Shivering, an aged King David lay on his deathbed, suffering from cold. But “although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm” (1 Kings 1:1).
One telling detail in the biblical account of David’s death accentuates the irreversible decline of the king, whose empire has dissolved around him, whose family has betrayed him: the failure of clothing to alleviate the king’s discomfort.
In the ancient world, clothing held symbolic value. Dress could indicate status, power or membership in an elte group.1 A purple robe, for example, represented royal authority (Esther 8:15); a linen ephod distinguished priests from mere worshipers (1 Samuel 22:18). Clothing could also represent the wearer’s responsibilities. The removal of a shoe represented a rejection 024of obligation, as in the case of the levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5–10).a A garment could even stand in for its owner: For example, letters found in the ancient archives of Mari, in Syria, describe a professional prophet sending a piece of his hemb to the king as both identification and a guarantee that his prophecy will come true.2
Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the accumulation or receipt of clothing has positive connotations, as seen in Jacob’s famous gift of a tunic to his favorite son, Joseph (Genesis 37:3), and Hannah’s yearly present of a robe to her son, Samuel (1 Samuel 2:19). The loss of clothing and the status associated with it, however, can be humiliating, even devastating. The Ammonites, Israel’s enemies east of the Jordan, embarrass King David’s messengers by cutting their garments at the buttocks (2 Samuel 10:4–5).
As David rises to power, he acquires articles of clothing from different sources (1 Samuel 17:38–39, 18:4). Saul, who declines as David rises, discards and destroys clothing (1 Samuel 15:27, 17:38–39, 24:4, 31:9) and even appears naked on one occasion (1 Samuel 19:24). David’s accumulation and Saul’s simultaneous loss of clothing provide a valuable measure of their relative power. Indeed, by examining the use of clothing alone in 1 Samuel, we can accurately trace the rise of David and the fall of Saul.c
The Bible contains two conflicting accounts of the first meeting between David and Saul: Both involve David’s receipt of clothing from Saul. According to 1 Samuel 16, David comes to Saul’s court as a musician. As Saul grows to love David, he makes the youth his arms-bearer. David thereby gains responsibility for carrying Saul’s armor, the king’s heaviest, most protective clothing. According to 1 Samuel 17, however, David and Saul first meet on the battlefield during a clash with Goliath and the Philistines. When David proposes to fight Goliath, Saul not only offers David his personal armor but helps him dress. David rejects the suit as too heavy. Despite (or perhaps because of) his refusal of Saul’s bulky and confining clothing, David succeeds in killing Goliath.3 By rejecting Saul’s clothing, David refuses to place himself in Saul’s debt. He also acknowledges that he cannot merely assume Saul’s armor—and the military status it symbolizes—without proving himself first. Instead, as we shall see, David will earn Saul’s position garment by garment.
As David becomes ensconced in Saul’s family, he develops a close friendship with Jonathan, the king’s son and heir apparent. As part of a pact between the young men, David receives a gift of clothing: “Jonathan took off the cloak that he was wearing and gave it to David, in addition to his tunic, sword, bow and belt” (1 Samuel 18:4). Jonathan here gives to David the clothing that symbolizes his role as crown prince and his claim to the throne. Unlike the cumbersome armor that Saul offered David, these items fit like a glove.4 Dressed in Jonathan’s garb, David joins the troops and is “successful in every mission on which Saul sent him” (1 Samuel 18:5).
As David’s reputation soars, Saul becomes increasingly jealous and violent. When David flees from the palace, the king chases him relentlessly. Searching for David in the town of Ramah, Saul falls into a prophetic ecstasy for a full day and night. “The spirit of God came upon him…[He] stripped off his clothes and…spoke in ecstasy before Samuel; and he lay naked all that day and all night” (1 Samuel 19:23–24). Saul’s prophetic frenzy is a divinely dispensed delaying tactic designed to enable David to escape. Thus, in a sense, here God is disrobing Saul, removing the signs of his worldly success for David’s benefit.
Ironically, Saul later accuses David of being “very crafty” (‘aµruÆmya’aµruÆm hu) (1 Samuel 23:22), a play on the word ‘aµroµm, “naked.” Genesis 2:25–3:1 025includes this same wordplay: Adam and Eve are naked; the snake is crafty.
