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On the brink of war, two men prepare to duel.

One, a Goliath, known in the Bible as a giant more than nine feet tall.

The other, a young Israelite shepherd, David.

It's one of the Bible's most famous stories.

But behind the heroic legend lies a tale of relentless ambition, violent

murder, conquests on the battlefield,

and in the bedroom.

David's quest will ultimately unite a people, but not before it tears a

apart.

The legendary David and Goliath duel takes place around 1015 B .C., a time

the Israelites are in the middle of a bloody war against a vicious enemy, the

Philistines.

It's been more than 200 years since the great military commander Moses first led

the 12 Israelite tribes out of Egypt during the Exodus.

Joshua then continued the Israelite military campaign.

and successfully invaded the promised land of Canaan.

Now, after two centuries and thousands of lives lost in bloody battles, the

Israelites no longer call this land Canaan. It is their homeland, Israel.

They have become one of the most powerful military forces in the region.

and are united for the first time under a king named Saul.

For years, Saul's war against the Philistines has been drenching the soil

blood.

On a fateful day in the Valley of Allah, only one will die.

But it will be a monumental and historic death.

The armies faced one another for several days until, as often happened in the

ancient world, which believed that it was God that decided battles, that each

side would choose a champion.

And the champions would meet, and whoever won would convey victory to

side.

Everyone knows the story of David and Goliath, where David ventures onto the

plain, fires a sling at Goliath, strikes him between the eyes, and Goliath is

killed.

And then David goes over, takes his sword, and chops off Goliath's head.

David's slaying of Goliath is a turning point in the war against the

Philistines. But more importantly, it launches the young shepherd boy down a

bloody path of intrigue. deception and paranoia which will ultimately propel

to the throne.

It's one of the more interesting aspects of the Bible that David is held in such

high regard as the father of Israel and the king of Israel. But when you really

look at his career, what he really is is a kind of bloodthirsty opportunist.

More than a mythical figure, more than a person of great valor, he more

resembles Mafia Don.

A very narrow, self -interested man who clearly knew what he wanted and was

prepared to do anything to get it, to include the betrayal and killing of his

own people. The important thing about the incident of David and Goliath is not

military. It's political and social.

What happens because of the slaying of Goliath is this young man comes to the

attention of the great warrior King Saul.

David is an instant hero.

He wins a position as King Saul's personal weapons bearer.

This gives David the opportunity to hone his skills as a soldier.

But Saul's initial feelings of admiration soon darken into suspicion

jealousy.

Even from the beginning, you get the sense that this is going to lead to

disaster. On the way back from the first battle after David flew Goliath, there

is dancing in the streets and women singing, Saul has slain his thousands

David his ten thousands.

Saul has just been through 20 years of brutal war, while David has thrown

a single stone.

So perhaps we can forgive Saul for being...

A tad bit jealous.

What Saul was concerned about, and rightly so, having spent all his years

creating at least a modicum of a kingdom of Israel with him as a king, he's

interested in passing that on to his son.

And he's a little bit concerned that David has picked up some allies at

because David turns out to be a good soldier.

Saul is also suspicious of David's close friendship with Saul's son, Jonathan.

The two young men form a brotherly bond on and off the battlefield.

Saul now is becoming quite alarmed that David is positioning himself to be the

heir of the throne or failing that to control Jonathan.

And this becomes the basis for the break with David.

To escape Saul, David retreats to his home tribe of Judah, a region in

Israel. But even here he is hunted by Saul's hitmen.

So David flees Israel and allies himself with its greatest enemy.

The Philistines.

It was at this time that David begins to assemble a cadre of what the Bible

calls desperate men.

They are really outlaws.

They're soldiers of fortune, and they place themselves on the side of the

Philistines. So now David is not only an outlaw, but in a very real sense, he's

become a traitor to his own people.

But before the Philistines accept David's help, they must be convinced he

a spy.

The first thing the Philistine prince is going to do, he's going to test David's

loyalty. And how do you test an Israelite's loyalty?

I've got to believe that he's going to order David to raid Israelite

settlements.

The Philistine prince controls the area called Gath, right next to the border of

David's home tribe of Judah.

