King David This page intentionally left blank King David A Biography Steven L McKenzie OXJORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2OOO OXPORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paolo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2000 by Steven L, McKenzie Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York IOOI6 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McKenzie, Steven L.( 1953- King David : a biography / by Steven L. McKenzie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references ISBNO-I9-5I3273-4 I, David, King of Israel. 2. Bible. O.T.—Biography. I. Title. BS580.D3 M 1999 222.4'092—dc2I [B] 99-044315 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Acknowledgments vii Maps xi Introduction Images i The Need fir a Biography of David 1 Was There a "King "David? 9 Extrabiblical Sources 2 Royal Propaganda 25 The Bible's Account of David's Life 3 Was David a Shepherd? 47 David's Origins and Youth 4 W ho Killed Whom? 69 The Goliath Story and David's Career as a Soldier in Saul's Army 5 Holy Terrorist 89 David and His Outlaw Band vi King David 6 Assassin iii David's Reign as King of Judah 7 The Cast of KingsUp 129 The Policies and Changes of David's Administration 8 Like father, LikeSon 153 The Bathsheba Affair and Absalom's Revolt 9 Poetic Justice 175 The Last Days of King David 10 Finished Portrait 185 A Synopsis Notes 191 Bibliography 211 Index 231 Acknowledgments There are many people who have contributed, sometimes un- awares, to my work with David and to whom I owe an expression of grati- tude. First and foremost, I want to thank my students at Rhodes College, especially those in the "Historical Literature of the Bible" course, for their stimulation over the years. It was they who first made the off-handed sug- gestion that I should write David's biography. I am indebted also to my colleagues at Rhodes for their support on this project: to the Faculty Development Committee for a summer grant to work on David; to Susan Kus in anthropology for her advice on ethnoar- chaeology; to Richard Batey of my own department of religious studies for his encouragement; and special thanks to my colleagues in Hebrew Bible, John Kaltner and Carey Walsh, for their shared expertise on specific parts of the manuscript. Karen Winterton, whose title of secretary belies her skill as an editor and literary critic, made helpful comments on an earlier incarnation of this manuscript. My friend Shaul Bar of the University of Memphis helped me with materials in modern Hebrew. I am grateful to Oxford University Press for agreeing to publish this book. The manuscript benefited enormously from the editorial pen of Cynthia Read of OUP. Nina Sherwin helped prepare the illustrations and maps incor- porated into this volume, and Helen Mules guided the book through produc- tion. Thanks are due to Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, and to the Israel Exploration Society, respectively, for permission to reproduce the photograph of the Tel Dan inscription and the drawings of lyres from N. Avigad's article, "The King's Daughter and the Lyre," in the 1978 Israel Exploration Journal viii Acknowledgments Finally, I have been privileged over the years to sit at the feet of the lead- ing scholars in various areas of study relating to ancient Israel. This book owes a debt to three of them in particular. Bill Dever's 1995 summer semi- nar on "Imagining the Past," sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities at the University of Arizona, helped me to set my image of David into the background provided by the archaeology of ancient Israel, in which Bill is the world's leading expert. Kyle McCarter was my first teacher at Harvard—in a course on textual criticism in the books of Samuel! His two-volume commentary on these books is a classic of biblical scholarship, and my dependence on it will be obvious throughout this biography. John Van Seters revolutionized my view of the Bible when I met him a decade ago in his NEH seminar on historiography at the University of North Carolina, and his combination of critical insight and sober judg- ment on both the historical and literary levels continues as the standard I strive to achieve. My interest in this volume in providing biographical information for David has led me to take a more positive view than John does of the potential historical value of the biblical material. He should not, therefore, be held responsible for any of my shortcomings or excesses. The same is true for Bill Dever and Kyle McCarter with regard to my state- ments about archaeology and the narrative of 1—2 Samuel. But this biogra- phy, whatever its failings or contributions, would never have existed without the work of these three scholars. King David