Dual loyalty is a dangerous trope still used today by politicians and pundits to blame minorities - including Jews. There is a complex history here, leading to today’s chapter, with its own historically ambiguous agenda.
David Defects with his men, signing on as allies, mercenaries to the Philistines, across the border. There is no denial of these facts no matter how these complicate the future king’s legacy. Many chose to ignore or deny these chapters. But if we are to read them with the honest curiosity that honors history’s important, timely messages, and probes deeper, more disturbing questions arise.
“What does it mean to read these biblical texts with the eyes of a historian? It is, first of all, to notice the contradictions between passages, the seams in the texts where materials don’t fit together quite right.. Second, it is to read especially the “historical” book of the Bible, with a sense of suspicion.”
The Book of Revolutions, by Rabbi Edward Feld, a respected teacher and author, probes this very passage in our story, as the kingdoms of Israel and Judah begin to form, complete with many questions and questionable editorial choices that are ‘the products of bitter struggles that took place over many centuries. Multiple epochs formed the text as it has come down to us.”
David flees King Saul and fights for King Achish who rules the Philistine city of Gath. Archeology helps us pinpoint these locations, the short distances between the sites where Goliath of Gath is killed by David, and the battlefield on the Gilboa Mountain that is a couple days walk away. The battle is looming, but David is barred from this fight.
The Philistine offices suspect David of dual loyalty and refuse to let him fight along them against King Saul’s army. King Achish delivers the news to David, who, Incredibly, tries to insist that he be allowed to fight:
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר דָּוִ֜ד אֶל־אָכִ֗ישׁ כִּ֣י מֶ֤ה עָשִׂ֙יתִי֙ וּמַה־מָּצָ֣אתָ בְעַבְדְּךָ֔ מִיּוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הָיִ֣יתִי לְפָנֶ֔יךָ עַ֖ד הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה כִּ֣י לֹ֤א אָבוֹא֙ וְנִלְחַ֔מְתִּי בְּאֹיְבֵ֖י אֲדֹנִ֥י הַמֶּֽלֶךְ׃
“David, however, said to Achish, “But what have I done, what fault have you found in your servant from the day I appeared before you to this day, that I should not go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?”
To be clear here - when David says ‘the enemies of my lord the king’ he is talking about King Saul, about Jonathan, about his own people.
David is sent away from the front, spared the conflict, and avoids being in the fatal battle in which Saul and his sons will perish as the Philistines take back their conquered lands.
What does this tell of David? Why would the authors/editors leave us this badge of dishonor? What does this tell us of loyalty and dual loyalty?
Don Isaac Abarbanel, A 15th century Portuguese Jewish statesman and financier, was also a famous commentator of the Bible.
In 1482 he had to escape Portugal, persecuted by the Church, and found refuge in Toledo. There, for six months, he wrote his commentary on the books of Judges and Samuel. This shrewd politician and diplomat , who bankrolled kings and was betrayed by them, knew something about survival and complex allegiances. In his commentary he writes what may echo his own complex political reality, as he attempts to secure his position in the Spanish court. David, he claims, would never betray his own people or fight directly against King Saul. Rather, he was appointed as the personal bodyguard of King Achish, preventing his harm - but not while harming his own brothers.
Abarabanel’s acrobatics don’t solve the David dilemma, nor, for that matter, were very helpful to him. Ten years after penning these words, in 1492, despite his wealth and position, he too finds himself exiled from Spain with all the other Jews, whose loyalty to the crown was disregarded due to religious fanatics and their zealous greed.
So what do we do with David’s defection? What of his dual-loyalties?
Halbertal and Holme explore this challenge::
“The narrator does not say what David would have done if he had not been granted that last-minute reprieve from the battle. Would he have fought against his people to save his own skin? We are not told, and the silence is deafening.
All we know for certain is that, in his dealings with Achish, David is consistently portrayed as a master of masking his intentions. Although David managed to avoid being involved in the war against Israel, his absence from the war, his playing it safe as a passive bystander while his people and king were defeated, raises obviously disturbing questions.
David’s sin of omission might possibly have been excused given his ongoing struggle to survive Saul’s attempts to have him killed. Yet the narrator, deftly calibrating the scene, left open the possibility that, through his absence from the crucial final battle, David intentionally facilitated Israel’s defeat in order to seize the throne without being implicated in the deaths of Saul and his sons.”
The war drums are already beating, as David and his men, with the first light of dawn, retreat from the fight. But another gruesome scene awaits them back home.
Image: A Philistine Warrior, carved on an Egyptian wall
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