David in the Service of King Achish of Gath: Renegade to His People or a Fith Column in the Philistine Army?* Yael Shemesh Ramat Gan, Israel Abstract he biblical presentation of David’s ostensible willingness to ight on the side of the Philistines against Israel (1 Sam. xxvii-xxix) is examined. hrough a literary analysis it is shown that David is not depicted as intending to betray Saul and Israel. On the contrary, the narrator provides many hints that the Philistine commanders’ assessment of David is correct and that had he not been sent away he would have fought against the Philistines and for Israel. His dismissal, instigated by the Philistine commanders, is compatible with the divine plan for Israel’s defeat, the destruction of the House of Saul, and David’s succeeding Saul on the throne of Israel (1 Sam. xxviii 16-19). Keywords David, Philistines I. Introduction he corpus of stories referred to in the scholarly literature as ‘the History of David’s Rise’ (HDR) (1 Sam. xvi-2 Sam. v) includes the rather embarrassing incident of David’s desertion, with his private band of 600 ighters, to the land of the Philistines, Israel’s most implacable enemy (1 Sam. xxvii 1-2). 1 Most troubling is David’s failure to demur at Achish’s order that he join him * ) All biblical passages are rendered according to the New JPS translation, unless otherwise indicated. 1) Just how embarrassing the story is may be inferred from the fact that Pseudo-Philo, the author of Biblical Antiquities, omitted the story from his work. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156853307X167864 Vetus Testamentum 57 (2007) 73-90 www.brill.nl/vt Vetus Testamentum