David and Solomon’s Priestly Activity
In the Deuteronomists’
narratives, we find three episodes in which David assumes priestly prerogatives.
The first occurs in 1 Samuel 21, where David asks the resident priest Ahimelech
for the Bread of the Presence to sustain himself and his men; it is a request which
Ahimelech grants. While this episode has often been interpreted as a blatant violation
of cultic boundaries, implicating both David and Ahimelech, this is
counter-indicated by the conspicuous absence of any sense of disapproval from within
the narrative. Indeed, when Ahimelech is questioned about the same incident
shortly thereafter, he insists without hesitation that none of Saul’s servants
is more faithful than David. This, together with some sense from the
Evangelists that Jesus essentially approved of David’s actions, raises the question
as to whether modern commentators have been all too quick to assume the
shepherd-king’s culpability. The striking impression that David had in fact
done nothing wrong in partaking of cultic bread raises the possibility that
David had certain priestly rights after all.
Later, in 1
Samuel 6, when David has the ark brought into Jerusalem, he carries out several
functions exclusively associated with priests: he performs sacrifices (vv. 13,
17), an activity ordinarily relegated to the priests (Num. 3.6-8, 14-38; 447;
etc.); wears the ephod, a privilege normally restricted to the priest (v. 14;
cf. Exod. 28.4); erects the tabernacle (v. 17), a Levitical duty (Num. 1.51;
4.1-33); and blesses the people (v. 18), again, a priestly task the Chronicler
is even more conscientious in bringing out David’s cultic aspect. Intent on
centralizing the worship of Yahweh, David summons all the priests and Levites
in the land, that they might be restored to their ancestral lands (1 Chron.
13.2-3). After a failed initial attempt to transport the ark (1 Chron.
13.9-14), David again assumes leadership of the same priest and Levites, and
has them consecrated with a solemn charge (1 Chron. 15.3-14). Finally, upon the
successful relocation of the ark, David implements a regimen of regular offerings
by delegating specific roles to the various Levites and priests. ‘So in the
Chronicler’s expanded retelling of the entry of the ark into Jerusalem’,
Kenneth G. Hoglund summarizes, ‘we see David . . . portrayed as taking on the
attributes of the “head priest” of the temple, acting in a priestly role’. In
short, if 2 Samuel 6 leaves strong hints of David’s priestly function, he ‘is
presented by the Chronicler as the prototypical high priest’. To the extent
that the author of 2 Samuel and the Chronicler shared the same overall goals,
his portrayal certainly helps us make sense of the otherwise ethically ambivalent
Ahimelech incident.
In 2 Samuel
24, following the announcement of judgement against the ill-advised census,
David seeks to stem the tide of divine wrath against by assuming a priestly
role. After David prays that God might redirect the punishment on himself, the prophet
Gad instructs him to erect an altar on the threshing floor or Araunah the
Jebusite. He compiles and brings forward cultic sacrifice: ‘David built there
an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being. So
the LORD answered his supplication for the land, and the plague was averted
from Israel’. The Chronicler notes the location on account of its significance:
it is the same space which was thought o be the venue for he near-sacrifice of
Issac, as well as for the foundation of Solomon’s temple. In averting the wrath
of the census through sacrificial offering, so the Chronicler suggests, David
is somehow recapitulating the Aqedah. Echoes of Moses’ priestly intercession
after the golden calf debacle are also not far below the surface (Exod.
32.11-14, 21-24). This is highly intentional, as the author of our narrative is
working up to a parallelism between Moses and Joshua, on the one side, and
Daivd and Solomon on the other. Like Moses, who had initialized the first
cultic system, the Chronicler’s David was the founder of a cultic system; like
Joshua, who had secured the land for the worship of Yahweh, the Chronicler’s
son of Daivd (Solomon) had united the land into one kingdom with one
centralized temple space. If Moses and Joshua were the respective sponsors of
the original cultic space and cultic land, David and Solomon take on an analogous
task in the post-exilic recapitulation of the same process.
‘Like
father, like son’—Solomon is depicted in 1 Kings as also wearing the ephod, at
least during the consecration of the Solomonic temple. Meanwhile, during this
same event, the priests tasked with transporting the ark are glaringly absent.
Almost as if to upstage the sacerdotal guild, it is Solomon who takes up the
priestly task of blessing (1 Kings 8.14). Solomon (although perhaps along with
the people) who sacrifices (1 Kings 8.5, 62) and Solomon who consecrates the
temple court (1 Kings 8.64). While it is possible that the newly crowned king
was understood to be delegating all of these activities, this is certainly not
the impression let by the narrative. In short, in 1 Kings 8 Solomon is clearly portrayed
as a kind of high priest.
This
impression is hardly reversed by the Chronicler. Indeed, while in 1-2
Chronicles such priestly activity is not generally associated with the kings of
Judea/Israel, it is clearly predicated of David and Solomon. Whatever sacerdotal
aura surrounds the son of David in the temple consecration narrative of 1
Kings, it is only accentuated in the parallel account in 2 Chronicles 5-7. As
far as the subsequent reception of this point in subsequent Judaism is
concerned, Magne Saebø cannot be far from the mark when he concludes that ‘this
particular form of a Davidic-theocratic messianism represents an important point
in the complex history of the Old Testament messianism’. That is to say, the
distinctively priestly functions of David and the son of David in the biblical narratives
would naturally be expected to play a major role in the expectation of a future
David/son of David.
