{"id":615,"date":"2017-11-22T04:08:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T04:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/?page_id=615"},"modified":"2017-11-22T04:09:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-22T04:09:34","slug":"the-reign-of-david-and-solomon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/the-former-prophets\/the-reign-of-david-and-solomon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reign of David and Solomon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reign of David and Solomon is often viewed as the golden age of Israel. It is the time when the nation was most unified. The biblical texts discuss this period at some length, and other sources of information are also available to inform our understanding of the period.<\/p>\n

The Literary Evidence: What\u2019s in the Biblical Text? (Second Samuel and First Kings 1\u201411)<\/h4>\n

The book the Christian canon calls \u201cSecond Samuel\u201d focuses on the rule of David. David begins as king of the southern territory, Judah (2 Samuel 1\u20144), then comes to rule over the entire United Kingdom which included both Judah and Israel (2 Samuel 5\u201424). The story discusses both David\u2019s achievements and the problems of his personal life.<\/p>\n

First Kings 1\u201411 begins at the death of David and tells the story of how Solomon became his successor (1 Kings 1\u20142). It then tells of Solomon\u2019s great accomplishments (2:13\u201410:29) and finally of his fall (chapter 11). We will look more closely at the structure of 1 Kings after discussing the reign of David and Solomon.<\/p>\n

David\u2019s Rise to Power<\/h5>\n

According to the story of David in Second Samuel, he was born in the tribe of Judah and became a gifted and popular soldier and commander of Saul\u2019s bodyguard. He was the closest friend of Saul\u2019s son, Jonathan, the heir to the thrown, and married Saul\u2019s daughter, Michal.<\/p>\n

Samuel anointed David as the future king while he was still young and Saul was still reigning (1 Samuel 16:1\u201413). It is not clear if Saul knew of this event, but he clearly began to suspect that David planned to overthrow him or succeed him in the place of his son Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:6\u20149, 28\u201429), but he becomes increasingly suspicious after David defeats the Philistine giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and the Israelite women sing his praises (1 Samuel 18:7\u20148). To complicate matters further, Jonathan seemed happy with David\u2019s success (18:1\u20145; 19:1\u20147; chapter 20), and Michal helped David escape from her father (19:8\u201417).<\/p>\n

The biblical stories paint David as extremely loyal to Saul despite Saul\u2019s suspicions (24; 26). He is eventually forced to go into temporary exile in Philistia (21:10\u201415), but soon returns to live in hiding in Judah. Some of his kinsmen there and others who share David\u2019s fate give David their support and he forms a fighting force with which to challenge the Philistines and other enemies who threatened Judah (22:1\u20142).<\/p>\n

Now that David had an army, he became an even greater threat to Saul, who set out after him with his full military force. David consistently avoided capture and even passed up several opportunities to kill Saul (24; 26). He finally retreated to Philistine territory where he placed his army at the service of Achish, king of Gath (27:1\u20144). He was awarded the city of Ziklag, a border town (27:5\u20147). From there he attacked the enemies of Judah within Judean territory, while pretending (to Gath) to be attacking the Judean cities (27:8\u201412).<\/p>\n

When Saul died, and he confederation of tribes that had fought under his leadership dissolved. David came out of hiding and moved to Hebron where he was proclaimed king of the tribe of Judah. Soon afterward he became king of all Israel and moved his capital northward to Jerusalem, a city which he had to first take from the Jebusites who remained there.<\/p>\n

David would eventually defeat the Philistines and find himself in charge of an empire as he continued to experience conflict with Israel\u2019s neighbors and defeat them.<\/p>\n

The Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:16)<\/h5>\n

In chapter seven the Prophet Nathan comes to David and delivers a promise from the Lord<\/span> that David\u2019s dynasty will last forever (2 Samuel 7:16). This promise is often called the Davidic Covenant, and would serve to support the claim of his heirs to the throne.<\/p>\n

The Succession Narrative \/ Court History of David (2 Samuel 9 to 1 Kings 2)<\/h5>\n

Second Samuel 9\u201420 and 1 Kings 1\u20142 have a certain amount of overlap and are sometimes treated together as the Succession Narrative or the Court History of David, since they tell the story of how a successor for David was chosen and of the intrigues of David\u2019s court. These stories are told against the background of the Davidic Covenant. The tension over how this promise will be fulfilled replaces the tension over the ancestral promise of land, progeny and blessing (protection), since these have been at least partially filled.<\/p>\n

David & Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:1\u201412:25)<\/h6>\n

A description of the war with Ammon (chapter 10 and 12:26\u201431) forms a set of brackets around the story of David and Bathsheba (11:1\u201412:25).\u00a0While his armies are away fighting Ammon, David sees Bathsheba bathing. He has her brought to him and sleeps with her. Bathsheba becomes pregnant. David tries to cover up the act by having her husband, Uriah the Hittite, brought home from battle (presumable so that he too would sleep with her). But Uriah refuses to sleep with Bathsheba.\u00a0David gives orders to Joab to have Uriah placed on the front lines, and Uriah is killed. The first sin has now brought about a greater one.<\/p>\n

