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King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
Praise for King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
‘Shepherd’s fresh take on King David shows why this controversial ruler is
one of the most compelling characters in the entire Bible. With a clear
command of current scholarship on King David, this deeply researched and
carefully argued book presents a bold case for greater attention to the
often-overlooked problem of bloodguilt as central to our understanding of
David’s reign. Shepherd models what a skilled and detailed interpretation of
the text can provide when one reads the story of David in its current form.’
Jeremy Schipper, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Toronto and
author of Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible
‘Shepherd’s monograph is a lucid, accessible, and welcome addition to

studies of the figure of David, combining a rich knowledge of scholarly work
on Samuel and Kings with fascinating and judicious readings of individual
stories that convincingly demonstrate just how much the narrative of David
is shaped by questions surrounding illegitimate bloodshed.’
David Janzen, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Durham
University and author of The Necessary King
‘From the slaying of Goliath to the secretly arranged murder of Uriah, the
specter of blood follows the famous career of King David at every turn. With
a meticulous and carefully documented analysis of the text, Shepherd’s work
draws attention to the paradox of violence at the core of this narrative and
an important subplot that will be of interest to general readers and biblical
scholars alike.’
Keith Bodner, Professor of Religion, Crandall University and author of The
Rebellion of Absalom
‘Shepherd provides a fresh and compelling reading of David’s story. The

problem of bloodguilt emerges as a central motif within the narrative,
making this a crucial work for future work on David’s story and also the
wider issue of how this motif is understood within the Hebrew Bible.’
David Firth, Trinity College Bristol and author of 1 and 2 Samuel: A
Kingdom Comes
‘Shepherd makes a strong case for reading bloodguilt as a pervasive theme
throughout the David story, illuminating aspects of the story of David’s rise,
reign, and succession. The book will repay careful reading; its argument is
well-constructed and well-supported, and certainly got me thinking about
these well-known stories in new ways.’
Christine Mitchell, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Knox College, Toronto
‘This book deals with a question that is immensely important not only for
the image of King David and for the assessment of the Books of Samuel, but
also for the theology and ethics of our days…Scholarly and with a
commanding knowledge of the relevant research, Shepherd offers clarifying
insights into both the bloody reality as portrayed in the books of Samuel,
and the struggle against the curse of constantly renewed bloodguilt that is
waged in them.’
Walter Dietrich, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, University of Bern
and author of The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E.
King David, Innocent Blood,
and Bloodguilt
D AV I D J. S H E P H E R D
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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© David J. Shepherd 2023
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
David: A Man of War and Blood(s)
Reading the David Story/ies
What is the David Story About?
The David Story and Bloodguilt
The David Story and Retribution
The David Story and Homicide
The David Story and Ritual Violence
The Approach and Outline of the Book
1. ‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22
The Sparing of David
The Killings at Nob
2. ‘Blood without Cause’: 1 Sam 23–26
The Sparing of Saul
The Sparing of Nabal
The Sparing of Saul (Again)
3. ‘Your Blood be on Your Head’: 1 Sam 27–2 Sam 1
The Killing of Saul
The Killing of Saul (Again)
4. ‘His Blood at Your Hand’: 2 Sam 2–4
The Killing of Abner
The Killing of Ishbosheth
5. ‘The Sword Will Never Depart’: 2 Sam 5–12
The Killing of Uriah
The Killing of David and Bathsheba’s First Son
6. ‘That the Redeemer of Blood Will Ruin No More’: 2 Sam 13–14
The Killing of Amnon
The Sparing of Absalom
7. ‘Man of Blood’: 2 Sam 15–20
The Sparing of Shimei
The Killing of Absalom
The Sparing of Shimei (Again)
The Killing of Amasa
8. ‘The Bloodguilt of Saul’: 2 Sam 21–24
The Killing of the Seven Saulides
9. ‘Bring Back His Bloody Deeds’: 1 Kgs 1–2
The Killing of Adonijah
The Killing of Joab
The Sparing of Abiathar and the Sons of Barzillai
The Killing of Shimei
Conclusion: King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt
The Problem in David’s Rise
The Problem in David’s Reign
The Problem in David’s Succession
The Nature of the Problem
The Prevalence and Importance of the Problem
Problem without End
A Problem for Whom?
Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Biblical References
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the name my parents gave me, I am quite sure that

‘David’ was among the first words I heard upon entering the world.
Being a David who was also a Shepherd ensured that my interest
was especially keen when the subject of David came up in my youth
and I am very grateful to those who acquainted me with the
highlights of his story in those early years. The rest of David’s story
in the Hebrew Bible was introduced to me by yet another David—
Professor David Jobling—distinguished scholar and teacher of Old
Testament language and literature at St. Andrew’s College. His close
reading of Samuel during my days as an undergraduate student in
his class set a standard which few since have matched, and
influenced me in ways which became clearer to me only when I
began to take a more serious interest in David a decade ago. This
interest in David inevitably found its way into my own classroom in
turn and I am grateful to my students for their insights on the David
story over the years as we have explored it together at Trinity.
I am also very appreciative of the feedback offered in recent
years by various scholarly audiences with whom I have shared
papers in preparation for this book. Some of the ideas on David and
Uriah which appear in Chapter 5 were aired at a meeting of the
Society for Old Testament Study held in Manchester in 2012, while
early thoughts on Abimelech were presented at the University of
Lausanne in 2016. My reading of 2 Sam 21:1‒14 (Chapter 8)
benefited from feedback offered at: the Society of Biblical
Literature’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston, Cambridge University’s
Divinity Faculty Senior Research Seminar in 2018 and, in that same
year, the Doktorandenkolloquium in the Faculty of Theology of
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Rather closer to home, my
treatment of 1 Sam 25 (Chapter 2) was refined with the help of
those who attended a symposium on forgiveness in the Hebrew
Bible at the Trinity Centre for Biblical Studies in Dublin. Finally, the
treatment of Absalom which now appears in Chapters 6 and 7 was
improved by comments and questions from those attending the joint
meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study, the
Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap and the Old Testament Society of
South Africa held at the University of Groningen in 2018 and from
members of the Divinity Faculty Research Seminars of the
Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, where I presented in October
of 2019.
That various colleagues around the world have been kind enough
to comment on drafts of chapters—and in some cases, the entire
manuscript—of this book, has been truly humbling. For this, I owe
debts of gratitude not easily repaid to Graeme Auld, Walter Dietrich,
Hugh Pyper, Rachelle Gilmour, David Firth, Jeremy Schipper, Keith
Bodner, George Nicol, Christine Mitchell, David Janzen, Stephen
Chapman, Steve Wiggins, and Mark Awabdy. Together they have
spared the reader a good number of deficiencies in what follows and
certainly bear no responsibility for those which remain. The same
must be said for Tom Perridge and the staff at OUP to whom I am
very grateful for their patience and their professionalism in seeing
this project through and affording me the scope to tackle it properly.
Finally, my greatest appreciation must be reserved for my dear
wife, Hilda, and my three wonderful daughters, Anna, Sophie, and
Sarah, not only for allowing this David to have spent so much time
writing about ‘that’ David, but also for ensuring that our family life is
thankfully much less fraught than his.
Introduction
David: A Man of War and Blood(s)

When the prophet Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of
Jesse’s sons to be king, David is not only the last, but also seemingly
the least to appear. Even his own father summons David only
grudgingly, and apparently for good reason, because as he advises
Samuel, David is the youngest and a keeper of sheep (1 Sam
16:11). However, when King Saul requests that a musician be found
to soothe his troubled soul and his servants suggest David, the
reader soon discovers that the youngest son of Jesse is no ordinary
shepherd. Indeed, the servants insist that David is not only divinely
blessed, musically gifted, brave, and eloquent: he is also a ‘man of
war’ ( 1 Sam 16:18).
The son of Jesse’s willingness to go to war is confirmed in the
very next chapter, by the first words David utters in the books of
Samuel: ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and
removes the reproach from Israel?’ (1 Sam 17:26). When Saul goes
on to compare David’s mettle unfavourably to that of the seasoned
warrior Goliath, the young shepherd reports proudly what he would
do when a bear or lion had the temerity to turn on him after
relinquishing a stolen sheep. David would not merely take the
would-be predator by the hair and strike it; he would kill it for good
measure (v. 35). David’s victory over Goliath, however, is much more
than the killing of a beast. It is the triumph of youth over
experience, humility over arrogance, and little over large. But it is
also the triumph of sling over sword and the decisive blow in the
Israelite army’s routing of their Philistine rivals. It is thus hardly
surprising that David’s killing of Goliath has cemented his reputation
as a man of war. Indeed, this is underlined in the following chapter
(1 Sam 18), when the women irritate Saul by eulogizing David for
slaying ten times more Philistines than he has.
Yet if those in Saul’s orbit sing the young David’s praises in 1 Sam
16, by the time we reach 2 Sam 16, other Saulide voices may be
heard expressing a rather different view. Here, as the now much
older David retreats from Jerusalem to save his life and kingdom
from his son Absalom, he is met by Shimei, son of Gera and a man
of Saul’s tribe. Instead of celebrating David as a ‘man of war’, Shimei
curses him as a ‘man of bloods’ ( 2 Sam 16:8 and cf. 7).1 In
1–2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–2, this language of ‘blood(s)’, or ‘bloodguilt’
as it is often translated, is invariably associated with David and often
killings with which he is connected, including those of Saul,
Ishbosheth, and Abner. Because David seems to benefit from these
and other killings and seeks to dissociate himself from them, some
have suggested that the tradition intends to rebut historical
accusations of David’s responsibility for killing these men.2 Indeed,
the reporting of Shimei’s accusations strongly suggests that such
charges did circulate at some point and were perceived as
problematic for David. Some scholars go further, concluding that the
historical David was in fact guilty of the killings.3 Steven McKenzie,
for instance, argues that the historical David not only sanctioned
Abner’s death, but must be the prime suspect in Ishbosheth’s killing
and must also have encouraged the Philistines into the conflict which
claimed Saul’s life.4 In a similar vein, Baruch Halpern suggests that
David commissioned the assassination of Ishbosheth, killed Abner
(apparently himself) and was at least complicit in the killing of Saul
by the Philistines.5
It is of course theoretically possible that the books of Samuel, as
we now have them, have indeed omitted details of David’s actual
involvement in these and other killings which work to his favour.
However, such details are ultimately beyond literary analysis and
outside our concern here, because they belong to the necessarily
hypothetical histories reconstructed by McKenzie, Halpern, and
others, rather than the (also tendentious) history of David offered by
the books of Samuel and 1 Kings.6 Instead, the interest of the
present study is in how the story of David we do have in Samuel and
1 Kings is illuminated by attention to the shedding of innocent blood
and the problems it has presented as posing for David and others
within the narrative. But before explaining how earlier readers have
engaged with the David tradition vis-à-vis bloodguilt and related
issues, it is worth considering how and why we have arrived at a
place where we may speak of these traditions as constituting a
‘Story of David’ at all.
Reading the David Story/ies

