bathshuah to blur any reminder of David's awful sin. This isn't the first change Chronicles made to the history of the House of David, and in his favor. The people who formulated and wrote that terrible book -- the Soviet Encyclopedia of the Jewish People -- also wiped out the rebellion of Absalom, the rape of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the pitiable old age of David and many other flaws, great and small, that might stain his perfect tallis.
The Book of Samuel, on the other hand, describes David's honest remorse for the sin he sinned, but other than that, things are written as they were. It's clear to the reader that the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba were the turning point of David's story. Until then he rises and succeeds, and from then on he falls. From failure to failure, from trouble to disaster, in the arenas of both his rule and his family. So on until his final miserable days and his ill old age, which were also, as I've said, wiped out from the Book of Chronicles.
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And here a few more sections describe David's old age and his relationship with Avishag the Sunemite, and he concludes the chapter with:
This description of David fits in well with the principled objection that most of the Bible has against the idea of a monarchy. I've already described this in the chapter "The First King", and I'll remind here that the ideal form of government, according to the Bible and prophecy, is: God is King over the people, and the prophet delivers his words. This pattern only actually existed twice -- in the days of Moses and in most of the days of Samuel, and in both cases their sons didn't inherit the job, to emphasize that it was not a rule passed down from father to son, as is customary in monarchies.
King David started out as the biggest promise of them all. According to one story, as a skilled and handsome musician, wise and a hero and a man of war and the Lord with him, who came to play before King Saul. According to a different story, as a brave, original, smart boy, who beat Goliath the Philistine in a midway battle. The end of his political life too has two versions. That of Chronicles, which described a David who never sinned and who passed the kingdom on to Solomon while he still lived, and that of the Books of Samuel and the beginning of 1 Kings, which describe a king whose charm and power corrupted his moral attributes, until he committed adultery and murdered and was punished by God. And that’s the lesson that remained to this day, that no leader, not even King David, can stand before the people if he is morally flawed, let alone leaders who are lesser than David.
It’s interesting that despite the discoveries about him made in Samuel and Kings, David’s tremendous charisma exists and still works today. It turns out that the people love him and miss him not because of the rewriting and the censorship of Chronicles, but despite the discoveries revealed in Samuel. And so, from our distance today, the commentating and rewriting efforts to acquit him from sin seems absurd and unnecessary. The readers forgive him despite knowing the truth. Maybe because he regretted it and told the prophet Nathan “I have sinned before God”, and maybe it’s a linear continuation of that aspect of his personality, his being so alluring and beloved.
David didn’t contradict a direct order of God, like Saul did before him. He didn’t worship other gods, like his son Solomon will after him. But he committed a terrible moral sin and produced a generation of corrupt princes, spoiled and flawed, who inherited his bad traits and none of his good ones. The Bible connects this to the story of Uriah and Bathsheba, but it began far earlier than that, in the love given to him by all he met, and in his treatment of his first wife Michal, Saul’s daughter, the first and only woman in the Bible who loved her husband.
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All of this demonstrates pretty well what my pretty huge issues with Kings' David are. Not that he isn't the man Meir Shalev describes now (not that that helps) - but rather that I can't ever see David Shepherd turning into this guy. It's much easier for me to accept changes the show made in other characters, but... well, this is David.
comments on Dreamwidth.
I also have a new phone, and I can whine about that too. My old phone was old and falling apart, and for the new one I switched to Nokia which everyone recommended, and chose one of the simplest designs, since I don't use any of the special features anyway. But new phones are always hard to get used to, and the weirdest thing for me now is writing text messages. There are five end letters in Hebrew - that is, letters that look one way when they're in the middle of a word (כ, מ, נ, פ, צ) and another way when they're the last letters in the word (ך, ם, ן, ף, ץ). My old phone would change the middle letters automatically. The new phone doesn't, so I have to get used to clicking the letters differently. And seriously, if that was not the definition of whiniest whine ever, I don't know what is. Seriously, sorry about that.
I'm really hoping to post the Jack/OC PWP (Kings) I wrote posted tonight, because tomorrow is already Memorial Day Eve and I do not even want to think about posting porn on Memorial Day, let alone porn in a military setting. Until I do that, though, here's some Biblical meta to tide you over! Those of you who might be missing Kings, at least.
So I've already mentioned reading the book In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible by Meir Shalev, and even posted a few excerpts. I read some more last week, and there's a lot of really awesome meta/analysis concerning David in the chapter titled "The First Lover", except minds out of the gutter, lover is not lover but rather one who loves -- and more precisely, in this case, woman who loved.
