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.
failure to treat Md Kp# according to the preceding prescriptions is ‘the land’ where Yhwh dwells among his people33.
From the foregoing we can now see how Num 35,33-34 impinges upon concerns central to Chronicles’ account of the building of the temple. The fact that Md Kp# entails a religious pollution that banishes the presence of Yhwh from his land and his people would make it absolutely imperative that such an offence should not be built as it were into the very foundations of the building that is supremely to manifest Yhwh’s presence among his people34. Moreover, we can also see how just this same passage, Num 35,33-34, provides a context to explicate the phrase ynpl hcr) (‘on the ground before me’ [22,8bg]) appended by Yhwh to his charge that David shed blood35. With this as background what the phrase articulates is the crucial fact that David’s alleged bloodshedding is a religious offence that pollutes the land and outrages Yhwh’s presence there36.
But what this text cannot yet explain is how the Chronicler associated Md Kp# with killing in battle. For all of the details in Num 35,16-32 that instruct the congregation on how to proceed as between intentional and unintentional homicides manifestly apply to civil, not military, killings. But earlier in Numbers killing in battle is treated, uniquely in the Hebrew Bible, as ritually defiling, making the defiled a danger to the community (‘the camp’) until they have been decontaminated (31,19-24)37. Whilst the expression Md Kp# is not used in