(Below is the seventh post in my series on why David is God’s favorite king—whether he acts ethically or not. If you want to read one of my posts on this week’s Torah portion in Deuteronomy, you might try Vayeilekh: Two Transitions. And since the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, begins tonight, I wish you all a good year, shanah tovah, in this time of uncertainty!)

The first book of Samuel ends with a major battle in the Jezreel Valley between the Israelites and the Philistines. The Philistines win and take over the large valley. Both King Saul and his oldest son, Jonathan, die in battle. But David, who once was King Saul’s most famous commander, is absent. (See my post 1 Samuel: David and the King of Gat.)

The second book of Samuel opens with a man bringing David news about the Philistine victory and the deaths of King Saul and his oldest son, Jonathan. David mourns for his enemy, Saul, as well as for his ally, Jonathan.

And it was after this when David inquired of God, saying: “Should I go up into one of the towns of Judah?” (2 Samuel 2:1)

Inquiring of God

The phrase “inquired of God” does not mean asking God directly; in the Hebrew Bible, only the most advanced prophets can do that. Anyone else with a question for God goes to either a prophet, or a priest with a divining instrument called an eifod (אֵפוֹד).

One member of David’s outlaw band is Evyatar, the son of the high priest of Nov, who escaped with his father’s eifod when King Saul had every resident of Nov massacred. (See my post 1 Samuel: David the Devious.) David previously asked Evyatar to “inquire of God” before he ordered his band of 600 men to rescue the Israelite town of Ke-ilah from the Philistines, and before they left Ke-ilah because King Saul was bringing troops to capture him.¹ He did it again when he and his men returned to Ziklag and found that Amalekite raiders had destroyed the village and taken all of their wives and children.²

All three times, David did what the eifod said God wanted, and the results were good (at least for David and his men).

Now that King Saul and his firstborn son are dead, David “inquires of God” to find out whether it is time to rally support in the territory of his own tribe, the tribe of Judah.

The answer is yes. When David asks which town in Judah he should “go up into”, i.e. make his headquarters, the priest uses his eifod again and comes up with the answer: Hebron. So David and his whole outlaw band move into Hebron and its surrounding villages.

And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David as king over the house of Judah. (2 Samuel 2:4)

David, king of Judah

This is not David’s first anointment. When he was still a boy, the prophet Samuel secretly anointed him as the next king of all Israel. (See my post 1 Samuel: Anointment.) Now the leaders of Judah anoint him as the king of their tribe. A single tribe has never had its own king before, and never does again.³

While David is ruling as the king of Judah, Abner, who served as Saul’s general after David fled, is uniting all the other tribes to recognize Saul’s fourth son, Ishboshet, as the king of all Israel. (Saul’s three oldest sons died in the battle with the Philistines in Jezreel.) Once Abner has consolidated power under his puppet king, the two sides go to war.

And the war was long between the house of Saul and the house of David, and David was growing stronger and the house of Saul was growing weaker. (2 Samuel 3:1)

Eventually Abner meets with David in Hebron and offers to get all the other tribes of Israel to accept David as their king. David accepts the peace treaty. But after Abner leaves, Joab, David’s nephew and general, send a message to him. Abner returns, and Joab meets him at the city gate.

And Joab took him aside into the middle of the [double walls of the city] gate to speak with him privately. Then he struck him there in the belly, so he died in exchange for the blood of his brother Asaheil. (2 Samuel 3:27)

In an earlier battle Abner had killed Joab’s brother Asaheil with a blow to the belly,⁴ so it seems like a revenge killing. But I wonder if Joab has second motive; he would not want to be demoted in favor of General Abner when the kingdom of Israel is reunited.

David distances himself from the murder by cursing Joab and his descendants (without using God’s name to make the curse more effective) and by elaborately mourning for Abner. He even makes Joab and all the troops tear their clothes and lament at the funeral procession. After burying Abner, David praises the dead general and concludes:

“May God repay the doer of the evil according to his evil!” (2 Samuel 3:39)

But David does not fire his nephew Joab. Nor does he inquire of God about what to do with him.

