King David: Mighty Conqueror (A Blog Exclusive)

By the time David has established the capital in Jerusalem and begun dreaming of building God's home, the Temple, it is obvious that he has consolidated his power throughout the kingdom. More than this, his military prowess has turned back all foreign threats against the Israelites -- nobody, it seems, wants to take David on. With his capable leadership, David has provided peace and security for his kingdom.

For some leaders, that would be enough, but not David. Having built the army into a force more than capable of defending his kingdom, David has no desire to let it just sit around. So David begins a series of campaigns intended to capture the surrounding kingdoms, turning them into vassal states in which the governments are forced to pay annual tributes to Israel.

In a series of campaigns, David extends his kingdom and his kingdom's influence in all directions: pushing against the Philistines in the west, the Moabites and Ammonites in the east, the Edomites and the Amalekites in the south, and the Arameans in the north. Click here for a map of David's attacks. He conquered city after city -- in the words of 2 Samuel, "The Lord gave victory to David everywhere he went."

With his conquests, David creates an empire (short-lived though it will be). This is the first and only time that Israel will be an empire in its history. During David's reign (and that of his heir Solomon), the kingdom reaches its greatest geographical expanse and reaches the height of its regional influence. Click here for a map of David's empire.

It is hard to underestimate the pride of the Israelites (and their descendants, the Jews) in David's empire. Centuries later, after the divided kingdoms, Israel and then Judah, have themselves been conquered by a succession of empires (the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Romans), they fondly remember the time when Israel was the dominant political presence in the Middle East. Even today, in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, it is interesting to note how closely many of Israel's land claims mirror the map of David's ancient kingdom.

During David's lifetime, David's aggressive expansion of his kingdom represented the full transition of the Israelite people from a tribal society to a monarchy, from an agricultural, rural-centered culture to a commercial, urban-centered culture. (And if that's an overstatement for the Israelite people as a whole, it certainly reflects the transition of those Israelites with economic and political power.) The geography of David's conquests suggests two things: first, he just wanted to control more territory, but second, he wanted to control the major trade routes of the region, which, not coincidentally, went through all the non-Philistine territory he conquered.

With these actions, David fulfills the expectations of those Israelites who had wanted a king. He becomes a king enviable to other nations -- mighty warrior, talented bureaucrat, fledgling emperor. He unites his people and marshalls their strength to take control of other nations, creating a geographic buffer zone, a ready source of military allies, and a consistent source of annual income (in the form of tribute).

While the borders on the maps linked above are fixed, the politics of any empire ebb and flow. Once David started forcing his influence on these other nations, he had to deal with them, politically and militarily, from that point on. So even though David evidently conquered the six nations in short order, he had to keep close tabs on them to ensure that they remained loyal to him. He dispatches parts of the Israelite army to garrison in some of the foreign cities.

At one point, after the king of the Arameans dies, the new king tries to push back against the Israelites. He forges an alliance with the Ammonites, so that the two kingdoms can both attack the Israelites simultaneously. This creates a two-front war for Israel (in the north and the northeast). David dispatches the army under his main general Joab to face the uprising; curiously, David does not go with the army to these battles. Instead he stayed in Jerusalem, where his attention was distracted from military affairs; indeed his eye wandered and fell on affairs of an entirely different sort.