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  David: Rise

  Book One of The David Trilogy

  published by Mark Buchanan, Inc.

  © Mark A. Buchanan 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

  All direct Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (Zondervan).

  For Information

  Mark Buchanan, Inc.

  [email protected]

  www.markbuchanan.net

  The Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada

  ISBN/ISMN Published Heritage Branch

  has catalogued the hardcopy edition of this novel as:

  Title: David: Rise

  Format: Book

  Publisher: M.A. Buchanan Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-7771278-0-0

  I dedicate this book

  to Nicola

  beloved daughter

  pixie child

  lover of furry things

  fixer of mouths

  she of quick wit

  quirky humor

  tender heart

  Foreword

  A novel from one of my favourite authors bringing to life my favourite historical person – David, Israel’s ancient singer of songs. Highly recommended!

  I love the way works of historical fiction breathe life into people dead and gone. The person may be departed, but often their influence and imprint on our world is not gone. And none more so than David. David’s songs are everywhere. Virtually the entire world quotes the 23rd Psalm, words that bring comfort in our darkest valleys. I myself have been making up new tunes to the songs of David for the past 30 years, from “I Lift My Eyes Up” (Psalm 121) in my 20’s, to “How Long (Psalm 13)” in my 30’s, to the more recent “You Comfort Me” with The SHIYR Poets. David is my favourite songwriter of all time and the human who is the top of my name a person from any era you would most like to spend a day with list.

  And speaking of lists, Mark Buchanan’s books often top my I need to let all my friends know about this book list. He’s one of my favourite authors. The Rest of God is one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I love the way the way he puts words together that move me sentence by sentence.

  I was so excited when I heard that Mark was releasing a novel (finally!), and a novel on the life of David no less! Even though I know the David story from scripture (at least I thought so) I couldn’t stop turning these pages—I wanted to know what was going to happen next, and how the characters around David would respond to this passionate and surprising lover of life and God.

  A beautiful book packed with insight, humanity and, of course, whispers of divinity. I couldn’t recommend a novel more than this. Read it and find a way to sing along with the beloved singer of songs.

  Brian Doerksen

  Songwriter, Musician, Author

  Other Books by Mark Buchanan

  Your God is Too Safe

  Things Unseen

  The Holy Wild

  The Rest of God

  Hidden in Plain Sight

  Spiritual Rhythm

  The Four Best Places to Live

  Your Church is Too Safe

  God Speed

  A Personal Note from the Author

  I fell in love with David’s story, if not always with the man himself, when I first read the Bible at age 21. Since then, I have gone back to his story many times to find my bearings, to figure out both how to live and how not to live, to the point where David’s story sometimes feels like a part of my own. Years later, I began to immerse myself in the extensive secondary literature on David and his times (a bibliography of works is included at the back of the book). These secondary sources confirmed, clarified, amplified, and sometimes corrected my growing sense that David represents an historical and literary figure of immense complexity and vitality whose life repays careful study and reflection regardless of one’s own personal beliefs.

  In 2009, sitting on a sandstone beach on a small island near Victoria, BC, the beginning of this work came to me, unbidden. It came in the form of an almost auditory experience: I “heard” Michal, David’s first and later estranged wife, as an old woman thinking back on her life with David. She spoke with bitter, rueful incisiveness. On the spot, I wrote down what I heard.

  The novel took another 10 years to complete, with many rabbit trails, false starts, dead ends. In 2018, I decided to break the story into three parts and publish it as a trilogy, beginning with this present book, David: Rise, which traces the story from David’s “birth narrative” in the story of Ruth to David’s coronation in Hebron as king of Judah. In the forthcoming Book II, David: Reign, I will trace the story over the seven years of civil war between the House of Judah and the House of Israel through to David’s ascension to the throne over Israel at age 37, his establishing of a new capital called Jerusalem, and his expanding and consolidating his rule over Israel. The trilogy will conclude with Book III, David: Descend, which will cover the final two decades or so of David’s life, beginning with his encounter with Bathsheba and ending with his death. Book II is slated for release in 2021 and Book III in 2022.

  This trilogy is a work of fiction. Though I have made every effort to be faithful to the David story as it comes to us in Scripture, particularly in 1 and 2 Samuel, and have drawn widely on academic, popular, and artistic depictions and interpretations of David and his times to ensure biographical and historical accuracy, I have also taken many liberties. The biblical account of David is silent or sparse on many details of character, setting, and chronology, and our historical and archeological knowledge about the man and his times is partial and oftentimes tentative, and so my depictions of any given character – his or her physical appearance, emotional states, deep motivations, inner and often outer dialogue – or any given event – its timing, setting, dynamics - is oftentimes imagined. In some instances, I have wholly invented characters and scenes, though always attempting to be true to the story’s cultural, biblical, and narrative context.

  One hope I have in publishing this novel, and the two novels that will follow it, is that you, the reader, will go back and read the original story of David.