Joab serves as the chief commander of the Israelites for the rest of King David’s life, with no interference from God. Even though Joab killed Abner for personal reasons rather than for the good of King David or Israel, David is still God’s beloved. As long as David wants to keep Joab, God looks the other way.

King Ishboshet is soon assassinated, and leaders from all the tribes of Israel come to Hebron to pledge their allegiance to David. They tell him:

And God said to you: “You yourself will shepherd my people Israel, and you yourself will be ruler over Israel.” (2 Samuel 5:2)

Of course they have no idea what God actually said to David. But according to Robert Alter, attributing those words to God provides “the divine declaration of David’s legitimacy as ruler”.⁵

And all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and King David cut a covenant with them in Hebron before God. And they anointed David king over Israel. David was 30 years old when he became king, and he ruled for 40 years. (2 Samuel 5:3-4)

Rabbi Steinsaltz explained: “This was a bilateral agreement. The people accepted David’s reign upon themselves, while he granted a general amnesty, committing to take no actions to settle old scores, as some of the people had not supported him in the past.”⁶

Fifteen to twenty years have past since the prophet Samuel secretly anointed young David at God’s behest.⁷ Now, at age 30, he is publicly anointed king by “all the elders of Israel”.

David, king of Israel

Without consulting God, David captures the Jebusite town of Jerusalem by sending his men through a water conduit in a surprise attack. He turns the town into the new capital of Israel.

And David settled in the fortress, and he called it the City of David. And David built all around, from the rampart inward. And David went on and on and became great; and God, the god of armies, was with him. (2 Samuel 5:9-10)

As soon as the Philistines hear that David is now the king of Israel, they send a united army to Jerusalem, and camp just west of the city. Although they could not conquer Israel during the reign of King Saul, they hope to win a battle with the new king.

Then David inquired of God, saying: “Should I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?” (2 Samuel 5:19)

A major battle with the Philistine army is more perilous than a surprise attack on the town of the Jebusites. So David turns to divination to ask if God will help him. And God says yes. The Israelites win the battle, but the Philistines regroup, come back, and try again. Again David inquires of God whether he should go up against the Philistines. This time God answers no—he should lead his men around behind the Philistine army.

And let it be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, that is when God will go out before you, to strike down the camp of the Philistines. And David did so, as God had commanded him. And he struck down the Philistines from Geva until you come to Gazer. (2 Samuel 5:24-25)

With God’s help, David wins such a decisive victory that the Philistines do not cross over the border into the kingdom of Israel again.

Next King David makes Jerusalem the religious, as well as political, capital of Israel. He brings the ark to Jerusalem and places it in a tent until he can build a temple for it. Then he consults the prophet Nathan, who has a dream in which God dictates a long message to David. Nathan recites the message to his king, telling him that God does not want him to build the temple, but one of David’s sons will be king after him and build it, and his descendants will be kings of Israel forever.⁸

David sits in front of the ark inside the tent, tells God his gratitude for everything God has done, and concludes:

“And now, be pleased and bless the house of your servant to be forever in your presence, since you, my lord God, you have spoken. And through your blessing may the house of your servant be blessed forever!” (2 Samuel 7:29) So far, so good. But later, David gets a married woman pregnant, than arranges the death of one of his own soldiers to cover it up. That is too much; he loses God’s approval. After that, bad things start happening to David. (See my next blog post.)

Sometimes David inquires of God through his priest’s eifod or through his prophet. Asking God what he should do, and then doing what God says, is a way to ensure that God will back him up when he initiates a battle or makes a critical move.

The rest of the time, David acts on his own initiative, and—so far—it goes well. God does not intervene. The God character seems to have chosen David as a boy because of his pluck as well as his intelligence, and probably God remains happy to see his protégé exercising these traits as an adult.

Like David, when we are young we can often succeed through our own initiative, but it helps to have an authority figure to consult with for advice and the promise of back-up. When we grow old, we are the only authority figures. At least we can draw on more experience at 60 than at 30. But we are fooling ourselves if we think we can consult God through a divining device, or through someone’s dream. In our world, we always have to figure out the best course of action on our own.

