Published: 26 June 2020
Last updated: 5 March 2024
JERUSALEM, IN THE TENTH century BC, is an inhospitable place for farmers but a strategic location for men on the run. Human settlement in the Judean highlands is sparse: 5000 people, spread out in hamlets of about 50 families each. The landscape is rugged, veined with ravines and thicketed with oaks.
Rain is unpredictable. To the east lies the desert, hushed and empty. To the west, teasingly close, are the lush lowlands of the Philistine city-states, with their seaside trade routes and their princely homes. Cut off from these coastal plains, life in the hill country is severe. Homes are made of unworked stone; sheep and goats are quartered indoors.
There are no public buildings, no ornate furnishings in the shrines. Bands of fugitives, landless labourers, and tax evaders rove the Judean wilderness. These rebel gangs—viewed by the neighbouring Egyptians as both a nuisance and a threat—maraud the nearby villages.
They collect protection money and pillage the locals, making off with their women and their cattle. They terrorise the Philistines, and then, in a sudden turnaround, offer their services to a Philistine king in exchange for shelter.
Their leader is a wily, resourceful man from Bethlehem, who decides that his people are meant for more than lightning raids and mercenary stints. He sends his men to rout an advancing force, then shares the loot with the highland elders.
FULL STORY In search of King David’s lost empire (New Yorker)
Illustration: Matteo Berton