  A Note about Timeline and Narrative Structure

  David lived and ruled sometime in the 10th Century BC, during the early part of the Near East’s Iron Age; exact historical dates are unknown but are largely determined using King Ahab’s participation in the battle of Qarqar in 853 BC as a baseline, and counting back from there to David’s reign. Still, much guesswork is involved.

  The Bible provides a few internal chronological markers of events in David’s life - he was crowned king of Judah at 30, made king of Israel at 37, and died at 70 (2 Samuel 5:4-5). Around these internal markers we can reconstruct his age at various junctures. For instance, he likely was anointed by the prophet Samuel around age 16, killed Goliath around age 17, and married his first wife Michal around age 18. His exile at the hands of King Saul lasted for upwards of 12 years. But all of this is speculative and much debated.

  I have arbitrarily chosen 1025 BC as the year of David’s anointing by Samuel, 1011 BC as the year of his ascension as king over Judah, and 972 BC as the year of David’s death. With dates Before Christ, or B.C. (more typically called now Before the Common Era, or B.C.E.) we count down rather than up.

  In
the novel’s narrative arc, I have broken up this timeline. I tell the main story of David’s rise to power, beginning in 1025 BC, in straight chronological order, with occasional flashbacks. But along the way, I insert first-person reminiscences dating from 972 BC, the year of David’s death (in Book 1, these reminiscences are from David, from his first wife and Saul’s daughter Michal, from his henchman and nephew Joab, and from his personal priest Abiathar; in later volumes, more voices will be added). These two timelines are intended to evoke the varied and conflicting portraits of David that are detectable, if not always readily apparent, in the source material.

  Both narrative arcs—the chronological one, the first-person reminiscences—are rendered in present tense, in an attempt to create a cinematic feel, a sense of events happening in real time.

  Cast of Characters

  (Alphabetically)

  Abiathar: Priest of David, descendent of the doomed house of Eli

  Abigail: Sister of David, mother of Amasa

  Abigail: Third wife of David (formerly wife of Nabal), mother of Kileab

  Abner: Saul’s uncle and general

  Absalom: Son of David and Maacah

  Achish: King of Philistia

  Ahijah: Priest of Saul, descendent of the doomed priestly line of Eli

  Ahimelech: Chief priest of the house of Nob

  Ahinoam: Mother of Saul (Wife of Kish)

  Ahitophel: David’s royal advisor, uncle of Bathsheba (tradition)

  Amasa: David’s short-lived general (David’s nephew)

  Amnon: Son of David and Ahinoam

  Chemosh: Moabite’s chief god (also called Moloch)

  Dagon: Philistine god

  David: King of Judah and Israel

  Doeg: Chief shepherd of Saul who massacred the priests of Nob

  Elhanan: Saul’s errand boy (son of Jaare-oregim)

  Eli: Priest of the house of Shiloh, mentor of Samuel

  Eliab: Oldest brother of David (married to Abihail)

  Goliath: Philistine giant killed by David

  Ishbi-benob: Goliath’s nephew (tradition)

  Ishvi: Son of Saul, king of Israel for two years, also referred to as Ishbosheth.

  Jesse: Father of David

  Joab: David’s general (David’s nephew)

  Jonathan: First son of Saul, father of Mephibosheth

  Josheb-Basshebeth: David’s armor-bearer

  Merab: Daughter of Saul

  Mesha: King of Moab

  Michal: First wife of David, Daughter of Saul

  Nabal: Judean husband of Abigail, later David’s third wife

  Naomi & Elimelech: David’s great, great grandparents

  Nasib: Philistine commander of archers

  Nitzevet: Mother of David (by tradition)

  Ozem: Sixth brother of David

  Raddai: Fifth brother of David

  Ruth & Boaz: David’s great-grandparents

  Samuel: Prophet, judge, king-maker and breaker

  Shammah: Third brother of David and father of Jonadeb

  Shimei: Loyal follower of Saul and later enemy of David

  Solomon: Son of David and Bathsheba

  Tamar: Daughter of David and Maacah

  Uriah: Loyal soldiers of David’s, husband of Bathsheba

  Witch of En’dor: Ghostwife consulted by Saul

  Zeruiah: Sister of David, mother of Joab, Abishai & Ashael

  Glossary of Hebrew Words

  Baal: lord

  Balagan: chaos

  Belial: worthless person; devil

  Dybbuk: evil spirit; demon

  Elohim: God; gods

  Golem: incomplete creation; monster

  Hesed: loving-kindness; covenant faithfulness

  Meshuga: madman

  Mizpah: tower; memorial pillar; a place name

  Nabal: fool

  Nagid: prince

  Nephesh: life; soul

  Nephilim: race of giants

  Ruach: wind, breath, spirit

  Se’er: prophet

  Sheol: realm of the shades

  Yahweh: The Lord God

  Yahweh tardema: deep sleep induced by Yahweh

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Other Books by Mark Buchanan

