King David, Innocent Blood, and

Bloodguilt David J. Shepherd

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King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
Praise for King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
‘Shepherd’s fresh take on King David shows why this controversial ruler is
one of the most compelling characters in the entire Bible. With a clear
command of current scholarship on King David, this deeply researched and
carefully argued book presents a bold case for greater attention to the
often-overlooked problem of bloodguilt as central to our understanding of
David’s reign. Shepherd models what a skilled and detailed interpretation of
the text can provide when one reads the story of David in its current form.’
Jeremy Schipper, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Toronto and
author of Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible

‘Shepherd’s monograph is a lucid, accessible, and welcome addition to

studies of the figure of David, combining a rich knowledge of scholarly work
on Samuel and Kings with fascinating and judicious readings of individual
stories that convincingly demonstrate just how much the narrative of David
is shaped by questions surrounding illegitimate bloodshed.’
David Janzen, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Durham
University and author of The Necessary King

‘From the slaying of Goliath to the secretly arranged murder of Uriah, the
specter of blood follows the famous career of King David at every turn. With
a meticulous and carefully documented analysis of the text, Shepherd’s work
draws attention to the paradox of violence at the core of this narrative and
an important subplot that will be of interest to general readers and biblical
scholars alike.’
Keith Bodner, Professor of Religion, Crandall University and author of The
Rebellion of Absalom

‘Shepherd provides a fresh and compelling reading of David’s story. The

problem of bloodguilt emerges as a central motif within the narrative,
making this a crucial work for future work on David’s story and also the
wider issue of how this motif is understood within the Hebrew Bible.’
David Firth, Trinity College Bristol and author of 1 and 2 Samuel: A
Kingdom Comes
‘Shepherd makes a strong case for reading bloodguilt as a pervasive theme
throughout the David story, illuminating aspects of the story of David’s rise,
reign, and succession. The book will repay careful reading; its argument is
well-constructed and well-supported, and certainly got me thinking about
these well-known stories in new ways.’
Christine Mitchell, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Knox College, Toronto

‘This book deals with a question that is immensely important not only for
the image of King David and for the assessment of the Books of Samuel, but
also for the theology and ethics of our days…Scholarly and with a
commanding knowledge of the relevant research, Shepherd offers clarifying
insights into both the bloody reality as portrayed in the books of Samuel,
and the struggle against the curse of constantly renewed bloodguilt that is
waged in them.’
Walter Dietrich, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, University of Bern
and author of The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E.
King David, Innocent Blood,
and Bloodguilt

D AV I D J. S H E P H E R D
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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 Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
David: A Man of War and Blood(s)
Reading the David Story/ies
What is the David Story About?
The David Story and Bloodguilt
The David Story and Retribution
The David Story and Homicide
The David Story and Ritual Violence
The Approach and Outline of the Book
1. ‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22
The Sparing of David
The Killings at Nob
2. ‘Blood without Cause’: 1 Sam 23–26
The Sparing of Saul
The Sparing of Nabal
The Sparing of Saul (Again)
3. ‘Your Blood be on Your Head’: 1 Sam 27–2 Sam 1
The Killing of Saul
The Killing of Saul (Again)
4. ‘His Blood at Your Hand’: 2 Sam 2–4
The Killing of Abner
The Killing of Ishbosheth
5. ‘The Sword Will Never Depart’: 2 Sam 5–12
The Killing of Uriah
The Killing of David and Bathsheba’s First Son
6. ‘That the Redeemer of Blood Will Ruin No More’: 2 Sam 13–14
The Killing of Amnon
The Sparing of Absalom
7. ‘Man of Blood’: 2 Sam 15–20
The Sparing of Shimei
The Killing of Absalom
The Sparing of Shimei (Again)
The Killing of Amasa
8. ‘The Bloodguilt of Saul’: 2 Sam 21–24
The Killing of the Seven Saulides
9. ‘Bring Back His Bloody Deeds’: 1 Kgs 1–2
The Killing of Adonijah
The Killing of Joab
The Sparing of Abiathar and the Sons of Barzillai
The Killing of Shimei
Conclusion: King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt
The Problem in David’s Rise
The Problem in David’s Reign
The Problem in David’s Succession
The Nature of the Problem
The Prevalence and Importance of the Problem
Problem without End
A Problem for Whom?

Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Biblical References
 Acknowledgements

Thanks to the name my parents gave me, I am quite sure that

‘David’ was among the first words I heard upon entering the world.
Being a David who was also a Shepherd ensured that my interest
was especially keen when the subject of David came up in my youth
and I am very grateful to those who acquainted me with the
highlights of his story in those early years. The rest of David’s story
in the Hebrew Bible was introduced to me by yet another David—
Professor David Jobling—distinguished scholar and teacher of Old
Testament language and literature at St. Andrew’s College. His close
reading of Samuel during my days as an undergraduate student in
his class set a standard which few since have matched, and
influenced me in ways which became clearer to me only when I
began to take a more serious interest in David a decade ago. This
interest in David inevitably found its way into my own classroom in
turn and I am grateful to my students for their insights on the David
story over the years as we have explored it together at Trinity.
I am also very appreciative of the feedback offered in recent
years by various scholarly audiences with whom I have shared
papers in preparation for this book. Some of the ideas on David and
Uriah which appear in Chapter 5 were aired at a meeting of the
Society for Old Testament Study held in Manchester in 2012, while
early thoughts on Abimelech were presented at the University of
Lausanne in 2016. My reading of 2 Sam 21:1‒14 (Chapter 8)
benefited from feedback offered at: the Society of Biblical
Literature’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston, Cambridge University’s
Divinity Faculty Senior Research Seminar in 2018 and, in that same
year, the Doktorandenkolloquium in the Faculty of Theology of
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Rather closer to home, my
treatment of 1 Sam 25 (Chapter 2) was refined with the help of
those who attended a symposium on forgiveness in the Hebrew
Bible at the Trinity Centre for Biblical Studies in Dublin. Finally, the
treatment of Absalom which now appears in Chapters 6 and 7 was
improved by comments and questions from those attending the joint
meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study, the
Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap and the Old Testament Society of
South Africa held at the University of Groningen in 2018 and from
members of the Divinity Faculty Research Seminars of the
Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, where I presented in October
of 2019.
That various colleagues around the world have been kind enough
to comment on drafts of chapters—and in some cases, the entire
manuscript—of this book, has been truly humbling. For this, I owe
debts of gratitude not easily repaid to Graeme Auld, Walter Dietrich,
Hugh Pyper, Rachelle Gilmour, David Firth, Jeremy Schipper, Keith
Bodner, George Nicol, Christine Mitchell, David Janzen, Stephen
Chapman, Steve Wiggins, and Mark Awabdy. Together they have
spared the reader a good number of deficiencies in what follows and
certainly bear no responsibility for those which remain. The same
must be said for Tom Perridge and the staff at OUP to whom I am
very grateful for their patience and their professionalism in seeing
this project through and affording me the scope to tackle it properly.
Finally, my greatest appreciation must be reserved for my dear
wife, Hilda, and my three wonderful daughters, Anna, Sophie, and
Sarah, not only for allowing this David to have spent so much time
writing about ‘that’ David, but also for ensuring that our family life is
thankfully much less fraught than his.
 Introduction

David: A Man of War and Blood(s)

When the prophet Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of
Jesse’s sons to be king, David is not only the last, but also seemingly
the least to appear. Even his own father summons David only
grudgingly, and apparently for good reason, because as he advises
Samuel, David is the youngest and a keeper of sheep (1 Sam
16:11). However, when King Saul requests that a musician be found
to soothe his troubled soul and his servants suggest David, the
reader soon discovers that the youngest son of Jesse is no ordinary
shepherd. Indeed, the servants insist that David is not only divinely
blessed, musically gifted, brave, and eloquent: he is also a ‘man of
war’ ( 1 Sam 16:18).
The son of Jesse’s willingness to go to war is confirmed in the
very next chapter, by the first words David utters in the books of
Samuel: ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and
removes the reproach from Israel?’ (1 Sam 17:26). When Saul goes
on to compare David’s mettle unfavourably to that of the seasoned
warrior Goliath, the young shepherd reports proudly what he would
do when a bear or lion had the temerity to turn on him after
relinquishing a stolen sheep. David would not merely take the
would-be predator by the hair and strike it; he would kill it for good
measure (v. 35). David’s victory over Goliath, however, is much more
than the killing of a beast. It is the triumph of youth over
experience, humility over arrogance, and little over large. But it is
also the triumph of sling over sword and the decisive blow in the
Israelite army’s routing of their Philistine rivals. It is thus hardly
surprising that David’s killing of Goliath has cemented his reputation
as a man of war. Indeed, this is underlined in the following chapter
(1 Sam 18), when the women irritate Saul by eulogizing David for
slaying ten times more Philistines than he has.
Yet if those in Saul’s orbit sing the young David’s praises in 1 Sam
16, by the time we reach 2 Sam 16, other Saulide voices may be
heard expressing a rather different view. Here, as the now much
older David retreats from Jerusalem to save his life and kingdom
from his son Absalom, he is met by Shimei, son of Gera and a man
of Saul’s tribe. Instead of celebrating David as a ‘man of war’, Shimei
curses him as a ‘man of bloods’ ( 2 Sam 16:8 and cf. 7).1 In
1–2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–2, this language of ‘blood(s)’, or ‘bloodguilt’
as it is often translated, is invariably associated with David and often
killings with which he is connected, including those of Saul,
Ishbosheth, and Abner. Because David seems to benefit from these
and other killings and seeks to dissociate himself from them, some
have suggested that the tradition intends to rebut historical
accusations of David’s responsibility for killing these men.2 Indeed,
the reporting of Shimei’s accusations strongly suggests that such
charges did circulate at some point and were perceived as
problematic for David. Some scholars go further, concluding that the
historical David was in fact guilty of the killings.3 Steven McKenzie,
for instance, argues that the historical David not only sanctioned
Abner’s death, but must be the prime suspect in Ishbosheth’s killing
and must also have encouraged the Philistines into the conflict which
claimed Saul’s life.4 In a similar vein, Baruch Halpern suggests that
David commissioned the assassination of Ishbosheth, killed Abner
(apparently himself) and was at least complicit in the killing of Saul
by the Philistines.5
It is of course theoretically possible that the books of Samuel, as
we now have them, have indeed omitted details of David’s actual
involvement in these and other killings which work to his favour.
However, such details are ultimately beyond literary analysis and
outside our concern here, because they belong to the necessarily
hypothetical histories reconstructed by McKenzie, Halpern, and
others, rather than the (also tendentious) history of David offered by
the books of Samuel and 1 Kings.6 Instead, the interest of the
present study is in how the story of David we do have in Samuel and
1 Kings is illuminated by attention to the shedding of innocent blood
and the problems it has presented as posing for David and others
within the narrative. But before explaining how earlier readers have
engaged with the David tradition vis-à-vis bloodguilt and related
issues, it is worth considering how and why we have arrived at a
place where we may speak of these traditions as constituting a
‘Story of David’ at all.

