David (King)

• paid dowry of 100 foreskins for Michal

70:1.18Very early in the his­tory of the race, poi­soned weapons were used. All sorts of mu­ti­la­tions were prac­ticed. Saul did not hes­i­tate to re­quire one hun­dred Phil­is­tine fore­skins as the dowry David should pay for his daugh­ter Michal.

• duel with Goliath

70:1.19Early wars were fought be­tween tribes as a whole, but in later times, when two in­di­vid­u­als in dif­fer­ent tribes had a dis­pute, in­stead of both tribes fight­ing, the two dis­putants en­gaged in a duel. It also be­came a cus­tom for two armies to stake all on the out­come of a con­test be­tween a rep­re­sen­ta­tive cho­sen from each side, as in the in­stance of David and Go­liath.

• army of malcontents, social misfits, and fugitives
• stories regarding › greatest distortion of Jewish history relates to
• with 600 men entered into Philistine alliance

97:9.5The great­est of all dis­tor­tions of Jew­ish his­tory had to do with David. Af­ter Saul’s vic­tory over the Am­monites (which he as­cribed to Yah­weh) the Phil­is­tines be­came alarmed and be­gan at­tacks on the north­ern clans. David and Saul never could agree. David with six hun­dred men en­tered into a Phil­is­tine al­liance and marched up the coast to Es­draelon. At Gath the Phil­is­tines or­dered David off the field; they feared he might go over to Saul. David re­tired; the Phil­is­tines at­tacked and de­feated Saul. They could not have done this had David been loyal to Is­rael. David’s army was a poly­glot as­sort­ment of mal­con­tents, be­ing for the most part made up of so­cial mis­fits and fugi­tives from jus­tice.

• stories regarding › differing stories on D. being made king

97:9.8The dif­fer­ence be­tween sa­cred and pro­fane his­tory is well il­lus­trated by the two dif­fer­ing sto­ries con­cern­ing mak­ing David king as they are found in the Old Tes­ta­ment. A part of the sec­u­lar story of how his im­me­di­ate fol­low­ers (his army) made him king was in­ad­ver­tently left in the rec­ord by the priests who sub­se­quently pre­pared the lengthy and pro­saic ac­count of the sa­cred his­tory wherein is de­picted how the prophet Samuel, by di­vine di­rec­tion, se­lected David from among his breth­ren and pro­ceeded for­mally and by elab­o­rate and solemn cer­e­monies to anoint him king over the He­brews and then to pro­claim him Saul’s suc­ces­sor.

• many wives

97:9.10David sought to build him­self up po­lit­i­cally by first mar­ry­ing Saul’s daugh­ter, then the widow of Na­bal the rich Edomite, and then the daugh­ter of Tal­mai, the king of Geshur. He took six wives from the women of Je­bus, not to men­tion Bathsheba, the wife of the Hit­tite.

• cosmopolitan Judah tribe more gentile than Jewish

97:9.11And it was by such meth­ods and out of such peo­ple that David built up the fic­tion of a di­vine king­dom of Ju­dah as the suc­ces­sor of the her­itage and tra­di­tions of the van­ish­ing north­ern king­dom of Ephraimite Is­rael. David’s cos­mopoli­tan tribe of Ju­dah was more gen­tile than Jew­ish; nev­er­the­less the op­pressed el­ders of Ephraim came down and “anointed him king of Is­rael.” Af­ter a mil­i­tary threat, David then made a com­pact with the Je­busites and es­tab­lished his cap­i­tal of the united king­dom at Je­bus (Je­ru­sa­lem), which was a strong-walled city mid­way be­tween Ju­dah and Is­rael. The Phil­is­tines were aroused and soon at­tacked David. Af­ter a fierce bat­tle they were de­feated, and once more Yah­weh was es­tab­lished as “The Lord God of Hosts.”

