Where we left off yesterday, David had just made his covenant with God and settled in Israel with his hordes of strangely named offspring. Chapter 6 describes the process of moving the Ark of God into the new capital city, a riskier job than you might imagine; for instance, one of the helpers accidentally stumbles and grabs the Ark for support, causing God to "[strike] him down for his imprudent action" (2 Sam 6:7). Tough cookies! Once the Ark is moved, everyone has a big party and dances in the street. Saul's daughter/David's wife, Michal, watches the festivities from her window and when she sees her husband "leaping and whirling before the Lord" it causes her to "despise him in her heart" (2 Sam 6:16). Michal is such a bitch! She and David later discuss the issue and he scorns her claim that he appears to be a "vulgar clown" (2 Sam 6:20) by explaining that he'll dance for God if he wants to and there's nothing she can do about it so THERE.
In chapter 7 a prophet named Nathan appears and communicates a nice little blessing from God to David. God says that he will never take the kingship from David's line, and that his family will rule over Israel forever, and so on and so forth. Moving on: chapter 8 details a few of David's military conquests as king. My favorite excerpt from this section was a line about his treatment of the Moabites: "He defeated the Moabites and made them lie along the ground, where he measured them off with a length of cord; for every two lengths that were to be put to death one full length was spared" (2 Sam 8:2). Well that's... weird. I suppose this was to show how just a king David is; he does not arbitrarily kill ALL his enemies, only some of them.
In chapter 9 David shows off his kindness, as well as his political wisdom, by adopting Jonathan's crippled son, Mephibosheth. What a name! In doing this, he shows respect to his deceased
Chapter 10 concerns another battle. David, ever the diplomat, sends some delegates to talk to the new king of the Ammonites, but he turns out to be a total jerk and "shave[s] off half their beards and cut[s] off half their garments up to the buttocks" (2 Sam 10:4). This is as good a reason as any to start a war, so the Israelites go to battle with the Ammonites, who -- in spite of being assisted by the mercenary Armaeans -- lose horribly. The moral of the story is that David is a totally badass military commander and you shouldn't mess with his troops ever.
Although he has been the portrait of piousness and good character up until this point, in chapter 11 David commits some pretty serious offenses. One day he's chilling on the roof of his palace when he spies a beautiful woman bathing in the distance. He makes inquiries and discovers that her name is Bathsheba and she is the wife of a man named Uriah the Hittite. Although she is "still purifying herself after her period" (2 Sam 10:4) David has sex with her and knocks her up. Oh shit!
He sends for Uriah and tries to get him to go home and sleep with his wife, so that David's transgression will be covered up. However, Uriah is a devoted soldier and believes that he must maintain sexual abstinence in order to be ritually clean for battle. In other words, David is fucked.
To save his own butt, he concocts a sinister scheme. David instructs Joab, his army captain, to put Uriah "opposite the enemy where the fighting is fiercest, and then fall back, and leave him to meet his death" (2 Sam 11:15). Oh man, that is evil! The plan works perfectly, and David takes Bathsheba for his wife, but God is pretty pissed at him for being such an enormous asshole.
In chapter 12, Nathan the prophet reappears with a cute little parable for David about a rich man and a poor man. The rich man has many sheep and the poor man has just one, that he loves like a daughter. However, one day the rich man has company and he doesn't want to cook one of his own flock, so he kills the poor man's sheep instead. When David hears this story, he is seized with emotion and shouts that "the man who did this deserves to die" (2 Sam 12:5), at which point Nathan reveals that David is the man. I actually didn't give this metaphor a lot of thought while I was reading it, but now that I think about it... if David is the rich man, does that mean all the women are sheep? That's nice.
Anyway, God punishes David by condemning his firstborn son via Bathsheba to death. When the lad becomes sick, David is overcome with pious grief, refusing to eat and "lying in sackcloth on the ground" (2 Sam 12:16). However, when the boy finally dies, David resumes his normal activities almost immediately. Confused, the servants ask how he could behave so casually when, while the boy was alive, he did nothing but fast and cry. David's response is pretty great: "While the boy was alive...I fasted and wept, thinking, 'It may be that the Lord will be gracious to me, and the boy will live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him; he will not come back to me" (2 Sam 12:22-23). Oh man, that is heavy stuff. I'm getting goosebumps, although it might just be because IT'S COLD BECAUSE I LIVE IN MONTREAL NOW AND OCTOBER IN MONTREAL FEELS LIKE JANUARY IN CALIFORNIA! OH NO!