The rich afterlife of the biblical David in Western culture undoubtedly
owes much to his associations with messianism and the Psalms, but
there can be little doubt that David’s later fame is also very much
due to the stories about him in the Hebrew Bible.7 Indeed, the tales
of David’s unlikely anointing, his defeat of Goliath, and his liaison
with Bathsheba have entranced readers over the centuries,
including, of course, biblical scholars. Those within this guild,
however, have also concerned themselves with stories of David
which are less well-known—indeed known only to those inducted
into the mysteries of biblical scholarship. In the case of David, these
mysteries produced for many years what might be described as a
scholarly ‘Tale of Two Stories’—a tale which can be told here only in
a very abridged and imperfect way.
Amongst his many contributions, Julius Wellhausen long ago
identified a story focused on David’s rise, the beginning of which is
obvious (David’s arrival in 1 Sam 16) and the end of which
Wellhausen found in 2 Sam 8.8 The similarity of some individual
stories to each other within this wider narrative and various
inconsistencies between—and intrusions within—them, persuaded
Wellhausen that here in the books of Samuel, as elsewhere in the
Hebrew Bible, various sources had been collected and edited to
produce the text as we now have it. Nevertheless, he argued that
when taken together, the passages from 1 Sam 15/16–2 Sam 8
represented a ‘First story/history of David’, recounting David’s rise
from shepherd in Bethlehem to king in Jerusalem at the expense of
Saul and his house.9 Wellhausen’s ‘Second story/history of David’ ran
from 2 Sam 9 to 1 Kgs 2 (excluding 2 Sam 21–24) and told the story
of David’s subsequent reign and Solomon’s installation.10 The artistry
and coherence of Wellhausen’s second story was increasingly
acknowledged following Leonhard Rost’s influential analysis of these
chapters as a ‘Succession Narrative’.11 Of course, some since have
seen this narrative as beginning rather earlier than 2 Sam 9 and
have rightly preferred the terminology of ‘Court History’ due to 2
Samuel’s initial lack of explicit interest in succession.12 However, the
discrete division of the traditions about David into ‘two stories’—one
account of his rise and another of his reign—enjoyed widespread
scholarly support (with honourable exceptions) throughout much of
the twentieth century.
The fact that scholarship on the David traditions as a whole did
not remain entirely a tale of two stories is due in large part to a
series of studies appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s which
explored the David narratives in new ways.13 Charles Conroy’s 1978
study of 2 Sam 13–20 as ‘story’ broke new ground by viewing these
chapters through the lens of plot, character, point of view, etc.14
However, in that same year, a very similar furrow was also ploughed
by David Gunn.15 Perhaps because of Conroy’s more technical focus
on language in the later sections of his work, but probably also
because of the greater scope and ambition of Gunn’s book, it was
the contribution of the latter which would prove more enduring.
Gunn’s title, The Story of King David, might have suggested to
some readers that he would begin with David established on the
throne in 2 Sam 9. Instead, he argued that 2 Sam 2 (beginning in
verses 8 or 12) through to chapter 4 offers a more satisfactory
beginning to the story of the reign of David which unfolds in 2
Samuel. In making his case, Gunn pointed out that David’s request
to show kindness to a Saulide at the beginning of chapter 9 seems
to presuppose the account of Ishbosheth’s death (and by extension
chapters 2‒4). Gunn then showed that the style of these chapters
has much in common with the much-vaunted style of Rost’s
‘Succession Narrative’. Finally, he joined his voice to those who had
already suggested that Rost’s theme of ‘succession’ failed to capture
the breadth of narrative interests in 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2, let
alone the expanded story of King David for which Gunn was arguing.
Thus, Gunn included in his story of King David not merely David’s
retention of the throne (at Absalom’s expense) and Solomon’s
accession to it (at Adonijah’s expense), but also now David’s
accession to the throne (at Ishbosheth’s expense; chs. 2‒4).
Moreover, Gunn argued that this larger story is not merely about
succession, but also the interplay and consequence of David’s and
others’ ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom, both for himself and
other individuals.16
While Gunn’s careful thematic analysis has been cited less often
than it deserves, his willingness to think in terms of a larger story of
David instead of a ‘Tale of Two Stories’ was to prove influential.
Gunn himself would go on to discuss the second half of 1 Samuel as
very much Saul’s story rather than David’s.17 However, The Story of
King David led others to consider whether the story of David might
not begin even earlier than Gunn had recognized and whether the
themes of a still wider story of David might differ from those which
Gunn himself had identified.18 This influence is visible already in
Walter Brueggeman’s slender and more accessible David’s Truth in
Israel’s Imagination and Memory (1985). This study is still explicitly
structured with reference to ‘the rise of David’ and the ‘Succession
Narrative’, but insists on reading them together as a single story of
David which includes and even goes beyond 1 Sam 16 to 1 Kgs 2.19
Brueggeman’s suggestion that this larger story illustrates David’s
capacity for ‘receiving and relinquishing with some graciousness’ is
itself an obvious illustration of Gunn’s influence, but also reflects
Brueggeman’s wider scope.20
The extent to which scholarly interest in the larger story of David
and its themes burgeoned in the years which followed may be seen
in a series of studies which appeared before and after the turn of
the millennium. While K. L. Noll’s The Faces of David (1997) is
largely focused on the three poems in 2 Samuel (1:19‒27, 22, 23:1‒
17), he begins by discussing the themes and characterization of
David in the ‘prose story’ as a whole.21 Noll is critical of Shamai
Gelander’s earlier argument that the books of Samuel are primarily
about the capriciousness of God and David’s heroic domestication of
him. Indeed, as Noll notes, the textual evidence offered by Gelander
is slender and these books are much more about David than they
are about God.22 More appealing to Noll, however, is David
Damrosch’s passing suggestion that the David story’s ‘deepest
concerns are with issues of knowledge and understanding’.23 In
developing this to a greater extent than Damrosch does, Noll rightly
points out that the David stories are often less than forthcoming
regarding why things happen in the way they do and what
characters do and do not know.24 While this may to some extent
reflect the sort of narrative the books of Samuel offer (i.e. open-
ended, indeterminate),25 we will see that others too have discerned
the thematic significance of knowledge within the David story. At the
same time, Noll suggests elsewhere in his study that the chief
concern of the books of Samuel is ultimately that of divine election
and rejection, as captured in the question: ‘Why has Yahweh
rejected Saul and chosen David?’.26 While there can be little doubt
this question is explored in 1 Samuel and the opening chapters of 2
Samuel, in the remainder of 2 Samuel, such a question is clearly less
to the fore than those relating to Adonijah and especially Absalom.
Two years after Gunn’s study appeared, confirmation of this
growing willingness to explore the David traditions more holistically
may be seen in Robert Alter’s commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel,
advertised as The David Story, despite David’s absence from the first
half of 1 Samuel.27 Because Alter wishes to tell the story of David,
he exceeds the boundaries of Samuel in tracking his protagonist into
1 Kings, but his reasons for commenting on the often excised
appendix (2 Sam 21–24) are worth noting. He acknowledges that
these final chapters of 2 Samuel are ‘not of a piece’ in style or
perspective with the rest and may have come from elsewhere.
However, he also makes it clear that he comments on them not
merely because they are part of 2 Samuel, but because he is
persuaded of their coherence with the wider story of David. For Alter
too, this wider story of David revolves around ‘knowledge’. While
Saul seems to be consistently deprived of knowledge, David is
initially well-supplied with it, before eventually succumbing to the
fate of the ‘purblind Saul’.28
Still further, if slightly more oblique, evidence for the growing
appreciation of the wider David story in the books of Samuel and 1
Kings may be found in Steven McKenzie’s King David: A Biography
and in Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret Demons, which appeared
around the same time.29 Unlike some others, both Halpern and
McKenzie set out in search of the David of history and both conclude
that the latter is rather different from the David of Samuel and
Kings. Allowing for later additions (including Solomon’s succession by
the hand of the Deuteronomist), McKenzie divides the David
traditions in these books into two parts along the broadly
recognizable lines of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5:3) and his
reign (2 Sam 5:4–1 Kgs 2).30 However, while McKenzie exhumes a
more ‘historical’ and rather less attractive David by frequently
reading against the grain of the biblical traditions, he does largely
treat them as a whole. In doing so, McKenzie sees the tendency to
defend David in the history of David’s rise also reflected in the
account of David’s reign in the remainder of 2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–
2. This tendency McKenzie sees as complicated only slightly by the
later addition of the Bathsheba affair to explain Absalom’s rebellion
as a punishment.31 Halpern too understands the David traditions as
containing two stories. However, Halpern’s two stories are not those
of David’s rise and reign respectively, but rather two separate
accounts of David with differing perspectives (called simply A and B)
which have been woven together to produce the story of David as
we now find it. Nevertheless, like McKenzie, Halpern’s interest in
David’s story as a whole in Samuel and 1 Kings (in addition to his
own ‘Tale of Two Stories’) is made clear from his title and the
extended treatment of ‘David’s History in the Books of Samuel’ which
he offers at the outset of his study.32
The exploration of David’s story as a whole and in its ‘final form’
in Samuel and Kings has persisted even amongst those who are also
and perhaps more interested in the compositional history of the
David story.33 This may be seen in the still more recent work of two
other eminent David scholars, Walter Dietrich and John Van Seters.
Dietrich, one of the most prominent and prolific exponents of a
redaction critical approach to the traditions about David, believes
that what we have now in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings is the
result of a long process of collection, expansion, and revision of
sources beginning in the earliest period of the monarchy.34 Indeed,
Dietrich now sees a large collection of texts comprising a ‘narrative
opus’ as having existed prior to the work of the Deuteronomistic
editor. Running from the beginning of 1 Samuel to 1 Kgs 12,
Dietrich’s ‘maximal’ narrative collection includes the traditions of Saul
and Solomon, but it has at its heart the traditions about David. It is
worth noting, however, that in Dietrich’s view, this collection was
sufficiently complete and coherent already in its pre-exilic form to
allow for a ‘holistic appreciation of the present text, its poetic
structure and its content’—not least in relation to David.35 For
Dietrich, following the finishing touches of a pro-Davidic redactor,
the portrait of David as he rises to power is positively glowing and
only slightly tarnished as he reigns and is eventually succeeded.36
While Van Seters disavows the extensive and multiple redactional
layers detected by Dietrich, he does share Dietrich’s interest in how
the narratives about David came to be as we have them now.37 It is
clear that Van Seters also shares Rost’s enthusiasm for the unity and
artistry of what Van Seters would call the Court History. However,
Van Seters is happy to abandon the ‘History of David’s Rise’ in favour
of offering, as Halpern does, his own ‘Tale of Two Stories’ of David,
which he too labels, ‘Account A’ and ‘Account B’. Van Seters’ Account
A—part of an earlier and larger Deuteronomistic history—is basically
positive in its portrayal of David, coinciding in extent with
Wellhausen’s first story of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 8).
However, Van Seters’ earlier and happier portrait of David is much
slimmer than Wellhausen’s. This is because large parts of it (e.g. 1
Sam 17, 1 Sam 25, etc.) are seen by Van Seters as belonging instead
to his second story, Account B, which includes these and the Court
History (2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2) as part of the Deuteronomistic
story’s radical revision in the Persian period. Yet, if Van Seters’
presentation seems at first glance to perpetuate the ‘Tale of Two
Stories’ of David,38 he too is deeply concerned with the final form of
the story of David as a whole, which he christens the ‘David Saga’ on
analogy with later Icelandic texts. According to Van Seters, in the
hands of the Saga’s author, David’s character and family are heavily
tarnished in order to impress upon later readers how dangerous and
undesirable a revival of the Davidic kingdom would be in their own
time.39
What is the David Story About?

What becomes clear from this all-too-brief survey is that the story of
David as a whole has been increasingly the object of scholarly
investigation,40 even amongst those whose interests are also in the
stories of David they find within it or behind it. Yet, while we have
already seen that considerable effort has been invested in discerning
the themes of these subsidiary stories of David, with a few
exceptions, rather less progress seems to have been made in
answering the question: what is the story of David, as a whole,
about?
The most obvious answer to this question might seem to be that
the story is about ‘David’—whose entrance in 1 Samuel marks the
beginning of his story and whose exit in 1 Kings marks its end.
However, it is clear that ‘David’ is a much better answer to the
question ‘who is the story about?’ or perhaps even ‘who/what is the
subject of the story?’. To suggest instead that David’s story is about
David’s rise, reign, and succession might seem equally
unexceptionable. Yet, again, while this summary captures what the
story of David is about at the level of plot, it begs the question what
the story of David is really about at a deeper level? It is at this point
that we begin to grapple with the question of theme.41 Indeed, Rost
recognized as much when he famously argued that the Succession
Narrative’s ‘theme (thema) is the question (frage): “Who will sit on
David’s throne?”’.42 As we have seen, many since have been
persuaded that 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2 are about rather more
than merely succession and that this is even more true of the wider
story of David. However, most would acknowledge not only the value
of considering what lies behind or above the plot of this part of
David’s story, but also the theoretical possibility that succession is
one of the themes which does so.
That a story which is composed of multiple sources, as David’s
surely is, might have more than one theme, seems rather likely.
Indeed, this is recognized by David Clines in relation to the
Pentateuch, even if he insists that one theme must be primary and
others subsumed within it.43 This latter assumption is less evident in
Gunn’s treatment of David’s story, which also argues for an
overarching theme of the ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom,
without explicitly insisting on its priority or primacy.44 Indeed, it
seems probable that the story of David as a whole might be about a
variety of things at a thematic level, including, for instance,
‘relinquishing and receiving’ (Brueggeman’s variation on Gunn’s
theme), as well as ‘knowledge’ (so Noll and Alter). If so, it might be
useful to think of assertions of the priority of a particular theme as
answering not merely the question what is the story of David really
about, but rather which of a variety of themes is this story more
about?
Certainly, such a question makes some sense at the level of
character, as most would agree that the story of David is more about
David than it is about, for instance, Mephibosheth, or even more
significant characters like Absalom. So too at the level of plot, the
story of David as we find it in Samuel and 1 Kings seems to be more
about David’s struggle to rise, retain, and pass on the throne than it
is about, say, his playing of the lyre, of which we read only a bit, or
his shepherding of the flocks, about which we hear even less. So, it
does not seem unreasonable that a thematic analysis which
recognizes the possibility or probability of multiple themes, might still
ask: which one of these themes is the story of David more about?
And how might we determine this?45
In answer to these questions, it seems reasonable to suggest that
the more evidence of the theme which may be found in the
narrative, the more important it is likely to be.46 So too, the
importance of a theme might also be suggested by where it appears
—especially if it is referenced in prominent parts of the narrative and
at its close.47 Yet Clines is surely right to insist that the most
important theme is not merely the one that appears most frequently
or prominently, but also the one that ‘most adequately accounts for
the content, structure and development of the work’.48 Indeed, the
recognition of the importance of theme for a work’s narrative
development chimes with the recognition that a theme is concretized
through its representation in the action of a work, as well as in the
persons and images which populate it.49 We will see that the theme
of illegitimate bloodshed traced in the present study would seem to
be reflected in all of these. That being said, our exposition of it is
very much offered in the spirit of both Clines and Gunn’s themes—as
an invitation to readers to judge for themselves to what extent it
‘fits’ the story of David.50 Before explaining how this theme will be
traced here, it is important to note the ways in which this work
intersects with and builds upon previous studies related to it.
The David Story and Bloodguilt

