David: The Biblical King David: A Biographical Novel

Etti

DAVID the BOY

1

Suddenly a new name. Never heard of before. Even the Bible has no previous record of it.

David emerged into a land that was like a kaleidoscope. A range of mountains, snowy peaks, craggy boulders, heat, palm trees, swamps, desert, rivers, and the lowest body of water on earth, landlocked and salt encrusted. And here and there, between rock outcroppings, patches of grass.

Such was the territory of the Israelites. It was penetrated and surrounded by enemies. From Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, the land fancifully reckoned to be Israelite was less than one hundred and fifty miles. At its widest it stretched, unevenly, from thirty to fifty miles.

Yet among the mountains every valley and partly level place was cultivated, and wherever possible the hillsides were terraced. The olive and the vine grew well in that gritty soil; grains, vegetables and various fruit trees were grown. And after the winter rains the arid earth would briefly blossom in a profusion of wildflowers, and it would truly seem a blessed and beautiful land.

But scattered throughout there were still many unconquered Canaanite villages, and not far from Bethlehem, where David was born, stood high and untouched the fortified city of the Jebusites, later known as Jerusalem.

*

David was the youngest of Jesse’s eight sons. He was a child of old age, conceived after his mother was thought to be past bearing. Where Jesse got the name no one knew. He wanted something special for this unexpected babe, and fondly derived the name from a term for ‘darling’.

It was immediately resented by David’s brothers, who were older by six years and more. They were all broad and dark, like their father had been, but David was slim and fair. He had a pale complexion, reddish hair and an adorable face. This blue-eyed, blondish strain was unusual among Israelites, but not unknown; his mother’s brother had been like that. And from that uncle, who had played drums and castanets, David seemed to have inherited a feeling for music, for he quickly learnt popular folksongs. At the age of three he began strumming a small lute.

He was also clever, and could soon recognize the family signs, or brand marks, and those with which neighbours identified their belongings. Jesse talked with the little one so much that the boy quickly developed a rare fluency and grace with language. Whenever visitors came the child was stood up to play, sing or recite for their pleasure. Outwardly he responded to the attention, but soon grew tired of being used. He was aware of his talents, and didn’t like having constantly to display them. Or having his cheeks pinched. Or sometimes being given a jubilant pat on the behind. But he always returned such regard with a dimpled smile. He was already learning to disguise his feelings. Most people thought him delightful.

His brothers, however, out of jealousy and a penchant for bullying, scorned him. They called him derisive names and never included him in their boisterous councils. He was like a seeming dove among contentious geese. There were also two sisters, both married and with homes of their own. The firstborn, Zeruiah, had two sons and was pregnant again. Her oldest was almost the age of David.

Despite Jesse’s mildness, he was a good manager and one of the more prosperous and influential elders in the village. He was also unusually clean, washing himself every morning. It was considered a personal quirk. From early on David remembered his father’s smell: a rather comforting mixture of male body odour, dust and the warm scent of his beard and robe, usually faintly permeated with wood smoke.

Although Jesse had the formal authority that came with paternity, he was in truth afraid of his older sons. He didn’t often oppose their collective will. When they weren’t away to war they did the heavy labour around the house.

David, at five expected to begin sharing the work, was dismissively sent off with the goats and sheep. The two hired keepers hardly needed him. He gradually grew solitary and lonely, wandering at will. Because of his innate abilities he already had a feeling of entitlement, but it was sufficiently recognized by only his one real Friend. To Him the boy whispered the lyrical phrases and lines of verse he began forming:

I will praise You, Lord, with all my heart;

I will tell all your wonders.

One afternoon, when David was in his eighth year, and standing not far from his father’s grazing herds, a stranger appeared. He was big and fairly well dressed, though his clothes showed the dust of travel. There were also stains of sweat under his armpits, and dampness on his hairy skin. A strong stale smell came from him, which David considerately took care not to acknowledge. But the boy moved a step away.

The scene was quiet; the careless keepers were sleepily watching the animals. A hawk, perhaps a late migrating sparrow hawk, was riding the airways, but it was high, silent and far away. Traces of disintegrated clouds spread along the horizon. The herds shuffled a little as they foraged. The stranger stood looking at the sheep and goats, which were numerous, and remarked on the scarcity of pasture. The hills were already beginning to turn yellow and brown.

I know of a sweet little valley, still green. It’s hidden between rocks. There’s water there. I could show you.

The boy was immediately enticed. Such a find would bring compliments and praise, which had long been absent. Could you? he said eagerly.

