The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Understanding King David’s Complex Legacy

Few biblical figures have captured our imagination quite like King David. From Michelangelo’s statue to Leonard Cohen’s lyrics, David’s story has inspired countless artists, writers, and thinkers across millennia. Dr. Orit Avnery, a Bible lecturer at the Shalem College, director of the Reshit initiative and research fellow at the Hartman Institute’s Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought, brings fresh perspective to this ancient tale in her Hebrew-language online lecture series at Beit Avi Chai, part of the Seder Boker program. Her series, “David: The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” incorporates Midrashic literature, prophetic books, Psalms, and more, to create a multifaceted portrait of David that speaks to contemporary concerns while respecting ancient tradition. This approach reflects Dr. Avnery’s broader scholarly work, including her book “Standing on the Threshold: Foreignness and Belonging in the Books of Ruth and Esther.”

David’s story of power, family struggles, and yearning for the divine is as relevant as ever. “He’s a fascinating, complex figure,” Dr. Avnery explains. “Both in his positive and negative traits. We can both learn from him and critique him, rather than follow him with eyes closed.”

A photo album with one picture missing

Despite being such an important figure in the Bible, unlike some other biblical heroes, David’s birth story is mysteriously absent from the text. “We don’t know who his mother is,” Dr. Avnery notes. “The Bible doesn’t tell us, apart from one small reference in Psalms (a subtle allusion that may refer to a forgotten story).” This absence, she suggests, is made up for by the Book of Ruth, which tells the story of David’s great-grandmother – “a substitute birth story” that hints at what follows.

The Bible seems more fascinated with David than almost any other figure. “We know him from his youth to his death, with many family and political dramas,” Dr. Avnery explains. “The Bible is interested in him and his children and his relations with God and the prophets and with himself.” This comprehensive portrait spans decades of triumph and tragedy, creating what she calls a “photo album of David” that reveals multiple facets of his character, with only the picture of his birth missing.

Political and personal drama

David defies easy categorization. He’s both the brave warrior who defeats Goliath and a sensitive poet. He’s a loyal friend who mourns deeply for his enemies and a ruthless king. He’s a devoted servant of God, but he also commits adultery and arranges for his foes to be killed. “He’s very wise but often acts immorally,” Dr. Avnery observes. “He’s not a one-dimensional figure.”

This complexity extends to his relationships. The Bible tells us that everyone loves David – Saul, Jonathan, Michal, the Jewish people – but “it’s never written that he loves anyone.” Michal, Saul’s daughter and David’s first wife, is notably described as loving David – “the only woman in the Bible who is said to love someone, something that is mentioned only twice throughout the biblical narrative.” Yet their relationship, like David’s other marriages, becomes entangled in political and personal drama. His marriages to Michal, Abigail, and Bathsheba each carry their own dramatic weight, while his relationship with his sons reads like an ancient soap opera. “This is a beautiful saga which shows how connected he is to his sons, but he can’t handle them,” Dr. Avnery explains.

The tragedy of David’s relationship with his sons stems partly from his own moral failures. After his affair with Bathsheba, when he arranged the death of her husband Uriah, David finds himself unable to discipline his children. “Because of what happened to Bathsheba, he can’t tell them what to do because it would be hypocritical. He doesn’t know how to behave around them.”

This dynamic plays out dramatically in the stories of his sons Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah – tales of rape, revenge, rebellion, and death that would challenge any parent, let alone a king trying to maintain political stability. “He struggles with the people he’s close to, but he’s an excellent politician,” Dr. Avnery notes, highlighting the tension between David’s public success and private failures.

David is king but God is the true king

David’s journey from fugitive shepherd to powerful monarch offers timeless lessons about leadership under pressure. His rise to power required both courage and cunning, loyalty and risk-taking. “He has a lot of power, but he often uses his mind, like with Goliath or even with Saul,” Dr. Avnery explains. “He’s very loyal but he also knows how to be cruel and to make political calculations.”

Central to David’s story is his relationship with God, which remains constant even as his circumstances change dramatically. “Even before he was a political leader, he had a close relationship with God,” Dr. Avnery explains. “He often spoke with him, made requests of him, prayed to him, felt committed to him.” This relationship continues even through David’s greatest moral failures, including the Bathsheba affair. David is always yearning for God.

The Bible presents David’s sin as “a one-time failure” of which he repents and returns from to his path of faithfulness. This portrayal suggests that even great leaders can fall and find redemption. “David is king but he understands that God is the true king,” Dr. Avnery observes, pointing out the humility that underlies David’s greatness.

It’s worth noting that David’s story has taken on new urgency in recent months. “Reading the story of Absalom’s death touched me a lot recently, especially because of the ongoing war and all the fathers who have been burying their sons in Israel,” Dr. Avnery reflects. “Also the loss of Saul and Jonathan. David lost many people along the way, and he knew how to articulate grief. This year that’s been more relevant than ever.”

Far reaching influence and enduring power

David’s influence extends far beyond his biblical narrative. His messianic significance in the Jewish tradition, his role in Christian theology as an ancestor of Jesus, and his continuing presence in literature and art all testify to his enduring power. “David's story doesn’t end with his death; he keeps appearing in later biblical books, poetry, and even modern literature,” Dr. Avnery notes, emphasizing that the ancient king’s appeal lies not in his perfection but in his flawed humanity.

This is why, after three millennia, we still find ourselves drawn to this ancient figure. In David’s thousand faces, we can glimpse reflections of our own complex humanity and perhaps discover insights that can guide us through our own challenging times.

For more, see Dr. Orit Avnery’s online lecture series (in Hebrew), “David: The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”

Main Photo: King David Playing the Harp (1622) by Gerard van Honthorst\ Wikipedia