Easy picket against Israeli, Israelite villages.

And so he sends David.

against the Israelite villages, and David follows orders.

David becomes a raider of the border villages between Philistia and the

Israelite kingdoms and gathers up the booty and delivers it to the Philistine

prince.

While David and his men are stationed near Hebron, the Bible says that the

Philistine army makes a daring raid on the Israelites at Mount Gilboa.

Saul and the Israelites hold the high ground.

It looks as though they'll be able to hold off the Philistine attack.

But the Philistines manage to encircle the Israelites and envelop them.

Saul and Jonathan are doomed.

Saul is hit several times.

He turns to a sword bearer and says, do not leave me to the uncircumcised.

They'll torture me and make sport of me.

But the sword bearer can't bring himself to kill his king.

Not willing to be captured, Saul takes his own life.

The Philistines behead Saul and hang his body on a wall of a Philistine city.

From the Philistine position, nothing could have been better. The Israelite

monarch is gone.

Israel is in defeat.

The Philistines now control everything.

But the Philistines have a problem. One heir to Saul's kingdom still remains,

his son Ishbal.

And neither he nor his chief military commander, Abner, is willing to accept

defeat.

Ishbal and Abner move across the Jordan River, but their government is too small

and remote to be of major concern.

So the Philistines simply ignore it.

However, they do want a way to control the Israelite population.

Their answer?

Make David king.

A messenger tells David of Saul's demise.

He carries with him Saul's crown.

The last people to have Saul's headpiece and his head, quite frankly, were the

Philistines. Now suddenly it ends up in the hands of David.

Makes one think that the Philistines have plans for David.

With the backing of the Philistines, David becomes king of the tribe of

But David's ambition is greater than that.

He's not interested in merely ruling as a Philistine puppet.

He wants to be king of all Israel.

He brings in muscle from his days as an outlaw, men who are ruthless,

experienced killers, and completely loyal to David.

Well, he takes...

those that was called the gegud which are those 600 uh outlaws that he had

fought with uh and he establishes them in all the villages and towns of judah

and the reason for this is not only to extend his political control but when he

has to raise a militia force from the from those israelite territories these

can enforce his will david chooses his nephew yoav as his chief military

commander to lead a civil war against ishmael's growing army

David knows that to become the uncontested king of Israel, he must

wipe out Saul's bloodline.

Israelites believe that Saul was anointed by God, so any blood relative

is automatically more legitimate than David can ever be.

That is, as long as they're alive.

Over the next two years, David's forces, led by Yoav, clash with Ishmael's

troops.

With every slash of his blade, David moves closer to his ultimate goal,

the crown of Israel.

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It's around 1004 B .C., just ten years after David slays Goliath, he fights a

bloody civil war to become king of all Israel.

David's nephew, Joab, leads the army against Ishba, the son of the dead

Israelite king Saul.

The Bible is silent about the number of battles and how many people were killed,

but it's very clear about the fact that Ishmael's army was getting the worst of

it. The weapon of the day is the straight sword used to hack, slash, and

deadly iron into the enemy.

The six -foot wooden spear, now tipped with iron, is used to skewer opposing

soldiers.

Ultimately, David's men prevail, but there is a loose end to tie up.

And this is where David the Mafia Don really starts to show his colors.

Like a scene right out of The Godfather, David becomes king and whacks all of

his enemies.

One of the first to die is Abner, Ishbal's commander.

He had tried to defect to David's side, but Yoav considered him a threat.

Yoav is the consigliere. Yoav is the trigger man. And he did it because it

the right thing to do.

At least if you're talking strategic politics.

Then one night while he sleeps, Ishmael is assassinated.

When the assassins present David with Ishmael's head, the king of Israel puts

them to death.

Now, looked at from a kind of Sicilian perspective.

If one orders the assassination of another person, the best way to prove

weren't involved is to kill the assassins you sent to kill him.

And he killed them as soon as they walked in the door.

David makes this whole to -do about how horrible it was that Ishbal was killed.

But of course, who is the one that benefited most from Ishbal's death?

David. The Bible never blames David for his death. But logically... Who else

could have done it?

