I, David
First-Person Transcriptions from the Old Testament King
by Edwin Walhout
Published by Edwin Walhout
Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout
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Cover design by Amy Cole (amy.cole@comcast.com)
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Table of Contents
Introduction
1 When I Was a Boy
2 I Fight a Giant
3 In King Saul’s Army
4 I’m an Outlaw
5 King Saul Tries to Kill Me
6 Pretend Philistines
7 King Over Judah
8 King of All Israel
9 My Own City
10 I Fight Israel’s Battles
11 We Bring Back the Ark
12 I Keep Fighting
13 I Sin Against God
14 My Children Make Trouble
15 Absalom, My Son, My Son
16 I Keep My Throne
17 I Make Solomon King
18 Solomon Handles Problems
19 Solomon’s Building Projects
My first time travel trip was to interview the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, after which the West Michigan Institute of Time Travel sent me to visit Abraham. Now I am reporting on my visit to King David. Future plans call for a visit to Moses and Paul, and then we are laying plans to visit all – yes, all! -- the other prophets in the Old Testament.
But now, for David, we had to figure out when in his life to interview him. We decided to try for when he was a very old man,just after he made his son Solomon king. When they first sent me back the timing was a bit off. I got to Jerusalem all right, but David wasn’t there. It seems his son Absalom was off chasing him somewhere. We were too early, so the time travel crew bumped me up a few years where I found him still living in his palace even though Solomon was king.
A funny thing happened when I talked to David. He thought I was an angel from God, which helped to get our conversation started. I asked him to tell me about his boyhood on the farm near Bethlehem.
[Based on 1 Samuel 16]
I was the youngest son of eight. My father’s name was Jesse. My grandfather was Obed. My great-grandfather was Boaz. My great-grandmother was a Moabite lady named Ruth, so my ancestry is not pure Jewish.
As I said, I was the youngest son. That meant I was the one who had to do the jobs my older brothers didn’t want to do,one of which was watching the family’s flock of sheep.
There was nothing much to do out there in the field all day, so I had to find some way to occupy my time. I made myself a kind of harp, with strings, and practiced playing it until I could pick out some nice tunes. That was one thing I did.
Another thing I did to occupy my time was to practice with a slingshot. I made a leather pouch, tied some leather cords to it, and practiced throwing stones at a target. I got to be pretty good. In fact, it was a useful thing to do, because once in a while some wild animal would come smelling around the sheep. Often it happened that I threw a stone at a small lion or bear and drove it away from the sheep.
Once a young lion had a lamb in his mouth already by the time I got there. I jumped on the lion’s back, wrapped my legs around his belly, and pulled his jaws open to free the sheep. Then I kept on pulling and broke his jaw so that he couldn't bite anymore. I pulled out my knife and killed him.
Something happened when I was about sixteen or seventeen years old. It was very strange. An old prophet came to town one day, that is, to Bethlehem. He wanted to talk to my father Jesse. He asked to meet my older brothers, one by one, but he didn't say why. He kept pressing my father until he had to admit he had one more son, me, out in the fields taking care of the sheep. So I also had to go in to meet that prophet.
I was only a boy, but this prophet – his name was Samuel – took one look at me and said, He’s the one.
Then this prophet did something really weird. He took out a small sheep horn, filled it with olive oil, and poured the oil on my head. Then he said, This young man will grow up to become king of Israel.
Wow! Prophet Samuel anointed me, just a teenage boy, to be a king!
At first my older brothers were not too happy about it. They were a little jealous, I think. I won’t say they hated me or treated me any differently, but they had been passed by.
As for me, it was hard to take it seriously. What? Me a king, an anointed one, a messiah? I had no idea what that might involve, so for the most part I forgot about it, except occasionally when I was out in the pasture, bored with watching the sheep, I did think about God more seriously.
Prophet Samuel said that God chose me to be a king. God did that. God chose me. Why me? That made me think more and more about God and about what God wanted me to do.
