King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Jonathan Kirsch Read Free Book Online Page B

intriguingly, Miriam's song and dance may have been written into the Bible by the biblical author as yet another foreshadowing of David.
    But the two victory celebrations are very different in one telling detail. The song that Miriam sang praised God alone for the victory, even to the exclusion of Moses, but the song that the women of Israel sang after the victory over Goliath praised only flesh-and-blood warriors and did not mention God at all.
    And the women sang one to another in their play, and said: Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands.
    (1 Sam. 18:7)
     
    Just as Yahweh was a jealous deity, the Bible reveals, Saul was a jealous king. His dementia did not prevent him from parsing out the words of the victory song with care; indeed, the moments of paranoia only sharpened his perceptions. Saul did not fail to understand the subtle sting of the song that the women of Israel sang: they praised young David above the king himself, and they credited him with martial prowess that exceeded Saul's own by tenfold. So it was that King Saul marked the handsome young war hero as a man to bury rather than to praise, and so it was that the fairy-tale prince, even at his moment of triumph, fell into disfavor with the king he was destined to succeed.
    “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands,” Saul muttered in bitter complaint. “All he lacks is the kingdom.” (1 Sam. 18:8)
    Abruptly, the fairy-tale glow of the biblical life story of David is extinguished, and something much darker asserts itself. “Saul eyed David from that day and forward,” the Bible reports (1 Sam. 18:9), and the two men entered into a long and deadly chess match that would leave only one of them alive.

Chapter Four
     

INNOCENT BLOOD
     
    F IRST D EMON :
Oh! What I should find most delightful
,
after a sleepless night, is a sherbet of anise with a liqueur.
    S EVENTH D EMON :
As for me, I should rather hear David sing.
    S AUL :
God of David! Help me!
    —A NDRÉ G IDE ,
SAUL
     
    O n the very day after Saul first heard the women of Israel sing David's praises, according to the rather woozy biblical chronology, the young war hero was back in the court of the old king, plucking the strings of his lyre in an effort to soothe the suffering Saul. Then, suddenly, King Saul rose to his feet, seized a spear, and hurled the weapon at David's head with one mighty thrust.
    “I will pin David to the wall!” vowed Saul.
    Only by sidestepping the spear and fleeing from the palace did the spry David escape with his life. The weapon hurtled past the spot where he had stood a moment before and planted itself deep in the far wall. (1 Sam. 18:10–11) (AB)
    Here, Saul's murderous rage is traced by the biblical author to God himself: “An evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house.” Even in the grip of madness, Saul understood that God was siding with David: “Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul.” (1 Sam. 18:10, 12) Elsewhere, however, the biblicaltext suggests a wholly human motive for the attempted murder of David: Saul had already marked David as his rival for kingship in the overheated tribal politics of ancient Israel, and “so Saul became David's constant enemy.” (1 Sam. 18:29) (AB) A third explanation for Saul's failed attempt at homicide is provided by a psychiatric reading of the same text: Saul, after years of intermittent manic depression, had finally slipped into plain homicidal madness.
    “There were spooky, tempestuous spells,” David says in Joseph Heller's
God Knows
, “in which killing me was just about the only thing Saul had on his rabid and demented mind, the poor fucking nut.” 1
    Whether it was politics or madness or a meddlesome God—or all three at once—that turned Saul's love for David into hatred, the biblical author now describes an exercise in political gamesmanship so