The prophet Nathan confronts David with a parable (2 Samuel 12:1\u201415): A rich man takes a poor man\u2019s only lamb, a pet, and eats it. David is outraged and renders immediate judgment: \u201cAs the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity\u201d (2 Samuel 12:5\u20146). Nathan responds sharply, \u201cYou are that man!\u201d<\/p>\n

David and Bathsheba\u2019s firstborn son becomes very ill, and David pleads with God to spare his life. He refuses to eat and sleeps on the ground at night. After seven days the child dies, and David gets up, goes to the tabernacle to worship, then eats for the first time since the child became ill.
\nDavid and Bathsheba then have another son and name him Solomon. The author of 2 Samuel says \u201cthe Lord loved him\u201d (12:24).<\/p>\n

The Rape of Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1\u201422)<\/h6>\n

The final years of David\u2019s reign were plagued with revolutions led by his own children. His son, Amnon (his firstborn, contrast \u201cAmmon\u201d above) rapes his half-sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1\u201422). When David takes no decisive action, Tamar\u2019s brother Absalom kills Amnon (2 Samuel 13:23\u201439). Absolom eventually rebels against David, who is forced to flee. Finally Absolom is killed and David grieves bitterly (2 Samuel 18:33).<\/p>\n

Solomon reenters the picture when Nathan conspires with Bathsheba to trick David into naming him as the successor to the throne (1 Kings 1:11\u201453). Solomon\u2019s half brother, Adonijah, had declared himself King (1 Kings 1:5), and Nathan and Bathsheba move quickly to change the course of events. David died in 961 BCE.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h4>\n

The succession narrative \/ court history of David portrays less direct involvement on the part of the deity than did the ancestor stories or even the stories of the judges. Like the episodes with Saul, the stories of David and Solomon do emphasize, however, the crucial role of fidelity to the Lord.<\/p>\n

The Reign of Solomon
\n(1 Kings 1\u201411)<\/h3>\n

The biblical traditions remember Solomon as a wise<\/i> person who made some foolish<\/i> decisions. Perhaps we can understand this when we understand that the \u201cwisdom\u201d mentioned here appears to refer to the curriculum for the education of bureaucrats. That is, the people who would work in the administration of an empire were expected to be schooled in the \u2018wisdom literature\u2019 the collections of often very practical sayings which educated people considered essential to successful living. Much of this type of literature in the Hebrew Bible is attributed to Solomon (many psalms, sections of Proverbs, etc.). Solomon was no shepherd boy. He was educated for the task of ruling.<\/p>\n

It was Solomon who built the first Temple to the Lord in Jerusalem. This was only one of his major building projects. He built himself a magnificent palace and built public buildings all over Israel. Many of these were actually fortifications. These fortified sites were necessary because Solomon adopted a different military strategy than his father David. David had used a fairly small, highly mobile fighting force, but Solomon adopted the more traditional practice of placing more or less permanent troops at strategic points throughout the land.<\/p>\n

This practice was expensive, and Solomon was forced to institute a systematic form of taxation and enforce high tariffs. He even resorted to enslaving the non-Hebrew peoples within the land to build the Jerusalem temple, his own palace, and fortifications throughout the land (1 Kings 9:15\u201422).<\/p>\n

He also accepted the usual (but not Hebrew) practice of diplomatic marriages, a practice that brought in a large number of wives who worshipped Gods other than the Lord<\/span>. Solomon\u2019s downfall, from the point of view of the biblical writers, was just this, that he turned aside from the worship of the Lord by permitting these foreign wives to practice their religions in Jerusalem, and perhaps for participating in that worship himself.<\/p>\n

Historical Evidence for the Reign of David and Solomon<\/h4>\n

To reconstruct the history of the period of David and Solomon we may consult the narratives in Samuel and Kings, add to them additional material gleaned from a critical reading of Chronicles, and incorporate information derived from archaeological research. Unfortunately for the historian, however, many of the sites where we would need to dig to find appropriate archaeological evidence are not available because modern communities occupy those sites.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tel Dan Stele<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still, some evidence for this period has been found. At Tell Dan (the site of the ancient city in the far north of Israel) an inscription was \u00a0found in 1993-94 that refers to the king of Judah as the \u201cHouse of David.\u201d While the inscription comes from the ninth to eighth century BCE (at least 100 years later than David), the reference reflects knowledge of an earlier king by the name \u201cDavid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The little bit of information available from archaeology and the literary testimony from Samuel and Kings as well as Chronicles may be analyzed in light of insights from anthropological investigation to at least gain some insight into what life must have been like at this time.\u00a0After the death of Saul, a complex of political, military, and sociological developments raised Israel from the status of a loosely organized ethnic mass to that of a nation. David made tremendous gains for Israel in terms of territory and freedom from domination, and Solomon consolidated those gains but also planted the seeds of the dissolution of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Save<\/span>Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reign of David and Solomon is often viewed as the golden age of Israel. It is the time when the nation was most unified. The biblical texts discuss this period at some length, and other sources of information are also available to inform our understanding of the period. The Literary Evidence: What\u2019s in the … Continue reading The Reign of David and Solomon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":573,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-615","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9FE3j-9V","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/615\/revisions\/617"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bibleatchurch.com\/biblehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}