King David: Israel’s Ancient Music Man

Ancient Israel’s Music Man

I know very little about Wheeler Thackston’s scholarly subjects, but we do share at least two things: a great respect for each other as scholars and as people, and an abiding love for Meredith Willson’s The Music Man. In the movie version, Robert Preston is “Professor” Harold Hill, “the Music Man,” and Shirley Jones is Marian, the town’s librarian (no coincidence that the two words rhyme). In case you do not have the movie memorized, let me summarize it here. Harold Hill is a con man living in the early part of the twentieth century, moving by train from town to town in the Midwest, finding a reason a given town needs a boys’ band, and convincing the innocent Midwesterners to pay Hill for their sons’ instruments and uniforms, at inflated prices. When the uniforms and instruments arrive, Hill, who claims to have a degree from a conservatory, begins to “teach” the band with what he calls “the think method.” They simply think the tune he suggests, and if they keep thinking long enough, they will be able to play it. While they are “thinking,” Hill, of course, hops a train to the next city which, given the state of communications at that point, has not heard of his hijinks and falls for the same con.

The town in Meredith Willson’s story, River City, Iowa, provides Hill with his justification in the form of a new pool hall that has been built in this God-fearing town, which fears anything new and possibly overly fun for the young people of the town. Hence the famous centerpiece of the movie, “Trouble”:

“Ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City! Trouble with a capital ‘T,’ and that rhymes with ‘P,’ and that stands for Pool.”

The women of the town, meanwhile, are suspicious of the virginal librarian, Marian, because a rich benefactor who left the library to the town (Miser Madison) left all the books in the library to her, and she can therefore recommend to people of a proper age that they might read “Chaucer! . . . Rabelais! . . . Balzac!” In the eyes of River City’s leading ladies, there is no proper age for such books.

So we have the setting of a con man playing his usual tricks on a gullible small town in the Midwest, with the complication of a smart and (of course) beautiful librarian, who is in fact Hill’s equal and something of an outcast herself because of her friendship with a rich old man, a fellow lover of books, and her disdain for the unsophisticated attitudes of the townspeople. In the eyes of the town Harold and Marian are two of a kind, really: he is a slick traveling salesman, and she is an immoral purveyor of dirty literature that she probably now owns because of an earlier improper relationship. It was a marriage made in heaven, but would never work outside the mythic setting offered by Willson.

Harold Hill was a fraud; he made his living by fooling people. But in The Music Man, his usual modus operandi didn’t work because he couldn’t get out of town quickly enough, for love of a woman. In the movie, Harold Hill’s outrageous claims have served him well in an American Midwest portrayed as largely ignorant of the real world in the early twentieth century, until he runs into someone who could call him on his lies — someone who could actually use the library she ran to check up on him. Ironically, he falls in love with her, and she with him of course, but his scam is exposed, and because of his love of Marian he misses his chance to skip town. But wait! — it’s Hollywood, don’t forget — his outrageous claims turn out to be somewhat true, when he is forced to lead his small orchestra in a think-rendition of Beethoven’s Minuet in G. And it is here that the magic descends upon him: it works. They play a dreadful but recognizable version of the piece. The townspeople are overcome to see their children as actual musicians — “That’s my Barney! That tuba’s my Barney!” — and the ragtag boys’ band becomes a marching band of huge proportions that makes its way through the now-happy town.

I’ve spent a great deal of time explaining this seemingly nonacademic story because it is, in fact, a perfect mythic type, with, on the one hand, a flawed hero, and on the other, a group of townspeople who are hostile, then believing, then hostile again, because they cannot see his magic. The hero in the end produces magical effects, despite the suspicion and ambiguous feelings of the town’s residents. The mediator between the hero and the town is of course a woman, and a woman who is herself misunderstood. It is a structuralist’s dream, although the over-the-top ending reminds one of nothing so much as the loaves and fishes.

Israel had its own Music Man in the person of King David (ca. 1000 BCE), and there are times when I am dealing with David that I can’t help but think of Harold Hill. David was a hero at least as flawed as Professor Hill. He is a shepherd who uses his rustic skills to kill the Philistine giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17). He is said to expand Israel’s borders to grand proportions. But he can also be seen as an opportunist and canny usurper of the crown; the leader of a band of outcast extortioners (1 Sam 22:1–2; 25); an adopted son and real son-in-law who takes advantage of an unstable King Saul’s occasional enchantment with him (chapters 24 and 26); an adulterer who has a faithful soldier killed so his adultery won’t be revealed (2 Samuel 11); a weak king who is seemingly unable to stop an ambitious son from overturning his reign and sending him into exile (2 Samuel 15–19); an impotent old man who is fooled into ignoring primogeniture to declare another son king (1 Kings 1). He even, according to 2 Samuel 24, displeases God by taking a census that can be for no reason other than taxation and military draft.

