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.
nature of its setting, following the revenge campaign against Midian (31,1-12), there is every reason to suppose that the ritual prescribed in Num 31,19-24 is intended as an Mlw( tqx (‘eternal statute’ [Num 19,21], cf. hrwth tqx [31,21]) parallel to that in Num 19, and that its purpose is the same, i.e. purification from corpse contamination41. But if the ritual is essentially the same and has the same end in view, why detail it separately here?
The answer surely lies in the difference between the circumstances of contamination. The law in Num 19, as the details in 19,14-18 indicate, applies to those contaminated by a corpse in civil life; the law in Num 31,19-24 to those so contaminated in a military situation 42. Consonant with this is a significant difference between the two prescriptions. Num 19 uses b (gnh[-lk] ‘[everyone] who comes into contact with’ a corpse (19,11.13 etc.), or l) )bh-lk ‘everyone who enters’ or b r#)-lk ‘everyone who is in’ the place where a corpse is (19,14), expressions that are all relatively intransitive. Num 31,19, however, leads with the transitive term #pn grh lk ‘everyone who kills somebody’, to which it subjoins ‘and everyone who touches a corpse’ (llxb (gn lk). Moreover, the civil life prescriptions of Num 19, as also for those ‘defiled by a corpse/human corpse’ (#pnl )m+/Md) #pnl My)m+ [Num 5,2b; 9,6.7.10; cf. 19,13]), do not specify the case of #pn grh lk since they do not encompass it, as in civil life such a case would come under the rules applying to Md Kp# (Num 35,15-34). But nor on the other hand does Num 31,19 reckon the #pn grh in battle as a Md Kp#, but only as one contaminated by a corpse in war, whom the specified ritual will purify, just as its equivalent in Num 19 purifies the civilian.