1. 1 Samuel 23:2-4 and 1 Samuel 23:11-12. See my post 1 Samuel: David the Devious.
2. 1 Samuel 30:7-8. See my post 1 Samuel: David and the King of Gat.
3. Even when the kingdom of Israel divides into two kingdoms in the first book of Kings, the land of the tribe of Benjamin is included in the kingdom named Judah.
4. 2 Samuel 2:18-24.
5. Robert Alter, Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2013, p. 450.
6. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Introductions to Tanakh, 2 Samuel, as quoted in www.sefaria.org.
7. See my post 1 Samuel: Anointment.
8. 2 Samuel 7:1-17.

(If you want to read one of my earlier posts on this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8) you might try: Ki Tavo: Milk and Honey. Below is the sixth post in my series on why David is God’s favorite king—whether he acts ethically or not.)

After King Saul’s first few attempts to kill him, David goes to Nob for bread and a sword, then flees alone across the border into Philistine territory. (See my post 1 Samuel: David the Devious.) He arrives in the city of Gat, Goliath’s hometown. Assuming that nobody there will recognize him, he comes to Akhish, the king of Gat. But the king’s courtiers immediately tell their king that this is David, the famous Israelite army commander—in other words, the Philistines’ greatest enemy.

Despite his sudden fear, David thinks fast.

And he changed his good judgment in their eyes, and acted like a madman in their hands; and he scratched marks on the doors of the gate and let saliva run down his beard. And Akhish said to his servants: “Hey! You see a man raving mad! Why do you bring him to me?” (1 Samuel 21:14-15)

David’s act succeeds. Forgetting anything else, the king of Gat just wants his servants to kick the madman out. David returns to Israelite territory, where his brothers and cousins join him, followed by hundreds of men who are impoverished by debt or frustrated by King Saul’s government.

But David and his outlaw band have to keep moving from hideout to hideout, since King Saul keeps trying to hunt them down. Finally David decides to go back to the king of Gat, this time with his 600 fighting men.

Change of alleigance

And David stayed with Akhish in Gat, he and his men; each man and his household, David and his two wives: Achinoam the Jezreelite, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.¹ (1 Samuel 27:3)

The king of Gat takes in David and his whole outlaw band as defectors. David politely asks King Akhish to give him a town in the country where he and his people can live. Probably relieved, Akhish gives him the town of Ziklag, near the Israelite town of Beersheba but still within the city-state of Gat.

In exchange for this gift, David becomes a vassal of the king of Gat. Like all vassals, he must regularly send his own “gifts” to the king. And since his men are outlaws, not farmers, he sends Akhish loot from his raids on towns and villages in the Negev Desert.

The God character would normally turn against an Israelite who defected to Israel’s chief enemy, the Philistines. But since David is God’s beloved, God waits to see what he does next.

David and his outlaws spend a year and four months living in Philistine territory and attacking not Beersheba or the nearby Israelite villages in the Negev, but villages belonging to Canaanites, who are the enemies of both the Israelites and the Philistines.

And David struck the land, and he did not leave alive any man or woman. But he took flocks and cattle and donkeys and camels and clothing, and then he returned and came to Akhish. And Akhish would say: “Against whom did you raid today?” And David would say: “Against the Negev region of Judah” or “Against the Negev region of the Yerachmeilites” or “Against the Negev region of the Kenites”. (1 Samuel 27:9-10)

Judah is the southern part of Saul’s kingdom. The Yerachmeilites are considered descendants of a grandson of the tribe of Judah’s eponymous founder. And the Kenites are the Israelites’ allies. If David actually raided any of these peoples, he would become an enemy of his people and his God. Instead he collects his loot from Canaanite tribes, and lies to the king of Gat.

