origins of nearly every other prophet in the Bible, but Nathan is introduced without even a patronymic. Perhaps he was the adviser of the Jebusite king; if so, he would have been a very helpful mediator between David and his new Jebusite subjects. Thus Nathan rebuked David sternly after the death of Uriah, not because he was imbued with Mosaic morality but because such a flagrant abuse of power would have been reprehensible in any Near Eastern monarch who had vowed to establish justice in his kingdom. The murder of Uriah could also have gravely damaged David’s relations with the Jebusite population. Zadok, the chief priest of Jerusalem, may also have been a Jebusite, though this has been hotly disputed in the past.12 Later, as we shall see, all the priests of Israel had to prove that they were Zadok’s descendants, since by that time Zadok had become a symbol of Jewish authenticity. But Zadok is a Jebusite name. Later the Chronicler gave him an impeccable genealogy which traced his ancestry back to Aaron, but it is five generations longer than the number of generations which were supposed to have elapsed between David and Aaron.13 Perhaps the Chronicler also incorporated Zadok’s own Jebusite lineage. To have dismissed the chief priest of El Elyon could have alienated the local people. To satisfy the Israelites, David appointed Abiathar, a descendant of the old priesthood of Shiloh, to serve alongside Zadok. But Abiathar would not long survive David’s death, and it was Zadok who became the chief priest of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the sight of an Israelite and a Jebusite priest serving side by side was emblematic of the coexistence that David wanted to establish in Jerusalem. He needed symbols that could unite his increasingly disparate kingdom and hold its various elements together. David called one of his sons Baalida, showing that he was open to the local Zion traditions, and many of the Jebusites’ old cultic practices on Mount Zion would blend fruitfully with the Israelite traditions of Yahweh in Jerusalem.
One of David’s first acts was to move the Ark of the Covenant, which was still lodged in Kireath-Jearim on the western border of his kingdom, into Jerusalem. This was an inspired, if perilous, decision. The people of the northern kingdom who still felt uneasy about David would have been impressed by the presence of the Ark, which enshrined their most sacred traditions, in his city. It would legitimize his rule and also transform Jerusalem, which had no religious significance for Yahwists, into a holy place. But David’s first attempt to transfer the Ark ended in tragedy. It was not up to human beings to establish a holy place on their own initiative: the sanctity of a site had to be revealed. Yahweh had often been envisaged as a mobile god in the past, but he could not be moved about at the mere whim of a king. A sacred object is potentially dangerous and can be approached only by those who have taken the proper precautions. This became fatally apparent during the Ark’s first journey when Uzzah, one of the attendants, put out his hand to steady it when it seemed in danger of falling from the cart, and was killed instantly. The Ark symbolized Yahweh’s presence, and the incident showed that David was attempting to bring a mighty and unpredictable power into the city, not a pious souvenir. If Yahweh came to live in Zion it would be because he—and he alone—had chosen to do so.
Three months later, David tried again. This time Yahweh did allow the Ark to enter the territory of Jerusalem without mishap. David danced and whirled before the Ark, clad only in a brief linen garment, like a priest. Periodically he stopped the procession and sacrificed a sheep and a goat. Finally the Ark was carried into the tent-shrine that had been prepared for it beside the Gihon Spring, with great ceremony and rejoicing.14 By deigning to dwell in the City of David, Yahweh gave an unequivocal sign that he had indeed chosen David to be King of Israel. Henceforth, Yahweh’s choice of Zion as a permanent home was inextricably linked to his election of the House of David. This became clear when David decided that it was time to build a temple for Yahweh in Jerusalem. When he first mooted the idea to Nathan, the prophet was enthusiastic. It was the duty of a Near Eastern monarch to build a house for the god on whom his rule depended. But Yahweh had other plans: he told Nathan that he had always led the life of a wanderer in a tent. He did not want a house for himself; instead, he would build a house for David, a dynasty that would last forever.15
Perhaps Nathan feared that it was too soon for David to dethrone El Elyon by building a temple to a foreign god within Jebusite Jerusalem. David may have chosen the site of the Gihon Spring, outside the walls, out of respect for Jebusite sensibilities. Or perhaps the tribes of Israel and Judah were averse to the idea: they may have become attached to Yahweh’s nomadic image and been reluctant to see him becoming like all the other gods of Canaan, confined to a particular sanctuary. Perhaps people feared the power that such a temple would bring to David. The biblical writers may have included the story of Yahweh’s refusal of a temple because they were disturbed that David, their ideal king, had failed to build a temple for his God. The Chronicler thought that David had been denied this high honor because he had shed too much blood and that Solomon had been given the privilege because he was a man of peace.16 We have seen that building had a religious significance in the cities of the ancient world. David had achieved other construction work in Jerusalem, as befitted a king. He had built himself a palace of cedar wood brought from the Lebanon; he had repaired the “Millo,” a word that seems to puzzle the biblical writers but probably referred to the old terraces on the Ophel. He had also built the Tower of David, a new citadel. To accommodate the growing number of civil servants, craftsmen, and soldiers that his expanding empire required, he had enlarged the city, breaking down the walls at one point to do so. But just as Moses, who had led the people out of Egypt, had died on the threshold of the Promised Land, David had led the people of Yahweh into Jerusalem but had not been permitted to build the temple that would one day make this Jebusite city the holiest place in the Jewish world.
He had at least been able to prepare the ground by purchasing the site of the future Temple of Solomon from Araunah, who may have been the last Jebusite king. David had sinned, our authors tell us, by ordering a census. This was always an unpopular measure, because it was usually a prelude to taxation and forced labor. As a result, God sent a plague upon the kingdom which killed seventy thousand people in three days. Finally David saw Yahweh’s “angel” standing beside the threshing floor of Araunah on Mount Zion, with his arm outstretched toward the city below. David could only avert the plague, he was informed by a court prophet, by building an altar to Yahweh on the site of this theophany. The biblical writers show David and Araunah working harmoniously together during this crisis. The incident is reminiscent of Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite. Like Ephron, Araunah wanted to give the place away without charging David a single shekel, but David, who could simply have annexed the area, behaved with admirable courtesy and respect toward his predecessor and insisted on paying the full price.17 Today many scholars believe that the site may have been one of the holy places of Jebusite Jerusalem: threshing floors were often used in Canaan for public meetings or prophetic divination or in the fertility cult of Baal, and a floor such as that owned by Araunah, in a high exposed position at the entrance of the city, could well have been used in the cult.18 The biblical writers do not mention this, perhaps because they were disturbed by the possibility of their Temple having been built on a pagan bamah (cult place), but such continuity was common in antiquity. Araunah shows no anger but seems quite willing to share this sacred space with David, even offering to pay for the first sacrifice on the new altar. Holiness was not something that human beings could own or feel possessive about. The theophany had shown that the place belonged to the gods, and in the next generation, the children of David and of Araunah would pray together on Mount Zion.
David is also said to have collected the materials for a new temple, sending to his ally Hiram, King of Tyre, for cedarwood and juniper. The Chronicler in particular cannot bear the idea that David took no part in the building of the Temple. He tells us that Yahweh had revealed the plan of the future sanctuary in minute detail and that David then passed on