Reading the David Story/ies

The rich afterlife of the biblical David in Western culture undoubtedly
owes much to his associations with messianism and the Psalms, but
there can be little doubt that David’s later fame is also very much
due to the stories about him in the Hebrew Bible.7 Indeed, the tales
of David’s unlikely anointing, his defeat of Goliath, and his liaison
with Bathsheba have entranced readers over the centuries,
including, of course, biblical scholars. Those within this guild,
however, have also concerned themselves with stories of David
which are less well-known—indeed known only to those inducted
into the mysteries of biblical scholarship. In the case of David, these
mysteries produced for many years what might be described as a
scholarly ‘Tale of Two Stories’—a tale which can be told here only in
a very abridged and imperfect way.
Amongst his many contributions, Julius Wellhausen long ago
identified a story focused on David’s rise, the beginning of which is
obvious (David’s arrival in 1 Sam 16) and the end of which
Wellhausen found in 2 Sam 8.8 The similarity of some individual
stories to each other within this wider narrative and various
inconsistencies between—and intrusions within—them, persuaded
Wellhausen that here in the books of Samuel, as elsewhere in the
Hebrew Bible, various sources had been collected and edited to
produce the text as we now have it. Nevertheless, he argued that
when taken together, the passages from 1 Sam 15/16–2 Sam 8
represented a ‘First story/history of David’, recounting David’s rise
from shepherd in Bethlehem to king in Jerusalem at the expense of
Saul and his house.9 Wellhausen’s ‘Second story/history of David’ ran
from 2 Sam 9 to 1 Kgs 2 (excluding 2 Sam 21–24) and told the story
of David’s subsequent reign and Solomon’s installation.10 The artistry
and coherence of Wellhausen’s second story was increasingly
acknowledged following Leonhard Rost’s influential analysis of these
chapters as a ‘Succession Narrative’.11 Of course, some since have
seen this narrative as beginning rather earlier than 2 Sam 9 and
have rightly preferred the terminology of ‘Court History’ due to 2
Samuel’s initial lack of explicit interest in succession.12 However, the
discrete division of the traditions about David into ‘two stories’—one
account of his rise and another of his reign—enjoyed widespread
scholarly support (with honourable exceptions) throughout much of
the twentieth century.
The fact that scholarship on the David traditions as a whole did
not remain entirely a tale of two stories is due in large part to a
series of studies appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s which
explored the David narratives in new ways.13 Charles Conroy’s 1978
study of 2 Sam 13–20 as ‘story’ broke new ground by viewing these
chapters through the lens of plot, character, point of view, etc.14
However, in that same year, a very similar furrow was also ploughed
by David Gunn.15 Perhaps because of Conroy’s more technical focus
on language in the later sections of his work, but probably also
because of the greater scope and ambition of Gunn’s book, it was
the contribution of the latter which would prove more enduring.
Gunn’s title, The Story of King David, might have suggested to
some readers that he would begin with David established on the
throne in 2 Sam 9. Instead, he argued that 2 Sam 2 (beginning in
verses 8 or 12) through to chapter 4 offers a more satisfactory
beginning to the story of the reign of David which unfolds in 2
Samuel. In making his case, Gunn pointed out that David’s request
to show kindness to a Saulide at the beginning of chapter 9 seems
to presuppose the account of Ishbosheth’s death (and by extension
chapters 2‒4). Gunn then showed that the style of these chapters
has much in common with the much-vaunted style of Rost’s
‘Succession Narrative’. Finally, he joined his voice to those who had
already suggested that Rost’s theme of ‘succession’ failed to capture
the breadth of narrative interests in 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2, let
alone the expanded story of King David for which Gunn was arguing.
Thus, Gunn included in his story of King David not merely David’s
retention of the throne (at Absalom’s expense) and Solomon’s
accession to it (at Adonijah’s expense), but also now David’s
accession to the throne (at Ishbosheth’s expense; chs. 2‒4).
Moreover, Gunn argued that this larger story is not merely about
succession, but also the interplay and consequence of David’s and
others’ ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom, both for himself and
other individuals.16
While Gunn’s careful thematic analysis has been cited less often
than it deserves, his willingness to think in terms of a larger story of
David instead of a ‘Tale of Two Stories’ was to prove influential.
Gunn himself would go on to discuss the second half of 1 Samuel as
very much Saul’s story rather than David’s.17 However, The Story of
King David led others to consider whether the story of David might
not begin even earlier than Gunn had recognized and whether the
themes of a still wider story of David might differ from those which
Gunn himself had identified.18 This influence is visible already in
Walter Brueggeman’s slender and more accessible David’s Truth in
Israel’s Imagination and Memory (1985). This study is still explicitly
structured with reference to ‘the rise of David’ and the ‘Succession
Narrative’, but insists on reading them together as a single story of
David which includes and even goes beyond 1 Sam 16 to 1 Kgs 2.19
Brueggeman’s suggestion that this larger story illustrates David’s
capacity for ‘receiving and relinquishing with some graciousness’ is
itself an obvious illustration of Gunn’s influence, but also reflects
Brueggeman’s wider scope.20
 The extent to which scholarly interest in the larger story of David
and its themes burgeoned in the years which followed may be seen
in a series of studies which appeared before and after the turn of
the millennium. While K. L. Noll’s The Faces of David (1997) is
largely focused on the three poems in 2 Samuel (1:19‒27, 22, 23:1‒
17), he begins by discussing the themes and characterization of
David in the ‘prose story’ as a whole.21 Noll is critical of Shamai
Gelander’s earlier argument that the books of Samuel are primarily
about the capriciousness of God and David’s heroic domestication of
him. Indeed, as Noll notes, the textual evidence offered by Gelander
is slender and these books are much more about David than they
are about God.22 More appealing to Noll, however, is David
Damrosch’s passing suggestion that the David story’s ‘deepest
concerns are with issues of knowledge and understanding’.23 In
developing this to a greater extent than Damrosch does, Noll rightly
points out that the David stories are often less than forthcoming
regarding why things happen in the way they do and what
characters do and do not know.24 While this may to some extent
reflect the sort of narrative the books of Samuel offer (i.e. open-
ended, indeterminate),25 we will see that others too have discerned
the thematic significance of knowledge within the David story. At the
same time, Noll suggests elsewhere in his study that the chief
concern of the books of Samuel is ultimately that of divine election
and rejection, as captured in the question: ‘Why has Yahweh
rejected Saul and chosen David?’.26 While there can be little doubt
this question is explored in 1 Samuel and the opening chapters of 2
Samuel, in the remainder of 2 Samuel, such a question is clearly less
to the fore than those relating to Adonijah and especially Absalom.
Two years after Gunn’s study appeared, confirmation of this
growing willingness to explore the David traditions more holistically
may be seen in Robert Alter’s commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel,
advertised as The David Story, despite David’s absence from the first
half of 1 Samuel.27 Because Alter wishes to tell the story of David,
he exceeds the boundaries of Samuel in tracking his protagonist into
1 Kings, but his reasons for commenting on the often excised
appendix (2 Sam 21–24) are worth noting. He acknowledges that
these final chapters of 2 Samuel are ‘not of a piece’ in style or
perspective with the rest and may have come from elsewhere.
However, he also makes it clear that he comments on them not
merely because they are part of 2 Samuel, but because he is
persuaded of their coherence with the wider story of David. For Alter
too, this wider story of David revolves around ‘knowledge’. While
Saul seems to be consistently deprived of knowledge, David is
initially well-supplied with it, before eventually succumbing to the
fate of the ‘purblind Saul’.28
Still further, if slightly more oblique, evidence for the growing
appreciation of the wider David story in the books of Samuel and 1
Kings may be found in Steven McKenzie’s King David: A Biography
and in Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret Demons, which appeared
around the same time.29 Unlike some others, both Halpern and
McKenzie set out in search of the David of history and both conclude
that the latter is rather different from the David of Samuel and
Kings. Allowing for later additions (including Solomon’s succession by
the hand of the Deuteronomist), McKenzie divides the David
traditions in these books into two parts along the broadly
recognizable lines of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5:3) and his
reign (2 Sam 5:4–1 Kgs 2).30 However, while McKenzie exhumes a
more ‘historical’ and rather less attractive David by frequently
reading against the grain of the biblical traditions, he does largely
treat them as a whole. In doing so, McKenzie sees the tendency to
defend David in the history of David’s rise also reflected in the
account of David’s reign in the remainder of 2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–
2. This tendency McKenzie sees as complicated only slightly by the
later addition of the Bathsheba affair to explain Absalom’s rebellion
as a punishment.31 Halpern too understands the David traditions as
containing two stories. However, Halpern’s two stories are not those
of David’s rise and reign respectively, but rather two separate
accounts of David with differing perspectives (called simply A and B)
which have been woven together to produce the story of David as
we now find it. Nevertheless, like McKenzie, Halpern’s interest in
David’s story as a whole in Samuel and 1 Kings (in addition to his
own ‘Tale of Two Stories’) is made clear from his title and the
extended treatment of ‘David’s History in the Books of Samuel’ which
he offers at the outset of his study.32
The exploration of David’s story as a whole and in its ‘final form’
in Samuel and Kings has persisted even amongst those who are also
and perhaps more interested in the compositional history of the
David story.33 This may be seen in the still more recent work of two
other eminent David scholars, Walter Dietrich and John Van Seters.
Dietrich, one of the most prominent and prolific exponents of a
redaction critical approach to the traditions about David, believes
that what we have now in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings is the
result of a long process of collection, expansion, and revision of
sources beginning in the earliest period of the monarchy.34 Indeed,
Dietrich now sees a large collection of texts comprising a ‘narrative
opus’ as having existed prior to the work of the Deuteronomistic
editor. Running from the beginning of 1 Samuel to 1 Kgs 12,
Dietrich’s ‘maximal’ narrative collection includes the traditions of Saul
and Solomon, but it has at its heart the traditions about David. It is
worth noting, however, that in Dietrich’s view, this collection was
sufficiently complete and coherent already in its pre-exilic form to
allow for a ‘holistic appreciation of the present text, its poetic
structure and its content’—not least in relation to David.35 For
Dietrich, following the finishing touches of a pro-Davidic redactor,
the portrait of David as he rises to power is positively glowing and
only slightly tarnished as he reigns and is eventually succeeded.36
While Van Seters disavows the extensive and multiple redactional
layers detected by Dietrich, he does share Dietrich’s interest in how
the narratives about David came to be as we have them now.37 It is
clear that Van Seters also shares Rost’s enthusiasm for the unity and
artistry of what Van Seters would call the Court History. However,
Van Seters is happy to abandon the ‘History of David’s Rise’ in favour
of offering, as Halpern does, his own ‘Tale of Two Stories’ of David,
which he too labels, ‘Account A’ and ‘Account B’. Van Seters’ Account
A—part of an earlier and larger Deuteronomistic history—is basically
positive in its portrayal of David, coinciding in extent with
Wellhausen’s first story of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 8).
However, Van Seters’ earlier and happier portrait of David is much
slimmer than Wellhausen’s. This is because large parts of it (e.g. 1
Sam 17, 1 Sam 25, etc.) are seen by Van Seters as belonging instead
to his second story, Account B, which includes these and the Court
History (2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2) as part of the Deuteronomistic
story’s radical revision in the Persian period. Yet, if Van Seters’
presentation seems at first glance to perpetuate the ‘Tale of Two
Stories’ of David,38 he too is deeply concerned with the final form of
the story of David as a whole, which he christens the ‘David Saga’ on
analogy with later Icelandic texts. According to Van Seters, in the
hands of the Saga’s author, David’s character and family are heavily
tarnished in order to impress upon later readers how dangerous and
undesirable a revival of the Davidic kingdom would be in their own
time.39

What is the David Story About?

What becomes clear from this all-too-brief survey is that the story of
David as a whole has been increasingly the object of scholarly
investigation,40 even amongst those whose interests are also in the
stories of David they find within it or behind it. Yet, while we have
already seen that considerable effort has been invested in discerning
the themes of these subsidiary stories of David, with a few
exceptions, rather less progress seems to have been made in
answering the question: what is the story of David, as a whole,
about?
The most obvious answer to this question might seem to be that
the story is about ‘David’—whose entrance in 1 Samuel marks the
beginning of his story and whose exit in 1 Kings marks its end.
However, it is clear that ‘David’ is a much better answer to the
question ‘who is the story about?’ or perhaps even ‘who/what is the
subject of the story?’. To suggest instead that David’s story is about
David’s rise, reign, and succession might seem equally
unexceptionable. Yet, again, while this summary captures what the
story of David is about at the level of plot, it begs the question what
the story of David is really about at a deeper level? It is at this point
that we begin to grapple with the question of theme.41 Indeed, Rost
recognized as much when he famously argued that the Succession
Narrative’s ‘theme (thema) is the question (frage): “Who will sit on
David’s throne?”’.42 As we have seen, many since have been
persuaded that 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2 are about rather more
than merely succession and that this is even more true of the wider
story of David. However, most would acknowledge not only the value
of considering what lies behind or above the plot of this part of
David’s story, but also the theoretical possibility that succession is
one of the themes which does so.
That a story which is composed of multiple sources, as David’s
surely is, might have more than one theme, seems rather likely.
Indeed, this is recognized by David Clines in relation to the
Pentateuch, even if he insists that one theme must be primary and
others subsumed within it.43 This latter assumption is less evident in
Gunn’s treatment of David’s story, which also argues for an
overarching theme of the ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom,
without explicitly insisting on its priority or primacy.44 Indeed, it
seems probable that the story of David as a whole might be about a
variety of things at a thematic level, including, for instance,
‘relinquishing and receiving’ (Brueggeman’s variation on Gunn’s
theme), as well as ‘knowledge’ (so Noll and Alter). If so, it might be
useful to think of assertions of the priority of a particular theme as
answering not merely the question what is the story of David really
about, but rather which of a variety of themes is this story more
about?
Certainly, such a question makes some sense at the level of
character, as most would agree that the story of David is more about
David than it is about, for instance, Mephibosheth, or even more
significant characters like Absalom. So too at the level of plot, the
story of David as we find it in Samuel and 1 Kings seems to be more
about David’s struggle to rise, retain, and pass on the throne than it
is about, say, his playing of the lyre, of which we read only a bit, or
his shepherding of the flocks, about which we hear even less. So, it
does not seem unreasonable that a thematic analysis which
recognizes the possibility or probability of multiple themes, might still
ask: which one of these themes is the story of David more about?
And how might we determine this?45
In answer to these questions, it seems reasonable to suggest that
the more evidence of the theme which may be found in the
narrative, the more important it is likely to be.46 So too, the
importance of a theme might also be suggested by where it appears
—especially if it is referenced in prominent parts of the narrative and
at its close.47 Yet Clines is surely right to insist that the most
important theme is not merely the one that appears most frequently
or prominently, but also the one that ‘most adequately accounts for
the content, structure and development of the work’.48 Indeed, the
recognition of the importance of theme for a work’s narrative
development chimes with the recognition that a theme is concretized
through its representation in the action of a work, as well as in the
persons and images which populate it.49 We will see that the theme
of illegitimate bloodshed traced in the present study would seem to
be reflected in all of these. That being said, our exposition of it is
very much offered in the spirit of both Clines and Gunn’s themes—as
an invitation to readers to judge for themselves to what extent it
‘fits’ the story of David.50 Before explaining how this theme will be
traced here, it is important to note the ways in which this work
intersects with and builds upon previous studies related to it.

