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.
IV. David the warrior as Md Kp# in Chronicles
If the discussion in the preceding section has helped us towards sorting out prescriptions in Num 19 and 31 about corpse contamination, and in Num 35 about Md Kp#, it does not yet appear how it has advanced our understanding of the two Chronicles texts from which we started our investigation. Yet the key to the latter lies, I believe, in the Numbers passages I have cited above, principally Num 31 and 35, but also Num 5 and 19. Num 31,19-24 links #pn grh lk in battle with corpse contamination, and that contamination excludes the warrior from the camp until he is purified. Similarly, exclusion from the camp is prescribed for the corpse contaminant (among others) in Num 5,2, but here it is motivated by the injunction
Mkwtb Nk# yn) r#) Mhynxm-t) w)m+y )lw
... they shall not contaminate their camp where I dwell in their midst (Num 5,3b).
Although Num 19 does not explicitly prescribe exclusion from the camp for corpse-contaminants43, anyone so contaminated who does not undergo the ritual of purification contaminates Yhwh’s tabernacle or ‘dwelling-place’ ()m+ hwhy Nk#m-t) [19,13aa.20b]; note the emphasizing inversion in both instances) which, according to Num 2,2.17, is in the centre of the camp. Hence such assertions indicate that the principal concern of the prescriptions in Num 19, no less than of those in Num 5,2-3 where exclusion is explicitly prescribed, is to maintain or to restore a state of holiness conducive to the continued presence of Yhwh in the midst of his people.
Now for Numbers and Chronicles both, the presence of Yhwh in the midst of his people is supremely focused on the ark. Thus the liturgy of the ark in Num 10,35-36 is reflected at the end of the temple dedication in 2 Chr 6,4144, where Solomon invokes Yhwh and his ark to enter upon his rest (Kxwnl Myhl) hwhy hmwq ht(w [2 Chr 6,41aa]) in ‘this place’ (hzh Mwqmh [6,40b]). But whereas in Numbers Yhwh’s resting-place (hxwnm [Num 10,33]) was the shifting wilderness camp (hnxm [Num 10,34]) of the ‘myriad contingents of Israel’ (l)r#y ypl) twbbr [Num 10,36]), ‘this place’ in 1 Chr 6,40b is none