• 80% of soldiers were Baalites

97:9.12But Yah­weh must, per­force, share some of this glory with the Ca­naan­ite gods, for the bulk of David’s army was non-He­brew. And so there ap­pears in your rec­ord (over­looked by the Ju­dahite ed­i­tors) this tell­tale state­ment: “Yah­weh has bro­ken my en­e­mies be­fore me. There­fore he called the name of the place Baal-Per­azim.” And they did this be­cause eighty per cent of David’s sol­diers were Ba­al­ites.

• gave 7 descendants of Saul to be hanged by Gibeonites

97:9.13David ex­plained Saul’s de­feat at Gil­boa by point­ing out that Saul had at­tacked a Ca­naan­ite city, Gib­eon, whose peo­ple had a peace treaty with the Ephraimites. Be­cause of this, Yah­weh for­sook him. Even in Saul’s time David had de­fended the Ca­naan­ite city of Keilah against the Phil­is­tines, and then he lo­cated his cap­i­tal in a Ca­naan­ite city. In keep­ing with the pol­icy of com­pro­mise with the Ca­naan­ites, David turned seven of Saul’s de­scen­dants over to the Gibeonites to be hanged.

• laid heavy tribute on Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians

97:9.14Af­ter the de­feat of the Phil­is­tines, David gained pos­ses­sion of the “ark of Yah­weh,” brought it to Je­ru­sa­lem, and made the wor­ship of Yah­weh of­fi­cial for his king­dom. He next laid heavy trib­ute on the neigh­bor­ing tribes—the Edom­ites, Moabites, Am­monites, and Syr­i­ans.

• corrupt political machine; rebellion against
• gained control of Philistine caravan tariffs
• murdered Uriah the Hittite

97:9.15David’s cor­rupt po­lit­i­cal ma­chine be­gan to get per­sonal pos­ses­sion of land in the north in vi­o­la­tion of the He­brew mores and pres­ently gained con­trol of the car­a­van tar­iffs for­merly col­lected by the Phil­is­tines. And then came a se­ries of atroc­i­ties cli­maxed by the mur­der of Uriah. All ju­di­cial ap­peals were ad­ju­di­cated at Je­ru­sa­lem; no longer could “the el­ders” mete out jus­tice. No won­der re­bel­lion broke out. To­day, Ab­sa­lom might be called a dem­a­gogue; his mother was a Ca­naan­ite. There were a half dozen con­tenders for the throne be­sides the son of Bathsheba—Sol­o­mon.

• stories regarding › Gospel of Matthew shows Jesus as son of D.

121:8.42. The Gospel of Mat­thew. The so-called Gospel ac­cord­ing to Mat­thew is the rec­ord of the Mas­ter’s life which was writ­ten for the ed­i­fi­ca­tion of Jew­ish Chris­tians. The au­thor of this rec­ord con­stantly seeks to show in Je­sus’ life that much which he did was that “it might be ful­filled which was spo­ken by the prophet.” Mat­thew’s Gospel por­trays Je­sus as a son of David, pic­tur­ing him as show­ing great re­spect for the law and the proph­ets.

• Joseph adopted into house of

122:1.1Joseph, the hu­man fa­ther of Je­sus (Joshua ben Joseph), was a He­brew of the He­brews, al­beit he car­ried many non-Jew­ish racial strains which had been added to his an­ces­tral tree from time to time by the fe­male lines of his pro­gen­i­tors. The an­ces­try of the fa­ther of Je­sus went back to the days of Abra­ham and through this ven­er­a­ble pa­tri­arch to the ear­lier lines of in­her­i­tance lead­ing to the Sume­ri­ans and Nod­ites and, through the south­ern tribes of the an­cient blue man, to An­don and Fonta. David and Sol­o­mon were not in the di­rect line of Joseph’s an­ces­try, nei­ther did Joseph’s lin­eage go di­rectly back to Adam. Joseph’s im­me­di­ate an­ces­tors were me­chan­ics—builders, car­pen­ters, ma­sons, and smiths. Joseph him­self was a car­pen­ter and later a con­trac­tor. His fam­ily be­longed to a long and il­lus­tri­ous line of the no­bil­ity of the com­mon peo­ple, ac­cen­tu­ated ever and anon by the ap­pear­ance of un­usual in­di­vid­u­als who had dis­tin­guished them­selves in con­nec­tion with the evo­lu­tion of re­li­gion on Uran­tia.

