KING DAVID: The Golden Age of Ancient Israel Vol 3: CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM

Charms

Introduction

This is Vol 3 of a novel series, a work of fiction, an adaptation. A modern retelling of the all-too-terse biblical account, without holes and gaps, the most complete tell-all narrative to date. A probing into millennium-long mysteries. The full story as it may have been. The man, the life, the loves, the times. Even to covering the reigns of 3 kings. Never done before. Even to getting into the minds of the major characters. To help bring to life a multitude of highly interesting minor characters. Aided by over 2,000 years of commentary, e.g., the New Oxford Annotated Bible (rev ed), for era, street life and background. Told in a fast-read style:

And to look upon the fall of her dark hair falling was to feel as if falling. It also promised a hap of haps whose writ was writ large both in alphabetic and wedge-seal. As if to say, "Hear me, ye poor man thing. I am all the desire of the world that you missed when ye were away at war mating with the Shadow instead of lying beside me, as you might have. In the calm and restful delights of the coupling of lips and hips between a man and a woman. I am all the desire of the world that you could wish for in your remaining years. For you have taken life too seriously, Old Man. Even the crocodiles in the inlets of the Deltaland know the delicacies of courtship, of cooing and wooing. But among men of blood, such as ye, it hath been pushed far to the rear. Is it meet that men should coo and woo less than among the flesh-ripping bloodlust ferocity of crocodiles?...

I am all the beauty of the world compressed into one. And it could be yours if ye but dare to live inside the richest of life's moments….

Vol 3, CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM, is the most event-packed of a 4-volume (averaging 220 pp each) epic-novel series. If you only read one volume in the series, this is the one. It tells how David gained 4 kingships, as if helped by circumstance, if not from the heavens. He wins the last as a rival to his former love, Queen Rizpah. Politics forces his hand against her son, Prince Noam. A bare mention in the biblical account, fleshed out fully here by imaginative fiction. Or we will never know this part of the David story.

Also how David conquered the impregnable city of Jebus (aka Zion) and renamed it Yarushalim. In less than an hour, through the heroism of nephew Joab. Also how David ambushed a far larger army of the Men of Iron, in the crucial Battle of Baal-Perazim, on an S-curved road in Gibeon. His men barely arriving on time exhausted, unit by unit. This major seesaw battle solidified a Twelve Tribes Judaic-civilization foothold by creating the first durable nation state in the Levant: Israel and Judah. And through Joab, a second David, he would later conquer the entire Levant to the Euphrates.

I found no credible adaptive narrative about David. Popular ones freely and grossly distort characters, timeline, action. They emphasize the hackneyed slingshot, a Hollywood beauty his own age, a clean-shaven Gregory Peck good looker with not a scratch on him, etc, and ignore actual timeline, endless wounds David suffered, and his astonishing accomplishments that he himself could not have dreamed of or planned.

(He was a golden legend in his time, said to have killed 10,000 men, which he explained to himself as murders for Moses.) Scholarly books are slim, thin, overly compressed, unsure of their footing and lack any strong narrative sense of the era, how the people lived and spoke and worshipped, the man and his achievements. If David had obvious character flaws, he also had not-so-obvious character virtues. Who can name a populist king who founded a dynasty before him? In the end, was he a good man or a bad one? Reader's choice.

I am a dark-humor writer into fast storyline and in-depth character, told with irony and humor. And a novel's dramatic needs. This is a character study of the reigns of Saul, David, Solomon. Never done before. Mainly of David. But also about Queen Rizpah, King Achish, Joab, Abishai, Asahel, Jashobeam, Hushai the Arkhi, the 2 Barzelais, Abner, Noam, Gittai, Hittai, Amasa, Bathsheba, Absolam, Chileab, Tamar and more. Biblically born, fictionally fleshed out. Important supporting characters minimized or left out of other popular novels and films, and of scholarly books. To wit, Vol 3 introduces Amasa, an incompetent and a pathological liar, who worms his way upward in the social scale, until, in Vol 4, he convinces Absolam to war against his father, and appoint him general. When the only orders he knows are "Advance" and "Retreat." David at 69, hampered by cancer and dementia, rides in the forefront to win his finest slaughterhouse battle. And nearly kills Joab for killing Absolam.

