David

/day"vid/ for 1, 2, 5; Fr. /dann veed"/ for 3, 5; Sp. /dah veedh"/ for 4, 5, n.

1. died c970 B.C., the second king of Israel, reigned c1010-c970, successor to Saul: slayer of the Philistine giant Goliath.

2. Saint. Also called Dewi Sant. A.D. c510-601?, Welsh bishop: patron saint of Wales.

3. Jacques Louis /zhahk lwee/, 1748-1825, French painter.

4. a city in SW Panama. 70,700.

5. a male given name: from a Hebrew word meaning "beloved."

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I

born Bethlehem, Judah

died с 962 BC, Jerusalem

Second of the Israelite kings (r. с 1000–с 962 BC).

David was an aide at the court of Saul until the monarch's jealousy forced him into outlawry. He became king of Israel on Saul's death. He captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital, defeated the Philistines, and gained control of many bordering kingdoms. He faced several revolts, including one by his third son, Absalom. He unified all Israel into one kingdom and made Jerusalem both the religious and political centre. He made the name Yahweh the supreme name for the god of Israel, who was worshiped in Jerusalem, and ruled that all other names for God were mere titles or attributes of Yahweh. Though the kingdom split under David's son and successor Solomon, religious unity endured, and the house of David symbolized the bond between God and Israel. The word messiah comes from hameshiach, the title of kings of the line of David.

II

(as used in expressions)

Abernathy Ralph David

Attenborough Sir David Frederick

Baltimore David

Belasco David

Ben Gurion David

David Gruen

Bergey David Hendricks

Bohr Niels Henrik David

Bowie David

David Robert Jones

Brewer David Josiah

David Warren Brubeck

Byrne David

Camp David

Camp David Accords

Casement Sir Roger David

Chambers David Whittaker

Coolidge William David

David Crockett

Cronenberg David

David ap Llywelyn

David II

David the Builder

David I

David of Tao

David Gerard

David Jacques Louis

David Star of

Magen David

Davis David

Dubinsky David

Duncan David Douglas

Eisenhower Dwight David

Eldridge David Roy

Fairchild David Grandison

Farragut David Glasgow

Friedrich Caspar David

Frost Sir David Paradine

Garrick David

Benjamin David Goodman

Griffith David Wark

Gross Samuel David

Hilbert David

Hill David Octavius and Robert Adamson

Hockney David

Hubel David Hunter

Hume David

David Jones

Jordan David Starr

Josephson Brian David

Kaunda Kenneth David

David Daniel Kaminski

Kern Jerome David

Key David McKendree

Laing Ronald David

Lawrence David Herbert

David John Moore Cornwell

Lean Sir David

Letterman David

Livingstone David

Lloyd George of Dwyfor David Lloyd George Earl

Lynch David

David Harrison Macon

Mamet David Alan

Maysles Albert and David

McGwire Mark David

Merrick David

David Margulois

Ogilvy David Mackenzie

Oistrakh David Fyodorovich

Peckinpah David Samuel

Porter David

Porter David Dixon

Ricardo David

Riccio David

Richardson Sir Ralph David

Riesman David

Rittenhouse David

Rockefeller David

Ross Sir William David

Rusk David Dean

Salinger Jerome David

Sarnoff David

Scharnhorst Gerhard Johann David von

Scofield David Paul

Selznick David Oliver

Siqueiros David Alfaro

Smith David Roland

Souter David Hackett

Susskind David Howard

Teniers David

Thoreau Henry David

Trimble William David

Walker David

Weisgall Hugo David

Yorck von Wartenburg Johann David Ludwig Count

Zinder Norton David

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▪ Panama

      city, western Panama, on the David River and surrounded by fruit groves. It is Panama's largest city outside of the Panama City metropolitan area and is an important commercial centre, served by the Pacific seaports of Pedregal and Puerto Armuelles on the Gulf of Chiriquí and by Enrique Malek Airport. Industries include meatpacking, food processing (sugar, coffee, and cocoa), distilling, and tanning, and the city is known for its saddles and harnesses. Founded in 1738 as a gold-prospecting camp, the modernized city retains much of its colonial tradition. Its San José church has a separate bell tower built for defense against Indian attacks. David and the surrounding province have historically harboured separatist tendencies, and its inhabitants have a culture and lifestyle similar to that of Costa Rica. Pop. (2000) 77,057.

▪ king of Israel

Introduction

born , Bethlehem, Judah

died c. 962 BC, , Jerusalem

 second of the Israelite (Israel) kings (after Saul), reigning c. 1000 to c. 962 BC, who established a united kingdom over all Israel, with Jerusalem as its capital. In Jewish (Judaism) tradition he became the ideal king, the founder of an enduring dynasty, around whose figure and reign clustered messianic expectations of the people of Israel. Since he was a symbol of fulfillment in the future, the New Testament writers emphasized that Jesus was of the lineage of David. He was also held in high esteem in the Islāmic tradition.

