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Chapter 5

David King of Israel. (A)All the tribes of Israel came to David in Hebron, and they said: “Look! We are your bone and your flesh. In days past, when Saul was still our king, you were the one who led Israel out in all its battles and brought it back. And the Lord said to you: You shall shepherd my people Israel; you shall be ruler over Israel.”(B) Then all the elders of Israel came to the king in Hebron, and at Hebron King David made a covenant with them in the presence of the Lord; and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years: in Hebron he was king over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he was king thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.(C)

Capture of Zion.[a] (D)Then the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the land. They told David, “You shall not enter here: the blind and the lame will drive you away!” which was their way of saying, “David shall not enter here.”(E) David nevertheless captured the fortress of Zion, which is the City of David.

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Footnotes

  1. 5:6–12 David’s most important military exploit, the taking of Jerusalem, is here presented before his battles with the Philistines, vv. 17–25, which took place earlier. The sense of vv. 6 and 8 is in doubt. Perhaps the Jebusites boasted that Jerusalem was impregnable, using a metaphorical or proverbial expression that claimed the city was defensible even by people not suited for military action. The saying then received a different sense (v. 8), to the effect that “the blind and the lame” were David’s enemies. Mt 21:14 and Lk 14:13 seem to play off, and transform, this saying.

10 David became ever more powerful, for the Lord of hosts was with him.(A)

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