Apologies in advance for the stilted translation -- anything that sounds bad or makes no sense I take upon myself; trust me that the original is beautiful.
From the chapter's intro:
Only three women who loved are mentioned in the entire Bible. Rebbecca, who loved her son Jacob. Ruth the Moabite, who loved her mother-in-law Naomi. And Michal daughter of Saul, who loved her husband David. Therefore Michal isn't just the first woman to whom the love of a man is ascribed, she's also the only one, and so the power and the tragedy of her love are emphasized. Unfortunately, this love was not only one-time thing, but went one-way, as can be expected given her husband's personality.
As we may recall, David was a 'handsome person, and wise, a man of great strength and fit for war, a skillful player, and the Lord was with him'. But he had one more quality, that isn't strictly mentioned but arises from the story: he was beloved. To be precise, he was the most well-loved character in the Bible. Maybe that was Michal's real tragedy, to love a man whom so many loved, a man who doesn't have to lift a finger to win over the hearts of others, and so his emotional world became twisted and corrupt.
David's first lover was Michal's father, King Saul. 1 Samuel 16 21 says: "Then David came to Saul and attended him; and Saul loved him greatly."
David's second lover was Jonathan son of Saul, Michal's brother. 1 Samuel 18 1 says: "...and the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself."
Later, in the same chapter, more lovers appear:
Verse 16: "But all Israel and Judah loved David, and he went out and came in before them."
Michal appears in verse 20: "Now Michal, Saul's daughter, loved David," and in verse 28: "And Michal, Saul's daughter, loved him."
In verse 22 David is told: "...and all [Saul's] servants love you."
And in 1 Kings chapter 5 1, it says: "For Hiram was ever a lover of David."
Hiram was King of neighboring Tyre, and his love of David is neither as important nor as influential as the other loves, but it testifies that the charm of the King of Israel crossed borders. And indeed, in all the Bible no other character has the verb "love" conjugated next to their name so many times. Further study shows that not only the number of loves is important, but also, and even mostly, its direction. The love is always aimed at David, and never turned directed from him toward someone else. Nowhere is there a mention of love that flows from David to his surroundings. All love him, and he loves no one.
It is especially ironic in the love that was expressed toward him by Saul and his children. Saul loved the competitor who weakened his spirit and his position. Michal loved the man who gave her up, demanded to get her back, fought with her and eventually avoided her proximity. Jonathan loved the one who was soon to sit on the throne destined for him, and accepted it with no objection or struggle. He and Michal even aided David in escaping the harm of their father.
This should not be taken lightly. Jonathan had the reputation of a man of war, the qualities of a leader, and could have inherited his father justly and successfully. But in his love for David, he gave that up. He even told him: "...and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth." But even before that, Jonathan made David swear never to harm his children when David became King. It was an especially peculiar oath, because Jonathan made David swear in the name of his love: "And Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life."
And indeed, David and Jonathan's love is treasured in our hearts and our consciousness as a symbol of love and friendship between men -- but no few readers have noted their opinions that even this love was one-directional: from Jonathan toward David, and not the other way around. This reveals itself in a surprising and touching way in David's own words, in his lamentation on Saul and Jonathan after their deaths on at the battle on the Gilboa, in the first chapter of 2 Samuel.
This lamentation, one of the most known and beautiful texts of Hebrew poetry, was a masterpiece of honesty and practicality, of genuine sorrow and calculated planning. When David praised the dead King he was thinking of his own kingdom, which was soon to rise. But when he mourned Jonathan his words became more personal, and then the truth came out.
"I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan," he said, "your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."
The reader's attention is naturally drawn to the expression "passing the love of women", but the important words here are "your love to me was wonderful". They describe the two men's true relationship and declare that we are speaking of Jonathan's love for David and not David's love for Jonathan.
"Your love to me was wonderful", said David, and not "My love to you was wonderful". "Your love to me was wonderful", and not even "Our love was wonderful". David himself was aware of the fact that it was Jonathan who loved and David, the beloved.
Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it calculated wording? When talking about David, the latter is certainly possible. Either way, things speak for themselves. David was loved and did not love, courted but did not court, and he understood and took advantage of it well. This emotional pampering led to his emotional corruption, and his emotional corruption led to his downfall.