Early life

      The youngest son of Jesse (grandson of Boaz and Ruth), David began his career as an aide at the court of Saul, Israel's first king, and became a close friend of Saul's son and heir, Jonathan, and the husband of Saul's daughter Michal. He so distinguished himself as a warrior against the Philistines that his resultant popularity aroused Saul's jealousy, and a plot was made to kill him. He fled into southern Judah (Judaea) and Philistia, on the coastal plain of Palestine, where, with great sagacity and foresight, he began to lay the foundations of his career.

      Beginning as an outlaw, with a price on his head, David led the life of a Robin Hood on the desert frontier of his country (Judah). He became the leader and organizer of other outlaws and refugees; and, according to the Bible, “. . . everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented, gathered to him; and he became captain over them.” This group progressively ingratiated itself with the local population by protecting them from other bandits or, in case they had been raided, by pursuing the raiders and restoring the possessions that had been taken. Though sometimes dependent upon the Philistine kings of Gath for protection from the pursuit of King Saul, David managed to retain his status as a patriot in the eyes of his own people in Judah and, even as one who had, indeed, been an innocent and loyal servant of the demented Saul. He also won the favour of many Judaean elders by various politic gestures. Thus, by biding his time, he eventually had himself “invited” to become king, first by Judah in Hebron and later by all Israel, not as a rebel against Saul but as his true successor. This opportunity emerged when Saul and Jonathan were slain while engaged in battle against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa.

Kingship.

      David entered Hebron, where he was proclaimed king. He had to struggle for a few years against the contending claim and forces of Ishbaal (Ishbosheth), Saul's surviving son, who had also been crowned king, but the civil war ended with the murder of Ishbaal by his own courtiers and the anointing of David as king over all Israel (including tribes beyond Judah). He proceeded to conquer the walled city of Jerusalem, held by the alien Jebusites, which he made the capital of the new united kingdom, and to which he moved the sacred ark of the Covenant, the supreme symbol of Israelite religion. He defeated the Philistines (Philistine) so thoroughly that they were never again a serious threat to the Israelites' security, and he annexed the coastal region. He went on to establish an empire by becoming the overlord of many small kingdoms bordering on Israel, including Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Beginning about 1000 BCE (before the Common Era—BC), David's reign lasted for about 40 years (until 962 BCE).

      David's great success as a warrior and empire builder was marred by family dissensions and political revolts, which were interrelated. To tie together the various groups that constituted his kingdom, David took wives from them and created a harem. The resultant family was an extreme departure from the family in the consanguineal context, the traditional clan structure. David's wives were mostly completely alien to one another, and his children were without the directing support of established social patterns that provided precedents for the resolution of conflict or for establishing the rights of succession. Thus, David's third son, Absalom, murdered the eldest son, Amnon, for the latter's rape of Tamar, the former's sister and the latter's half sister. After a period of exile and then of reconciliation with King David, Absalom used the favour he had gained among the people and some courtiers to launch a rebellion that sent his father fleeing across the Jordan and that made him master of Jerusalem and the royal harem for a time. Eventually, Absalom's forces were defeated, and he was killed by Joab, David's general, and it was Solomon, born of David's union with Bathsheba, who became the King's eventual heir.

      The authors of the biblical accounts (in books I and II Samuel (Samuel, books of)) of David's political career display a deep insight into his character. David was a man who could make an indelible personal impression in a specific situation. His doubling of the bride price set by Saul for Michal illustrates this capacity for imaginative action and dramatic publicity. Coupled with this ability to exploit the immediate situation in the service of his momentary requirements, he possessed the knack of making his conduct in particular situations serve his persistent and long-range aims. For example, the two versions of his refusal to assassinate King Saul when he had it in his power to do so (in I Samuel 24 and 26) do not simply present an inspiring example of gallantry in a moment of dramatic confrontation; they also contribute to the enduring reputation of David as a man who, even in his years as an outlaw, had a deep respect for established institutions, especially for the sacred office of the king (“the Lord's anointed”). Later, after the death of Saul and Jonathan, David again confirmed this point at a moment in which it was crucially important for him to do so for the sake of his own career. A young Amalekite who came to report Saul's death to David intimated that he had had a share in it. He thought that as the bearer of good news he would be rewarded, but his miscalculation cost him his life. David sensed that in an hour of national disaster the differences between him and Saul were of no importance. He had the Amalekite slain for having laid hands on the Lord's anointed, and with his men he performed the mourning rites for Saul and Jonathan, memorializing them in a deeply moving elegy. Somewhat later, after David had become king in Hebron, he learned that the men of Jabesh-Gilead, a town across the Jordan that had been fanatically attached to King Saul, had recovered the bodies of Saul and Jonathan to give them honourable burial. David sent the town a message commending it for its act of reverent loyalty, which had been undertaken at great risk. His action in this episode, also, was both political and sincere, and it was eminently suited to the situation in which the conciliation of all Israelites was of the greatest importance for both the career of David and the survival of the nation.

