David

David son of Jesse succeeded Saul as king of Israel, reigning from 1010 to 970 BC. He became king at thirty and reigned forty years, seven years and six months over Judah in Hebron and thirty-three years over all Israel in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:4-5; 1 Kings 2:11). Samuel had told Saul that his kingdom would not endure, for the LORD had sought "a man after His own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14; 16:1). David reigned during the United Monarchy, before the kingdom divided in 931 BC. Kings of his line ruled Judah from Jerusalem until Babylon's army burned the city in 586 BC (2 Kings 8:19; 25:8-10). His account is told in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel and 1 Kings 1-2, and retold in 1 Chronicles.

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Bethlehem and Saul's Court

David was the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse of Bethlehem in Judah (1 Samuel 16:10-11; 17:12-14). His great-grandparents were Boaz and Ruth, whose son Obed was Jesse's father (Ruth 4:13-17). He tended his father's sheep and told Saul that he had killed lions and bears that carried off lambs from the flock (1 Samuel 16:11; 17:34-36). Samuel anointed David, and "the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward" (1 Samuel 16:1-13). When a spirit of distress tormented Saul, David entered his service to play the harp and became his armor-bearer (1 Samuel 16:14-23). In the Valley of Elah David killed Goliath the Philistine with a sling and a stone (1 Samuel 17:2, 49-50). Saul's son Jonathan loved David as himself and made a covenant with him (1 Samuel 18:1-3).

When the women sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands," Saul kept a jealous eye on David, hurled his spear at him and sent him away to command a thousand men (1 Samuel 18:6-13). Saul promised him his older daughter Merab but gave her to another man, then asked as the price for Michal "a hundred Philistine foreskins," intending David's death by the Philistines; David brought two hundred and married her (1 Samuel 18:17-27). When Saul sent men to kill him, Michal let him down through a window, and later Jonathan signaled to him with arrows and they parted in tears (1 Samuel 19:11-12; 20:35-42).

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The Outlaw Years

Fleeing Saul, David received the consecrated bread and the sword of Goliath from Ahimelech the priest at Nob; when Doeg the Edomite reported it, Saul had Doeg strike down eighty-five priests, and Ahimelech's son Abiathar escaped to David (1 Samuel 21:1-10; 22:9-20). At Gath he feigned madness before Achish king of Gath (1 Samuel 21:10-13). At the cave of Adullam those who were distressed, in debt or discontented rallied to him, about four hundred men, later about six hundred (1 Samuel 22:1-2; 23:13).

Twice he spared Saul: in a cave at En-gedi he cut off a corner of Saul's robe, and in Saul's sleeping camp he took his spear and water jug, refusing to lift his hand against "the LORD's anointed" (1 Samuel 24:1-10; 26:7-12). Abigail kept him from bloodshed against her husband Nabal and became his wife after Nabal died (1 Samuel 25:3, 32-42). David took his six hundred men to Achish, who gave him Ziklag, and he lived in Philistine territory a year and four months (1 Samuel 27:1-7). Sent back by the Philistine commanders before battle, he found Ziklag burned by the Amalekites; when his men spoke of stoning him, "David found strength in the LORD his God," and he recovered everything (1 Samuel 29:1-11; 30:1-6, 18-19).

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King at Hebron

In the battle in which Saul was overthrown, Saul and three of his sons, Jonathan among them, died on Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1-6). David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, with its refrain "How the mighty have fallen," is written in the Book of Jashar (2 Samuel 1:17-27). At Hebron the men of Judah anointed David king over the house of Judah (2 Samuel 2:4). Abner, commander of Saul's army, made Saul's son Ish-bosheth king, and a long war followed between the house of Saul and the house of David (2 Samuel 2:8-10; 3:1). Six sons were born to David in Hebron, among them Amnon, Absalom, whose mother was a daughter of King Talmai of Geshur, and Adonijah (2 Samuel 3:2-5).

When Abner came over to David, Joab killed him to avenge his brother Asahel, and David mourned Abner publicly (2 Samuel 3:12-37). When Rechab and Baanah killed Ish-bosheth and brought his head to David, David had them put to death (2 Samuel 4:5-12). Then the elders of Israel came to Hebron and anointed him king over Israel, and David reigned over all Israel (2 Samuel 5:3-5).

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Jerusalem, the Ark and the Promise

David next marched on Jerusalem, held by the Jebusites, whom the men of Judah had not been able to drive out (2 Samuel 5:6; Joshua 15:63). Their city lay on the eastern ridge near the Kidron, by the water source on the ridge's eastern slope. Telling his men that whoever attacked the Jebusites "must use the water shaft," David captured the fortress of Zion and called it the City of David (2 Samuel 5:7-9). When the Philistines came up against him, David defeated the Philistines twice (2 Samuel 5:17-25).

David brought the ark to Jerusalem, dancing before the LORD, and Michal despised him (2 Samuel 6:12-16). Through Nathan the LORD promised that David's offspring would build a house for His Name and that his house, kingdom and throne would endure forever, the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:1-16). Chronicles says he was not to build the temple because "You have shed much blood and waged great wars," but he gathered materials for it and gave Solomon the plans (1 Chronicles 22:2-8; 28:11-12). It also has him divide the Levites into divisions, some to praise the LORD "with the instruments I have made" (1 Chronicles 23:5-6).