Still searching for David, Saul unwittingly stumbles upon the cave in the wilderness of En-Gedi where David and his men are hiding out. David’s companions declare: “This is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘I will deliver your enemy into your hands; you can do with him as you please.’” When Saul entered the cave to relieve himself, David “went and stealthily cut off the corner of Saul’s cloak” (1 Samuel 24:4). For the first time, David is not a passive recipient of clothing—he actively takes it, symbolically disrobing Saul.
David insists his action proves that he has no designs to kill Saul and that Saul is pursuing him for naught: “When I cut off the corner of your cloak, I did not kill you. You must see plainly that I have done nothing evil or rebellious, and I have never wronged you” (1 Samuel 24:11). Nonetheless, the symbolic import of the cutting of the hem is unmistakable. Even Saul recognizes David’s action as a sign from God that his kingdom will be given over to David. When David informs Saul that he has cut his hem, Saul replies, “I know now that you will become king, and that the kingship over Israel will remain in your hands” (1 Samuel 24:20).
That Saul reacts to the cutting of his clothing with remorse attests to his weakened state. In a similar situation, when the clothing of David’s men is cut to humiliate them, David reacts swiftly and violently. David, as king, sends messengers to greet a newly coronated Ammonite king. The Ammonites attack the men as spies, cutting their garments in half at the buttocks and shaving their heads. In response, David immediately dispatches his troops into battle against the Ammonites (2 Samuel 10:2–7).
Several times in the Bible, the act of rending garments represents the gain or loss of a kingdom. The prophet Ahijah, for example, rips a garment into twelve pieces and tells Jeroboam to take ten of them, since God has declared, “I am tearing the kingdom from Solomon and I am giving you the ten tribes” (1 Kings 11:30–31). And when, earlier, Saul rips the prophet Samuel’s cloak, a princely garment that symbolizes the prophet’s calling and dignity, Samuel proclaims, “God has ripped the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one who is better than you” (1 Samuel 15:28).5 Ironically, Saul grasps Samuel’s cloak only as a gesture of supplication or submission, and David intends only to cut off a distinctive part of Saul’s garment—both acts, however, take on a far greater meaning in this context.
Even in death, Saul loses his clothes. On the 026battlefield, Philistine soldiers strip armor from his corpse (1 Samuel 31:9). According to a second report of Saul’s death (2 Samuel 1), an Amalekite killed Saul at his own request and then brought Saul’s crown and armlet to David. Here not only is Saul’s clothing removed, but these symbols of his position are handed over to David in a final, symbolic transfer of power. With these attributes, David can become king.
In his lament for Saul, David cries, “Daughters of Israel/Weep over Saul/Who clothed you in crimson and finery/Who decked your robes with jewels of gold” (2 Samuel 1:24).
David refers here to the spoils of war that the king brought back for his people as a display of his strength. In the context of the narrative as a whole, however, we see that even in a moment of victory, Saul’s greatest show of strength—giving up clothing—is the very act that elsewhere betokens his weakness.
Late in David’s reign, his kingdom begins to collapse as his son Absalom leads a revolt against his father. David’s change in status is reflected in his sudden loss of clothing. When Absalom rebels, a barefoot and bareheaded David flees from 027Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15:30).6
David’s experience of ascent and decline throughout his distinguished political career prepared him for this final truth: Even Israel’s most potent king is ultimately stripped of earthly power and exposed as a mere mortal, a player in God’s eternal drama. Repeated references to clothing focus and enrich the narrative describing the transfer of power from Saul to David.7 In the end, David, like Saul, loses the ability to use clothing to its best advantage. On his deathbed, the clothing that has supported him throughout his life can no longer satisfy his most basic need—to keep warm. From the use of clothing throughout the narrative, we know this is the end for David.
This article was adapted from “Suited to the Throne: The Symbolic Use of Clothing in the David and Saul Narratives,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 71 (1996).
