Expert: Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner - 6/4/2009

Question
G_d bless you Rabbi,
   I have been exploring King David recently.  Can you give me any information about David as a father?  I know his son Absalom tried to kill him and about his weeping for his stilborn son with Bathsheba.  But what does the Bible say about David's relationship with his children?  Was he a good father?

Answer
Dear Don,

Thanks for writing.

Unfortunately we know very little about many of the Biblical characters except for what is in the Biblical narrative.

There is a rich literature of legends, stories, etc. in the form of Rabbinic commentary over many centuries about characters - including David - but they were composed hundreds of years later and reflect often as much imagination as recollected history. This literature in Hebrew is "Midrash" and occurs today in many collections, even in English.

Legends of the Jews and also The Book of Legends are two such English collections which include material about David, albeit legendary.

Read and enjoy, but he was a very complicated character. There are also volumes written about him in an attempt to "analyze" him, for example,
"King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel" (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Jonathan Kirsch.

From 2007 EJudaica:
SUCCESSION

David played the succession close to his vest. Of his sons, the third, Absalom, killed the eldest, Amnon, and was in turn killed by Joab in his, Absalom's, revolt. The second son, by Abigail, is never mentioned after his birth. The fourth, Adonijah, was widely expected to succeed.

The succession contest recapitulated the tensions of Absalom's revolt. Popular expectation focused (hopefully?) on Adonijah and Joab's support suggests that he was David's designee. Party to the Pretender was the Elide priest, Abiathar. Thus, traditional forces, in the court and at large, stood behind Adonijah's candidacy.

Solomon's succession, sympathetically presented, remains a coup. Behind Solomon stand: Zadok, the Judahite priest; Benaiah, the mercenary captain; and, the mercenaries of the capital, such as the Gittites. Solomon's administration, with its emphasis on public works and the exactions they required, colors the contrast with David. Yet conciliatory maneuvers early in Solomon's reign – Rehoboam's marriage to Absalom's daughter, the writing of II Samuel to exculpate David from political murders and Israel's population from treason because YHWH encouraged the revolt, and even the construction of the temple with its implications of tax relief for the laborers as a form of tax remission, all suggest that the transition was gradual. Solomon began by pursuing his father's course; only when a threat materialized from Egypt, in his 24th year, did the impulse to modernization assume urgency. For this reason, public works, for example at Megiddo, were not completed before the destruction of the Solomonic layer there. What is more, the Solomonic layers may in many cases have represented facades, at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, in the first instance.
REASONS FOR DAVID'S PLACE IN TRADITION

David became the template for the future identification of Judah's king as the messiah, YHWH's "anointed": he was the adopted son of YHWH, a notion that derives from the temple royal ideology during the centuries leading up to the Babylonian exile. As a dynastic founder, David personified YHWH's reign over Judah, and, by extension, Israel. Later reinterpretation of the conception of David redivivus – adumbrated in the comparison of Judah's kings to him in the books of Kings and Psalms – and of the enthronement metaphor of his divine sonship led to their ratification as a future hope in a period without Davidic kings (the Restoration). In addition, the image of David as cult founder, full-blown in the presentation of I Chronicles, derives from the assignment to his reign of the dynastic charter, usually associated with temple building, and from the superscriptions to the Psalms.

While Israel's golden age is usually associated with Solomon, the Davidic figure, far more swashbuckling and more tragically human, naturally attracted the attention and the affection of later readers. The glory of David is thus in his commemoration, and in the reverberation of his image through the ages. The idea of a Messiah based on David, the idea of a David in the Psalms, the idea of a David as the progenitor of David – all these things are based on the reception in Judah of the literature, and particularly the historiography, about this king. Thus the literary presentation, starting with Samuel and continuing through Chronicles and into rabbinic literature, created an image that had enduring power throughout the ages.

[Baruch Halpern (2nd ed.)]
In the Aggadah

David's image in the aggadah is many-faceted. The unique status of his monarchy – in contrast to that of the other kings of Israel – is frequently emphasized: "The sovereignty of David shall never lapse" (Yal., Num. 771). The Midrash even declares that God "looks forward to David's being king until the end of the generations" (Gen. R. 88:7), and that "whoever contends against the sovereignty of the house of David deserves to be bitten by a snake" (Sanh. 110a). In this emphasis there is an echo of the dispute which, in its time, divided Judaism after the establishment of the dynasty of the Hasmoneans, who were not of Davidic descent (see *David, Dynasty of).

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PHARISAIC SUPPORT OF DAVID'S DYNASTY

The Pharisees did not deny that, according to the halakhah, kings who were not of the house of David could be appointed (Hor. 13a; et al.); but they made a clear distinction between them by stressing that the dynasty of the House of David was eternal, and by placing limits upon the authority of the other kings: only kings of the House of David could judge and be judged themselves, and not kings of Israel (Sanh. 19a); kings of the House of David were anointed, but not kings of Israel (Hor. 11b); and even when kings of Israel were anointed (when the succession was in dispute), oil of balsam was to be used and not the prescribed anointing oil. It was also ruled: "In the Temple court, the kings of the House of David alone are permitted to sit" (Sot. 41b).
OPPONENTS OF THE DAVIDIC DYNASTY

On the other hand there were extremists who were opposed to the Davidic dynasty. Echoes of it are heard in the talmudic discussion (Yev. 76b–77a) dealing with the permission of Ammonite and Moabite women to intermarry with Jews: "Doeg the Edomite said to Abner, the son of Ner, 'Instead of inquiring whether he [David] is worthy to be king or not, inquire whether he is permitted to enter the assembly of Jews at all.' Why? 'Because he is descended from Ruth the Moabitess!' Abner said to him, 'We have been taught that only an Ammonite [is forbidden], but not an Ammonitess, a Moabite, but not a Moabitess'" (see: *Ammonites and Moabites in the halakhah). According to Aptowitzer, this passage alludes to the efforts of the Sadducees in the Sanhedrin of Hyrcanus to disqualify the House of David from reigning, an effort which they were compelled to abandon by use of force on the part of the Pharisees and their supporters outside the Sanhedrin. In Aptowitzer's opinion, the reference by Josephus (Wars, 1:54ff.) to a revolt in the days of Hyrcanus is to this incident. In this connection the Midrash states (Ruth R. 8:1): "David said before the Holy One, 'How long will they agitate against me, saying, Is he not of tainted descent? Is he not descended from Ruth the Moabitess?'" In order to impress the importance of the House of David upon the consciousness of the people, the rabbis laid down that, "Whoever does not mention the kingdom of the House of David in the blessing 'Who buildest Jerusalem' in the Grace after Meals, has not fulfilled his obligation" (Ber. 48b). In the *Amidah prayer, too, they included a prayer for the restoration of the kingdom of the House of David.

Rabbi Dov