• Joseph adopted into house of

122:4.2In all these vis­i­ta­tions noth­ing was said about the house of David. Noth­ing was ever in­ti­mated about Je­sus’ be­com­ing a “de­liv­erer of the Jews,” not even that he was to be the long-ex­pected Mes­siah. Je­sus was not such a Mes­siah as the Jews had an­tic­i­pated, but he was the world’s de­liv­erer. His mis­sion was to all races and peo­ples, not to any one group.

122:4.3Joseph was not of the line of King David. Mary had more of the Da­vidic an­ces­try than Joseph. True, Joseph did go to the City of David, Beth­le­hem, to be reg­is­tered for the Ro­man cen­sus, but that was be­cause, six gen­er­a­tions pre­vi­ously, Joseph’s pa­ter­nal an­ces­tor of that gen­er­a­tion, be­ing an or­phan, was adopted by one Zadoc, who was a di­rect de­scen­dant of David; hence was Joseph also ac­counted as of the “house of David.”

• Joseph adopted into house of

123:0.5Mary had never fully given up the idea that Je­sus ought to grow up in Beth­le­hem, the City of David. Joseph did not re­ally be­lieve that their son was to be­come a kingly de­liv­erer of Is­rael. Be­sides, he knew that he him­self was not re­ally a de­scen­dant of David; that his be­ing reck­oned among the off­spring of David was due to the adop­tion of one of his an­ces­tors into the Da­vidic line of de­scent. Mary, of course, thought the City of David the most ap­pro­pri­ate place in which the new can­di­date for David’s throne could be reared, but Joseph pre­ferred to take chances with Herod An­tipas rather than with his brother Archelaus. He en­ter­tained great fears for the child’s safety in Beth­le­hem or in any other city in Judea, and sur­mised that Archelaus would be more likely to pur­sue the men­ac­ing poli­cies of his fa­ther, Herod, than would An­tipas in Gal­i­lee. And be­sides all these rea­sons, Joseph was out­spo­ken in his pref­er­ence for Gal­i­lee as a bet­ter place in which to rear and ed­u­cate the child, but it re­quired three weeks to over­come Mary’s ob­jec­tions.

• on Mount Gilboa

124:6.3Be­fore reach­ing the Jezreel junc­tion, and as they jour­neyed on, very soon, on the left, they passed the an­cient vil­lage of Shunem, and Je­sus heard again about the most beau­ti­ful maiden of all Is­rael who once lived there and also about the won­der­ful works El­isha per­formed there. In pass­ing by Jezreel, Je­sus’ par­ents re­counted the do­ings of Ahab and Jezebel and the ex­ploits of Jehu. In pass­ing around Mount Gil­boa, they talked much about Saul, who took his life on the slopes of this moun­tain, King David, and the as­so­ci­a­tions of this his­toric spot.

• Joseph adopted into house of

126:3.10The great con­fu­sion of Je­sus’ younger days now arose. Hav­ing set­tled some­thing about the na­ture of his mis­sion on earth, “to be about his Fa­ther’s busi­ness”—to show forth his Fa­ther’s lov­ing na­ture to all man­kind—he be­gan to pon­der anew the many state­ments in the Scrip­tures re­fer­ring to the com­ing of a na­tional de­liv­erer, a Jew­ish teacher or king. To what event did these prophe­cies re­fer? Was not he a Jew? or was he? Was he or was he not of the house of David? His mother averred he was; his fa­ther had ruled that he was not. He de­cided he was not. But had the proph­ets con­fused the na­ture and mis­sion of the Mes­siah?