I resolved then that I would do my very best to do whatever God asked me to do. I would give myself completely to God. So that became my way of life. Whatever God wanted me to do, I would do to the best of my ability.
I must say too, now that I am an old man, I tried hard to keep that promise all my life, and for the times when I failed, I am sorry.
David was not very busy as a retired king, so I could visit with him almost every day for an hour or so. I recorded everything he said and then I went back to my room and translated it, and that is what you are reading here. I take some liberties in translating his words into English, but it is all pretty accurate just the same.
[Based on 1 Samuel 17]
There are some details in my life that get a little fuzzy; that is to say, I don't exactly remember which came first or last. I’m thinking now of how I first got involved with King Saul.
Saul was the first real king we Israelites had. He was a good soldier. He was constantly fighting the Philistines or the Ammonites or the Moabites or the Edomites or the Midianites or whoever else was trying to make trouble for Israel.
If I remember correctly my very first contact with the king was because of my music. King Saul had some kind of illness, from worrying about things too much. Somebody recommended my music to soothe him, so one day he had me play my harp, and it seemed to help settle his nerves.
What really got Saul’s attention was the weird business of that Philistine giant, Goliath. There was a war going on between the Israelites and the Philistines, the people living just to the west of us.
Some of my older brothers were in the army, but I was too young. One day our father told me to visit my brothers to see how the war was going. I took along a lot of food for them and for their commanders, and stayed a few days to watch.
The armies camped opposite each other but never did fight. I wondered why. I soon found out.
A great huge man from the Philistine army would come out each morning and taunt the Israelites. He said, Find someone to fight me. If you defeat me it will be the same as if your army defeats our army. But if I defeat him, then it will be the same as my army defeating yours. You claim to have such a wonderful God, surely he can find someone to fight me.
It bothered me that nobody dared to fight Goliath. I asked why, and my brothers became angry with me, but I began to think how I would do it if it were up to me. I had a plan.
Then I volunteered to fight Goliath! A preposterous thing to do, I know. I wasn't even old enough to fight in the army and here I volunteered to make the whole battle depend on me. But I had a plan.
King Saul heard about me volunteering. He must have been really desperate to think a boy like me could defeat Goliath when everybody else was deathly afraid of him. He told me to put on his armor. Well, I tried on his armor – he’s a very tall man and I am not. So, as I have often said jokingly, I tried on Saul’s armor, turned around and the armor didn’t move! So I politely refused to wear it.
Anyway, I went down the next day to where the giant Goliath was parading around. I took only my slingshot and a few round stones with me. I figured if I could hit him in the middle of his forehead, the only place his armor didn't protect him, I could stun him and then rush up to finish him off. That was my plan. I had done it often enough with wild animals.
Goliath was surprised when he saw me, unarmed, just a youngster with a slingshot and a few stones.
He began to ridicule me and curse our God, so I simply replied to him that I was coming against him in the name of God and that God would surely give me the victory.
I hurled my first stone as hard and fast as I could and it hit the target precisely where it was aimed, right above his nose. The giant stumbled and fell over. He wasn’t dead, of course, but stunned enough so that he could not move.
I rushed up, grabbed his huge sword, and cut off his head before he could regain consciousness. I picked up the head and carried it back to King Saul while the Israelite army shouted in victory and the Philistine army laid down their weapons.
So I suppose that was when King Saul really began to take notice of me!
3 In King Saul’s Army
David could not always remember clearly how old he was when these events took place, so I have to make the best guess I can. I guess David was not much more than twenty years old when Saul asked him to join the army. Here is how David described that period of his life.
[Based on 1 Samuel 18-19]
That’s when my life really changed – after I killed that giant Philistine. Since that time I’ve killed a lot of men. One of my friends once called me a man of blood. He’s right, I am. It all started when I cut off Goliath’s head and brought it to King Saul.
I have thought about that many times in my life, all that war and killing. But war and killing was something I had to do. We Israelites had to keep our country free from idolatry, and to do that we had to keep our enemies out.