  A Personal Note from the Author

  A Note about Timeline and Narrative Structure

  Cast of Characters

  Glossary of Hebrew Words

  Fire

  Plotting

  Small

  Father

  Thankless

  Her Son

  Shepherd

  Save These People

  Anointed One

  Oil

  Jonathan

  Rescuer

  Giant

  Dead Eye

  Dowry

  Train My Hands for War

  Closer Than a Brother

  Friend

  Bride Price

  Your Father’s Spear

  Our Story

  I Love You

  Fugitive

  Brother

  Thirsty

  Gone

  Missing

  Madman

  Father of Plenty

  Adullam

  Scofflaws

  En Gedi

  Nowhere Else to Go?

  Do Not Destroy

  Damn Fool

  Spear

  Mercy

  Ziklag

  Man of Sorrows

  Waiting

  Lament

  My King– Michal

  My King – Joab

  My King – Abiathar

  My King – David

  King of Judah

  Selective Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Other Books by Mark Buchanan

  1023 bc

  Fire

  David

  Smoke rises in a wide column on the far ridge. Its crown boils white. Its belly churns red. The sun turns blood, the sky black.

  Flames scramble up tree boughs, swoop limb to limb. They twist along the treeline. Each tree flares like an angry man in one last doomed act of defiance. David can hear, across the valley, sap whistle, wood pop. He can feel, even from the distance, the heat.

  The fire crests the hill, then races downward. Birds burst and rise from grasslands, the rush of their wings like a volley of arrows. Animals in wild panic scatter, the crash of their hooves like many rocks hitting earth.

  When he was a boy, he saw a fire like this rage down a hillside, rushing toward him. He was grazing his father’s sheep. There was no way to outrun it. So he led his sheep into deep waters. Fire blazed on all sides. The sheep thrashed, they bawled. Several tried to bolt. He had to throw them back in the water, pull them into its saving coolness. The heat was terrible. Afterward, his arms and face swelled with boils, and for many nights his sleeping was torment. Weeks later he was still cracked husks, clipping singed wool from the ends of sheep’s coats.

  But he saved them all.

  It taught him always to know where to find water.

  And it taught him to read fires. To think like fire. A fire in wilderness comes blinding fast. But it has a pattern, a way of moving. It is shaped by wind and land and whatever feeds its burning—wood, straw, bramble. A fire in a forest on a hilltop is clumsy, lurching about, whereas a fire in a grassland in a valley is agile and fleet. Some fires linger, take their time, savor destruction. They devour everything with slow, cruel thoroughness. Some rush and scatter, capricious as Ammorite raiders in a drunken spree, lusty, then hungry.

  This fire has run out of trees to burn. It will soon run out of grass to consume. It will pour down a gulch of dry sage, burn e
ach bush like a wild beast tearing prey. But the dirt and rock of the gulch will slow it, make it lurch. The wind that has been pushing it will falter among the gulch’s bends and turns.

  This fire will burn itself out before it reaches him.

  So he just watches, watches it burn, watches it spend itself, watches until its last black curls of smoke scrawl a cryptic warning across the horizon.

  Tonight, he is safe.

  But breathing is like swallowing thorns.

  972 bc1

  Plotting

  David

  I can hear them talking. Whispering. Murmuring. Arguing. Plotting. They think I can’t hear, that my ruined body renders me deaf. That because my flesh is crumpled, my ears have stopped. But it’s the opposite. Take something away from a man and all you do is sharpen another part of him. Take his sword, harden his fists. Take his wife, deepen his fidelity. Take his honor, toughen his resolve. Take his freedom, awaken his desperation. Take his might, sharpen his seeing.

  And his hearing.

  I hear everything: the schemes, the wiles, the judgments, the accusations. Their voices swarming, like locusts. I never did this. I always did that. I was too much here. I was too little there. If we do this and that, he must do thus and such. On and on it goes, day and night.

  No one fears me anymore. Many years ago now, maybe twenty, twenty-five, I saw this for the first time, what it was not to be feared anymore. When men lost their alertness and wariness around me.

  I was fighting a giant. Not Goliath. His young nephew, Ishbi-benob. Small for a giant. And not the braggart his uncle was, or slow like him. Hard, fast, efficient. We stood face to face on a battlefield. I was already winded, aching in limb, insides burning. He was just warming up. He circled me like a wolf does when it’s run its prey to ground, and now is just enjoying itself, savoring the kill before going in for the kill.

  I fell to my knees, dropped my arms, closed my eyes. I confess, not even a prayer was on my lips. I almost welcomed his sword. But nothing happened. And when I opened my eyes again, there was my own nephew, Abishai, panting hard, fresh blood on his hands. Ishbi-benob was sprawled at his feet, his large limbs shaking in death throes.