      In the case of Absalom's rebellion, a poignant conflict took place between parental love and political power. When the news of his son's slaying came to him he broke down into deep grief and lamented, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you . . .!” But he was rebuked by his general Joab (who had ignored the King's direct order and had the young rebel killed) as showing more concern for his enemies than his supporters and risking the loss of public esteem and so of his rule. Thereupon he returned with his old energy and wile to the task of uniting and reconciling the various factions in Israel, including putting down another revolt, this time by Sheba, the son of Bichri, of the tribe of Benjamin.

Political achievement.

      David was Israel's first successful king. He united all of the Israelite tribes (Twelve Tribes of Israel), became the effective ruler over all, and was the founder of an enduring dynasty. Thus, he succeeded where King Saul had failed and attained a unique place in Israel's history and tradition. II Samuel 9–20 and I Kings 11–22 provide the primary source for knowledge of his reign and of the succession. It is generally agreed that this “history” was written very soon after the reign of David; as such, it is perhaps the oldest piece of historiography in the Western world. Known as the “Family History of David,” and also as “The Succession History,” it is an especially clear mirror in which to study the problems David faced in displacing charismatic political leadership and authority with hereditary monarchy.

      For centuries before David's rise to kingship, Israelites had been held together in loose tribal confederacies. The northern confederacy, with its centre at Shechem, is the best known. It was dominated by the tribe of Ephraim. A tribe was a collection of clans; and a clan was simply an expanded family. The consanguineal and familial character of Israelite society is a basic feature of Semitic tradition and is today still intact in the Arab society of the peninsula of Arabia. There the founding of the Saʿūdī dynasty in the present century offers close and instructive parallels to David's problems and accomplishments 3,000 years ago. For example, both the revolt of Absalom, which necessitated David's exile for a time, and the grasp of the eldest surviving son, Adonijah, for the succession, in competition with the sponsors of Solomon, very nearly succeeded because they appealed to traditions of local and tribal authority, winning the support of many who were disillusioned with the swift centralization of power that had accompanied the establishment of the Davidic empire. In II Samuel 15, for example, Absalom, in his bid for support, says that he would like to exercise judgment in the premonarchic manner, as an elder in the gate. Ironically, he was attempting to displace his father by the same means by which David had so successfully risen to power; i.e., appealing to local clans. Later, after Solomon's reign had ended, the united kingdom broke up when these tribalistic traditions again reasserted themselves. The relentless movement of social evolution made impossible the reestablishment of a tribal society; but the vitality of the tribal heritage was still very strong, both in David's day and later. Thus, there was a basic instability in his position; he faced the problem of winning consent for and establishing the legitimacy of his office, for it was an imported novelty in the social structures and traditions of Israel, on the model of the ancient Near Eastern kingships.

      David's position in the tribal units that made up Judah was secure, for he had united them and had risen to authority over Judah through his adroit use of the indigenous social and political instruments of its clan structures. Therefore, Judah accepted his legitimacy and never disowned his dynasty. He sought to win the consent of all Israel, first, by the decisively successful war against the Philistines, which made the whole land secure; and then by establishing the city of Jerusalem as the centre both of Israel's political power and of its worship. On the political level this effort was not enough, for the kingdom was divided after the death of Solomon; but on the religious and cultic level it did eventually succeed, for Jerusalem, the “city of David,” became the Holy City for all Jews, and the messiah, “the anointed one” of the house of David, a sign of the relationship between the God of Israel and his people.

Religious role and significance.

      In Israel's religious tradition the royal line, or “house,” of David became a primary symbol of the bond between God and the nation; the king (sacred kingship) was the mediator between the deity and his people. As in many ancient traditions, the king was thought of as both divine and human. The English word messiah is derived from hameshiach (“the anointed one”), the title of the kings of the line of David. Thus, in later times of disaster, Israel began to wait for a messiah, a new mediator of the power of God that would redeem the people and its land. By designating Jesus (Jesus Christ) as the son of David, Christianity dramatized its conviction that this hope had been fulfilled. David lived in the memory of his people in a double way: as the great founder of their political power and as the symbol of a central facet of their religious faith.