The David Story and Bloodguilt

Given how frequently the language of ‘blood(s)’ appears in the David
story, it is not surprising that it has attracted the attention of those
scholars, however few in number, who have concerned themselves
with ‘bloodguilt’ generally in the Hebrew Bible. The first serious and
specific study of the subject, by Edwin Merz in Germany during the
early years of the First World War, ranges widely across the canon,
but draws regularly upon traditions associated with David, including
many of those explored in the present study.51 No less than the
present one, Merz’s work was a product of its own time, confident
both in its Wellhausian understanding of the evolution of Israelite
religion and in the direct relevance of later Middle Eastern culture for
the interpretation of blood vengeance in the Hebrew Bible.52
Moreover, Merz’s desire to cover the breadth of the canon’s witness
to these traditions, when combined with the brevity of his book,
precluded the kind of detailed treatment which passages within the
David story will receive here.53 Nevertheless, Merz’s mining of the
traditions of bloodguilt associated with David, offers important ore
for the present work, even if, as will become clear, such ore may
need refining at various points.54
Further appreciation of passages from the David story for the
understanding of ‘bloodguilt’ in the Hebrew Bible is to be found in
Johannes Pedersen’s magisterial Israel: Its Life and Culture, the first
volume of which appeared only a few years after Merz’s work.55 In
his short treatment, Pedersen, like Merz, only turns to legal
traditions after beginning with narrative passages, including
especially 2 Sam 2–3 (Asahel, Abner, and Joab), 13–14 (the Tekoite
woman and Absalom), and 21 (the Gibeonite episode). While
Pedersen’s work as a whole consciously resists the Wellhausian
evolutionary understanding of Israelite religious thought and
practice,56 like Merz, he sees the witness to blood vengeance in
these narratives as reflecting earlier tribal traditions which are
eventually superseded by later legal provisions.57 Pedersen’s interest
in the psychological aspects of these narratives allows him to draw
useful insights (especially in relation to blood vengeance within the
family). But he deals with even fewer passages than Merz and, in
some cases, reverts to the kind of conventional readings which more
attention to the language of ‘blood(s)’ elsewhere in the David stories
might have allowed him to challenge.58
Finally, interest in the problem of bloodguilt in the David story
may be found more recently in Catherine Sider Hamilton’s study of
innocent blood in Matthew’s account of the death of Jesus.59 Sider
Hamilton rightly and helpfully situates innocent blood in Matthew
(e.g. 27:25) against the backdrop of interest in this notion in Second
Temple and Rabbinic literature. In doing so, she is inevitably drawn
back to texts and traditions of the Hebrew Bible concerned with
‘innocent blood’, including especially those associated with Cain and
Abel (Gen 4) and Zechariah (2 Chron 24:25).60 However, given
Matthew’s interest in Jesus as the son of David (e.g. 1:1, 1:9, 9:27,
etc.), it is not surprising that Sider Hamilton also considers passages
from 2 Samuel, including 2 Sam 11–12 and its account of David’s
shedding of Uriah’s innocent blood.61 Here again, while Sider
Hamilton’s thematic approach is helpful, her interest in Matthew
understandably prevents her from attending to the significance of
innocent blood in David’s story as a whole.

The David Story and Retribution

Interest in the language of ‘blood(s)’ in the stories about David and
his house also appears in discussions regarding retribution in the
Hebrew Bible—a debate prompted by Klaus Koch, whose work is
indebted at least in part to Pedersen.62 Responding to what he
perceived to be the misplaced assumption that ‘retribution’ in the
Hebrew Bible was inextricably theological and juridical, Koch
suggests rather that positive and negative consequences follow
naturally and largely mechanistically from human actions. Thus,
Koch notes that on many occasions when God is associated with
such consequences, it is simply to hasten or allow the completion of
the natural act-consequence nexus.63 In addition to buttressing his
argument heavily with passages from Proverbs, Koch also draws
upon Hosea 4:1–3. There the prophet sees ‘bloodguilt’ as leading to
the mourning of the land and the disappearance of the animals, but
without obviously implying God’s active intervention or
punishment.64 So too in Lamentations (4:13), Koch suggests that the
shedding of the ‘blood of the righteous’ seems sufficient in and of
itself to lead to the nation’s downfall, without requiring or even
implying divine involvement.65 Koch suggests further that in Ps 38:5
[ET 4] and 40:13 [ET 12], the power exerted by one’s sins is not
visited upon the sinner by God as a consequence, but simply weighs
‘upon a person’s own head’.
In responding to Koch, Henning Graf Reventlow’s interest in this
formulaic language leads him to the stories of David and Solomon.
He argues with some justification that Koch’s thesis is rather
undermined when Solomon steels Benaiah’s resolve to take Joab’s
life by reassuring him that ‘the LORD will bring back his blood upon
his head’ (1 Kgs 2:32). Indeed, Reventlow suggests that Yahweh’s
intimate involvement in ensuring that Joab’s bloodletting is revisited
upon him is supported by Shimei’s invocation of the LORD in cursing
David (2 Sam 16:8).66 Moreover, whether Solomon acts in his
capacity as king or as a private citizen, Reventlow maintains that the
context and language imply a procedure which is juridical and
punitive in nature and inextricably bound up with the demands of
the law/cult.67
With Reventlow’s response depending heavily on passages from
Samuel, Koch’s surrejoinder inevitably also turns to the stories of
David. In the case of Solomon in 1 Kgs 2, Koch is forced to admit
that the language of the LORD returning blood on one’s head does
require that the divine agent be understood as at least a ‘co-
executor’ (mitvollstrecker) in certain cases.68 Nevertheless, perhaps
predictably, Koch prefers to emphasize that the guilty party is
somehow haunted by their bloodshed in a manner which requires
little by way of active divine involvement or juridical process.69 This
he sees as proven by the case of Saulide bloodguilt (2 Sam 21),
David’s cursing of Joab (2 Sam 3:28–29), and by Solomon’s
insistence that the blood shed by Joab attaches itself to his belt and
shoes (1 Kgs 2:5).
Driven as they are by their prior interest in the wider
phenomenon of retribution, it is understandable that Koch and
Reventlow’s engagement with the language of ‘blood(s)’ in the David
story is even more limited than what was offered by Pedersen and
Merz.70 Nevertheless, their exchange in the middle of the twentieth
century underlines the importance of passages in the David story for
an appreciation of retribution generally and the notion of ‘bloodguilt’
within the Hebrew Bible.71 Indeed, their interrogation of these
passages and attempts to enlist them in defence of their own
contrasting views of retribution highlights the variegated and
complex nature of the evidence. But it also raises important
questions regarding the relationship between the language of
‘blood(s)’ and the divine in the David story—questions which,
amongst others, the present study will seek to explore.