In one final grisly act designed to secure his position as the king of

David orders the execution of the last remaining blood heirs to the throne,

Saul's seven young grandsons.

David has them crucified and staked out into the sun where they all die.

With that act, there are no more legitimate claimants to the throne.

David will never be blamed for any of the murders.

David's grip on the throne of Israel is secure, but his ambitions have grown.

He wants to expand Israel into an empire.

David rises to power because he's really the toughest guy on the block. He's the

most ambitious guy on the block.

He's the man with almost no limits in what he'll do to further his own

And so it's a bloody rise to power. And then what happens is it becomes a

bloody regime today in power.

David's first order of business is to rid himself of any obligation.

He betrays the Philistines who helped put him in power.

In a series of bloody battles, he beats them into submission.

After this defeat, the Philistine soldiers will fight for David's army.

They'll supply him with their most prized weapon, the war chariot.

The Philistine chariot of the day is drawn by two horses and usually carries

men, the driver and the archer. The archer must be highly skilled to launch

precision shots while traveling on uneven surfaces at up to 10 miles an

The wooden platform is fashioned in the shape of a D, with the axle placed in

the middle of the carrying platform, ensuring stability and giving the

added strength.

With an army that now numbers some 8 ,000 to 10 ,000 soldiers, David captures

the city of Jerusalem, where he establishes Israel's first capital.

He looks around, and what does he see?

What do any kings see when they're in charge?

Threats. And he looks to the east, and there on its border, on what today we

would call the modern Jordanian River or Jordan Valley,

There are three states that offer strategic and economic threats.

Amman, Moab, and Edom, which is first on David's hit list.

The real reason he wants that is economic.

There are large copper and iron mines in Edom, and Edom sits right across

what we call the King's Highway.

The King's Highway connects Syria and Egypt.

David wants free access to this important trade route, so he moves to

by force.

David moves very quickly to bring Edom within the Israelite orb and does so

incredible brutality.

David orders the complete extermination of the Edomite male population.

The children and women are sold into slavery.

Their government is dismantled.

And Edom essentially ceases to exist and is annexed by Israel.

The brutal carnage at Edom is a potent message to any who might consider

retaliation. But David's bloodletting has only just begun.

Next on his hit list, is moab having achieved the conquest of edom destroyed

its population but gathered all its economic resources and now having cut

king's highway uh the state that boarded up against edom the state of moab

now appears to be a threat to containing those, to preserving those resources.

It's an old story in history where something that was a buffer state at one

point suddenly becomes a threat and has to be neutralized. It's kind of

history's first domino theory.

David knows Moab is not really a military threat to Israel because it's

far side of the Dead Sea.

But he doesn't want to take any chances.

And again, he proves to be merciless.

David sends his army against Moab and makes very quick work of it.

Sure, numbers would have carried the day, but here we find an interesting

description of how he actually dealt with them.

And he smoked Moab and measured them with the line, making them to lie down

the ground.

And what the Bible tells us is that the captives of all military age were laid

out in three lines, while the troops went among two of the lines and put them

all to the mouth of the sword, which...

means, essentially, beheading them.

For the second time, David massacres his neighbors, leaving them unable to rise

against him.

But David's about to collide with Israel's most powerful competitor in the

region. More blood is about to spill on the Holy Land.

It's around 1000 BC, and King David's Israelite army is on the warpath.

They've already destroyed both the Edomite and Moabite people.

Now, David leads nearly 10 ,000 troops north.

Having conquered both Edom and Moab, David naturally turns his eyes to the

remaining.

that is a competitor for Israeli interests in the Jordan Valley, and that

Ammonites, whose capital is at Rabah, which is modern Amman.

Amman is the last but most important of the three eastern border states David

seeks to conquer.

It is Israel's prime competitor for regional influence.

In order to understand what happened at Raba, I have to understand the political

context, and that is that the Ammonites were not stupid.

They could clearly see the expansion of Israelite interests into the valley.

There were some negotiations between David and Haman, the king of Ammon,

David claimed some kind of diplomatic insult, at which point the Ammonites got

the message and began to look around for allies.

They found their allies in the north.

the land of Aram, in what is called Syria today.

