Why God Forgave David but Rejected Saul with Prof. Gary Anderson

Johnny Ova: Welcome everybody to the Dig In Podcast. I am your host, Pastor Johnny Ova from Sound of Heaven Church, and today our special guest is Professor Gary Anderson. Professor Anderson, thank you so much for your time today.

Prof. Gary Anderson: My pleasure to be here.

Johnny Ova: Before we get into David himself, you've spent your career studying how the Bible tells stories. What makes the David narrative in Samuel different from every other story in the Hebrew Bible?

Prof. Gary Anderson: I might put the question slightly differently: how is David similar to other stories we find in the Hebrew Bible? That will illuminate the differences as well. One of my interests in David is that he's a figure chosen, and chosen for a specific vocation. As such he fits very neatly into a type of story told about chosen individuals in the Old Testament that begins in the book of Genesis. So I think it's really difficult to understand the story of David without grasping how chosenness, or the doctrine of election if you wish, works in the book of Genesis. There are differences, and I'm happy to go into those, but there are also extraordinary similarities. One of the challenges of reading the story of David is being attentive to both. And all of this is very important for the way the figure of King David becomes a big influence in the New Testament as well. But I don't want to jump the gun. We can get into that too.

Johnny Ova: No worries. We'll get into David more, because you're currently writing a biography of King David. What drew you to him, and what surprised you most once you got deep into the project?

Prof. Gary Anderson: I do have a long-term goal of writing a biography of King David, but right now that might be two or maybe three books out, so I don't want to mislead your audience into thinking it's imminent. I am currently finishing a book on David's confession and penance, perhaps one of the most influential and important moments in David's life, which we read about in 2 Samuel and which becomes the background of Psalm 51. David's confession and atonement becomes a model for Christian readers about how to approach this problem. So I'm definitely working on that, and that story is certainly part of what I want to say about the figure of King David.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Let me say a couple of things about what interested me in King David. If you look at historical-critical accounts of David's life, there has been an unhappy tendency, at least in my view, to believe that the story of David is simply one long apology, to put it in good words, or, to better illustrate the thinking of these scholars, a kind of cover-up of the horrendous actions David undertook to secure a throne that was not rightfully his but that he stole from King Saul. Personally, I don't find that a very appealing way of reading the books of Samuel, because first of all you have to read against the grain. That's not the story Samuel obviously wants to tell. This is where I think the references to Genesis are so important. I'm very heavily reliant here on a former graduate student of mine, Randall Short, who now teaches in Japan. He's an evangelical scholar who wrote a very fine dissertation, eventually published, on how King David and the problems internal to his person are based not on power politics with Saul and the Philistines in the Iron Age, as many critical scholars presume, but are meant to articulate David's personality in such a way that he continues the story of the beloved sons in the book of Genesis.

Prof. Gary Anderson: One of the things we learn about the beloved sons in Genesis is that they are all individuals with significant character flaws, and part of the arc of their stories is coming to terms with those flaws and eventually overcoming them, so that they can serve the purpose for which they've been ordained in God's larger providential order. None of those individuals, and let's just take Jacob and Joseph from the get-go, are innocent Sunday school figures we would want to imitate. That's very intentional on the Bible's part, and we can say the same thing about King David. The subtitle of Randall Short's book, I think, was The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David. The surprise of the choice is part of the purpose of the biblical story, and it's also part of the purpose of the stories of the figures in Genesis. They are surprising choices, not the choices we would have made, but they're the choices that God made, and they become the individuals they are by virtue of their being chosen by God. The same thing happens with David. And the relationship of David to Saul is very closely patterned, I think, on the story of sibling rivalry in Genesis, because the first half of David's life is his coming to terms with Saul's intent to murder him. That of course is the problem of Jacob and the problem of Joseph as well.

Johnny Ova: As you're talking, I'm putting together the sibling rivalry narrative, and that makes a lot of sense. Going back to the beginning, David is introduced as a shepherd boy, the youngest son nobody even thought to invite into the lineup. Why do you think the story goes so far out of its way to make him so unimpressive?

