Dealing with Fundamental Regime Change: The Biblical Paradigm of the
Transition from Tribal Federation to Federal Monarchy Under David
Daniel J. Elazar
Long-lived polities are inevitably characterized by regime
changes in the course of their political history. The Jewish
polity has undergone at least twelve such changes in its over
three thousand year history.1 This paper focuses on the biblical
account of David's ascension to the throne and his consolidation
of the kingship in Israel, ending the nearly 300 year old regime
of the tribal federation instituted by Moses and Joshua.
The biblical account of David's rise and reign and its
consequences for subsequent Jewish history offers a paradigm of
regime transition and the successful imposition of a new regime
on a reluctant or ambivalent body politic. It describes and
analyzes the struggle for succession, the steps taken by David to
consolidate his power by gaining control of the several domains
of authority operative in Israel, while at the same time
preserving their forms so as to avoid excessive conflict with
traditionalists. It examines David's establishment of Jerusalem
as his capital on territory independent of any tribe, his
transfer of Israel's major religious symbol to his capital as a
first step towards centralizing worship under the aegis of the
king, his establishment of a professional military force, a
court, and a bureaucracy dependent upon and responsible to him.
The paper also examines David's politics, his use of personal
charm, his claim to God's charisma, his appeals to the people
over the heads of the established tribal leaders, and his
personal image-building, as tools in his successful effort to
consolidate power. It examines the way in which David dealt with
opposition, both tribal and prophetic, through cooptation where
possible and confrontation where necessary. The paper concludes
by examining his provisions for the succession of his son Solomon
as the final step in the consolidation of a dynastic rule.
The paper considers the Davidic paradigm as one of two
competing paradigms of the classic regime in the Jewish political
tradition, along with the previous Mosaic regime. Not only have
the two become competing models of the ideal polity in the Jewish
political tradition, but also in the European political tradition
prior to the modern epoch when it was customary to turn to
biblical paradigms for justification of current or proposed
regimes.
While much can be learned from the biblical account from a
strictly behavioral perspective, the Bible, as always, addresses
the issues from a normative stance, emphasizing that regime
legitimacy must be anchored in God's covenant with Israel.2
Beyond that, covenantal politics is emphasized at every turn,
expressing both an understanding of Israelite political culture
and a set of normative political expectations which place
political actors and actions under judgement.
This paper is in the way of a very preliminary explanation of
some of these themes. Its emphasis is on the interworking of
behavioral and normative themes within the covenantal tradition.
All this is conveyed in an account of epical proportions -- what
has been referred to as Israel's equivalent of the Illiad, The
Pelleponesian Wars, or The Anabasis.
The Political Discussion in the Former Prophets
The Former Prophets include six books: Joshua, Judges, I
Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings. A close reading suggests
that among their other purposes each reflects and analyzes a
particular form of regime as understood by the prophets, that is
the keter torah of that time.
1) Joshua describes the classic polity envisaged in the Torah,
headed by an Eved Adonai (God's prime minister), paralleled by a
Kohen Gadol (high priest). The Eved Adonai is responsible for
the civil rule of the edah (the classic Israelite federal
republic -- literally, assembly), what is later to become known
as the function of the keter malkhut (the domain - literally crown
-- of civil rule) and the Kohen Gadol is responsible for linking
the people to God, what are later to become known as the function
of the keter kehunah (the domain of priesthood). Both share the
task of interpreting the Torah-as-constitution, the function of
the keter torah (the domain of constitutional interpretation).
Both leaders function within the framework of a very active
tribal federation in which the tribal leadership plays a vital
role. The regime is presented as generally successful and
classic in its form.
2) Judges presents the tribal federation in its minimalist state
-- what happens when the federation becomes a loose confederation
and "every man does what is right in his own eyes." Power has
reverted to the tribal elders, assisted by shofetim (judges, who
lead the tribes in battle and administer justice as much as or
more than they adjudicate disputes), who share the keter malkhut.
The keter kehunah is also handled by local priests and Levites
while the keter torah exists principally in the abstract as a
fundamental law with no separate institutional mechanism. While
tending to a negative evaluation, it offers a mixed picture, by
no means all negative -- for example, the rejection of monarchy
is portrayed as good. On balance, however, confederal anarchism
is rejected as a suitable regime.
3) I Samuel presents a picture of a prophet-led regime, or at
least an attempt to restore the tribal federation by eliminating
confederal anarchy through institution of a prophet-led regime.
It paints a very dynamic picture of a confederation whose
principal federal office was a hereditary priesthood which is
deposed in the period under discussion, the rise of a prophet who
was trained within the keter kehunah but shifts to the keter
torah and his introduction of a nagid/melekh (high
commissioner/king) reluctantly and out of necessity, to head the
keter malkhut, but be subordinate to the prophet. The discussion
documents the failure of this regime to stand up to foreign
military pressure.
4) II Samuel, in describing David's reign, presents the classic
regime of kingship. The head of the keter malkhut becomes a king
and not just a chief magistrate. He reaffirms the authority of
the other two ketarim, but also subordinates them by bringing
them into his court, and retains the form of a tribal federation
while centralizing power through a standing army and bureaucracy.
While this regime is portrayed as successful, its flaws are
clearly pointed out as well.
5) I Kings portrays the regime of kingship in its ordinary or
declining phases. In fact, it contrasts two forms of kingship --
dynastic kingship in the regime of Judah and nondynastic kingship
in the regime of Israel -- showing the virtues and defects of
both.
6) II Kings discusses ordinary dynastic kingship in a political
union (rather than a federation), its strengths and weaknesses.
In addition, I and II Chronicles add texture to the historical
discussion from the perspective of the keter melkhut of the time.
They emphasize political and military affairs, government
organization and the problem of balancing powers and interests.
In our examination of David and the establishment of kingship in
Israel, it will be useful to keep these perspectives in mind.
The End of the Tribal Federation
By the end of the first epoch of the history of the twelve
tribes of Israel, the general thrust of events was to bring the
existing tribal system with its political structure into the
framework of a national polity, comprehensive in character and
designed to establish a regime capable of defending Israel
against its enemies, especially the Philistines who had overrun
the Israelite tribes and subjugated them.3
The Philistines, a sea people, assumed by scholars to be from
the Greek isles (Crete?), had landed on the southern coast of
Canaan at approximately the same time that the Israelites had
entered the hill country from the east. Possessing an iron
technology and sophisticated political organization, with a well
developed military component, the Philistines captured the
lowlands of Eretz Israel (the new Israelite name for Canaan), and
established five cities -- Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and
Gath. In the eleventh century, they began to invade the
highlands, actually capturing the Ark of the Covenant (I Samuel
4-6) at one point. The generally disorganized Israelite tribes
were unable to concentrate sufficient power to restrain the
invaders, hence their decision to seek a king to lead them to
military victory over their powerful new foe.
Israel's fortunes had indeed been laid low. Not only were
they soundly beaten at the battle of Aphek (ca. 1050 B.C.E.) and
the Ark of the Covenant captured, but the Philistines proceeded
to occupy the whole country and destroyed Shiloh, the seat of the
tribal confederation. The leader of the tribal confederation,
Samuel, the twelfth and last of the judges, was faced with an
extremely difficult situation. The old confederation had
virtually disintegrated. Shiloh, once destroyed, was never
revived. The old regime, whose major national leaders were the
priestly guardians of Shiloh and the judge of the time, was
discredited. The family of Eli, the chief priest at Shiloh, was,
for all intents and purposes, destroyed. Eli's sons, Hophni and
Phinehas, were killed while bearing the Ark in battle and Eli
died of shock after learning of the defeat. Since his family was
already portrayed as corrupted, no heirs emerged to assume the
high priesthood until David appointed Abiathar and Zadok two
generations later. (Indeed, the vacuum in the priesthood was to
help David to consolidate his power in Jerusalem.)
Samuel, who was a prophet as well as a judge, was not a
military leader. Nevertheless, he attempted to restore the
administration of covenant law and to reestablish the shrine of
the federation at Mitzpah. He moved from Shiloh to his ancestral
home at Ramah from where he travelled on a regular circuit
between Mitzpah, Gilgal and Beth El, three towns with sacred and
historic associations. While the Israelites thus maintained a
degree of autonomy and may even have remained independent in
parts of the Galilee or Transjordan, as long as the Philistines
continued to have a monopoly of iron, they were able to keep
military control over the country. Nevertheless the Israelite
will to resist remained strong, if ineffective.