Every time David raids a Canaanite settlement, he kills everyone in it. That way no one is left to expose him as a liar to King Akhish.²

And Akhish trusted David, saying: “He has definitely made himself stink to his own people, to Israel. So he will be mine as a vassal forever!” (1 Samuel 27:12)

The confrontation

And it was in those days that the Philistines gathered their companies into an army, to wage war against Israel … (1 Samuel 28:1)

Up to this point, Philistine kings have been sending their military companies to nibble at the edges of Israel and seize a little more land for themselves. Now the kings of the five Philistine states cooperate to launch an all-out war by forming an army to confront the Israelites in the fertile Jezreel Valley.

Then the Philistine overlords were advancing by hundreds and by thousands, and David and his men were advancing in the rear with Akhish. And the Philistine commanders said: “What are these Hebrews [doing here]?” (1 Samuel 29:2)

King Akhish replies that the Hebrews are under David, Saul’s former servant, who has been with him a long time now without doing anything suspicious. But the commanders sent by the kings of the other four Philistine states are furious, and tell Akhish to send David back to Gat.

“… Then he will not be an adversary to us in the battle! For how else would this one make himself acceptable to his [former] lord?” (1 Samuel 29:4)

Even though King Akhish trusts David, the Philistine commanders reason that David might well be tempted to ingratiate himself with the king of Israel again by betraying Akhish and turning on the Philistines.³

King Akhish regretfully summons David and tells him to go home to Ziklag. David, playing his part to the hilt, replies:

“But what have I done? And what have you found in your servant, from the day I came before you until this day, that I may not come and battle against the enemies of my lord the king?” (1 Samuel 29:8)

But Akhish says David and his men must leave at dawn, and they do. Given his history of bending the rules, dissembling, and manipulating kings, it seems likely that David is relieved he can return safely to Ziklag without either being killed, or killing any Israelites. I can imagine him reasoning that since God anointed him as Israel’s next king, his duty to God is to stay alive until he is given the throne. And the next episode in the story indicates that God agrees.

Trouble in Ziklag

When David and his men arrive at Ziklag, they discover that Amalekites have burned down the town. But at least there are no corpses.

They had taken captive the women who were in it, from young to old. But they had not put anyone to death; they had driven them on and gone on their way. (1 Samuel 30:2)

The raiding Amalekites kept the children alive as well as the women. When David’s outlaws were raiding Amalekite villages during the past year, they took all the livestock and other loot, but killed every single person so there would be no witnesses to report which village David had raided. But the Amalekites have conducted a normal raid, in which women and children were considered part of the booty, because they could be sold—or used—as slaves.

And David was in dire straits, because the people [i.e. his men] said to stone him—because all the people’s souls were bitter, each one over his sons and over his daughters. But David strengthened himself through God, his God. (1 Samuel30:6)

Two leading 21^st-century commentators disagreed on how David “strengthened himself through God”. Rabbi Steinsaltz explained: “He cleaved to God, trusted in Him, and was not dispirited.”⁴

Robert Alter’s explanation was more practical: “He finds encouragement in the face of mortal despair—specifically, as the next verse explains, by calling for the oracle. In this fashion, he staves off the assault his men are contemplating by dramatically showing that they still have means of redress against the Amalekites, and that he has a special channel of communication with God.”⁵

And David said to the priest Evyatar son of Achimelekh: “Please bring the eifod up to me.” And Evyatar brought up the eifod, and David inquired of God, saying: “Should I chase after this raiding band? Would I overtake them?” And it said to him: Chase, because you will certainly overtake, and certainly rescue. (1 Samuel 30:7-8)

eifod (אֵפוֹד) = a priest’s ritual tabard. The chest-piece of the high priest’s eifod is studded with gems representing the twelve tribes, and contains a pocket with the urim and tumim, used for divining.

Only prophets can hear God speak, but the high priest can ask God yes-or-no questions using the eifod. Evyatar, son of the high priest Achimelekh, was the only survivor of Saul’s massacre of the priests at Nov, and he escaped with his father’s eifod.⁶

David asks two questions and the eifod answers three. The commentary has different ways of explaining this, but I think the easiest solution is that David asks an unreported third question, “Would I rescue our wives and children?”, and the eifod indicates “yes”. (Information gets left out, as well as added, when a scribe writes down an oral story.)

