David's Dramatization

I read II Samuel 22 for my quiet time this week. II Samuel 22 is mostly the same as Psalm 18. Both of them apply the song to God's deliverance of David from the hands of Saul.

Of particular interest to me is II Samuel 22:4-20 (NRSV):

4 I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
5 For the waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of perdition assailed me;
6 the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.
7 In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I called. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears.
8 Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
9 Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him.
10 He bowed the heavens, and came down; thick darkness was under his feet.
11 He rode on a cherub, and flew; he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness around him a canopy, thick clouds, a gathering of water.
13 Out of the brightness before him coals of fire flamed forth.
14 The LORD thundered from heaven; the Most High uttered his voice.
15 He sent out arrows, and scattered them-- lightning, and routed them.
16 Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.
17 He reached from on high, he took me, he drew me out of mighty waters.
18 He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me.
19 They came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my stay.
20 He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

But this stuff didn't happen in the story of David. David wasn't literally sinking in a pit. God didn't lay bare the foundations of the earth, uncover streams, and throw thunder-bolts from heaven in I-II Samuel's narrative about David. There are times in the Bible when God actually does stuff like that (e.g., Sinai; I Samuel 7:10; the synoptic depictions of Jesus' crucifixion). But we don't see it in the David story.

The commentaries I read today struggled with this problem. The Jewish commentator Rashi related many of the verses in II Samuel 22 to the Exodus and Sinai, even though II Samuel 22:7ff. explicitly states that God did all that dramatic stuff in response to David's plight. Then some commentators say that David was talking about the God of the Exodus and Sinai delivering him from death. That somewhat skirts the issue, since, again, II Samuel 22:7ff. affirms that God did all that dramatic stuff in response to David's plight.

But David felt that he had experienced God in a dramatic fashion. Saul and his other enemies had placed David's life at stake on numerous occasions, and David survived them all. David could foresee the possibility that he would be king and would defeat and rule Israel's foreign oppressors, even as some of the Gentiles would become drawn to the God of Israel (vv 44-46, 49-50). David wanted to find some way to celebrate the God who had delivered him, and he did so through mythological language: a dramatic story in which God lifts him from the pit of death, overturns creation in his rage against David's enemies, and places him in a safe place.

Some scholars have argued that the Exodus story was like this. A group of Israelites narrowly escaped death at the hands of oppressive Egyptians or Canaanites, and went on to establish a nation of justice. They decided to express their experience of the divine through a myth, in which a warrior God defeats the monster Pharaoh and splits open the seas to create the nation of Israel. This story overlaps with a motif that appears throughout the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East (e.g., the Babylonian Enuma Elish): a god defeats a dragon and creates the universe after dividing the chaotic waters. Perhaps the Israelites (like David) used mythological themes to describe what they believed was an experience of the divine: their liberation from an oppressive power and the forging of their identity as a nation of justice. This is a rather liberal way of looking at the Scriptures, though, and conservatives may reply that the "mythology" actually occurred in history. And a point in the conservatives' favor would be the biblical passages that describe the Exodus in terms of God's signs and wonders, might, and miraculous works (Exodus 15; Deuteronomy; Psalm 105-106), indicating the Israelites really believed that God did something powerful and extraordinary.

I think about believers who portray their lives as if it's a cosmic drama. One Christian I know said that God wanted him to go to such -and-such a school, but Satan was tempting him in another direction. There are charismatics and Pentecostals who dogmatically emplot God and Satan into their day-to-day lives. Frank Schaeffer presents his mother, Edith, doing this: God dramatically stepped down and delivered her, or offered her guidance, or kept the Christian work afloat.

In my opinion, this can be good, and it can be bad. When it demonizes others or leads people to confuse God's will with their own, then it's probably bad. When it celebrates God's goodness, or encourages a person to pursue justice or to love others, then it's good. For the latter, I think of Christians, people in AA, and other theists who believe that God puts people in their path for a reason---to help them, or to be helped.

A Jewish theologian I know once said that we "put" God in certain events when we emplot them, meaning there's no way to determine if God's really at work in a particular situation. He often said, "I don't know what God wants!", and he could point out the damaging examples of people who acted on dogmatic beliefs about "the will of God" (e.g., the terrorists who caused 9/11). For the theologian, two people can look at a situation. One claims to see God's activity, whereas the other sees coincidence or a natural outworking of events. And there's no way to objectively decide who's right.

Who knows? David looked at the many times when he narrowly escaped death before he became king, and he concluded that this was more than mere coincidence, that a loving and caring God was actually looking out for him. Is there a time when there are just too many coincidences, meaning God is very likely at work?