Ámbito Internacional

In Scene One of ‘David’s Return’ (19:8b-15), all Israel, whose army of 20,000 was defeated by David’s 10,000, have fled to their ‘shelters’ (19:8b). ‘All’ the people are said to be disput- ing and yet they speak as one, and rehearse a conclusion with themselves. David was a good a king! Remember how he protected us from the ‘allophyles’? But then we went and anointed his son, the leader of the coup, Absalom. But he died in battle. Why are we being

slow to escort the king back? (19:9b-10). Speed or delay (or “haste” and “hesitation”) prove to be very significant elements of the cultural script of hospitality—haste demonstrates high loyalty; delay, somewhat muted loyalty; absence or failure to escort demonstrates disloyalty.

David sends a word of challenge to Judah via Zadok and Abiathar, “Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house?” (19:11b). David’s message works among Judah, and unanimously they send word to the king, “Return, you and all your slaves” (19:14). David returns and comes as far as the Jordan River, and the men of Judah come to Gilgal “to go to meet [πορεύεσθαι εἰς ἀπαντὴν] the king, to bring the king over the Jordan”. With David on the east bank and potential escorts on the west the scene is set for a detailed

account of David’s escorted arrival. The next few scenes do not ‘move’ in a geographical sense; instead a series of potential ‘welcomers’ are paraded into view.

Scene Two (19:16-18a) describes two parties making haste to get to the place of the king’s Jordan crossing. The first is Shimei whose ‘parting escort’ was to heckle and curse the king as he departed (throwing dust and stones!). Now, he hurries[ἐτάχυνεν] down to meet [κατέβη… εἰς ἀπαντὴν] the king. Will any amount of honouring escort of the king’s arrival—and being the fastest and the first is highly honouring—make up for such a public display of misplaced allegiance? In the same breath the narrator speaks of Ziba, the ser- vant of the house of Saul. As David was departing into exile, Ziba brought a great quantity of provisions (like Abigail), but he also slandered his master Mephibosheth, saying that Mephibosheth was not ‘seeing the king on his way’. Ziba claimed that Mephibosheth was happy to see the back of David and that he was ‘celebrating’ the king’s defeat, and perhaps the resurgence of the Saulide dynasty (Mephibosheth was the grandson of Saul and the son of Jonathan). Ziba is preparing an extravagant gesture again with food and a ferry.

Scene Three (19:18b-23) focuses more closely on Shimei. Shimei quickly confesses his “lawlessness” and the “wrong” with which he “sinned”. He asks David not to remember what he did on the day of the king’s departure into exile. That Shimei put a lot of store by being the “first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet [καταβῆναι εἰς ἀπαντὴν] my lord the king” demonstrates clearly the link between escort and honour—but more par- ticularly, between being the ‘first to greet’ and paying the highest honours. Shimei seems to think that this gesture might just persuade David to forgive and forget. With a degree of structural predictability, the same man who proposed killing Shimei (when he cursed David) proposes it again. But David, in typical David fashion is gracious.26

Scene Two predisposes the reader to anticipate that the next party to be treated in ‘close-up’ will be Ziba, as we come to Scene Four (19:24-30). The utter surprise is that it is Ziba’s maligned master, Mephibosheth—of whom it was alleged that he celebrated the 26 David’s non-action in the face of opposition is a motif throughout 1 & 2 Samuel (for instance, when David

fall and exile of David—who “went down to meet [κατέβη εἰς ἀπαντὴν] the king”. Mephi- bosheth’s failure to escort David’s departure caused David to give credence to Ziba’s tale of Mephibosheth’s treachery, envy and hostility. The narrator’s first words about Mephi- bosheth’s actions make it evident to the reader that the rumours against Mephibosheth were false. He has not taken care of his feet, nor pared his nails, nor made his moustache, nor washed his clothes, since the day of the king’s departure, so grieved has he been by David’s exile. David asks the obvious question. If Mephibosheth so honoured David, why did he not escort his departure? Mephibosheth’s answer seems truthful from what we know from earlier parts of the narrative. He is lame (his nurse dropped him as a baby—2 Sam 4:4; 9:3). And he was tricked by Ziba. Mephibosheth’s last words, “And what right have I any longer even to cry any longer to the king?” sound like he is about to bring up the injustice that (based on his non-appearance at the farewell procession) David gave all Mephibosheth’s property to Ziba. David’s response in this scene is unsettling. David makes it sound as if he only said that Ziba and Mephibosheth would “divide the field”. Ziba’s escort of David (even if he were a slanderous and obsequious opportunist) has re- warded him richly. Mephibosheth’s failure to escort the king’s departure (even in the face of the reader’s complete empathy) threatened to cost him everything. His effort to escort the king’s return has at least paid some ‘dividend’. Mephibosheth’s final words are the most poignant, for they reveal that he did not make the journey to the Jordan in order to gain some political or financial advantage—as Shimei and Ziba did. Mephibosheth, from the clear evidence of his appearance, had, until the king’s return, been in deep mourning. He was simply overjoyed to welcome the return of David.

