David - A Political Genius

David, the ancient king of Israel, the shepherd boy with the slingshot, was a political genius. Now the Bible says many things about David - about his faith, his career, his music and his scandals, but it never sets out to teach that David was a political genius. However, a careful reading of the story tells all we need to know to recognize that David may have been one of the most skillful politicians of all time.

Perhaps we should first evaluate David by the results. He began his life as the youngest son in a large non-royal family. When he was crowned king over Israel, they were so internally divided that he initially ruled over only one of the twelve tribes. Israel was militarily inferior to and largely dominated by the neighboring Philistines, due perhaps to the fact that the Philistines had mastered the use of iron and the Israelites had not (1 Sam 13:19-22). Yet by the midpoint of his forty year reign, David had united the kingdom and made it into a regional superpower. He vanquished the Philistines so thoroughly that they never again raised their head. He conquered and garrisoned the kingdoms on the east bank of the Jordan river from Edom to Damascus, and extended his political control all the way to the Euphrates river. He founded a dynasty that lasted either over four hundred years or forever, depending on how one measures it. Certainly, from a political standpoint, he would have to be considered a considerable success, at least. But what was it that made him a political genius?

One unusual characteristic of David has probably lurked in the back of many people's minds as a feature which was effective politically, even though politics is never portrayed as the motivation. That characteristic was David's magnanimity toward his political rivals. Before David became king, he twice passed up the chance to kill King Saul, even though these chances occurred when Saul was hunting David and trying to kill him. David's men encouraged David to kill Saul, but David was unwilling to do any harm to the "LORD's anointed." David showed favor to Abner, Saul's army commander, and to Mephibosheth, Saul's grandson, among others. David's behavior here was counter-cultural, as middle eastern despots, both ancient and modern, usually want to eliminate all their rivals. However, in this case, David's behavior had a unifying influence within his kingdom. And whether by coincidence, by example, or by cosmic justice, Judah lasted several hundred years before a Davidic king was ever assassinated by a fellow countryman.

Next, let us look at two unusual bits that appear in the story of David and Goliath. The first is the basic question of why David volunteered to fight Goliath at all. The Bible story does not say that God told David to fight Goliath. It is true to say that David was brave, but there surely were other brave men in the Israelite army too. None of them volunteered because they knew that they would lose to the nine foot six inch giant, no matter how brave they were. David volunteered because unlike the other brave men, he knew he would not lose. How did he know that? David had been anointed with the promise from God that he would be king over Israel by the prophet Samuel. David was not yet king, so he couldn't lose or the promise would not be fulfilled. David was able to see the implications of this promise and act on it.

The second unusual bit in the story of Goliath is that after David defeated Goliath, he cut off his head and took it to Jerusalem (1 Sam 17:54). Where? Jerusalem. Why did he do that? Jerusalem was not even an Israelite city. It was a Jebusite fortress city near David's home town of Bethlehem. This shows that David was thinking way, way ahead. David knew he would be king, and he had already figured out where his capital city should be (Israel did not have a stable capital at the time). After David became king, one of his first acts was to capture Jerusalem and make it his capital. The Jebusites living there thought they were so secure behind their 16 foot stone wall that the "blind and the lame" (2 Sam 5:6-9) could defend it, and indeed Jerusalem did go on to be a formidable fortress in antiquity. However, David already knew its weak point - he knew soldiers could get under the wall via a water shaft, and he directed his army to do so. I suspect that David learned of the water shaft when he was still a shepherd boy. The choice of Jerusalem was providential. Not belonging to any of the existing Israelite tribes, it served as a unifying point for the nation, and it went on to be perhaps the most famous city of all time.

While unifying the nation, David had to solve several military problems. Israel had generally been coming out badly in their continual conflict with the Philistines. Before he became king, David spent some time in the land of the Philistines. Perhaps there he learned some things. Certainly, the iron problem that had been an issue before David was never an issue afterward, though whether or not David did anything about that himself is not clear.

One military reform that David instituted was the introduction of shock troops. This was an early example of a sort of Praetorian Guard. David's shock troops included much of the band that followed him while he was on the run from Saul. It included an inner core of his thirty or so "mighty men", then expanded to include a group called the "Kerethites and the Pelethites" (2 Sam 8:18), a total of around 600 men. These men had their own commander, Benaiah, separate from the commander of the overall army, Joab. Some of these shock troops were not Israelites. These forces bailed David out of trouble during Absalom's rebellion. They were influential enough to control David's succession, giving the crown to Solomon as David wished rather than his older brother Adonijah, who attempted to claim it. It is probable that these shocked troops, by serving as a professional core for the Israelite army, raised the overall military prowess of the entire country.

David did not go looking for trouble internationally. He made an enduring and profitable alliance with Hiram, King of Tyre (2 Sam 5:11), though Tyre was not one of Israel's more formidable neighbors. David initially had an alliance with Ammon (2 Sam 10) until their king died and a hostile successor appeared. It is also true that despite David's magnanimity toward his political rivals, he understood the value of deterrence when dealing with potential enemies. By dealing in a harshly memorable fashion with some of his enemies (2 Sam 8:2), he made others afraid to confront him (2 Sam 10:19).

The Bible is a spiritual book and even when it records history, as in the history of David, it does so to teach a spiritual lesson. David is described as being a "man after God's own heart." When we realize how clever David was politically, it should tell us that there is nothing about living a spiritual life which means we have to be politically naive. In fact, doing the right thing, as David did, often turns out to be the best politics of all.