David. Allan Boone's Wargon
He would sing them in a low voice, accompanying himself with music of his own making. And as he could not yet draw a bow, or wield a sword, he practised often with a sling. Slingers were a valuable part of the army, and he fantasized being captain over many. Before long he became so good that he seldom missed his targets. They went from rocks to thin leaves and the twigs of bushes. He liked watching them fall under his stones, imaging it was the stranger who had violated him. That detested being — him he would thoroughly pierce with stones, like a shield punctured everywhere by spear jabs! With blood spurting from each wound!
*
One day he heard the strangled cry of a lamb. There was commotion at the near edge of the flock. The herdsmen, talking together on the farther side, were out of hearing. David ran quickly towards the sound, and was surprised to see a sand-coloured bear, a young one, mangling the torn body of a little sheep. He was too excited to think that the bear might turn on him. Finding a heavier stone, he fitted it into his sling.
Attracted by the movement, the bear swung towards him just as the stone struck its head. The animal staggered, made one feeble clawing motion, and fell. David knew it was only stunned. He rushed to the twitching beast. There was sheep’s blood, real blood, in the bear’s mouth, and as David threw sharp rocks more blood ran down the bear’s neck. Panting, the boy took the heaviest stones he could lift and crashed them upon the head of the marauder. They were hurled with an uncharacteristic ferocity, as if he were taking out on the animal the evil that had been done him as a child. Finally, his chest heaving, David could look down at the still corpse of the bear. And next to it, the ravaged remains of the lamb.
*
His brothers skinned the bear, which proved to be a female. And they grudgingly admitted that David had killed it, the herders having told them that no one else was near. However, the boy refused an offer of the fur. His proud mother made it into a cape for the oldest to wear in winter. Though she had two women helpers, David’s mother still did most of the sewing and weaving, and she daily shaped the bread for baking. It was customarily barley bread, whether flat or round, but for special occasions or sacrifices a little wheat flour was sometimes added. Once she made an all-wheat bread for David’s birthday. The brothers put it on the tip of a spear and danced around, passing the shaft from hand to hand, keeping the bread out of reach, and laughing at the others’ chagrin. Until they finally lowered it to be shared in pieces by all. By then the enjoyment had gone out of it.
3
At thirteen, with tawny hair beginning to sprout on his tanned cheeks, David was slim, lithe and exceptionally good-looking. He was polite, and deferential to his parents, but ordinarily unsmiling. Every member of the family had an inner life, but outwardly the others grouped together and related to one another. David kept to himself. The terrible memory he carried remained well hidden. His brothers, though they disdained him and were often sarcastic, were wary of getting into a quarrel with him. He was so quick witted and adroit with words that he always made their aggressions seem foolish. It was similar to the feeling about their handsome family cat, who kept the home free of mice: everyone was annoyed at his inconvenient comings and goings, but unwillingly pleased with his prowess.
*
Entertainment was sought in villages, and David gained a reputation in Bethlehem as a lutist. Moreover he usually sang to his own accompaniment. Travellers repeated the tale, and people started calling him ‘The sweet singer of Israel’. But he had special private compositions, sung only in the wilderness, for God. That all-seeing Presence was stern, but also, David felt, understanding. He bore with the lad’s frequent desires. For girls were arousing. When he was home he watched the neighbourhood maidens, his eyes caressing their rounded forms as they carried water or pounded grain. The sound of crushing was a continual daylong refrain, as every household had to prepare bread. But the up and down movements of the pestle were suggestive. Servant girls flared his imagination. Even his mother, lined as she was, caused him curiosity about what was under her robe. He had a vague memory, or thought he had, of having suckled; nonetheless the shape of a breast remained a rounded, desirable line. In his fantasies he committed lustful acts of which he was afterwards ashamed, as if the cravings were unattainable food, like figs out of reach.
Compelled by his urges, when he was sure no one was looking, he stole from off a clothesline outside an isolated home an old, ragged, light-coloured waist cloth — a garment some women, if they were inclined to be pretentious, wore under their robes. Hurrying with it over rocks, far from people, and reclining between two large boulders, he used it to relieve himself. This, at last, was more agreeable than fingers alone. Or his many erotic wet dreams, which invited discovery and excruciating embarrassment. He repeated the self-stimulation often, until his skin was becoming raw and the fabric had to have the stiffness washed out of it. He had found a spring where he could do this. In the right season there were many secret springs in the hills.
4
Secrecy was also the habitual manner of the prophet Samuel. When he spoke it was with the inference that his words came from God. He was also the last of the legendary Judges, outstanding men who had usually led the tribes in battle; Gideon and Samson had been among those heroes. But Samuel rarely employed violence.
His mother, Hanna, pious yet barren, had promised God that if she bore a son she would give him to the high priest. When Samuel was weaned she had carried out her pledge. The toddler was dressed in a little white robe of her own making.
He grew up steeped in all the central priestly beliefs and practices. As he got older his mother continued to make him white robes in increasingly larger sizes. By the time he had reached maturity he was already the principal priest, and a seer, arbitrator and leader. And recognized by all as a great Judge. He became the undisputed ruler of the tribes, venerated above local jealousies. He had a determined nature that overrode failings and small setbacks, and had held sway for more than a generation. He was like a tent over the entire nation.
*
But murmurs of discontent grew. And indeed the situation was dire. The Philistine conquerors had forbidden even a smithy in Israelite territory, lest it be used to forge weapons of war. To have a plowshare sharpened, a man had to carry it to a Philistine city and humbly beg for the favour of paying heavily. The Israelites yearned for a king, such as nearby nations had. Someone they hoped could lift their yoke.
Samuel bitterly warned them of the evils of kingship — that a king would conscript all their sons to make war, and all their daughters to work in his kitchens, and would take the best of their fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his personal servants, and would take a tenth of their produce and herds for his officers and men, and take all their own servants and slaves, the finest of their young people, for his own use. He predicted that instead of the Israelites being saved they would find themselves hopelessly enslaved. And then they would cry out in their anguish, but the Lord would refuse to hear them!
The people listened patiently to this tirade and then insisted that they still wanted a king. The elders pointed out that all other alternatives had failed. Elders were men who, because of their age, wealth, or virtue, were considered leaders of their communities. They respectfully reminded the old man that his own two sons, whom he had appointed to judge disputes, had proved unworthy: they had taken bribes and perverted justice. This sad truth, which privately hurt the prophet terribly — for he had never in his life departed from what he considered best for the nation — plus the combined elders’ persistence, finally overcame him.
Samuel wisely chose from the smallest tribe, Benjamin, of whom the others could be least envious. And he picked the tallest, most valiant man.
*
Saul was ruggedly handsome. He stood a head higher than those around him. And his assured air suggested nobility. As a younger man he had forcefully recruited and led a party that had gone to the aid of Jabesh-gilead, a small Israelite city on the east bank of the Jordan. It was being assaulted by the Ammonites, whose terms of submission were that they be allowed to gouge out the right eye of every man in the city. Saul’s force rescued it.
Amid general