It's a new force that has come to power under a leader named Hadadezer, who has

ambitions of his own.

Hadadezer's no fool. He's looking for any pretext to extend his main influence

south into Israel and to stop David's advance.

This is just the perfect pretext.

When David gets word the Ammonites have reached out to Hadadezer for help, He

orders Yoav to lead his army to Rabah.

And very quickly he assembles the entire army and puts his consuliere,

Yoav, in charge and tells him quickly to march on the capital of Rabah and

destroy it and defeat the Ammonites.

Yoav and the Israelites cross the Jordan River without opposition.

With no other troops in sight, Yoav marches straight across the plain to

What happens is, is the Ammonite army comes out of its city and deploys in

of the city with its infantry offering battle.

Yoav positioned his army opposite the Ammonites. But as the Israelites marched

toward the walls of Rabbah, 20 ,000 Arameans attacked them from the rear.

What had happened was the Ammonites formed up, essentially as bait to a

Yoav and the Israelite army are now caught between a hammer and an anvil.

To counter the Aramean attack, Yoav does something completely surprising.

He divides his force in two.

So Yoav turns to his brother, who's second in command, and says, you take

group and attack the walls. I'll take the other and deal with the chariots.

Remember that David...

had at his disposal a number of vassals of Canaanite and Philistine states whose

specialty was heavy infantry and chariot warfare.

Yoav orders his Canaanite and Philistine chariot corps to turn around and charge

the Arameans approaching from the plain.

What follows is a swirling mass of chariots vying for position.

as the opposing infantries fight it out in bloody hand -to -hand combat.

So this large chariot battle is fought on the open plain in which the Arameans

get the worst of and begin to flee.

With the chariots on the run, Yoav turns his infantry loose.

The Ammonite infantry, now mixing it up with the Israelite infantry in front of

the city, lose their spirit, and they begin to withdraw back into the city.

And so the battle is essentially a draw.

Yoav's success with his divided forces remains an amazing military feat to this

day.

Modern military tacticians always teach commanders to keep their forces

together.

But it sure must have put the fear of the Lord in Yoav, because he made no

further movement to attacking the capital of Rabah. He immediately grabbed

infantry, grabbed the chariots he had, and basically withdrew quickly back

across to Jordan and back to Jerusalem, saying that this has not been a great

day.

After the battle, the Arameans retreat north into what is now southern Syria.

David wastes no time.

The Bible states that he orders all Israel to assemble.

When you hear that phrase, all Israel, what you mean is the entire militia

probably 20 ,000 to 25 ,000 strong. David personally leads the Israelites

bypassing the capital of Rabbah and the Ammonite army.

He's a smart tactician, a little bit smarter than Yoav. He does not cross the

Jordan Valley where Yoav crossed.

What he does instead is he moves on the Israelite side along the water course of

the Jordan Valley, using it to protect his flank.

David and the Israelites collide with the Arameans somewhere south of Sikuth.

It is known as the Battle of Helam.

What we have to imagine in the battle at Helan was that it was a combined

infantry and chariot battle.

David refuses to lose.

King David of the Israelites is being true to his brutal reputation.

His current victims are the Arameans, and they are getting slaughtered.

There's no great detail in the Bible except to say that a swirling battle was

fought, and many of the Arameans were killed.

The proof of this is that the commander of the Arameans was killed.

Now, that tends to suggest that they were completely overwhelmed.

When you kill the commander of an ancient army, whose chariot borne, by

which means I can actually get out of here very quickly if I have to, you've

done a very good day's work.

Bruised by the Israelites a second time, the Arameans again retreat north.

David now understands that I didn't come this far to win a single battle. We

might as well deal with it while we have the troops in the field. And he

continues to move north.

News of the Aramean defeat at Halam spreads quickly throughout the region.

Revolts erupt throughout the states that the Aramean king Hadadezer had already

conquered.

This creates a real problem for the Armenian king Hadadezer.

because he can't launch a concerted attack against David until he puts down

these revolts.

So he has to deal with both at once.

Hadadezer orders one force to hold off David and the Israelites while he mounts

a campaign to put down the local revolts.

