Donald F. Murray, «Under Yhwh’s Veto: David as Shedder of Blood in Chronicles», Vol. 82 (2001) 457-476
As grounds for Yhwh’s veto on David’s building the temple, the charge of shedding blood, in Chronicles made against David alone (1 Chr 22,8; 28,3), poses questions both about what is being referred to, and how the charge explains the veto, given that in the Hebrew Bible no other Israelite warrior incurs the charge for killing in warfare. This article explicates the charge, highlights how surprising it is, and then develops a line of argument, drawn principally from Num 31 and 35, that can explain how the Chronicler understood the charge both to be warranted, and to justify Yhwh’s veto.
tkp# Mymdw ht) twmxlm #y) yk ym#l tyb hnbt-)l
you shall not build a house for my name, because you are a man of wars and blood you have shed (1 Chr 28,3).
This less rhetorical, more matter-of-fact, version condenses 22,8, making the same point more succinctly. It is as though, once having confessed Yhwh’s veto publicly, David can be more blasé about it here. But what, according to these accounts by the Chronicler’s David, is the nub of Yhwh’s objection to David’s building the temple? In particular, are there (1) two disparate grounds for Yhwh’s objection, i.e. bloodshed, and warfare; or (2) essentially one, i.e. bloodshed occasioned by warfare4?
Both the pragmatics of Yhwh’s utterance in 1 Chr 22,8, and the rhetorical structure of 22,8 and 28,3, provide strongly indicative evidence in favour of the second alternative. First, the pragmatics of 22,8. Yhwh begins with an assertion that David shed blood and prosecuted wars (22,8abg), to which he juxtaposes paratactically his veto on David’s building him a temple (22,8ba). Simple discourse pragmatics accordingly lead to the inference that the initial assertion states the ground for the ensuing veto. Further, in order to ensure that this inference will be drawn, immediately following his veto Yhwh repeats his ground, but this time clearly signalling it as motivation by the conjunction yk ‘for, because’ (22,8bbg). Hence on discourse logic the motivation clause 22,8bbg will be taken as recapitulating the substance of the initial assertion 22,8abg. But the recapitulation refers solely to David’s bloodshedding, with no second mention of his warfare. Accordingly the natural discourse inference is that the nub of Yhwh’s objection to David’s building a temple is his having shed blood5.
Turning now to the rhetoric, we observe that Yhwh not merely refers in 22,8 to David’s shedding blood twice against once to his fighting wars, but further, he puts these two references into the prominent first (22,8ab) and last (22,8bbg) slots in his sentence, where they form a grimly cogent