• stories regarding › Messiah would be successor of

135:5.4While the Jews dif­fered greatly in their es­ti­mates of the na­ture of the com­ing king­dom, they were alike in their be­lief that the event was im­pend­ing, near at hand, even at the door. Many who read the Old Tes­ta­ment lit­er­ally looked ex­pec­tantly for a new king in Pales­tine, for a re­gen­er­ated Jew­ish na­tion de­liv­ered from its en­e­mies and pre­sided over by the suc­ces­sor of King David, the Mes­siah who would quickly be ac­knowl­edged as the right­ful and righ­teous ruler of all the world. An­other, though smaller, group of de­vout Jews held a vastly dif­fer­ent view of this king­dom of God. They taught that the com­ing king­dom was not of this world, that the world was ap­proach­ing its cer­tain end, and that “a new heaven and a new earth” were to usher in the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of God; that this king­dom was to be an ev­er­last­ing do­min­ion, that sin was to be ended, and that the cit­i­zens of the new king­dom were to be­come im­mor­tal in their en­joy­ment of this end­less bliss.

• stories regarding › Messiah would be successor of

135:5.7Who would this Mes­siah be? Again the Jew­ish teach­ers dif­fered. The older ones clung to the doc­trine of the son of David. The newer taught that, since the new king­dom was a heav­enly king­dom, the new ruler might also be a di­vine per­son­al­ity, one who had long sat at God’s right hand in heaven. And strange as it may ap­pear, those who thus con­ceived of the ruler of the new king­dom looked upon him not as a hu­man Mes­siah, not as a mere man, but as “the Son of Man”—a Son of God—a heav­enly Prince, long held in wait­ing thus to as­sume the ruler­ship of the earth made new. Such was the re­li­gious back­ground of the Jew­ish world when John went forth pro­claim­ing: “Re­pent, for the king­dom of heaven is at hand!”

• stories regarding › Messiah would be successor of

136:1.1The Jews en­ter­tained many ideas about the ex­pected de­liv­erer, and each of these dif­fer­ent schools of Mes­sianic teach­ing was able to point to state­ments in the He­brew scrip­tures as proof of their con­tentions. In a gen­eral way, the Jews re­garded their na­tional his­tory as be­gin­ning with Abra­ham and cul­mi­nat­ing in the Mes­siah and the new age of the king­dom of God. In ear­lier times they had en­vis­aged this de­liv­erer as “the ser­vant of the Lord,” then as “the Son of Man,” while lat­terly some even went so far as to re­fer to the Mes­siah as the “Son of God.” But no mat­ter whether he was called the “seed of Abra­ham” or “the son of David,” all were agreed that he was to be the Mes­siah, the “anointed one.” Thus did the con­cept evolve from the “ser­vant of the Lord” to the “son of David,” “Son of Man,” and “Son of God.”

• stories regarding › God or Satan caused to number Israel and Judah

142:3.9Never be­fore had the apos­tles been so shocked as they were upon hear­ing this re­count­ing of the growth of the con­cept of God in the Jew­ish minds of pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions; they were too be­wil­dered to ask ques­tions. As they sat be­fore Je­sus in si­lence, the Mas­ter con­tin­ued: “And you would have known these truths had you read the Scrip­tures. Have you not read in Samuel where it says: ‘And the anger of the Lord was kin­dled against Is­rael, so much so that he moved David against them, say­ing, go num­ber Is­rael and Ju­dah’? And this was not strange be­cause in the days of Samuel the chil­dren of Abra­ham re­ally be­lieved that Yah­weh cre­ated both good and evil. But when a later writer nar­rated these events, sub­se­quent to the en­large­ment of the Jew­ish con­cept of the na­ture of God, he did not dare at­trib­ute evil to Yah­weh; there­fore he said: ‘And Sa­tan stood up against Is­rael and pro­voked David to num­ber Is­rael.’ Can­not you dis­cern that such rec­ords in the Scrip­tures clearly show how the con­cept of the na­ture of God con­tin­ued to grow from one gen­er­a­tion to an­other?