Given how frequently the language of ‘blood(s)’ appears in the David
story, it is not surprising that it has attracted the attention of those
scholars, however few in number, who have concerned themselves
with ‘bloodguilt’ generally in the Hebrew Bible. The first serious and
specific study of the subject, by Edwin Merz in Germany during the
early years of the First World War, ranges widely across the canon,
but draws regularly upon traditions associated with David, including
many of those explored in the present study.51 No less than the
present one, Merz’s work was a product of its own time, confident
both in its Wellhausian understanding of the evolution of Israelite
religion and in the direct relevance of later Middle Eastern culture for
the interpretation of blood vengeance in the Hebrew Bible.52
Moreover, Merz’s desire to cover the breadth of the canon’s witness
to these traditions, when combined with the brevity of his book,
precluded the kind of detailed treatment which passages within the
David story will receive here.53 Nevertheless, Merz’s mining of the
traditions of bloodguilt associated with David, offers important ore
for the present work, even if, as will become clear, such ore may
need refining at various points.54
Further appreciation of passages from the David story for the
understanding of ‘bloodguilt’ in the Hebrew Bible is to be found in
Johannes Pedersen’s magisterial Israel: Its Life and Culture, the first
volume of which appeared only a few years after Merz’s work.55 In
his short treatment, Pedersen, like Merz, only turns to legal
traditions after beginning with narrative passages, including
especially 2 Sam 2–3 (Asahel, Abner, and Joab), 13–14 (the Tekoite
woman and Absalom), and 21 (the Gibeonite episode). While
Pedersen’s work as a whole consciously resists the Wellhausian
evolutionary understanding of Israelite religious thought and
practice,56 like Merz, he sees the witness to blood vengeance in
these narratives as reflecting earlier tribal traditions which are
eventually superseded by later legal provisions.57 Pedersen’s interest
in the psychological aspects of these narratives allows him to draw
useful insights (especially in relation to blood vengeance within the
family). But he deals with even fewer passages than Merz and, in
some cases, reverts to the kind of conventional readings which more
attention to the language of ‘blood(s)’ elsewhere in the David stories
might have allowed him to challenge.58
Finally, interest in the problem of bloodguilt in the David story
may be found more recently in Catherine Sider Hamilton’s study of
innocent blood in Matthew’s account of the death of Jesus.59 Sider
Hamilton rightly and helpfully situates innocent blood in Matthew
(e.g. 27:25) against the backdrop of interest in this notion in Second
Temple and Rabbinic literature. In doing so, she is inevitably drawn
back to texts and traditions of the Hebrew Bible concerned with
‘innocent blood’, including especially those associated with Cain and
Abel (Gen 4) and Zechariah (2 Chron 24:25).60 However, given
Matthew’s interest in Jesus as the son of David (e.g. 1:1, 1:9, 9:27,
etc.), it is not surprising that Sider Hamilton also considers passages
from 2 Samuel, including 2 Sam 11–12 and its account of David’s
shedding of Uriah’s innocent blood.61 Here again, while Sider
Hamilton’s thematic approach is helpful, her interest in Matthew
understandably prevents her from attending to the significance of
innocent blood in David’s story as a whole.
The David Story and Retribution

Interest in the language of ‘blood(s)’ in the stories about David and
his house also appears in discussions regarding retribution in the
Hebrew Bible—a debate prompted by Klaus Koch, whose work is
indebted at least in part to Pedersen.62 Responding to what he
perceived to be the misplaced assumption that ‘retribution’ in the
Hebrew Bible was inextricably theological and juridical, Koch
suggests rather that positive and negative consequences follow
naturally and largely mechanistically from human actions. Thus,
Koch notes that on many occasions when God is associated with
such consequences, it is simply to hasten or allow the completion of
the natural act-consequence nexus.63 In addition to buttressing his
argument heavily with passages from Proverbs, Koch also draws
upon Hosea 4:1–3. There the prophet sees ‘bloodguilt’ as leading to
the mourning of the land and the disappearance of the animals, but
without obviously implying God’s active intervention or
punishment.64 So too in Lamentations (4:13), Koch suggests that the
shedding of the ‘blood of the righteous’ seems sufficient in and of
itself to lead to the nation’s downfall, without requiring or even
implying divine involvement.65 Koch suggests further that in Ps 38:5
[ET 4] and 40:13 [ET 12], the power exerted by one’s sins is not
visited upon the sinner by God as a consequence, but simply weighs
‘upon a person’s own head’.
In responding to Koch, Henning Graf Reventlow’s interest in this
formulaic language leads him to the stories of David and Solomon.
He argues with some justification that Koch’s thesis is rather
undermined when Solomon steels Benaiah’s resolve to take Joab’s
life by reassuring him that ‘the LORD will bring back his blood upon
his head’ (1 Kgs 2:32). Indeed, Reventlow suggests that Yahweh’s
intimate involvement in ensuring that Joab’s bloodletting is revisited
upon him is supported by Shimei’s invocation of the LORD in cursing
David (2 Sam 16:8).66 Moreover, whether Solomon acts in his
capacity as king or as a private citizen, Reventlow maintains that the
context and language imply a procedure which is juridical and
punitive in nature and inextricably bound up with the demands of
the law/cult.67
With Reventlow’s response depending heavily on passages from
Samuel, Koch’s surrejoinder inevitably also turns to the stories of
David. In the case of Solomon in 1 Kgs 2, Koch is forced to admit
that the language of the LORD returning blood on one’s head does
require that the divine agent be understood as at least a ‘co-
executor’ (mitvollstrecker) in certain cases.68 Nevertheless, perhaps
predictably, Koch prefers to emphasize that the guilty party is
somehow haunted by their bloodshed in a manner which requires
little by way of active divine involvement or juridical process.69 This
he sees as proven by the case of Saulide bloodguilt (2 Sam 21),
David’s cursing of Joab (2 Sam 3:28–29), and by Solomon’s
insistence that the blood shed by Joab attaches itself to his belt and
shoes (1 Kgs 2:5).
Driven as they are by their prior interest in the wider
phenomenon of retribution, it is understandable that Koch and
Reventlow’s engagement with the language of ‘blood(s)’ in the David
story is even more limited than what was offered by Pedersen and
Merz.70 Nevertheless, their exchange in the middle of the twentieth
century underlines the importance of passages in the David story for
an appreciation of retribution generally and the notion of ‘bloodguilt’
within the Hebrew Bible.71 Indeed, their interrogation of these
passages and attempts to enlist them in defence of their own
contrasting views of retribution highlights the variegated and
complex nature of the evidence. But it also raises important
questions regarding the relationship between the language of
‘blood(s)’ and the divine in the David story—questions which,
amongst others, the present study will seek to explore.
The David Story and Homicide

Later on in the twentieth century, interest in what the language of
‘blood(s)’ in the David story might tell us about retribution gives way
to consideration of what it might reveal about the legalities of killing.
This shift is well-illustrated by Henry McKeating’s influential article on
the development of the homicide law in ancient Israel.72 For
McKeating, passages in the David stories illustrate an understanding
that the consequences of ‘blood(s)’ supernaturally attach themselves
to ‘persons and their families’.73 If this sounds rather like Koch,
McKeating’s analysis is in fact much more interested in the
increasingly juridical system of dealing with homicide. He
acknowledges the value of ‘supernatural’ sanctions for dealing with
illegitimate bloodshed in a largely clan-based system. But he also
argues that even in the David stories, such a system shows signs of
modification towards more formal mechanisms including especially
the involvement of the king.74 McKeating thus sees in the prohibition
of monetary compensation for murder, in Num 35:31, the same
awareness and superseding of an ‘older’ system found in the
Gibeonites’ demand for Saulide blood rather than payment in 2 Sam
21:4.75 Indeed, McKeating’s fresh analysis of 2 Sam 21:1–14 claims
to find evidence of a combination of both a judicial notion of
homicide and a sacral (and for him, Canaanite) notion of a bloodguilt
which pollutes the land.76 McKeating’s attention to the roles of God,
kin, and king in dealing with bloodguilt in the David stories is useful,
as is his acknowledgement of the complexity of the textual evidence.
This complexity also illustrates, however, the difficulties in sustaining
a neatly legible and linear evolutionary account of the development
of mechanisms for dealing with illegitimate killing even in the David
stories, let alone the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Moreover, while
McKeating’s analysis of Saulide ‘bloods’ and the Gibeonites in 2 Sam
21:1–14 is original, his failure to fully appreciate the relevance of
‘blood(s)’ language earlier in the David stories highlights both the
limitations of his treatment and the importance of attending to such
connections.77
In a more recent monograph on homicide in the Bible, Pamela
Barmash is less optimistic than McKeating about our ability to trace
the evolution of legal processes in these narratives.78 However, her
conviction that law and narrative may be mutually illuminating
encourages her to attend to the stories associated with David (1 Kgs
2 and 2 Sam 3, 11–12, and 21).79 For example, in discussing
Israelite use of the formulaic language of blood ‘(coming) upon the
head’ of either victim or perpetrator, she follows earlier scholars in
noting the variable contexts in which this language appears in the
David traditions (1 Kgs 2:33, 37; 2 Sam 1:16). Although Barmash’s
observations are frequently insightful, the scope of her project
understandably affords her few opportunities to scrutinize these in
any sustained way or to relate them to each other.80 Thus, while
Barmash’s treatment of 2 Sam 21 takes issue with McKeating’s
interpretation of this passage, her own might benefit from closer
attention to the relationship between this chapter and the
constellation of references to ‘blood(s)’ elsewhere in 1 Sam 18–1 Kgs
2.81 Similarly, Barmash’s reflection on the ‘indirectness’ of David’s
involvement in the killing of Uriah offers an important insight on
which the present study will build, even if the interpretation offered
here departs from hers in various ways.82
A still more recent contribution by Klaus-Peter Adam shares
Barmash’s interest in homicide in the David stories, but also
anticipates in some respects the approach to be adopted in the
present study. In a way which others have not, Adam helpfully
recognizes that an assessment of homicide in the David stories
depends on an appreciation of their literary character and their
relationship to each other within the wider narrative.83 Admittedly,
Adam’s initial cataloguing of episodes relating to homicide and
bloodguilt in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings is neither entirely
comprehensive84 nor fully appreciative of the importance of the
sequence in which they appear.85 However, his subsequent close
attention to homicide and bloodguilt in the sequence of 1 Sam 24–
26 suggests the value of such an approach. Indeed, in the present
study it will be extended beyond these chapters of 1 Samuel into the
remainder of 2 Samuel and the opening chapters of 1 Kings. Adam’s
greater sensitivity to the ‘situatedness’ of bloodguilt within the wider
narrative is very much to be welcomed. However, his primary
interest in the legalities (and legal traditions) of homicide still limits
his appreciation of the language of ‘blood(s)’ within some of the
episodes which he discusses. Thus, for example, while Exod 21:13–
14 is undoubtedly concerned with the question of premeditation in
cases of homicide, it is far from clear that this is the primary concern
of the account of Abner’s killing of Asahel in 2 Sam 2:18–24.86 This
is not to suggest that the legal traditions, properly understood, can
never shed light on narratives or vice-versa, but rather to underscore
the importance of first understanding the narratives in their own
right and in relation to each other.
The David Story and Ritual Violence
A final but important reference point for the present study is the
recent interest in ritual violence in the Hebrew Bible in, for instance,
the work of Saul Olyan.87 A collection of essays edited by Olyan
seeks to appreciate more fully, the variety of violent rites within the
Hebrew Bible, what their settings suggest about their sociopolitical
function(s), and what theoretical models might be most useful in
assessing them.88 Given the prevalence of violence within the David
story, it is not surprising that passages from it feature prominently in
various contributions to this volume, including especially those of
Debra Scoggins Ballentine and Olyan himself. Scoggins Ballentine’s
analysis focuses on 2 Sam 4, in which, as we will see in the present
study, two brothers, Rechab and Baanah, kill Ishbosheth, Saul’s son,
in his bed. However, when they bring his severed head to David
expecting a reward, they are killed for their trouble on David’s
order.89 Viewing this narrative through the lens of social
anthropologists like David Riches, Scoggins Ballentine suggests that
while Ishbosheth’s head is not restored to his body, the proper burial
of it nevertheless serves a kind of restorative function. By contrast,
the sawing off of the brothers’ hands and feet and post-mortem
exposure of their remains represents an antithetical movement
which is viewed negatively by the culture reflected in 2 Samuel.90
Scoggins Ballentine argues that this contrast reflects the narrator’s
other efforts to frame the brothers’ killing of Saul’s son as illegitimate
and David’s killing of them for it as just, codifying it as a ‘legal and
punitive act’.91 While more will be said about this passage in Chapter
4, Scoggins Ballentine helpfully attends to how the violent treatment
of the physical body in a particular passage may be freighted with
significance and how it must be assessed in light of other
comparable passages.92 She also rightly draws attention to questions
of legitimation in relation to violence and the efforts of the wider
narrative to defend David.
In his own essay in the same volume, Olyan also attends to the
social significance of ritual violence, considering the range of
possible purposes served by the severing of Saul’s head from his
body (1 Sam 31). These purposes include offering incontrovertible
proof of death, shaming those who were unable to prevent this
treatment, and potentially terrorizing defeated populations.93 Olyan
also notes that the latter two of these might also be fulfilled by the
display of the decapitated Saulide bodies on the wall of Beth-shan,
especially if they had been left naked.94 The present study will
suggest that it is probably the severed hands and feet (perhaps in
addition to the corpses) which are exposed in 2 Sam 4. However,
Olyan rightly notes that David’s earlier praise of the Jabesh
Gileadites for properly burying Saul’s decapitated corpse (2 Sam
2:4–7) confirms the sociopolitical function of David’s burial of
Ishbosheth’s head (2 Sam 4:12) in creating a new connection to the
family of Saul.95 In a subsequent monograph, Olyan turns to 1 Sam
22:12–19.96 Here, he notes that Doeg the Edomite first heeds Saul’s
command to execute the priests of Nob and then exceeds it under
the guise of a massacre similar in many respects to the mass-
eradication ritual of herem.97 For Olyan, Saul’s own servants’
unwillingness to slay the priests (22:17) allows this rite to confirm
the Edomite foreigner’s vassalage to Saul in a time of contested
allegiances. Olyan also rightly highlights that these killings and more
explicit cases of herem (1 Sam 15) are differentiated from human
sacrifices by their presentation as ‘punitive’.98 However, the very fact
that they are nonetheless coded in both quasi-sacrificial and punitive
terms encourages an attentiveness to the complexity of the violence
associated with the problem of ‘blood(s)’ in David’s story. Finally,
Olyan’s reflection on Shimei’s cursing of David (2 Sam 16) as a
species of ritual violence is salutary, given the prominence of curses
in responding to the problem of ‘blood(s)’ in the story of David.
Olyan’s topical approach to ritual violence understandably precludes
his attention to the range of narratives which are the focus of the
present study, but the fact that he touches regularly upon episodes
from David’s story highights the relevance of Olyan’s project for the
present one.
From the above, it seems clear that scholarly interest in the
language of ‘blood(s)’ in David’s story has sought to shed light on
notions of bloodguilt, retribution, homicide, and ritual violence within
the Hebrew Bible more generally. While such contributions have
been helpful, the present study seeks instead to consider how the
language of ‘blood(s)’ sheds light on the David story as we find it in
the books of Samuel and 1 Kings and vice-versa.
The Approach and Outline of the Book