It’s not far. Not too far the stranger said, smiling. He seemed friendly. Follow me, little one.

At their approach three crows flew up. Sounding their hoarse cries, they settled somewhere beyond. David hurried to keep up with the man’s long strides, which soon carried them out of sight of the flocks. The man asked what interested the boy, what he did with his time. David, scrambling around rocks, told him breathlessly how he played the lute, had learnt many of the old songs, and, from the rare clay tablets that came into Bethlehem, was learning to read. The man, smiling, nodded his head as if in approval. David was about to confide that he was also forming songs when the man finally stopped. It was a rocky defile, with only a thin twisted tabor oak.

There was no grass. Bewildered, David said Where is it?

This is it the man said. With a cruel smile he swept the boy against the trunk of the tree. It reared back, its leaves touching the man’s face as he thrust his belly against David’s chest. The stranger’s heavy, rank smell was suffocating.

The youngster could feel a hard rod beneath the other’s tunic, like a club. Don’t hurt me he said frightened, his angel face stricken with alarm.

What’s in your bag? the man said. A soft pouch held by a strap hung at the boy’s side. David turned it inside out. It contained only some smooth pebbles. And a tiny bit of flattened copper that Jesse had give him for his fifth birthday. I don’t want your toys the man sneered, but he put the token in a slung bag of his own. Still holding David pushed against the tree he pulled up the boy’s tunic. Now take off your loincloth he said, and get down on your stomach.

David had a flash of yearning for his safe bedroll at home. Before the first thick splitting thrust. The pain was excruciating, but bearable. David set his teeth hard. He tasted earth and dry leaves. A small lizard scurried away.

By now the boy understood what was happening to him. At last, after the moisture had come, he was allowed to rise. Bits of debris clung to the little one’s face and hair. Then the man picked up the boy’s loincloth from the ground and wiped his dripping penis on it. David’s utter humiliation and sense of helplessness was complete. I’ll wring your neck if you move before the sun sets the man said. Then he went on down the hill.

*

From then on David never trusted anyone, save God. The Lord was infinite, an invisible force, knowing everything, including a child’s terror.

The boy was intensely ashamed. At dusk he returned home, made an excuse for lateness, and secretly washed his loincloth. It dried quickly in the warm dark. He was filled with rage, and by night and day had dreams of revenge. He knew that if he told, his brothers would take up the cry, hunt the man down and kill him. But he told no one. He was alone, with God.

2

As he grew older, his solitary pursuits became habit. He was formally in charge of the herds, but in effect had much time to himself. He had a larger lute now, and became proficient at it. He also composed more songs, addressing them to his intimate Friend, the Almighty. He would sing them in a low voice, accompanying himself with music of his own making. And as he could not yet draw a bow, or wield a sword, he practised often with a sling. Slingers were a valuable part of the army, and he fantasized being captain over many. Before long he became so good that he seldom missed his targets. They went from rocks to thin leaves and the twigs of bushes. He liked watching them fall under his stones, imaging it was the stranger who had violated him. That detested being — him he would thoroughly pierce with stones, like a shield punctured everywhere by spear jabs! With blood spurting from each wound!

*

One day he heard the strangled cry of a lamb. There was commotion at the near edge of the flock. The herdsmen, talking together on the farther side, were out of hearing. David ran quickly towards the sound, and was surprised to see a sand-coloured bear, a young one, mangling the torn body of a little sheep. He was too excited to think that the bear might turn on him. Finding a heavier stone, he fitted it into his sling.

Attracted by the movement, the bear swung towards him just as the stone struck its head. The animal staggered, made one feeble clawing motion, and fell. David knew it was only stunned. He rushed to the twitching beast. There was sheep’s blood, real blood, in the bear’s mouth, and as David threw sharp rocks more blood ran down the bear’s neck. Panting, the boy took the heaviest stones he could lift and crashed them upon the head of the marauder. They were hurled with an uncharacteristic ferocity, as if he were taking out on the animal the evil that had been done him as a child. Finally, his chest heaving, David could look down at the still corpse of the bear. And next to it, the ravaged remains of the lamb.