One difference between the two, of course, is that David truly was a musician, albeit at the beginning of his story a pretty small-time musician, with only a lyre to accompany him. In this essay, I’m interested in how it is Israel’s Music Man who will be remembered as its greatest composer of songs and as a king so impressive that in future times of turmoil, some will turn to his memory in hopes of another road out of slavery.

The circumstances under which we first meet David are quite innocent. In 1 Samuel 16, Israel’s last judge, Samuel, is told by Yahweh to leave King Saul behind. He has committed what seem to us to be minor errors, but in the eyes of Yahweh, Saul will no longer be the one to establish a dynasty over his people. He instructs Samuel to go to Bethlehem, to the family of Jesse, because there he will find Israel’s next king. In the end, Samuel anoints the youngest, David, king over Israel, in front of all his brothers. It is clear that he will not take over the throne immediately, but in the future he will succeed Saul as king.

Biblical scholars trace several sources in these early stories of David, and with good reason. In which of the stories do David and his family know that David has been anointed Israel’s next king? This is an important point, because if David knows that he is to take the throne from Saul and his family, his actions take on a different tone than if he is innocently following whatever the mighty King Saul plans for him. In the story that follows the anointing, for instance, Saul begins to be tormented by Yahweh, and “one of his servants” tells him, “Well, I know that a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite knows how to play music, and he’s a strong man, a warrior, wise, and good-looking. And Yahweh is with him.” It seems almost too good to be true that the young man who has just been anointed Saul’s successor would also be the musician who just happens to be recommended to enter Saul’s court. If, however, the servant had any knowledge of David’s recent anointing, this story is an extension of the last. Perhaps it was not Yahweh alone, but others too who thought Saul was not a good king. The news of David’s anointing would have spread quickly through such a group, and “one of Saul’s servants” might have been just such a person. At any rate, David’s entry into Saul’s entourage is ambiguous in the passage: either he just happened to be a good musician, so good that Saul’s servants would think of him immediately, or he was someone who needed an excuse to stay close to the crown and was a good enough musician that his soothing music provided that excuse.

Compounding the text’s confusing picture of David as a young man is the famous story of David’s confrontation with the Philistine giant Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. This particular text divides neatly into two parts: “Story A” and “Story B.” In Story A, David is Saul’s lyre-player and armor-bearer and is of course with him when Saul goes to fight the Philistines in the Elah Valley. We hear a great deal about Goliath, and when the other Israelites are scared sick because of him, David offers to go to fight him all by himself, with only his sling and some stones. He strikes Goliath with a stone, and then cuts off Goliath’s head with his own sword. The Philistines run from the Israelites, and David takes Goliath’s head and weapons.

Story B presents a different David. Here, David has not yet met Saul and is not part of his circle. Instead, when his father sends him to bring food to his brothers at the front, David uses the journey to observe the war. He catches sight of Goliath while talking with his brothers and learns from others that whoever defeats Goliath will receive riches, the king’s daughter, and tax exemption. His brothers are wary of him and interpret his interest in Goliath and the battle as ambition. Saul, however, hears that David has spoken out against Goliath’s insults and summons him. We are briefly told that David killed Goliath with a sling and that Saul had no idea who he was. David is so young that Saul asks, “Whose son is he?” When Saul calls for him, David is still carrying Goliath’s head. Thus in Story B, David is introduced to Saul not as a lyre-player but as a brave youth who vanquished the Philistine who had unnerved the Israelite troops. In Story B, as it continues into chapter 18, Saul’s son Jonathan and “the ambitious” David become instant friends and treat each other as brothers.

The David of Story B was not the musician who played the lyre for Saul during his bouts with an evil spirit. That lyre-player David belongs to Story A, which ironically also reports that Samuel anointed David king. Yet we hear almost nothing more about David’s lyre. Once his musical skill has served to get him into Saul’s household, that ability appears only one more time in the narrative.

Although Story B’s Saul was so impressed by David’s prowess against Goliath that he promoted him to commander, he quickly regretted his decision. He observed that the people of Israel, including women who greeted the warriors with song, were more impressed with David than with him. He realized his mistake, but too late. The text describes Saul’s problem as a loss of Yahweh’s support, which David now enjoys. On a non-theological level, it appears that Israel’s first king understood that although he still lived, he might have forfeited the dynasty for his family. Beit Sha’ul was in danger of becoming Beit David. All these stories are part of what scholars call “the History of David’s Rise” (HDR), and much of the rest of HDR is filled with accounts of Saul’s hostility toward David and David’s innocence of any hostility toward Saul. Even Saul (1 Sam 24:20) and his son Jonathan (1 Sam 23:17) confirm that David will become king and establish his own rival dynasty. In separate stories, they each ask that when that time comes, David not wipe out their families (Saul: 1 Sam 23:17; 24:21; Jonathan: 1 Sam 20:14–16). Saul’s troubles intensify when we see that even his own family seems to prefer David over him. David and Jonathan become fast friends, to the point that Jonathan effectively hands the kingdom to David upon first meeting him.