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I'm skipping over a few sections here -- he describes Michal, and more about David and Michal's relationship, culminating with their big argument regarding David's dancing before the Ark. He then moves on to discuss David's greatest victims:
A bathing woman
Michal, and later her five sons, whom David handed over to the Gibeonites, weren't the only ones hurt by David. By the sides of his path more victims are strewn, some of them lifeless and some joyless and some hopeless, and all of them evidence that his relationships with other humans, men and women alike, began and ended on a solely instrumental level.
I do not mean victims like Goliath, who earned his death honestly, but innocent victims: Ritzpah daughter of Aya the mistress of Saul and her two sons, who, like Michal's sons, were handed over to the Gibeonites. And Achimelech, the head priest of Nob, whom David, as he fled from Saul, tricked by saying he'd been sent by the King. Achimelech equipped him with weapons and food, and for that was put to death along with all his priests by Saul and his soldiers. And Mephibopshet son of Jonathan, who was at first cared for by David and then abandoned. And also Joab son of Zruya, David's most loyal man, whom David ordered to kill in his will, if he indeed left such a will which was in my opinion nothing more than an invention of Solomon's.
But the most known of all his victims was Uriah the Hittite, a warrior with a reputation who is even mentioned in the glorified list of David's warriors in 2 Samuel 23. Unfortunately, Uriah the Hittite's fame did not come because of his bravery, but because he was the husband of a beautiful woman named Bathsheba, who conceived to David while he himself fought the Ammonite army for him.
The story is written in 2 Samuel 10-12, and I suggest that the reader not be satisfied with what I'm telling here, and read it in its entirety. It begins with a diplomatic delegation that David sent to Rabath Ammon, to comfort the heir to the Ammonite throne over the death of his father. The Ammonites suspected the delegation members of being spies. They tore their clothes, shaved their beards and banished them back to Israel. Such an insult can induce and even warrants a response, but of all possible responses -- from dipping the Ammonite ambassador in tar and feathers to closing off border passes and laying economic sanctions -- David chose, of all things, all out war. This went on and drew out and became complicated, and the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba started a year after it began, when Joab lay a siege on the Ammonite capital.
But this war was unique in one other aspect. It was the first war in which David did not participate. In a different place, far earlier, David's men had demanded that he not risk himself in the battlefield; now he took the mitzvah one step forward and didn't even visit his troops to lift their spirits. He remained in Jerusalem, in his palace, and thus the reader concludes that of his six initial good qualities -- a handsome person, and wise, a man of great strength and fit for war, a skillful player, and the Lord was with him -- four are left. His wisdom, as witnessed by the decision to start this war, was no longer as great and impressive as it used to be, and he is no longer a "man of war". Upon the bad conclusion of this affair David will also lose the most important of his qualities -- the "and the Lord was with him", the one without whom none of the others have any meaning.
The writer deliberately emphasizes the fact that David stayed behind in Jerusalem. In the first verse of 2 Samuel chapter 11, it says "that David sent Joab", and also "And David tarried at Jerusalem". The next verse goes on to stress: "And it came to pass at eventide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house". As far as the reader of the history of the House of David is concerned, this is a new reality: the chief of the military, the king's slaves and all of Israel are fighting in the battlefield because of a stupid diplomatic insult, and the king is sitting in his house, and after his afternoon nap goes up to the roof to breathe in some fresh Jerusalem air.
From the roof he saw a bathing woman, “and the woman was very beautiful to look upon”. The woman’s beauty, her nudity and the forbidden voyeurism stirred his urges. His royal status, authority, the emotional indulgence of a man whom everybody loves - they released his inhibitions, if he had had any to begin with.
“And David sent and inquired after the woman.” That is, he asked one of his slaves to find out who she is. The man inquired and returned with the answer: “Why, is this not Bathsheba, daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
[Um, note from me - I tried my best to find the best translation of this line so it also fits what Shalev is saying; if it’s still a bit shaky it’s because of the translation, sorry.]
The tone and the wording of the answer indicate reservation and wonder. First, in the words “why, is this not”, which mean - how dare you contemplate this possibility? And later in the information given to him -- Bathsheba is the wife of one of your warrior heroes, who is fighting for you in the battlefield at this very moment. And maybe it’s not one slave speaking here, but two or maybe three scandalized slaves, who interrupt one another’s words, not daring to rebuke the king, but warning him against his intents and possible consequences.
