Ten Greatest Poets – David, Sweet Singer of Israel

DAVID, SWEET SINGER OF ISRAEL

Judaeo-Christianity is one of the foundations of Western civilization. It is a major cultural stream in the religious and spiritual heritage of the West. Therefore, our list of the ten greatest poets selects a preeminent poet in this tradition.

The Bible, the sacred text of Christianity, is a rich repository of religious and spiritual poetry. One of the central figures of the Bible, David, is credited by Jewish lore with composing at least one third of the psalms—there are 150—in the Book of Psalms.

Biblical psalms are today still an essential part of Jewish and Christian religious practice. They are used in formal prayers, religious rites, and public worship.

David is a legendary figure. Beyond his Biblical persona, there is nothing that we directly know of David from historical evidence. His authorship of one third of the psalms is legendary as well.

Did David, slayer of Goliath, Saul’s armor-bearer, sweet singer of Israel, ruler of the house of Jacob, conqueror of Jerusalem, adulterer with Uriah’s wife, the same man’s murderer, target of a failed rebellion led by one of David’s sons, Absalom…father through Bathsheba of Israel’s most powerful king, Solomon, renowned for his unrivaled wisdom…royal ancestor of Jesus Christ, really exist?

A spreading pool of ink, still growing, has been spilled over this question.

Because practically everything we know about David comes from the Bible, it is easy to argue that he is a work of fiction.

However, nothing in the archaeological record says that he didn’t exist. Although only one or at most two inscriptions actually mention David, more accurately, the “house of David,” a great deal of archaeological data reveals that the rise of a kingdom around the time of David centered in Jerusalem is a credible claim.

What is certain is that from the time of David’s death, the Biblical David is a construction that was many years in the making and used to advance the religious nationalist aspirations of the Jews.

Demonstrably, the Biblical David romanticized as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22) is not a factual account. The real David was probably the audacious, ruthless leader of a Palestinian militia and exhibiting the unsavory attributes we would expect to find in a tenth-century B.C.E. mercenary of that locale and period.

Steven McKenzie plausibly argues:

“David maintained power in the same way he had attained it in the first place—by removing anyone who was in his way. …There was conscription and taxation to support the king’s projects, military and domestic. David probably confiscated other lands, as he did those of Meribbaal, in order to reward his supporters. This was a king who took what he wanted as in the story of Bathsheba. The story of Absalom’s revolt indicates that there was widespread discontent with David and sectionalism fostered by his unequal treatment of Israel and Judah. As usual, David regained control by military means. Ironically, at the end of his life David himself became the victim of others’ political maneuvering. His own son, Solomon, used contrived orders from David to launch a coup against the presumed successor, Adonijah, and to get rid of the members of the old regime (Joab, Abiathar) who supported Adonijah. Bathsheba herself may have orchestrated the coup.”

See: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/mck020301.shtml

 

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The Davidic psalms are remarkable for their powerful expression of religious and spiritual sentiment, splendid lyricism, and characteristic Jewishness.

Psalm 23, for example, is distinctively Jewish—it conceives of Yahweh as a devoted shepherd, a motif which derives from the longtime historical experience of the Jews, who for centuries existed as a nomadic pastoral society.

Reading the Davidic psalms in the context of the Biblical persona of David enriches our interpretation of them. When we read, for example, Psalm 51, David’s prayer of repentance, in the context of his remorse for his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, the verses carry that much more pathos.

For you are not pleased with sacrifices; should I offer a holocaust, you would not accept it.

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

The psalms are not dead letters to the world. They speak to the present day because they recapitulate universal human experience.

Consider, for example, the opening verses of Psalm 53, which bring to mind, among others, endemic corruption at the highest levels of government in the Philippines:

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” Such are the corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is not one who does good.

God looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there be one who is wise and seeks God.

All alike have gone astray; they have become perverse; there is not one who does good, not even one.

Will all these evildoers never learn, they who eat up my people just as they eat bread, who call not upon God?

The psalm ends with the exclamatory supplication:

Oh, that out of Zion would come the salvation of Israel!

When God restores the well-being of his people, then shall Jacob exult and Israel be glad.

Sappho, Tenth Muse:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/06/ten-greatest-poets-sappho.html

The Old King (1936) by Georges Rouault