The David Story and Homicide

Later on in the twentieth century, interest in what the language of
‘blood(s)’ in the David story might tell us about retribution gives way
to consideration of what it might reveal about the legalities of killing.
This shift is well-illustrated by Henry McKeating’s influential article on
the development of the homicide law in ancient Israel.72 For
McKeating, passages in the David stories illustrate an understanding
that the consequences of ‘blood(s)’ supernaturally attach themselves
to ‘persons and their families’.73 If this sounds rather like Koch,
McKeating’s analysis is in fact much more interested in the
increasingly juridical system of dealing with homicide. He
acknowledges the value of ‘supernatural’ sanctions for dealing with
illegitimate bloodshed in a largely clan-based system. But he also
argues that even in the David stories, such a system shows signs of
modification towards more formal mechanisms including especially
the involvement of the king.74 McKeating thus sees in the prohibition
of monetary compensation for murder, in Num 35:31, the same
awareness and superseding of an ‘older’ system found in the
Gibeonites’ demand for Saulide blood rather than payment in 2 Sam
21:4.75 Indeed, McKeating’s fresh analysis of 2 Sam 21:1–14 claims
to find evidence of a combination of both a judicial notion of
homicide and a sacral (and for him, Canaanite) notion of a bloodguilt
which pollutes the land.76 McKeating’s attention to the roles of God,
kin, and king in dealing with bloodguilt in the David stories is useful,
as is his acknowledgement of the complexity of the textual evidence.
This complexity also illustrates, however, the difficulties in sustaining
a neatly legible and linear evolutionary account of the development
of mechanisms for dealing with illegitimate killing even in the David
stories, let alone the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Moreover, while
McKeating’s analysis of Saulide ‘bloods’ and the Gibeonites in 2 Sam
21:1–14 is original, his failure to fully appreciate the relevance of
‘blood(s)’ language earlier in the David stories highlights both the
limitations of his treatment and the importance of attending to such
connections.77
In a more recent monograph on homicide in the Bible, Pamela
Barmash is less optimistic than McKeating about our ability to trace
the evolution of legal processes in these narratives.78 However, her
conviction that law and narrative may be mutually illuminating
encourages her to attend to the stories associated with David (1 Kgs
2 and 2 Sam 3, 11–12, and 21).79 For example, in discussing
Israelite use of the formulaic language of blood ‘(coming) upon the
head’ of either victim or perpetrator, she follows earlier scholars in
noting the variable contexts in which this language appears in the
David traditions (1 Kgs 2:33, 37; 2 Sam 1:16). Although Barmash’s
observations are frequently insightful, the scope of her project
understandably affords her few opportunities to scrutinize these in
any sustained way or to relate them to each other.80 Thus, while
Barmash’s treatment of 2 Sam 21 takes issue with McKeating’s
interpretation of this passage, her own might benefit from closer
attention to the relationship between this chapter and the
constellation of references to ‘blood(s)’ elsewhere in 1 Sam 18–1 Kgs
2.81 Similarly, Barmash’s reflection on the ‘indirectness’ of David’s
involvement in the killing of Uriah offers an important insight on
which the present study will build, even if the interpretation offered
here departs from hers in various ways.82
A still more recent contribution by Klaus-Peter Adam shares
Barmash’s interest in homicide in the David stories, but also
anticipates in some respects the approach to be adopted in the
present study. In a way which others have not, Adam helpfully
recognizes that an assessment of homicide in the David stories
depends on an appreciation of their literary character and their
relationship to each other within the wider narrative.83 Admittedly,
Adam’s initial cataloguing of episodes relating to homicide and
bloodguilt in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings is neither entirely
comprehensive84 nor fully appreciative of the importance of the
sequence in which they appear.85 However, his subsequent close
attention to homicide and bloodguilt in the sequence of 1 Sam 24–
26 suggests the value of such an approach. Indeed, in the present
study it will be extended beyond these chapters of 1 Samuel into the
remainder of 2 Samuel and the opening chapters of 1 Kings. Adam’s
greater sensitivity to the ‘situatedness’ of bloodguilt within the wider
narrative is very much to be welcomed. However, his primary
interest in the legalities (and legal traditions) of homicide still limits
his appreciation of the language of ‘blood(s)’ within some of the
episodes which he discusses. Thus, for example, while Exod 21:13–
14 is undoubtedly concerned with the question of premeditation in
cases of homicide, it is far from clear that this is the primary concern
of the account of Abner’s killing of Asahel in 2 Sam 2:18–24.86 This
is not to suggest that the legal traditions, properly understood, can
never shed light on narratives or vice-versa, but rather to underscore
the importance of first understanding the narratives in their own
right and in relation to each other.
 The David Story and Ritual Violence
A final but important reference point for the present study is the
recent interest in ritual violence in the Hebrew Bible in, for instance,
the work of Saul Olyan.87 A collection of essays edited by Olyan
seeks to appreciate more fully, the variety of violent rites within the
Hebrew Bible, what their settings suggest about their sociopolitical
function(s), and what theoretical models might be most useful in
assessing them.88 Given the prevalence of violence within the David
story, it is not surprising that passages from it feature prominently in
various contributions to this volume, including especially those of
Debra Scoggins Ballentine and Olyan himself. Scoggins Ballentine’s
analysis focuses on 2 Sam 4, in which, as we will see in the present
study, two brothers, Rechab and Baanah, kill Ishbosheth, Saul’s son,
in his bed. However, when they bring his severed head to David
expecting a reward, they are killed for their trouble on David’s
order.89 Viewing this narrative through the lens of social
anthropologists like David Riches, Scoggins Ballentine suggests that
while Ishbosheth’s head is not restored to his body, the proper burial
of it nevertheless serves a kind of restorative function. By contrast,
the sawing off of the brothers’ hands and feet and post-mortem
exposure of their remains represents an antithetical movement
which is viewed negatively by the culture reflected in 2 Samuel.90
Scoggins Ballentine argues that this contrast reflects the narrator’s
other efforts to frame the brothers’ killing of Saul’s son as illegitimate
and David’s killing of them for it as just, codifying it as a ‘legal and
punitive act’.91 While more will be said about this passage in Chapter
4, Scoggins Ballentine helpfully attends to how the violent treatment
of the physical body in a particular passage may be freighted with
significance and how it must be assessed in light of other
comparable passages.92 She also rightly draws attention to questions
of legitimation in relation to violence and the efforts of the wider
narrative to defend David.
 In his own essay in the same volume, Olyan also attends to the
social significance of ritual violence, considering the range of
possible purposes served by the severing of Saul’s head from his
body (1 Sam 31). These purposes include offering incontrovertible
proof of death, shaming those who were unable to prevent this
treatment, and potentially terrorizing defeated populations.93 Olyan
also notes that the latter two of these might also be fulfilled by the
display of the decapitated Saulide bodies on the wall of Beth-shan,
especially if they had been left naked.94 The present study will
suggest that it is probably the severed hands and feet (perhaps in
addition to the corpses) which are exposed in 2 Sam 4. However,
Olyan rightly notes that David’s earlier praise of the Jabesh
Gileadites for properly burying Saul’s decapitated corpse (2 Sam
2:4–7) confirms the sociopolitical function of David’s burial of
Ishbosheth’s head (2 Sam 4:12) in creating a new connection to the
family of Saul.95 In a subsequent monograph, Olyan turns to 1 Sam
22:12–19.96 Here, he notes that Doeg the Edomite first heeds Saul’s
command to execute the priests of Nob and then exceeds it under
the guise of a massacre similar in many respects to the mass-
eradication ritual of herem.97 For Olyan, Saul’s own servants’
unwillingness to slay the priests (22:17) allows this rite to confirm
the Edomite foreigner’s vassalage to Saul in a time of contested
allegiances. Olyan also rightly highlights that these killings and more
explicit cases of herem (1 Sam 15) are differentiated from human
sacrifices by their presentation as ‘punitive’.98 However, the very fact
that they are nonetheless coded in both quasi-sacrificial and punitive
terms encourages an attentiveness to the complexity of the violence
associated with the problem of ‘blood(s)’ in David’s story. Finally,
Olyan’s reflection on Shimei’s cursing of David (2 Sam 16) as a
species of ritual violence is salutary, given the prominence of curses
in responding to the problem of ‘blood(s)’ in the story of David.
Olyan’s topical approach to ritual violence understandably precludes
his attention to the range of narratives which are the focus of the
present study, but the fact that he touches regularly upon episodes
from David’s story highights the relevance of Olyan’s project for the
present one.
From the above, it seems clear that scholarly interest in the
language of ‘blood(s)’ in David’s story has sought to shed light on
notions of bloodguilt, retribution, homicide, and ritual violence within
the Hebrew Bible more generally. While such contributions have
been helpful, the present study seeks instead to consider how the
language of ‘blood(s)’ sheds light on the David story as we find it in
the books of Samuel and 1 Kings and vice-versa.

The Approach and Outline of the Book

Before proceeding, it is worth acknowledging the limitations of the
language typically deployed to translate the Hebrew terms in which
we are particularly interested in this study. For example, nowhere in
the David story do we find a Hebrew word or phrase literally
equivalent to German ‘blutschuld’ or English ‘bloodguilt’. Indeed, the
latter terms appear to have been introduced into these languages by
Luther and Coverdale (‘bloudegyltynesse’) respectively, as
equivalents for the Hebrew plural ‫‘ דמים‬bloods’ from which the
Psalmist pleads for deliverance in Ps 51:16 [ET 14].99 Psalm 51’s
association of the Hebrew plural ‘bloods’ with David is not surprising
given how frequently it appears in the story of David. However, its
association with ‘guilt’ still requires an inference.100 Indeed, as we
will see, at many points in the story of David, it is far from clear that
‘blood(s)’ does not instead imply something rather more concrete
than the kind of abstraction suggested by ‘guilt’.101 Moreover, the
early and explicit referencing of ‘innocent blood’ ( 1 Sam 19:5)
in the David story will raise the possibility that ‘bloods’ (‫ )דמים‬may
well be better construed as ‘innocent’ at certain points. For this
reason, the singular ‫ דם‬will be typically translated here as ‘blood’
and the plural ‫ דמים‬as ‘bloods’, rather than ‘bloodguilt’. At the same
time, we will also be attentive to the interplay of these and other
terms in shaping the reader’s understanding of what has often been
described as ‘bloodguilt’. Finally, while reference will be made to the
many fine English translations available, in order to make the
interpretation offered here as clear as possible to the reader, fresh
English translations of the texts have been included.102
Predictably, this study will devote considerable attention to the
language of ‘blood(s)’ which punctuates the story of David in the
latter chapters of 1 Samuel (19:5, 25:26, 31, 33) and at many points
in 2 Samuel (1:16, 3:27–28, 4:11, 14:11, 16:7–8, 21:1) and 1 Kings
(2:5, 9, 31, 32, 33, 37). However, just as punctuation directs one’s
attention to the text it punctuates, so too the appearance of the
language of ‘blood(s)’ requires that we attend to the narrative
context of these passages, both immediate and less proximate. So,
for example, in considering the story of Abigail, Nabal, and David (1
Sam 25), attention to David’s sparing of Saul (1 Sam 24 and 26) is
clearly essential to fully appreciate this episode’s contribution to the
wider account of David and the problem of unwarranted
bloodshed.103 Similarly, while the language of ‘blood(s)’ is invoked by
David against Joab after he kills Abner (2 Sam 3), David’s curse
there can only be understood properly when Abner’s killing of Asahel
in the preceding chapter is considered. Likewise, Shimei’s accusation
that David has Saulide ‘bloods’ on his hands (2 Sam 16) invites
attention to Shimei’s later plea for clemency from the king (2 Sam
19:17–24 [ET 16–23]) and Shimei’s eventual elimination in 1 Kgs 2.
So too, David’s insistence on Joab’s execution (1 Kgs 2:5–6), for
killing not only Abner but Amasa, will oblige us to attend to the
latter’s death at the hands of David’s general (2 Sam 20:8–12).
Finally, the absence of the language of ‘bloods’ in the story of
David’s killing of Uriah (2 Sam 11–12) might indicate that it should
be excluded from consideration. However, the very conspicuousness
of its absence suggests quite the opposite, in light of various other
telling features.
While a surprising amount of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 Kings 1–2 will
turn out to be relevant in tracing the problem of unwarranted
bloodshed in David’s story, the present study makes no pretence of
offering a commentary on all aspects of the text. While many such
commentaries have helpfully noticed the problem of ‘bloodguilt’,104
the usual division of labour means that few commentators have both
1 and 2 Samuel within their purview. Moreover, even fewer
commentators include 1 Kgs 1–2, and none have the luxury of
tracing a single theme as will be done here.105
Perhaps because the Hebrew text of Samuel is often fraught with
difficulties, there has been much fine work done recently on the
Greek version in particular.106 For this reason, the present study will
attend especially to the Greek and the Qumran witnesses to the
Hebrew text(s) of Samuel, where these versions seem to point
towards a more original text than the one offered by the Hebrew of
the so-called Masoretic Text (hereafter MT).107 Indeed, such
attention will suggest the need for a separate and fuller study than
may be attempted here of how our theme is treated in the versions.
In considering ‘blood(s)’ in the story of David, a variety of
questions will be considered: First, whose blood is seen to be
‘innocent’ and in what sense? Who encourages the shedding of this
blood and who discourages it? By whom is blood shed without
warrant and with whose assistance? In what way is ‘bloods’
problematic and for whom? Is unwarranted bloodshed presented as
impious, imprudent, polluting, or problematic in some other way?
Another set of questions relate to consequences: What if any
consequences follow from unwarranted bloodshed? By whom are
these consequences feared or by whom are they to be endured?
What is done to avoid these consequences? A third group of
questions relate to potential remedies: Once unwarranted blood is
shed, what does the narrative suggest may be done to fix the
problem? Who, if anyone, does or doesn’t attempt to solve the
problem? Finally, how do the answers to the above questions remain
the same or change as the reader moves through the narrative?
In seeking to answer these questions, Chapters 1–4 of this book
argue that David’s rise at Saul’s expense is predicated on his ability
to avoid the problem of unwarranted bloodshed. David avoids this
problem first by successfully resisting the temptation to shed blood
without sufficient cause in the case of Saul (1 Sam 24, 26) and
Nabal (1 Sam 25). David then executes an Amalekite, as well as
Rechab and Baanah, all of whom he adjudges to have yielded to this
temptation. However, when David fails to execute his nephew Joab
for shedding Abner’s blood without sufficient cause, both David and
the reader are invited to fear that Abner’s ‘blood(s)’ will haunt David
and his house.
Chapter 5 suggests that David’s fear of adding to this problem
prompts him to directly and illegitimately contrive to take Uriah’s life
by means of warfare with the Ammonites. In doing so, David
manages to avoid ‘blood(s)’ and escape with his life, but he cannot
elude the divine judgement which portends immediate and eternal
consequences for David and his house. In Chapter 6, it is argued
that these consequences begin to follow immediately when David’s
son Absalom incurs ‘blood(s)’. Absalom kills Amnon without sufficient
cause and flees to avoid the execution which David sees as required
to prevent these ‘blood(s)’ too from haunting David’s house. David is
finally persuaded by Joab to leave the remedy of Amnon’s ‘blood(s)’
to divine vengeance, as David has already done in the case of
Abner’s blood. However, Chapter 7 argues that the ‘sword’ of armed
violence promised in 2 Sam 12 afflicts David’s house in earnest when
Absalom goes to war against his father. It will be suggested that
Joab’s killing of Absalom solves the problem of Amnon’s ‘bloods’ for
David. Nevertheless, David’s encounters with Shimei are a reminder
of the problem of Saulide ‘blood(s)’ posed by the tendency of
Zeruiah’s sons to kill without sufficient cause—a point further
illustrated by Joab’s slaying of Amasa in cold blood.
In Chapter 8, we see the seriousness of the threat posed to David
and his house by such killings. Unremedied ‘bloods’ incurred by
Saul’s earlier illegitimate slaying of Gibeonites leads to the
devastation of David’s land and eventually to the death of seven
descendants of Saul in order to remedy the problem. Here, we see
that Rizpah’s subversion of David’s effort to expiate the Gibeonite
‘bloods’ leads David to repatriate the bones of Saul and Jonathan as
a suitable substitute and to demonstrate his own concern for
Saulides. Chapter 9 argues that David seeks to address the problem
of innocent blood at his succession by ordering Solomon to both
eliminate ‘blood(s)’ in executing Joab and avoid them in eliminating
Shimei. Solomon duly obliges in the hope that solving the problem of
David’s ‘blood(s)’ and avoiding incurring ‘blood(s)’ of his own will
ensure peace forever for his kingdom.
In the final chapter, some concluding reflections are offered on
the problem of innocent blood in David’s story. Here, the nature and
importance of the problem within the story as a whole are
considered, along with the question of why it might be so prominent.