Seeing that the old regime was ineffective if not dead,
Samuel attempted to institute a constitutional reform of his own,
one that would have strengthened the civil institutions of the
old federation to give the regime sufficient authority, power and
leadership to overthrow the Philistines and regain Israelite
independence. Elsewhere I have suggested that the Book of Joshua
as canonized in the Bible is the presentation of Samuel's ideal
regime for the tribal federation, built around the argument that
if that regime, properly constructed, was strong enough to
conquer the country, if properly reconstructed along the same
lines it would be strong enough to repel all enemies.4
For reasons not explicitly conveyed in the Bible, Samuel
failed. According to the biblical account, as Samuel aged and
his sons proved unworthy as his potential successors, the people
demanded a king, Samuel opposed their demands, formally on the
grounds that this was a rejection of God's kingship, the classic
feature of the regime of the tribal federation whereby Moses and
Joshua as God's prime ministers (eved adonai) and the subsequent
twelve judges (shofetim) were simply his deputies, chosen
charismatically to lead the people. God intervened to indicate
that the people's request was to be met, at least in a limited
way. Reading between the lines, it seems that Samuel's own
personality played no small role in the failure of his plan.
from the tone of the text it also seems that Samuel was
personally jealous of a new and more powerful political leader.
Larger political forces were also involved.
In an act of charismatic transfer, Samuel was forced to find
an appropriate candidate for the kingship, give him God's
blessing, and then bring him before the people to be elected.
Samuel fixed upon Saul, a decent, simple young man of great
strength and courage, no doubt because he thought that Saul was
suitable to be a military leader but would remain politically
subordinate to him as prophet.
In an effort to preserve the spirit of the old regime, albeit
within a new institution, Samuel exercised his primordial
constitutional function to designate the first incumbent of the
office as nagid (best translated as high commissioner), rather
than melekh (king) (I Samuel 10:1). For the rest of the history
of the monarchy the two terms appear parallel to one another,
with God and His prophets referring to the rulers as nagid and
the people referring to them as melekh. He also established a
constitutional framework within which the nagid is required to
function (I Sam. 10:25), specifying that Saul's principal
function as nagid was to lead the edah in war. However, the
people still had to elect Saul, which they do (I Sam. 11:15) and
they proclaim him melekh.
Saul is presented as a charismatic leader: "The spirit of God
came mightily upon him" (I Samuel 11:6), but his choice also had
an internal political advantage since he was from one of the
smallest tribes, located between powerful Judah and equally
powerful Ephraim.
At the beginning, Saul performs as expected, but, a serious
man, he takes his responsibilities as king seriously, too
seriously for Samuel's taste. The two clash in a power struggle
and Samuel publicly rejects him. Moreover, the complex
responsibilities of kingship are too much for the bluff,
unsophisticated Saul and he begins to deteriorate mentally, first
as a result of Samuel's rejection and then in response to
politics and intrigues in his developing court, which are
exacerbated by the appearance of David as a fair-haired young
hero whose popularity rapidly comes to outshine that of Saul.
Nevertheless, as long as Samuel remains alive it appears that
Saul stays more or less within the framework of a nagid and only
after the death of the prophet does an institutionalized kingship
begin to emerge, limited primarily by Saul's limitations. In the
end those limitations are to destroy him and his chances for
establishing a dynasty.
Saul's final defeat and death on Mt. Gilboa are as much a
result of his psychological state, according to the Bible, as to
the continued strength of the Philistines. Militarily, Saul and
his son Jonathan continued their successful tactic that had
brought them earlier victories, of luring the Philistines into
the mountains where the terrain favored the Israelites. But this
time Saul is convinced that he will be defeated because God has
rejected him. And so it comes to pass.
The Constitutional Process of Regime Change
The Bible presents us with two parallel accounts of the
establishment of the monarchy. One (I Samuel 8, 12) is bitterly
hostile to the very idea, and the other, (I Samuel 9-10) tacitly
accepts it. Together these are among the important political
statements in the Bible whose impact has echoed through the
generations. (The Book of Chronicles, on the other hand, ignores
the process of instituting the monarchy, mentioning the death of
Saul as a prelude to the enthronement of David. In general it
seems to be a book designed to strengthen the claims of David and
his house to the kingship, of which more below.) The importance
of the regime change is reflected in the fact that the whole Book
of Samuel, which has come down to us as two books, is devoted to
the transition, covering a period of slightly over a century,
from ca. 1070 to 950 B.C.E., the first book concentrating on the
period from the military failure of the old confederation,
Samuel's judgeship, the appointment and rule of Saul, down
through Saul's death, and the second dealing with David's reign.
Constitutionally, the appointment of Saul seems to have
followed a three-fold process. First the tribal elders travelled
to Ramah and, in an informal meeting, called upon Samuel to
change the constitution and institute kingship. After trying to
resist them and warning them of the price of kingship, Samuel
acquiesced -- following God's instructions according to the
biblical account -- but not before he warned them of the likely
political and social consequences of introducing kingship, all of
which were in the direction of drastically reducing Israelite
liberties. Samuel then proceeded to find a candidate for the
position he advocated, that of nagid, which did not carry the
powers or the hereditary element of kingship, and choosing Saul,
announted him in the name of God.
Following that, Samuel formally called the people together as
a constituent assembly in Mitzpah, the new shrine, in the manner
of the old constitutional assemblies of the edah, and formally
presented the new constitution and the new nagid to them for
their approval. The people then elected Saul their king, using
the term melekh (king) in preference to nagid. Samuel concluded
by promulgating the mishpat hamelukhah (the law of the kingdom),
which he wrote down as the civil constitution of the new regime
within the framework of the Torah, the general constitution of
the Israelite polity, after which everyone including Saul
returned home.5
In light of our knowledge of the role of covenants and
covenant ideas in West Asia at the time, we can assume that the
Israelite tribes were culturally attuned to this means of
reconstitution. The civil covenantal process introduced by Samuel
brought about a certain redesign of the political structure and
created a basis for further redesign in later epochs of Jewish
history, Biblical and post-Biblical. This was to be the limit of
Samuel's political success as a constitutional reformer.6
In retrospect, the most important aspect of this redesign was
the reaffirmation and strengthening of the division of powers
within the edah's leadership, a division established by a special
set of covenants. The initial division of functions or powers
was between Moses, the Elders of the Edah, and Aaron. God
covenanted with Moses as His minister (in the political sense)
responsible for relaying and interpreting God's constitutional
teaching (Torah) and judging the people. These functions were
immediately subdivided per God's instructions so that the 70
elders (as in senate or board of aldermen) took on primary
responsibilities for judging, i.e., functioned as a civil branch
of government, while Moses himself retained the prophetic
responsibility for interpreting God's teaching. The separation
between these two divisions was later to be institutionalized by
the end of the period of the Judges, with Samuel the last figure
to attempt to straddle both. God made a parallel covenant with
Aaron and his sons, giving them the priesthood with the authority
to be the links between the people and God in ritual and
sacerdotal matters. Thus, the basis for a tripartite division of
authority between civil, priestly, and prophetic or
constitutional ingterpretation functions was set down through
subsidiary covenants early in the Biblical account of the history
of Israel as a polity.7
A millenium later, during the time of the Second Commonwealth,
this tripartite division came to be described as the division
into three ketarim (literally, crowns), the labels they bear
to this day. Those responsible for relating and interpreting
God's teaching are described as belonging to the domain of
keter torah. Those responsible for the civil governance of the
edah represent the domain of keter malkhut, while those
responsible for the links between the people and God in ritual
and sacredotal matters are described as being in the domain of
the keter kehunah.
This tripartite system became more fully articulated with the
introduction of the kingship. Prior to the regime change, Samuel
as judge and prophet (his two official titles) continued in the
line of Moses and Joshua and straddled the constitutional and
civil authority. Moreover, because he was raised at Shiloh, the
central shrine of the tribal federation, within the priestly
family of Eli, he had close connections with the priesthood as
well. There are hints in the Biblical text that, in his efforts
to restore more effective framing institutions for the edah after
so many generations of national weakness, he tried to encompass
all three domains of authority within his own office. This was
decisively rejected by the people and, apparently, by God as
well, and is one of the precipitating causes for his failure to
reform the old constitution on its own terms and the introduction
of kingship as such.
Saul then proceeded to fall into the same trap that was the
undoing of Samuel by seeking to encompass in his office the
functions of all three domains. For that he is punished and his
family is denied dynastic inheritance. In I Samuel 13:8-13, we
find Saul usurping priestly functions, i.e., offering sacrifices,
and in 15:7-9, he usurps prophetic functions of constitutional
interpretation by allowing his army to retain certain spoils from
a captured Canaanite city, against the proscriptions of the
Torah. Thus the principle of tripartite division is firmly
established and is made part of God's covenant with David which
is then ratified by the people.