Vol 3, CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM, ends with David's fourth crown. He refuses the usual divine-king association. Late one night, head injured and despondent, he very humanly spies a young woman of highest beauty at her sponge bath. The king of kings peeps. He is mid-career in his astounding journey from sheepcote boy to ruler over the entire Levant. A different kind of king in an age of god-kings, he will solidify a 1,000-year king list, a tradition-bound non-theocratic civilization, the start of biblical writing, Western religion emphasizing conscience. And, as with Jacob, heart-rending love. For the biblical Jacob and David tales, handed down from oral bards to alphabetic script to late canonization of different versions, were the first powerful love stories on our planet. In the modern view, David was almost 51, Bathsheba, 16. And Solomon gained his crown at a young and tender age, probably 20, assassinating rivals, including Joab. That needs a new retelling not done before, dramatized in Vol 4, due soon.

Illustrated, with rare maps.

King David's Kingdom, c 1000 BCE. Former outlaw and mutual-mistrust vassal of King Achish, David rebelled and united the large districts of Judah and Israel, creating the first nation state in the Levant. The land north of Israel -- Padan-Aram -- had filled up with large migrant Aramaean bandit armies that attacked the trade caravans. Joab twice led campaigns north to tame them. In mid-reign, David had conquered invaders all around his rim and was allied to friends. He then controlled most of the Levant to the Euphrates. Simeon remained nomadic, wandering in and out of Judah. (No map exists from this time period. After Aharoni, Gilbert, etc.) •

1 The Lure of a Vacant Throne

1. Following his conquest of Jebus and of later beheading King Saul, King Achish grew bloated with being the newly established power in Lower Canaan. He crudely scribbled a taut decree as being sufficient. Not that good at writing. When the courier arrived with it at Hebron, his message stunned the ruling entrenched council of 9.

We lie off the beaten trail and nare had a king. We must obey Achish. But we can keep this chief of the cave outlaws under our thumb, they decided. We will summon him before us. Tell him he is a king in title only. And that we alone rule. And remind him he is deep in debt to some of us.

They fast repaired a broken-latticed empty storehouse to serve as David's palace. They added many new room dividers. For David brought a growing household of wives, relatives, concubines and children. Including his favored three nephews and their households. The council also prepared a decrepit warehouse at least 200 years old for David to station his troopers nearby, assumed to number 100. What they did not know was that his little army now came to over 600 disciplined soldiers. With households.

When David finally departed from Ziklag, at the edge of the Southwestern Badlands, he also brought most of his original commune of indigents who flocked to him during his Badlands years. Over 500. Also a few Kenites from Kenaz and Jacobites from Jacob. For their independent clans, unaffiliated with the Twelve, were dwindling. Thus David made the journey uphill with a large train of people and goods sevenfold the number the Hebron council expected. And with a rock-jaw will to brook no opposition from the council. He left 50 of his newer roughs and toughs in Ziklag under the local warlordship of Benaiah, along with those homeless souls who could not easily make the trip. For David had so secured Achish's southern flank from Negev bandit armies that none dared come to ravage any more.

On the slow uphill climb, David laid plans to organize his kingship. He would form his most select troopers into a king's guard called the Thirty. By his side rode his nephews Joab and Abishai, followed by Jashobeam, Hezro, Joash and a few more. He arrived at Hebron to be met, surprisingly, by only a lowly servant at the Teshub Gate. In a funk at this reception, David passed on to his assigned empty warehouse palace, growing even more incensed at the decrepit sight of it. He entered with a brood upon his brow, met a bowing little redhead gruffly and began to open several congratulatory leather scrolls awaiting him from key parts of Canaan in a pile. One riveted him.

I thank thee again for thy gifts, which I find most useful. I was driven from the castle-fort at Gibeah by the bite of the bitches who surrounded King Saul, in the two harems of wives and concubines, all older and joined against me in envy. I moved to an estate Saul gave to my parents in payment for me to join his concubine harem. Ye may recall it, in the green forest off the same road as the estates of swells at Bearoth. As both my parents are now gone, I live here with my sisters and their families, also my two sons and two daughters, who are my life.

The Benjaminite judges fear to make a decision on the complaint of the other wives in Saul's queens harem. Either in my favor or against, as they do not know who might be king or queen of Israel tomorrow, replacing Saul, to cause fell harm to them. Especially since my eldest son, Prince Noam, hath best blood claim for the crown, after the imbecile Ish-baal. The halfwit can bare sip a spoonful without spill, let alone rule 4 and 1/2 Tribes. Word is he will not live long, for he hath many ailments.

When I think back to those precious days we knew in the palace at Gibeah, I am amazed how neither of us realized how much true love we enjoyed, how much we put our lives in jeopardy. Yet I am rich in the memories, and even richer in my children, whom I love beyond love itself.