But the king didn’t flinch and didn’t retreat. The husband’s presence in the battlefield didn’t make him regret his decisions but the opposite; it gave him a rare window of opportunity. He returned and sent his messengers, this time to take the woman. The verb “and he took” proves that he was the instigator, and as for Bathsheba, it’s hard to know. It may very well be that she went of her own accord, but in the inflection of the verb “took” I feel aggressive coercion on his part and helplessness on hers. The verb “to take” appears in the Bible many times in the sense of marriage to a woman, but this situation is different. This is taking another man’s wife: “And he took her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her.”
Send me Uriah
As I mentioned earlier, it was already in the start of that war that David didn’t show the same wisdom he’d had in his early days, and it continues in his carelessness now. Bathsheba, who was at that point just “purified from her uncleanliness”, that is just after her monthly period, conceived.
“And she sent and told David, and said, ‘I am with child’. And David sent to Joab: ‘Send me Uriah the Hittite’. And Joab sent Uriah to David.”
The high frequency of the root “send” is not coincidental, and in general, the number of sendoffs and errands in this entire story is noteworthy. The chapter opened with “and David sent Joab” to the war, continued with sending people to inquire after the bathing woman, followed by “and David sent messengers and took her”, and sending the news of the pregnancy from Bathsheba to David, sending the order to Joab, to send for Uriah, and the sending of Uriah himself.
The verb “to send” appears many more times by the end of the chapter. These sendoffs and errands are the author’s way of hinting and proving the lack of the previous genuine connection that David had with his people, that David had with reality: they are at the battlefield and he is in the palace. They are fighting and he is resting on his watch. They are on the ground and he is on the roof. They do for themselves, and he sends messengers and acts through them. They lay siege on Rabath Ammon and he lays eyes on a bathing woman, takes her and sleeps with her as her husband fights for him in that battle.
Now that Bathsheba had informed him of her pregnancy, David did not leave her a response. He left her expecting, anxious, suffering, afraid - what would happen now? What would be her fate? David sent a messenger to Joab, the chief of his army, and demanded that Uriah be sent to him. His intentions were clear: Uriah would come to Jerusalem, sleep with Bathsheba, and take credit for the pregnancy. David’s regard to Bathsheba is clear as well, he had satisfied his urge and had no use for her anymore.
Uriah arrived in Jerusalem and reported at the palace, and David pretended to have summoned him to report about the siege. He asked him “how Joab did, and how the people fared, and how the war prospered” and then he sent him to his home: “Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet,” he commanded affectionately. As mentioned, his intent is clear and transparent to the reader, but it might also have been obvious to Uriah, for he did not go down to his home. He stayed within the confines of the palace and went to sleep with the king’s slaves.
Had Uriah understood what had happened? At this point the reader can’t know for sure, but there are many reasons to answer positively, based both on what is written and what is unwritten in the story. Uriah did not parachute into the king’s chambers, nor sneak in from the window. He’d passed through the city gate, he’d reported and identified himself at the palace entrance, several of the king’s slaves had escorted him in and announced his arrival to the king’s chamber. Many eyes saw him, and he saw them too: staring, looking away, lowered to the ground. He’d understood that something had happened.
It is not a usual occurrence to be called back so, from the battle to the palace. Uriah had asked himself, naturally, what he had been summoned to the king for, and there were quite a few people in the palace who knew the answer well. David, we recall, had not been especially careful. He’d sent people to inquire about Bathsheba and people to bring her to him. She’d been seen pacing the halls as she arrived and left. Servants had made the king’s bedchambers the next day, exchanging sheets and glances. Who knows, maybe rumors had reached the battlefield too. The distance from Jerusalem to Rabath Ammon is not that great. A fast rider would make it in two days, and there was probably a system of runners between the palace and the battlefield.
And above all that stands the undisputable fact that Uriah did not go down to his house and did not visit his wife. Is any other proof even needed that he’d suspected, maybe even known, that something had happened that had to do with her?
As for David, his people reported to him that Uriah had stayed within the walls of the palace. He sent for him and asked him to explain his actions, and the answer he was given gives the reader yet more proof. Before I go into the details, I advise the reader to read it in full.
The king asked: “Wherefore didst thou go not into thy home?”
Uriah replied: “The Ark, and Israel, and Judah, abide in booths; and my lord Joab, and the servants of my lord, are encamped in the open field; shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? as thou livest, and as thy soul liveth, I will not do this thing.'