Anyway, King Saul wanted me in the army, young as I was. Killing Goliath made me a sort of national hero for a while. I didn't particularly like all that attention, but what could I do? King Saul gave me some responsibilities that he thought I could handle, and I did them well enough. He seemed to be happy with me, at least at first.
While I was in the army I formed a strong friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan. We trusted each other and got along very well. Jonathan gave me a lot of help to become a good soldier.
My relationship with the king remained good for a long time, several years. I did what he wanted and was usually successful in it. In time Saul made me an officer and gave me a small band of men to command. We got along famously and Saul found us to be reliable, getting things done.
One day, after a battle in which my soldiers gained a great victory, we came home to a crowd of people who began shouting, Saul has killed his thousands, but David his ten thousands.
I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but King Saul did not like it one bit that someone else was being honored more than he was. He became – I think you have to say it – jealous. There was no good reason to be jealous because I was not in any way competing with him. I was just doing the job he gave me to do.
Every now and then Saul would get into a bad mood and ask me to play my harp. Once when I was playing, his mood overcame him and he picked up his spear and threw it at me. I ducked out of the way! The spear stuck in the wall, so if it had hit me, well… .
I don’t think Saul hated me or was trying to kill me; I just think he was depressed for some reason or another.
But it got worse. Saul didn’t want me around. He made me a general and sent me off into battle where I would not be under foot all the time.
Then King Saul got the idea to make me his son-in-law. Maybe he figured I would not oppose him if he made me part of the family. I would never have opposed him under any circumstances, but he didn’t believe that, so he gave me his daughter Michal as my wife and I became the king’s son-in-law.
I liked Michal well enough, and she seemed to admire me. But her father kept acting worse and worse toward me. It got to the point that I suspected Saul was going to send an assassin to kill me while I was sleeping, or that he would invite me to dinner and then have someone else do it. I just did not feel safe in his presence any longer.
Finally a plot did surface. My wife Michal told me about it and urged me to slip out the window when no one could see me. She fixed up a dummy in the bed and told her father that I was ill and could not come to the party we had been invited to. I got away but Saul was extremely angry with Michal.
As it turned out, that was the end of my service in Saul’s army, and my life and career took a turn for the worse. I lost my wife too. From that time I became an outlaw, hunted by the king as an enemy to be destroyed.
I'll tell you about that next time.
It’s hard to imagine how David felt. He had done everything King Saul asked of him, loyally and well. But now the king was chasing him all around the country trying to kill him. How do you figure? Here is what David told me.
[Based on 1 Samuel 20-22]
As you can imagine I was pretty discouraged by all that hatred from King Saul, my father-in-law. I had served him honorably and well for many years, and this is how he rewarded me, by trying to kill me because he thought I was trying to dethrone him.
Maybe the story of how Prophet Samuel had anointed me as a boy got around and Saul had heard it. He probably thought I was trying to get myself chosen king instead of him or instead of his son Jonathan. I wasn’t, but he may have thought that.
What do I do now that I am no longer welcome in my own country? Where could I go? How was I to make a living?
I made a big mistake at first, one that could have cost me my life even. I tried to find safety with the Philistines, our national enemy. What a mistake!
I had to leave home in a hurry. I didn't have any food or any weapons, so on the way I stopped at a place called Nob to see a priest by the name of Ahimelech. I asked the priest if he had any food for me. I told him I was on a secret expedition for the king.
There wasn’t any food available except the holy bread at the altar, but Ahimelech gave that to me and I ate it. Then he told me the sword of Goliath was stored in his sanctuary, and I could have it if I wanted it. So from now on I wielded that huge sword with which I had cut off Goliath’s head!
I heard later that King Saul killed Ahimelech and all the priests at Nob because they helped me escape. All but one, Abiathar. Cruel and wholly unjust.
My big mistake was to go to the Philistine city of Gath. A man named Achish was king at the time, and I thought he might take me in and use me in his army.