In all the years of your outlawry, I prayed for thee. Now that ye are risen up from hiding in bat caves to be a king of a small outlier walled city in the land, at a remove from the succession dilemma in Israel, I send ye my warmest greetings. I cannot tell ye how I worried for you with every curse of ye I heard from the lips of the father of my children, which continued daily for years. Yea, Saul queried me, with many a twist of arm and wring of hair, but it came to naught. For naught there was, as I told him. And thus I spent dreadful hours, as if in Sheol, in wifery with the old nannygoat.

Now the rail against ye is suddenly renewed in Benjamin through Abner, well hid far north in Gilead. He controls the Benjaminite courtiers who keep the treasury that sends me my queen's allowance. He hath in mind a politics of bed, which I will nare give him. But I must perforce not refuse too hard, as I might harm my children, especially my eldest son, Prince Noam, who shall be the second king of Israel. I want only to love my children now, and find my satisfaction in them.

I hope soon to move to a summer estate on a high point at Mizpah, on Western Cliffs Road, as befits my being a queen. Then I will be called Rizpah of Mizpah instead of Rizpah the Pretty by the locals. But Rizpah the Pretty everywhere else, ha ha. So I send thee a kiss from most loving lips, and another and another, diverged as our ways have become from our wonderful days of joy and laughter almost 20 years ago. I a queen of Israel, you now a king of an outlier city in the Southland. As my mother used to say, how strange are the fates as they unfold for us! But I got there first. And higher. And ye see how well I have gone to school with my sons to learn the alphabetic writing art. Mayhap ye can be of service to my priceless Noam one day when he succeeds Saul as king, or even before. Yea, even before.

Now if David had received this letter a few months ago, he might have girt round his sword, leapt on a mule and ridden it hard to Gibeah to bring Rizpah back as his wife, beheading any who opposed him. But now his impulse to recklessness was more reigned in, his hot blood grown much cooler, by many a telltale scar on his body. So he merely reflected inside the brood that sat on his brow.

It hurteth, he thought, both pleased and annoyed, "that her high prettiness stayed where the pile of the silver piled tallest in all these years. That she did not flee and search for me in my bat-cave days. I have just survived the worst disaster. Cruel torture for sure at Achish's hand. Barely escaped. I won him over with honeyed words. Once again. Nare sure I could do it. To live on as his mistrusted vassal with huge debts accrued to me by the upper crust in Hebron for the bat-cave indigents that flocked to me. Not to mention Saul's crown now ajuggle in the air, with myself a weak contender in my own right as prince. Not by bloodline but by bloodshed skills.

Yea. By marriage tie, after Ish-baal and Noam, I stand in a vague prince line to succeed Saul. Noam is a child. With Ish-baal an idiot. And other queen-harem mothers are more fearful to risk any loud-made claim. In view of Gibeonite vengeance.

Now this was the first word from Rizpah since he, in younger smooth-chinned days, had overleapt the fortress wall and nigh broken an ankle in his fall fleeing from Saul's palace. He reread the nettlesome phrase, But I got there first. And those words galled him. For they had to be weighed against all the sufferance of his blood-and-sweat hand-over-hand climb to this kingship at Hebron he had charmed out of a stern but practical Achish. So that while his heart bounded with new-stirred love for Rizpah through every other line in her letter, when he came to that ending, it turned him off.

Doth it speak of love? Or of who pisseth furthest? What doth she want? A lover or to compete? For me to help lift her sapling son to a throne when I am the better man for the succession, but hampered by weaker credentials? Where were her love letters when I languished in damp caves, hunted like a wounded animal, my flesh torn open again and again? With those five words, she dispelled the love the rest of her letter reawoke. And it is almost 20 years since I last saw her.

Aside from Rizpah's letter, David stood forewarned that, being in possible line for the succession, he must watch his back, as Saul's aspiring cousin Abner might send an assassin. Or else a stray survivor from a bandit gang might shoot an avenging shaft from a roof at him.

2. Shortly after he arrived, met so poorly for an assigned king, the 9 Canaanite wine merchants who made up the council of Hebron asked David, by courier, to meet them in the banquet hall of the Canaanite Temple. David told the courier he would send for the council in due time. Then he set about moving into his storehouse palace at his leisure.

