Free The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero by Joel S. Baden Page A

to come down; the Ziphites themselves went to Saul to offer David up. Perhaps they had heard of David’s behavior at Keilah, or perhaps they were better equipped to fend off his requests. In any case, David seems to have found no town to take him in but was rather moving around the wilderness of Ziph in search of hiding places. When the Ziphites returned from meeting with Saul, David had already shifted from the hill of Hachilah, where he had previously been, to the area of Maon, a bit to the south. The biblical account makes the arrival of Saul a very close thing for David, with Saul and his men on one side of a hill and David and his men on the other, each trying to outmaneuver the other—one trying to capture, one trying to escape (1 Sam. 23:26). David escaped only when Saul was called away to defend a new Philistine attack.
    This last dramatic detail seems to be fictional, as it exists mostly for the purpose of providing an etiology for a place in the wilderness called “the Rock of Separation.” But true or not, it highlights once again the respective powers and advantages of the two adversaries. David is trying not to confront Saul, but to escape him. Saul is stronger than David, yet David is mobile and moves quickly from place to place to avoid capture. Even when Saul is close, David has the ability to slip away. Hiding in the wilderness, constantly moving, he and his men resemble guerilla fighters, such as have operated in this way from time immemorial. Even today, with the most advanced technology, it is difficult to track down and capture small, highly mobile groups, as examples from Uganda to Sri Lanka to Afghanistan repeatedly prove. It is no surprise that David expected to be safe in the wilderness.
    And yet Saul seems regularly to find him—which points to another salient feature of these episodes. Whatever affection the people once may have had for David, it evidently evaporated rather quickly, such that they are perfectly willing to turn him in. This may appear to be fickle behavior. After all, the people loved David when he was fighting off the Philistines. But this is precisely the point: David is no longer fighting off the Philistines. We tend to think of the conflict between David and Saul as one of good against bad, of the righteous against the oppressive. But David and Saul did not live in an abstracted black and white universe. They were participants in an established culture and political system. The tradition of leadership in Israel, as we have seen, was one of “what have you done for me lately?” Leaders were temporary employees, holding their positions only for as long as their constituents needed protection. When the job ended, the position ended. If the person was unable to do the job, someone else would have to step up. Popular affection was pinned not to a person, but to a persona. By trying to usurp the throne, and as a result being forced to flee from Saul to the wilderness, David relinquished his position as officer in the war against the Philistines. He now fought not for Israel, but for himself. As one biographer of David put it, “David’s band survived in the wilderness by terrorizing the local population.” 9 He was no longer of use to the Israelites—if anything, he was now a burden. For a people scattered in small towns and villages throughout the hills of Judah and Israel, what benefit would there be in supporting David any longer? His coup having failed, he could not provide the only service that was of value to them—protection from the Philistines. The one who could do that, as before, was Saul, and so it was Saul who commanded the people’s allegiance. Indeed, throughout the story, up to the moment of Saul’s death, there is no evidence that anyone in Israel or Judah has any objection to his rule. Nor should they, since he seems to have done his job perfectly well.
    Should David have felt betrayed by the Judahites? He himself was from Judah, after all—why did his