Prof. Gary Anderson: That's certainly the way the Joseph story begins as well. He's out shepherding flocks. We have to know that in the ancient world the role of a shepherd was frequently the role of a king. A king was someone who shepherded his people. In the Joseph story it's very curious. Joseph is out shepherding the flocks with the most insignificant siblings of his family, the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. He's not out there with the firstborn, Reuben, or the power figures within Jacob's family. He is not the last-born but the next to last-born. So like David, he's not the likely choice. You would presume the firstborn. The same is true of Jacob and Esau. In both instances, the fact that God prefers this latter-born son is the cause, in Genesis and in Samuel, of the tension David is going to have to undergo.

Prof. Gary Anderson: And just as in Genesis, and I think a lot of people miss this, the story is not only about the challenges David will face as a latter-born son chosen to rule over his people. His being a shepherd is a literary indicator of what his role will eventually be. The story is also about the challenge the unelect face in dealing with the elected son. This may be one of the differences from Genesis. Both Esau and the brothers of Joseph, through a painful process, eventually come to accept the elected status of the latter-born son, and they benefit from it. In the Joseph story, the other sons' lives are saved by him. Presumably in Samuel, Saul could have benefited from David's election as well. But one of the things that's distinctive and tragic about the book of Samuel is that Saul never accepts David's election, and he will suffer mercilessly because of that.

Johnny Ova: One of the themes with David that always stands out to me is that Saul is the people's choice. It's going by the eyeballs. He's tall, he's kingly, he's everything you want, and Israel always seems drawn to that all through the Bible: I want a king who looks like a king. Why does Saul's kingship unravel almost from the start?

Prof. Gary Anderson: I might put the question a little differently, if you don't mind. First of all, and many people forget this, the call of David and his rise begins in 1 Samuel 16, but we really have to absorb what goes on in chapter 15 first: Saul's failure as king, his judgment and condemnation by the prophet Samuel, and Samuel's announcement that the Lord is going to raise up someone else to take his place. One might have thought that if God wanted to order his universe with less friction, and if I were the writer of the Bible, if I were God, as it were, thank God I'm not, but let's imagine it, I would have wanted to elect David after Saul had died. So why elect David at a time when he's clearly not going to assume the office? What he becomes is a competitor to Saul. It's very peculiar.

Prof. Gary Anderson: I think we can answer that in a couple of ways. First, it is the onus of the elected son to suffer. That's what happens in the book of Genesis. Neither Jacob nor Joseph finds the rise to the office to which they've been appointed easy. They undergo tremendous suffering. That's part of what it means to be the beloved son, and David has to undergo it as well. But the tragic element of the story is this. If we entertain the counterfactual, what would have happened had Saul accepted David as the man he was grooming to eventually replace him, Saul's life would have unfolded quite differently. What are the challenges Saul faces? The evil spirit that's been sent upon him, a kind of depression, to use a modern psychiatric term, and the terrible military pressure from the Philistines. When Saul dies at the end of 1 Samuel, the Philistines have essentially taken all the land of Israel. He's occupying just a tiny corner of it. But both problems could have been solved by accepting David. David, as it were, was his antidepressant. Through his musical talent he soothed Saul's evil spirit. And David was a military genius. As we see in the opening story with Goliath, he could have single-handedly handled the Philistines. So Saul's kingdom wouldn't have been beset the way it was, and his psychological state wouldn't have been so fraught. All boats rise, as it were. David's election didn't have to mean Saul's cruel punishment. It could have worked out quite differently. But because Saul never accepted what Samuel said in 1 Samuel 15, he was doomed to suffer.

Johnny Ova: Why do you think that is? Pride?

Prof. Gary Anderson: That's a good question. I don't think the Bible spends a lot of time inspecting Saul's reasons. What we do see is, yes, pride. He is shamed by David's success and simply can't live with someone better than him nearby.

Johnny Ova: David spent years running from Saul as a fugitive, living among Israel's enemies, even working for the Philistines. How should we read those years? Is the text defending David or indicting him?

