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.
temple is the divinely-appointed locus for the religious praxis that is the essence and vitality of Israel as the people of Yhwh46, it becomes clear why in Chronicles David’s ritual disqualification from building is made a matter of public knowledge.
V. Concluding Observations
This attempt to explain how and why Chronicles charges David with Md Kp# naturally has had to work with a host of presuppositions which time and space do not allow us to raise here. There are three further issues, however, on which I will add some brief remarks. First of all, my argument presumes the Chronicler’s acquaintance with Num 31 and 35. Whilst, as indicated earlier, this has reasonable probability, given the general evidence for Chronicles’ acquaintance with material in our book of Numbers, I can cite here evidence of an explicit connection between Num 31 and another text in Chronicles. In Num 31,6 the priest Phinehas takes h(wrth twrccx ‘the trumpets for ritual alarm’ into the battle against Midian. The only other occurrence of this expression in the whole of the Hebrew Bible is in Chronicles, when Abijah uses it of instruments blown by priests to begin a battle (h(wrth twrccx [2 Chr 13,12]). Moreover, these same texts, together with the similar Num 10,9, and 2 Chr 13,14, are the only texts that refer to the use of twrccx in war47. The strong probability, therefore, that 2 Chr 13,12 depends on Num 31,6 notably strengthens the probability of the Chronicler knowing Num 31,19-24, and also, a little more weakly, that of his being acquainted with Num 35 also.
The second issue concerns the limits of the Chronicler’s application of the charge of Md Kp# to David as warrior. These limits are determined by the Chronicler’s sole purpose of adequately explaining why Yhwh disqualified David from building the temple. Num 35,33-34 uses the religious-ceremonial dimension of Md Kp# as contamination to sanction a preceding set of legal proceedings in cases of civil homicide that are designed to eliminate or quarantine the associated bloodguilt from the community. It seems quite unlikely,