\u201cAnd He Will Take Your Daughters\u201d<\/a> takes its title from 1 Samuel 8, the prophet Samuel\u2019s warning speech to Israel about the dangers of kingship. Westbrook shows that the stories of both Saul and David bear out the warning. The \u201cwoman stories\u201d in 1-2 Samuel not only expose David\u2019s weakness as a man, but also force the question of his skill and success as a king. Each story, she argues, poses the question, Will the king do justice? Usually, the answer is No.<\/p>\nWhen you put all the episodes involving David\u2019s first wife Michal together, the result is an appalling sequence of abuse. Michal is Saul\u2019s daughter, but like her brother Jonathan is willing to break ranks with her father to cling to David. Like Jonathan, she loves <\/em>David. She helps him escape and lies for him,, saving his life. Yet after this episode, \u201cMichael is not heard of again until much later in the narrative. In the process, what does become quite clear is the fact that David completely abandons this woman who has loved and saved him. He does not insist that she come with him, nor does she ever attempt to return for her, even after he has assembled a sizeable war band\u201d (60).\u00a0<\/p>\nWhile Michal is left behind to face Saul on her own, David begins to acquire a harem \u2013 Abigail and Ahinoam (61). Michal reappears at the beginning of 2 Samuel. She has married again, but David demands that she return to him \u2013 not because he reciprocates her love and loyalty but because it will help him legitimize his kingdom to have a daughter of Saul in his palace.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not surprising that Michal criticizes David as he dances before the ark. Westbrook nicely observes that Michal observes David from a \u201cwindow,\u201d reminding us of her heroic effort to save David through a window (107, fn 67). Westbrook argues that Michal\u2019s barrenness is not a divine punishment, pointing out that the text never says it is. The point of the passage, she thinks, is to emphasize the death of Saul\u2019s dynasty. She thinks that Michal\u2019s criticisms of David\u2019s dancing are on target (106-8). Whether or not that is altogether convincing, the overall thrust of the David-Michal story is unmistakable, and not flattering to David.<\/p>\n
And we haven\u2019t even gotten to Bathsheba and Tamar, whose connected stories Westbrook summarizes thus: \u201cDavid uses his power as king to take sexually the pious woman, Bathsheba, and then murders her husband to add her to his sizeable harem. In the wake of these events, and in parallel fashion, David\u2019s son violently rapes David\u2019s daughter within the royal house. David knows and he is angry. As king and as father, he holds the responsibility and means by which to respond to Tamar\u2019s cry for justice, a cry that has become necessary because the apparent future king is already using power to violate others for his own self-interest. . . . David does nothing. Tamar is silenced.\u201d When David flees from Absalom, he leaves his concubines behind \u2013 as he left Michal \u2013 and they become prey to his amoral son (226-7).<\/p>\n
Throughout these and other stories, Westbrook emphasizes that the woman stories represent the failure of justice in the Davidic kingdom. As king, he is specifically responsible to protect the vulnerable, to respond to the cry of the damaged. Women are among the damaged and vulnerable; far from responding to their cries, David is often the one who makes them cry.<\/p>\n
There are missteps. I don\u2019t think we have to be so cynical about David\u2019s motives as to believe his refusal to kill \u201cthe Lord\u2019s anointed\u201d is self-serving (75). Abigail is certainly as \u201cpolitically savvy\u201d as David, and like Odysseus and Penelope they are \u201ca well-matched couple\u201d (77). But Westbrook makes this seem ominous. Must one be politically naive to be good? The theological questions with which she concludes the book also distort 1-2 Samuel. She suggests that Yahweh Himself is responsible for the injustices of David because He could have prevented Israel from having kings. She doesn\u2019t think \u201cYHWH\u2019s use of power and justice\u201d is \u201cclear-cut\u201d (229). God\u2019s culpability for injustice is a long-standing theological problem, but it doesn\u2019t arise from the text of Samuel. If the kings that God gave were bad kings, it is an act of judgment and discipline, a \u201cgiving over\u201d of Israel to her political desires. As such, it is justice of an almost mathematical precision.<\/p>\n
Westbrook\u2019s overall argument, though, is convincing, and I conclude with a few reinforcements and extrapolations. First, the king of Israel is symbolically the husband to the people, and so the woman stories are properly taken as commentary on the kings\u2019 practice of royal justice. We could add here that the temple is also conceived as feminine, which implies that kings\u2019 attention to the temple signifies attentiveness to the bride, Israel. Second, Westbrook\u2019s account of 1-2 Samuel indicates that the history can be taken as a form of wisdom literature \u2013 instruction in good rule. It is wisdom literature of a specific form, like the wisdom of the Song of Songs, simultaneously and inseparably erotic and political wisdom. Third, we can spin off Christological allegories Westbrook\u2019s thesis: By highlighting the failures of David (and later kings) to do justice to women, to the bride Israel, the Old Testament encourages expectation of a better king, who will be also a more perfect Lover, who does justice by hearing the cries of women.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April Westbrook\u2019s\u00a0\u201cAnd He Will Take Your Daughters\u201d takes its title from 1 Samuel 8, the prophet Samuel\u2019s warning speech to Israel about the dangers of kingship. Westbrook shows that the stories of both Saul and David bear out the warning. The \u201cwoman stories\u201d in 1-2 Samuel not only expose David\u2019s weakness as a man, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,526],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-samuel","category-david"],"yoast_head":"\n
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