*

His brothers skinned the bear, which proved to be a female. And they grudgingly admitted that David had killed it, the herders having told them that no one else was near. However, the boy refused an offer of the fur. His proud mother made it into a cape for the oldest to wear in winter. Though she had two women helpers, David’s mother still did most of the sewing and weaving, and she daily shaped the bread for baking. It was customarily barley bread, whether flat or round, but for special occasions or sacrifices a little wheat flour was sometimes added. Once she made an all-wheat bread for David’s birthday. The brothers put it on the tip of a spear and danced around, passing the shaft from hand to hand, keeping the bread out of reach, and laughing at the others’ chagrin. Until they finally lowered it to be shared in pieces by all. By then the enjoyment had gone out of it.

3

At thirteen, with tawny hair beginning to sprout on his tanned cheeks, David was slim, lithe and exceptionally good-looking. He was polite, and deferential to his parents, but ordinarily unsmiling. Every member of the family had an inner life, but outwardly the others grouped together and related to one another. David kept to himself. The terrible memory he carried remained well hidden. His brothers, though they disdained him and were often sarcastic, were wary of getting into a quarrel with him. He was so quick witted and adroit with words that he always made their aggressions seem foolish. It was similar to the feeling about their handsome family cat, who kept the home free of mice: everyone was annoyed at his inconvenient comings and goings, but unwillingly pleased with his prowess.

*

Entertainment was sought in villages, and David gained a reputation in Bethlehem as a lutist. Moreover he usually sang to his own accompaniment. Travellers repeated the tale, and people started calling him ‘The sweet singer of Israel’. But he had special private compositions, sung only in the wilderness, for God. That all-seeing Presence was stern, but also, David felt, understanding. He bore with the lad’s frequent desires. For girls were arousing. When he was home he watched the neighbourhood maidens, his eyes caressing their rounded forms as they carried water or pounded grain. The sound of crushing was a continual daylong refrain, as every household had to prepare bread. But the up and down movements of the pestle were suggestive. Servant girls flared his imagination. Even his mother, lined as she was, caused him curiosity about what was under her robe. He had a vague memory, or thought he had, of having suckled; nonetheless the shape of a breast remained a rounded, desirable line. In his fantasies he committed lustful acts of which he was afterwards ashamed, as if the cravings were unattainable food, like figs out of reach.

Compelled by his urges, when he was sure no one was looking, he stole from off a clothesline outside an isolated home an old, ragged, light-coloured waist cloth — a garment some women, if they were inclined to be pretentious, wore under their robes. Hurrying with it over rocks, far from people, and reclining between two large boulders, he used it to relieve himself. This, at last, was more agreeable than fingers alone. Or his many erotic wet dreams, which invited discovery and excruciating embarrassment. He repeated the self-stimulation often, until his skin was becoming raw and the fabric had to have the stiffness washed out of it. He had found a spring where he could do this. In the right season there were many secret springs in the hills.

4

Secrecy was also the habitual manner of the prophet Samuel. When he spoke it was with the inference that his words came from God. He was also the last of the legendary Judges, outstanding men who had usually led the tribes in battle; Gideon and Samson had been among those heroes. But Samuel rarely employed violence.

His mother, Hanna, pious yet barren, had promised God that if she bore a son she would give him to the high priest. When Samuel was weaned she had carried out her pledge. The toddler was dressed in a little white robe of her own making.

He grew up steeped in all the central priestly beliefs and practices. As he got older his mother continued to make him white robes in increasingly larger sizes. By the time he had reached maturity he was already the principal priest, and a seer, arbitrator and leader. And recognized by all as a great Judge. He became the undisputed ruler of the tribes, venerated above local jealousies. He had a determined nature that overrode failings and small setbacks, and had held sway for more than a generation. He was like a tent over the entire nation.

*

But murmurs of discontent grew. And indeed the situation was dire. The Philistine conquerors had forbidden even a smithy in Israelite territory, lest it be used to forge weapons of war. To have a plowshare sharpened, a man had to carry it to a Philistine city and humbly beg for the favour of paying heavily. The Israelites yearned for a king, such as nearby nations had. Someone they hoped could lift their yoke.

Samuel bitterly warned them of the evils of kingship — that a king would conscript all their sons to make war, and all their daughters to work in his kitchens, and would take the best of their fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his personal servants, and would take a tenth of their produce and herds for his officers and men, and take all their own servants and slaves, the finest of their young people, for his own use. He predicted that instead of the Israelites being saved they would find themselves hopelessly enslaved. And then they would cry out in their anguish, but the Lord would refuse to hear them!

