David in Perspective—2 Samuel

Abstract

SAUL, AS REPRESENTED in the book of Samuel, is a complex and tragic figure, whose fatal flaw is his inability to emerge from self-absorption and refocus his attention on YHWH and his own commission from YHWH to govern the people (1 Sam 9:17). The corresponding portrait of David in the same book is even richer; no human narrative character in the Bible (not counting Jesus!) is drawn in such depth and detail, and at the same time so variously. The chiaroscuro portrait of David in Samuel is not easily reconciled with the pious portrayal in Chronicles, and there is yet a third “David,” the implied voice speaking through numerous psalms. All three Davids have profoundly touched the imagination of Jews and Christians and shaped religious understandings and practices over centuries and millennia. For twenty-first-century readers, the detailed and realistic account of David in Samuel raises questions that invite consideration of the story from several different perspectives—historical, literary, and theological....