Shivering, an aged King David lay on his deathbed, suffering from cold. But “although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm” (1 Kings 1:1). One telling detail in the biblical account of David’s death accentuates the irreversible decline of the king, whose empire has dissolved around him, whose family has betrayed him: the failure of clothing to alleviate the king’s discomfort. In the ancient world, clothing held symbolic value. Dress could indicate status, power or membership in an elte group.1 A purple robe, for example, represented royal authority (Esther 8:15); a linen ephod distinguished priests from […]
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According to Deuteronomy 25:5–10, when a man refuses to marry his brother’s widow, the widow should approach the surviving brother (called the levir) “in the presence of the elders, pull the sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and make this declaration: ‘Thus shall be done to the man who will not build up his brother’s house!’ And he shall go in Israel by the name of ‘the family of the unsandaled one.’”
It is consistent with the narrative as a whole that the same image be used to highlight Saul’s downfall and David’s rise to power. In “Saul and David: Crossed Fates,”BR 05:03, Jan P. Fokkelman argues that all of 1 Samuel 13 through 2 Samuel 1 is an interaction between these two processes.
Endnotes
1.
For more on the symbolism of clothing in the Bible, see H.A. Brongers, “Die Metaphorische Verwendung von Termini für die Kleidung von Göttern und Menschen in der Bibel und im Alten Testament,” in W.C. Delsman et al., eds., Von Kanaan bis Kerala (Neukirchen, Germany: Butzon and Bercker Kevelaer, 1982); Douglas R. Edwards, “Dress and Ornamentation,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 232–238; Theodore H. Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament (New York: Harper and Row, 1969); Edgar Haulotte, Symbolique du Vêtement selon la Bible (Lyon: Aubier, 1966). For the symbolism of clothing in the ancient Near East in general, see A. Leo Oppenheim, “The Golden Garments of the Gods,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 8 (1949), pp. 172–193; and M.E. Vogelzang and W.J. van Bekkum, “Meaning and Symbolism of Clothing in Ancient Near Eastern Texts,” in H.L.J. Vanstiphout, ed., Scripta Signa Vocis (Groningen: Forsten, 1986), pp. 265–284.
2.
See, for example, Archives royales de Mari (Paris, 1950), VI:45, xiii:112. Much has been written on the significance of the hem in the Bible and the ancient Near East. See, for example, Ronald A. Brauner, “Old Aramaic and Comparative Semitic Lexicography,” Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies 6 (1977), pp. 25–33; Edward L. Greenstein, “‘To Grasp the Hem’ in Ugaritic Literature,” Vetus Testamentum 32 (1982), pp. 217–218; Paul Kruger, “The Hem of the Garment in Marriage: The Meaning of the Symbolic Gesture in Ruth 3.9 and Ezekiel 16.8,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 12 (1984), pp. 79–84; Meir Maulu, “Studies in Biblical Legal Symbols—A Discussion of the Terms Kanaph, heq, and hosen/hesen, Their Meaning and Usage in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 9 (1987), pp. 191–210 (Hebrew); and Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), p. 410; and Ferris J. Stephens, “The Ancient Significance of Sdisdith,” Journal of Biblical Literature 50 (1931), pp. 59–70.
3.
See Peter D. Miscall, The Workings of Old Testament Narrative (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 60.
4.
Jan Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel, 2 vols. (Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 198–199.
5.
See Paul Kruger, “The Symbolic Significance of the Hem (kanaf) in 1 Samuel 15.27,” in W. Claassen, ed., Text and Context, JSOTSup 48 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), p. 106.
6.
David’s weakening status is also expressed symbolically through other family members: After David’s daughter Tamar is raped by her half-brother Amnon, she rips her splendid cloak—a sign of her status as princess—to indicate her mourning over the loss of her position and her future (2 Samuel 13).
7.
The use of clothing as a literary device has been studied by Donald A. Seybold (“Paradox and Symmetry in the Joseph Narrative,” in Kenneth R.R. Gros-Louis et al., eds., Literary Interpretations of Biblical Narratives [Nashville: Abingdon, 1974], pp. 59–73); William L. Moran found similar uses of clothing in ancient Near Eastern texts (“Gilgamesh,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 5, pp. 557–560).
