David’s sacrifice

1 Chronicles 21:14-30

The most heralded figure in the whole Hebrew Bible is not Moses. Beyond the Pentateuch, Moses is rarely mentioned. It is David. The extended narratives about this most colorful figure are the longest.

The accounts in the historical compendium of Samuel and Kings read like a soap opera. David is pictured as a warrior with a dysfunctional family. On the other hand, the narratives in Chronicles are more idealized. This later version even sometimes pictures David as performing the functions of a priest, wearing part of their garb. He is also the psalmist par excellence.

A most unlikely figure to become king, David was the seventh or eighth son of Jesse. His heritage ashamedly went back to . . . dare we say, Moab. In the Pentateuch, the people of Moab are rejected by God. They were the illegitimate offspring of Lot’s incest with his daughters. Nonetheless, David is pictured as a gifted harpist along with being a skilled warrior. Like Samson, he is able to kill a lion and even the behemoth Goliath.

During his early adulthood, this rebellious personality actually fights on behalf of the enemy Philistines. He is contracted by the city-state Gath. You could consider him to be a mercenary, an all-too-popular occupation in the ancient world. One could even say that he was a usurper of the monarchy. He overthrows the legitimate anointed King Saul after seven years of civil war. Throughout his kingdom, his bodyguards were usually foreign soldiers, perhaps from his earlier associations.

Jerusalem: The new capital

Nonetheless, David becomes the star figure of the Old Testament. He brings in the age of Camelot and makes Jerusalem his capital. This was a Washington, D.C., type of decision. Both were neither in the North nor in the South, and thus were acceptable to all.

This former shepherd sacralized his new capital by heroically bringing the ark of the covenant into downtown Jerusalem, parading and dancing.

Several years ago, when I first visited Ethiopia, I noticed the peculiar rhythm in the dance of the priests. Later, I was informed that their movements attempted to duplicate the choreography of King David.

Wearing the holy ephod, David takes on the priestly role. Eventually the Chronicler says that whole book of Psalms is dedicated to him. The Hebrew Bible prophets resound with acclamations of David. Some even prophesied that his kingdom would last forever. In the New Testament, one of the most prestigious titles for Jesus was the Son of David. In family trees of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, David is central.

David and the ark

Where is he to house the holy ark? David wanted something more substantial than the tabernacle. What location might become the central focus of the worship of God?

Chronicles says that Satan asked David to take a census. Never mind that in 2 Samuel it is God who asks that the people be counted. Was this for military purposes or for taxation? It is unknown.

Nonetheless, God’s anger is unleashed. He gives David a threefold choice: three years of famine, three months running from an enemy, or three days of an epidemic. David, of course, chooses the last possibility. Now the agony begins.

Seventy thousand people die. Then an angel wielding a sword is sent to destroy Jerusalem. The angel stands at the threshing place of Araunah, a Jebusite. Suspended in mid air, the angel was about to wreak havoc. But listening to the pleas of the despondent David, God stops the decimation.

Eventually, seven years into the reign of David’s son Solomon, the Temple was constructed by Phoenician craftspeople on this very site. This is where the Israelites would come to commune with God. Judgment was replaced by grace.

Threshing floors were often the location for special celebrations and festivals. Since the fertility of the crops was imperative, many yearly gatherings with ritual dancing and drinking took place there.

In fact, tradition has it that this threshing floor on the hillside of Moriah was historic. What had happened here? The landing of the ark of Noah after the flood. The sacrifice of Isaac. Yes, it was even thought to be the location of the Garden of Eden. Dare we say, it was the axis mundi? This was the axis of history. If so, what other events might have taken place there?

The Bible says that David would not be able to construct the Temple because he was a soldier with blood on his hands. This was not so much a moral judgment as one of purity. Blood made one unacceptable religiously. Ironically, it was the blood of animals splattered on the altar and the ark which were the offerings of choice.

The waters below

This threshing floor was chosen by David for the building of the Temple by his son Solomon. It became eventually the most holy place on earth for three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Today, the octagonal Dome of the Rock is located on this Temple mount. In Islamic tradition, this is where Mohammed was transported in a dream flying heavenward. It is considered the axis, the center pole, of seven universes.

In Jewish tradition, there is an intriguing story about David and this location. In the Hebrew Bible, David’s role is not merely human; he is in some sense cosmic. As God had defeated the water of chaos in Genesis to create the world and as Moses had triumphed over the Red (or Reed) Sea’s water of chaos, so would David.

These enormous waters of chaos were under the earth like an immense aquifer. When God designed the earth, God placed the Stone of Foundation on top of them. This was the stone located in the Temple where the Holy of Holies was located. The ark of the covenant was eventually placed upon it. This huge stone may be seen today by selected visitors in the center of the Mosque of Omar on the Temple Mount.

As Jewish tradition has it, David at one time dug shafts into the Rock. In so doing he potentially released the Waters of the Abyss which lay beneath it. These were the waters that gushed out and flooded the world during the era of Noah.

To avert similar catastrophe, David wrote the sacred name of God on a piece of pottery and threw it into the abyss. The waters immediately began to plunge to a very low depth. To assuage this problem, David began to sing. As he sang the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120–134), the waters rose and the cosmos was restored to harmony. Music saved the day.

Talmudic tradition proclaimed that on the last days these waters under the Temple would divide into 12 rivers. These streams would refresh the earth and bring fertility. They are alluded to by the exilic prophet Ezekiel when he dreams of a new Temple (Ezekiel 47).

This imagery is also adapted in the book of Revelation (chapter 22). In the New Jerusalem, water will come forth with pharmaceutical trees whose leaves will heal the nations. Their fruit will ripen 12 times a year. This is the Garden of Eden writ large.

The location of the threshing floor of Araunah was cosmic. It was the center of creation. And under David’s son, it would become the center for the worship of God.