Soon, however, I learned that the other generals in the Philistine army did not trust me. I had won too many battles and killed too many Philistines. They were plotting, I discovered, to kill me. Now my problem was, how to get away?
I pretended to be insane. I made myself froth at the mouth, said wild and crazy things, acted irrationally. Who wants a blubbering fool in his court, running his army? So Achish sent me away, which saved me.
But then what? Where could I go next? There was a large cave not too far away, in the land of Judah, in some rugged country near a place called Adullam, so that's where I went.
My family heard about it and my brothers came to join me there. In fact they were all in trouble simply for being my family.
Other men started to join me there also, men who were in trouble for one reason or another. It wasn’t long before I had quite a band of outlaws with me. They were rather tough men, for the most part. It was a small army actually, about four hundred men, many of them with wives and children.
My brothers had taken my parents with them, but a big cave was no place for elderly people to live, so I had to find a place for them where King Saul could not get them. I brought them east across the Jordan River to the land of Moab, where my great-grandmother Ruth came from. There they would be safe as long as I was an outlaw.
I want to tell you some stories about how King Saul tried to hunt me down, but I am getting tired now. Could you come back again tomorrow?
Of course I could come back tomorrow. This time I brought David a little treat that came from the twenty-first century, a Milky Way candy bar. He had never seen anything like it, of course, and made quite a mess trying to eat that chocolate. He got the sticky stuff all over his fingers and lips. I couldn’t tell if he even liked it. Anyway, here are some of the stories he told me about being chased by King Saul.
[Based on 1 Samuel 23-25]
While we were holed up in the cave at Adullam, a Philistine army began to attack Keilah, an Israelite city just a few miles away.
What should we do? Should we try to drive off that army? We had four hundred good men, but the Philistine army was much larger.
We had our priest Abiathar there and he prayed to ask the Lord what we should do. He said to go ahead and fight the Philistines.
We did fight, and we rescued the city of Keilah. We not only saved the city but captured a lot of booty, spoils of war taken from the Philistines.
More men kept coming to join us and I soon had about six hundred men with me, many of them with their families. We went to live in Keilah, the town we had just rescued from the Philistines.
But when King Saul heard that we were now in Keilah, it soon became clear that the people would not protect us but would give us up to Saul. We had to get out quick.
King Saul tracked us for weeks, but finally had to go back home to deal with a Philistine army that was making raids farther north, which gave us a little break.
We took refuge near the Dead Sea at a hard to reach place called En-gedi.
One day when a band of us were holed up in the depths of a very deep cave, Saul himself came to the very same cave and spent the night just inside the entrance.
My men wanted to end the trouble then and there by killing Saul and making me king instead. I would not hear of it.
During the night, however, I crept up and cut off a piece of his robe. Next morning as he was leaving I shouted after him and showed him what I had done. I swore allegiance to him all over again and Saul took his army back home to Gibeah.
One day we heard about a very wealthy man nearby. We had protected his employees from bandits, so I sent a delegation asking him for some food supplies. The man’s name was Nabal.
He refused to give us anything. We thought this was unfair since we had protected his property and people, so I sent some men to take it by force.
But Nabal’s wife heard about the husband’s rudeness and quickly gathered all kinds of supplies for us. A week or two later we heard that Nabal, when he heard about it, had a stroke and died.
I remembered the lady, Abigail was her name, and wondered if she would be interested in marrying me now that she was a widow. I proposed and she accepted and became a part of our band.
Well, it happened again. King Saul heard we were in the wilderness of Ziph and he took his army to chase us. One night I persuaded my friend Abishai to go with me in the middle of the night to sneak into the camp of Saul.
We crept up to where Saul was sleeping. Abishai wanted to drive his spear into the king but I wouldn't let him. Instead I took Saul’s spear and his water bottle and went away.
Next morning I stood on a nearby hill and called to King Saul. I showed him the spear and the water bottle. King Saul was impressed and took his army back home again. He knew very well that I could have killed him and that he was in the wrong by trying to kill me.