• ate showbread when hungry

147:6.4But the spies did not have long to wait for their op­por­tu­nity to ac­cuse Je­sus and his as­so­ciates of Sab­bath break­ing. As the com­pany passed along the nar­row road, the wav­ing wheat, which was just then ripen­ing, was near at hand on ei­ther side, and some of the apos­tles, be­ing hun­gry, plucked the ripe grain and ate it. It was cus­tom­ary for trav­el­ers to help them­selves to grain as they passed along the road, and there­fore no thought of wrong­do­ing was at­tached to such con­duct. But the spies seized upon this as a pre­text for as­sail­ing Je­sus. When they saw An­drew rub the grain in his hand, they went up to him and said: “Do you not know that it is un­law­ful to pluck and rub the grain on the Sab­bath day?” And An­drew an­swered: “But we are hun­gry and rub only suf­fi­cient for our needs; and since when did it be­come sin­ful to eat grain on the Sab­bath day?” But the Phar­isees an­swered: “You do no wrong in eat­ing, but you do break the law in pluck­ing and rub­bing out the grain be­tween your hands; surely your Mas­ter would not ap­prove of such acts.” Then said An­drew: “But if it is not wrong to eat the grain, surely the rub­bing out be­tween our hands is hardly more work than the chew­ing of the grain, which you al­low; where­fore do you quib­ble over such tri­fles?” When An­drew in­ti­mated that they were quib­blers, they were in­dig­nant, and rush­ing back to where Je­sus walked along, talk­ing to Mat­thew, they protested, say­ing: “Be­hold, Teacher, your apos­tles do that which is un­law­ful on the Sab­bath day; they pluck, rub, and eat the grain. We are sure you will com­mand them to cease.” And then said Je­sus to the ac­cusers: “You are in­deed zeal­ous for the law, and you do well to re­mem­ber the Sab­bath day to keep it holy; but did you never read in the Scrip­ture that, one day when David was hun­gry, he and they who were with him en­tered the house of God and ate the show­bread, which it was not law­ful for any­one to eat save the priests? and David also gave this bread to those who were with him. And have you not read in our law that it is law­ful to do many need­ful things on the Sab­bath day? And shall I not, be­fore the day is fin­ished, see you eat that which you have brought along for the needs of this day? My good men, you do well to be zeal­ous for the Sab­bath, but you would do bet­ter to guard the health and well-be­ing of your fel­lows. I de­clare that the Sab­bath was made for man and not man for the Sab­bath. And if you are here pres­ent with us to watch my words, then will I openly pro­claim that the Son of Man is lord even of the Sab­bath.”

• stories regarding › Messiah not son of D.

174:4.6When no more ques­tions were forth­com­ing, and as the noon hour was near, Je­sus did not re­sume his teach­ing but was con­tent merely to ask the Phar­isees and their as­so­ciates a ques­tion. Said Je­sus: “Since you ask no more ques­tions, I would like to ask you one. What do you think of the De­liv­erer? That is, whose son is he?” Af­ter a brief pause one of the scribes an­swered, “The Mes­siah is the son of David.” And since Je­sus knew that there had been much de­bate, even among his own dis­ci­ples, as to whether or not he was the son of David, he asked this fur­ther ques­tion: “If the De­liv­erer is in­deed the son of David, how is it that, in the Psalm which you ac­credit to David, he him­self, speak­ing in the spirit, says, ‘The Lord said to my lord, sit on my right hand un­til I make your en­e­mies the foot­stool of your feet.’ If David calls him Lord, how then can he be his son?” Al­though the rulers, the scribes, and the chief priests made no re­ply to this ques­tion, they like­wise re­frained from ask­ing him any more ques­tions in an ef­fort to en­tan­gle him. They never an­swered this ques­tion which Je­sus put to them, but af­ter the Mas­ter’s death they at­tempted to es­cape the dif­fi­culty by chang­ing the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of this Psalm so as to make it re­fer to Abra­ham in­stead of the Mes­siah. Oth­ers sought to es­cape the dilemma by dis­al­low­ing that David was the au­thor of this so-called Mes­sianic Psalm.