At this point, David continues his advance north and slams right

into...

Had the desert's rear guard For the third time in six months the

Israelites battle the powerful Arameans What

happens

is that David catches up with Hadadezer's main army. He turns, and a

battle occurs in which many thousands were playing the Bible.

And David smote Hadadezer, king of Zobah, by Hamas, as he went to establish

dominion at the river Euphrates.

David and the Israelites catch the Arameans on the run and slaughter many

them.

Hadadezer's empire is destroyed.

Now, unopposed from the north, David claims the Aramean vassal state in the

of Israel.

So now, with the addition of the Aramean kingdom, David controls a very large

area. This is what comes to define what is called the empire of Israel.

The new Israelite empire now stretches from the Euphrates River in the north to

the Egyptian border in Sinai to the south, from the Mediterranean Sea in the

west to the Jordanian mountains in the east.

But one last foe remains to be conquered before David can rest.

The Ammonites at Rabbah.

Now, of course, they are deprived of their Aramean armies.

And so David turns his attention to bringing Ammon into the Israelite orbit.

But at the same time, the Bible says David is distracted from his military

conquest by a beautiful woman he spies from his palace.

This seems to be the time when David is smitten by this beautiful girl named

Bathsheba.

And so, instead of taking the army himself into battle, some

analysts suspect what kept David in Jerusalem was his lust for Bathsheba.

Instead, he turns to his consigliere, Yoav, and says, take the army.

Go among the Ammonites and defeat them.

David orders Bathsheba to be brought to him.

But she is a married woman.

Her husband, Uriah the Hittite, is a soldier under Yoav in the Israelite

Total scandal.

David is the stuff of legend.

He's thought of as a great warrior and a great unifier.

He's the founder of the first Israelite nation state, the darling of the Bible.

But much has been said of his flaws, especially with women.

And so, while David is having his way with Bathsheba, Yoav assembles the

Israelite armies in two bodies.

One is the militia force stationed at Succuth in the Jordan River Valley.

The other is the elite army made up mostly of professional infantry and

chariotry. They march to Rabah and bring it under siege.

When you talk about a siege, and this time among the Israelites, is they have

siege equipment.

They take cities the way they normally take cities, which is by storm.

The problem with that, with regard to Rabah, is in order to do that, you need

large numerical advantage.

And most of the militia troops are at Sukkot.

From on top of the walls of Rabbah, Ammonite archers are easily able to pick

the Israelite infantry.

The blood spilled at Rabbah, however, is not what's occupying David's mind.

David is back in Jerusalem, apparently, having a good time with Bathsheba, and

he gets a message from Yoav, his commander, saying things are pretty

He said, you know, every time we venture near the walls, we lose men. We lost 18

men just yesterday, in which case David replies, well, then don't go near the

walls. Well, here is when the problem begins to develop, is that apparently

Bathsheba turns up pregnant.

And the problem with this is that she is married to Uriah the Hittite.

So this creates a bit of a problem.

Uriah is stationed with the army at Hrabah.

fighting for David.

David calls Uriah back to Jerusalem.

So Uriah, being a good soldier that he is, reports back to Jerusalem.

And David says to him, look, you've been a good soldier, you're on the front

line, you deserve a rest. Go back to your wife, go rest a little before you

back to battle.

Think about this for a minute.

There's only one reason David would send Uriah home to Bathsheba.

so they can have sex.

It looks like David is trying to hide the paternity of Bathsheba's unborn

Well, the next day, after David told him to go to his wife,

David walks out of his bedroom door and stumbles over Uriah the Hittite, who was

falling asleep outside the door. And one can imagine what the conversation was

like when the king of Israel says to this lowly soldier, What are you doing

here? I told you to go home to eat and be with your wife.

And he said, Sire, how can I do that?

When my colleagues and fellow soldiers are in danger at the front lines, I

cannot go with my wife.

It would be wrong.

Uriah keeps to the Israelite soldiers' code of honor.

None shall sleep with their wives when at war. All for one, one for all, so to

speak.

But in refusing David's command to sleep with his wife, he seals his fate with

David.

The Bible says David writes a note for Doab and sends it back to the front

with Uriah.