Finally it dawned on all of us that we simply couldn't stay in the land of Israel and be safe. Sooner or later King Saul would get us and we would be dead. We had to get out of the country altogether.
But let me stop now and I’ll tell you about where we went tomorrow.
I was really curious about this time of David’s life. How could he have a small army with no place to live? He became a temporary Philistine.
[Based on 1 Samuel 27-30]
We knew we had to get out of the land of Israel. Sooner or later Saul would get us if we stayed. We discussed whether to go across the Jordan River to Ammon or Moab, or south to Edom or even to Egypt. Finally we decided to try west in the land of the Philistines. It was not too far away.
We were Israelite outlaws, hunted by the army of King Saul. We figured that if we behaved ourselves toward the Philistines we could persuade them we were not enemies but friends.
Achish, king of Gath, let us stay a while, but it became an increasingly uncomfortable place for us to be. We asked if he would suggest a town somewhere that we could live in.
Achish was glad to get rid of us, and he assigned us a small country village called Ziklag, about ten or twelve miles north of Beersheba. It was far enough away from Gath and we were still outside Israel.
At heart we were all loyal Israelites, and we would never harm our countrymen. In fact, we hunted down Israel’s enemies wherever we could find them. We would not do anything to harm the Israelites.
We did no harm to the Philistines, but we earned our living by conducting raids on enemies of Israel, people like the Geshurites, the Gerzites, and Amalekites who were constantly raiding Israelite towns.
As I look back on it now I see that period of my life as a kind of preparation for the difficult work the Lord gave me later when I became king. We always did what we could to defend the Israelites, and that gave us a good reputation.
Once, a really difficult situation came up. The Philistine cities joined together to gather a huge army to attack Israel. Achish came to me and said, You know, of course, that you have to come with me and join in the battle. I agreed, and pledged him our support. King Achish even made my band and me his personal bodyguards in battle.
We were hoping we could remain in reserve behind the lines and not actually have to do any fighting.
However, the situation took care of itself. The other Philistine generals, when they saw us, absolutely refused to have us in the army at all. They did not trust us one little bit, so Achish, very reluctantly, sent us back home to Ziklag.
We were happy for that, but when we got home we discovered a band of Amalekites had raided our town while we were gone. All our wives and children were gone, taken captive. The city was burned down. The people of Ziklag blamed us for antagonizing the Amalekites.
We quickly sent out search parties to see which way the Amalekites had gone, and we found a man who could guide us to them. So off we went, traveling hard and fast. Some of my men couldn’t stand the grueling pace and had to drop out. By the time we caught up with the Amalekites there were only about four hundred of us left.
We waited until they were off guard, eating, drinking and celebrating, and then we attacked. They didn't stand a chance and we slaughtered them.
Some of the Amalekites escaped, but we got all our people and goods back, with little damage. We captured the booty from the Amalekite camp itself, along with large flocks and herds of cattle and sheep. We shared the plunder with the two hundred men who were too exhausted to fight, and with the other people of Ziklag. We sent some of it to the elders of Israel in all the cities of Judah to prove to them that we were friends and not enemies.
I think I will stop here. Next time I'll tell you about a really big change that came into my life.
After King Saul died, the Israelites had to choose a new king. The people in the southern tribe of Judah liked David and chose him. But the rest of the country chose one of the sons of King Saul, so the Israelites had two kings. Here is how David tells about it.
[Based on 2 Samuel 2]
Remember the battle with the Philistines I was telling you about last time -- up north? Well, the Philistines gained a great victory over King Saul. A soldier escaped and told me that Saul was severely wounded and fell on his sword to end his life. My good friend Jonathan was also killed. I was very sad, even though the man who was trying to kill me was now dead.
Shortly afterward we heard that Saul’s general, Abner, had installed Saul’s son Ishbosheth as king in place of his father. Jonathan would have made a good king, but he was dead also. I really didn't know much about Ishbosheth. Abner was really the power behind the throne, and that did not look good to me.
