EXPANSION AND CENTRALIZATION UNDER KING DAVID

David’s Rise to Power

The methods used by David suggest that he was a shrewd politician who stopped at nothing to achieve his
political ambitions. At the time of Saul’s death, David was an exile in Philistia. His first move was to put himself in
a strategic position from which his political scheme- to set himself up as ruler over the tribes of Israel- could be
achieved. Fortunately, he had already prepared the way for readmission to his native tribe of Judah, from one of
whose cities [Bethlehem] he had come. During his outlaw period, both in the wilderness of Judah and in the service
of Philistia, he had ingratiated himself with the Judeans by protecting landholders from robbers and by dividing with
the elders of Judah the spoil taken from the raids on their enemies [1 Sam. 23:1-5, 25:2ff., 27:812, 30:26-31]. It is
not too surprising then, that shortly after Saul’s death David was appointed king in Hebron, were he reigned for over
seven tears, evidently as a king of Palestine vassal.

During his period, however, David has his eye on the whole territory of Israel. The northern tribes still
owed allegiance to Saul’s weak son, Ishbaal, who was only a stooge of his general, Abner. David’s Judean forces
were under the command of his able general, Joab. Apparently, the conflict between the house of David and the
house of Saul was touch off by a curious incident that occurred by the pool of Gibeon, uncovered by archeologists in
1956-57. The two army commanders, facing each other from opposite sides of the pool, agreed to a test of
gladiatorial contest. But the ordeal settled nothing; the champions only killed each other and a general fighting
broke off and on, with David power growing stronger and stronger. The political struggle between David and the
house of Saul came to an end when Abner, stinging under a deserve rebuke from Ishbaal, offered to deliver the
remnant of Saul’s kingdom to David. Part of the ordeal was for David to receive Michal, Saul’s daughter and
David’s first wife. Michal’s tearful parting from her own husband is described with great pathos [11 Sam. 3:12-15].
Governed chiefly by cold political calculation, David sought to establish a claim upon Saul’s throne by taking
Michal into his harem. Saul’s male descendants were either liquidated in typical oriental style or put under careful
custody [11 Sam. 21:1-14]. At the age of 37, David become unchallenged ruler of Israel.

During David’s reign at Hebron, the Philistines had not interfered with him. Probably they regarded him as
their vassal and were content for Israel to be divided by civil war between the house of Saul and the house of David.
But when David’s power increased with the union of all the Israelite tribes, the Philistines felt that it was time to act
[11 Sam. 5:17]. Not much is said about the Philistine war, but one of David’s greatest accomplishments was
breaking the Philistine’s control over Canaan once and for all and shutting them up in the coastal plain [see 11 Sam.
5:17-25; 15-22]. Moreover, he waged successful wars against Moab, the Phoenician king, Harim, of Tyre. So he
became recognized as the ruler of an empire that stretched from the Lebanon mountains to the very borders of
Egypt, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Desert of Arabia. The narrator seeing the hand of God in these dazzling
achievements, comments: “David became greater and greater, for Yahweh, the God of host, was with him” [11 Sam.
5:10]. Never before or after the times of David did Israel exceed this zenith of political power.

David’s Significance for Israel

The story of king Saul and David is long and complicated but it is basically a very human story. It tells of
love-hate relationships between the two, with an added flavor of a beautiful friendship arising between David and
Saul’s son, Jonathan. A power-and-security-hungry King Saul ends up with an obsession for wanting to kill David,
in turn, remains faithful and loyal as well as respectful. In the end, Saul is critically wounded in battles and orders
his men to kill him. David assumes the kingship and thus began to reign that will bring honor and prestige to the
Israelite nation as well as to the Davidic dynasty. Fleming James writes of David:

In a real sense David was the founder of the Hebrew nation. Moses had indeed brought the Israelite people
into existence and given them a common faith in Yahweh, their God. But not till the days of David did this
people take up its place as a nation, with a nation’s organization and prestige. Saul had begun this work, but
his kingdom for all its unity still retained much of the looseness of the days preceding it, nor did it win for
itself any convincing place amidst its neighbors. David gave it a capital, a court, a government that could
be felt. He himself was a king like the sovereigns of important states round about, maintaining equal
magnificence, dealing with them as a peer. His kingdom he raised from dependence and insignificance to
imperial glory, make it easily the leading state between Egypt and Assyria. Beginning with David, Israel
was quite a different entity, with a different self-consciousness, a different national life. In spite of the
succeeding split between north and south his work remained permanent. Both of the separated members
continued to be kingdoms.