Anyway, after his son dies David goes to have sex with Bathsheba and conceives a second son, named Solomon. As we know, this lad will one day be king!
Chapter 13 details a delightful scandal that ensues among David's older offspring. This drama takes awhile to unfold and I love it because it's so Faulkner. Actually, I think it'd be more correct to say that Faulkner is so biblical, but whatever. I read Absalom! Absalom! before I read the biblical story of Absalom and so in the canon of my brain, the former existed first.
We are introduced to Amnon and Absalom, half brothers and David's first- and second-born sons respectively (although the genealogy is a bit muddled and I'm not 100% sure on this). Absalom has a sister named Tamar who Amnon falls for pretty hard, becoming so "tormented that he bec[omes] ill with love for his half-sister" (2 Sam 13:2). Oh man, incest is the best! Amnon consults his friend, a fellow named Jonadab, who tells him to fake being sick and ask Tamar to cook him something. This seems like a pretty good idea to the young prince, who takes to his bed and requests his half-sister to make him bread-cakes. After she bakes them, he orders everyone else out of the room and asks her to "come to bed with [him]" (2 Sam 13:11). Tamar tells him how shameful such an act would be, but Amnon apparently doesn't care too much because he rapes her! Then -- and this is so goddamn Faulkner I almost squealed with delight while reading it -- Amnon is "filled with intense revulsion...stronger than the love he had felt" (2 Sam 13:15). He callously sends her away, while she weeps and protests: "Your sending me away," she says, "is worse than anything else you have done to me" (2 Sam 13:16).
GOD THIS STORY IS SO INTENSE! And it only gets better! When word gets out about what happened, everyone is pretty pissed. David, who is apparently a pushover in situations like this, does not act because Amnon "[is] his eldest son and he [loves] him" (2 Sam 13:21) but Absalom vows to avenge his sister's honor. What a southern gentleman. He bides his time for two years, then throws a party and while Amnon is drunk, he orders his servants to murder him.
Fearing repercussions for his actions, Absalom flees to Geshur, but after three years David gets over it and starts to miss his second-born son and so David's army commander, Joab, constructs a plan to enable Absalom's return. In chapter 14 he sends an old woman to David, who tells him the story of her two sons; one day they "came to blows out in the country... and one struck the other and killed him" (2 Sam 14:6). She explains that her kinsmen have demanded she put the surviving son to death, but doing so would leave her with no one in the world. David agrees that this would be terrible and swears to protect her son, at which point she notes that he's being a total hypocrite by keeping Absalom in exile: "By the decision you have pronounced, your majesty, you condemn yourself in that you have refused to bring back the one you banished. We shall all die; we shall be like water that is split on the ground and lost; but God will spare the man who does not set himself to keep the outlaw in banishment" (2 Sam 14:14).
So Absalom is permitted to return, and he becomes tremendously popular among the Israelites for his handsomeness and princely mannerisms. He gets married, has three sons and a daughter named Tamar (obviously because of his weird, Faulknery, subconsciously incestuous devotion to his sister), and spends his days charming the people. All is well for about seven years, but eventually Absalom becomes dissatisfied with his role and sneaks off to Hebron, where he rallies forces and tries to seize the kingship from his father. David is sufficiently rattled by this, as he leaves Jerusalem. Also troubling to David is the fact that one of his key counselors, Ahithophel, switches loyalties to Absalom.
While in the wilderness, David encounters a relative of Saul, who curses him: "Get out, get out, you murderous scoundrel! The Lord has taken vengeance on you for the blood of the house of Saul whose throne you took, and he has given the kingdom to your son Absalom" (2 Sam 16:7). David shrugs him off, saying, "If he curses because the Lord has told him to curse David, who can question it?" (2 Sam 16:10). Meanwhile, Absalom arrives in Jerusalem, at which point Ahithophel advises him to sleep with his father's concubines so that "all of Israel will come to hear that you have given great cause of offense to your father, and this will confirm the resolution of your followers" (2 Sam 16:21). Chapter 16 ends with Absalom committing the dirty deed.
What a story! Tomorrow we will finish the second book of Samuel and start on Kings. All I know about Kings is that Solomon features prominently, so stay tuned to find out what's going to happen to Absalom and the rest of the brothers. This is pretty good stuff, huh?
Great story! Great role models!
ReplyDeleteThis is way more fun than any of the stuff I'm reading for my classes! Maybe that is why I am neglecting my school reading to read the bible.
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