I began to wonder what God had in mind as I remembered when Prophet Samuel poured oil on my head and predicted I would be the king of Israel. Obviously now, since Ishbosheth was the new king, I wasn’t. But I did wonder about it. Could Samuel have been wrong? Was I destined to be an outlaw here in Ziklag my whole life?
So I prayed about it and then went to our priest, Abiathar. I asked him to determine whether God wanted me to go back to the land of Israel or to stay in Ziklag.
Abiathar said God wanted me back home. Then I asked him to find out where specifically I should go – what city. The answer was Hebron, the leading city in the southern tribe of Judah. I was a southerner myself, having been born in Bethlehem, not too far from Hebron, also in the territory of Judah.
Soon I discovered that the people of Judah were no great supporters of King Saul, and found it very difficult to accept his son Ishbosheth as their king.
In fact, they didn't accept him at all. The elders of Judah came to me one day and asked whether I might be interested in becoming king – just of Judah, that is.
It wasn’t so much that the elders of Judah no longer regarded themselves as Israelites, but they just did not want a son of Saul to be their king.
I consulted the priest Abiathar and decided it was what God wanted me to do; I accepted their offer and became king of the tribe of Judah, reigning from the city of Hebron.
People in those days were constantly raiding each other. If you could make a successful raid against some foreigners you became a hero. So there was constant fighting and stealing and raiding; nobody was really safe without strong soldiers around for protection.
This situation was a result of each country having a different god from their neighbors. Our god is competing with your god. Sometimes our god is successful; sometimes your god is successful. Sometimes we win; sometimes you win.
I knew the idea of each country having its own god was wrong. There has to be only one God, the God who created the whole world, and all people are responsible to live under that one creator God.
I knew that but what could I do about it? I couldn't singlehandedly make all those surrounding people believe in just one God. Everybody did believe there was one High God, named El, but he was regarded as simply a father god, with a whole family of cantankerous children gods competing with one another. That wasn't right either.
All I could do myself was be as faithful as I could to the one and only God, the one we named Yahweh.
So I accepted the responsibility of being king of Judah, and this lasted for seven years. Then the rest of the country wanted me to become their king too. But let's save that story for next time.
King David let me stay in a nice room in his palace while I was visiting him. I could get food and clothing and whatever I needed from the Time Machine; they could send things directly into my room. When I first came I had a folding tent, but I didn't need it, so I decided to leave it as a gift to David. He could let his grandchildren play in it.
[Based on 2 Samuel 4-5]
I want to tell you today about my good friend Joab. He was a fierce and ruthless warrior, somebody you would be afraid of if he wasn’t your friend.
Joab wanted me to be king over all twelve tribes, not just one. He wanted to go north to fight the army of King Ishbosheth, and I agreed.
The king's army was led by Abner, who, if you remember, was King Saul’s general. The battle took place up north, near the city of Gibeon. Our army won, and chased Abner’s army for many miles.
During the battle, however, Abner did something that made Joab furious when he heard about it. He killed Joab’s brother. Joab vowed to get revenge on Abner for killing his brother.
After the battle Abner decided it would be better for me to be king of Israel rather than Ishbosheth, so he sent messengers down to Hebron to make it happen.
I didn’t know whether the people in the other tribes really wanted me to be king, or whether their leaders would really support me. I had been an outlaw for several years and many people in the north did not trust me.
One of the things I insisted on as a show of good faith from the people of the north had to do with my first wife, Michal, daughter of King Saul. I figured if they were willing to get her back for me it would be a sign they accepted me as a legitimate successor to King Saul, as part of his family, his son-in-law.
It would take some real commitment on the part of the leaders of Israel to take her away from her husband Paltiel and restore her to me, but it was very important to me, and I insisted on it as a test to see if they really wanted to have me become king.