Saul’s daughter Michal is said to love David, and David wins her as his wife by bringing Saul either one hundred (MT) or two hundred (LXX) Philistine foreskins—a task Saul hoped would get David killed. Soon Michal goes to great lengths to help David escape her father: she saves her husband and lies to Saul (1 Sam 19:11-17). David may even have married Saul’s wife. In 1 Sam 14:50, Saul is said to be married to Ahinoam, daughter of Ahimaaz. In 1 Sam 25:43, David marries Ahinoam of Jezreel. The text does not tell us that David stole Saul’s wife, but the only two times a woman named Ahinoam appears in the Hebrew Bible are these two wives, which invites suspicion. Furthermore, in 2 Sam 12:8, Yahweh tells David through the prophet Nathan, “I gave your master’s house to you, and gave his wives into your embrace,” reinforcing the suspicion.

Saul’s problems with his family members and his loss of power to pass the throne to a descendant are essentially the same issue: Saul’s family belongs largely to David, not to Saul. His throne and the opportunity to leave his name on Israel’s dynasty belong to David as well, even before Saul and his sons are killed. What matters is that the HDR ensures the historical record shows David’s rise as legitimate—that David did nothing to hasten the death of “Yahweh’s anointed” (Saul); that Saul and David are “father” and “son”; and that both Yahweh and the people of Israel chose David’s family over Saul’s to rule. This it does. David himself could rule as a usurper and not be harmed by it. It is Solomon and David’s future descendants who benefit from the HDR’s tone. David’s status as legitimate ruler mattered less to him than it did to Beit David, the House of David.

David’s establishment of a dynasty was only the first step in a remarkable career that saw him transform from powerful king and dynast into composer of music and liturgy, prophet, and type of the messiah. His shift from occasional lyre-player to composer of the Psalms and even more music is what concerns us here. Even within the Bible, we can see the beginnings of this longer career. Amos 6:5 (eighth century BCE) says that David “invents musical instruments,” and 1 Chronicles (fifth and fourth centuries BCE) credits David with authoring the liturgy of an as-yet-unbuilt Temple (6:31–38; 16; 25). In the book of Psalms, not only are many psalms attributed to David (l-David, “belonging to David” or “by David”), but thirteen “historical psalms” have superscriptions purporting to describe the events in David’s life that prompted him to compose and sing them.

The portrayal of David from the books of Samuel and one chapter of 1 Kings is far more of a cunning, emotional, fighting man than a pious character. His image underwent a significant overhaul, however, as early as the editing of Kings (circa 600 BCE), where many Judahite kings are judged by whether they followed David’s example in doing what was right in Yahweh’s eyes. The book of 1 Chronicles completely whitewashes David, omitting embarrassing episodes like his affair with Bathsheba and his order to leave Uriah on the front lines to die. As 1 Chronicles tells it, David could do no wrong.

Another step in this transformation is interpreting the book of Psalms to say that David authored some or all of its songs. The question is whether David needed the Psalms to appear more pious or whether the book of Psalms needed David as its author—likely a combination of both. David as composer of prayers and sacred songs gives his character a pious quality mostly absent from the prose stories in Samuel. Just as important, the book of Psalms was not obviously suited for canonization: its prayers and songs might be uplifting, but most reflect the everyday problems and joys of ordinary people, who could be seen as their authors. If the great King David had actually composed the entire book for both Temple liturgy and ordinary people, then the book takes on a far more sacred and important character. After all, David was the king Yahweh chose to establish a dynasty to rule Israel, the one against whom future kings were measured, known in later tradition as a prophet, and one who “walked in the way of Yahweh.” If this book were among the prophet David’s compositions, there would be no doubt it was destined to become sacred scripture. Beyond the biblical text, David’s musical career further blossoms, especially in the Psalms Scroll from Qumran (11QPs^a), which lists a remarkable 4,050 songs composed by David, all spoken to him because he was a prophet of Yahweh.

Israel’s Music Man endures in literature partly because he was early on already an ideal king—an image that may have clung to him due to his military exploits (even if they are exaggerated in the extant text). Shimon Bar-Efrat notes that David did establish a dynasty and that the lives and deeds of great leaders are often inflated over time. Yet his portrayal was too secular; attaching episodes from his life to the historical psalms provides an elegant solution. When these stories are read with the historical psalms inserted at the points their superscriptions describe, a completely different David emerges. Furthermore, if Psalms needed a famous author to gain acceptance as a sacred book, who better than the ancient, now-pious hero King David, who was a musician in his earlier stories?

A fast talker and womanizer turned dazzling musician fits a Hollywood ending. The same magic that visited Professor Harold Hill also befell King David: just as a wretched performance of the Minuet in G became seventy-six trombones in a parade down Main Street, David’s lyre turned into a Temple orchestra and choir. The lyre has become a recurring motif in depictions of David. Whatever David is doing in a painting or sculpture, a lyre is nearly always nearby. Through all the rearrangement of his earliest stories down to the present day and beyond, David will be remembered as a man of music.