The people listened patiently to this tirade and then insisted that they still wanted a king. The elders pointed out that all other alternatives had failed. Elders were men who, because of their age, wealth, or virtue, were considered leaders of their communities. They respectfully reminded the old man that his own two sons, whom he had appointed to judge disputes, had proved unworthy: they had taken bribes and perverted justice. This sad truth, which privately hurt the prophet terribly — for he had never in his life departed from what he considered best for the nation — plus the combined elders’ persistence, finally overcame him.

Samuel wisely chose from the smallest tribe, Benjamin, of whom the others could be least envious. And he picked the tallest, most valiant man.

*

Saul was ruggedly handsome. He stood a head higher than those around him. And his assured air suggested nobility. As a younger man he had forcefully recruited and led a party that had gone to the aid of Jabesh-gilead, a small Israelite city on the east bank of the Jordan. It was being assaulted by the Ammonites, whose terms of submission were that they be allowed to gouge out the right eye of every man in the city. Saul’s force rescued it.

Amid general approval, Samuel anointed Saul king.

*

But they soon fell out. Samuel was unable to stomach sharing power. He made it impossible for Saul to adhere to his commands. Which, as always, he said were the wishes of God.

Yet Saul proved an able ruler and the tribesmen rallied to him. At first, with only heavy sticks used as clubs, axes, a very few swords and spears that had been hidden, slings and some bows, they began to win skirmishes. Then battles. Weapons were increased and improved. And gradually Saul brought a measure of order.

This success riled Samuel, and he denounced Saul, proclaiming that he was no longer king. Their final rupture came after a successful battle against the Amalekites. Samuel had ordered Saul to destroy utterly the Amalekites and everything of theirs, but Saul spared their king, Agag, and the best of their livestock, which he said were meant as an offering to the Lord. Samuel, enraged, declared that obedience was greater than ritual sacrifice, and demanded that Agag be brought before him. When the chained prisoner appeared, Samuel, uncharacteristically, personally hacked him to pieces.

Following this frightful event, Samuel and Saul parted, never to meet again. Samuel went on maintaining that the Lord had completely rejected Saul’s monarchy. But this only caused uncertainty among the population, and humiliation for the prophet. Because Saul continued as king, and continued to be effective. Samuel had moral authority, and the supposed word of God, but Saul had the soldiers.

*

Samuel was determined to destroy him. But the prophet was too crafty to promote another big man as a challenger. He wanted a boy who would grow into his own when Saul was declining. As he had informants everywhere, he had heard of the unusual lutist in Bethlehem. He made his way there, in seeming innocence, leading a red heifer. It was not strange in Israel for even so great a man to have his hand in earthy pursuits. Nonetheless his arrival stirred anxious concern throughout the village. Trembling, the elders met him, venturing Come you peacefully?

Peacefully he replied. Though before he would sit down to the feast hurriedly prepared for him, he required that all the young men be brought before him. Fortunately, Jesse’s sons were there, and they in turn were shown to the prophet. But his shrewd eyes saw nothing outstanding in any of them. Yet for a moment he was interested in Eliab, the oldest son, because of his height and burly stature. But then he remembered that he had already made that mistake. He turned to Jesse. Are there no more youths?

Jesse said The youngest is still left, but he is tending the sheep.

Samuel replied Send for him, for we will not sit before he comes.

*

David arrived breathless, outstripping the messenger. He revered and feared Samuel, as someone whose eminence and power he had heard of all his life. But when he stood in front of the prophet, his cheeks flushed, his mouth open in gasps, his reddish hair curling around his forehead, the blue-green eyes wide, the beautiful face upturned, he felt that this must be the most decisive moment he had ever known.

The prophet’s lids narrowed as his gaze sharpened, then slowly almost shut. Samuel had witnessed many happenings and known many people in his long life. He could read them and was seldom wrong. He had been right about Saul, unfortunately. Yet he held to the bitter conviction that he knew best. Age did not deter him; he behaved as if he was going to live forever. With the help of God, Who in mystic moments seemed little different from himself, he was resolved to continue guiding the country’s destiny. Without him, God’s agent on earth, who would uphold the utmost standards of morality, of ethical behaviour, of justice, all of which were contained in the humility of religious worship? Any other course had to be prevented, by whatever means.

In this lad before him he saw not only attractiveness, talent, sense and courage, but a bounding, suppressed ambition, an unleashed yearning to do large things. It suited well his own unfolding plans.

David fell to his knees, his head bowed. Samuel took from his robe a horn of oil and spilled a little on the boy’s hair. As the inquiring look rose to his, the prophet lightly smeared some across David’s brow, and briefly laid his hands on the consecrated