David, with all his power and his success at centralizing the
powers of government in his court, did not attempt to abolish
this tripartite division, only to bring it under his control. So,
he brought the tabernacle to Jerusalem and appointed a new
priestly family to tend it, one that would be beholden to him,
but in so doing reaffirmed their priestly power. He brought the
prophets into his court, reaffirming their powers, even allowing
them to denounce him for transgressions, but again keeping them
within his purview. In short, David's genius was to formally
maintain the constitution while altering the distribution of
powers within it. David's wisdom was to recognize that, once
constitutionalized by covenant, the basic lines of authority had
to be maintained but could be manipulated to serve his end.
David Begins to Advance
David appears on the scene as a somewhat innocent young
shepherd boy from Bethlehem, "somewhat innocent" because even the
laudatory biblical account that we have suggests a more complex
figure than subsequent legend had it. David first appears in
three accounts contained in I Samuel, chapters 16 and 17. In the
first, Samuel seeks out David the young shepherd under God's
instructions to annoint him as king to replace Saul. In the
second version Saul, plagued by the psychological terrors that
are to be his undoing, seeks relief in music, a member of Saul's
entourage remembers David as a young harpist, and Saul invites
him to court where David's playing provides temporary relief. In
the third version, David, as the youngest son of Jesse, is not
yet mobilized in the tribal militia levees confronting the
Philistines in the Valley of Elah, but he does go back and forth,
bringing food to his mobilized brothers, until he seizes the
opportunity to distinguish himself by fighting Goliath.
These three accounts are not contradictory; their sequential
placement may be accurate. What is important is that we see
before us a young man, appropriately modest in his overt
behavior, yet handsome and talented and capable of winning over
powerful people and garnering their support; a young man of
original ideas, good bearing and military prowess. All these are
characteristics that will stay with David as he acquires
political power. They will be used by him to gain and secure
that power.
David's first signal triumph is to become part of Saul's
entourage. In other words, he begins to move upward from within
the "court" where he is able to acquire knowledge and experience
in politics, and perhaps also in governing. Since he enters the
entourage as a popular hero, he also has a public dimension which
gets him into trouble with Saul but which also enables him to
survive exile from the court.
Whether precisely accurate or not, the paradigm of a
potential leader successfully pursuing power is complete. It is
entirely possible, indeed likely, that David was a gifted
musician and poet. The Goliath story, on the other hand, raises
some questions. Elsewhere in the text there is a cryptic
reference to Elhanan as the slayer of Goliath. Did David
appropriate this story of mythic proportions? If so, when? If
not, what is the textual reference? Did Elhanan adopt the throne
name of David upon becoming king? This hint of something amiss
is characteristic of the Bible which, whatever its literal truth
in some matters, is not a book of myths but what we might call
moral science, using history as its raw material. Written as it
is for the broadest public, its general tone must be and is
popular, but, for the careful reader, it often drops important
hints of this kind.
Since the Bible is not a book of myths, it does not have
David automatically ascend to the throne. Instead he has to pass
through a period of trials which sharpen his already substantial
leadership skills and test his moral qualities. During that
period he displays a wide range of human qualities: generosity,
and opportunism, love and cunning, loyalty and treason,
forthrightness and deviousness.
David's troubles begin with his popularity which exceeds that
of the king (I Samuel 18:7). Nor is David an innocent victim
here. He encourages public adulation. In an effort to be sly,
Saul attempts to have David killed in battle by requiring him to
deliver one hundred Philistine foreskins as the bride price for
Michal, Saul's daughter, whom David seeks to wed. But poor Saul
is never successful at slyness and David, instead of getting
himself killed, brings back the hundred foreskins and the couple
are married (I Samuel 18:17-29). Now David is not only of the
court, but married into the royal family -- another bond
strengthening any future claim to the kingship he might advance.
The marriage to Michal is to go badly and when David flees, Saul
gives her to another, but David retrieves her after Saul's death
and keeps her with him until he has consolidated his hold on the
throne.
(Michal is Saul's second daughter, younger than Merab who was
originally promised to David but given to another. She is
presented as loving David and supporting him against her father.
Did she hope to rise to the top through her husband rather than
simply be a second daughter? Is her later disgust with David
over his populism a reflection of her pretensions?)
David also develops a very special relationship with
Jonathan, Saul's oldest son and heir apparent. Jonathan is the
biblical model of the singularly noble man who sacrifices his own
interests for his friend. The friendship is portrayed through a
series of increasingly sad vignettes. David appears to be a good
and magnanimous friend, but his friendship never gets in the way
of his ambition, while Jonathan, a far more noble character, is
forced to choose between filial loyalty to his increasingly mad
father and the throne, on one hand, and David, on the other. When
he makes his choice and it is described in the usual spare
biblical style, we can palpably feel Jonathan's consciousness of
what he is doing and the nobility attached to the act (I Samuel
20-21:1).
From Outlaw to King
David is forced to flee from Saul's court. He becomes a
political refugee, drawing about him a band of outlaws who have
nothing to loose in being with him, but who give him strength
because of the kind of characters they are -- "natural men"
described by one biblical scholar as having "contempt for
authority and settled communities." They are to stay with him as
his most trusted men for the rest of his life. Meanwhile David's
own kin stayed away from him.
David and his followers are given modest help by the priests
of Nob, perhaps because the latter were descended from Eli and
the priestly family which had officiated at Shiloh and had been
dispossessed with the introduction of the new regime. Whatever
the reason, Saul has them massacred (I Samuel 22:11-19), leading
to the alienation of other priests from Saul's rule, one of whom,
Abiathar, joins David's growing band, bringing with him religious
objects which endow David with the beginnings of legitimacy.
One can assume that it was in this period that David's
understanding of the importance of legitimacy, already evident
from the very first moment that he appears on the scene, is
strengthened. When he ascends to the throne, David is to
resurrect the national priesthood which had fallen into desuetude
for two generations, reestablishing the office of high priest and
raising it to an honored position in Jerusalem where it is
associated with the new central shrine, while at the same time
assuring that his appointees, Abiathar and Zadok, and their
families, are tied to the court.
It is at this point that David's military strength grows
sufficiently to give him and his force a semi-legitimate mission
within Israel, namely to serve as an irregular border guard that
acts to protect villages and herds against the Philistines and
other raiders (23:1-5, 25:1-42). David makes other efforts to
strengthen his hand by making marriage alliances with leading
families in the borderlands (25:42-43). Nevertheless Saul's
pressure against him continues undiminished and David is finally
forced to seek refuge with the Philistine king Achish of Gath
(the two versions of this event are found in 21:10-15 and
27:2-12). He settles in Ziklag as a Philistine vassal who
engages in near-treasonous acts against Israel.
The Philistines then go out for the major assault on Saul and
the Israelites which ends in Saul's defeat and death (996-995
B.C.E.). Either deliberately or fortunately, David and his men
are not called upon to join in the campaign and remain behind.
David is able to memorialize Saul and Jonathan in perhaps the
greatest of his poems, which seems to reflect true emotion but
also establishes his magnanimity and his claim to leadership of
Israel.
The story of David's acsension to the kingship and reign are
told in the second book of Samuel which opens with David's elegy.
Taking advantage of the vacuum created with Saul's death, David
moves to Hebron, the seat of the government of the tribe of
Judah, and its religious center. According to the Bible, he does
so after asking God whether he should and receiving an
affirmative answer. There the men of Judah anoint David king
over "the house of Judah" (II Samuel 2:1-4). David was to be
king of the house of Judah alone for seven years and six months.
In the meantime, Abner, the commander of Saul's army, who
survived the battle, took Saul's surviving son (Ishbosheth in the
Bible, apparently because his real name was the pagan Ishbaal)
and made him king over all the Israelite tribes north of Judah.
David tried to undermine the appointment by diplomacy and
apparently by limited conflict. The decisive clash is at Gibeon
where Abner and other members of Ishbosheth's court meet with
Joab, the commander of David's army and others of David's court.
In the ensuing battle, Abner kills Joab's brother Asahel and he
and the Israelites are forced to flee.
The long war leads to dissension between Ishbaal and Abner,
according to the Bible over one of Saul's concubines. Abner
determines to abandon Ishbaal and make a deal with David. As a
prelude to any arrangement, David insists on having Michal
returned to him. Abner arranges it, after which David and Abner
meet and agreement for a settlement is reached, making David king
over all Israel. Abner departs, only to be pursued by Joab and
his men and killed in revenge for Abner's killing of Joab's
brother. David treats the killing as if it were against his
orders, but unquestionably it aided him by eliminating a
potential source of opposition.