King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt. David J. Shepherd, Oxford University
Press. © David J. Shepherd 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842200.003.0001

1 In 1 Chron 22:8 and 28:3, David reports that the divine refusal of permission
for him to build the temple relates to the divine judgement that he is both a man
of war(s) and a man of ‘bloods’. While Chronicles contains ample evidence of the
former, it shows little awareness of the latter, unlike the traditions of David as we
find in them in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings 1–2.
2 This view became more popular in German scholarship thanks to Weiser, ‘
Legitimation’, 326–7, 332–3; and Grønbæk, Aufstieg Davids, 19–20, 29, 72; and, in
the English-speaking world, following an influential article by McCarter, ‘The
Apology of David’, 502, in which he surmises that some or all of these accusations
must have been actually levelled at David during his lifetime.
3 While McCarter, ‘The Apology of David’, 502, n. 24, stops short of accusing
the historical David of active involvement, some of those persuaded by his
argument are more confident of the historical David’s direct involvement.
4 McKenzie, King David, 113–26.
5 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 78–84, argues that the historical David was
almost certainly culpable for other deaths (including those of Amnon and Absalom)
of which the narrative seeks to exonerate him, but innocent of the killing of Uriah
—the one death for which David is explicitly found responsible in the tradition.
6 Though Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 283–4, might prefer ‘fictitious’ to
‘tendentious’, he makes something like this same point in responding to Halpern’s
work. Yet even Van Seters admits that by the time Shimei accuses the fictional
David of being a ‘man of blood(s)’ (2 Sam 16), the writer of the ‘David Saga’ has
already offered ample grounds for suspecting, if not convicting, this fictional David
of Saulide homicide.
 7 For a survey of David’s ‘afterlife’, see Frontain and Wojcik, The David Myth.
For a more recent and much more specific example of David’s reception, see
Shepherd and Johnson, David Fragments.
8 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247–55. Wellhausen sees 1 Sam 15 with the
first thirteen verses of ch. 16 as one of two parallel introductions of David. For a
recent treatment of the ‘History of David’s Rise’ and various scholarly positions in
relation to it, see Yoon, So-Called History of David’s Rise. For a survey of earlier
work, see Dietrich and Naumann, Die Samuelbücher, 47–86.
9 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247.
10 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 255–60.
11 Rost, Die Überlieferung; and, in English, The Succession.
12 Flanagan, ‘Court History or Succession Document?’. For recent surveys of
scholarship and bibliography on 2 Sam 9–20, 1 Kgs 1–2, see Dietrich, The Early
Monarchy, 228–40; and Hutton, Palimpsest, 176–227.
13 For an analytical digest of such voices from this period, see Conroy,
Absalom, 2.
14 Conroy, Absalom.
15 Gunn, Story of King David.
16 Gunn, Story of King David, 87–111. Gunn acknowledges his debt to others in
developing this interpretation, including especially Brueggeman’s studies earlier in
that same decade. Gros Louis, ‘The Difficulty of Ruling Well’, applies the
public/private distinction developed by Gunn in his earlier article, ‘David and the
Gift of the Kingdom’, out of which Gunn’s interpretation discussed here was
developed.
17 Gunn, Fate of King Saul.
18 See Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’, for an early attempt to read all of 1
Sam 9–1 Kgs 2 through the ‘apologetic’ lens suggested by McCarter. Such a
reading struggles to account for David’s killing of Uriah and his taking of
Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12, in which any pretence of a defence of David seems to
be well and truly abandoned.
19 Brueggemann, David’s Truth, 113–15. In addition to ‘The Trustful Truth of
the Tribe: 1 Sam 16:1–2 Sam 5:5’ and ‘The Painful Truth of the Man: 2 Sam 9–20
and 1 Kings 1–2’, Brueggeman’s story of David includes ‘The Sure Truth of the
State: 2 Sam 5:6–8:18’ and ‘The Hopeful Truth of the Assembly: Pss 89; 132; Lam
3:21–7; Isa 55:3; 1 Chron 10–29’.
20 Brueggeman, David’s Truth, 113–15.
21 Noll, Faces of David, 40–75.
22 Noll, Faces of David, 49. Gelander, David and His God, is focused almost
entirely on 2 Sam 5–7 and 24—rather slender scaffolding to support interpretive
claims regarding the David story as a whole.
23 Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant, 259. While this thematic judgement
appears at the end of Damrosch’s discussion of the composition and themes of the
David stories, it is not obviously supported by the analysis it concludes, which
instead elucidates a variety of more minor themes within the stories of David’s rise
and reign respectively.
24 For the question of how much or little Uriah knows in 2 Sam 11, see
Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. For my own modest effort to illustrate
something similar in relation to Saul’s general, see Shepherd, ‘Knowing Abner’.
25 Indeed, Noll, Faces of David, 44, n. 19, seems to admit as much himself by
referencing ‘open-ended narration’ and ‘indeterminate literature’.
26 Noll, Faces of David, 44. The title of a recent treatment of 1 Sam 16–2 Sam
5 rather proves the point: Short, The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King
David. For a slightly idiosyncratic treatment of the David story which also considers
the David-Saul election question to be central to the narrative, see Flanagan,
David’s Social Drama, 241 and 270ff., who sees the struggle mediated by the
image of the ‘house’. Borgman, David, Saul and God, 211–19, reads David’s
insistence on his own innocence (22:24) within the so-called Samuel appendix
(chs. 21–24) as a clue that God chooses David over Saul, not because David never
sins, but because he readily recognizes his sin and repents of it before even being
confronted with it (ch. 24). While the including of chs. 21–24 within the story of
David is to be welcomed, Borgman’s treatment of these chapters, rather than 1
Kgs 1–2, as the ‘conclusion’ to the David story feels rather too convenient for his
thesis.
27 Alter, The David Story. For more recent commentators who also see the
books of Samuel as primarily about David, see Auld, I & II Samuel, 1–2; and
Green, David’s Capacity for Compassion. By contrast, Firth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 43–5,
suggests that the books of Samuel are more about monarchy than merely David.
28 Alter, The David Story, xix–xxi. While Alter views biblical scholars’ framing of
why David’s story was written and what interests it served as reductionist, he does
suggest that prior to the Deuteronomistic editors getting their hands on it, the
story of David was simply written to provide a reliable account of the founding of
the kingdom.
29 See also Baden, The Historical David, for a treatment which echoes the
approach of McKenzie; and see Wright, David, King of Israel, for the unexpected
use of the notion of ‘war memorial’ as a means of making sense of the biblical
(and historical) David along with Caleb, whose paths in the Hebrew Bible both
pass through Hebron.
30 McKenzie, King David, 25–46.
31 See also Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’ (and n. 18 above).
 32 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 14–53.
33 In addition to the theories of Dietrich and Van Seters, see e.g. Auld, I & II
Kings, 9–14, for a concise summary of his alternative theory of the present text’s
origins and development—a theory reflected in the commentary as a whole and
worked out more fully in Auld, Kings without Privilege.
34 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 262–316, sets out his basic understanding of
the sources and their redaction and his assessment of their characterization of
Israel, God, and David.
35 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 27.
36 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 309–14.
37 Van Seters, Biblical Saga. For a good illustration of helpful work on the
compositional history of the David traditions, see the essays in Bezzel and Kratz,
David in the Desert.
38 See Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 361–3, for a convenient summary of the
contents of his Account A (Dtr History of David) and Account B (added to A by its
author who was finally responsible for the Saga). While Van Seters’ two tales no
longer simply follow each other like the ‘History of David’s Rise’ and the ‘Court
History/Succession Narrative’ do, he still offers a tale of two stories of David—one
positive and negative—now not divided primarily by sequences of events (rise and
reign), but by their ideological (for and against) and historical (earlier and later)
perspectives on David.
39 Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 345–60.
40 For a more recent example of the interest in the ‘David narrative’, see
Fleming, ‘Casting Aspersions’.
41 Theoretical discussions of ‘theme’ are few and far between in biblical studies.
For exceptions to the rule, see Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 19–26; and
Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 42–7. For a theoretical discussion of theme in terms
of ‘aboutness’, see Prince, Narrative as Theme, 1–5.
42 Rost, The Succession, 89. For a helpful summary of demurrals and the range
of alternative suggestions of the theme of these chapters up to the late seventies,
see Gunn, Story of King David, 135, n. 46; and more recently, Hill, ‘“Leaving”
Concubines’, 136–7, n. 38.
43 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 22–3.
44 Gunn, Story of King David, 136, n. 55, explicitly follows Rost in equating
‘theme’ with the idea of ‘aboutness’. As we have seen, Noll, Faces of David,
articulates the theme of ‘knowledge and understanding’ in a form akin to Gunn,
but also seems to see a central question (‘Why has Yahweh rejected Saul and
chosen David?’) as thematic.
45 So Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5.
 46 Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5, refers to ‘redundancy’, Mettinger,
The Eden Narrative, 46, to ‘recurrence of manifestation’ (see also Prince, Narrative
as Theme, 6).
47 With reference to the latter, Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5,
speaks of ‘closure’ (see also Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 46).
48 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 20. Clines makes clear that by
‘development’ he does not mean the ‘growth’ of the text as posited by
historical/redaction critics.
49 Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature, 508.
50 Gunn, Story of King David, 88, explains the process in terms of a reader
testing the theory (or theme) by ‘“trying it on for size” in his or her reading’.
Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 23, speaks of a process of ‘trial and error’
and examining ‘likely candidates’. Some earlier suggestions of themes are based
on only part of David’s story (e.g. Rost, Gunn, and even Morrison, 2 Samuel, 5–9,
whose otherwise appealing theme of divine deliverance seems not to include the
end of David’s story in 1 Kings). Themes identified by others (e.g. Damrosch, Alter,
Brueggeman) would benefit from fuller and more detailed demonstration, while
still others (Green, David’s Capacity) seem less persuasive to this reader (see
Shepherd, ‘Review’; and Morrison, ‘Review’).
51 Merz, Die Blutrache, discusses passages in the following chapters associated
with David in connection with bloodguilt/blood vengeance: 1 Sam 25, 31; 2 Sam 3,
4, 12, 13, 16, 18, 21; 1 Kgs 1, 2.
52 Merz, Die Blutrache, 3, cites, for instance: Eickhoff, Über die Blutrache; and
Procksch, Über die Blutrache, drawing heavily on the latter for comparison and on
Wellhausen’s understanding of the history of Israelite religion.
53 In the space of a mere 137 pages, Merz covers not only various passages
drawn from the books of the Former Prophets (especially, Judges and 1 and 2
Samuel), but also material from the legal corpora including Exodus, but especially
Numbers and Deuteronomy.
54 So, for instance, while the present study will have the luxury of a far more
detailed analysis of 2 Sam 21:1–14, Merz, Die Blutrache, 82, suggests that the
sparing of Rizpah from blood vengeance hints that the question of vulnerability to
blood vengeance here (and elsewhere) is gendered. See also from around this
time, Buttenwieser, ‘Blood Revenge’, whose comparison of Greek and Hebrew
traditions regarding bloodguilt and discussions of 2 Sam 21 and Job 16:18 are
rather compromised by source critical assumptions regarding the biblical traditions
and too great a dependence on later Arab traditions. For more on 2 Sam 21, see
below, Chapter 8.
55 Published in Danish as Israel: Sjæleliv og samfundsliv, vols. I–II by Branner
in 1920, and then in English in 1926 by Oxford University Press.
 56 See, for instance, James Strange’s introduction (pp. vi–vii) to the reprint of
Pedersen’s work published by Scholars Press in 1991.
57 Pedersen, Israel, 397–400. The development proposed by Pedersen is,
indeed, at least as vulnerable to critique as that associated with Graf and
Wellhausen.
58 Thus, Pedersen, Israel, 409, reverts to the assumption that David’s
rehabilitation of Absalom represents the kind of wisdom which will be bestowed
upon Solomon. For our discussion, see Chapter 6 below.
59 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus.
60 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus, 45–180.
61 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus, 197–200 and 22 (Ps 51). See also 10–
11 (2 Sam 1:16 and 3:28–29) and 60 (2 Sam 21).
62 See Koch, ‘Vergeltungsdogma’, and, in English, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 77,
for his dependence on Pedersen.
63 Koch, ‘Vergeltungsdogma’.
64 Koch, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 67.
65 Koch, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 70.
66 Reventlow, ‘Sein Blut’, 323.
67 Reventlow, ‘Sein Blut’, 320.
68 Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 414.
69 Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 405–8.
70 In responding to Reventlow, Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 410–11, does eventually
draw upon the earlier work of Merz, though it offers little help to him in
responding to the critique of Reventlow.
71 See Gilmour, Divine Violence, 27, n. 17, for a recent summary of subsequent
discussion; and also Shemesh, ‘Measure for Measure’, who refers to passages in
which ‘blood(s)’ language features in order to illustrate the pervasiveness of the
retributive principle in human and divine actions in David’s story.
72 McKeating, ‘Homicide’.
73 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 59, who shows no awareness here of the work of
either Koch or Reventlow.
74 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 52.
75 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 55.
76 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 59–62. It is this combination which he identifies and
attempts to disentangle in the legal provisions found in Deut 19:10 and 21:1–9.
77 While reaching rather different conclusions on various points, the recent
treatment of homicide in Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 121–70, bears some
resemblance to McKeating’s in seeking to correlate particular narratives associated
with David (amongst others) with an evolution of the legal regulation of homicide
(which Jackson finds in the history of Exod 21–2). As will become clear, I am less
optimistic than Jackson about the extent to which these narratives and the legal
material are mutually illuminating. Jackson wisely acknowledges (155–7) that
ambiguities remain in David’s reluctance to intervene in the case of the woman of
Tekoa (2 Sam 14), his proposed resolution of the case, and the question of
whether David may pardon or merely protect the woman’s remaining son. Such
ambiguities offer encouragement to situate this passage and others within the
wider narrative’s interest in bloodguilt—a strategy which will in turn leave us better
positioned to answer some of these questions.
78 While Barmash, Homicide, 71–93, does acknowledge some evolution in the
movement from sanctuary asylum to cities of refuge, her analysis of the legal
sources of the Pentateuch on the subject convinces her that such change is
‘glacial’ and that the differences between them largely reflect distinctive ideological
and theological programmes and emphases (93).
79 A conviction reflected also in Barmash, ‘The Narrative Quandary’.
80 Barmash, Homicide, 34, suggests that David’s killing of Ishbosheth’s killers
(2 Sam 4:5–12) and much delayed orchestration of Joab’s execution illustrate the
rarity of royal intervention in the administering of justice even within his own
court. We will see that this is generally true within the story of David even if the
evidence is more complex and extends well beyond these two examples.
81 See below, Chapter 8.
82 See below, Chapter 5.
83 Adam, ‘Law and Narrative’, 315.
84 2 Sam 21 is passed over perhaps because it is considered part of the
appendix.
85 Adam, ‘Law and Narrative’, 315–16, lists passages in sequence from 2 Sam
2, 3, 15, 20 and 1 Kgs 2 as examples of the ‘shaping of characters within the
framework of a legal discussion about homicide’ but then brackets out 2 Sam
1:13–16, 4:6, 8b–12a, and 1 Kgs 2:5–6, 28–35, as having specifically to do with
David avenging bloodguilt on behalf of Saul or his son, and also relegates the
mention of 2 Sam 11–12 and 14 to a subsequent footnote.
86 See Chapter 4 below.
87 Olyan, Biblical Mourning.
88 Olyan, Ritual Violence.
89 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’.
90 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 19.
91 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 20.
92 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 13–16.
 93 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’.
94 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’, 128.
95 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’, 127. That such a connection is new does
not preclude the possibility that it is additional to ones which already bind David to
the house of Saul (i.e. marriage as well as David’s covenant with Jonathan).
96 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible.
97 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible, 96–7.
98 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible, 34–5.
99 Indeed, as Bartor, ‘Bloodguilt, Bloodfeud’, 64, acknowledges, such a term is
not to be found in the Hebrew Bible at all.
100 So Kedar-Kopfstein, ‘236 ,’‫ָד ם‬, who cites Ezek 22:2 (‘city of bloods’) and 2
Sam 21:1 (‘house of bloods’), the latter of which will be discussed below. While
Kedar-Kopfstein notes that the plural is never used with reference to the blood of
animals, the singular (Lev 17:4) is used to refer to the bloodguilt which seems to
be imputed to a person who kills a sacrificial animal, but does not bring the animal
as a gift to the LORD before the tabernacle. On this passage, see Gilders, Blood
Ritual, 165.
101 For a thorough analysis of the plural and singular forms of ‫ דם‬and a
recognition of the variety of their uses, see Christ, Blutvergiessen.
102 Verses are numbered according to the Hebrew text with English versification
[ET] included where it differs.
103 See below, Chapter 2.
104 We will see that virtually all commentators recognize the relevance of
bloodguilt to the David story at particular points. However, some have also noted
in passing its recurrence and significance within parts of 2 Samuel (e.g. Morrison,
2 Samuel, 278) and indeed the David narratives as a whole (see e.g. Nicol, ‘Death
of Joab’, 136, n. 6; Alter, The David Story, xiv). The intuition of Dietrich, Samuel,
vol. 2, 474, that bloodguilt is ‘a significant theme [ein grosses Thema] in the books
of Samuel’ is corroborated by the present study.
105 Nevertheless, the fullness of the references to the commentaries and studies
in the footnotes is intended to allow the reader to feel the weight of scholarly
opinion at various points.
106 In this study, LXX will be used to refer to the Greek version, with MS

