David was gifted with the evil eye, and was able to give the leprosy by turning a malignant glance upon any man. “When it is written, ‘The Philistine cursed David by his gods,’[[627]] David looked at him with the evil eye. For whoever was looked upon by him with the evil eye became leprous, as Joab knew to his cost, for after David had cast the evil glance on him, it is said, ‘Let there not fail from the house of Joab one that hath an issue, or that is a leper.’[[628]]
“The same befell the Philistine when he cursed David. David then threw on him the malignant glance, and fixed it on his brow, that he might at once become leprous; and at the same moment the stone and the leprosy struck him.”[[629]]
But David was himself afflicted for six months with this loathsome malady, and it is in reference to this that he says, “Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” During this period, he was cast out and separated from the elders of the people, and the Divinity withdrew from him.[[630]] And this explains the discrepancy apparent in the account of the number of years he reigned. It is said that he reigned over Israel forty years,[[631]] but he reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty and three in Jerusalem. In the Second Book of Samuel, however, it is said, he reigned in Hebron seven years and six months;[[632]] though the statement that he reigned only forty years in all, that is, thirty-three in Jerusalem, is repeated. Consequently, these six months do not count, the reason being that David was at that time afflicted with the disorder, and cut off from society, and reputed as one dead.[[633]]
The Rabbis suppose that David sinned in cutting off the skirt of Saul’s robe;[[634]] and they say that he expiated this fault in his old age, by finding no warmth in his clothes, wherewith he wrapped himself.[[635]] For it is said, “King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat.”[[636]]
To David is attributed by the Rabbi Solomon the power of calling down the rain, the hail, and the tempest, in vengeance upon his enemies. “Our Rabbis,” says he, “say that these things were formerly stored in heaven, but David came and made them to descend on the earth: for they are means of vengeance, and it is not fitting that they should be garnered in the Treasury of God.”[[637]] But the rain and hail fell at the Deluge, in Egypt, and on the Amorites; therefore the signification to be attributed to this opinion of the Rabbis probably is, that David was the first to be able to call them down by his prayer.
David had a lute which he hung up above his head in the bed, and the openings of the lute were turned towards the north, and when the cool night air whispered in the room towards dawn it stirred the strings of the lute, which gave forth such sweet and resonant notes, that David was aroused from his sleep early, before daybreak, that he might occupy himself in the study of the Law. And it is to this that he refers when he cries in his Psalm, “Awake, lute and harp: I myself will awake right early.”[[638]]
When Absalom was slain, David saw Scheol (Hell) opened, and his son tormented, for his rebellion, in the lowest depths. The sight was so distressing to the king, that he wrapped his mantle about his face and cried, “O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” Here it is to be noted that David called Absalom either by name or by his relationship seven times. Now in Hell there are seven mansions, and as each cry escaped the father’s heart, Absalom was released from one of these divisions of the Pit; and he thus effected his escape from Gehenna through the love of his father, which drew him up out of misery.[[639]]
David was very desirous to build a temple to the Lord, but God would not suffer him to do so, as he was a man of blood. This is the reason why he so desired to erect a temple. When he was young, and pastured his father’s sheep, he came one day upon a rhinoceros (unicorn) asleep, and he did not know that it was a rhinoceros, but thought it was a mountain, so he drove his flock up its back, and fed them on the grass which grew thereon. But presently the rhinoceros awoke, and stood up, and then David’s head touched the sky. He was filled with terror, and he vowed that if God would save his life and bring him safely to the ground again, he would build to the Lord a temple of the dimensions of the horn of the beast, an hundred cubits. The Talmudists are not agreed as to whether this was the height, or the breadth, of the horn; however, the vow was heard, and the Lord sent a lion against the rhinoceros; and when the unicorn saw the lion, he lay down, and David descended his back, along with his sheep, as fast as possible; but when he saw the lion, his spirit failed him again. However he took the lion by the beard, and smote, and slew him. This adventure the Psalmist recalls when he says, “Save me from the lion’s mouth: Thou hast heard me also from among the horns of the unicorns;”[[640]] and to his vow he alludes in Psalm cxxxii., “Lord, remember David, and all his trouble: how he sware unto the Lord, and vowed a vow unto the Almighty God of Jacob.”[[641]]
One day David was hunting in the wilderness. Then came Satan, in the form of a stag, and David shot an arrow at him, but could not kill him. This astonished him, for on one occasion, in strife with the Philistines, he had transfixed eight hundred men with one arrow.[[642]] Then he chased the deer, and it ran before him into the Philistine land. Now when Ishbi-benob, who was of the sons of the giant, knew this, he said, “David has slain my brother Goliath; now he is in my power!” and he came upon him and chained him, and cast him down, and laid a winepress upon him, that he might crush him, and squeeze all the blood out of him. But God softened the earth beneath him, so that it yielded to his body, and he was uninjured; as he says in the Psalms, “Thou shalt make room enough under me for to go.”[[643]] And as David lay under the press, he saw a dove fly by, and he said, “Oh that I had wings as a dove, that I might flee away, and be at rest;”[[644]] and he alludes to his being among the pots, and noting the wings of the dove as silver, in another Psalm.[[645]]
Now Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, heard the plaining of the dove, which had seen the trouble of the king, and came into Jerusalem in grief thereat. Then Abishai went to the chamber of David to search for him, but he was not there. Then he knew that the king must be in danger, and the only means of reaching him with speed was to mount the royal mule, which was fleet as the wind; but this Abishai did not venture to do without advice, for he remembered the words of the Mischna, “Thou shalt not ride the king’s horse, nor mount his throne, nor grasp his sceptre.” But as the danger was pressing, Abishai went to the school, and consulted the doctors of the Law, who said, “In an emergency all things are lawful.” Then he mounted the mule of King David, and rode into the desert, and the earth flew under him, and he reached the house of Ishbi-benob. Now the mother of Ishbi-benob—her name was Orpha—sat without the door, spinning. And when she saw Abishai galloping up, she brake her thread and flung the spindle at him, with intent to strike him dead. But the spindle fell short of him. So Orpha cried to him, “Give me my spindle, boy.” Abishai stooped and picked it up, and cast it at her with all his force, and it struck her on the brow, and broke her skull, and she fell back and died.