With Abner dead, Ishbosheth's court falls apart. Saul's son
is killed by his own courtiers who hope to win favor with David
by bringing him the head of his rival. David's response is to
punish the murderers with death, but again, since his rival is
removed from the field, the last real obstacle was removed to his
being chosen as king of all of Israel (chapter 5). All the
tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron and, emphasizing the
blood relationship among the tribes, covenant with David and make
him king over Israel (c. 988 BCE). The formula they use is
important. First they indicate that they know that God has
appointed him nagid in place of Saul. Then they anoint him
melekh, thus preserving the dual constitutional formula of the
melekh of the people being God's nagid.
David's New Regime
Now king over all Israel, the 30-year-old David was to reign
33 years in addition to the 7 1/2 years he reigned over Judah.
He moved swiftly to consolidate his rule by attacking the
Jebusites in Jerusalem, capturing the city and making it his
capital. This had the dual effect of removing a Canaanite
city-state that divided Judah and Israel geographically and
giving the new federal monarchy a capital outside of the
territory of any of the individual tribes, a federal district as
it were. Officially the personal property of David, it became
known as the City of David and literally was that.
There David established his court and began to build an
appropriate capital city, building himself a grand "house" with
imported cedar from Tyre, constructed by Tyrean carpenters and
masons. There he settled his family and from there he marched
against the Philistines who responded to David's growing strength
by sending a force to reimpose their rule on a vassal state that
they saw was growing too strong. In two battles at Baal Perazim
and the Valley of Refaim, the Philistines are defeated by David.
With the Philistine threat substantially reduced, David
assembles the tribal militias to bring the Ark of the Covenant to
Jerusalem. His first effort is stopped by a tragic accident when
the Ark almost falls off of the cart upon which it was placed and
Uzza the man who saves it, drops dead. But several months later
the task is completed. Amid joyous ceremonies the Ark is
ensconced in Jerusalem, thereby further consolidating David's
power by making his city the principal cultic center.
The story of the interrupted journey of the Ark of the
Covenant as told in I Chronicles 14-15 suggests that a
constitutional issue was involved here as well. David's first
effort to bring up the Ark has the people of his army hauling it.
After the death of Uzza, David concludes that none ought to carry
the Ark of God but the Levites (15:2), so the second time he
brings it up he entrusts the Ark to the custody of the Levites,
making that custody permanent, thereby consolidating their
support as he has consolidated that of the Priests and the
Prophets. The culmination of the transfer of the Ark is
described in Chronicles 16:4ff where David appoints certain of
the Levites to permanently minister before the Ark of the Lord.
By this time David also has brought Nathan, the leading
prophet of his generation, into his court as a personal
consultant (II Samuel 7). Wanting to build a proper house for
the Ark, David asks Nathan for God's permission to do so and
Nathan's immediate response is to grant it. But, according to
the Bible, the word of the Lord comes to Nathan that night to
indicate that David should not build such a house on the grounds
that God does not need a house and indeed that it is a violation
of the spirit of the Israelite religion to violate the simplicity
of the tent of meeting. Nathan is instructed to bring this
message to David but also to indicate to him that he and his
descendants are to be God's negidim, God will assure the rule of
his dynasty, and that later in the history of the dynasty his son
will build the house.
This dream is the principal source of God's promise of
permanent dominion to David and his heirs. The fact that it is
communicated to Nathan the prophet (keter torah) lends it
constitutional credibility. David's response in a prayer to God
directly makes it a mutual promise or covenant. In his response,
David fully assumes the posture of spokesman for his people.8
While David was unable to build the Temple himself, he did choose
the site that Solomon was later to use, purchased the land, had
plans for the Temple drawn up and materials assembled before his
death (I Chronicles 21:18-22).
In addition to recording and publicizing God's promise via
Nathan, David left few if any stones unturned to establish his
legitimacy. He kept Saul's daughter, Michal, on as his wife,
even after she rejected him, brought Jonathan's son Mephibosheth
(Mephibaal) to his court to "eat bread at David's table."
David accepts God's will with all humility and proceeds with
the business of building his kingdom. Now it is his turn to
attack the Philistines (II Samuel 8) and he reduces them to
vassals although he does not annex their territory. The
Canaanite enclaves in Israel's territory are reduced and annexed.
He then turns to conquer Ammon and Moab which also become vassal
states. Turning northward he conquers Zobah and Aram, extending
his rule over the two states as far as the Euphrates. Amalek and
Edom also come under his rule and on the south his kingdom is
extended to below Etzion Geber on the Red Sea. Taking advantage
of the weakness of both Egypt and Assyria, David creates a small
but strong empire and his rule is acknowledged by his neighbors.
Only Phoenicia, whose king Hiram had entered into an alliance
with David, remains unconquered.
David's military successes enable him to begin the
construction of a state of the kind that the Israelites had not
previously known. The Bible describes this step in II Samuel
8:15-17, immediately following the record of David's military
conquests, listing David's principal officers in the following
order: his military commander, Joab, son of Zeruiah; mazkir
(usually translated "recorder" but apparently more like its
present use in the sense of "appointed manager") Jehosephat, son
of Ahilud; two priests, Zadok, the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelekh,
the son of Abiathar; sofer or secretary in the sense of keeper of
the records, Seraiah; commander of the mercenaries, Beniaiah, son
of Jehoiadaa; and David's loyal supporters (referred to as "sons
of David"), heads of the various ministries. Thus we have a
court and a cabinet, as well as the concentraton of the three
domains in David's court. Overall the new state structure can be
described as follows:
Perhaps the most significant development here was the
organization of a mercenary force loyal to the king himself.
While wars were still conducted primarily through the tribal
militias, organized in the traditional twelve divisions (I
Chronicles 27:2-15), they remained under tribal leadership as
reserves who were fully mobilized only in time of war. David's
power position was secured by his mercenaries, a standing army
who were to prove decisive in the various revolts against his
rule, particularly in the great revolt of Absalom which came
closest of any of them to succeeding.
The full scale of David's organizational effort is described
in I Chronicles 23ff. The description has several elements.
First of all, the bureaucracy provides offices for David's loyal
supporters, his courtiers and their families, so as to
consolidate their support for the throne. The priests and
Levites are provided with full employment and the tribal levees
are reorganized so that while they remain tribal, they can be
easily mobilized into David's service.9
While the changes introduced by David brought the country
peace and prosperity, they also completed the destruction of the
old regime -- but not entirely. David realized, either out of
choice or out of necessity, that Israel had to remain a
federation in which the tribal institutions retained considerable
political power, hence what emerged from his reconstitution was a
federal monarchy whith the tribes in place but the overall thrust
was inexorable centralization. This lead to several tribal
revolts, often helped along by David's own sons who, because of
interfamilial quarrels or sheer impatience to gain their father's
throne, appealed to the "state's rights" concerns of the tribes.
From the biblical description of the characters and individuals
involved, it is hardly likely that this was more than a political
ploy on their part which would have disappeared as soon as they
had used tribal support to gain the throne. If anything, David
was probably more sensitive to the virtues of the old
constitution than his sons who had already been raised, if not
born, into royalty. Certainly the subsequent history of the
Judean monarchy suggests that was the case.
The greatest revolt was that of Absalom eleven years before
David's death (II Samuel 15). Absalom had built up the revolt by
appealing to the tribal elders on state's rights grounds and
actually succeeded in capturing Jerusalem and causing David to
flee. David defeated Absalom's tribal levees with his
professional soldiers. Absalom was killed and David returned to
Jerusalem with the nation rallying around him once again. A
second revolt by an Israelite named Sheba ben Bichri was an
effort to divide the kingdom through the secession of the
northern tribes. David put this down as well and had Sheba
killed (II Samuel 20).
Seven chapters (13-19) of II Samuel are devoted to Absalom
and David, beginning with the personal conflict between Absalom
and Amnon, another of David's sons, over Tamar, their sister, as
a result of the rape of Tamar and Amnon's murder by Absalom,
Joab's role in restoring Absalom to the court, Absalom's revolt
and its repercussions, and David's restoration and its
repercussions. In the story we see the power struggle among the
king's sons, the crucial role of Joab in keeping David on the
throne and his family and court together, the side intrigues of
the various people in the court such as Mephibosheth's servant
Ziba, who tries to curry favor with David and betray
Mephibosheth, and various others. Finally after David's victory,
there are the efforts of the leaders of the tribe of Judah and
the tribes of Israel to get back on David's bandwagon.
