The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (17 page)

Military confrontation between David and Israel was inevitable, and it took place at Gibeon, a town near the southern border of Israel. Given the location, it is likely that Abner led the Israelite troops to Gibeon as a defensive measure and that David’s men, led by his general Joab, saw this as an opportunity to engage in combat without going too far north. The Bible presents the battle as a rout, with Joab and his men pursuing Abner until the last light of day. With the sun setting, Joab gave up the chase, allowing Abner to retreat, and returned to Hebron. This much seems likely enough.

Not quite so believable are the stories embedded in the biblical account of this battle. The first is a bizarre moment right at the beginning of the fighting, when Abner and Joab are supposed to have selected twelve men from each side to engage in single combat, almost for the entertainment of the rest of the troops. Each pair is said to have simultaneously stabbed each other, such that “they fell together.” From both the “set-piece” feel of the story and the fact that it has no effect on the rest of the narrative, it is clear that this story is nothing but an elaborate etiology for a place in Gibeon called “the Field of Blades.”
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The second story is again of single combat, but of a different kind. David’s leading warriors, the sons of Zeruiah—Joab, Abishai, and Asahel—are said to have been present at the battle. Asahel, according to the text, set off on a run after Abner, such that the two of them were essentially alone, streaking through the field. Abner begged Asahel to stop chasing him, warning that if he did not relent, Abner would have to kill him. Asahel refused, and so Abner, left with no choice, “struck him in the belly with a backward thrust of his spear” (2 Sam. 2:23), killing Asahel on the spot. Not only is this sort of single combat story more literary than likely—it is decidedly reminiscent of Homer—but the episode exists entirely as a means for establishing, for future use, a rationale for why Abner should die: as blood vengeance for the death of Asahel. Interestingly enough, though the other parts of this trio, Joab and Abishai, are regular figures in the David story, Asahel is never mentioned before this episode. It is not that he was invented, necessarily—in fact, he is listed as one of David’s elite warriors in 2 Samuel 23:24 (well after he is supposed to have died at Gibeon). But his relationship to Joab and Abishai does seem a new creation of the biblical authors, again to justify the impending death of Abner.

This battle between David and Israel ended without a decisive victory, as most battles did. David’s military forces proved their strength in driving Abner and his men away from Gibeon, though they seem not to have had the resources to capture any Israelite territory. This is the only battle between the two sides recorded in the Bible—we are told after this only that “the war between the House of Saul and the House of David was long-drawn-out, but David kept growing stronger while the House of Saul kept growing weaker” (2 Sam. 3:1). The battle at Gibeon thus may be taken as representative of the war as a whole: nothing decisive, but a clear advantage to David’s side. This is to be expected, since Abner’s army was probably significantly diminished after the defeat of Saul, and David’s army substantially stronger both by controlling all of Judah and by virtue of Philistine support. The course of the war, tilting slowly but inexorably in David’s favor, would have made Abner’s decision not to become king look better and better. At the same time, it made Ishbaal weaker and weaker. Eventually, the power dynamic in the north would come to a head, with unpleasant consequences for both the king and his master.

Abner’s Betrayal

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VERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE
seen where things were headed. Ishbaal, however, was stuck—he was the king of Israel, and like any good captain, he had to go down with the ship. Not so, Abner. The biblical story of how Abner broke with Ishbaal is a strange one. Ishbaal accuses Abner of having slept with one of Saul’s concubines—a seemingly trivial matter, but in fact one with significant symbolic import, as we have seen already in the case of David and Ahinoam. For Abner to sleep with one of Saul’s concubines was as good as Abner declaring himself king. Abner’s response to Ishbaal’s accusation is equivocal: he castigates Ishbaal for doubting his loyalty to Saul’s family and kingdom, yet doesn’t quite deny the charge. But Abner’s anger leads him to change sides, to “do for David as Yahweh swore to him—to transfer the kingship from the House of Saul, and to establish the throne of David over Israel and Judah” (2 Sam. 3:9–10). That the dialogue between Ishbaal and Abner is not historically accurate is proved by the reference to God’s promise to make David king, which Abner could not have known about. And some have argued that the entire episode is an invention, simply a mechanism for explaining Abner’s disloyalty.
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Yet it seems a strange story to invent. Given all the possible ways for the break between Abner and Ishbaal to have happened, this accusation and nondenial, complete with the details of the concubine’s name, is not the most obvious. Thus while we may set aside Abner’s speech as a literary construction, the episode may well have a historical basis. Abner was, after all, the real power in Israel, and he may have felt himself entitled to some of the perks that came with that power. He also may have been testing Ishbaal’s resilience—would the king have the courage to oppose him? As it turned out, the answer was no: after leveling the charge, Ishbaal “could say nothing more in reply to Abner, because he was afraid of him” (3:11). All of this would have been reasonable preparation for Abner’s next step: full betrayal.

Abner sent a message to David: “Make a covenant with me and I will lend my hand to bring all Israel over to your side” (3:12). The Bible gives us no details of what this “covenant” may have been, but we may reasonably conjecture. Abner would not have simply given up his power for nothing. It seems likely that he would have supported David’s nominal kingship in the north, but with himself as a vassal king, ruling over Israel—just as David was a vassal king of the Philistines, ruling over Judah. Abner would maintain his power in the north while preventing any further military advances by David. With the war going badly for Abner, this would have been a prudent move to make. Note, however, that in sending this message, Abner has taken on the role of the king, even without the official title. He feels himself empowered to present Israel on a platter to David. It seems quite possible that Abner’s dalliance with Saul’s concubine was his way of establishing that authority, at least in his own eyes.

