David in the Wisdom of Ben Sira

Abstract

David is portrayed in different ways in the Old Testament. The Deuteronomistic History depicts him as a capable military commander and as the first great king in the history of Israel / Judah. David’s glory becomes even brighter in the Chronicler’s presentation where all the negative aspects of David’s life have been erased. For the Chronicler, David was not only a political leader but also an important religious reformer, who actually organized the temple cult before the temple was even built. Many Davidic super scriptions in the Psalter hint at David’s role as the father of the Israelite psalmody. Ben Sira, who composed his famous Praise of the Ancestors (Sir 44-50) in the beginning of the second century B.C.E., was aware of these different pictures of David and attempted to combine miscellaneous features into a unity. Accordingly, David is both a successful warrior and an organizer of cultic practices in Sir 47,1-12. Instead, Ben Sira’s description of David is devoid of any Messianic expectations, even though Ben Sira lived in an era when various Messianic thoughts began to flourish.

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