The Summary
Shemuel Bet Chapter 23
This chapter begins with another brief poem that is introduced as the “last words” of David, meaning the last words he pronounced under divine inspiration for posterity. This is the only time in the book of Shemuel that we find David referred to by his famous moniker the “sweet singer of Israel”. David reflects upon his selection by Hashem for kingship and his profound sense of moral obligation to rule justly. He compares the emergence of his monarchy to sunlight that shines upon the vegetation of earth on a cloudless morning following the rain. David contrasts his radiantly blossoming regime which is sure to flourish in the future with the kingdoms of the wicked that are like thorns that must be torn away with iron implements or burned in their place.
The chapter proceeds to describe for us the inner circle of David’s officers and commanders. Although interpretation of the text is somewhat challenging, it appears that they are divided into three categories: the first tier, comprised of three elite officers, the second tier, also comprised of three officers, and then thirty officers who were counted among the best of David’s men but were not equal in skill or military prowess to the first six.
When one more officer is included (either Yoav ben Tzeruya or Benayahu ben Yehoyada), we arrive at a final number of thirty-seven. There are other ways of understanding the count and the hierarchy being delineated but this appears to be the simplest approach. It is noteworthy that both Uriah the Hittite, victim of David’s most heinous crime, and the son of Ahitophel, David’s renegade adviser, are numbered among his best and brightest troops.
In addition to describing the impressive deeds of several of these heroes, the text recounts an incident during David’s period of hiding with his men in the Cave of Adullam. Although the Pelishtim occupied Bet Lehem at the time, David expressed a strong desire to drink of the cool waters of the well there; three of his officers then risked their lives, snuck into the Pelishti camp and returned with the water that he had mentioned. David, not wanting to encourage soldiers to risk their lives for such insignificant reasons, spills out the water, refusing to validate their manifestly courageous but nonetheless irresponsible act.
The reader wonders what objective the text serves in providing us with vivid details of the exploits of David’s soldiers, particularly when we have already finished the essential narrative of David’s life and career. The Sages of the Talmud propose metaphoric interpretations of several of the battles described here, seemingly in order to emphasize that David’s men were not mere brutes or ninjas who claimed many casualties; they were Torah scholars and spiritual personalities as well as accomplished warriors.
For instance, the “water” drawn for David from Bet Lehem is interpreted as Torah knowledge that David wanted to obtain from the Sanhedrin or High Court of the Rabbis, which was then located in Bet Lehem. Similarly, Benayahu ben Yehoyada’s slaying of a lion in a pit on a snowy day is read as a metaphor for his conquering a very difficult halakhic text under particularly trying circumstances.
It is easy to dismiss this approach as unfaithful to the plain meaning of the text. However, I would suggest that the Rabbis’ method is well-grounded in the principles we learned from the book of Shofetim, where we saw that political and military triumph are inseparable from religious redemption and salvation. Consider Gideon, who had to liberate himself from idolatry in order to lead the nation, and who was only allowed to employ soldiers who had kept themselves free from it as well. Alternatively, recall Devorah, who did not command Baraq to lead the Jews into battle until they had returned to Torah life first.
Truthfully, however, we need not look as far as the Book of Shofetim – at the very beginning of Sefer Shemuel, we saw that the political downfall of the Jews was part and parcel of its spiritual decline under the corrupt leadership of the sons of Eli. The resurgence of the strength and autonomy of the Jewish people and their eventual establishment of a monarchy occurred only because the groundwork was first laid by Shemuel, who reeducated the nation and placed them back on the path of Torah.
Thus we see that the suggestion that primitive muscle-men would be the agents of the Divine Plan is anathema to the Tanakh, and the Rabbis, based upon this premise, read the stories here as parables of spiritual as well as military victory. They did this not because they wanted to recast the heroes of the era of David in their own image as rabbinical scholars of the Talmudic period, but because they understood the underlying themes of Tanakh and its message. They knew that the notion of celebrating or attaching intrinsic value to military conquest or political power outside of the context of Torah or service of Hashem would be contradictory to the spirit of our tradition.
The Rabbis wisely rejected the idea that an “action hero” would be put on a pedestal in Judaism simply by virtue of his physical feats on the battlefield. What we read about here is not about men fighting for power but about men fighting to preserve the traditions of Torah and to continue the sacred mission of sanctifying Hashem’s name in the world.