Even without specifics, David would have recognized Abner’s overture immediately for what it was. Across the ancient Near East, a population on the verge of being conquered commonly relinquished its independence to maintain some internal stability. Given the options of putting up a fight and risking wholesale destruction on the one hand and accepting the yoke of vassaldom on the other—which frequently meant only paying regular tribute and providing troops for military actions—the choice was a fairly easy one. For the conquering nation, such a deal would spare the significant expense of full-fledged military preparations and war.
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For much of their history, both before and after David, Canaan and Israel took this subservient role, being vassals of the Egyptians during the second millennium
BCE
, of the Assyrians during the eighth to seventh centuries
BCE
, of the Egyptians and Babylonians during the seventh to sixth centuries, the Persians during the sixth to fourth centuries, the Greeks during the fourth to second centuries, and finally the Romans beginning in the first century
BCE
and culminating with the destruction of the temple in 70
CE
. Periods of Israelite independence were the exception, not the rule, and usually coincided with the decline of the previously dominant foreign empire.
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Revolts against the foreign overlords were occasionally successful, as with the Maccabees, but more often they ended in defeat and significant punishment—as was the case with the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722
BCE
and of the southern kingdom in 586
BCE
.

David would have received Abner’s message in this light. He would have known that Abner was offering himself as a vassal, hoping to avoid further military conflict and willing to recognize David’s power and perhaps maintain some of his own, even if in a limited capacity. David’s response was positive but came with an interesting condition: that Abner come before him in person and bring along Michal, Saul’s daughter. We have already discussed the probability that the story of David marrying Michal while he was still in Saul’s service is fictional.
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This moment, however, seems eminently plausible. Whether they were married in the past or not, David’s summons of Michal is a highly charged symbolic gesture. He is establishing his kinship right to Saul’s throne, as son-in-law of the deceased king. David is removing an avenue of objection from the north and simultaneously following the established ancient tradition of using royal marriage for diplomatic ends. Now, however, the marriage is truly between two royal houses, for David is an acknowledged king. The marriage to Michal consummates the joining of the two houses into one, with David at its head.

If, however, David was in fact not married to Michal previously, then this is more than mere diplomacy—it is yet another demonstration of David’s incontrovertible power over the north. He felt himself strong enough to demand that Saul’s daughter be stripped from her rightful husband—who is portrayed pathetically as weeping while following her out of his house—and, evidently, he was right. Even more interesting, David made his demand not only of Abner, but also of Ishbaal. In some ways, this was the more logical avenue, since Ishbaal was the king, at least nominally, and more important was Michal’s brother. In the end, according to the Bible, it was Ishbaal who sent Michal off to David. And this, too, would have had political significance: though Abner was the one who approached David to relinquish the rights to the Israelite throne, Ishbaal, in sending Michal, signaled his complicity in the decision. And, in the end, what choice did he have? His general had just offered to turn his nation over to David, and he could do nothing to stop it. Denying Michal to David would have been inviting military retribution at a moment when Ishbaal had no power to withstand it. The defection of Abner meant the practical dissolution of Ishbaal’s kingdom. Perhaps “man of shame” is an appropriate name for him after all.

When Abner arrived in person before David, the meeting seems to have been relatively brief. In part, this is because the visit was mostly symbolic: the subjugated vassal presenting himself before his new overlord, presumably bearing some sort of gift and pledging his fealty. However, the meeting was brief also because it came to a rather abrupt end. Abner never made it back to Israel, because Joab, David’s general, struck him down and killed him. The question that both the biblical text and the modern historian need to answer is why.

The Bible, as already mentioned, suggests that Joab killed Abner as revenge for Abner’s murder of Joab’s brother Asahel. Since, however, it seems that Abner did not really kill Asahel—and even, perhaps, that Asahel was not really Joab’s brother at all—this explanation must be rejected. But it ties into the larger theme of the David story that we have already seen over and over: the exoneration of David for the deaths of his enemies. This case is a particularly tricky one, however, as even the Bible admits that it was David’s own general who killed Abner. To deal with this, the Bible gives Joab a personal motivation for the murder quite apart from any connection with David, and David is portrayed as being appalled at Joab’s actions: “May the guilt fall upon the head of Joab and all his father’s house. May the House of Joab never be without someone suffering from a discharge or skin disease, or a male who handles the spindle, or one who falls by the sword, or one lacking bread” (2 Sam. 3:29). And later: “Those men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too savage for me. May Yahweh requite the evildoer for his evil!” (3:39). Yet, for all his talk, David takes no action against Joab; he remains David’s commander for the entirety of David’s reign. The over-the-top condemnation of Joab is exceeded only by David’s own proclamations of innocence: “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before Yahweh of shedding the blood of Abner son of Ner” (3:28). As he did with Saul and Jonathan, David intones a dirge over Abner—the man he had been fighting against for years. And as with Saul and Jonathan, David puts on a public display of mourning, rending his clothes, wearing sackcloth, lamenting, and fasting. David even personally walks behind Abner’s body as it is taken to be buried, and he weeps aloud by Abner’s grave.
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If all of this weren’t enough, the biblical narrators remind us again and again that David had nothing to do with Abner’s death—that when Abner left David’s side, he was absolutely fine: “David dismissed Abner, who went away unharmed” (3:21); “Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, for he had been dismissed and had gone away unharmed” (3:22); “Joab was told, ‘Abner son of Ner had come to the king, was dismissed by him, and went away unharmed,’ ” (3:23); “That day all the people and all Israel knew that it had not been the king’s will to kill Abner son of Ner” (3:37)—and if “all Israel” in the story knew it, then “all Israel,” the story’s audience, is expected to know it, too. This defense of David, reformulated and reiterated in almost every verse of the narrative, is simply too much to believe.