Well, they did what I asked, and negotiations to make me king over all Israel continued. Abner himself came down to Hebron to make the final arrangements. I entertained him for a day or two, but just after he left, Joab came and, without my knowledge, sent messengers to ask Abner to return for further conversation. When Abner returned, Joab killed him.
I was appalled, but the deed was done. What would this do to the negotiations to make me king of all Israel? The other tribes would surely not trust me now.
So I did what I could to demonstrate it was not me who wanted Abner dead. I ordered Joab to arrange a proper burial and mourning ceremony. I myself walked in the funeral procession in deep mourning to show I was unhappy for what had happened.
Then came some more tragic news. Two assassins crept into King Ishbosheth’s home and killed him.
Those same two assassins came to Hebron to tell me about it. I was so angry with these men I had them executed on the spot. I didn't want anyone to think I had anything to do with that violent crime. I did not want to gain the throne by assassinating the king.
The elders of the ten northern tribes resumed negotiations to make me their king. There was no one else who had the ability to protect the people against the Philistines. I agreed and was crowned king over all Israel.
I remembered the prophecy of Samuel that I would become king. I vowed to God I would do my very best to make this a nation under God.
I was king, but I knew I had a king over me, the Lord God who made the heavens and the earth and who controls all things. I wanted nothing more than to be the king God wanted me to be, leading his people in the ways of righteousness and holiness and justice and truth.
I’d like to tell you next time about Jerusalem, my own city.
I was surprised to learn that Jerusalem was not even an Israelite city. We are so used to thinking of Jerusalem as the holy city of God that we assume it was always so. But it wasn’t, and this is David’s story of how this small village was captured and became the capital of the country.
(Based on 2 Samuel 5:6-10 and 1 Chronicles 11:4-9)
King Saul and his son King Ishbosheth lived in a town called Gibeah, in the northern part of Israel. Gibeah was centrally located among the tribes of Israel, but I didn't want to go up there as king.
But if I stayed in Hebron it would seem that I was too tied to the tribe of Judah. On the other hand if I went from Hebron to Gibeah the good people here in Judah would feel I had abandoned them.
I wanted a more neutral location so as not to show preference for any one tribe.
After some thought I decided to find a village that had no special connection with any tribe of Israel. There were a number of these scattered around the country, towns that were not Israelite towns.
I sent my soldiers to scout around to find a Canaanite village that might serve our purpose. They finally found a little town, Jebus, several miles north of where we were living in Hebron, but not as far north as where King Saul lived.
Jebus was a town with walls, situated on a hill. The people living there never bothered anyone so no one ever bothered them.
I took a little army up to Jebus and besieged the city for a while, asking the people to surrender. They refused. In fact they taunted my men from their high walls. Even our lame men and our blind men can fight you off, they called. I told my soldiers whoever figured out a way to get into that city would get a good promotion in the army. It turned out it was Joab. He noticed there was a sewer through the wall at one point, too small for anyone to get into; but we widened it out and that's how we got into the city and conquered it.
So now I had a city all my own that didn't belong to any of the tribes of Israel. It was located at the northern border of Judah so I wouldn't be showing a preference for any of the tribes.
I gave the city a new name, the City of David. It was, after all, my city and I didn't want it known by a Jebusite name. However, everyone else used the name Jerusalem and that’s the name that stuck.
When we first conquered the town it wasn’t very suitable for a capital city. I wanted my men to stay there with me, and we all needed decent homes to live in, but there weren't enough houses for all my people.
I sent a delegation to the King of Tyre, far to the north, and arranged to purchase lumber. I also got some good carpenters from him – our people were not very skilled in making buildings.
Gradually we got the city in shape. My son Solomon is really making some wonderful buildings, as you can see as you walk around. I myself wanted to build that beautiful temple that is even now going up – Have you seen it? – but the Lord told me I was a man of blood and not the right person to do it, so Solomon is doing it instead.
He's also getting his builders and his materials from the King of Tyre, just as we did years ago. We get along all right with those Phoenicians up there in the north along the Great Sea, a lot better than with the Philistines who were always attacking us.