traditions specified as follows: LXXA = Alexandrinus, LXXB = Vaticanus, LXXM =

Coislinianus, LXXN = Basiliano-Vaticanus, LXXL = Lucianic text.
107 For useful and recent state of the art summaries and bibliographies on LXX
and its traditions in 1–3 Kingdoms, see e.g. Hugo, ‘1–2 Kingdoms (1–2 Samuel)’;
and Law, ‘3–4 Kingdoms (1–2 Kings)’. For commentaries particularly attentive to
the Greek text(s) of Samuel and the Qumran witnesses (1QSam 1, 4QSama–c),
see McCarter, I Samuel; idem, II Samuel; and, more recently Auld, I & II Samuel;
for the Greek texts in 1 Kings, see Montgomery, Kings; and more recently
Sweeney, I & II Kings.
 1
‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22

It will eventually become clear that 1 Sam 24–26 and the opening
chapters of 2 Samuel (1–4) are very much animated by the
narrative’s interest in David and issues of illegitimate bloodshed. This
chapter, however, will consider the emergence of David in the court
of Saul and the king’s mounting efforts to eliminate him. We will see
that when Jonathan confronts his father over his desire to kill David,
the mention of ‘innocent blood’ (1 Sam 19:5) offers an important
hint regarding the narrative to come. Indeed, it will become clear
why David’s later efforts to avoid ‘blood(s)’ cannot be understood
without first attending to Saul’s pursuit of David and the execution of
the priests of Nob.

The Sparing of David

The suggestion that David and Saul have been set on an inevitable
collision course by Samuel and the LORD becomes clear at the end
of 1 Sam 15:
35And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day he died, but Samuel
mourned Saul. And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over
Israel. 16 1The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn Saul, now
that I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I
will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have chosen for myself a king
 from among his sons.’ 2But Samuel said, ‘How can I go? If Saul hears of it,
he will kill me.’ And the LORD said, ‘Take a heifer with you and say, “I have
come to sacrifice to the LORD.”’
(1 Sam 15:35–16:2)

Here, in the space of three short verses, the narrative confirms for
the reader both the divine rejection of Saul as king (cf. 1 Sam 13:14)
and Saul’s replacement on the throne by one of the sons of Jesse.
The foreshadowing of the end of Saul (v. 35) and the mention of
Samuel’s grief (vv. 35, 16:1)1 hints that Saul is, for the purposes of
the monarchy at least, ‘dead’ to Samuel. However, Samuel’s
reticence to proceed to Bethlehem without reassurance confirms the
perception of both Samuel and the reader that Saul might be willing
to exert lethal force to prevent the anointing of his successor.
Whether the divine response and instructions which follow (v. 2)
acknowledge or ignore Samuel’s concern, the reader is presumably
invited to assume that Samuel’s anointing of David (1 Sam 16:13)
remains unknown, at least to Saul. After all, when the already
anointed David is subsequently summoned to court to play for the
king to alleviate the effects of a ‘harmful spirit’ (1 Sam 16:14, 15,
16),2 Saul is reported as ‘loving David greatly’ (1 Sam 16:21).3
Indeed, instead of killing David, Saul insists that he remain in his
service because of his success in providing a musical antidote to the
spirit which so troubles the king (v. 23).
However, the Israelite women’s serenading of David for killing
Goliath ‘the Philistine’ leads to a change of sentiment in Saul. Saul’s
‘great anger’ (18:8) at the eulogizing of David is accompanied by the
king’s fear (vv. 12, 15) that his kingdom will fall to him as well (v. 8)
due to the latter’s success ( ‫ ;שכל‬vv. 5, 14, 15) and popularity with
the people. While the troubling spirit merely facilitates David’s
presence,4 it is Saul’s fear which prompts him to lash out with the
kind of violence which Samuel had feared Saul might direct at him,
but is now unleashed against David, the usurper Samuel has
anointed.
 The use of Saul’s hand for violent purposes seems to be
intentionally presented as a contrast to David’s peaceful use of his
hand on the lyre (1 Sam 18:10).5 Admittedly, Saul’s lashing out with
the spear is less than surprising given his earlier association with
such a weapon (1 Sam 13:22).6 Rather more curious, however, is
Saul’s desire to use the spear in his hand to ‘pin’ ( ‫ )אכה‬David to
‘the wall’ ( ‫ ;בקיר‬v. 11).7 The image conjured here of David—dead
or soon to be so—affixed to a wall, bears a striking resemblance to
the picture the narrative will offer of the dead bodies of Saul (1 Sam
31:10) and his sons (v. 12), who will also be affixed to a wall.8 This
later display of the dead Saul and his sons will turn out to be a detail
of some significance. But the implication here that Saul seeks to do
to David what will eventually be done to him is also noteworthy.
Indeed, it is the first of a series of hints that the fates of the two are
violently intertwined and that Saul’s desire to kill David will not
merely fail, but will backfire. Moreover, in suggesting that David
eluded Saul twice (1 Sam 18:11), the narrative points forward to this
second, virtually identical and equally futile, attempt by Saul to kill
David with his own spear (cf. 19:9–10).9 In emphasizing Saul’s
efforts to kill David with his own hand, it is notable that these
attempts on David’s life are presented as acts of passion, prompted
by the coincidence of the troubling spirit and David himself in the
royal vicinity.
However, it is not long before the reader is offered another, quite
different, picture of Saul’s efforts to end David’s life, in which the
king’s methods appear more cold and calculated. Having noted
Saul’s fearful envy of David, the narrator recounts Saul’s offer of his
daughter to David and his intention in making it:
17Then Saul said to David, ‘Here is my elder daughter Merab. I will give her
to you as a wife. Only be brave for me and fight the battles of the LORD.’
For Saul thought, ‘My hand will not be against him. Instead let the hand of
the Philistines be against him.’ 18And David said to Saul, ‘Who am I and who
are my kin, my father’s clan in Israel, that I should be a son-in-law of the
king?’ 19But at the time when Merab, the daughter of Saul, should have
been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.
Another random document with
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some other dry thing, high up in the air.
Did you ever see a piece of mistletoe? It grows on some tree. It has
nice green leaves and white berries. That the mistletoe draws all its
food from the air has been proved. It thrives as well on a dead tree
as on a live one. A Frenchman, who loved to study plants, made a
mistletoe plant grow on a cannon ball. Another mistletoe sprouted
and grew from a seed held out on the point of a copper needle.
Thus, you see, these air-plants gain all their food from the air.
Water-plants will seem to you to grow in a more natural way. Most of
them are rooted in the earth at the bottom of the pond, or ditch,
where they grow. As the blossoms form, the flower stem grows long,
and the flower rises to the top of the water.
There the lovely blossom floats about in the sunshine. It is moored
by its long stem to the root, as a boat is moored by a rope. When the
seeds are ripe, the flower stem sinks down again. The leaf stems
rise to the top of the water. There the leaves lie spread out, to
breathe the air.
Now when these leaves of water-plants are made to grow to the top
of the water and live, they are broad, and often shaped like a shield.
They are to spread out on the surface of the water, and catch all the
air and sunshine that they can.
But there are other kinds of water-plants which have their leaves
growing down under the water. All these leaves made to stay in the
water are fringe-like and narrow. They look like wide leaves cut into
many small strips.
Most sea-weeds have fringe-like leaves. Yet there are sea-weeds
with wide leaves. They, like the fish, are made to live in the water all
the time.
The fresh-water plants generally mean to come to the top of the
water some time. They have green leaves. Their leaves can keep
green only by the action on them of the air and light. This is why the
leaf is made fringe-like. Its fringed leaves act as a net, floating
around in the water. These leaf-nets catch not fish, but air-bubbles,
and rays of light.
The water crow-foot, or water buttercup, has two kinds of leaves.
Those at the bottom of the stalk are all in fine fringes. The leaves at
the top are broad, like other crow-foot leaves.
There are some water-plants which do not root at the bottom of the
pond. They spend all their lives floating about. A little plant called
“duck-weed” is one of them. It has a soft, green body like two halves
of a tiny pea. Its roots are three or four fine threads. It gathers all its
food from the water.
Most water-plants have two sets of roots. One set holds the plant
fast in its place. The other roots spring from the base of the leaves.
They gather food from the water.
Now, while leaves that grow in the water are fringe-like, I think you
will see that leaves of plants that grow in sand must be just the
opposite.
If you examine a plant growing in dry sand, you will find that it has
thick, soft, juicy leaves. The leaves of sand-plants are seldom flat.
They are shaped like fringes, or the palm of your hand, or like little
rolls.
Why is that? Can you not guess? The roots of these sand-living
plants can get very little water. Only when rain and heavy dew fall
can they get moisture. If they are wise little plants, they will store
moisture up.
These sand-plants store up food and moisture in their leaves. It may
surprise you that plants, growing in such dry places, have leaves so
full of juice. The leaves are their pantry. They are full of saved-up
water.
You will notice another thing. Many of the sand-plants have their
leaves covered with prickles, hooks, and thorns. The leaves are
rough, like burrs. Why is that? Is it not so, that birds and beasts will
not want to eat them?
If the leaves are nipped off by animals, these plants must die. Their
sand home gives them no water for their roots. If the leaves are
eaten, all the plant must perish.
As there is so little water in the sand to carry food to the plant
through the roots, the leaves of these plants must do most of their
eating. So in the sand-growing plants the leaves serve as mouth,
stomach, and pantry.
By the sea-side you will find plenty of sand-growing plants. You can
study them, and prove these points for yourselves.
Children who are not by the sea may, perhaps, have, near where
they live, a curious sand-loving plant, the cactus. The cactus prefers
a sandy soil. I have seen a large cactus, covered with yellow blooms,
growing right in a drift of clear sand.
You will notice that what you call the leaves of the cactus are not real
leaves, but thick, odd-shaped stems. These stems are green, and
answer for leaves. They are of many queer shapes. They are
covered with little clusters of prickles. As they serve for leaves, these
odd stems of a sand-plant are fleshy and juicy. The plant stores its
food and drink in them.
 LESSON XII.
PLANTS THAT EAT ANIMALS.

