King David

King David

From the moment David was anointed king at the end of the eleventh century BC, his whole life was filled with vigorous activity. He fought with enemies, fled, won, loved, hated, was jealous, rebelled, suppressed uprisings, suffered from revenge...

Soon after the prophet Samuel (Shmuel) secretly appointed him as the successor of King Saul (Shaul), young David entered into single combat with Goliath (Goliath), the mighty Philistine strongman. Subsequently, as a warrior in the service of the king, and then as the commander of a special detachment, David more than once looked death in the face. When he became king at the age of forty, he still had a long way to go: to win impressive victories in the north and south, in the east and in the west and expand the borders of the country in a way that no one could before him. David reigned for four decades.

The king united the nation, created a regular army, strengthened border security and established a new system of government. He brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, began building the Temple* and eradicated idolatry.

After David, Jewish history developed as a single process. His dynasty ruled Israel for less than a century, but even after the kingdom split into two states - Israel and Judah, the Jewish people remained the main force in the country for another millennium. In addition, the Messianic aspirations of the Jews are still associated with the name of David to this day. They believe that the messiah (ma-shiach), who will establish a kingdom of peace and justice on earth, will come from the house of David.

This would be enough to consider David one of the most important figures in Jewish history, but he was not only a warrior and ruler. A singer and poet, endowed with a deep religious feeling, David became famous as the creator of the most beautiful lyrical works (psalms).

Not shying away from human weaknesses, constantly sinning and breaking the law, David at the same time had the ability to deeply compassionate people. Having denigrated himself with low betrayal, David atoned for his most unworthy actions with sincere repentance and - ultimately - acceptance of a moral standard.

The achievements of the other three heroes, the essays about which you have already read, will not be at all diminished if we say that David acted on a completely different scale. By conquering most of Canaan, Joshua united the nation. Deborah, having won a brilliant victory over the Canaanites, continued his work. Samson bravely resisted the growing power of the Philistines. However, only David finally established Jewish dominance in the country, and only under him did the national-religious image of our people finally take shape.

The biblical story about the emergence of royal power among the Jews is very mysterious. The people turned to the prophet Samuel - at that time the highest authority in Israel - with a request to elect a king. Disapproving of this idea, Samuel was forced to appeal to the Almighty. And the Lord commanded Samuel to agree to the demand of the people, but warned the Jews about the dangers of royal power.

From a historical point of view, the Jews' need for a strong central government is understandable - after all, they were surrounded by enemies. From a moral point of view, it is difficult to justify the idea of a supreme leader among such a people, which should be led only by God.

The result was a compromise: the tsar, endowed with full executive power, especially during war, had to be guided by moral principles. In the eleventh century BC, the kings of Israel answered to the prophets, who were believed to express God's will.

Saul, as the first king, united the tribes of Israel and won outstanding victories over the Ammonites, Philistines and other enemies. However, he lacked the ability to govern the country. The Prophet Samuel, who obviously had not lost his colossal prestige, constantly criticized the king for his mistakes, and then broke with him and secretly anointed young David as king.

David, a simple shepherd, entered history in an impressive way. Visiting his brothers who served in King Saul's army against the Philistines, he discovered that both the Israelite and Philistine armies had reached a stalemate.

The Jews, stationed on the hills, did not want to go down to the plain, where the enemy would achieve clear superiority due to the chariots. The Philistines, in turn, did not want to risk the mountainous terrain where the agile, lightly armed Israelites felt at home.

In this situation, the Philistine warrior-giant Goliath proposed to solve the problem through single combat:

Choose a person from yourself and let him come to me. If he can fight me and kill me, then we will be your slaves;

if I overcome him and kill him, then you will be our slaves and serve us.

This proposal was hardly serious - rather, the Philistines were trying to gain a psychological advantage in order to break the deadlock. Since Goliath inspired terror and none of the Jews were ready to fight him, the Philistines thereby already won something.

David quickly realized that the Philistine strongman, no matter how powerful, could be defeated if the right tactics were used. Realizing that he had no chance of defeating Goliath in hand-to-hand combat, and therefore refusing the armor and weapons offered by Saul, David went out to meet the giant unencumbered and with only a sling in his hands.

The battle, in which David stunned the enemy with a well-aimed throw of a stone from a sling and cut off his head with a sword, can serve as a symbol of the entire centuries-old Jewish history: faith, ingenuity, speed and courage turned out to be stronger than physical strength. The Israeli army was almost always smaller and weaker than the enemy armies and never accepted games by the rules imposed by the enemy.

David's victory over Goliath caused the Philistines to flee, ending in defeat. The young hero was accepted into Saul's army.

The subsequent relationship between Saul and David is a drama of love and hate. The king, subject to bouts of melancholy, was consoled by the singing of the young man and the sounds of his harp, but Saul’s envy of David’s military successes acquired a manic character.

After an unsuccessful attempt to kill the young man with a spear, Saul resorted to cunning and promised David the hand of his daughter Michal (Michal), but in return demanded the destruction of one hundred Philistine soldiers. Saul hoped that David would die in the battle. However, Saul's plan was thwarted because David complied with his demand. Then the king began to persuade his son Jonathan (Jonathan) to kill the young man. But the friendship of Jonathan and David stood the test: Jonathan warned his friend and advised him to flee. David's wife Michal also saved him from the king's intrigues.

Other fugitives joined David on his travels - after some time he stood at the head of a detachment of about six hundred people. To protect his parents, David sent them across the Jordan River to Moab, and he settled in Keilah, south of Hebron. However, Saul pursued David, and he had to retire to the east, into the Judean desert.