As for all
we can tell, it does. In the prophetic literature we find a recurring interest
in the eschatological David’s priestly function (far more than in any royal functions)
and this in connection with the reunification of the tribes. This is
exemplified in sundry prophetic texts lie Jeremiah 30.21 (‘Their prince shall
be one of their own, their ruler shall come from their midst; I will bring him
near [qrb], and he shall approach [ngš] me, for who would
otherwise dare to approach me?’), which immediately follows a vision of united
tribal worship (30.9) and prepares for the promise that ‘I will be the God of all
the families of Israel, and they shall be my people’ (Jer. 31.1). Here
images of reunification are set alongside the insinuation of a sacerdotal role
for David redivivus; as Michael Barber points out, the very language of
Jeremiah 30.21 (qrb and ngš in particular) ‘unavoidably convey
the notion that the future Davidic king will have cultic responsibilities’. In
Ezekiel 34-37, the eschatological Davidic shepherd is placed ‘among them’ (Ezek.
34.23; 37.25), just as the sanctuary is placed ‘among them’ (Ezek. 37.28),
suggesting a fluidity between the person of David and eschatological sacred space—a
space again, shared by the unified tribes (Eze. 37.15-23). Likewise, when the
Davidide Zerubbabel (cf. 1 Chron. 3.1619) appears in Zechariah, his primary
significance lies not in his exercise of political power but rather in his
cultic activity of rebuilding the temple. At the same time, Zechariah 9-10 ‘expresses
hope for the reunification of the northern and southern kingdoms and for the
renewal of the Davidic throne’.
What are we
to make of David and Solomon’s cultic colouring? A good number of scholars,
seeking to maintain a rigid separation between the royal and priestly offices,
prefer to explain David and Solomon’s priestly gestures in the Deuteronomic
writings as outlier occurrences, uniquely if not vaguely connected to the
events at hand. As far as I can see, this semes to be the standard solution to
the quandary presented by David and Solomon’s apparent indiscretions. The
initial problem with this analysis of ‘priesthood’ and ‘kingship’, however, is
its tendency to assume (without justification) that our own modern construction
of these ‘offices’ (a term which is inevitably a modern construct in its own
right), posited as immutable entities, was universally operative in the Ancient
Near East. In my view, however, such as inflexibly static understanding seems
to be driven more by an equally static paradigm of ‘Israelite religion’ without
due sensitivity to ancient Judaism’s deeply eschatological character, which
implies that Israel’s theocratic structure was necessarily responsive to epochal
covenantal shifts and was therefore, necessarily again, inherently dynamic.
Furthermore, this ‘outlier solution’ strikes me as something of a doge, which invariably
leads to the kind of equivocation we encounter in de Vaux when he writes that
although Israel’s king was ‘a sacred person, with a special relationship to
Yahweh, and in solemn circumstances he could act as the religious head of the
people . . . he was not a priest’. On reading assertions such as these, we
might be forgiven for arching a suspicious eyebrow, much as we would in
response to a trail guide who insists, ‘Even though that bird on the water looks
like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s still not a duck.’
If de Vaux’s account of ancient Israelite notions of kingship and priesthood
fails the ‘duck test’ (and it does), perhaps we would do well to revisit our
assumptions. Perhaps the lines separating kingship and priesthood are more
fluid than we are accustomed to think.
Shedding
some light on this issue, Deborah W. Rooke comments that ‘priesthood is primarily
about doing things, about carrying out rituals and procedures, rather than
about being a particular kind of person or having a particular
genealogical descent’. She continues: because kingship was essentially sacral
in nature, ‘the king would have the right, if not the duty, to perform quite a
number of ritual observances’, even if ‘his responsibilities were largely
delegated to the senior priest’. So, according to the theory espoused by Rooke,
the kings of Israel/Judah maintained an ex officio priestly role that
was intrinsic to the royal office. Whether or not Rooke is correct in all her conclusions,
her essay challenges students of Israel’s cultus to think of priesthood less as
a fixed identity and more as a divinely granted functionality, subject to delegation
given certain situational and historical contingencies. If her argument is even
close to being on track, then the thick and heavy lines which commentators
typically draw between priest and king need to be considerably softened. Rooke’s
account of Israelite kingship (whereby the royal office also retained priestly
prerogatives ex officio) is certainly an improvement on de Vaux’s
description, insofar as it explains those data points which stand out as
exceptions to the paradigm. Nevertheless, as a comprehensive model, it remains
unsatisfactory in that it fails to explain why, on the one hand, so few
Israelite and Judahite kings are recorded as carrying our priestly duties, and,
on the other hand, why David and Solomon in particular seem to be singled out
in their priestly capacities. Here, to reiterate my above passing critique of
the research, I suggest that her argument is not sufficiently responsive to the
contours of redemptive history. (Nicholas Perrin, Jesus the Priest [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2018], 153-57)