The Variety of Davids in Monotheistic Traditions

Abstract

One of the most central figures in all of the major monotheistic traditions is King David. He personifies, in many respects, the heroic past of the (more imagined than real) ancient Israelite empire, of which he is commonly believed to have served as a unifying and effective king for about forty years (ca. 1010–970 BCE). David’s religious persona as a righteous king is underlined in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament, where he is hyperbolically described as a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22), while in the Qurʾān he is depicted as God’s “vicegerent on earth” (Sura 38:26). His prophetic abilities are also elaborated in the Hebrew Bible through God’s various revelations to him and prophecies conveyed through him, while his righteousness is underscored in the Psalms attributed to him, which led to his subsequent recognition as a prophet in Islam. In religious imagination, as well as in wider culture, literature and the arts, the figure of David has not only come to symbolize the golden period in the remote past of the ancient Kingdom of Judah and Israel of the first millennium BCE, but also as a source of revival and messianic hopes for the future, as in the famous biblical metaphor “a shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1–12). From post-exilic times, Jews believed that the messianic savior-king who will usher in an era of eternal peace and prosperity was to come from Davidic lineage, and it is in this light that the early Christians conceived his connection to Jesus which they made clear in two of the Gospels (Matthew 1; Luke 3:23–38). While the reception exegesis in all three religious traditions generally tended to idealize his image, David’s literary portrayal in the Hebrew Bible is one of the most complex of all biblical characters. On the one hand, he is depicted as a valorous warrior who bravely defeated Goliath (1 Samuel 17:49–50), the powerful army commander and ruler responsible for unifying a kingdom around the Jebusite city, Jerusalem, which he conquered and then established as capital, a gifted musician (1 Samuel 16:14–22), who by himself invented musical instruments (Amos 6:5; 1 Chronicles 23:2–5), a pious poet who authored some of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms (generally attributed to his authorship in later sources), an affectionate lover (e.g., of Abigail in 1 Samuel 25), and a devoted friend (e.g., of Jonathan in 1 Samuel 13–23) and father (cf. his mourning over Absalom’s death in 2 Samuel 18:33). On the other hand, he