With that message, he felt the full weight of the fight that now lay ahead. Achish simply gave him a chance, and if he would flub it, his little crown would fall like Saul's big one. Let that happen and his former cave community would be set adrift, his followers and seed bear a fall with no soft landing. And now he took note of the little redhead who gave him his mail and appeared before him again. Hushai the Arkhi. Well known by name, for he kept the accounts at Hebron and had sent David his loans.

Are the accounts in order? David asked.

Hushai found it difficult to answer. David pressed him.

No, sire. To be honest, no.

Why? Is it the new debts I carry that will bring them down?

No, sire. Thy new debts should cancel out with time. Faster if ye turn over thy congratulatory gifts of herd animals to the city treasury. Slower if ye do not.

Take all the congratulatory gifts. But tell me, what else is not in order.

The council hath been at free borrowing, sire.

From where?

The treasury, sire.

All nine?

Yes, sire. Every one. And friends of theirs.

How long hath this been going on?

At my guess, and with my pardon for saying so, since the founding of Hebron, mayhap some 700 years.

Do they pay high interest, as I do? With a time limit?

No interest at all. And no time limit.

And David said, That is stealing. It will stop. Today. No more loans of that kind. Those outstanding shall be repaid. And fast.

Jashobeam, Joash and Joab came in.

What now? David asked.

As ye asked, we checked on the armed militia of Hebron, Joab said. Some 60 clods. Half too old to swing a wooden butter knife.

They lounge about in two beautiful barracks we could use for our men, Joash said. In short, they are all family and friends of the council. Even a granddad or two.

When their leader gave us a rude answer, big Jashobeam said, Joab rightly knocked him flat. I added six good stomps on his face. Not one of his men contested this.

Gather a troop of our best, David said. Go back and dismiss the clods. Move our people in to replace them. And draw swords and blood on any who disagree.

Alone, David reread Rizpah's letter. And again his heart took wing out to her. And again, that sentence and its kin killed his feelings in first flight. As Jehud and Shammoth appeared.

The Hebron council hath come to see you, Jehud said. All nine. And they say they are most angry with ye, David.

Have the guards escort them off the palace grounds, sorely housed as I am in this warehouse, David said. I did not send for them.

Soon came Hezro and Zelek.

The militia general of Hebron is here, Hezro said. And he is most angry about a stomping on the face he received from Jashobeam. With large blood scabs, as from a big foot.

Have the guards throw him out the door on his face, David said. But first, dismiss him without pay.

Then he reread Rizpah's letter a third time and mused a while. Finally, he tore it to bits and fed it to flame. But at the far end of the fire, so it would not burn too quickly.

From the ruins of my greatest love, he wondered, shall only ashes come? This was the woman who most moved me. In what direction hath she grown? Far away from me, I fear.

Busy days followed. David found the banditry in the eastern Badlands spurting anew. He sent Magreb and Adina with troops to quell it. When a long week had passed, he summoned the Hebron council of 9 Canaanite wine merchants. He kept them waiting for over an hour. The highest titled one left in a huff.

I only see eight, David said, showing up in a surly mood.

Who do you think you are? one said. We gave you the biggest storehouse for a palace. The leader of our council, High Priest Irbil, is busy. He left.

Then out of my sight! David said. Next time I summon you, bring all. If not, I will create a new council.

They left in a visible panic.

3. King David rode about the streets of Hebron in a horse-drawn wicker chariot with Jashobeam, Joab, Abishai and Hezro close beside him on muleback. A troop from his Thirty followed on foot. Though the Hebronites in general liked him for past deliverer deeds, the council members now tremored at his name.

In these outings, David saw much shab in the ancient city. How run down the buildings, how unpainted the outer walls, how chaotic the two bazaars. In the sectors of the poor, he found the old and the ill bare surviving. Garbage lay about most in their district. Young girls called out to him from the steps of the Canaanite Temple, A copper for man's greatest pleasure! He saw a beggar with the distort of the skin-graying disease on his way to the banished cave colony of lepers in the Badlands below Arad.

No wonder Saul went mad, he thought. Who can right all these wrongs?

When next David summoned the council, the members tread softly. They sat around a table clad in their vainest finery: 3 Hittites, 2 Canaanites, 2 Hebrews, 1 amalgam. Irbil, the ninth, was the Canaanite high priest with the largest wine press. He was the man David most replaced, and his envy was such, his brown eyes seemed tinted greenish. One of the Hebrews wore a raised cap at the skull in the zealot Ephraimite style, gorgeously inlaid with gold thread. A Hittite wore a rich tapestry slung across his chest from the finest weavers of Babylon. A Canaanite wore precious stones in rings, earrings and a pendant from east of Babylon in