The capital that he bestowed upon Israel moreover was something more than a royal residence or a
metropolis, however splendid. It was Jerusalem. Now and then in the history of mankind a city has
embodied in itself the spirit of a people, becoming a mystic symbol of their achievements and their dreams,
taking on their thoughts something almost of the divine. Such were Athens and Rome. But neither of these
meant to its people what Jerusalem meant to Israel. It is well for us to reflect that before David Jerusalem
was not; or rather was worse than nothing from the Hebrew point of view, for it remained an unconquered
Canaanitish city in their midst. David perceived that it possessed a commanding natural beauty and
military situation which rendered it almost impregnable. He saw also that being hitherto alien it could be
made his as could no Israelitish city. All his splendor could be poured about it. Finally, it could become
the dwelling place of Yahweh. His earthly home, the religious center of his people. So he took it and set
about shaping its future. He could not of course guess how vast that future would be; but with the intuition
of genius he laid the foundation for it. Quite justly was it called thereafter both “the city of David” and
“city of Yahweh”.

To David went back also the conception of Jerusalem’s Temple as Yahweh’s home. Though he
was not permitted to carry out his idea, David did take thought [as we have seen] for the worship of the
Jerusalem sanctuary, associating with the cult side of Yahweh’s religion the music used in worship, so that
the temple singers afterwards looked back to him as their patron. We know how he was regarded as the
illustrious prototype of the later psalmist.

But more than all else he became to after-ages the ideal king. As his figure receded into the past
its faults is overlooked and its virtues came into their own. People saw in David a king wholly faithful to
Yahweh, enjoying a unique place in his favor. Able through his merits to avert from the lesser kings that
followed indeed from rebellious Israel itself the full penalty of their sins. Again and again, it was felt,
Yahweh, withheld his anger “for his servant David’s sake”. The great king’s age appeared in memory as
one in which the poor and the oppressed had been protected and justice had flourished on earth. The
weakness and humiliation of a later time were contrasted with David’s empire, when Israel’s host went out
as conquerors and the heathen round about rendered obedience to Yahweh’s anointed.

Thus was born the hope that David would one day come again, in his own person or in a mighty
“son” who would deliver Israel and make it head over the nations while at home his reign would bring
righteousness and plenty. Too often his dream was tainted with aspirations after military power, and for
this we must acknowledge that David himself was responsible. The aspect of his career that appealed to the
thirst for material magnificence and military aspirations which were destined to bear evil fruits. But the
other side of David’s picture far out-shone this. As one traces what may we call the “David expectation”
through the Old Testament he finds it in the main charged with aspiration for a better and purer world
where the poor shall find a royal friend and God shall be truly known. When blind Bartimeus heard that
Jesus was passing by, he began to cry out and say, “Thou son of David, have mercy upon me” [Luke
10:47]. Thus side by side with the memory of the warrior prince of the psalms of Solomon there lived that
of the good king unto whom a thousand years before the need had “cried” and had not been disappointed.

Let us now summarize the four factors that contributed to David’s astounding success:

First, his daring and wise decision in transferring the capital and the enshrinement of the Ark of
the Covenant in Jerusalem. This made the city a center for both political and religious life.

Second, his final and decisive defeat of the Philistines, Israel’s traditional enemy. Because of this,
Israel achieved a fair degree of political prominence over her neighbors, thereby making David’s reign the
golden age in Hebrew history.

Third, territorial expansion was tremendously achieved which paved the way for Israel’s control
of commercial transactions with her neighbors. Tributes and taxes were collected from merchants who
came from India, China, Greece and Arabia.

Fourth, political consolidation was achieved through the establishment of administrative

machineries which were common among oriental rulers of that period.

Despite David’s shining success and astounding achievements, however, he, like any other mortal,
had his share of human frailty and culpability. His adulterous affair with Bathsheba created a chain
reaction such as rebellion of his own son, Absalom, that led to David’s temporary exile from Jerusalem,
and the bloody, treacherous succession of Solomon to the throne. It all started when David arose from his
afternoon siesta. As he walked by the palace rooftop, he was aroused by the sight of Bathsheba taking a
bath. David had the woman summoned to his room and he made love to her. Bathsheba got pregnant.
David tried unsuccessfully to cover up his wrongdoing only to be confounded with another problem. But
then God intervened. He sent the prophet Nathan to David’s royal court armed with powerful parable.
Unknowingly, after listening to the prophet’s tale, David pronounced his own indictment. Immediately,
Nathan said: “You are the man”. David readily accepted his sin and recognized the fact that moral
sanctions apply as much to the monarch as they do to ordinary members of the community.

The consequences of his sin grew beyond David’s control. The pangs and the pain, the anguish
and the agony, which resulted from the misdeed, infected every event and relationship thereafter until the
inevitable division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon.
 To get an insight into the Bathsheba affair and how David repented, read 11 Samuel 11:1-12:23
and Psalms 51:1-13. The latter tells us of David as a forgiven sinner, a prototype of the new covenant.
Thus, the New Testament traces Jesus’ lineage back to David.