The answer is smart and layered, and indicates that its speaker was wise and not naïve. With all the caution necessary due to the difference between them in power and station, Uriah told the king what he thought of him and his behavior. In the explicit, candid section of his words, he declared that while his commanders and friends live in field conditions, he won’t enjoy the luxuries of his home. But beneath his words we can already hear a criticizing reproach: I will not be like you, who sent us to war and remained in your palace.
But Uriah wasn't just describing the virtues of warrior brotherhood. He opened with a mention of the Holy Ark, that had gone to war as well. And Uriah himself was a Hittite, and had no personal interest or connection to the Hebrew Holy Ark. David, on the other hand, did. Both as a servant of the Lord, and as the man who had delivered up the Ark to Jerusalem and orchestrated the great celebration I described earlier.
When Uriah emphasizes the Ark thus, immediately at the start of his words, he isn't expressing his own belief in the God of Israel, but reminding David of the first days of his own reign, when the Holy Ark had mattered to him, when his fighting brothers had been important to him. His voice admonishes the king, rising between the written words: once you were a man of values, faith and morals, you left with us and with the Ark to the battlefield. Once you fought with us, were with us in the campaign and in the tents, didn't stay in your palace.
I imagine David freezing on his throne. The things said were subtle, but difficult and clear to both sides, and the other truth, the one not uttered yet, was already hovering in the air. And indeed, it was now that Uriah added the last hint that he knew and understood what was going on: "shall I then go into my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife?"
To remind you, the kind had never mentioned eating and drinking, much less mentioned Uriah lying with his wife. He'd only said, "Go down to thy house, and wash thy feet", that is go home and enjoy its luxuries. Uriah deconstructs the suggestion into details -- to eat, and drink, and then drops the bomb: "and to lie with my wife," as if saying: I knew what you're really after, I know what happened.
In the forefront of the hottest battle
"Tarry here today also, and tomorrow I will let thee depart," said the king. For the first time in his life we see him embarrassed, no counsel or solution in sight. He hoped that Uriah would go to his home nevertheless. But Uriah did not go, and the next evening David invited him to a meal again. This time he took care to give him wine, hoping he'd get drunk and forget his principles. And Uriah indeed got drunk, but even in his drunkenness he did not go down to his home and his wife, and in not doing so he condemned his own fate to death. David wrote Joab a letter, in which he commanded him to place Uriah "in the forefront of the hottest battle", to retreat behind him and leave him with no support, so that he is wounded and dies in battle.
This letter was carried by Uriah himself as he returned from Jerusalem to the battlefield. We can assume it was sealed, as is proper for a letter from the king to the military leader. But did Uriah himself guess what it said? I cannot answer that, of course, but if he did correctly guess its content, his return to the camp and delivery of the letter testify that he no longer had a wish to live, that it was suicide, as simple as that.
Thus, like a carrier pigeon delivering its own death sentence, Uriah brought the king's orders to Joab. Joab fulfilled them, although not word for word. He did station Uriah in a dangerous position in the front, but not by himself. Uriah fell in battle, and with him more warriors.
Joab sent a messenger to tell David about the incident and the multiple casualties. And he guided him what to say: "And if the king's wrath arise, and he say unto thee: Wherefore went ye so nigh unto the city to fight, knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall? [...] Why went ye so near the wall? Then shalt thou say: Thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also."
Thus Joab hinted to David that obeying his command as it was phrased would have raised suspicion, and that it was an irresponsible and careless order, just like David's behavior throughout this entire war, starting with its outbreak, and ending with his adultery with Bathsheba and his decision to kill her husband.
The messenger didn't even wait to be asked by the king. He informed him of the death of the soldiers, and immediately added of his own accord: "And thy servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also." In other words, he too understood what had happened and feared his fate would be the fate of messengers bearing bad news. But David's response to the information proves that this wasn't just a rash act, but a complete transformation of his personality. "Thus shalt thou say unto Joab," he directed the messenger, "Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devours one as well as another." And in today's words: That's war. People die. C'est la vie.
And Bathsheba? She had probably heard about her husband's presence in the city and that he hadn't come to visit her. She understood that he knew what had happened and her anxiety grew. Now, when she found out about his death, she grieved him properly. The days of mourning passed, "And David sent and collected her to his house and she became his wife."
We could have ended the story here, with that word, "and collected her", that like its predecessor "and took her" indicates genuine unwillingness. Last time the unwillingness belonged to Bathsheba, and this time it's David's. But this "and collected her" also indicates Bathsheba's new station, she who was "the wife of Uriah" and will now be another item in the collection of royal wives. On this matter, it's worth remembering that she isn't the first wife David took after the suspicious death of her husband. In a similar sentence the Bible tells of a similar event: "And David sent and spoke concerning Abigail, to take her to him to wife" -- after the death of Nabal the Carmelite, her husband, who'd fallen out with David in the days David had fled Saul.
