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God did warn them, I believe, that if the Jewish people persisted with their wish to have a king, he would put upon them no end, pressing their sons into forced labour for his personal benefit. But after God had finally acceded to their wishes, David vehemently reiterated that, under no circumstances, would he raise his hand against the Lord's Anointed; this, even though Saul actively sought his life, and on occasions, David had him at his complete mercy.
As regards God telling David he was passing him over in favour of Solomon, as the builder of a temple for him, because he had shed much blood over the earth, he spoke kindly to him about how he had been content to live in a tent al the time he had been with him (David), and had never asked David for more sumptuous or dignified quarters.
And there certainly seems to be some ambiguity about it too, insofar as most of the blood of Israel's enemies that David, as the C-in-C of the armed forces, had been responsible for shedding, would have been at the behest of God. So, to our eyes, at least, that might have been a little easier to understand, if he had cited David's murder of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband.
It is also interesting to note that Solomon was the second child born of Bathseba, and not of any of David's kind of pristine, uncompromised unions with his other wives or concubines; which calls to mind Paul's precept, that everything works together for good to them that love God. However, his forgiveness by God should be seen in the context of David's life of extraordinary magnanimity. "Love covers many sins".
In fact, as befits a mortal man whose patronymic the living God chose for his own, David was honoured with the unimaginably sovereign compliment, i.e that he had carried out his whole purpose. And then surely the ultimate tribute that the all-powerful eternal God could pay to mortal creature of his: "In my eyes, your throne is like the sun; like the moon it will endure forever".
Just as their counterparts in society at large, unwittingly blaspheme in the depths of their spiritual darkness, it has not infrequently happened that crass wordlings, in the guise of some of the most distinguished scripture-scholar priests, have displayed their spiritual ignorance by having the blasphemous temerity to write David off in encycopaedias of the Bible as, to quote one, now I believe deceased, "little better than a bandit!!! Little wonder then that Pope John Paul II deplored and warned against such clerical scolars taking their vocation simply as an alternative to the pursuit of a worldy career.
The thing is, of course, that it was in obedience to God, himself that David lived the life of an outlaw for so long - when, indeed, he might have killed Saul and taken his throne there and then. After all, he had been anointed for that very purpose by Samuel.
From the earliest times, eminent Christian scholar saints have rightly, of course, lauded David for what he was: one of the ultimate "big shots" of all time, in the history of Israel, in God's own eyes. As a lad, he had been a shepherd, who had fought and killed bears and lions, on at least one occasion, with his bare hands; he was a field marshall who had fought as a "grunt" at the sharp end, in a succession of fierce battles, eventually becoming an administrator and king; and elsewhere. It is stated by a sacred writer, that, I think in one of the psalms, it is written that David rose seven times during the night to pray. He was also, of course, a musician and a sublime writer of psalms - the ultimate prayers-cum-poems.
It is also noteworthy that the propensity for mindless violence of the sons of his sister, Sarvia - I think Joab was one of them - appalled him.
Solomon eventually displeased God by following foreign women, who led him into idolatry, although his throne would be secure, as long as he lived. When David was an old man, he was given Abishag the Sunamite as a bed fellow, to keep him warm, but didn't mate with her, and I suspect it was at least partly because he didn't want to spoil her future as some presumably lucky young man's wife. One can only speculate, but I wonder if Solomon would have abstained in his place.
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