Before proceeding, it is worth acknowledging the limitations of the
language typically deployed to translate the Hebrew terms in which
we are particularly interested in this study. For example, nowhere in
the David story do we find a Hebrew word or phrase literally
equivalent to German ‘blutschuld’ or English ‘bloodguilt’. Indeed, the
latter terms appear to have been introduced into these languages by
Luther and Coverdale (‘bloudegyltynesse’) respectively, as
equivalents for the Hebrew plural ‫‘ דמים‬bloods’ from which the
Psalmist pleads for deliverance in Ps 51:16 [ET 14].99 Psalm 51’s
association of the Hebrew plural ‘bloods’ with David is not surprising
given how frequently it appears in the story of David. However, its
association with ‘guilt’ still requires an inference.100 Indeed, as we
will see, at many points in the story of David, it is far from clear that
‘blood(s)’ does not instead imply something rather more concrete
than the kind of abstraction suggested by ‘guilt’.101 Moreover, the
early and explicit referencing of ‘innocent blood’ ( 1 Sam 19:5)
in the David story will raise the possibility that ‘bloods’ (‫ )דמים‬may
well be better construed as ‘innocent’ at certain points. For this
reason, the singular ‫ דם‬will be typically translated here as ‘blood’
and the plural ‫ דמים‬as ‘bloods’, rather than ‘bloodguilt’. At the same
time, we will also be attentive to the interplay of these and other
terms in shaping the reader’s understanding of what has often been
described as ‘bloodguilt’. Finally, while reference will be made to the
many fine English translations available, in order to make the
interpretation offered here as clear as possible to the reader, fresh
English translations of the texts have been included.102
Predictably, this study will devote considerable attention to the
language of ‘blood(s)’ which punctuates the story of David in the
latter chapters of 1 Samuel (19:5, 25:26, 31, 33) and at many points
in 2 Samuel (1:16, 3:27–28, 4:11, 14:11, 16:7–8, 21:1) and 1 Kings
(2:5, 9, 31, 32, 33, 37). However, just as punctuation directs one’s
attention to the text it punctuates, so too the appearance of the
language of ‘blood(s)’ requires that we attend to the narrative
context of these passages, both immediate and less proximate. So,
for example, in considering the story of Abigail, Nabal, and David (1
Sam 25), attention to David’s sparing of Saul (1 Sam 24 and 26) is
clearly essential to fully appreciate this episode’s contribution to the
wider account of David and the problem of unwarranted
bloodshed.103 Similarly, while the language of ‘blood(s)’ is invoked by
David against Joab after he kills Abner (2 Sam 3), David’s curse
there can only be understood properly when Abner’s killing of Asahel
in the preceding chapter is considered. Likewise, Shimei’s accusation
that David has Saulide ‘bloods’ on his hands (2 Sam 16) invites
attention to Shimei’s later plea for clemency from the king (2 Sam
19:17–24 [ET 16–23]) and Shimei’s eventual elimination in 1 Kgs 2.
So too, David’s insistence on Joab’s execution (1 Kgs 2:5–6), for
killing not only Abner but Amasa, will oblige us to attend to the
latter’s death at the hands of David’s general (2 Sam 20:8–12).
Finally, the absence of the language of ‘bloods’ in the story of
David’s killing of Uriah (2 Sam 11–12) might indicate that it should
be excluded from consideration. However, the very conspicuousness
of its absence suggests quite the opposite, in light of various other
telling features.
While a surprising amount of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 Kings 1–2 will
turn out to be relevant in tracing the problem of unwarranted
bloodshed in David’s story, the present study makes no pretence of
offering a commentary on all aspects of the text. While many such
commentaries have helpfully noticed the problem of ‘bloodguilt’,104
the usual division of labour means that few commentators have both
1 and 2 Samuel within their purview. Moreover, even fewer
commentators include 1 Kgs 1–2, and none have the luxury of
tracing a single theme as will be done here.105
Perhaps because the Hebrew text of Samuel is often fraught with
difficulties, there has been much fine work done recently on the
Greek version in particular.106 For this reason, the present study will
attend especially to the Greek and the Qumran witnesses to the
Hebrew text(s) of Samuel, where these versions seem to point
towards a more original text than the one offered by the Hebrew of
the so-called Masoretic Text (hereafter MT).107 Indeed, such
attention will suggest the need for a separate and fuller study than
may be attempted here of how our theme is treated in the versions.
In considering ‘blood(s)’ in the story of David, a variety of
questions will be considered: First, whose blood is seen to be
‘innocent’ and in what sense? Who encourages the shedding of this
blood and who discourages it? By whom is blood shed without
warrant and with whose assistance? In what way is ‘bloods’
problematic and for whom? Is unwarranted bloodshed presented as
impious, imprudent, polluting, or problematic in some other way?
Another set of questions relate to consequences: What if any
consequences follow from unwarranted bloodshed? By whom are
these consequences feared or by whom are they to be endured?
What is done to avoid these consequences? A third group of
questions relate to potential remedies: Once unwarranted blood is
shed, what does the narrative suggest may be done to fix the
problem? Who, if anyone, does or doesn’t attempt to solve the
problem? Finally, how do the answers to the above questions remain
the same or change as the reader moves through the narrative?
In seeking to answer these questions, Chapters 1–4 of this book
argue that David’s rise at Saul’s expense is predicated on his ability
to avoid the problem of unwarranted bloodshed. David avoids this
problem first by successfully resisting the temptation to shed blood
without sufficient cause in the case of Saul (1 Sam 24, 26) and
Nabal (1 Sam 25). David then executes an Amalekite, as well as
Rechab and Baanah, all of whom he adjudges to have yielded to this
temptation. However, when David fails to execute his nephew Joab
for shedding Abner’s blood without sufficient cause, both David and
the reader are invited to fear that Abner’s ‘blood(s)’ will haunt David
and his house.
Chapter 5 suggests that David’s fear of adding to this problem
prompts him to directly and illegitimately contrive to take Uriah’s life
by means of warfare with the Ammonites. In doing so, David
manages to avoid ‘blood(s)’ and escape with his life, but he cannot
elude the divine judgement which portends immediate and eternal
consequences for David and his house. In Chapter 6, it is argued
that these consequences begin to follow immediately when David’s
son Absalom incurs ‘blood(s)’. Absalom kills Amnon without sufficient
cause and flees to avoid the execution which David sees as required
to prevent these ‘blood(s)’ too from haunting David’s house. David is
finally persuaded by Joab to leave the remedy of Amnon’s ‘blood(s)’
to divine vengeance, as David has already done in the case of
Abner’s blood. However, Chapter 7 argues that the ‘sword’ of armed
violence promised in 2 Sam 12 afflicts David’s house in earnest when
Absalom goes to war against his father. It will be suggested that
Joab’s killing of Absalom solves the problem of Amnon’s ‘bloods’ for
David. Nevertheless, David’s encounters with Shimei are a reminder
of the problem of Saulide ‘blood(s)’ posed by the tendency of
Zeruiah’s sons to kill without sufficient cause—a point further
illustrated by Joab’s slaying of Amasa in cold blood.
In Chapter 8, we see the seriousness of the threat posed to David
and his house by such killings. Unremedied ‘bloods’ incurred by
Saul’s earlier illegitimate slaying of Gibeonites leads to the
devastation of David’s land and eventually to the death of seven
descendants of Saul in order to remedy the problem. Here, we see
that Rizpah’s subversion of David’s effort to expiate the Gibeonite
‘bloods’ leads David to repatriate the bones of Saul and Jonathan as
a suitable substitute and to demonstrate his own concern for
Saulides. Chapter 9 argues that David seeks to address the problem
of innocent blood at his succession by ordering Solomon to both
eliminate ‘blood(s)’ in executing Joab and avoid them in eliminating
Shimei. Solomon duly obliges in the hope that solving the problem of
David’s ‘blood(s)’ and avoiding incurring ‘blood(s)’ of his own will
ensure peace forever for his kingdom.
In the final chapter, some concluding reflections are offered on
the problem of innocent blood in David’s story. Here, the nature and
importance of the problem within the story as a whole are
considered, along with the question of why it might be so prominent.
King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt. David J. Shepherd, Oxford University
Press. © David J. Shepherd 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198842200.003.0001
1 In 1 Chron 22:8 and 28:3, David reports that the divine refusal of permission
for him to build the temple relates to the divine judgement that he is both a man
of war(s) and a man of ‘bloods’. While Chronicles contains ample evidence of the
former, it shows little awareness of the latter, unlike the traditions of David as we
find in them in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings 1–2.
2 This view became more popular in German scholarship thanks to Weiser, ‘
Legitimation’, 326–7, 332–3; and Grønbæk, Aufstieg Davids, 19–20, 29, 72; and, in
the English-speaking world, following an influential article by McCarter, ‘The
Apology of David’, 502, in which he surmises that some or all of these accusations
must have been actually levelled at David during his lifetime.
3 While McCarter, ‘The Apology of David’, 502, n. 24, stops short of accusing
the historical David of active involvement, some of those persuaded by his
argument are more confident of the historical David’s direct involvement.
4 McKenzie, King David, 113–26.
5 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 78–84, argues that the historical David was
almost certainly culpable for other deaths (including those of Amnon and Absalom)
of which the narrative seeks to exonerate him, but innocent of the killing of Uriah
—the one death for which David is explicitly found responsible in the tradition.
6 Though Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 283–4, might prefer ‘fictitious’ to
‘tendentious’, he makes something like this same point in responding to Halpern’s
work. Yet even Van Seters admits that by the time Shimei accuses the fictional
David of being a ‘man of blood(s)’ (2 Sam 16), the writer of the ‘David Saga’ has
already offered ample grounds for suspecting, if not convicting, this fictional David
of Saulide homicide.
7 For a survey of David’s ‘afterlife’, see Frontain and Wojcik, The David Myth.
For a more recent and much more specific example of David’s reception, see
Shepherd and Johnson, David Fragments.
8 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247–55. Wellhausen sees 1 Sam 15 with the
first thirteen verses of ch. 16 as one of two parallel introductions of David. For a
recent treatment of the ‘History of David’s Rise’ and various scholarly positions in
relation to it, see Yoon, So-Called History of David’s Rise. For a survey of earlier
work, see Dietrich and Naumann, Die Samuelbücher, 47–86.
9 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 247.
10 Wellhausen, Die Composition, 255–60.
11 Rost, Die Überlieferung; and, in English, The Succession.
12 Flanagan, ‘Court History or Succession Document?’. For recent surveys of
scholarship and bibliography on 2 Sam 9–20, 1 Kgs 1–2, see Dietrich, The Early
Monarchy, 228–40; and Hutton, Palimpsest, 176–227.
13 For an analytical digest of such voices from this period, see Conroy,
Absalom, 2.
14 Conroy, Absalom.
15 Gunn, Story of King David.
16 Gunn, Story of King David, 87–111. Gunn acknowledges his debt to others in
developing this interpretation, including especially Brueggeman’s studies earlier in
that same decade. Gros Louis, ‘The Difficulty of Ruling Well’, applies the
public/private distinction developed by Gunn in his earlier article, ‘David and the
Gift of the Kingdom’, out of which Gunn’s interpretation discussed here was
developed.
17 Gunn, Fate of King Saul.
18 See Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’, for an early attempt to read all of 1
Sam 9–1 Kgs 2 through the ‘apologetic’ lens suggested by McCarter. Such a
reading struggles to account for David’s killing of Uriah and his taking of
Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12, in which any pretence of a defence of David seems to
be well and truly abandoned.
19 Brueggemann, David’s Truth, 113–15. In addition to ‘The Trustful Truth of
the Tribe: 1 Sam 16:1–2 Sam 5:5’ and ‘The Painful Truth of the Man: 2 Sam 9–20
and 1 Kings 1–2’, Brueggeman’s story of David includes ‘The Sure Truth of the
State: 2 Sam 5:6–8:18’ and ‘The Hopeful Truth of the Assembly: Pss 89; 132; Lam
3:21–7; Isa 55:3; 1 Chron 10–29’.
20 Brueggeman, David’s Truth, 113–15.
21 Noll, Faces of David, 40–75.
22 Noll, Faces of David, 49. Gelander, David and His God, is focused almost
entirely on 2 Sam 5–7 and 24—rather slender scaffolding to support interpretive
claims regarding the David story as a whole.
23 Damrosch, The Narrative Covenant, 259. While this thematic judgement
appears at the end of Damrosch’s discussion of the composition and themes of the
David stories, it is not obviously supported by the analysis it concludes, which
instead elucidates a variety of more minor themes within the stories of David’s rise
and reign respectively.
24 For the question of how much or little Uriah knows in 2 Sam 11, see
Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. For my own modest effort to illustrate
something similar in relation to Saul’s general, see Shepherd, ‘Knowing Abner’.
25 Indeed, Noll, Faces of David, 44, n. 19, seems to admit as much himself by
referencing ‘open-ended narration’ and ‘indeterminate literature’.
26 Noll, Faces of David, 44. The title of a recent treatment of 1 Sam 16–2 Sam
5 rather proves the point: Short, The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King
David. For a slightly idiosyncratic treatment of the David story which also considers
the David-Saul election question to be central to the narrative, see Flanagan,
David’s Social Drama, 241 and 270ff., who sees the struggle mediated by the
image of the ‘house’. Borgman, David, Saul and God, 211–19, reads David’s
insistence on his own innocence (22:24) within the so-called Samuel appendix
(chs. 21–24) as a clue that God chooses David over Saul, not because David never
sins, but because he readily recognizes his sin and repents of it before even being
confronted with it (ch. 24). While the including of chs. 21–24 within the story of
David is to be welcomed, Borgman’s treatment of these chapters, rather than 1
Kgs 1–2, as the ‘conclusion’ to the David story feels rather too convenient for his
thesis.
27 Alter, The David Story. For more recent commentators who also see the
books of Samuel as primarily about David, see Auld, I & II Samuel, 1–2; and
Green, David’s Capacity for Compassion. By contrast, Firth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 43–5,
suggests that the books of Samuel are more about monarchy than merely David.
28 Alter, The David Story, xix–xxi. While Alter views biblical scholars’ framing of
why David’s story was written and what interests it served as reductionist, he does
suggest that prior to the Deuteronomistic editors getting their hands on it, the
story of David was simply written to provide a reliable account of the founding of
the kingdom.
29 See also Baden, The Historical David, for a treatment which echoes the
approach of McKenzie; and see Wright, David, King of Israel, for the unexpected
use of the notion of ‘war memorial’ as a means of making sense of the biblical
(and historical) David along with Caleb, whose paths in the Hebrew Bible both
pass through Hebron.
30 McKenzie, King David, 25–46.
31 See also Whitelam, ‘The Defence of David’ (and n. 18 above).
32 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 14–53.
33 In addition to the theories of Dietrich and Van Seters, see e.g. Auld, I & II
Kings, 9–14, for a concise summary of his alternative theory of the present text’s
origins and development—a theory reflected in the commentary as a whole and
worked out more fully in Auld, Kings without Privilege.
34 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 262–316, sets out his basic understanding of
the sources and their redaction and his assessment of their characterization of
Israel, God, and David.
35 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 27.
36 Dietrich, The Early Monarchy, 309–14.
37 Van Seters, Biblical Saga. For a good illustration of helpful work on the
compositional history of the David traditions, see the essays in Bezzel and Kratz,
David in the Desert.
38 See Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 361–3, for a convenient summary of the
contents of his Account A (Dtr History of David) and Account B (added to A by its
author who was finally responsible for the Saga). While Van Seters’ two tales no
longer simply follow each other like the ‘History of David’s Rise’ and the ‘Court
History/Succession Narrative’ do, he still offers a tale of two stories of David—one
positive and negative—now not divided primarily by sequences of events (rise and
reign), but by their ideological (for and against) and historical (earlier and later)
perspectives on David.
39 Van Seters, Biblical Saga, 345–60.
40 For a more recent example of the interest in the ‘David narrative’, see
Fleming, ‘Casting Aspersions’.
41 Theoretical discussions of ‘theme’ are few and far between in biblical studies.
For exceptions to the rule, see Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 19–26; and
Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 42–7. For a theoretical discussion of theme in terms
of ‘aboutness’, see Prince, Narrative as Theme, 1–5.
42 Rost, The Succession, 89. For a helpful summary of demurrals and the range
of alternative suggestions of the theme of these chapters up to the late seventies,
see Gunn, Story of King David, 135, n. 46; and more recently, Hill, ‘“Leaving”
Concubines’, 136–7, n. 38.
43 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 22–3.
44 Gunn, Story of King David, 136, n. 55, explicitly follows Rost in equating
‘theme’ with the idea of ‘aboutness’. As we have seen, Noll, Faces of David,
articulates the theme of ‘knowledge and understanding’ in a form akin to Gunn,
but also seems to see a central question (‘Why has Yahweh rejected Saul and
chosen David?’) as thematic.
45 So Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5.
46 Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5, refers to ‘redundancy’, Mettinger,
The Eden Narrative, 46, to ‘recurrence of manifestation’ (see also Prince, Narrative
as Theme, 6).
47 With reference to the latter, Chatman, ‘On the Notion of Theme’, 174–5,
speaks of ‘closure’ (see also Mettinger, The Eden Narrative, 46).
48 Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 20. Clines makes clear that by
‘development’ he does not mean the ‘growth’ of the text as posited by
historical/redaction critics.
49 Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature, 508.
50 Gunn, Story of King David, 88, explains the process in terms of a reader
testing the theory (or theme) by ‘“trying it on for size” in his or her reading’.
Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch, 23, speaks of a process of ‘trial and error’
and examining ‘likely candidates’. Some earlier suggestions of themes are based
on only part of David’s story (e.g. Rost, Gunn, and even Morrison, 2 Samuel, 5–9,
whose otherwise appealing theme of divine deliverance seems not to include the
end of David’s story in 1 Kings). Themes identified by others (e.g. Damrosch, Alter,
Brueggeman) would benefit from fuller and more detailed demonstration, while
still others (Green, David’s Capacity) seem less persuasive to this reader (see
Shepherd, ‘Review’; and Morrison, ‘Review’).
51 Merz, Die Blutrache, discusses passages in the following chapters associated
with David in connection with bloodguilt/blood vengeance: 1 Sam 25, 31; 2 Sam 3,
4, 12, 13, 16, 18, 21; 1 Kgs 1, 2.
52 Merz, Die Blutrache, 3, cites, for instance: Eickhoff, Über die Blutrache; and
Procksch, Über die Blutrache, drawing heavily on the latter for comparison and on
Wellhausen’s understanding of the history of Israelite religion.
53 In the space of a mere 137 pages, Merz covers not only various passages
drawn from the books of the Former Prophets (especially, Judges and 1 and 2
Samuel), but also material from the legal corpora including Exodus, but especially
Numbers and Deuteronomy.
54 So, for instance, while the present study will have the luxury of a far more
detailed analysis of 2 Sam 21:1–14, Merz, Die Blutrache, 82, suggests that the
sparing of Rizpah from blood vengeance hints that the question of vulnerability to
blood vengeance here (and elsewhere) is gendered. See also from around this
time, Buttenwieser, ‘Blood Revenge’, whose comparison of Greek and Hebrew
traditions regarding bloodguilt and discussions of 2 Sam 21 and Job 16:18 are
rather compromised by source critical assumptions regarding the biblical traditions
and too great a dependence on later Arab traditions. For more on 2 Sam 21, see
below, Chapter 8.
55 Published in Danish as Israel: Sjæleliv og samfundsliv, vols. I–II by Branner
in 1920, and then in English in 1926 by Oxford University Press.
56 See, for instance, James Strange’s introduction (pp. vi–vii) to the reprint of
Pedersen’s work published by Scholars Press in 1991.
57 Pedersen, Israel, 397–400. The development proposed by Pedersen is,
indeed, at least as vulnerable to critique as that associated with Graf and
Wellhausen.
58 Thus, Pedersen, Israel, 409, reverts to the assumption that David’s
rehabilitation of Absalom represents the kind of wisdom which will be bestowed
upon Solomon. For our discussion, see Chapter 6 below.
59 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus.
60 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus, 45–180.
61 Sider Hamilton, The Death of Jesus, 197–200 and 22 (Ps 51). See also 10–
11 (2 Sam 1:16 and 3:28–29) and 60 (2 Sam 21).
62 See Koch, ‘Vergeltungsdogma’, and, in English, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 77,
for his dependence on Pedersen.
63 Koch, ‘Vergeltungsdogma’.
64 Koch, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 67.
65 Koch, ‘Doctrine of Retribution’, 70.
66 Reventlow, ‘Sein Blut’, 323.
67 Reventlow, ‘Sein Blut’, 320.
68 Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 414.
69 Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 405–8.
70 In responding to Reventlow, Koch, ‘“Sein Blut”’, 410–11, does eventually
draw upon the earlier work of Merz, though it offers little help to him in
responding to the critique of Reventlow.
71 See Gilmour, Divine Violence, 27, n. 17, for a recent summary of subsequent
discussion; and also Shemesh, ‘Measure for Measure’, who refers to passages in
which ‘blood(s)’ language features in order to illustrate the pervasiveness of the
retributive principle in human and divine actions in David’s story.
72 McKeating, ‘Homicide’.
73 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 59, who shows no awareness here of the work of
either Koch or Reventlow.
74 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 52.
75 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 55.
76 McKeating, ‘Homicide’, 59–62. It is this combination which he identifies and
attempts to disentangle in the legal provisions found in Deut 19:10 and 21:1–9.
77 While reaching rather different conclusions on various points, the recent
treatment of homicide in Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 121–70, bears some
resemblance to McKeating’s in seeking to correlate particular narratives associated
with David (amongst others) with an evolution of the legal regulation of homicide
(which Jackson finds in the history of Exod 21–2). As will become clear, I am less
optimistic than Jackson about the extent to which these narratives and the legal
material are mutually illuminating. Jackson wisely acknowledges (155–7) that
ambiguities remain in David’s reluctance to intervene in the case of the woman of
Tekoa (2 Sam 14), his proposed resolution of the case, and the question of
whether David may pardon or merely protect the woman’s remaining son. Such
ambiguities offer encouragement to situate this passage and others within the
wider narrative’s interest in bloodguilt—a strategy which will in turn leave us better
positioned to answer some of these questions.
78 While Barmash, Homicide, 71–93, does acknowledge some evolution in the
movement from sanctuary asylum to cities of refuge, her analysis of the legal
sources of the Pentateuch on the subject convinces her that such change is
‘glacial’ and that the differences between them largely reflect distinctive ideological
and theological programmes and emphases (93).
79 A conviction reflected also in Barmash, ‘The Narrative Quandary’.
80 Barmash, Homicide, 34, suggests that David’s killing of Ishbosheth’s killers
(2 Sam 4:5–12) and much delayed orchestration of Joab’s execution illustrate the
rarity of royal intervention in the administering of justice even within his own
court. We will see that this is generally true within the story of David even if the
evidence is more complex and extends well beyond these two examples.
81 See below, Chapter 8.
83 Adam, ‘Law and Narrative’, 315.
84 2 Sam 21 is passed over perhaps because it is considered part of the
appendix.
85 Adam, ‘Law and Narrative’, 315–16, lists passages in sequence from 2 Sam
2, 3, 15, 20 and 1 Kgs 2 as examples of the ‘shaping of characters within the
framework of a legal discussion about homicide’ but then brackets out 2 Sam
1:13–16, 4:6, 8b–12a, and 1 Kgs 2:5–6, 28–35, as having specifically to do with
David avenging bloodguilt on behalf of Saul or his son, and also relegates the
mention of 2 Sam 11–12 and 14 to a subsequent footnote.
86 See Chapter 4 below.
87 Olyan, Biblical Mourning.
88 Olyan, Ritual Violence.
89 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’.
90 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 19.
91 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 20.
92 Scoggins Ballentine, ‘Ritual Violence’, 13–16.
93 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’.
94 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’, 128.
95 Olyan, ‘Violence against Corpses’, 127. That such a connection is new does
not preclude the possibility that it is additional to ones which already bind David to
the house of Saul (i.e. marriage as well as David’s covenant with Jonathan).
96 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible.
97 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible, 96–7.
98 Olyan, Violent Rituals of the Hebrew Bible, 34–5.
99 Indeed, as Bartor, ‘Bloodguilt, Bloodfeud’, 64, acknowledges, such a term is
not to be found in the Hebrew Bible at all.
100 So Kedar-Kopfstein, ‘236 ,’‫ָד ם‬, who cites Ezek 22:2 (‘city of bloods’) and 2
Sam 21:1 (‘house of bloods’), the latter of which will be discussed below. While
Kedar-Kopfstein notes that the plural is never used with reference to the blood of
animals, the singular (Lev 17:4) is used to refer to the bloodguilt which seems to
be imputed to a person who kills a sacrificial animal, but does not bring the animal
as a gift to the LORD before the tabernacle. On this passage, see Gilders, Blood
Ritual, 165.
101 For a thorough analysis of the plural and singular forms of ‫ דם‬and a
recognition of the variety of their uses, see Christ, Blutvergiessen.
102 Verses are numbered according to the Hebrew text with English versification
[ET] included where it differs.
104 We will see that virtually all commentators recognize the relevance of
bloodguilt to the David story at particular points. However, some have also noted
in passing its recurrence and significance within parts of 2 Samuel (e.g. Morrison,
2 Samuel, 278) and indeed the David narratives as a whole (see e.g. Nicol, ‘Death
of Joab’, 136, n. 6; Alter, The David Story, xiv). The intuition of Dietrich, Samuel,
vol. 2, 474, that bloodguilt is ‘a significant theme [ein grosses Thema] in the books
of Samuel’ is corroborated by the present study.
105 Nevertheless, the fullness of the references to the commentaries and studies
in the footnotes is intended to allow the reader to feel the weight of scholarly
opinion at various points.
106 In this study, LXX will be used to refer to the Greek version, with MS
traditions specified as follows: LXXA = Alexandrinus, LXXB = Vaticanus, LXXM =