And he wrote in the letter saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest

battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die.

A good soldier to the end, Uriah follows his commander's orders without

question.

Uriah the Hittite is a valiant soldier who fights for the Israelites.

But the great King David has doomed him to die.

David essentially, having failed to camouflage the pregnancy of Bathsheba,

simply decides to have her husband killed in an almost mafia -like style.

And who else is in command of this, of course, is his consul, Yeri, which is

Yoav.

Yoav orders Uriah into battle, where survival is impossible.

David will stop at nothing to possess Bathsheba.

In Jerusalem, Bathsheba hears that Uriah has been killed in action.

She goes into mourning, standard cultural practice.

As soon as her period of mourning is over, King David calls her to become his

wife.

But David's behavior doesn't go unnoticed.

The Bible says it is God's will that the baby dies as punishment for David's

sins.

Uriah is dead.

David has taken Bathsheba as his wife.

This is all pretty heavy Old Testament scandal.

But militarily, there's still a battle being waged at Rabbah. The Israelites

still stuck outside the walls of Rabbah. And so finally,

David sends a message to Yoav, renew the attack, carry the day.

Yoav finally breaks through the Ammonite defenses.

And then Yochav, he sends a message back to David and says, in essence, look,

this is going well, but you'd better come out here because your absence is

noted. And what people are going to say is they're going to give me credit for

this victory. Well, David's no fool.

He understands that to be king means that you have to do kingly things. And

what he does is he marches up to Sukkoth, joins with the rest of the

then marches on Rabbah. And then now with even more troops, the city is taken

storm.

As with all his previous triumphs, David makes a point of eliminating any chance

of the banquet rising up against him.

The slaughter continues.

The Bible says he set the people to the mold, which is essentially what Pharaoh

had done to the Israelites. He set them to construction work.

One of their first tasks, tear their own walls down.

Which is a very common thing to do in those days.

Once you took the city, you destroyed its defenses so it couldn't resist you

anymore.

David's goals are complete.

The Israelite empire is born.

So it's a bloody right to power.

And then what happens is it becomes a bloody regime to stay in power. It

so bad.

that there are even revolts against David by his own people.

Even by his own son.

Talk about a dysfunctional family.

David is still married to Bathsheba, right?

The first baby dies.

Well, David's got other wives and concubines and eventually has many more

children, one of whom is Absalom. Well, it turns out Absalom will kill his older

brother because the older brother rapes their half -sister.

All right, now, this will start a rift between David and Absalom.

The rift evolves into a full -fledged rebellion.

Two Israelite armies clash in what is known as the Battle in the Wood of

Absalom wants to overthrow David and become king.

But in the end, Absalom's army is routed.

The story goes that Absalom had this beautiful long hair.

And during the battle, he gets it caught.

on the branches of a tree in the wood of Ephraim.

Now, exactly what happened, we don't know. But one thing is certain, he

make it out of that forest alive.

David has issued orders to spare Absalom's life.

But one man disobeys.

Yoab.

True conciliary, if that's what we could call him.

Yoab. eliminates David's biggest threat.

Politically, he did the right thing.

David rules the Israelite empire for 23 more years. The Bible states he dies

peacefully in his bed at the age of 110.

But even after his death, the murder and intrigue continues.

David's other son with Bathsheba, Solomon, becomes the next king.

One of his first acts, murder Yoav.

This wasn't done for any kind of retribution. It most likely was to

own personal power.

Solomon might have seen Yoav as a threat.

And like his father before him, he eliminated that threat.

David is the most popular figure in the Bible. Children are named after him.

He's seen as a hero, as the person who founded the Israelite empire, the nation

state. So he is a kind of almost mythical figure. But when you look at

reality, he turns out to be all too human.

From my perspective, even more fascinating that people still hold him

kind of mythical person to emulate because he had a lot of bad habits.

David is revered throughout the ages for uniting the tribes of Israel and

establishing the Israelite empire.

Like many conquerors, he was also ambitious, treacherous, and without

The Bible says that toward the end of his life, he was always cold, no longer

able to feel warm.

Perhaps, like his amazing accomplishments, that too was a gift