One of the byproducts of Absalom's revolt was a stirring
among the family and tribe of Saul, a testing of the waters to
see if David's weakness could lead to their restoration to the
throne. Mephibosheth may or may not have been linked to the
conspiracy but he had to make an effort to get back into David's
good graces after the latter's triumph, David bides his time and
once the revolts of Absalom and Sheba are put down, uses the
pretexts of compensating the Gibeonites for Saul's massacre of
them years before to hand over most of the remaining descendants
of Saul's family (not including Mephibosheth to whom he had
promised permanent protection) for execution, thereby
substantially reducing if not ending that threat. At the same
time David has the bones of Saul and Jonathan reburied in their
native soil of the tribe of Benjamin so as to distance himself
from the execution.
David the King
One of the greatest characteristics of the Bible is that it
portrays David "warts and all." His worst transgression in the
eyes of the Bible was sending Uriah the Hittite to his death in
the war against Ammon in order to take his wife Bathsheva.
Considerable space is devoted to the incident (II Samuel 11-12)
-- to the story itself and to its prelude (II Samuel 10). In
part, this is because the second product of the union of David
and Bathsheva, Solomon, is to inherit David's throne and
establish the dynastic principle. In part, it is part of the
biblical teaching that even kings are under the judgement of God
and his prophets. From another perspective it shows how David
has consolidated his power by bringing the prophet into his
court, but at the same time the price he must pay, namely within
the framework of the court the prophet must be free to chastise
him when necessary. The story also reveals David's character,
how he could succumb to his passions, but how his own
sensitivities developed and his rational faculties never departed
from him.
David was not the only one prey to human weaknesses. The
biblical account tells of the court intrigues, especially among
his children, giving us a taste of what is to come as the result
of kingship.
David's last days are described in chapters 1-2 of I Kings
and 23-24 of I Chronicles. As his end grew near, the dynastic
principle had still not been established and his son Adonijah
attempted to seize the throne. Adonijah managed to secure the
support of Joab and Aviatar, but Zadok, Beniaiah and Nathan lined
up behind Solomon. Nathan became the decisive factor, mobilizing
Bathsheba to intervene with the king to have him designate
Solomon as his successor. In what is obviously an orchestrated
move, Nathan joins Bathsheba in the presence of the king. Both
make the point that if Adonijah is to become king, then their
lives will be forfeit. This essentially forces David to
designate Solomon as his heir.
In the process we have a new form of anointment instituted,
whereby priest and prophet join together to proclaim which of
David's sons is to be his heir to the throne, a proclamation
which then is executed by one of the senior court officials.
Again, all three ketarim are represented. Here, too, the formula
used is both melekh and nagid. The proclamation must be public
because the people must respond to it and assent.
David then personally and privately charges Solomon to
maintain Israel's constitution as king, using the classic formula
of the Torah, hukotav, mitzvotav, umishpatav (his statutes, his
commandments and his ordinances) ve'edotav kakatuv b'torat Moshe
(his covenant witnesses as written in the Torah of Moses). After
that constitutional charge, he turns to more practical matters,
directing Solomon to make sure that Joab is assassinated so that
he cannot intrigue against David's chosen successor and that
Shimi ben Gera of Saul's family who had cursed David when he fled
Jerusalem during Absalom's revolt also be killed so as to keep
the mystique of the monarchy intact and end any efforts on the
part of the supporters of Saul to seize the throne. With that,
David died.
According to I Chronicles 28-29, David himself assembled all
the relevant actors to inform them of his designation of Solomon
as his heir in a formal assembly (vayakhel, I Chronicles 28:1).
These included, in order and by their titles listed: the
ministers of Israel, the ministers of the tribes, the ministers
of the departments that served the king, the officers of the
regiments and companies, the officers responsible for the king's
possessions, and David's personal bodyguard. In front of them he
went through the appropriate constitutional litany with the
addition of the promise to build a temple, and required all of
them to pledge allegiance to Solomon.
The Role of Covenanting in a Constitutional Monarchy
The covenant with David and his house was not the first
covenant of the keter malkhut. At the very least, the mishpat
hamelekh (civil constitution) in Deuteronomy is the foundation of
that keter, though, in fact, the foundation goes back earlier to
the exodus itself. What is important about mishpat hamelekh is
that the covenant of keter malkhut is not made with the king but
is made with the people who are empowered to appoint a king if
they so choose. Indeed, one can contrast the three covenants
behind the three ketarim: the covenant for keter torah is made
with the people through the mediation of the prophet Moses; the
covenant with the priests is made with Aaron and his family and
embraces the tribe of Levi in a subsidiary fashion; while the
keter malkhut is made with the people without a king or
equivalent leader being present. Only in a later epoch is an
actual king introduced.
During the six centuries following the conquest of the land,
the Israelite tribes attempted to build or rebuild their
commonwealth through various internal political covenants based
upon the overarching covenants with God established earlier. It
has already been suggested that the Book of Joshua is the account
of the initial effort in that direction. When the original
tribal federation collapsed under external military pressure from
the Philistines, Israel created a limited constitutional
monarchy, bounded by the mishpat hamelekh, the covenant of civil
rule, which was periodically reaffirmed through specific
covenants between kings, the people, and God. The establishment
of the office of nagid/melekh under Samuel with Saul as the first
incumbent is described as a covenanting (I Samuel 9). The next
major example, that of David, involves both bilateral and
tripartite covenanting. First a relationship is established
between God and David which gives David a theo-political status
(I Sam. 16). Then that relationship is transformed into
covenants between David and the people -- with God acting as the
guarantor (II Samuel 5:1-3):
Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and
spoke, saying: "Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. In
times past, when Saul was king over us, it was thou that
didst lead out and bring in Israel; and the Lord said to
thee: 'Thou shalt feed My people Israel, and thou shalt be
prince over Israel.'" So all the elders of Israel came to
Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them in Hebron
before the Lord; and they anointed David king over Israel."
It seems that, despite the hereditary element introduced by
David, his heirs had to be confirmed through covenants with the
representatives of the people. Thus Solomon (965-928 BCE) and
the people covenanted with one another before God at the time of
the transferring of the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple (I
Kings 8). At least this was so after crises involving a
previously reigning monarch who had violated the covenant and
thereby cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Davidide house, as in
the cases of Asa (908-867 BCE), Joash (836-798 BCE), Hezekiah
(727-698 BCE), and Josiah (639-609 BCE).
What was characteristic of the new regime is the combination
of monarchic and tribal (or federal) institutions. David was
elevated to the kingship by the tribal leadership speaking in the
name of the people, Solomon was reaffirmed by that leadership,
and Rehoboam was denied the kingship by ten of the tribes acting
in concert when he went to them to establish a similar pact at
the beginning of his reign (I Kings 12; II Chronicles 10).
Considering his arrogant attitude toward the tribal leadership,
it is clear that he was required to go before them by the
constitution and did not do so of his own free will.
Subsequently, while multi-tribal institutions disappeared from
the southern kingdom because of the dominance of Judah (with the
original federal institutions surviving only in the realm of
local government), the northern kingdom maintained them until the
very end of its existence.
The establishment of the federal monarchy under David
required a complex network of covenants. God chose David to be
his anointed one in a private conversation with Samuel, who
proceeded to anoint David secretly (I Samuel 16:1-13). This made
it possible for David to be chosen king by the people through
their elders in a manner consistent with covenant tradition, a
necessary second step. The people and elders of Judah did so
(without any reference to God's earlier intervention) immediately
upon the death of Saul (II Samuel 2:1-4) but the other tribes of
Israel followed suit only after a civil war and protracted
negotiations between Abner, the commander of the Israelite forces
and real power in that regime (II Samuel 3:6) and David
(3:12-21). The issue was complicated by Abner's murder at the
hands of Joab, David's military commander (3:27-39) and the
intrigues at the court of Ish-Bosheth, Saul's heir (3:6-11 and
4). Finally, the elders of Israel went to Hebron, the seat of
David's government, and covenanted with the new ruler (II Samuel
5:1-3 and I Chronicles 11:1-3). This covenantal "package"
includes several examples of different kinds of covenantal
usages, e.g. for political alliances (Abner and David), for
defining the relationship between rulers and ruled (David and the
tribes of Israel), and establishing dynastic legitimacy (David
and God), all of which find later echoes in Western political
thought and behavior.
The establishment of the Davidic dynasty came only in the
wake of the removal of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and
the reaffirmation of the national covenant by David and the
people at the time (II Samuel 6, I Chronicles 16 and 17). David
was careful to make the transfer of the Ark a constitutional
event since it was designed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's
capital and seat of God's providence as well as David's
government. He carefully followed the right procedures (I
Chronicles 13:1-7). After the Ark was settled in Jerusalem,
Nathan, the first of the court-connected prophets (whose office
emerges as a check on the new centralized executive), brought
God's promise of dynastic succession to David (II Samuel 7, I
Chronicles 18).
