In antiquity, you could be born to kingship or fight your way there, often with the help of your mother. Or, as was true with King David, you could rise to this position as a result of divine appointment—or lose your place through divine disappointment, as happened with David’s predecessor, Saul. In the modern world, unlike the Biblical era, there are many King Davids. As was the case then, royal reigns are never easy to maintain.
Take, for example, the world of sports, amply and colorfully chronicled by the popular press worldwide. In tennis—which, like a monarchy, has its courts—we read in the New Zealand Herald a story with the headline “King David Forced Off Throne.” The article begins, “The reign of King David is over. David Ferrer, world number 3 and four-time Heineken Open champion, was deposed by Yen-Hsun Lu, of Taipei, 6–4, 7–6(4) last night in the tournament’s biggest upset for some time.” Or, to put it in “Biblical” language, David has slain his hundreds (of tennis opponents); Lu, his thousands (1 Samuel 18:7)!
The acclamation “Hail King David” (so the Daily Star) is not limited to the playing courts but can also be heard in the ever-fecund world of entertainment: “Noel Gallagher [the ex-Oasis man] has paid tribute to comeback king David Bowie for not relying on his glorious past like other rock veterans.” In my view, a forward-looking observation of this sort accords well with David’s deathbed advice to his son and successor, Solomon (1 Kings 2:1–9).
With its assorted array of hangers-on and passersby, the worlds of entertainment and royalty are both rife with gossip and name-calling, often aimed at the same person at different times in his/her career. So we have (in the Daily Record), “American chat show king David Letterman”; and (from The Mirror) “US chat show king David Letterman [renamed ‘David Lecherman’ in the story’s headline!] has confessed on TV to a string of affairs.” Makes you wonder what Jerusalem journalists had in their quivers when the womanizing David showed up in tenth-century tabloids!
Earlier we alluded to the Biblical comparison made between Saul and David. A New York Times feature provides ample evidence that the ancient disparity between these sometimes-dueling monarchs continues to the present day: “The Library of Congress’s online catalog lists just 43 books about Saul and 297 about David, with scores more in separate categories for drama, poetry and fiction. The database ARTstor links to just 59 artworks about Saul and several thousand of David, including the famous Michelangelo sculpture, as well as plates, tapestries, busts and ancient coins.” To that list, as impressive as it already is, I might be tempted to add the far more numerous references to David as compared to Saul in “The Bible in the News” columns.
We conclude with a fittingly poetic flourish. As reported in The Telegraph, under the headline “Poetry as Therapy”: “A strange phenomenon has occurred in the ladies’ loos of The Telegraph offices. First, official posters on the door of each cubicle informed us of a free counseling service … Then someone went around gluing poems over the top of them, presumably in breach of company health and safety regulations.” Among the favorites is this:
King David and King Solomon led merry, merry lives,
With many, many lady friends and many, many wives.
But when old age crept over them, with many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote Proverbs, and King David wrote the Psalms.
How appropriate: ladies’ loos, the breaching of regulations and the coupling of father and son. I imagine that this accords well with the literary and lavatory expectations of both monarchs!
In antiquity, you could be born to kingship or fight your way there, often with the help of your mother. Or, as was true with King David, you could rise to this position as a result of divine appointment—or lose your place through divine disappointment, as happened with David’s predecessor, Saul. In the modern world, unlike the Biblical era, there are many King Davids. As was the case then, royal reigns are never easy to maintain. Take, for example, the world of sports, amply and colorfully chronicled by the popular press worldwide. In tennis—which, like a monarchy, has its […]
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