In Search of Soul. Alejandro Nava

fall, the way Skip James’s famous blues voice much later would rise on soaring, falsetto notes, then suddenly fall into hot and dirty wails.¹⁹ Though chosen and blessed by God, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob each has his moment of slithering in the dust, creeping as a matter of survival, getting by the fly way. Each experiences life as a refugee or slave, for example. Moses is no different; he survives a murder conspiracy, endures exile, and then dies in the middle of the desert. The ebbs and flows of David’s life may surpass them all, though. Robert Alter sizes him up well:

      David, in the many decades through which we follow his career, is first a provincial ingénu and public charmer, then a shrewd political manipulator and a tough guerilla leader, later a helpless father floundering in the entanglements of his sons’ intrigues and rebellion, a refugee suddenly and astoundingly abasing himself before the scathing curses of Shimei, then a doddering old man bamboozled or at least directed by Bathsheeba and Nathan, and, in still another surprise on his very deathbed, an implacable seeker of vengeance against Joab and against the same Shimei whom he had ostensibly forgiven after the defeat of Absalom’s insurrection.²⁰

      David’s volatile life is given theatrical exuberance in the Bible. He changes costumes, masks, and performances like an itinerant actor, flipping and flying like a circus acrobat. It’s almost impossible to ascribe a single essence to his character because it is constructed of many personas and personalities: shepherd, soldier, king, poet, musician, lover, father, and through it all, a man with an extraordinary divine destiny. And even this latter role, with its related heroism, doesn’t exempt him from the tribulations of life: the violence and turmoil in his kingdom; the heartbreaking deaths of Jonathan, Absalom, and his son by Bathsheba; the iniquities and mutinies of his children; the humiliating experiences of life as a refugee; and so forth. In old age he ends up disheveled and doddering, after spending a life fraught with unrest and turmoil. We imagine him at this point with a dazed and confused look, reeling from the mercurial fluctuations in his life, from everything added and subtracted to his days on earth. His biographers charge his persona with the same friable ephemerality and floundering fallibility that any other human being has, showing us flashes of his eventful life in his sallies and sorties, his conniving and scheming, his victories and defeats. There is not one life story in David, but multiple histories, multiple acts, and multiple dramas.

      In these episodes of David’s life the Bible is concerned with the whole arc of David’s life, not his individual psychology. Unlike a modern novel, the Bible generally does not give us access to the inner life of David’s soul. We may get glimpses of his psyche through his prayers—especially if we give him credit for the Psalms—but his innermost being remains opaque to everyone save God.²¹ His actions are often surprising and unpredictable for this exact reason: we are not privy to his motives and subjective consciousness. When he acts, we don’t know what to expect, such as when he weeps and fasts for his son while he is still alive, but when the son dies, he washes, changes his clothes, worships the Lord, and eats. His behavior provokes dismay and curiosity in his servants, as in the reader. We expect acts of penance and abstinence after his death, but his explanation is convincing and eloquent. “Now that he is dead, why should I fast?” David remarks. “Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:23). David’s whole life is made up of similar surprises.

      Consider the somersaults of the life of Joseph as well. He goes through numerous meteoric ascents and precipitous plunges. As a child, Joseph has grandiose dreams of success and power; in one he sees bowing before him his brothers’ sheaves of grain, and in another the sun, moon, and eleven stars (Gen. 37:5–9). Apparently naïve about the envy and enmity such presumptuous dreams might provoke, he tells his brothers about them and becomes the object of their jealousy and anger. They first plot his death and then, after reconsidering, sell him as a slave. Later, in Egypt, Joseph’s destiny will ebb and flow even more: no sooner does he become the household servant of the captain of pharaoh’s guard (Potifar) than he is falsely accused of seducing Potifar’s wife and ends up imprisoned. Despite being the chosen and beloved son of Jacob and being blessed by God, Joseph suffers more degradation and loss than any other brother. First thrown into a pit (and the language of the pit, bor, is related to the depths of Sheol in the Psalms), then sold as a slave, and then kept prisoner, Joseph’s character is measured by extraordinary adversities. Eventually, though, after gaining the trust of the pharaoh through his dream-interpreting skills, he is released from prison and given a powerful position. Now the story seems to bear out his exalted dreams in childhood—but with one major caveat.