Prof. Gary Anderson: He goes to the Philistines twice. The first time, he realizes the error of his decision. He has to feign madness so the king of Gath will release him and send him on his way. Otherwise David fears he'll be put to death, because they realize he's the man who killed Goliath and who is responsible for Israel's military victories over them. Near the end of 1 Samuel he goes again. How are we supposed to imagine that? Should he have gone or not? I'm not sure the Bible gives an easy answer. But in support of David's decision, we have to read carefully that incredible sequence in 1 Samuel 24, 25 and 26: two stories where David could have killed Saul but did not, and then the famous story of David and Abigail, David's intention to kill Nabal, or Naval, as I usually pronounce it as in Hebrew, and Abigail's success in talking him out of it.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Why are these stories significant? We can see within the Bible that they're tremendously significant by looking at the book of Psalms. As I'm sure you know, most of the psalms are attributed to David, and a number have titles that attach the psalm to a specific moment in David's life. Most of those titles are devoted to exactly this period, when David is fleeing from Saul for fear of his life. So we can tell from the Psalms that 1 Samuel 24, 25 and 26 were thought to be a kind of précis of the most important element of David's life. He was pursued vengefully by Saul for nothing he had done wrong. We have what biblical scholars sometimes call a doublet. In chapters 24 and 26 the stories look very similar: David has the chance to kill Saul twice but does not. Why does the story occur twice? There are a number of reasons, but the most important gets to your question. Sorry, this is a bit of a long-winded answer, but answering these questions in the Bible is never simple. We have to attend to the details of the narrative.

Johnny Ova: No, this is great.

Prof. Gary Anderson: In 1 Samuel 24, David could have killed Saul in the cave while Saul was relieving himself. David then reveals himself and shows Saul that he could have killed him but did not. Saul repents and acknowledges David's innocence, and it looks like things are going to be fine. But almost immediately, as the chapter closes, we see Saul pursuing David again with the intention to kill him. What the story wants to show us, and certainly to show David, is that Saul is simply psychiatrically deranged. There is no cure here. Nothing can be done. Telling the story twice indicates this is a deep character flaw in Saul's person. So what is David to do? If he stays in Judea, his days are numbered. He really has no choice but to flee to Philistia, and that's what he does.

Johnny Ova: Now David finally takes the throne, brings the ark back to Jerusalem, and seems unstoppable. And Professor Anderson, as a pastor, this story is almost on rinse and repeat. Everything's going great, everything's amazing, everything's unstoppable, and then comes Bathsheba. Walk us through what actually happens in 2 Samuel 11, because I think most people soften this story.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Let me provide a little background, because you highlighted an important theme. In 2 Samuel, I think chapter five if I recall correctly, David brings the ark back to Jerusalem. Then in chapter seven he gets the promise from Nathan, and in chapters eight and nine he achieves an enormous kingdom, an empire. He has not only pushed the Philistines back from the crisis point they reached at the end of 1 Samuel, he's taken far more land. Israel is at the full extent of its power. And it's precisely then, when everything is at his beck and call, that he commits this horrendous sin. I like to think of it as something like a fall narrative. Right when David has everything, why wouldn't he just stop and enjoy the kingdom and the fruits of his spiritual ardor? But it's precisely then that he makes this fatal choice. It is a horrendous story, as you said, and it's not simply about Bathsheba. In fact she gets very little mention in 2 Samuel 11. Most of the chapter is devoted to David's attempt to cover up the adulterous affair.

Prof. Gary Anderson: It's an extraordinary story, because David uses the virtues of this soldier, Uriah, to have him executed. He brings him back to Jerusalem and tries every which way to get Uriah to go home and sleep with Bathsheba. That would solve his paternity problem. But Uriah refuses, because he can't go home and enjoy domestic pleasures, he says, while all the soldiers are out fighting. That wouldn't be fair to his comrades. You see incredible virtue there. David tries to get him drunk, and even that doesn't work.