Implementation of the right of succession would come only
when David's wife Bathsheba, Nathan, Zadok the High Priest, and
various court figures engineered the appointment of Solomon to
the throne by David in the latter's waning years, outmaneuvering
Adonijah and David's other sons (I Kings 1). Upon Nathan's
recommendation, David promised the succession to Solomon and
ordered his decision proclaimed by the chief representatives of
the three branches of the Israelite national government: the high
priest, the prophet, and the steward of the royal court
(1:32-37). This was done in a public ceremony to which the
people responded by proclaiming Solomon king (1:38-40). The
parallel account in I Chronicles 28 and 29 has David assembling
the representatives of the people before the Ark of the Covenant
to anoint and proclaim Solomon as God's chief magistrate.
Solomon himself reaffirms the covenant, along with the
representatives of Israel's tribes, at the dedication of the
Temple, in a manner parallel to David's reaffirmation on the
occasion of the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem
(I Kings 8, II Chronicles 5). But David's son goes beyond his
father to initiate what is, for all intents and purposes, a
supplementary covenant with God designed to ground the Temple
within the Israelite covenantal system. Since, by tradition,
pacts between God and man must be initiated by God, Solomon
presents his initiative in the form of a public prayer which he
delivers at the dedication ceremony before the appropriate
popular witnesses (8:1--"The elders of Israel, all the heads of
the tribes, representatives of the households of Israel" who are
referred to collectively as Kahal Yisrael, the Congregation of
Israel in 8:22).
The essence of Solomon's prayer consists of a series of
practical proposals for including the Temple in the
religio-legal-constitutional system of the nation. They are
necessary because of the revolutionary implications of the Temple
as a geographically fixed earthly locus for the Divine presence.
Under the tribal federation, God explicitly abjured such a fixed
dwelling place. God was free to locate and relocate His earthly
presence. While He had commanded Israel to prepare the Ark of
the Covenant and the Tent of Assembly, they were deliberately
portable. This portability became a central element in ancient
Israel's original theo-political ideology.
Solomon had the task of transforming that ideology into one
which justified a permanent central worship site in Jerusalem,
the city associated with the Davidides. His proposed covenant
modification was a major step in that direction, one that
followed upon his father's actions to constitutionalize the
Davidic monarchy and preceded efforts of his heirs which
continued for the duration of the kingdom. The Bible reflects
Solomon's case; in I Kings 9:1-9 and II Chronicles 7:12-22, God
is portrayed as responding favorably to Solomon's prayer, albeit
to Solomon in private, in a dream, and with a clear warning that
if he or his heirs should violate the original constitution, the
Temple and the land shall be destroyed.
Throughout the years of the united kingdom, the strength of
the tribes as constituents of the federation is clear. Despite
the very real centralization which takes place under David and
Solomon, the tribal institutions maintain much of their power and
a serious role in the governance of the polity, a sure sign that
the political covenant which united them under the monarchy
remained a vital part of the Israelite constitution. Indeed, the
Bible portrays the various revolts which punctured the period as
reflecting conflicts over the federal character of the regime
(e.g. II Samuel 15-19, II Samuel 20, I Kings 11).
A final demonstration of the importance of the political
covenant came with the rupture of the kingdom after the death of
Solomon. Despite the dynastic element which had been introduced
into the constitution, every ascendant to the throne had to be
accepted by the assembled people as represented by their tribal
leaders. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, presented himself to the
assembly as one who would increase the centralization of the
kingdom (I Kings 12, II Chronicles 10). Already smarting under
the royal court's encroachment on tribal liberties, the leaders
of ten of the tribes proclaimed their secession by refusing to
reaffirm their original pact with David. Thus the kingdom was
divided into two states and remained divided for nearly 250 years
until the Assyrian invaders destroyed one of them.
While the ten seceeding tribes also organized themselves as a
federal monarchy, keeping the name Israel, the dynastic principle
never really took hold among them. At first, the assembly of
tribal representatives elevated and deposed chief magistrates.
Later, as Israel's polity degenerated, the changes were initiated
through court intrigues or military coups but the basic
principles were honored at least pro forma until the end.
Meanwhile, back in Judah, the southern kingdom, the House of
David continued to reign on the basis of their founder's
covenants at Hebron and Jerusalem for over 500 years, through the
Babylonian exile until the Persians deposed the last of them.
Those covenants were formally renewed at least three times, on
each occasion as a response to a serious threat to the legitimacy
of the Davidic house.
Not every monarchic succession required recovenanting. For
the most part, they remained within the same constitutional
framework, with each new king subject to affirmation of his
legitimacy because the covenantal relationship required public
acceptance of each new ruler.
Only after rulers had usurped power or done something to
break the normal constitutional relationship between governors
and governed was it necessary to go through some formal
covenantal act in order to reestablish the principles upon which
the relationship was built. Thus after Athaliah, the queen
mother, usurped the Judean throne in 842 BCE and murdered most of
the royal family, responsibility for restoring the Davidic house
fell to Jehoiada the Priest (II Kings 11 and II Chronicles 23).
He proceeded to organize a rebellion against her (885 BCE),
mobilizing the people and using part of the palace guard, to
restore the throne to its legitimate heir, Jehoash. The process
by which he did so was significant. He simultaneously mobilized a
segment of the palace guard and covenanted with them (11:4),
mobilized the people through traditional institutions,
simultaneously making the covenant with them (II Chronicles 23:2
and 3).
Other cases include Hezekiah's extension of his authority
over the remnants of the northern kingdom; and Josiah's
theo-political reform. In addition, Asa brought the people of
all or parts of five tribes together in Jerusalem to renew the
Sinai covenant (II Chronicles 15).
Of these, Hezekiah's covenant renewal marked both the
restoration of the supremacy of the Davidides in all Israel, by
default as it were, and the transition to a new epoch in Jewish
political history. The Bible hails him as the most pious of all
the kings who was rewarded by God accordingly. He saved Judah
and Benjamin from Assyria and reunified what remained of the
people, north and south (II Chronicles 30). His alliance with
Isaiah (e.g. II Kings 19:20-26) restored the relationship between
king and prophet which had been a feature of David's reign. On
the other hand, he was the first to preside over an Israelite
polity not constituted on a tribal basis (e.g. II Chronicles
29:20-30, 30:2). The tribes continued to exist, at least as
sociological entities -- the Bible mentions seven by name in
connection with Hezekiah's reign (II Chronicles 30, 31) -- and
perhaps as local governing units as well, but they are not
mentioned as participating in the national government.
The disappearance of the tribal federation as a reality after
the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE can be said to mark
the end of the original monarchic epoch in Jewish constitutional
history, leading to a search for new political arrangements which
culminated in the days of King Josiah when the Book of
Deuteronomy became the constitutional basis for the regime (II
Kings 22 and 23). The Josianic reform restored the idea that the
Israelite polity was based on a tri-partite covenant between God,
Israel and the king, with God as sovereign and lawgiver
represented in day-to-day matters by his prophets (II Chronicles
23:1-2,21; and 34:29-32). Coming as it did after the
reconstitution of the Israelite regime on a non-tribal basis, the
reform reaffirmed the essentially covenantal basis of the
Israelite polity, just in time to strengthen the Jewish will to
survive after the destruction of the first Temple (586 BCE).
Israel: Monarchy or Theocracy?
All told, the Bible is quite ambivalent about the entire idea
of monarchy and whether or not a monarchic regime is consistent
with a covenantal system.9 God's authorization of kingship in
the Torah (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) is so ambiguous that traditional
commentators and Biblical critics alike to this day argue over
its meaning. Is the appointment of a king mandatory or a matter
of human choice? To this writer, the text seems to take the
latter position. What is clear is that the king must be
subordinate to and bound by covenant (brit) and constitution
(Torah) both. This is iterated and reiterated in the text from
that first passage of authorization until the disappearance of
the monarchy.
Throughout the period of the Judges, monarchy is rejected as
a form of government consistent with God's covenant -- by Gideon
as the climactic figure among the Judges (Judges 8:22-23) who
restates the classic theory that only God rules over Israel and
by the text in connection with usurpers (e.g. Abimelech in Judges
9). the actual adoption of a monarchy is portrayed in very
negative terms (I Samuel 8). Samuel resists the change until God
instructs him to capitulate to popular demand, telling him "they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me that I should
not be king over them" (8:7). Samuel's subsequent acquiescence
is accompanied by dire warnings as to the consequences of a
monarchical regime and, indeed, he spends the rest of his life
trying to contain the new institution within an appropriate
constitutional framework, including a special mishpat hamelukhah
(law of the kingdom) and appropriate checks and balances.
