The Secret Chord

Natan, troubled by this reminder of David’s nonchalant use of women, goes to the third and final interview for David’s biography. This one is with David’s first wife, Mikhal, a woman known to despise her husband. She lives in exile in a small cell in the palace, dwelling in bitterness with eyes “as dead as a deep well in which the water had long ago been poisoned” (98). To Natan’s surprise, this sharp and frightening woman begins by declaring that she loved David once. By the end of her story, Natan’s “heart ached for her” (120) as he realizes that she is a wronged survivor rather than an antagonist whom David overcame.

Mikhal is the daughter of Shaul. She falls in love with David during his early days of military glory serving Shaul. Mikhal persuades her father to let her marry David. She is initially thrilled, even knowing that David loves her brother Yonatan instead of her. David even has her act as her brother in their sexual encounters. Eventually David’s inability to love her turns her cold.

The crisis comes as Shaul grows increasingly hostile toward David. Shaul struggles with a mental illness that is slowly erasing the father Mikhal loved. Initially, David’s music seems to help her father recover, but the people’s praise for David’s heroism counters that therapeutic effect by inciting the king’s paranoia. Even when Shaul grants David permission to marry Mikhal, his price is 100 Plishtim foreskins—a price intended to bring about David’s death, as Shaul assumes that at least one of those hundred Plishtims will kill him.

Yonatan tries to mediate between his father and David, the two men he loves. He admits failure and warns David to flee. David escapes with the help of Mikhal, Yonatan, and the prophet Shmuel. Shaul takes revenge on those who helped him, even slaughtering priests who know nothing of David’s outlaw status and innocently give him food. Mikhal is forced to marry another man, Palti, who drunkenly takes her by force on their wedding night. This is the book’s second rape. Mikhal has been sustained by her love for David, but David ignores her and only makes efforts to see Yonatan. She believes that perhaps there is no place for a woman in the harsh bandit life; then she learns David has married a second wife to satisfy his sexual appetite. Mikhal finally realizes that she has been used and discarded.

As Natan reflects on his life, he begins to question some of his old beliefs. Was it really “necessary”—as he had been told as a child—for David to kill Natan’s father? Caught in indecision, not knowing whether these new doubts will rot his soul or fertilize some new growth, he turns away from them and back to another difficult time: when he and David slaughtered people in service of the Plishtim enemy.

When David and his men are repairing their base at Ziglag, a foreign soldier rushes to David bearing news of a Plishtim victory over Israel and the death of Shaul and Yonatan. The messenger reports that he saw Shaul attempt to die by falling on his own sword, causing a grave but not immediately fatal injury. Shaul begged the foreign soldier to put him out of his suffering, so the foreigner did. The foreigner then gathered Shaul’s crown and rushed to David, expecting to be rewarded for news of the death of David’s persecutor. Instead, David condemns him for striking God’s anointed and has Yoav kill him.

David mourns the death of Shaul and Yonatan, composing the “Song of the Bow” in their memory. Here he sings his famous line that Yonatan’s “love was wonderful to me more than the love of women” (130). Then he turns to Natan to ask what he should do next. Natan once again begins to prophesize and tells David to go back to Yudah to be anointed king.

David returns and is accepted by Yudah as king. He also rejoices in his first child, his son Ammon. Shaul’s old general Avner, however, sets up Shaul’s only surviving son as king, and soon the two sides start skirmishing. After cutting down Yoav’s rash younger brother, Avner calls for peace. David is hopeful, but Yoav is unhappy. Yoav confides in Natan that he fears David will make Avner his chief commander in his place. Yoav dislikes Natan and doesn’t believe in his visions, so Natan sees this as an act of desperation.

In the peace talks, David makes the unexpected request that his old wife Mikhal be returned to him. David is unaware of how Mikhal’s feelings toward him have changed. Reuniting with his first wife is an act of “statecraft,” suggested by Avigail, to unite Shaul’s old royal house with the new king and to win over his old supporters. Avner agrees. Like Yoav, he believes Natan fakes his visions to gain power, and so he demands that Natan tell Mikhal the news, assuming that Natan he must be good at manipulating people.

While peace comes, it is marred by two tragedies. Mikhal’s husband Palti, who raped her on the night of their forced wedding, turns out to be a more complex character. Since that brutal night, he has treated her with respect, and they have come to genuinely love each other. They have two young boys together. When Natan and Avner drag her away to David, Palti follows after them, crying, until Mikhal sends him home to their sons out of fear that Avner will kill him. Mikhal resigns herself to life in the palace but does so dressed in mourning clothes. When David finally visits her several days later, he is shocked and decides the easiest thing to do is ignore her. Avigail admits that she made a mistake. She assumed that since she had hated her first husband and loved David, Mikhal also would have hated her other husband and loved David. As Mikhal points out, no one bothered to ask her.

The second tragedy is more overtly political, though both revolve around personal feelings and the manipulation of power. Yoav, motivated by the desire to hold on to his power as commander-in-chief and to avenge his brother’s death, murders Avner. Yoav knows that David will be furious and may even try to execute him. On Natan’s advice, he throws himself on David’s mercy with a public display of repentance. David curses Yoav but spares him, leading to speculation that David secretly condones this convenient murder.

The story of David’s rupture from Mikhal and his rise to kingship comes to its conclusion. David’s palace is full of wives and children, among whom Mikhal remains isolated in anger. David’s trusted older wife Avigail dies, followed by her child. Natan foreshadows the trouble other children will cause, describing how the eldest, Ammon, stands at his half-brother’s funeral “sullen, angry that he was not the center of attention” (165).

To unite Israel and Yudah, David decides to conquer the city of Jerusalem that lies between them and to make it his new capital. Natan has a vision revealing that the city can be secretly entered via the tzinnor, a shaft under the city that connects it to a spring. Zadok, the priest serving the king of Jerusalem, comes out to David claiming to have a vision of David’s success and expecting a reward for revealing the city’s secret weakness. He is shocked to learn Natan already knows. Yoav and Natan lead a small force into the city through the tzinnor. Once inside, they open the gates to the main army.

For once, David keeps the violence under control: “There would be no rapes this night, no wanton killings” (175). Both the military and sexual violence that pervade the book are absent as David tries to create a new beginning. Natan briefly mentions other wars with neighbors that stretch over 10 years, telling the reader simply that their neighbors start the fighting and David wins the victory. The violence of those days still give Natan nightmares, even if they are part of, “Whatever it takes. What was necessary” (176). In the end, David gives his people peace. The kingdom grows in wealth and large groups of musicians pick up David’s music in praise of God.

David’s great moment of triumph comes when the holy Ark of his people is retrieved from the Plishtim and returned to Jerusalem. He leads the grand celebration, dancing with abandon in front of the Ark. Then this promise of harmony is broken. Mikhal publicly insults him at the celebratory feast. David determines not to forgive her or see her again. Out of “vanity and wounded pride” (184), he also manipulates a delegation of Givonite people into killing the sons of Mikhal’s older sister Merav. Natan is troubled at this evidence of petty self-indulgence and its political implications, but does not set himself against David yet. Instead, he simply advises David to feign grief.