David tried more than once to prove his loyalty to the king. He had numerous opportunities to kill Saul, but did not do so. One day, finding the king sleeping in a cave, David cut off the hem of his robe. Subsequently, David showed the king this piece of cloak as proof that he had not taken advantage of his helpless state. Saul felt ashamed, and he said to David: “You are more righteous than I, for you repaid me with good, and I repaid you with evil. You showed this today by treating me mercifully. When the Lord delivered me into your hands, you did not kill me” ( I Samuel 24:18,19).

However, the king became paranoid again, and the young man again had to run for his life. Unable to find refuge in the regions where Saul reigned, David fled to his former enemies - the Philistines. With his detachment, he entered the service of the Gathian king Achish (Achish), who appointed him ruler of the city of Ziklag (Tsiklag) in the southern desert.

From here, from his new base, David continually raided the southern tribes, trying to avoid conflicts with his own people. Meanwhile, the Philistines began a new war against the Jews, and Achish asked David for help. Fortunately, the other Philistine kings, unlike their compatriot, did not trust David. They doubted that David could be trusted, and he returned with his detachment to Ziklag before entering the battle.

The Jews, led by Saul and Jonah, suffered a crushing defeat at Mount Gilboa. Jonathan was killed, and Saul stabbed himself with a sword. David mourned them in a stunning elegy.

Your beauty, O Israel, is stricken on your heights! How the mighty have fallen! Do not tell in Gath (Gath), do not proclaim in the streets of Ashkelon (Ashkelon), so that the daughters of the Philistines do not rejoice... Saul and Jonathan, amiable and agreeable in their life, were not separated in their death; They were faster than eagles, stronger than lions... How the mighty fell on the battlefield!

There is no reason to doubt David's sincere grief, since he consistently strove to achieve reconciliation with Sa-ul, and Jonathan was his faithful and reliable friend. Nevertheless, David was not slow to take advantage of the new situation.

During his exile, he made sure to maintain good relations with the leaders of his tribe in Judah - so they quickly recognized him as king. However, other tribes did not immediately agree with this.

Saul's son Ishbosheth (Ishbosheth), with the support of his military commander Abner (Abner), was for some time the king of the other tribes of Israel. But after the victory over Saul, the Philistines extended their power to the north of the country, and the influence of Ishbosheth was limited to his region in Transjordan.

Until this moment, David had shown himself to be a brave and quick-witted military leader, but now he began to discover a political talent, which became more and more obvious over time. Instead of fighting against the other tribes of Israel, David reached an agreement with Abner, as a result of which he was to become the patron of all Israelite tribes.

Joab, David's general, a brave but primitive warrior, could not comprehend the intricacies of the new situation and killed Abner. David, although he could not refuse the services of such a capable warrior, cursed Joab and buried Abner with honors.

When two military leaders of Ishbosheth killed their king and brought his head to David, he, unable to restrain himself, immediately put them to death. This clearly demonstrated David's loyalty to the law and, at the same time, made it possible to achieve reconciliation with the house of Saul, which was also facilitated by the renewal of David's marriage with Michal, who did not accompany the king on his travels.

David also showed great generosity to Mephebosheth, Jonathan's lame son, by returning his grandfather's lands and inviting him to court.

Like all the great leaders of Israel - Moses, Joshua, Judah Maccabee, David Ben-Gurion - King David placed special emphasis on achieving national unity. David's next step, the conquest of Jerusalem, provides further evidence of his growing talent as a statesman. With the help of one military campaign, David completed the conquest of Canaan begun by Joshua, captured the city, which was the strategic center of the country, and turned it into a capital that did not belong to any of the tribes, and therefore could serve as a symbol of unity.

Jerusalem, which had previously been under the rule of the Jebusites, a small Canaanite tribe, was located at the crossroads of the roads that connected Transjordan and the coast, as well as the north and south of the country. It stood on hills surrounded by a valley and was easy to defend, as the Jebusites proved. Located in a pleasant mountainous climate zone, Jerusalem received enough rainfall in winter to provide water for the summer, and, in addition, a never-ending spring flowed at the foot of the mountain.

To take possession of the city, David again took the untrodden path, sending Joab at the head of a detachment that entered Jerusalem through a passage cut into the rocks.

If earlier, when the tribes of the children of Israel were at enmity with each other, the Philistines did not object to the fact that their former ally ruled the tribe of Judah, now, faced with a king standing at the head of a united nation and owning a new, beautifully fortified capital, they decided to move to offensive

Having allowed the Philistines to go deeper into the territory of Judah, David defeated them twice. The second battle turned out to be decisive:

the king advanced through the forest southwest of Jerusalem, where his army had a significant advantage over the enemy. The army, which knew the terrain well and was not burdened with heavy weapons, attacked the Philistines and put them to flight. David extended his power to the mountainous and coastal regions, limiting the Philistine territory to a narrow strip between Gaza and Ashdod.

Now he took the next step: he turned Jerusalem into a symbol of the unity of the nation by moving the Ark of the Covenant there. The Prophet Samuel told David that as a warrior who had spent his entire life on the battlefield, he could not begin the construction of the sacred Temple. This task should have been left to his successors. However, David made all the necessary preparations for the construction of the Temple - the center of the spiritual life of Israel.

The new king continued to strengthen the country: he defeated the remnants of the Canaanites in the Jezreel Valley, defeated the Moabites in the east, the inhabitants of Edom in the south and the Arameans in the northeast. In the north, David's army reached Damascus (Damesek), where he stationed a garrison, expanding the territory under his control from the Euphrates River (in today's Iraq) to the "River of Egypt" (as some researchers believe, this is the El-Arish channel on the Sinai Peninsula).

David now owned three main roads connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia: the coastal road, running along the Jordan, and the so-called Royal Road, laid through the desert to Transjordan.