Coislinianus, LXXN = Basiliano-Vaticanus, LXXL = Lucianic text.
107 For useful and recent state of the art summaries and bibliographies on LXX
and its traditions in 1–3 Kingdoms, see e.g. Hugo, ‘1–2 Kingdoms (1–2 Samuel)’;
and Law, ‘3–4 Kingdoms (1–2 Kings)’. For commentaries particularly attentive to
the Greek text(s) of Samuel and the Qumran witnesses (1QSam 1, 4QSama–c),
see McCarter, I Samuel; idem, II Samuel; and, more recently Auld, I & II Samuel;
for the Greek texts in 1 Kings, see Montgomery, Kings; and more recently
Sweeney, I & II Kings.
1
‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22
It will eventually become clear that 1 Sam 24–26 and the opening
chapters of 2 Samuel (1–4) are very much animated by the
narrative’s interest in David and issues of illegitimate bloodshed. This
chapter, however, will consider the emergence of David in the court
of Saul and the king’s mounting efforts to eliminate him. We will see
that when Jonathan confronts his father over his desire to kill David,
the mention of ‘innocent blood’ (1 Sam 19:5) offers an important
hint regarding the narrative to come. Indeed, it will become clear
why David’s later efforts to avoid ‘blood(s)’ cannot be understood
without first attending to Saul’s pursuit of David and the execution of
the priests of Nob.
The Sparing of David