Johnny Ova: He's too loyal. He's too good of a guy.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Right. He's happy to drink. He gets inebriated, but he still sticks to his guns. Then, most appallingly, because he's so trustworthy, David sends him with a letter that is essentially his death sentence, and Uriah never opens and reads it. Why not? Because he's a virtuous man. And what is the reward of his virtue? He is slain in battle. David clearly thinks he's gotten away with it by the end of that chapter. That's why chapter 12, or really the last verse of chapter 11, comes as something of a surprise. David is happy with what he achieved, but God is not, and Nathan the prophet is sent to dress David down.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Many people are surprised that David, our hero, would commit a sin of this magnitude. But that's important for the legacy of the Bible, and for why this story is not swept under the rug but given special prominence by becoming the subject of Psalm 51, perhaps the most famous psalm of confession and penance in the entire Old Testament. I think the reason it becomes so important is that the biblical writers want to tell us that if a sin of this magnitude can be forgiven, then any sin can be forgiven. So it serves a tremendously important teaching role, not unlike the way the sins of King Manasseh, and Nebuchadnezzar for that matter, come to function in later Jewish and Christian circles, in post-biblical Christian interpretation, where these individuals become model penitents. Why would that be? I think the answer is clear. These biblical interpreters want to show, through the most heinous sinners, that no one is beyond the pale of God's forgiveness.

Johnny Ova: For our everyday thinking, as a pastor, people are blown away by these things when you actually sit and marinate on them, for lack of a better term. David is always described as a man after God's own heart. This was the shepherd boy anointed king, the one who defeated Goliath, with all these great triumphs. But I agree. It shows his human side, and not just "I doubted God today." David orchestrates the death of his most loyal soldier, like you said, and thinks he's gotten away with it. It really exposes his flaw, and God's ability to forgive and still use somebody with these flaws. That's a fascinating aspect of Scripture, because people have that Sunday school David. They don't think about stuff like this.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Right. If we're going to think about the depth and breadth of divine mercy, I like to set this story alongside the Gospels, where Jesus says we have to forgive seventy times seven. That's innumerable sins. But the David story illustrates not just the breadth but also the depth: sins of this magnitude, even these, can be forgiven. That's why Psalm 51 celebrates, as it were, this moment in David's life. Not because we should go and sin like David, but if our consciences are truly fraught with the notion that we've committed a sin that can't be forgiven, we can look to David and know that's just not the case.

Johnny Ova: One thing that stands out to me about Nathan: he walks in and doesn't confront David directly. He comes at him sideways and tells him a story about a stolen lamb. Is there anything you take from that?

Prof. Gary Anderson: The most important thing in a confession is that it's not imposed on someone from the outside. A confession has to be heartfelt. So how is Nathan going to orchestrate that? He could come out and accuse David of what he's done, but far better to arrange the conversation so that David condemns himself. That's the function the parable serves. I happen to really like the interpretation of this parable by an Israeli biblical scholar named Uriel Simon. He notes that not every detail of the parable can be matched exactly with David's situation, but he says that's intentional, because Nathan can't tell a parable that would give away the moral from the beginning. David has to be partly fooled, so that he condemns the figure in the parable and only afterward sees there's enough similarity to what he's done that he has in essence condemned himself.

Prof. Gary Anderson: What's striking in this story, and differs dramatically from Saul in 1 Samuel 15, is that David immediately confesses his wrongdoing, which Saul doesn't do. I think it's very difficult to understand the profundity of this chapter without reading it synoptically with 1 Samuel 15, synoptic meaning side by side. When Samuel confronts Saul about his sin in 1 Samuel 15, he engages him in conversation. Again, he doesn't come right out and accuse Saul of violating the Lord's command. He asks Saul what he's doing, and in the course of the conversation Saul begins to misstate his actions. He only fully confesses after several back-and-forths, when he realizes Samuel actually knows all the details. As long as he thinks Samuel doesn't know, he lies. In other words, there's no sense in Saul that he has really done something wrong for which he must truly confess. He does confess, but only after he's been pushed into a corner and Samuel reveals that all the details are known to him.

