David says of himself, “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”[620] The Rabbis explain this passage by narrating the circumstances of the conception of David, which I shall give in Latin. The mother of David they say was named Nitzeneth. “Dixerunt Rabbini nostri beatæ memoriæ, quod Isai (Jesse) habebat ancillam, eamque sollicitabat ad turpia; quæ, cum esset pudica et fidelis uxori Isai, eidem retulit; quæ seipsam aptavit (loco ancillæ) et congressa est cum Isai, ex quo concubitu egressus est David. Et quia Isai intentio fuerat in ancillam, quamquam res aliter evenerat, idcirco dixit David,—super eum sit pax: Ecce in iniquitate formatus sum, et peccato calefecit me mater mea.”[621]
On this account, Jesse, having discovered the deception, lightly esteemed his son David, and sent him to keep sheep, and made him as a servant to his brethren. And to this David refers when he says, “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner;”[622] for, from being the despised brother, put to menial work, he was exalted before his brethren to be king over Israel.
When David was born he would have died immediately, had not Adam, when he saw his posterity marshalled before him, taken compassion on David, and given him seventy years.[623]
However, David was without a soul for the first fourteen years of his life, and was so regarded by God, as he was uncircumcised;[624] but other Rabbinic writers say that he was born circumcised.
The Jewish authors relate, as do the Mussulman historians, that David had red hair. In Jalkut (1 Sam. xvi. 12) it is said, “Samuel sent, and made David come before him, and he had red hair;”[625] and again in Bereschith Rabba, “When Samuel saw that David had red hair, he feared and said, He will shed blood as did Esau. But the ever-blessed God said, This man will shed it with unimpassioned eyes—this did not Esau. Esau slew out of his own caprice, but this man will execute those sentenced to death by the Sanhedrim.”
David was very small, but when Samuel poured the oil upon his head and anointed him, he grew rapidly, and was soon as tall as was Saul. And this the commentators conclude from the fact of Saul having put his armor upon David, and it fitted him. Now Saul was a head and shoulders taller than any man in Israel; therefore David must have started to equal height since his anointing.[626]
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]