In the last analysis, the text justifies human kingship only
as a response to necessity -- the deteriorated security situation
of the tribal federation which is surrounded by powerful enemies
and the deteriorated domestic situation as a result of the
corruption of the priest Eli's and the prophet Samuel's sons.
The federation needs stronger leadership to confront the first,
while the collapse of its established institutions makes the
change possible. The Bible is even reluctant to use the term
melekh, or king, to describe the incumbents of the new
institution, preferring the term nagid, best translated as high
commissioner (of God) or chief magistrate.
The introduction of the major features of the monarchy are
portrayed in the Bible as being of strictly human agency or as a
result of God's private promises to the king. In the first
category are the military and administrative innovations of David
and Solomon, which lead to the establishment of Jerusalem, the
private preserve and the Davidic house, as capital of Israel, the
development of a standing army of non-Jewish mercenaries, and the
emergence of a royal court with substantial administrative
functions nationwide. In the second category is God's granting
to David's family dynastic succession and Solomon's Temple in
Jerusalem special status in the Jewish religious system. Both
grants are made privately in dreams by the principal
beneficiaries, unlike all other Divine covenants and
dispensations after the age of the Patriarchs which are made
publicly and, indeed, are pointedly public in character." Is the
Bible asking us to read between the lines in connection with
David and Solomon?
The reorganization of the priesthood, the transfer of the Ark
of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and the building of the Temple
partake of both human agency and Divine ratification on a private
basis. All three involve major redistributions of power within
the polity, leading to greater centralization of power in
Jerusalem and a dominant role for the royal court. While all
three are undertaken by David and Solomon, in fact the Bible
indicates a continuing struggle over the full implementation of
the intended goals throughout the history of the monarchy which
ultimately ends in a compromise which preserves a polycentric
system but integrates Jerusalem and the Temple within it.
The Federal Monarchy: A Case Study in Covenantal Adaptation
In a sense the biblical history of the monarchy is a history
of how covenantal principles often must be adapted to necessity.
While there are ambiguities involved, it is not unfair to suggest
that the Bible portrays kingship as a second-best alternative,
necessary because of external circumstances and internal
corruptions whereby the success of external enemies bring people
to lose faith in the classic regime of the tribal confederacy and
exacerbate the Israelites' desire to be like all the other
nations. The ultimate biblical confirmation of the Davidic house
as a permanent dynasty does not contradict this since the Bible
simply recognizes that the necessity also is likely to be
long-lived. The way subsequent Jewish tradition elevates the
Davidic house to messianic status, thereby eliminating the need
to have living Davidides in kingly positions on earth, at least
prior to the messianic age -- and who knows when that will come
-- reflects the tenuousness of the tradition of kingship in the
edah.
The problem was how to establish a legitimate monarchy within
the covenant tradition. We have seen how that was resolved
formally through covenants of kingship that had to be renewed
even where the dynastic principle was observed. Three elements
can be identified as part of that effort, all connected with the
separation of powers into the three domains and all learned at
the expense of Samuel's initiative with Saul.
First, the prophets are given a role as king-makers and
critics but do not seek to rule. Second, kings can only rule by
popular consent, meaning at very least the consent of the tribal
leaders. Third, while the people may refer to their civil rulers
as kings, the kings themselves are repeatedly reminded by the
prophets that from God's point of view they are only negidim or
high commissioners. This nagid tradition functions as a limiting
factor on monarchic self-aggrandisement. Because of the
separation of powers, within a relatively short time the high
priest, although of the family originally installed by David,
also acquires active role in the process. Thus the king is tied
to the constitution in three ways: (1) through the separation of
powers into the three domains; (2) by having to have the
confidence of the citizenry; and (3) through the limits of the
constitutional tradition of God as Israel's real and only
sovereign.
From the first there were differences between the ten
northern tribes that became the Kingdom of Israel and the tribe
of Judah with regard to dynastic succession, which succeeded so
well in the Kingdom of Judah but never took root in Israel.
Nevertheless, it seems that the prophets threw their weight
behind dynastic succession in the southern kingdom, probably
because they discovered that while any dynasty or kingship is
likely to be corrupted, ordered continuity is a necessity for
stable government and peace so that ordered continuity coupled
with checks and balances to control the king was the lesser evil,
again in an adaptation of a grand ideal to reality.
The prophetic role becomes three-fold. The prophets serve as
king-makers, as critics, and if necessary as king-removers, and
as definers of the ideal exercise of the rule (cf. Jeremiah
22:13-17), where the prophet denounces Jehoiakin on the grounds
that the king must be implementer of justice and human rights.
The tribes play much the same role as the prophets, in tandem
with them, joining the prophets as king-makers and king-removers,
but playing less of a role as critics or definers of the royal
ideal. This is evidenced in the various covenants between kings
and people, as in II Samuel 3, 5; I Kings 12; II Chronicles 23 --
all based on Deuteronomy 33:5.
David's Use of Psalms to Legitimate Covenant as Relationship
The Psalms echo this system of checks and balances. For
example, Psalm 89 emphasizes the three-way covenant and Psalm
101, the king's covenant pledge. It seems that David's ascension
to the kingship inaugurated a new form of scriptural literature
associated with the keter malkhut. Biblical scholars have
commented on how much of the Torah is associated with priestly
matters -- detailed descriptions of sacrifices, the role and
function of priests and Levites. Indeed it has been suggested
that the Torah was originally in the custody of the priests and
hence was a national constitution skewed in the direction of
priestly interests. According to the best scholarship, Neviim,
the prophetic sections of the Bible date back at least to the
time of Samuel and, while they represent a commentary on the
kings, they have their own thrust connected with the keter torah
in its prophetic form.
David as king begins the process of developing a literature
associated with the keter malkhut which we have before us
principally in the Psalms and the Book of Chronicles. First
Chronicles, which covers the history of David's reign, is
essentially a military and political history. Solomon carries on
the tradition in Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. Other
books that should be identified with this domain include Job,
which describes the tribulations of an elder in some fictitious
land; Ruth, which both glorifies life in the days of the tribal
federation and also refers to David's ancestry; Esther, Daniel
and Nehemiah, which deal with the bearers of this keter after the
destruction of the First Commonwealth. All of these books are
places in the third section of the Tanach, the Hebrew Scriptures,
known as ketavim.
Psalms is a religio-political document designed to strengthen
the kingship as a religious value and source of religious
inspiration. One hundred and fifty Psalms are collected in the
Book of Psalms. (There are some others found in other books
including the long Psalm of David in I Samuel 2:1-10 and II
Samuel 22:1-23:7.) The Psalms attributed to David include 3-32,
34-41, 51-65, 68-70, 86, 108-110, and 138-145. 71 and 72 are
otherwise identified as Davidic. Indeed at the end of 72 it
states, "the prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended,"
suggesting that this is where the book of Psalms originally
ended. All told, 73 of the 150 Psalms are directly attributed to
David by the oldest tradition.
What is important, however, is not the authorship but the
function of the Psalms which emphasize national, monarchic and
messianic themes, tying them together to establish or strengthen
the links between the king and national religious aspirations.
This is the overall thrust of the entire collection which seems
to be divided into five books. The Midrash points out the
parallel between this division and the Torah itself, stating that
Moses wrote the five books of the Torah and David wrote the five
books of the Psalms. While the statement represents tradition
rather than historic fact, the parallelism suggested by the
bearers of the keter torah is instructive.
We can surmise that the combination of David's artistic
talents and the need for establishing the role of the king within
the framework of Israelite religion combined to produce the
Psalms and the religious poetic tradition they represent. The
Psalms restate the covenantal dynamic, habrit vehahesed (the
covenant with its loving obligations), in connection with such
aspects of civil rule as mishpat, (covenant law,) and shofet, the
judge engaged in judgement (often a reference to the king as the
continuer of the role of the shofet in the previous regime) --
often together as in Psalm 89. All this is embedded in
literature of the highest order. The Psalms also offer
explanations of the events chronicled elsewhere in the Bible,
presented in poetic form to invoke a sense of God's greatness in
the minds of the reader or listener and to identify Him with the
king. Of the 150 Psalms collected in the book of Psalms, 75
contain directly covenantal references, half again (37) in
relation to King David. Those references range from reflections
on nature as a covenantal phenomenon to explanations of the
shifts of political power within the Jewish polity -- Adat B'nei
Yisrael -- to a probing of personal covenants linking individuals.
While the term brit appears in only 13 Psalms, hesed appears
in 64 -- in Psalm 136, 26 times. This modest quantitative
measure suggests what a close reading of the Psalms reveals,
namely that they are particularly concerned with covenantal
dynamics, emphasizing God's sovereignty and kingdom, justice and
judgement bound together by brit and hesed.