When David consults God through the priest’s eifod, he is not just asking for an accurate prediction of the future; he is asking God to influence events in his favor. When the eifod answers yes,it means that God will shift the circumstances, without going so far as to make any miracles, so that David will succeed. The three “yes” answers mean that God supports David’s decision to return to Ziklag.

David leads his men south, then leaves the 200 most exhausted behind at a wadi so the remaining 400 can pursue the raiders more swiftly. They surprise the Amalekites, who are sprawled on the ground feasting and drinking, surrounded by their loot from Ziklag and several other towns. David and his men kill all the Amalekites except for 400 young men who escape on camels.

And David rescued everything that Amalek had taken, and he rescued his own two wives, and nothing of theirs was lacking, from small to great and sons and daughters, or from the booty [from Ziklag] to everything else that [the Amalekites] had taken for themselves. David recovered everything. And David took all the flocks and the herds … (1 Samuel 30:18-20)

Some of the men who helped David kill Amalekites say that the 200 men who stayed behind should get their wives and children back, but none of the loot. David, however, declares that everyone must get an equal share, saying:

“You must not do thus, my brothers, with what God gave us! And [God] guarded us, and gave the raiding band that came against us into our hand.” (1 Samuel 30:23)

David gives God the credit for their success in raiding the Amalekite raiders. After all, the Amalekites far outnumbered David’s troop of 400. And God promised through the eifod that David would rescue their wives and children. Perhaps God arranged for the Amalekites to be too drunk to defend themselves.

Then David, anticipating that someday he really will become king of the Israelites, sends a portion of the Amalekite loot to the elders of a number of towns and villages in Judah, with the message:

“Here is a blessing for you from the plunder of God’s enemies.” (1 Samuel 30:26)

David is careful to keep honoring God—and he also takes initiative and buys the goodwill of some of the people he plans to reign over.

The first book of Samuel ends with the battle in the Jezreel Yalley, where both King Saul and his son Jonathan die. The second book of Samuel opens with an Amalekite resident alien in the Jezreel bringing the news to David, along with the king’s crown and bracelet. The Amalekite claims he obeyed Saul’s order to give him the death blow, and David executes him for his sacrilege. (See my post 1 Samuel: Sacred Kings.) David mourns for King Saul as well as for his devoted ally Jonathan.

Then he asks God, through his priest’s eifod:

“Should I go up into one of the towns of Judah?” (2 Samuel 2:1)

The answer is yes. David and his whole outlaw band move into Hebron, where the men of Judah make him their king.

What if you could use a divining device like the eifod—perhaps a lottery or a Ouija board or a Magic 8 Ball—to find out what God wanted you to do? What if you knew that a “yes” meant that God would help you make it happen?

For David, this knowledge makes him work at impressing God by frequently asking for God’s advice through the eifod. But he also uses his eifod consultations to impress his followers with his piety. Knowing God wants him to be the next king of Israel, David takes his own steps toward this end, including maintaining a loyal core of 600 fighting men, and sending gifts to various towns in Judah so they will think of him favorably when the time comes.

If your divining device indicated that God wanted you to have a certain job, you, too, would probably take additional actions to get it. On the other hand, if you believed that divining devices operate by chance, and that there is no anthropomorphic God character meddling in the lives of individuals, you would still work hard at getting the job you want.

The real difference is that if you knew God was on your side, you would not question your right to the job or your ability to handle it—even if it were as outrageous a promotion as David’s promotion from outlaw to king.

1. Technically, David is still married to Saul’s daughter Mikhal, but we find out later that Saul has treated her as if she were divorced and given her to another man. Meanwhile, David has taken two more wives: first Achinoam, whom he met while the outlaws were in the Jezreel Valley, and then Abigail, the widow of Nabal. See my post 1 Samuel: David the Devious.
2. 1 Samuel 27:11.
3. Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Introductions to Tanakh, I Samuel, as quoted in www.sefaria.org.
4. Ibid.
5. Robert Alter, Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2013, p. 415.
6. 1 Samuel 22:18-23:4.