July 4, Ordinary 14B (2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10)
Whatever else David is, he is recognizably human and not a fairy-tale king.
The author of Samuel does not present a sanitized picture of David. Thanks be to God.
Instead, we have received this story of an endlessly complex figure, admirable one moment and horrifying the next. I’m inclined to agree with those who believe there was a historical David, despite the relative lack of archaeological evidence, since it is doubtful that the author of Samuel would have invented such a flawed hero from whole cloth. Whatever else David is, he is recognizably human and not a fairy-tale king.
In this Sunday’s reading, the tribes of Israel recall that David was a military leader under Saul, and they join David’s people of Judah in recognizing his kingship. Moshe Halbertal and Stephen Holmes observe in The Beginning of Politics: Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel that this decision suppresses a potential civil war. Yet there are also costs to centralizing political authority.