Fortunately, the author added one more line, with which he chose to seal the affair: "And the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." The line is simple and clear, and it's good that it's so. It's good that these things were added and it's good that they're so clear and unequivocal. It's as if the author who wrote them foresaw the flood of denials, cover-ups and pretended innocence that were to come, and that will always come to clean up David's character and to cover for his sin.
And indeed, generations of wise men, commentators, and rewriters put on their work clothes, one hand holding the putty knife and the other erasing, and became the whitewashers and the cleaners of the chronicles of the House of David. They claimed that Bathsheba had seduced the king, hinted that Uriah had divorced her before the war, gossiped that he was a eunuch and could not have children, and other such lies that are directly opposed to the spirit of the original Bibilical story and the facts in it.
But the trend of erasure and concealing begins in the Bible itself, in the Book of Chronicles, which completely blotted out the story and name of Uriah from the history of the House of David, and even changed Bathsheba's name to Bathshuah to blur any reminder of David's awful sin. This isn't the first change Chronicles made to the history of the House of David, and in his favor. The people who formulated and wrote that terrible book -- the Soviet Encyclopedia of the Jewish People -- also wiped out the rebellion of Absalom, the rape of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the pitiable old age of David and many other flaws, great and small, that might stain his perfect tallis.
The Book of Samuel, on the other hand, describes David's honest remorse for the sin he sinned, but other than that, things are written as they were. It's clear to the reader that the affair of Uriah and Bathsheba were the turning point of David's story. Until then he rises and succeeds, and from then on he falls. From failure to failure, from trouble to disaster, in the arenas of both his rule and his family. So on until his final miserable days and his ill old age, which were also, as I've said, wiped out from the Book of Chronicles.
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And here a few more sections describe David's old age and his relationship with Avishag the Sunemite, and he concludes the chapter with:
This description of David fits in well with the principled objection that most of the Bible has against the idea of a monarchy. I've already described this in the chapter "The First King", and I'll remind here that the ideal form of government, according to the Bible and prophecy, is: God is King over the people, and the prophet delivers his words. This pattern only actually existed twice -- in the days of Moses and in most of the days of Samuel, and in both cases their sons didn't inherit the job, to emphasize that it was not a rule passed down from father to son, as is customary in monarchies.
King David started out as the biggest promise of them all. According to one story, as a skilled and handsome musician, wise and a hero and a man of war and the Lord with him, who came to play before King Saul. According to a different story, as a brave, original, smart boy, who beat Goliath the Philistine in a midway battle. The end of his political life too has two versions. That of Chronicles, which described a David who never sinned and who passed the kingdom on to Solomon while he still lived, and that of the Books of Samuel and the beginning of 1 Kings, which describe a king whose charm and power corrupted his moral attributes, until he committed adultery and murdered and was punished by God. And that’s the lesson that remained to this day, that no leader, not even King David, can stand before the people if he is morally flawed, let alone leaders who are lesser than David.
It’s interesting that despite the discoveries about him made in Samuel and Kings, David’s tremendous charisma exists and still works today. It turns out that the people love him and miss him not because of the rewriting and the censorship of Chronicles, but despite the discoveries revealed in Samuel. And so, from our distance today, the commentating and rewriting efforts to acquit him from sin seems absurd and unnecessary. The readers forgive him despite knowing the truth. Maybe because he regretted it and told the prophet Nathan “I have sinned before God”, and maybe it’s a linear continuation of that aspect of his personality, his being so alluring and beloved.
David didn’t contradict a direct order of God, like Saul did before him. He didn’t worship other gods, like his son Solomon will after him. But he committed a terrible moral sin and produced a generation of corrupt princes, spoiled and flawed, who inherited his bad traits and none of his good ones. The Bible connects this to the story of Uriah and Bathsheba, but it began far earlier than that, in the love given to him by all he met, and in his treatment of his first wife Michal, Saul’s daughter, the first and only woman in the Bible who loved her husband.
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All of this demonstrates pretty well what my pretty huge issues with Kings' David are. Not that he isn't the man Meir Shalev describes now (not that that helps) - but rather that I can't ever see David Shepherd turning into this guy. It's much easier for me to accept changes the show made in other characters, but... well, this is David.
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