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Wars and the King's Men

David defeated the Philistines, Moab, Hadadezer king of Zobah, the Arameans of Damascus and Edom, placing garrisons in Aram of Damascus and throughout Edom and receiving tribute (2 Samuel 8:1-14). When three of his mighty men brought him water from the well of Bethlehem through the Philistine camp, he poured it out to the LORD rather than drink "the blood of these men" (1 Chronicles 11:15-19). For Jonathan's sake he restored Saul's land to Jonathan's lame son Mephibosheth and had him eat at the king's table (2 Samuel 9:1-13).

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Bathsheba and the Sword in David's House

War with Ammon began when its king Hanun humiliated David's envoys and ended when David captured Rabbah, its capital and today's Amman (2 Samuel 10:1-5; 12:26-31). While Joab besieged Rabbah, David took Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and when she conceived he had Uriah killed in battle (2 Samuel 11:1-17). Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb ended, "You are that man!" (2 Samuel 12:1-7). Nathan announced that "the sword will never depart from your house," and David confessed, "I have sinned against the LORD" (2 Samuel 12:10-13). Psalm 51 is headed "When Nathan the prophet came to him after his adultery with Bathsheba" (Psalm 51:1). The child died, and Bathsheba then bore Solomon (2 Samuel 12:18-24).

Later David's son Amnon violated Tamar, Absalom's sister; David was furious, and two years later Absalom had Amnon killed and fled to Geshur (2 Samuel 13:1-38). In Absalom's conspiracy Absalom had himself proclaimed king in Hebron, and David fled Jerusalem, going up the Mount of Olives weeping and barefoot (2 Samuel 15:6-30). On the way Shimei, of the house of Saul, cursed him and threw stones, but David said, "let him curse me," and on his return spared him (2 Samuel 16:5-13; 19:16-23). Against David's order to treat Absalom gently, Joab killed him while he hung by his head in an oak, and David wept, "O my son Absalom" (2 Samuel 18:5-15, 33).

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Census, Succession and Death

When the LORD's anger burned against Israel, 2 Samuel says He stirred up David to take a census, while 1 Chronicles says Satan incited him (2 Samuel 24:1; 1 Chronicles 21:1). Joab counted 800,000 men who drew the sword in Israel and 500,000 in Judah, and David confessed that he had sinned greatly (2 Samuel 24:9-10). Seventy thousand people died in the plague that followed, until the LORD halted the angel by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which David bought for fifty shekels of silver rather than offer burnt offerings "that cost me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:15-24). Chronicles places the site on Mount Moriah, where Solomon began to build the house of the LORD (2 Chronicles 3:1).

His song of deliverance from Saul is introduced in nearly the same words as Psalm 18, and his last words call him "the sweet psalmist of Israel" (2 Samuel 22:1; Psalm 18:1; 2 Samuel 23:1). In his old age, while Abishag the Shunammite cared for him, Adonijah claimed the throne with the support of Joab and Abiathar the priest (1 Kings 1:1-7). At the urging of Nathan and Bathsheba, David had Zadok and Nathan anoint Solomon king at the Gihon (1 Kings 1:11-39). As death drew near, David charged Solomon to keep the Law of Moses, to deal with Joab and Shimei and to show kindness to the sons of Barzillai (1 Kings 2:1-9). David "rested with his fathers" and was buried in the City of David, dying, Chronicles says, "at a ripe old age, full of years, riches, and honor" (1 Kings 2:10; 1 Chronicles 29:28).

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David in Later Scripture

In the Psalms, headings carry David's name, among them Psalm 23, "The LORD is my shepherd," and several tie a psalm to an event of his life, such as his flight from Absalom and his hiding in the cave (Psalm 23:1; 3:1; 57:1; 142:1). Kings measures his successors against him: Asa did right "as his father David had done," a "lamp" was kept for David in Jerusalem, and David himself did right all his days "except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite" (1 Kings 15:11; 11:36; 15:5). Amos speaks of songs improvised on the harp "like David" (Amos 6:5). The prophets promised a ruler from David's line: a "shoot" from "the stump of Jesse," a "righteous Branch" raised up for David, "one shepherd, My servant David," and the restoring of "the fallen tent of David" (Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; Ezekiel 34:23; Amos 9:11).

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Inscriptions and Archaeology

The first fragment of the Tel Dan Stele, an Aramaic victory inscription, was found at Tel Dan in northern Israel in 1993, and two more fragments in 1994. Christopher Rollston, writing for the Society of Biblical Literature's Bible Odyssey, judges "the most convincing conclusion" to be that Hazael, king of Damascus, commissioned it in the ninth century BC. It was published by the excavator, Avraham Biran, and the epigrapher Joseph Naveh. It names a king of Israel, and most scholars read one phrase in it, bytdwd, as "House of David." When it was found, some scholars held that David and Solomon had most likely never existed.

Since the 1990s scholars have debated the historicity of the united monarchy, and Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University argues that the fortifications at three sites belong to the Omrides. In Jerusalem the excavator Eilat Mazar presented walls as one building, the Large Stone Structure, dated it to about 1000 BC and identified it as King David's palace. A 2007 article in the journal Tel Aviv argues that the walls do not belong to a single building. On a hill bordering the Valley of Elah, Khirbet Qeiyafa, excavated in 2008 for the Hebrew University by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor, is a fortified town with two gates. Garfinkel and Ganor argue that it reflects a centralized state, while noting that others have proposed local autonomous organizations.

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Later History

The book of Nehemiah records repairs made up to a point "opposite the tombs of David" (Nehemiah 3:16). The "reputed" tomb of David shown today on Mount Zion rests on a later tradition.