Prof. Gary Anderson: That's dramatically different from what happens with David and Nathan. Nathan says, you are the man, the man in that parable you've condemned. And David's initial reaction is, yes, I have sinned against the Lord. No attempt to cover up, explain or make excuses. And also quite important in that sequence, and I think this is often missed, Nathan not only accuses David of being that man. He also says, because you are that man, because of the evil acts you perpetrated, these are the punishments that will now follow, the enactment, we might say, of justice for the wrong done. So when David confesses, and I owe this insight to Uriel Simon, he's not only confessing to the sin he's committed, but he's accepting the consequences. That's so important. Going back to Saul in 1 Samuel 15: only under duress will he confess in the end, and then he won't accept the consequences. He fights against them for the rest of his life. David is willing to fully accept the consequences, and as the story unfolds we see how willing he is. These are consequences of great moment. He's going to lose his throne, lose his wives and face the prospect of permanent exile. But David realizes, this is the just consequence of what I've done.

Johnny Ova: In Sin: A History, you showed that Israel understood sin as a weight a person carries, and later as a debt to be paid. How does that framework change the way we hear David's confession in Psalm 51?

Prof. Gary Anderson: It's not immediately relevant, but it's certainly not irrelevant either. One of the things I tried to say in that book is that in the Bible sin is imagined as almost an outside force created by a transgression, a weight on your shoulders that you have to do something with. In this instance, what David did to Bathsheba and Uriah simply can't disappear with the wave of a wand. God does forgive David. He forgives him in the sense that he will not exact the capital penalty his sins deserve. He deserves to be put to death for adultery and murder, but because he confesses, that penalty is removed. The other penalties are not removed. And here's the other brilliant point about the story of David. Those other penalties are not the enactment of some karmic principle of justice God is beholden to. The penalties David has to suffer are designed to repair his person. That's the key. They force him to see the gravity of what he's done, and they also give him the opportunity to accept the consequences of his actions and to be repaired.

Prof. Gary Anderson: One of the most beautiful lines in the whole episode comes as David leaves Jerusalem. Zadok brings out the ark, presumably to assist David and secure his return. David tells Zadok and Abiathar to take the ark back into Jerusalem, and then he says this incredible line: if God wants me to see the ark, God will bring me back on his own terms, and if God doesn't want me to see the ark, I won't see it. I'm not going to force the matter. I'm going to accept whatever God decrees. That acceptance of the punishment is actually the ground on which David will be allowed to return. The example I frequently give in lectures, and some people like it and some don't, but I think it illustrates this pretty well, is the tragic situation, I think equal to David's sin, of a woman who has been abused by her husband. She gets a court order, perhaps divorces the man. Say five or ten years later he changes his ways from top to bottom and becomes a model citizen, something of a saint. I think all of us would agree that woman is never obligated in any sense to bring that man back into her household. The sins he committed by violating her person created damage that is simply lasting.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Part of the challenge for that man, if he does correct himself, is that he'll have to accept the consequences of what he's done for the rest of his life. That will be part of his maturing process, a continual reminder of the gravity of his wrong. He can be forgiven, but the consequences don't just go poof. But the consequences are also the ground for his further acceptance. And I think that's the amazing thing about David. What allows him in the end to come back to the throne is his full-throated acceptance not only that he sinned, but of the consequences of his actions. Again, something Saul couldn't do.

Johnny Ova: That's such an amazing and fascinating point. I also think that the way God dealt with Saul, and with David through Nathan, it's almost like God was trying to see if they would just come out with it on their own. Even the way God confronts this detrimental sin in their lives isn't a harsh backhand. It gives them the opportunity to grow. Because like you say, David is forgiven, but he's not spared. The child dies, and his own house collapses into violence with Amnon and Absalom, one tragedy after another. So how do we hold forgiveness and consequence together in this story, since those are obviously two different things?

Prof. Gary Anderson: Sometimes we have a superficial understanding of forgiveness. We think forgiveness means a return to the status quo ante, as though nothing happened in between. But that's not how things work in human life. All of us have had the experience of saying something cruel to another person and apologizing, but you can't make those cruel words disappear. Part of the burden of the person who apologizes is accepting that there may be long-term consequences to what they said. Those words hover in the air. That's true for many of the things we do wrong. In the process of being forgiven, we also have to accept the lasting quality of what we've done wrong. Those wrongs no longer condemn us to eternal perdition, but the consequences don't simply vanish into thin air.