QUEER DIET.
You have now heard of so many wonders about plants, that perhaps
nothing new which you will hear of them will surprise you. You may
not even say “Oh!” when I tell you that some plants eat bugs,—as
ants, gnats, and flies,—and will not even refuse a nice bit of raw
meat!
These plants are called the “flesh-eaters.” The name is a long one,—
carnivora. Here is a verse about them. As it has long, hard words in
it, I wish to say I did not make it.

“What’s this I hear

About the new carnivora?
Can little plants
Eat bugs and ants?
Why this is retrograding!
Surely the fare
Of flowers is air,
Or sunshine sweet.
They should not eat,
Or do aught so degrading.”

These animal-eating plants are so made that they catch insects, and
suck up, or draw out, the juice of their bodies. This juice the plant
seems to feed upon. It has been seen to pass from the leaf which
catches the insect into the stem and other parts of the plant.
In all these insect-eating plants, it is the leaf that does the killing and
eating.
I will first tell you of a little water-plant of this queer class. It is called
the bladder-plant. It is one of the water-plants which float free. On
the fringe-like leaves are little bags or bladders. These are full of air,
and help the plant to float. The mouth of these little bags has a door
opening inward. It is set round with hairs.
The little insect-larvæ which live in water, and other tiny animals that
swim about, see these little floating bags, with the small, green
doors. The creatures act as if they wanted to know what was inside
such pretty places. Finally they go in. To go in is easy. But once in,
they cannot get out. The little door will not open outwards.
After a day or two, the animal thus trapped is all eaten. Only the
hard, horny parts, which serve for its bones, are left.
There is another small plant, called the sun-dew, which eats insects.
Any of you who live near a cranberry bog can find sun-dew growing
on the edges of the bog. It is a plant that lives in wet places.
The sun-dew has a number of leaves about the size and shape of
pearl shirt-buttons. They grow on short stems close to the ground.
The leaves are covered with red hairs. These hairs are called
tentacles. As many as a hundred and fifty will grow on one little leaf.
From these long, red hairs come tiny drops of sticky stuff. These
drops gleam like dew. From them, and the little red, hairy rays, the
plant has its name.
The insect comes flying by. The “dew” looks like something good to
eat. But as soon as the insect touches the leaf, the juice holds its
legs fast. The insect begins to kick, but cannot get away.
The struggles of the insect seem to irritate the plant. For, when the
hairs are touched, they pour out more juice. Not only this, but the
touch of the insect on the hairs causes the leaf to bend upwards. It
bends over, over, folding down, until it is all shut up upon the insect.
Here is the insect held in the folded leaf. The glue runs out over it
faster than ever. When you think how the insect breathes through
tubes wound over all its body,[11] you will see that it must soon
smother, held in this sticky juice.
When the leaf is bent over the insect, the juice changes. When the
leaf is so bent, the juice is acid, or sour. This acid juice melts up the
body of the insect. As it melts, the mouths, or glands, of the leaf
seem to suck it up.
The sun-dew will melt up and devour bits of meat laid on the leaf.
Water-drops on the leaf will not make it bend. But when milk-drops
are put on the leaf, it bends, and sucks them up.
The leaf will not close over a piece of stone, or glass. But it will close
over a bit of boiled egg, or a scrap of bone. It melts the bone so soft,
that you can stick a needle into it.
Another animal-eating plant is the Venus’s-flytrap. It grows only in
North Carolina. The leaf-blade has sharp bristles about the upper
part. Each half of the leaf hollows a little, so that when the two halves
come together they form a small pouch.
The leaf has some fine hairs which an insect cannot but touch, when
it moves on the leaf. When the hairs are touched, the leaf bends.
The bristles on the edges lock together, so that the insect is held in a
cage, even before the leaf closes.
When the leaf is fully closed, the insect is held in a bag prison. The
glands then pour out juice to melt up the body of the insect. As it
melts, its juices are drawn into the plant.
The Venus’s-flytrap does not seem to depend alone on the chance
lighting of the insect upon it. It has a sweet juice on the leaf to attract
insects. But it does not need as much sticky fluid as the sun-dew, to
hold the insect. The two halves of the leaf snap together like a trap.
They give the insect no time to get away.
Another very odd plant which eats insects is the side-saddle plant.
This is often called the pitcher-plant. It looks far more like a pitcher
than like a saddle. The leaves of this plant are like a beautiful pitcher
painted red and green.
These plants are common in the South. They grow also in marshy
places in the North. I remember how happy I was when my father
brought me three of them, when I was a little girl.
There are two or three kinds of these pitcher-plants. One kind is
green, spotted with red, and has some yellow lines. Another kind is
green with purple marks. You must notice that the inner side of the
lid is of the brightest color.
Why is this? Insects see the gay color and fly to the plant. The
leaves of the pitcher-plant are large, and they are bent and the
edges grow together nearly all the way up. This forms a close pitcher
which will hold water.
The seam where the leaves are joined is usually of a light yellow
color. It is covered with a honey-like juice, in small drops. The rim of
the pitcher and the inside of the neck have also these honey drops.
The insects, attracted by the gay color, come to feed on the honey.
They feed along the seam and rim, and so into the throat of the
pitcher. They seem to get dizzy, or so full of honey, that they feel dull.
They get down into the pitcher, and—there they stay!
Why do they not come out? For three reasons. The inside of the
pitcher has a band of hairs growing downward. The insects cannot
creep up through these. The hairs turn them back, as a brush fence
turns cattle.
Then, too, part of the inside of the pitcher is so smooth that insects
fall back when they walk on it. Still, as they can walk on glass, I think
their slipping back must be due more to being dizzy, than to the
smooth surface.
And here is the third reason, the pitcher is half full of liquid, and this
liquid seems to make the insect dizzy. This liquid looks like pure,
clear water. It tastes like the root of the plant,—a biting taste.
It is not like the honey-dew which lies on the seam for a bait. In this
liquid, inside, the insects are drowned.
You may find many dead insects in one pitcher. I told you a little
about this, in the last book, in the lessons on flies.[12] The dead
bodies of the insects melted up seem to help to feed the plant. But
often a pitcher catches more insects than the plant can use.
There are many kinds of pitcher-plants in very warm lands. You may
be able to see some of them in hot-houses. All have the same
general way of killing and eating insects.

