Amichai, who seemed to live simultaneously in the biblical past and in the turmoil of modern Israel, found solace in David’s story, suggesting that David’s modern heirs, like their greatest king, won’t have to dodge spears forever. But in some ways, we moderns are David’s opposites: “David changed his tune and pretended to be mad to save his life; as for me, I change my tune and pretend to be sane to save my life.” Such musings show how the David story remains a rich resource in modern times, even in the graffiti style of Amichai’s line “King David loves Bathsheba.”
We will miss Amichai, just as we think we miss the glorious King David. But what was King David really like? Was he the “sweet singer of Israel,” whose music drove away Saul’s personal demons? Was he the great warrior, lover, and king, the slayer of Goliath, and the conqueror of Jerusalem? Was he the prototype of the messiah, who is called the Son of David? Or was he a petty tyrant, littering his path to power with the bodies of his adversaries? The list of people who conveniently die during David’s ascent is quite large—Nabal, the wealthy Calebite, whose wife David marries (1 Samuel 25:38–42); Saul and Jonathan, the king and heir apparent, whose royal crown and insignia David conveniently acquires upon their deaths (2 Samuel 1:10); Ishbaal, Saul’s son and king over the northern tribes, whose decapitated head David also happens to acquire (2 Samuel 4:8); Abner, Ishbaal’s general, who is killed by David’s general (2 Samuel 3:27); and all but one of Saul’s male descendants, whom David delivers to their executioners (2 Samuel 21:1–9). Is it possible that David’s ascent to power was an opportunistic bloodbath orchestrated by a ruthless guerilla warrior, not unlike the methods of modern Middle Eastern tyrants?
Steven McKenzie is the biographer of this other, shadier King David. In his remarkable book, King David: A Biography,2 McKenzie brings to bear all the analytical tools of the modern historian and shows, patiently and methodically, how most of the stories about David in 1-2 Samuel are carefully wrought apologies—what we would call political “spin”—to absolve David of responsibility for the convenient deaths of these actual or potential obstacles to his rise to power. Even after David becomes king, the spin continues. The revolt of David’s son Absalom requires delicate handling to show that David did not plot his own son’s death.
If we read between the lines of Samuel and Kings, as McKenzie does with considerable insight, we see a darker and more realistic David and a more troubling biblical history. The ancient Middle East comes to look a lot more like the modern Middle East, and David more like a military strongman than a chosen king. In general, McKenzie’s portrait of David, based on his close historical analysis of the biblical text, is both convincing and disturbing.3
But after comparing the two, I find that I prefer Amichai’s David to McKenzie’s. The charming musician, warrior and lover, a noble but flawed man, is much better to contemplate than the real king, who may have started his career as something of a “holy terrorist,” in McKenzie’s phrase. Too much historical reality is hard to bear; deep down, we still need our legends and our heroes.
The modern study of the Bible all too often brings us to these hard choices. Are we to prefer history to story? Is what the historical person actually said or did more important than what the Bible relates? Is historical truth the only kind of truth? Some would say that great literature is truer than history, since history only relates what happened once, but literature tells us what is true always and universally.4 And so the Bible’s David—and the poet’s David—may tell us more about ourselves and the world we live in than the actual career of the historical David. History, politics, religion and literature are mingled in the tragic story of David and Bathsheba, and it is perhaps the conjunction of such different realities that makes the story so strong and still moves us today. “King David loves Bathsheba”—what tenderness and brutality come to mind in that phrase, the grandeur and frailty of the human condition.
In his final volume of poetry before he died last year, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai wrote:
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Yehuda Amichai, “David, King of Israel, Is Alive: Thou Art the Man,” Open Closed Open: Poems, trans. Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld (New York: Harcourt, 2000), p. 51.
2.
Steven L. McKenzie, King David: A Biography (New York and Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000).