      The process by which David achieved this status for himself, his house, and his city may be traced in II Samuel 5–8. When David took Jerusalem, he assumed the rule over its inhabitants and their religious institutions with the cult centred on Mt. Zion. The previous (Jebusite) ruler had been both king and high priest, and played the role of mediator between the city and its deity. There was no precedent for such a mediative and priestly role of kings in Israelite religion, nor of walled cities as the seat of government and worship. Apparently, David simply took over the Jebusite cult on Zion and adapted it to his own (and Israelite) use. Beginning with David and throughout the entire period of the monarchy, for about four centuries, Israel's worship on Zion gave a central place to the king, not simply as officiant but substantively, as the figure who in his office and person embodied the relationship between God and the nation. In contrast, the premonarchic worship of Israel, at Shechem and elsewhere, had featured a covenant between God and the people, through their tribal heads, as the bond in the relationship. By taking over and adapting Jerusalem's ancient cult, David provided Israel with a new worship, one that featured his own status and its sacral significance.

      Israel's God was named Yahweh. David made this name the supreme name for deity in Jerusalem (previously perhaps “Salem”), to indicate his conquest of the city. All former names and titles of deity became attributes or titles of Yahweh, the God of Israel, the conqueror—for example, El ʿElyon (God Most High). While the Israelite name for God displaced all others, the substance of the worship remained similar: Yahweh had created the world and ruled the nations; he had established kingship as the sign and means of his universal rule; and Zion was the seat of his chosen king, David, his anointed. Yahweh himself was enthroned on Zion, and his king sat at his right hand as his regent. David thus continued the line of king-priests that had reigned in Jerusalem from the founding of the city, and, according to a legend that may have developed in this context, the patriarch Abraham had been blessed by Melchizedek, an earlier representative of the line, when he had presented tithes to him.

      Having adopted the ancient cult of Jerusalem as a means of giving sacral significance to his royal status and having renamed it the cult of Yahweh, by whose power he had conquered, David also made an important move to make the new shrine and its worship relate to the premonarchic experience of Israel. He brought the ark (Ark of the Covenant) to Jerusalem and established it as the central object of the cult. According to tradition, it had travelled with Israel in the wilderness and led the way into the land. It was a rectangular wooden box, originally without a cover, that established and located the presence of Yahweh with the people of Israel. So close was the connection that the ark could be addressed as Yahweh. The ark was carried into battle to demonstrate that Yahweh fought for Israel; and it was carried in the wilderness, to show that he travelled with his people. In worship, it was apparently carried in procession in the pilgrimages that were features of the annual feasts. It was a sign and even the embodiment of Yahweh's presence. David could have chosen no better way of making premonarchic Israelites accept the royal cult on Zion than by incorporating the ark, with all its ancient associations, into the new ceremonial.

      David's adaptation of the Zion cult, with its understanding of kingship as the substance and means of the presence of God on earth, was to have momentous consequences for the religious history of mankind, notably for the experience of the entire Western world. Because of it Jerusalem became the Holy City and David became the prototype of an awaited messiah. As symbol of the Messiah, the return of David, or the coming of David's “son” stood for the reassertion of the divine rule and presence in history: to judge it, to redeem it, to renew it. David thus became the symbol of a fulfillment in the future, final peace.

      In the apocalyptic (apocalypticism) developments in Judaism that mark the last two pre-Christian centuries, the symbolic role of David stressed his status as divine mediator. The son of David became more emphatically a heavenly figure, the son of God enthroned to rule over the nations of the world. This was the matrix for the rise of Christianity. The new faith interpreted the career of Jesus by means of the titles and functions assigned to David in the mysticism of the Zion cult, in which he served as priest-king and in which he was the mediator between God and man.

J. Coert Rylaarsdam

Additional Reading

R.A. Carlson, David, the Chosen King (1964), provides a most complete analysis of the development of the traditions about David now embedded in biblical materials. Juan Bosch, David: Biografía de un rey (1963; David: The Biography of a King, 1966), is a realistic account of the actual dynamics of the political career of the King. Two works on the role of David as a mystical figure in the religious mythology and imagination of ancient Israel are Aage Bentzen, Messiah-Moses Redivivus-Menschensohn (1948; King and Messiah, 1955); and Helmer Ringgren, The Messiah in the Old Testament (1956).

▪ marble sculpture by Michelangelo

 marble sculpture executed from 1501 to 1504 by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo. The statue was commissioned for one of the buttresses of the cathedral of Florence and was carved from a block of marble that had been partially blocked out by other sculptors and left outdoors. After Michelangelo completed the sculpture, the Florentine government decided instead to place it in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The original is now in the Accademia, and copies have been installed in the Piazza della Signoria and the Piazzale Michelangelo, which overlooks Florence.

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