Scene Five of ‘David’s Return’ (19:31-40), describes David’s escort by Barzillai the Gileadite. In the ‘mirror imaging’ between David’s departure and return, Barzillai cor- responds to the positions of Hushai the Archite and Ittai the Gittite, the fiercely loyal ‘outsiders’. Barzillai, a man of great wealth had provided for David in the time of his ex- ile—Barzillai is like an ‘new and improved’ version of Nabal. David wishes to return the favour, and although Barzillai wants to honour David by escorting his return (“send him on his way”—ἐκπέμψαι 19:32) to his kingdom, Barzillai also want to live out his last days

in his own land. David, as a perfect host, does not over-detain his guest, but relinquishes the old man. Barzillai gives David one of his slaves—Chimham—explaining that David can do all that he would have done for Barzillai vicariously to this slave. This calls to mind an important part of the cultural script—that a master’s slave or emissary was like a social extension of himself. If one wished to honour a man in his absence, one honoured his slave or emissary. If one slighted the slave or emissary, one slighted the man. (We will see this play an important role in Luke and Acts where Luke 10:16 works as a paradigm for the Book of Acts). Scene Five concludes on a high with Barzillai being farewelled and David crossing the Jordan with all the people of Judah and half the people of Israel.

The mention of ‘half’ the people of Israel is perhaps a cue that all is not as hospita- ble and welcoming as the ‘high’ of Scene Five suggested, and sure enough, in Scene Six (19:41–20:3) the disputes of 19:9 re-emerge. Israel wants to know why Judah has stolen the king away and “brought the king and his household over the Jordan.” The disputes centre upon who has a greater ‘share’ in David (19:41-43). The scene ‘zooms in’ as a ringleader— Sheba, a Benjaminite, and therefore probably a pro-Saulide opponent of David—provides a catalyst for the rebellion of Israel. In this conclusion the division of the population be-

tween those who honour David, and those who have decided they have “no part in him”

shows itself by way of escort. The rebellious people of Israel retreat back to their “shelters” refusing to escort the return of David, and leave, following Sheba instead. The faithful people of Judah “adhered to the king from the Jordan even to Jerusalem [ἐκολλήθη τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ιορδάνου καὶ ἕως Ιερουσαλημ]”.

The mention of the ‘ten concubines’ (whom David left to keep the house when he fled) signals that the epic journey into exile and the consequent return (the ‘there and back’) is concluded. However, the mention of these women also offers one final piece of evidence that ‘failure to escort’ communicated disloyalty and envy. These women are not mentioned as ‘coming out’ to greet the returning king. This may, in fact, explain why

David treats them so harshly27—placing them under ‘house arrest’28 for the ‘term of their natural lives’. Presumably, their failure to escort even part of David’s departure and arrival signals their disloyalty to David. Their Graeco-Roman literary ‘counterparts’ are the dis- loyal female domestics of Odysseus (“the suitors’ whores”—Od. 22.464).

2 .2 .3 .3 Conclusion

The episode ‘When David returned to Jerusalem’ follows the death of Absalom. In this extended episode, characters demonstrate their loyalty to David by ‘going out to meet’ him and escorting his return to Jerusalem. These gestures of loyalty and reconciliation include the following: Judah comes to Gilgal to meet the king to bring him over the Jordan (2 Sam 19:15); Shimei’s repentance (19:16—his ‘second chance’—“see I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king”); Mephi- bosheth’s coming out to meet the king even in the face of the earlier allegations of Ziba (19:24-30); the escort provided to David by Barzillai the Gileadite who provides food and goes a little way over the Jordan with the king (19:31-39); and, all the people of Judah and also half the people of Israel who ‘bring’ the king ‘on his way’ (19:40). Sheba, a Benjam- inite, demonstrates disloyalty and rebellion by notaccompanying the returning David and by persuading Israel also not to accompany David’s return (20:1-2). Lastly, the failure of David’s concubines to escort even a part of his return journey correlates with their harsh judgement (house arrest: 1 Sam 20:3).

Again we see evidence that the implied reader familiar with the type of cultural script illustrated by the LXX will make strong associations between, on one hand, escorting a guest and honouring that guest, and on the other hand, failure to escorta guest and dis- honouring that guest. Another element of the cultural script that these episodes assist to establish is the idea that to hasten (to be ‘first’) to go out to meet the arriving guest is 27 However, David does not treat the women as harshly as Odysseus treats his disloyal maid-servants—Od.

22.430-475.

28 The house arrest of Ziba by Solomon (1 Kgs 2:36-38) attests the practice as appropriate treatment of treach- erous characters—Ziba is suspected of gross disloyalty to the house of David.

particularly honouring. Josephus shows that this element of the cultural script still had currency in the late first century (War 7.69,100). These narratives also illustrate anoth- er important element of the cultural script with regards to hospitality—that hospitality shown to the emissary or messenger reflects the attitude that the potential host has to- ward the one who sent them.