The suggestion that David and Saul have been set on an inevitable
collision course by Samuel and the LORD becomes clear at the end
of 1 Sam 15:
35And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day he died, but Samuel
mourned Saul. And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over
Israel. 16 1The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn Saul, now
that I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I
will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have chosen for myself a king
from among his sons.’ 2But Samuel said, ‘How can I go? If Saul hears of it,
he will kill me.’ And the LORD said, ‘Take a heifer with you and say, “I have
come to sacrifice to the LORD.”’
(1 Sam 15:35–16:2)
Here, in the space of three short verses, the narrative confirms for
the reader both the divine rejection of Saul as king (cf. 1 Sam 13:14)
and Saul’s replacement on the throne by one of the sons of Jesse.
The foreshadowing of the end of Saul (v. 35) and the mention of
Samuel’s grief (vv. 35, 16:1)1 hints that Saul is, for the purposes of
the monarchy at least, ‘dead’ to Samuel. However, Samuel’s
reticence to proceed to Bethlehem without reassurance confirms the
perception of both Samuel and the reader that Saul might be willing
to exert lethal force to prevent the anointing of his successor.
Whether the divine response and instructions which follow (v. 2)
acknowledge or ignore Samuel’s concern, the reader is presumably
invited to assume that Samuel’s anointing of David (1 Sam 16:13)
remains unknown, at least to Saul. After all, when the already
anointed David is subsequently summoned to court to play for the
king to alleviate the effects of a ‘harmful spirit’ (1 Sam 16:14, 15,
16),2 Saul is reported as ‘loving David greatly’ (1 Sam 16:21).3
Indeed, instead of killing David, Saul insists that he remain in his
service because of his success in providing a musical antidote to the
spirit which so troubles the king (v. 23).
However, the Israelite women’s serenading of David for killing
Goliath ‘the Philistine’ leads to a change of sentiment in Saul. Saul’s
‘great anger’ (18:8) at the eulogizing of David is accompanied by the
king’s fear (vv. 12, 15) that his kingdom will fall to him as well (v. 8)
due to the latter’s success ( ‫ ;שכל‬vv. 5, 14, 15) and popularity with
the people. While the troubling spirit merely facilitates David’s
presence,4 it is Saul’s fear which prompts him to lash out with the
kind of violence which Samuel had feared Saul might direct at him,
but is now unleashed against David, the usurper Samuel has
anointed.
The use of Saul’s hand for violent purposes seems to be
intentionally presented as a contrast to David’s peaceful use of his
hand on the lyre (1 Sam 18:10).5 Admittedly, Saul’s lashing out with
the spear is less than surprising given his earlier association with
such a weapon (1 Sam 13:22).6 Rather more curious, however, is
Saul’s desire to use the spear in his hand to ‘pin’ ( ‫ )אכה‬David to
‘the wall’ ( ‫ ;בקיר‬v. 11).7 The image conjured here of David—dead
or soon to be so—affixed to a wall, bears a striking resemblance to
the picture the narrative will offer of the dead bodies of Saul (1 Sam
31:10) and his sons (v. 12), who will also be affixed to a wall.8 This
later display of the dead Saul and his sons will turn out to be a detail
of some significance. But the implication here that Saul seeks to do
to David what will eventually be done to him is also noteworthy.
Indeed, it is the first of a series of hints that the fates of the two are
violently intertwined and that Saul’s desire to kill David will not
merely fail, but will backfire. Moreover, in suggesting that David
eluded Saul twice (1 Sam 18:11), the narrative points forward to this
second, virtually identical and equally futile, attempt by Saul to kill
David with his own spear (cf. 19:9–10).9 In emphasizing Saul’s
efforts to kill David with his own hand, it is notable that these
attempts on David’s life are presented as acts of passion, prompted
by the coincidence of the troubling spirit and David himself in the
royal vicinity.
However, it is not long before the reader is offered another, quite
different, picture of Saul’s efforts to end David’s life, in which the
king’s methods appear more cold and calculated. Having noted
Saul’s fearful envy of David, the narrator recounts Saul’s offer of his
daughter to David and his intention in making it:
17Then Saul said to David, ‘Here is my elder daughter Merab. I will give her
to you as a wife. Only be brave for me and fight the battles of the LORD.’
For Saul thought, ‘My hand will not be against him. Instead let the hand of
the Philistines be against him.’ 18And David said to Saul, ‘Who am I and who
are my kin, my father’s clan in Israel, that I should be a son-in-law of the
king?’ 19But at the time when Merab, the daughter of Saul, should have
been given to David, she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.
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CHAPTER II
To rid the Great Glen of both its obnoxious English forts was an
enterprise which highly commended itself to those clans whom they
chiefly incommoded, the Camerons and the Glengarry and Keppoch
MacDonalds. There had been jubilation among these when, on
March 5, Fort Augustus had surrendered after two days’ siege, and
what artillery the besiegers possessed was free to be turned against
Fort William.
But Fort William, between Inverlochy Castle and the little town of
Maryburgh, was not so accommodating as its fellow. For one thing, it
was in a better position to defend itself, since sloops of war could
come up Loch Linnhe to revictual it, even though the Highlanders
held the narrows at Corran. It had a garrison of five hundred men,
both regulars and Argyll militia, plenty of guns, and, after the middle
of March, that zealous officer Captain Carolina Scott to assist Major-
General Campbell in the defence. Already, by the time that Ewen
arrived with Lochiel and the reinforcements, there had been some
severe skirmishes, and the Highlanders had fought an engagement
with the soldiers from the fort and the sailors from the Baltimore and
Serpent sloops, in which the latter succeeded in landing and
destroying the ferry-house and several small villages on the Ardgour
side. On this the Camerons ensconced themselves at Corpach,
where Loch Linnhe bends to its junction with Loch Eil, and there beat
off an armed flotilla of boats with such success that the Baltimore
was ordered thither to open fire and cover a landing. But the
Highlanders’ position was so good that the bombardment made no
impression, and Captain How had to withdraw baffled.
Ewen was with these adventurers at Corpach, enjoying himself
and finding in conflict an anodyne for his thoughts; it made the blood
run pleasantly and enabled him to forget Alison for an hour or so. But
the ordinary business of the siege was less stimulating, since he had
nothing to do with the artillery under Stapleton and Grant and their
Franco-Irish gunners, and the only chance of hand-to-hand fighting
lay in repelling the constant raids of the garrison and trying to protect
the unfortunate dwellers in the countryside who suffered by them. He
seemed to himself to live in a series of disconnected scenes,
sometimes here in Lochaber, where Ben Nevis, thickly capped with
snow, looked down impartially on assailants and defenders alike,
sometimes back in Inverness, going through every moment of those
short two days with Alison. But no one who did not observe him
constantly and closely could have guessed this. Lochiel, who knew
him well and did observe him closely, gave him as much to do as
possible.
But it was certainly not Lochiel who enjoined on him the feat
which brought his share in the siege to an abrupt end.
It was a fine morning in the latter half of March, blown through

with a gusty wind. Brigadier Stapleton, having got some mortars into
position on one of the little eminences about half a mile from the fort,
had started to shell it from that point, and the fort was replying. Since
its fire was directed towards destroying the hostile batteries, there
was no great danger from it to those not serving the guns, and the
Highlanders had no doubt grown a little careless, which might
account for the fact that near the crest of another hillock, about a
quarter of a mile away from Stapleton’s mortars and the same
distance as they from Fort William, Lochiel and Keppoch were
standing unconcernedly in the midst of a little group of Camerons
and MacDonalds. Below them, on the slope looking towards the fort,
a half-ruined stone wall hinted at a bygone attempt at cultivation or
enclosure. The two chiefs were interested in some rather suspicious
activities on board the Baltimore sloop, visible at anchor in the loch
beyond the counterscarp and bastions of the fort.
“I vow it seems like another raid preparing,” said Alexander
MacDonald. “Do you look, Lochiel.”
He passed the Cameron his spyglass. Ewen, who was sitting
comfortably in the heather at a few yards’ distance, nearer the
battery, rested his elbows on his knees and shaded his eyes the
better to see also, his brain at these words busy with a vision of a
possibly gratified desire for what he considered real fighting.
Suddenly, as it were with half an eye, he became aware of
something unusual in the fort, where, a mere eight hundred yards
away, movements were perfectly visible. Surely the defenders had
altered the position of one of their six-pounders . . . could they be
intending . . . Lochiel standing there with the glass to his eye looking
at the sloop was fully exposed to their view . . .
In a second Ewen was on his feet, shouting a warning, but as he
sprang came the flash and the roar. “God!” he cried in agony, and
with another bound was up on the crest of the hillock, his arms wide.
Could one man’s body suffice?
There was a crash as the shot pitched into the ruined wall on the
slope below, breaking and scattering the big rough stones in all
directions. Ewen never saw what struck him, but at the moment of
impact, which seemed to drive his soul from his body, he had just
time to think, “It is for him! Alison, forgive me . . .” Then he went into
darkness.
When he came out of it again he found himself lying on the
farther slope in the midst of a group of people, with his head on
someone’s arm, and hands unfastening his coat. A voice said, “No,
the head wound is only slight; ’tis here on the breast that the large
stone must have struck him.”
Ewen tried to get his own voice. It was difficult, and the world
heaved. “Is . . . Lochiel safe?”
Archibald Cameron, kneeling beside him, looked up for a second.
“He is holding you at this moment, dear lad. No—lie still!” He went on
with his examination.
But Ewen disobediently turned his swimming head a little, and
saw that he was indeed in Lochiel’s hold, so Lochiel must be
unharmed. Why then had he his other hand over his eyes? Puzzled
but content, he shut his own again.
When next he thought much about his surroundings he was lying
in the same place, wrapped in a plaid, with Lachlan squatting near,
gazing at him with anguished eyes. Over the level top of Ben Nevis
clouds, as white as the snow which crowned it, were hurrying against
the blue. It came back to Ewen that he had heard Archie say that he
was greatly bruised, but that no bones seemed broken, and no
internal injury, he hoped, inflicted; so, after speaking a word or two of
reassurance to his foster-brother, he relapsed into his state of happy
content, with pain every time he drew a breath and a violent
headache. But Lochiel was safe.
Presently he felt his hand taken, and there was Lochiel himself
kneeling by him, and Lachlan on the other side removing himself
respectfully to a distance.
“Ewen, Ewen,” said the well-beloved voice, with trouble in it, “you
should not have done it!”
Ewen gave him a radiant smile. He felt neither penitence nor any
need for it.
“I saw . . . what was going to happen,” he observed.
“I do not think that anything would have reached me. No one was
struck but you, who deliberately threw yourself in the way of the
fragments, and one of Keppoch’s gillies, slightly. If you had been
killed on my behalf——” Lochiel left the sentence unfinished, and
glanced down at the cuff of his coat; there was a stain on it.
Ewen’s eyes had followed his. “Do not say that you are hurt after
all!” he exclaimed in a tone of horror.
“It is your own blood, Ewen. Your head was not much cut, Archie
says. But oh, my child, if I had had your death too at my door, when
there is so much that I must answer for!”
And the young man saw that his Chief was moved—more deeply
moved than he had ever seen him; but, being still stupid from the
blow on the head, he thought, “Why does he say that . . . whose
death is at his door?” And he lay looking with a mixture of affection
and perplexity at the kinsman who was still as much his pattern of all
that was noble, wise and generous as when he himself had been a
boy under his tutelage. Then the fort fired one of its twelve-pounders
at the battery, and through the din Lochiel told him that a litter had
been sent for to take him to Glen Nevis House, where he should see
him again later.
Soon after, therefore, four of his men carried Ewen to that house
of Alexander Cameron’s at the opening of the glen which Lochiel and
Keppoch had made their head-quarters; and he heard the voice of
the Nevis, telling of the heights from which it had descended; and a
little later, when that had faded from his hearing, a less agreeable
one, Lowland and educated, saying how disgraceful it was that a
peaceful writer could not go a mile from Maryburgh to visit a client
without being seized by cattle-thieves; that indeed the said thieves
could do no less than send him back under escort and safe-conduct.
And here the indignant speaker’s gaze must have fallen upon the
litter with its burden, for his next remark was: “What have we here—
another of ye killed? I’m rejoiced to see it!”
Ewen felt constrained to deny this imputation. “I am not in the
least killed,” he rejoined with annoyance, opening his eyes to find
himself almost at the door of Glen Nevis House, and to see, in the
midst of a group of rather shamefaced Highlanders, Mr. Chalmers,
the Whig notary of Maryburgh, whom he knew and who knew him.
The lawyer gave an exclamation.
“Gude sakes, ’tis Mr. Ewen Cameron of Ardroy! I’m unco sorry to
see you in this condition—and in such company, Ardroy!”
“Why, what other company do you suppose I should be in?”
asked Ewen, and shut his eyes again and heard no more of Mr.
Chalmers and his grievances. But that chance meeting was to mean
a great deal to him afterwards.
What meant more to him at the moment, however, was that Dr.
Cameron kept him in bed longer than he had anticipated, and he had
not been on his legs again for more than a day or two when the
siege of Fort William was suddenly abandoned. The defenders were
too resolute, the besiegers unfortunate, and their artillery not
sufficiently powerful; and in the night of April 3, after spiking their
remaining cannon, the attacking force withdrew. And, since they
were in their own land of Lochaber, and it was seed-time or past it,
Lochiel and Keppoch gave permission to their men to go home for a
few days. So Ewen and his little force returned to Ardroy, and he saw
Loch na h-Iolaire again, and caused Neil to row him upon it, for it
was too cold for a swim; in the middle of which voyage he was struck
by a sudden suspicion, and, landing on the islet, examined it for
traces of the heron. There were none; and the nest, up at the top of
the tallest pine-tree, must long have been uninhabited, for the winds
had blown it nearly all away.
Shortly afterwards Lachlan had a singularly unpleasant interview
with his chieftain, in which, upbraided with the most direct
disobedience, he replied that his concern for the being he loved best
on earth was even stronger than his wish to obey him; after which, in
a dramatic but perfectly sincere manner, he drew his dirk and said
that rather than Mac ’ic Ailein should look at him with such anger he
would plunge it into his own heart. In the end Ewen was constrained
to forgive him, after pointing out how little his disobedience had
availed. There were more herons than one in Lochaber.
And other officers than Captain Windham in King George’s army,
he might have added. His twice-held prisoner had indeed passed
from his thoughts these many weeks; the question of the slaughtered
heron necessarily brought him back there for a moment, but without
any permanence. Ewen did not anticipate another meeting with him,
for were Angus’s prophecy going to be fulfilled to the letter, they
would surely have encountered each other in the confusion of Falkirk
fight, where the second battalion of the Royals had—until it fled—
faced the Camerons across the ravine. No; that two meetings should
come to pass out of the five predicted was quite a reasonable
achievement for the old taibhsear.
And then one afternoon, when he was absorbed in thoughts of
Alison, with all the final suddenness of the expected came a panting
messenger from Achnacarry, with a scrawl in Lochiel’s writing:
“Gather your men and march at once. Cumberland is moving. God
send we reach Inverness in time!”
A bad dream is sometimes only a dream to the sleeper; he may