What is striking in reading the Psalms is the extensive and
intensive use of political terminology. There is hardly a Psalm
that does not use political metaphors even if it is not referring
directly to political matters. These, along with the attribution
of the Book of Psalms to King David and the fact that so many of
the Psalms are labelled as his or written for him, make it
reasonable to view the Book of Psalms as the voice of the keter
malkhut. Hence the heavy emphasis on covenant and covenantal
dynamics is doubly significant. Its theme is that God's covenant
and pledge to His people is a reflection of the fact that we are
all living within His kingdom under His sovereignty and
judgement, that his judgement is based on righteousness and
hesed. The latter in particular reflects the ways in which God
shows favor to the one he has selected to bear the keter malkhut
or the burdens of civil rule. The Psalms are the anthems of the
kingdom of God designed to celebrate His justice and praise his
covenant love.
The Psalm with the most extensive and comprehensive
covenantal vocabulary is Psalm 89, ascribed to Ethan the Ezrachi
(ezrach = citizen). It begins with a commitment to praise God's
hesed over time and space (olam equalling space + time) from
generation to generation because the universe is built on hesed
and the heavens on covenant faithfulness. On this basis God has
established His covenant with David and his heirs forever. The
Psalm continues (verse 6ff.) describing how the heavenly hosts
praise God who is their infinite superior. The former are
described as the assembly of the holy ones and the council of the
holy ones while God is described as the Lord of hosts.
Verse 10 begins a description of God's rule on earth,
describing His rule at sea and how he crushed the mythical sea
monster. In verse 12 the heavens and earth are described as
God's possession because He founded and created them.
Furthermore His throne is founded on four principals: justice,
law, loving covenant obligation and truth (tzedek u'mishpat,
hesed v'emet).
In verse 16 the Psalmist turns to describe how fortunate is
the people that knows God's call and walks in the light of His
continence. By rejoicing constantly in His name, they are
exalted by His justice. In verse 18 this is applied to Israel
and in verse 19 the Psalmist proclaims God to be Israel's king.
The next ten verses describe God's mandate to David, his anointed
one, how He will strengthen him through his faithfulness in
covenant love. The latter will be forever, along with His
covenant, so long as the Davidides do not foresake God's Torah,
laws, statutes and commandments. If they do foresake those
commandments, they will be punished but the covenant will not be
broken.
From verses 39 through to the end, the Psalmist apparently is
writing after the transgression has occurred and the punishment
is in progress. In those verses he addresses God, summarizing
the punishment that has been meted out, asking God to end His
wrath and restore His hesed toward the faithful. In short this
Psalm integrates time and eternity, heaven and earth, nature and
man, the nations and Israel, God's justice and wrath, punishment
and redemption, all within the covenantal framework. This is the
recurrent theme of the Psalms.
Conclusion
These Biblical paradigms and case studies are intrinsically
important for what they tell us about the deeper structure of the
Biblical text. They are at least equally important for their
influence on subsequent political thought and behavior in the
Western world. These are the paradigms and case studies which
surface time and again in the literature of politics in the West
to serve as the meat of political analysis. Prior to the age of
empirical political research, they represent the closest thing to
data used by students of and commentators on political affairs.
In that context, the theory and practice of covenant naturally
attracted attention as a vehicle for polity-building,
constitution-making, and governance. Through the Bible, then,
what was once a mere technical arrangement was transformed into a
means for constituting new communities, and thereby, a seminal
political idea, one which has had a signal influence on the
history of human liberty.
Table 1
Covenants of Regime Change or Reinstitution
4. Establishment of the Federal Magistery or Monarchy
(I Samuel 8-12)
[Describes process of reconstitution]
4a. Covenants with David (I Samuel 16:1-13, II Samuel 2:1-4;
3; 5:1-3; I Chronicles 11:1-3)
[Network of intertribal covenants with minimum Divine
intervention]
4b. David and the People Acknowledge and Reaffirm the Covenant
of the Forefathers and God, in turn, Establishes the
Davidic Dynasty (I Chronicles 16 and 17)
4c. Solomon and the Elders of Israel Incorporate the Temple
into the Sinai Covenant (I Kings 8-19; II Chronicles 5-7)
4d. Asa and the People Renew the Sinai Covenant (II Chronicles
15)
4e. Jehoiada the Priest Restores the Legitimate Monarchy (II
Kings 11, II Chronicles 23)
4f. Hezekiah Renews the Covenant with God in the Name of All
Israel Through Religious Revival (II Chronicles 29)
[Action in response to the fall of the northern kingdom]
4g. Josiah Renews the Covenant and Restores the Book of the
Covenant (II Kings 22-23:29; II Chronicles 34-35:19)
Notes
1. Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity
(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1984).
2. Cf. Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical
Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), p. 171).
3. For a history of this period see Martin Noth, The History of
Israel (New York: Harper and Row, 1958); W.F. Albright, "Tribal
Rule and Charismatic Leaders" in The Biblical Period from Abraham
to Ezra (New York, 1968), pp. 35-52.
4. Daniel J. Elazar, "The Book of Joshua as a Political Classic,"
Jewish Political Studies, vol. 1. no. 1 (forthcoming).
5. B. Halpern, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel
(Harvard Semitic Monographs No. 25, 1981). The idea that the
Torah should be understood as the constitution of the Jewish
people is an old and oft-recurring one, expressed by traditional
and modern thinkers, as diverse as Spinoza, who understood the
Torah as a political constitution first and foremost, and
Mendelsohn, who viewed the political dimension as utterly
dispensable. See Benedict Spinoza, Politico-Theologico Tractate;
Moses Mendelsohn, Jerusalem, and Eliezer Schweid, "The Attitude
Toward the State in Modern Jewish Thought Before Zionism" in
Elazar, ed., op. cit.
6. Moshe Weinfeld, "From God's Edah to the Chosen Dynasty: The
Transition from the Tribal Federation to the Monarchy," in Daniel
J. Elazar, ed., Kinship and Consent, The Jewish Political
Tradition and its Contemporary Manifestations (Ramat-Gan:
Turtledove Publishing, 1981); Hayim Tadmor, "The People and the
Kingship in Ancient Israel: The Role of Political Institutions in
the Biblical Period," Journal of World History (1968), pp.
46-68.
7. Stuart A. Cohen, The Concept of the Three Ketarim (Ramat Gan:
Bar Ilan University, 1986); J. Mailenberg, "The 'Office' of the
Prophet in Ancient Israel" in J.P. Hyatt (ed), The Bible in
Modern Scholarship (1966), pp. 79-97.
8. J. Levenson, "The Davidic Covenant and its Modern
Interpreters", Catholic Bible Quarterly 41(ii), 1979, pp.
205-219. God's covenant with David is emphasized in the Psalms
(e.g., Psalms 89, 132), many of which are court poems designed to
praise the king. Its first important prophetic endorsement is by
Jeremiah (Jeremiah 33). See also S. Talmon "Kingship and
Ideology of the State in The World History of Jewish People, vol.
4, part 2, (Jerusalem, 1979), pp. 3-26.
9. A. Malamat, "Organs of Statecraft in the Israelite Monarchy",
The Biblical Archeologist 28 (2), 19656, pp. 34-50; Roland de
Vaux, "The Administration of the kingdom", in Ancient Israel (New
York, 1965) vol. 1 pp. 133-142.
10. See, for example, Martin A. Cohen, "The Role of the
Shilohnite Priesthood in the United Monarchy of Ancient Israel"
in Hebrew Union College Annual (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College,
1965), Vol. XXXVI: Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews;
Abravanel's commentary on Deuteronomy and Samuel; Martin Buber,
Kingship of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1967); and Yehezkel
Kaufman, "The Monarchy" in The Religion of Israel (Chicago, 1960)
pp. 262-270. While Elijah has traditionally been considered an
anti-monarchist, the Biblical portrayal of him shows him to have
a more complex position, supporting Ahab as king but seeking to
keep the monarchy tied to the Torah as mediated through the
prophets. The reference here is to the tradition rather than to
the more complex reality.
11. Cf. Harold Fisch, Jerusalem and Albion (New York: Schocken
Books, 1964) for an examination of the modern secularization of
the covenant idea and John F. A. Taylor, The Masks of Society, An
Inquiry into the Covenants of Civilization (New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966) for a contemporary American
covenantal perspective. While this article seeks to expound and
even shift our understanding of the covenant idea to include and
emphasize its political dimension, it also uses theological
terminology throughout because the Jewish political tradition of
necessity has a philosophic base. Political theology has
declined in importance in the West in recent generations, hence
the usages may be somewhat unfamiliar to the reader, but it is
nonetheless an old element in political science and legitimate in
every respect.