FOOTNOTES:
[11] See Nature Reader, No. 2, p. 77.
[12] Nature Reader, No. 2, pp. 59-60.
 LESSON XIII.
WEATHER PROPHET PLANTS.
Once, when I was a little girl, I ran one morning to the garden, and
said to the old Scotchman who worked there, “To-day I am going up
the mountain for berries.”
“No, no, Missey, not to-day,” he said; “it will rain.” “No, it will not rain,”
I said. “The sun is up. The cook says it will be fair. The glass in the
hall does not say rain.”
“Tuts, tuts,” said the old man. “I care for no suns, or cooks, or
glasses. The pimpernel says it will rain, and so it will rain. Flowers,
Missey, always tell the truth. When they say ‘rain,’ go, get your
umbrella.”
Sure enough, by noon, the rain was pouring down. After that, I
looked with great respect at the tiny flower, sometimes brick red,
sometimes blue, which could tell about the weather.
But the pimpernel is not the only plant that is a weather prophet. We
will look first at some plants, and then at some seeds, which tell
about the weather.
If you go into the garden, and find the African marigold shut, after
seven o’clock in the morning, you may be pretty sure that there will
be a rainy day.
But while the African marigold stays shut for rain, the Siberian thistle
gets ready for rain, by keeping open. If this thistle does not close at
night, you may look out for rain next day.
You see the marigold, which had origin in a hot land, stays folded, to
keep the rain out of its petals. But the thistle, which had origin in a
cold, stormy land, keeps wide open to get a good washing.
 Did you ever see near the way-
side the pretty little morning-glory
or bind-weed, with its pink and
white blossoms? Even if it is wide
open, in the early day, it twists its
striped cup close together, and
droops its head, if a rain cloud
drifts across the sky. It seems to
want to shield its stamens and
pistil from the wet.
There is a little single marigold,
which shuts up in a hurry if the sky
becomes clouded. It is called the
“rainy-marigold.”
Most plants which we call “weather
prophets” shut up for rain. But
some plants open for rain. The
cause of the opening and closing
is probably the difference in light.
Most likely, these plants shut their
A RAINY DAY. flowers because there is too little
light, not because there is too
much moisture.
But you know there are some plants which shrink from a strong light,
and love the shade. You will find that most shade-loving plants, as
the verbenas, do not close for rain.
Lilies, tulips, and other flowers that love the sun, shut for rain. The
tulip and crocus families are among our best weather prophets. Just
as the gay tulip shuts at evening, when the dew begins to fall, so it
shuts for a shower.
Tulips are careful not to open their cups very wide in the morning, if it
is likely to rain. The roses make no change; they seem not to fear
wet.
On the whole, you may be pretty sure, if you go into your garden,
and find many flowers, as tulips, marigolds, morning-glories, and
celandine, shut, it will be a stormy day, unfit for picnics or long walks.
Just as some blossoms are weather prophets, so are some seeds.
But in the case of the seeds it is the moisture, not the light, which
affects them.
Among these seeds, that of the wild-oat is chief. When the air is
moist, the long bristles, called awns, on the seed, squirm and twist.
In old times, before people knew why this was, they said that this
seed was a witch!
There is a marigold which grows at the Cape of Good Hope, and in
dry weather has its head of seeds held close, like a round button.
When rain is coming, this seed-head opens out, like a star with many
points.
Do you see the use of these motions? The wild-oat, as it wriggles
and twists back and forth, from the dampness of the air, or earth,
twists its way into the soil. It plants itself by these motions.
The marigold keeps its seeds safe in dry weather, which would kill
them. When rain comes, it opens the seed-head. Then the seeds fall
out on moist earth, where they will sprout and grow.
Some seed-pods fly open when they are dry. The sand-box tree has
seed-pods as large as an orange. They fly open in dry weather.
What is the reason of all these queer actions of the flowers? No
doubt they are all due to light and moisture. To light, most of all.
The little pimpernel probably needs much heat and light to open its
petals. Even a little moisture in the air, or a little less light than it
likes, will cause it to keep shut.
A pimpernel in full bloom will close its blossoms almost as soon as
you pick it. Very likely the slight moisture of your hand causes it to do
that.
This motion of closing, during rain, may be very useful to some
flowers. A frail flower with a large cup, such as a tulip or crocus,
might, if open, be broken to pieces by a heavy shower. These
flowers fold up, and expose only a close-pointed bud, to the storm.
Then no rain can get among the petals.
Also, the rain might break the large pollen cases of the tulip, and
wash the pollen all away. So, if the convolvulus had its long tube
filled with water, the stamens and pistil would perhaps be harmed,
and its seeds would not be able to grow.
 LESSON XIV.
PLANT CLOCKS.
I knew an old man who made a great clock for his grandchildren.
What kind of a clock do you suppose it was? The clock was in the
garden, and it was made of flowers.
Did it tell the time well? Only pretty well. Flower clocks are as liable
to get out of order as clocks made at a factory.
This clock was a great flower bed, divided into twelve parts. The
divisions were marked out by little rows of box-plants. In the middle
was a post three feet high. It had two clock hands on it, but they
were only for show. They did not move.
But the post had a sun-dial on it, and that gave true time. So the
children could tell when the flower clock was not working well.
As there are twelve hours of day and twelve of night, and some
plants open only at night, each of the twelve divisions of the clock
was divided into two parts by a little line of red colors. On one side of
this were the night bloomers, on the other side the day bloomers.
The children thought it lovely, and were proud of it. And the clock did
for them what the grandfather wished,—it made them like and notice
plants.
I have just said that there are plants which open only by night, and
others which open only by day. This opening and shutting for day
and night is called “the sleep of plants.”
This sleep of plants is not because the plant is tired; it is due to the
absence or presence of light, and to changes in the amount of light.
Yet, no doubt, in it the organs of the plant do rest, as their growth
and action are not then so rapid.
Both the flowers and the leaves of plants have this sleep motion. We
will look first at the sleep of flowers.
You have noticed that the morning-glories are open when you rise,
and that they fold or shut up by noon. Have you in your garden a
flower with gay yellow or scarlet blossoms, called the four-o’clock?
That does not open until about four in the afternoon.
As you run to school in the morning, the dandelions are gay along
the way-side. When you come from school in the afternoon, the
dandelions are all folded in their green cups.
If this is so, why does not the flower-clock tell true time? You can see
that owing to the changes in the heat and rising of the sun in
different places, and seasons, the sleep of the flowers would not
begin at the same time.
I have seen my morning-glories open as late as nine o’clock, and
stay open all day in cool October days. In August they opened by six
and were shut by eleven. So the four-o’clocks and dandelions may
vary by an hour or two.
All the water-lilies shut at night. Some not only shut, but draw their
heads down under water. I will tell you when you will find some
flowers opening. At four in the morning you will find the goat’s-beard
and the blue chicory opening. The chicory petals are then a fine
blue. They become lighter in color until near mid-day, when they are
almost white. Chicory is called “Miss-go-to-bed-at-noon” by some
children, as the flowers shut at noon.
At five in the morning the common morning-glory and the poppy
open. At six the yellow hawk’s-weed and dandelions look out on the
way-side. At seven the water-lilies smile at us. At eight, if the day is
fine, the pimpernel opens its red eyes.
At nine the marigold spreads out, and the tulip. At noon, on a hot
day, you will find the tulip opened nearly flat. At eleven the Star of
Bethlehem shuts up, while most of the day flowers are in their best
bloom.
At twelve the lazy passion-flowers awake, and the sweet-peas have
their banners opened wide. At two the wild daisies are brightest.
Then at four in the afternoon, out comes the four-o’clocks, and at five
the “beauty of the night,” and at six the delicate evening primrose. At
seven the white lychnis, which blooms only at night, opens. Later still
the night primrose puts out its white bloom, and at two o’clock in the
morning the purple convolvulus wakes up and wonders why the sun
is so late.
Now, in sleeping, most of the flowers close tight together. Besides
the rest to the growing organs, which sleep brings them, this folding
up keeps moisture from the pollen. Also, the flowers, whose partners
are day-flying insects, keep out of the way of night insects by closing
their pretty doors.
The evening primroses, night lychnis, and others, which have night-
flying insect partners, keep shut when day insects are about. You will
notice that most of these night plants have yellow or white petals,
and a sweet perfume.
I have told you the leaves sleep also. Leaves sometimes sleep by
closing the two halves of the leaf together by the mid-vein. Other
leaves sleep by dropping the leaves down against the stem.
A young Swiss girl was one of the first to observe this sleep motion
of leaves. She saw it first in the clover. When the leaves sleep in this
way, you might think them faded and dying.
You will do well to watch this sleep of leaves. If you go into a garden,
or field, or on the road-side, you will see that the leaves look very
different after sunset from what they did in the noon-day.
The yellow sorrel and the clover are plants in which you can watch
leaf-sleep well. You will find the small leaflets hanging down against
the stalk. So if you look at the beans in the garden, you will see their
leaves falling back, and perhaps a little bent over. One kind of oxalis,
with very small, compound leaves, lifts its leaves up all in a bunch to
go to sleep.
The leaves of trees have sleep-change. The mimosa and the
barberry close their leaves at night.
Are these sleep motions of any use to plants? Yes. It has been found
that this folding up, and falling back of leaves, will help them to resist
cold and wet.
If, during a cold night, you pin the leaves out, so they cannot take the
sleep position, they are likely to freeze. Also this change in the
leaves, at night, helps to shield the plant from too much dew.
Sometimes, also, it is of use as it turns toward the dew the under
side of the leaf. This under side has the most mouths for drinking
water. Thus the flower has a good drink at night, after the dry, hot
day.
Among the other motions of plants, I might speak of that of some
leaves, which curl or shrink if you touch them. But I have not space
for that now.
Perhaps you think that these lessons have told you a great many
things about flowers. If you go on with the study of plants, you will
see how much there is to tell, and how very little has here been told.
These lessons are only meant to stir up your interest in plants, and
show you what wonders are in the plant world. After that, you will be
sure to learn more for yourselves.
 LESSON XV.
THE SCHOOL CABINET.
One of the wise teachers who are all the time thinking what will help
and interest children wrote me a letter. In it, he said, “If you wish to
do our school children a real service, write something about cabinets
in our schools. In each school-house there should be a collection of
natural history objects, brought together by teachers and children.
This would be of great use, and the children would take pleasure in
collecting specimens.”
So, right here, in the middle of this Third Book, I want to say a word
about cabinets of natural curiosities.
In the Second Book I told you here and there how you might catch
and keep a specimen. I told you how to dry beetles, star-fish, and a
few other little animals.
If you make a collection of this kind, you can look at the object when
you read of it in the book. That will help you to understand it and will
interest you.
In a cabinet you could keep safely for use many nice things, which
might otherwise be wasted. Also, you might spend some of your
pennies in buying specimens. I think pennies are much better spent
so than for candy and cake.
If you are collecting a cabinet of curiosities, I think you might write
letters to other schools, or far off friends to ask them to send you
specimens.
You might offer to trade objects, of which you have several, for
something which other people have, and you have not.
I think, too, you would be very happy out of doors, looking for
specimens. And I believe you and your teachers would be greater
friends than ever, if you were all helping each other to get a cabinet
together.
If, at first, you cannot have a cabinet case with glass doors, have
some shelves. Have some boxes to set on the shelves, and lay
pieces of glass over the boxes for covers. Those little paper boxes
—, which jewellers and druggists use, are very nice for small objects,
—as seeds, little shells, and so on. Nearly all children have some of
these boxes.
When you have specimens in these little boxes, the teacher will write
the name of the object on the box.
I knew a boy, who made a very nice collection of many kinds of
wood. He cut the wood into wedges, with a bit of the bark left on.
One side of the wedge he polished with glass and sand paper. One
side he left rough. He wrote on each piece of wood the name of the
tree from which it came.
I once saw some lovely pictures of leaves. They were made by a
little girl. How did she make them? Could she paint? No.
She had some small sheets of stiff paper. She got some printer’s ink
in a cup. She made two little balls of woollen cloth. She would take a
nice, fresh, perfect leaf, and with one ball she would put a little ink,
very gently, over all the under surface of the leaf. Then the next thing
was to lay the leaf, inked side down, on a sheet of stiff paper, and
pat it gently all over with the other woollen ball.
When she lifted up the leaf she had a picture of its shape, and of all
its veins and edges. It looked like a nice engraving. She put the
same kinds of leaves on the same sheet,—as the leaves of the rose
family on one, the leaves of maples on another, and so on. Under
each leaf she wrote its name.
Such a collection of leaf-patterns is fine in a cabinet. So is a
collection of dried flowers,—called an herbarium. Your mother or
teacher could show you how to make one.
You will find on the way-side, or in field and garden, some of those
wonderful nests, built by spiders, wasps and bees, of which you read
in the First Book of Nature Readers. And at the sea-side, you can
find crabs, shells, and bits of coral, sponge and sea-weed.
Did you ever think what a pretty sight a row of pieces of many kinds
of stone makes? Have you thought that stones are just hard, homely,
brown things?
Have you noticed that marble is sometimes snow white, sometimes
black, or veined with many colors? The granite is gray; sandstone is
red, or gray, or purplish. Slate is black, purple, or veined in many
shades. Other stones are black, red, yellow, brown, green, in fact of
nearly all hues.
Each kind of stone has its own name. Some come from one place
only, some from another. There is a reason why each kind has its
color and grain. As you grow older, you may like to study about rocks
and stones. Then how nice it will be to have on hand a collection of
specimens.
A collection of birds’ nests is very fine. As we study in this book a
little about birds, you will see how many kinds of nests there are. If
you have a cabinet you can put into it one nest of each kind that you
can find. Put into each nest one egg of the kind that belongs to the
nest. Then put into the nest a little card, with the name of the bird,
and the number of eggs commonly laid in each nest.
Be sure you do not break up the nest of a sitting bird. That is cruel.
To keep the eggs you must blow them. Make a hole with a large pin
in each end of the egg. Then blow hard, steadily in the pin-hole in
the large end. All the inside of the egg will fly out at the hole at the
other end.
Our next lesson will be about grasshoppers and their cousins. As the
bodies of grasshoppers shrink when they dry, it is well to stuff them.
How can you do that?
Put a little cotton wool on the end of a short thread, threaded in a
long, coarse needle. The grasshopper should have been dead an
hour or two, before you try to stuff it. Take it by the head and pass
the needle through from the back end of the body, and bring it out
under the breast. If you draw it gently, the cotton will go in with the
thread.
Several pieces of cotton drawn in, in this way, will fill the body
enough to hold it in shape. If the cotton is wet in alcohol, or camphor,
it is better.
Worms, spiders, toads, minnows, and such soft-bodied things, must
be kept in clear glass bottles, filled with alcohol.
Now the chief thing in a collection is to have it good of its kind. The
specimens should be as perfect as possible, and be kept neat and
clean. Especially they should be set in good order. They should all
have labels, with their names on them.
A collection well marked will be worth much more than one without
the names placed on the specimens. A collection all jumbled
together, without order, will be of little use.
If you set a bird’s nest here, a wasp’s nest there, a bright stone next,
and then a beetle, or a card of butterflies, your cabinet will have
small teaching value. Remember a cabinet is not merely made to
“look pretty” like a doll’s house, or a shop window.
Place things of a kind together. Then put kinds which are nearest like
next each other. Put your insects together, and arrange them by their
orders. Put the beetles together, the butterflies together, the wasps,
and bees, and so on. Spiders come in as one order of the insects.
Your crabs and shrimps must stand together, but be placed next the
insects, as they are of the jointed class of creatures.
Put your birds’ nests, and eggs, and any stuffed birds, or pictures of
birds that you may have, together. And so on, with all the other
things.
Your cabinet may be a small one, but if it is neatly arranged, and all
the specimens are good of their kind, rightly named, and kept clean,
it will be of real value.
Do not be in such a hurry to collect, that you put in rubbish, instead
of good specimens. A butterfly with broken wings, a beetle without a