know it to be such, and tell himself so. But this, though it held some
of the elements of nightmare, was no dream; it was reality, this
tramping of a tired and half-starved army through the night in a
hopeless attempt to surprise the Duke of Cumberland’s camp—
hopeless because it was plain that they would never get to Nairn
before daylight now. Aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp, officer after
officer, had come riding past to the head of the column of
Highlanders and Atholl men to urge Lord George Murray to halt, for
the rear could not keep up. And yet, thought Ewen rather scornfully,
they had not just marched more than fifty miles over mountainous
country in two days, as most of Clan Cameron had.
It was by this feat of endurance and speed that Lochiel and his
men had reached Inverness the previous evening, to learn, to their
dismay, that Cumberland had been allowed to cross the Spey
unopposed. Despite fatigue they had made but a brief halt in the
town and had proceeded to Culloden House, whither the Prince had
gone earlier in the day. A warm welcome had been theirs, for he was
becoming alarmed at their non-appearance, the more so that by no
means all his scattered forces were yet returned from the various
enterprises on which they had been despatched. Cromarty, the
Macgregors and the Mackinnons were still north of the Moray Firth,
no one knew where, and Keppoch had not yet appeared, nor the
Frasers, nor Cluny Macpherson and his men. To-day, since early
morning, the whole army had been drawn up on the chosen ground
on Drumossie Moor, in the belief that Cumberland would advance
that day and attempt to reach Inverness. But the hours went by and
the enemy did not appear, and then the cravings of hunger began to
be felt, for all the food which had passed any man’s lips that day was
a single biscuit served out at noon. And at last it was clear that, the
fifteenth of April being his birthday, Cumberland was remaining at
Nairn to allow his troops fitly to celebrate it. The Prince’s hungry
forces therefore withdrew from the moor again to the vicinity of
Duncan Forbes’s mansion.
It was known that Lord George Murray had not liked the ground
chosen for their stand, and Brigadier Stapleton and Colonel Ker of
Graden, the ablest staff officer the Prince possessed, had crossed
the water of Nairn that morning to seek for a better. They reported
that the boggy, hilly ground there was much more suitable than the
open moor for receiving the Hanoverian attack, since it was almost
impossible for cavalry and artillery, and the foot might perhaps be
tempted into some pass where they could be fallen upon and
annihilated. On the other hand, it was urged that, if the Highlanders
withdrew over the stream into the hills, Cumberland would almost
certainly slip by them to Inverness, seize the baggage and stores
and starve them out. The matter was still unsettled when, at an
informal council of officers in the afternoon, someone (Ewen was not
clear who) had proposed to surprise the Hanoverian camp by a night
attack. Most of the soldiers there, it was thought, would be more or
less drunk after the festivities of the birthday. Lord George Murray
and the Prince were both found to be in favour of the idea; moreover,
owing to the scandalous neglect of the commissariat shown by Hay
of Restalrig, who had succeeded Murray of Broughton as secretary,
there was not a crumb of food for the men next day. Objections to
the plan there were indeed: the distance—a good ten miles—the
danger of a spy’s carrying the news to the English camp, the
absence of so many contingents. But the arrival of Keppoch with two
hundred MacDonalds when the meeting was in progress clinched
the matter, and the night attack was resolved upon.
The decision had purposely been kept from the men themselves,
and it was with remorseful knowledge of the futility of their
preparations that Ewen had watched his own little company
choosing the driest spots on the heathery hillside for a night’s
repose, making a fire and rolling themselves supperless in their
plaids to seek in sleep a palliative for the gnawing hunger which
possessed them. Perhaps it would have been better if the rank and
file had been told what was afoot, for by the time planned for the
start, seven o’clock, it was found that hundreds of them had stolen
off in search of food. And to the mounted officers sent out in the
utmost haste to beat them up and bring them back—no easy task—
many had replied that the officers might shoot them if they pleased,
but go back they would not until they had had meat. The Prince was
urged to give up the plan, but he refused; and as those who had
remained were assembled, the word had been given to march off.
It was an excellent night for a surprise, dark and misty; but it was
also very favourable for tired and hungry men to drop unobserved
out of the ranks, and many of them did so. Ewen was as tired and
hungry as anyone else, but he shut his mouth and plodded on like an
automaton at the head of his company. Lochiel was in front, and
where Lochiel went he followed as a matter of course. And close on
his heels came Neil and Lachlan, of the same mind regarding him.
Although Lord George had never consented actually to stop, he
had been obliged to march slower and slower in consequence of the
messages from the rear; but now at last there came a halt, and a
prolonged one. The Duke of Perth rode past, and presently Hay of
Restalrig. Discussion was evidently going forward in the van. And
meanwhile the unwished-for light was growing in the east, not yet
daybreak, but its harbinger. Faces began to be distinct, and haggard
faces they were.
And here came back one of the Mackintosh guides, the same
who, not long before, had brought the order to attack with the sword
only. Before he spoke to him Ewen guessed what orders he brought
now. They were to retrace their steps; the surprise was being
abandoned. Too much time had been lost on the way, and to attack
in daylight would be madness. All the nightmare effort had been for
nothing—for worse than nothing . . .
Between five and six of that cold, grey morning Ewen found
himself once more before the gates of Culloden House. Men were
dropping where they stood; some, he knew, were lying worn out
along the roadside. He was in no better case himself; in some ways,
indeed, in a worse, for it was not three weeks since he had left his
bed after his experience at Fort William. But in anger and
desperation he despatched Neil and Lachlan, who still seemed
capable of movement, to Inverness with orders to get food for their
comrades if they had to steal it. It was all he could do, and when he
got inside the house he sat down exhausted in the hall, and fell
asleep with his head on a table. He was hardly conscious of the stir
a little later, when the Prince arrived, tired, dispirited and sore from
the complaints which he could not avoid hearing. But from scraps of
talk about him (for the place was full of officers in the same plight as
himself) Ewen’s weary brain did receive the welcome impression that
they would at least have some hours to rest and recuperate—and
later, please Heaven, to get some food—for Cumberland was
evidently not going to attack to-day.
He was dreaming that he was at home, and sitting down to a
good meal, when he felt someone shaking him, and, raising his
head, saw one of his own cousins from Appin, Ian Stewart.
“What is it?” he asked stupidly.
“A straggler has just come in with news that some troops are
advancing from Nairn. He did not know whether it was the main body
or only skirmishers . . .”
Ewen dragged himself to his feet. All round the hall others were
doing the same, but some would require more to rouse them than a
mere rumour. It was broad daylight; a clock near marked nine
o’clock. “It cannot be the main body—the attack!” he said
incredulously. “There was no sign of general movement at Nairn; the
camp fires were burning—we could see them four miles away.
However, the truth can soon be discovered.”
The weary-faced Appin lad shrugged his shoulders. “It will not be
very easy to make sure,” he said. “Fitz-James’s Horse is all
dispersed after fugitives and food. I tell you, Ardroy, I do not much
care which it is, if only I can get an hour’s sleep.”
“I must find Lochiel,” said Ewen. He had no idea where he was—
a sufficient comment on his own state—but was told that he was
upstairs with the Prince, who, on coming in, had thrown himself just
as he was upon his bed. Half dizzy with sleep and hunger, Ewen
went up the wide staircase, hearing everywhere voices discussing
the report, and arguing and wondering what was to be done, and
declaring that the speakers disbelieved the news—because they
desired to disbelieve it.
When he reached the landing the door of the Prince’s
bedchamber opened, and Lord George Murray and Ker of Graden
came out together, the latter looking very grim, Lord George plainly
in a rage. They went down the stairs to the encumbered hall, Lord
George calling for his aides-de-camp. The door meanwhile had been
left ajar; loud voices came through it, and Ewen had a glimpse of the
Prince, sitting on the edge of his bed, still booted, with Sir Thomas
Sheridan, his old tutor, beside him. He was speaking, not to him, but
to someone invisible.
“I tell you,” his voice came sharply, edged with fatigue and
obstinacy, “I tell you the English will be seized with panic when they
come to close quarters. They cannot face my Highlanders in the
charge; ’twill be again as it was at Gladsmuir and——”
Then the door shut behind Lochiel, coming slowly out. He did not
see the young man waiting for him, and on his tired, unguarded face
Ewen could read the most profound discouragement.
As he crossed the landing Ewen took a couple of strides after
him, laying hold of his plaid, and the Chief stopped.
“Is it true, Donald?”
“I suppose so,” answered Lochiel quietly. “At any rate we must
take up our positions at once.”
“Over the water of Nairn, then, I hope?”
“No. The Prince is immovable on that point. We are to take our
stand on our old positions of yesterday on the moor.”
“When you and Lord George disapprove!—It’s the doing, no
doubt, of the same men who were for it yesterday, those who have
nothing to lose, the French and Irish officers!”
Lochiel glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t speak so loud, Ewen.
But you are right—may God forgive them!”
“May God—reward them!” said Ewen savagely. “We are to march
our companies back to the moor then?”
“Yes. And we and Atholl are to be on the right wing to-day.”
Ewen was surprised, the MacDonalds always claiming and being
conceded this privilege. But he did not seek the reason for the
change, and followed his Chief in silence down the stairs. The
confusion in the hall had increased, and yet some officers were still
lying on the floor without stirring, so spent were they.
“Find me Dungallon and Torcastle,” said Lochiel. “By the way,
have you had anything to eat, Ewen, since noon yesterday?”
“Have you, which is more to the point?” asked Ewen.
Lochiel smiled and shook his head. “But fortunately a little bread
and whisky was discovered for the Prince.”
Ewen found Ludovic Cameron of Torcastle, the Chief’s uncle, and
Cameron of Dungallon, major of the regiment, and himself went out
in a shower of sleet to rouse his men, having in several cases to pull
them up from the ground. He had got them into some kind of
stupefied order when he saw Lochiel and Dungallon come by. A
body of MacDonalds was collecting near, and as the two Camerons
passed—Ewen scarcely realised it then, but he remembered it
afterwards—there were muttered words and a black look or two.
But he himself was thinking bitterly, “I wonder are we all fey? We
had the advantage of a good natural barrier, the Spey, and we let
Cumberland cross it like walking over a burn. Now we might put the
Nairn water between him and us—and we will not!” An insistent
question suddenly leapt up in his heart; he looked round, and by
good fortune Lochiel came by again, alone. Ewen intercepted and
stopped him.
“For God’s sake, one moment!” He drew his Chief a little apart
towards the high wall which separated the house from the parks. “If
the day should go against us, Lochiel, if we have all to take to the
heather——”
“Yes?” said his cousin gravely, not repudiating the possibility.
“Where will you make for? Give us a rendezvous—give me one,
at all events!”
“Why, my dear boy, I shall make for Achnacarry.”
“But that is just where you would be sought for by the Elector’s
troops!”
“Yet I must be where the clan can find me,” said the Chief. “Loch
Arkaig is the best rallying point. ’Tis not easy neither to come at it
suddenly in force because there is always the Lochy to ford. And if I
were strictly sought for in person, there are plenty of skulking places
round Achnacarry, as you know.”
“But none beyond the wit of man to discover, Donald—and most
of them known to too many.”
“Of the clan, perhaps, yes. But you do not imagine, surely, that
any of them would be betrayed by a Cameron! Moreover, Archie
came on a new one the other day when we were there; he showed it
to me. Truly I do not think the wit of man could find that unaided, and
no one knows of it but he and I. So set your mind at rest, dear lad.”
He took a step or two away. “I’ll tell you too, Ewen.”
The young man’s face, which had become a little wistful, lit up.
“Oh, Donald . . .”
“Listen,” said Lochiel, dropping his voice, and coming closer to
the wall. “Half-way up the southern slope of Beinn Bhreac, about a
hundred paces to the right of the little waterfall. . . .”
And Ewen, listening eagerly, heard of an overhanging birch tree
whose old roots grasped like hinges an apparently immovable block
of stone, which could be moved if one knew just where to push it,
and of a cave, long disused, which Dr. Cameron had found behind it
—a place whose existence could never be suspected. And there, if
hard pressed . . .
“Yes, surely there you would be safe!” said Ewen with
satisfaction. “That is a thousand times better than any of the old
places. I thank you for telling me; I shall not forget.”
“Whom should I tell if not you, my dear Ewen,” said his Chief,
laying his hand for a moment on his shoulder. “You have always
been to me——” More he did not say, for Dungallon was at his
elbow, urgently summoning him. But perhaps, also, he could not.
Ewen pulled his bonnet lower on his brows, and, bending his
head against the sleety blast, set his face with the rest towards the
fatal stretch of moorland, the last earthly landscape that many a man
there would ever see. But over that possibility he was not troubling
himself; he was wondering whether it were possible to be much
hungrier, and what his foster-brothers would do when they returned
and found him gone into battle without them. And like a litany he
repeated to himself, to be sure that he remembered them aright, the
directions Mac Dhomhnuill Duibh had given him: “Half-way up the
southern slope of Beinn Bhreac, about a hundred paces to the right
of the waterfall . . .”
Just as they were all taking up their positions a gleam of sun shot
through the heavy, hurrying clouds, and fell bright upon the moving
tartans, Stewart and Cameron, Fraser, Mackintosh, Maclean and
MacDonald, lighting too the distant hills of Ross across the firth,
whence Cromarty came not, and the high ground over the Nairn
water on the other hand, where Cluny Macpherson was hurrying
towards them with his clan, to arrive too late. Then the gleam went
out, and the wind howled anew in the faces of those who should
spend themselves to death unavailingly, and those who should hold
back for a grudge; it fluttered plaid and tugged at eagle’s feather and
whipped about him the cloak of the young man for whom the flower
of the North stood here to be slain; and faint upon it, too, came now
and then the kettledrums of Cumberland’s advance.
CHAPTER III
Once more Keith Windham—but he was Major Windham now, and

