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.
consider, first the general usage of the expression Md Kp# in the Hebrew Bible, and then some material from Numbers that can explain how and why Chronicles has Yhwh lay this charge against David.
II. Md Kp# in the Hebrew Bible19
1. Md Kp# outside Chronicles
In addition to its three occurrences in the two Chronicles texts already noted above, the expression Md Kp# when used of a human agent shedding human blood occurs some 33 times in the Hebrew Bible20. In some 15 of these instances violent death is either explicit, or unambiguously implicated, in each context21, and it is to be presumed in virtually all of the other, slightly more ambiguous, cases. The one clear exception is 1 Kgs 18,28, where the expression mockingly refers to blood shed by prophets of Baal ritually cutting themselves, but inferably not to the point of death22! In the overwhelming majority of instances the expression designates lethal violence perpetrated by ordinary citizens in civil-religious life against other ordinary members of the community not deserving of death23, and comprises homicides of passion (e.g. 1 Sam 25,31; Ezek 18,10 etc.), malice aforethought (e.g. Gen 37,22), or, in at least one case, of children in sacrifice (Ps 106,38)24.