Johnny Ova: By the end of his life David is a diminished old man whose last words include instructions to settle scores. Yet this is the man tradition remembers as Israel's greatest king. How did early Jewish and Christian readers turn this David into the David of legend we know today?

Prof. Gary Anderson: Clearly those elements aren't the ones celebrated in his person. But up to the point of the sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, he is the one who achieves the extraordinary borders of Israel and independence from the Philistines, a foe of considerable magnitude. So the hope of future Israelites was that they would have a king who could secure their borders in a similar way, but also be the kind of pious king we see in 1 Samuel, and perhaps the kind of pious king who makes the ideal confession in 2 Samuel. Those are the elements of David's life that are recalled and become exemplary.

Johnny Ova: I've got two more questions for you, Professor Anderson. The prophets promise a coming son of David, and the New Testament opens by calling Jesus exactly that. What is the tradition claiming when it ties the Messiah to this particular man?

Prof. Gary Anderson: This is interesting. A lot of people puzzle over what accounts for the fact that the Messiah in the New Testament has to suffer. If we look at many of the texts you alluded to, in the Old Testament and in later documents that illustrate the period of the Gospels, there's an emphasis on David as the military victor who will win independence from Israel's foes. In the first century that would mean independence from Roman authority. I think it's pretty clear, at least to me, that that's probably why many of the disciples signed on to begin with. I get that hunch from what Peter says to Jesus in Mark 8. He identifies Jesus as the Christ, and then Jesus goes on to say that as the Christ he will have to suffer, and Peter won't accept it. He doesn't think that's part of the job description of Israel's Messiah. It's shocking to him and to all the disciples. You can see why from some of the promises in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which speak of the figure of David and his military prowess in destroying Israel's enemies, bringing the exiles back, rebuilding the temple and so on.

Prof. Gary Anderson: But I don't think that does justice to David in the Old Testament, because the suffering Messiah in the New Testament harks back to the suffering of the beloved sons in Genesis and to the suffering of David at the beginning of his messianic journey. For a Christian reader, it's not at all odd, going back to what we talked about at the beginning of this interview, that God would call David and anoint him to kingship while Saul is still living. As I said, if I were writing the Bible, if I were in control of divine providence, I would have spared David all that suffering and elevated him after Saul died. But in the Bible's wisdom there's an understanding that suffering is part of the lot of the beloved son. That's what happens to Jacob and Joseph, and so it happens to David. Your first question was how David is different, and I pushed back and said, let's begin with how he's similar. I think that's the deep structure of Jesus as the son of David in the Gospels. Yes, he's going to be the redeemer of Israel, but to redeem Israel he will have to suffer. That's built into his Davidic identity. But to appreciate it, we have to look at David in the books of Samuel, not just David as foretold in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah and so on.

Johnny Ova: That makes sense. Last one. After years of living with David, the hero and the sinner, what has he taught you about what God is actually looking for in a human being?

Prof. Gary Anderson: My goodness. Certainly faith in God's providential plan, wherever it takes us. The first part of David's life is extraordinary. How many people would want to be faithful to an office that brought with it the kind of suffering David had to endure, running for fear of his life for years? It's really quite extraordinary. And David doesn't take it into his own hands to achieve the office to which he's called, but allows himself to be the instrument of divine grace. I have to learn that every day, and David is very useful on that score.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Then there's the story of David's confession. First of all, there's a God who can forgive anything we've done, but that forgiveness will often involve accepting the consequences of what we've done as well. And accepting those consequences is part of our rehabilitation. It works to our glory, not to our detriment. Many people think the suffering of those punishments is simply meant to humiliate us and drive us down. I think that's the wrong way to look at the effects of our ill-conceived actions. We should see our acceptance of them as part of the process of maturing as individuals. That's a very hard thing to do. It requires divine grace. It's not something we can do on our own. And I think that's why David is celebrated. Biblical interpreters realized that only a person inspired by divine grace could react the way he did.

Johnny Ova: Professor Gary Anderson, thank you so much for joining us today. You've definitely given us some things to chew on, and you highlighted some amazing points. I truly appreciate this interview and your time today.

Prof. Gary Anderson: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here.