on General Hawley’s staff—was riding towards Lochaber. This time,
however, he was thankful to find himself so occupied, for it was a
boon to get away from what Inverness had become since the Duke
of Cumberland’s victory a couple of weeks ago—a little town
crammed with suffering and despair, and with men who not only
gloated over the suffering but who did their best to intensify it by
neglect. One could not pass the horrible overcrowded little prison
under the bridge without hearing pitiful voices always crying out for
water. And as for last Sunday’s causeless procession of those poor
wretches, in their shirts or less, the wounded too, carried by their
comrades, simply to be jeered at—well, Major Windham, feigning
twinges from his wound of Fontenoy, had withdrawn, sick with
disgust, from the neighbourhood of the uproariously laughing
Hawley.
And not only was he enjoying a respite, if only of a few days, from
what was so repugnant to him, but he had been chosen by the Duke
himself to carry a despatch to the Earl of Albemarle at Perth. It
seemed that the Duke remembered a certain little incident at
Fontenoy. General Hawley, relinquishing his aide-de-camp for the
mission, had slapped him on the shoulder and wished him good luck.
The errand seemed to promise transference to the Duke’s own staff;
and, if that should occur, it meant real advancement at last, and,
when Cumberland returned to Flanders, a return with him.
So Keith was in better spirits than he had been for the last week.
Surely the end of this horrid Scottish business was approaching for
him! Falkirk—a bitter memory—was more than avenged, for the late
victory on the moor of Culloden could not have been completer—he
only wished he could get out of his mind some of the details of its
completion. But there was this to be said for ruthless methods of
suppression, that they were the sooner finished with.
To tell truth, Major Windham’s immediate situation was also
exercising his mind a good deal. Wade’s road from Fort Augustus to
Dalwhinnie and Perth ran over the steep Corryarrick Pass into
Badenoch, and he had been told that somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the Pass he would find a military post under a
certain Major Guthrie of Campbell’s regiment, in which bivouac he
proposed to spend the night. (There had been a time last August
when Sir John Cope with all his force dared not risk crossing the
Corryarrick; it was different now.) Keith had first, of course, to get to
Fort Augustus, and had set out from Inverness with that intention;
but about half-way there, just before the road reared itself from the
levels of Whitebridge to climb to its highest elevation, he had been
inexplicably tempted by a track which followed a stream up a valley
to the left, and, on an impulse which now seemed to him insane, had
decided to pursue this rather than the main road. His Highland
orderly, a Mackay from Lord Reay’s country, only too pleased, like all
his race, to get off a high road, even though he was riding a shod
horse, jumped at the suggestion, averring, in his not always ready
English, that he knew the track to be a shorter way to the Corryarrick
road. So they had ridden up that tempting corridor.
It was a most unwise proceeding. At first all had gone well, but by
this time it was clear to Keith that he and his orderly, if not lost, were
within measurable distance of becoming so. The original track had
ceased, the stream had divided and they knew not which branch to
follow; and either only seemed to take them higher and higher
towards its source. Bare and menacing, the mountain-sides closed in
more and more straitly upon the foolhardy travellers. The Highlander
was of use as a pioneer, but Keith had expected him to be a guide,
whereas it soon appeared that he had no qualifications for the post,
never having been in these parts before, despite his confident
assertion of an hour ago. Every now and then they were obliged to
lead their horses, and they were continually making detours to avoid
boggy ground. Keith trudged on silent with annoyance at his own
folly, his orderly voluble in assurances that ‘herself’ need not be
alarmed; there were worse places than this in Sutherland, yet
Dougal the son of Dougal had never lost himself.
It was hard to believe that it was the first of May, so cold was it;
not only were the surrounding mountains capped with snow, but it lay
in all the creases of the northern slopes to quite a low level. There
were even patches not far above the route which the travellers were
painfully making out for themselves. And it was actually a pocket of
snow in a sort of overhanging hollow some way off to their left, a little
above them, which drew Keith’s eyes in that direction. Then he saw,
to his surprise, that there was a figure with a plaid drawn over its
head sitting in the hollow—a woman, apparently.
He called Mackay’s attention to it at once. “Ask her if she can tell
us the best way to the Corryarrick road.”
The Highlander shouted out something in his own tongue, but
there was no answer, and the woman huddled in her plaid, which
completely hid her face, did not move. “She will pe asleep,
whateffer,” observed Mackay. “A bhean!—woman, woman!”
But another thought had struck the Englishman. Tossing the reins
of his horse to Mackay, he strode up to the hollow where the woman
sat, and stooping, laid a hand on her shoulder. For any warmth that
struck through the tartan he might as well have touched the rock
against which she leant. He gave an exclamation, and, after a
moment, drew the folds of the plaid a little apart.
If the young woman who sat crouched within it, stiff now, like the
year-old child in her arms, knew the way anywhere, it was not to the
Pass of Corryarrick. There was a little wreath of half-melted snow in
a cranny near her head; it was no whiter than her face. The upper
half of her body was almost naked, for she had stripped herself to
wrap all she could round the little bundle which she was still clasping
tightly to her breast. But it was only a bundle now, with one tiny, rigid
waxen hand emerging to show what it had been.
Keith removed his three-cornered hat, and signed to Mackay to
leave the horses and come.
“The poor woman is dead,” he said in a hushed voice, “—has
been dead for some time. Can she have met with an accident?”
“I think she will haf peen starfed,” said his orderly, looking at the
pinched face. “I haf heard that there are many women wandering in
the hills of Lochaber and Badenoch, and there iss no food and it
hass been fery cold.”
“But why should she have gone wandering like this, with her
child, too?”
The Mackay turned surprised eyes upon him. “Because you
English from Fort William will haf burnt her house and perhaps killed
her man,” he replied bluntly. “Then she wass going trying to find
shelter for herself and the wean. . . . And now there iss no one to
streak her and to lay the platter of salt on her preast. It iss a pity.”
He, too, with the innate reverence of his race for the dead, was
standing bareheaded.
“I wish we could bury them,” said Keith. But it was out of the
question; they had neither the implements nor the time; indeed, but
for the food that they carried, and their horses, the same end might
almost be awaiting them in these solitudes. So Mackay replaced the
plaid, and they went silently back to the horses and continued their
journey.
‘You English’—we English—have done this; we whose boast it
has always been that we do not war with women and children; we
English whose vengeance (Keith had realised it ere this) is edged by
the remembrance of past panic, of the disgrace of Prestonpans and
Falkirk and invasion. He went on his way with a sensation of being
branded.
Yes, he had been too true a prophet. The comedy had turned to
grim and bloody earnest. And, despite relief and natural exhilaration
at victory—of which there was not much left in him now—despite the
liberation of his native country from a menace which she affected to
despise, but which in the end had terrified her, despite the
vindication, at last, of the worth of trained troops, Keith Windham
could say with all his heart, ‘Would God we were back in the days of
farce!’ Yes, even in the days when last he was in Lochaber, for the
very mortification of the rout at High Bridge last summer and of his
subsequent captivity had been easier to bear than the feeling that he
belonged now to a band of executioners—was indeed closely
connected with the most brutal of them all. He had been gratified
when Hawley, on his arrival at Edinburgh, had, on Preston’s
recommendation, chosen him to fill a vacancy on his staff; but during
the last two weeks he had come to loathe the position. Yet his
ambitious regard for his own career forbade him to damage it by
asking permission to resign his post; indeed, had he taken such a
remarkable step, he would not now be on his way to Perth, having
turned his back for a while on what had so sickened him.
Another half-hour passed, and the memories which had been
sweeping like dark clouds over Keith’s mind began to give way to a
real sensation of alarm, not so much for his personal safety as for
the carrying out of his mission. Suppose they did not find their way
before nightfall out of this accursed maze into which he had so
blindly ventured? He consulted anew with Mackay, and they resolved
to abandon the line which they had been taking, and try instead to
find a way over a spur on their right, for the mountain which sent it
forth was neither craggy nor strewn with scree, and the slope of the
spur was such that it was even possible to make use of their horses.
At the worst its summit would give them a view, and they might then
be able to strike out a better route for themselves.
As Keith was putting his foot in the stirrup Dougal Mackay caught
his arm and said excitedly, “I wass hearing a shout, sir!”
“I heard nothing,” responded Major Windham, listening. “Where
did it come from?”
The orderly pointed ahead. “The men that shouted will pe round
the other side of this beinn. Let uss make haste, sir!”
Praying that the Highlander was not mistaken Keith scrambled
into the saddle, and his horse began to strain up the slope. He
himself could hear nothing but the melancholy notes of a disturbed
plover, which was wheeling not far above their heads, and he cursed
the bird for drowning more distant sounds. Then, sharp through the
mournful cry, there did come a sound, the crack of a shot—of two
shots—and the mountains re-echoed with it.
For a moment both Keith and his orderly instinctively checked
their horses; then Keith struck spurs into his, and in a few minutes
the panting beast had carried him to the top of the shoulder . . . and
he had his view.
Directly before him rose another mountain-side, much greener
than the rest, and this greenness extended downwards into the
almost level depression between it and the slope whose summit he
had now reached. Below him, in this narrow upland valley, stood a
small group of rough huts for use when the cattle were driven up to
the summer pasture, and in front of these was drawn up a body of
redcoats, to whom a mounted officer was shouting orders. On the
ground near the entrance of the largest shieling lay a motionless
Highlander. The shots thus explained themselves; the soldiers were
at their usual work, and Keith had ridden into the midst of it. He felt
weariness and disgust, but he needed direction too badly not to be
glad to meet with those who could give it. Presumably the
detachment was from the post on Wade’s road, and the officer might
even be Major Guthrie himself. Hoping that the worst was now over,
he rode slowly down the hillside through the bloomless heather,
unnoticed by the group below.
The fern-thatched roof of one of the shielings had already been
fired, and to its first cracklings Keith realised with distaste that the
butchery was not yet finished. Three or four scarlet-clad figures
came out of the hut before which the dead man lay, half carrying,
half dragging another Highlander, alive, but evidently wounded. The
officer pointed, and they followed the usual summary method in such
cases, and, after planting him against the dry-stone wall of the
building itself, withdrew, leaving him face to face with the firing-party.
But apparently their victim could not stand unsupported, for a
moment or so after they had retired he slid to one knee and then to
the ground.
“Detestable!” said Major Windham to himself. He had recognised
the tartan now—the one of all others that he would never mistake,
for he had worn it himself—the Cameron. But that did not surprise
him. The doomed Highlander was now struggling to his feet again;
he gained them unaided, and, steadying himself with one hand
against the wall behind him, stood once more upright, so tall that his
head was well above the edge of the low thatch. Now Keith was near
enough to see the lower end of a dirty bandage round his left thigh,
and the whole of another on his sword arm, for all that he had upon
him was a kilt and a ragged shirt. And——
“Good God!” exclaimed the Englishman aloud; and, calling out at
the top of his voice, “Stop! stop!” he drove the spurs into his horse,
came slithering down the last part of the slope, raced towards the
shieling, leapt off, and, holding up his hand—but all faces were now
turned towards him—ran in between the already levelled muskets
and Ewen Cameron.
Ewen alone had not seen him. His face was the colour of the wall
behind him; his eyes were half closed, his teeth set in his lower lip,
and it was plain that only his force of will was keeping him upright
there. A tiny trickle of blood was beginning to course down his bare
leg. And even the blind instinct to face death standing could keep
him there no longer; for the second time he swayed, and the
wounded leg gave way under him again. But this time Keith’s arms
caught him as he sank.
Oblivious of the stupefaction which had descended upon the
soldiers, and of the more than stupefaction manifested by the officer
behind them, Keith lowered that dead weight to the ground and knelt
beside it. In Ardroy’s gaunt face a line of white showed under the
closed lids, and Keith’s hand pressed on the torn shirt found a
heartbeat so faint that he thought, ‘He was dying when they dragged
him out, the brutes!’ Perhaps he had not been in time after all. He
remembered that there was brandy in his holster, and looked up with
an idea of summoning Mackay.
But by this time the officer had ridden up, and was there a pace
or two away, towering over the pair by the wall.
“Am I tae tak ye for a surgeon, sir?” he enquired in a strong
Lowland accent, and in a tone compounded of hot rage and cold. “If
sae, an’ ye’ll hae the kindness tae shift yersel’ oot o’ the way for a
meenut, there’ll be nae further need o’ yer sairvices!”
Keith laid Ewen’s head down on the grass, and, standing up,
regarded the rider, a neat, fair-complexioned Scot of about five-and-
forty, with little light eyes under sandy brows.
“Major Guthrie, I think?” he suggested, and saluted him. “I am
Major Keith Windham of the Royals, on General Hawley’s staff, and
now on my way with despatches from His Royal Highness to Perth.”
“I care little if ye hae despatches frae God Himsel’!” retorted
Major Guthrie with increasing fury. “And this isna Perth . . . Haud
awa frae yon wa’—unless ye’ve a fancy tae be shot tae!”
But Keith did not move. “This is not a common Highlander, sir,”
he said, as calmly as he could. “He is an officer, despite his dress.”
For officers, as Major Guthrie must know, were not shot in cold blood
—now.

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