All the King's Women

Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, "In the Shadow of the King":

Ten women, whom the great king multiplied for himself, attract little attention from the host of commentators on the career of David. Abandoned to guard (or watch over, or keep) the palace from which David flees with all the rest of his house(hold) at the onset of his son Absalom's rebellion, they are themselves left wholly defenseless (2 Sam 15:13-16). Thus when Absalom arrives in Jerusalem with his army they are his to treat as he pleases. The usurping son seeks advice from Ahithopel, David's erstwhile counselor. Now this man's advice, the narrator tells us, was regarded by both David and Absalom as if they consulted the divine oracle. "Go into your father's concubines," says this paragon of wisdom, "those whom he left behind to watch over the house, so that all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened" (2 Sam 16:20-21). His possession of the concubines, so conveniently delivered into his hands by his father, will enable Absalom to make a public statement of his irrevocable break with his father. This is the logic of patriarchal power. Tat the son has entered his father's city is not enough; he must enter his father's women. This is the act that will signal the ultimate dispossession of the king his father. Thus politics are written on women's bodies ­ not for the first time, nor the last ­ in this story of kingship and nationhood."

This passage from Nolan Fewell and Gunn's book, Gender, Power, and Promise: The Subject of the Bible's First Story (Abingdon Press, 1993) p. 140, picks up some of the themes that we examined in our last two class sections and turns out attention to another facet of the role women's bodies play in the biblical narrative. To some extent the following question will guide our discussion but we will not limit our discussion to this question: What role doe women play in David's rise to power?

The main thematic focus of the bulk of these narrative texts will be the establishment and expansion of the Monarchy: the request for a king, the mistake of Saul, the rise of David, the flowering of the nation under Solomon. Most of the characters (although the 'extras' are few in number, due to this theme) play integral parts in this royal plotline. Therefore, it is significant when details--apparently incidental to this theme--are kept and even highlighted in this historical flow.

I Sam 8.13: Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

We also want to look at the story through these women's eyes. How do they view David's rise to power? We know what David wants, and we know that women help him get what he wants, but what do these women want?

An aside observation based on an observation of the list of women whom David marries

Michal, daughter of Saul wife of Paltiel (1 Sam 18; 2 Sam 6)
Abigail, wife of Nabal, mother of Chileab (1 Sam 25)
Ahinoam, wife of Saul? mother of Michal (1 Sam 14:48)?, mother of Amnon (1 Sam 25)
Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, mother of Solomon (2 Sam 11)
Wives taken at Hebron (2 Sam 3):
Maachah, the daughter of Talmai, the king of Geshur, mother of Absalom
Haggith, mother of Adonijah
Abital, mother of Shephatiah
Eglah, the wife of David, mother of Ithream.
Concubines and wives taken at Jerusalem, motheres of Shammua, Shobab, Nathan, Solomon, Ibhar, Elishua, Nepheg, Japhia, Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet (2 Sam 5:13-16)
Abishag, the Shunammite (I Kings 1)

Michel ­ look at frame
With what does Michal provide David in the first place and the last place?
How does she serve as David's savior?
What does Michal want? Love? Where does she find it?

Abigail
With what does she provide David? Look at her prediction as well as the property.
How does she serve as David's savior?
What does she want? Does she want to be saved from a miserable marriage? Does she want to be married?

Bathsheba
With what does she provide David? If Micah gives him as sort of claim on Saul's dynastic succession, and Abigail gives David Nabal's wealth, what does Bathsheba give him that he does not have? David is hanging out in Jerusalem. He sleeps during the day. He finds himself gazing out over the rooftops. He is board. Bathsheba gives him the excitement that is missing from his life, the danger that characterizes Uriah's life
How does she serve as the savior of a king?
What does she want? Look at the role of Queen Mother

Abishag
With what does she provide David?