David Becomes King
about 1010 BC to 1003 BC, estimated dateEstimated date
After Saul dies in battle on Mount Gilboa, the men of Judah anoint David king at Hebron. Seven and a half years later, when the war with Saul’s house is over, the elders of all Israel anoint him king over the whole nation.
Saul died fighting the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. Three of his sons were killed, among them Jonathan, and the king, hard pressed by archers, fell on his own sword (1 Samuel 31:1–6). David was at Ziklag when the news came. He mourned and fasted, and made a lament for Saul and Jonathan with the refrain, “How the mighty have fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:1–4, 11–12, 17–27).
David asked the Lord where he should go and was sent to Hebron. There the men of Judah anointed him king over the house of Judah (2 Samuel 2:1–4). Abner, the commander of Saul’s army, made Saul’s son Ish-bosheth king over the other tribes at Mahanaim (2 Samuel 2:8–10). A long war followed, in which David’s house grew stronger and Saul’s weaker (2 Samuel 3:1).
Abner quarrelled with Ish-bosheth and offered to bring all Israel over to David. At Hebron he was killed by Joab, David’s commander, in revenge for a brother. David mourned him in public, and the people understood that the king had not ordered the killing (2 Samuel 3:6–12, 26–37). Two of Ish-bosheth’s own captains then murdered him in his bed and brought his head to David, who had them put to death (2 Samuel 4:2, 5–12).
All the tribes of Israel then came to Hebron and said, “we are your bone and your flesh”. David made a covenant with the elders before the Lord, and they anointed him king over Israel (2 Samuel 5:1–3). He was thirty years old when he began to reign. He reigned forty years: seven and a half at Hebron over Judah, and thirty-three at Jerusalem over all Israel and Judah (2 Samuel 5:4–5). Chronicles passes over the years of civil war and tells only of the anointing by all Israel (1 Chronicles 11:1–3).
In this account David does not seize the throne from Saul’s family. He executes the man who claims to have killed Saul (2 Samuel 1:13–16), as he does the murderers of Ish-bosheth, and he is made king first by the men of Judah and then by the elders of Israel. The first thing Samuel tells of him as king of the whole nation is the taking of Jerusalem (David Takes Jerusalem and Brings the Ark). The New Testament opens by calling Jesus “the son of David” (Matthew 1:1).
How this is dated
Estimated date. A scholarly estimate from primary evidence, with a margin of years.
Samuel and Kings give lengths of reigns, not calendar years. David reigned forty years, seven and a half at Hebron and thirty-three at Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:4–5) (1 Kings 2:11), and Solomon reigned forty (1 Kings 11:42). Calendar years are found by counting backwards from later reigns. Assyrian records fix two points: King Ahab fought Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC (Ahab at the Battle of Qarqar), and Jehu paid him tribute in 841 BC (Jehu’s Revolt and Tribute to Assyria). Working back from these through the regnal figures in Kings, Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (3rd ed., 1983), put Solomon’s death and the division of the kingdom in 931/930 BC (The Kingdom Divides). Forty years for Solomon and forty for David then place David’s accession at Hebron about 1010 BC and his anointing over all Israel about 1003 BC. K. A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003), gives much the same dates.
The margin is wider than these figures suggest. Forty years is a figure that the Bible uses often, and it may be a round number: it is given for David, for Solomon and for several of the judges (Judges 3:11; 5:31; 8:28). If either reign was in fact shorter or longer, the dates move with it.
No inscription from David’s lifetime names him. The earliest widely accepted mention outside the Bible is the phrase “House of David” on an Aramaic stele of the ninth century BC (The House of David Inscription from Tel Dan).
Primary sources
In context
Grows out of
- about 1025 BC, traditional date
Leads to
- about 1003 BC, estimated date