A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Karen Armstrong
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the city, however: our authors emphasize that he captured “the fortress of Zion” and that he went to live in “the citadel.”5 There is a passage in the Book of Joshua which calls Jerusalem “the flank of the Jebusites,” suggesting that the city of “Jerusalem” may have been seen as separate from “the fortress of Zion.”6 David may thus have simply seized control of the Jebusite citadel in what amounted to a military coup d’état. The Bible makes no mention of a massacre of the population of Jerusalem like those described in the Book of Joshua. Nor is there any hint that the Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem were driven out of the city and replaced by Yahwists. It is not impossible, then, that David’s conquest was merely a “palace coup” by means of which he and a few of his closest associates replaced the Jebusite king and his immediate entourage, leaving the Jebusite city and its population intact. We can only speculate but, as we have seen, the first time Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible, the author tells us that Jebusites and Judahites were still living in the city side by side.
Thus, David, who was famous for his wholesale slaughter of Philistines and Edomites, may well have been a just and merciful conqueror of Jerusalem. He not only treated the existing inhabitants of the city with respect but even worked closely with them, incorporating them into his own administration. Joshua would have torn down the altars of the Jebusites and trampled on their sacred symbols. But there is no record of David interfering in any way with the local cult. Indeed, we shall see that Jebusite religious ideas and enthusiasms were actually brought into the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem. J sees David as another Abraham: he believes that David’s kingdom fulfilled the ancient promises, since the descendants of Abraham had indeed become a mighty nation and had inherited the Land of Canaan.7 But David was also like Abraham in honoring the faith of the people of the country.
In the ’Ir David, there was, therefore, a creative interaction of Jebusite and Israelite traditions. Araunah, who may have been the last Jebusite king, was allowed to keep his estate outside the city walls on the crest of Mount Zion. David also took over the old Jebusite administration. The Canaanite city-states had developed a political and fiscal bureaucracy over the centuries, whereas the Israelites and Judahites of the hill country would have had neither the experience nor the expertise to administer a city-state. Most of them were probably illiterate. It made sense, therefore, to keep the old administration and to make use of the Jebusite officials, who would be able to help him to keep the city running smoothly and to ensure that David enjoyed good relations with his new Jebusite subjects. David’s behavior in Jerusalem indicates that the Israelites did not yet consider it a sacred duty to hold aloof from the people of the country: that would not become the norm in Israel until after the Babylonian exile. When the Egyptians controlled Canaan, they had probably taught the people their methods of administration: in the Bible we see that the Davidic and Solomonic court was identical to that of Egypt. It had a grand vizier, a secretary for foreign affairs, a recorder in charge of internal matters, and a “king’s friend.” So the system that was in place during the Amarna period was still operating during the reign of David’s son Solomon. Some of Solomon’s officials had non-Semitic names,8 and David almost certainly took over the Jebusite standing army. These were the kereti and peleti (“Cretans” and “Philistines”) of the Bible: they were mercenaries who formed David’s personal bodyguard. There was, therefore, very little disruption after King David’s conquest of the city, which retained its Jebusite character. Its new name—’Ir David—never became popular. Most people continued to use the old pre-Davidic names, Jerusalem and Zion.
Indeed, the royal family may have had Jebusite blood, since it is possible that David actually married a Jebusite woman. Later there would be strict laws forbidding Israelites to marry foreigners, but neither David nor Solomon had any scruples about this. David had seduced Bathsheba, the wife of “Uriah the Hittite,” one of the Jebusite officers of his army. (The Jebusites, it will be recalled, were related to the Hittites.) So that he could marry Bathsheba, David had arranged Uriah’s death by having him placed in a particularly dangerous position in a battle against the Ammonites. Bathsheba’s name may originally have been “Daughter of the Seven Gods” (which was written as sibbiti in cuneiform but became sheva, “seven,” in Hebrew).9 The son born to David and Bathsheba was thus half Jebusite. He was given the good Israelite name Jedidiah (“Beloved of Yahweh”), as a sign that he had been chosen as David’s heir, but the name his parents gave him was Solomon, which may have been connected with Shalem, the ancient deity of Jerusalem. The Chronicler, however, connects it with the Hebrew shalom: unlike his father, Solomon would be a man of “peace.”10
Other famous Jerusalemites who would become very important in the Jewish tradition may also have been Jebusites. One of these was the prophet Nathan.11 We are told of the origins of nearly every other prophet in the Bible, but Nathan is introduced without even a patronymic. Perhaps he was the adviser of the Jebusite king; if so, he would have been a very helpful mediator between David and his new Jebusite subjects. Thus Nathan rebuked David sternly after the death of Uriah, not because he was imbued with Mosaic morality but because such a flagrant abuse of power would have been reprehensible in any Near Eastern monarch who had vowed to establish justice in his kingdom. The murder of Uriah could also have gravely damaged David’s relations with the Jebusite population. Zadok, the chief priest of Jerusalem, may also have been a Jebusite, though this has been hotly disputed in the past.12 Later, as we shall see, all the priests of Israel had to prove that they were Zadok’s descendants, since by that time Zadok had become a symbol of Jewish authenticity. But Zadok is a Jebusite name. Later the Chronicler gave him an impeccable genealogy which traced his ancestry back to Aaron, but it is five generations longer than the number of generations which were supposed to have elapsed between David and Aaron.13 Perhaps the Chronicler also incorporated Zadok’s own Jebusite lineage. To have dismissed the chief priest of El Elyon could have alienated the local people. To satisfy the Israelites, David appointed Abiathar, a descendant of the old priesthood of Shiloh, to serve alongside Zadok. But Abiathar would not long survive David’s death, and it was Zadok who became the chief priest of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the sight of an Israelite and a Jebusite priest serving side by side was emblematic of the coexistence that David wanted to establish in Jerusalem. He needed symbols that could unite his increasingly disparate kingdom and hold its various elements together. David called one of his sons Baalida, showing that he was open to the local Zion traditions, and many of the Jebusites’ old cultic practices on Mount Zion would blend fruitfully with the Israelite traditions of Yahweh in Jerusalem.
One of David’s first acts was to move the Ark of the Covenant, which was still lodged in Kireath-Jearim on the western border of his kingdom, into Jerusalem. This was an inspired, if perilous, decision. The people of the northern kingdom who still felt uneasy about David would have been impressed by the presence of the Ark, which enshrined their most sacred traditions, in his city. It would legitimize his rule and also transform Jerusalem, which had no religious significance for Yahwists, into a holy place. But David’s first attempt to transfer the Ark ended in tragedy. It was not up to human beings to establish a holy place on their own initiative: the sanctity of a site had to be revealed. Yahweh had often been envisaged as a mobile god in the past, but he could not be moved about at the mere whim of a king. A sacred object is potentially dangerous and can be approached only by those who have taken the proper precautions. This became fatally apparent during the Ark’s first journey when Uzzah, one of the attendants, put out his hand to steady it when it seemed in danger of falling from the cart, and was killed instantly. The Ark symbolized Yahweh’s presence, and the incident showed that David was attempting to bring a mighty and unpredictable power into the city, not a pious souvenir. If Yahweh came to live in Zion it would be because he—and he alone—had chosen to do so.
Three months later, David tried again. This