For the past 3 or so months, we’ve been looking at the importance of Jerusalem and why David wanted to move his capital there. Now it’s time to look at the conquest of Jerusalem itself:
Does that make any sense? There are only five psukim here:
David invests Jerusalem and is told he will not be able to enter
David takes the fortress
David makes an oath (with aposiopesis) about taking Jerusalem, and an aphorism is cited
David settles in Jerusalem
David is great
Now, I will assume that פסוק ז is an introduction to the rest: David takes the fortress, and here’s how. And פסוקים ט-י are the conclusion. But what’s all this about עורים ופסחים? And what’s a צנור, and how is it relevant?
Hopefully, the parallel paragraph in דברי הימים will help:
This completes the aposiopesis, and introduces Yoav as the actual conqueror of Jerusalem. So now I have another question: what happened to the עורים ופסחים and the צנור? Why is Yoav left out of שמואל ב?
There’s a fifth question that is much more subtle: where’s the battle of Jerusalem?
It’s hard to notice something that isn’t there if you’re not looking for it.
Battle Plans
ספר שמואל loves battles. We know how many soldiers on each side, where they are deployed, what weapons they carry, what strategies they used. It’s like reading a Tom Clancy novel. A few examples:
But the conquest of Jerusalem, the capital of the united kingdom of Israel? Gornisht. וילכד דוד את מצדת ציון. Where is the the battle of Jerusalem?
Answering that may turn out to be the key to understanding the entire text.
Handicap Accessible
But first, what are העורים והפסחים? I’m going to assume that it can’t be literal; Jerusalem was not defended by an army of the blind and lame. It may have been a well-known expression at the time that unfortunately means nothing to us:
If the Jebisites had yelled from the fortress walls, “your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries”, I would understand immediately. Normal people would not. The Abarbanel and מצודת suggest this sort of thing here:
This explains על כן יאמרו עור ופסח לא יבוא אל הבית; על כן יאמרו would mean “in situations like this, people said”. But that doesn’t go with David’s response, which apparently takes it seriously.
Yigal Yadin, the Israeli archeologist, suggests it’s a different cultural catchphrase:
But interpreting this based on a single document from 500 years before and 500 miles away is far-fetched, to say the least.
Rashi and the targum give a straightforward explanation:
The Jebusites didn’t call their idols עורים ופסחים; that was an editorial comment by the author, as we say in Hallel:
That’s the most פשט explanation, I think. But the Malbim has a fascinating theory, based on the צנור which in mishnaic and modern Hebrew means “pipe”:
Giant hydraulic battle robots! I’d watch that movie. But I find that even more far-fetched than the Hittite curse explanation.
The Midrash looks specifically at the terms עורים ופסחים. Who were the most famous blind and lame people in תנ״ך?
And Rashi brings up the midrash that ties them to Jerusalem. It goes back to Abraham and his treaty with Avimelech, the treaty of “son and grandson”:
It’s a nice idea, but why would removing the statues end the treaty? בני ישראל still can’t betray the Jebusites if they swore not to!
Politically Incorrect
We’ll come back to that.
So we have 4 different explanations of העורים והפסחים: cultural expression, idols, robots, and memorials. How does that fit with על כן יאמרו עור ופסח לא יבוא אל הבית?
If we read it straight, it means, “therefore they say, the blind and the lame will not come to the house”, meaning that because of this battle, the עורים ופסחים cannot come into Jerusalem any more. The Radak takes this literally:
But that’s taking it too literally. If we read העורים והפסחים as “idols” then it makes sense:
David would allow the Jebusites to remain in Jerusalem (he will later buy the site of the altar from ארונה היבסי) but no idolatry.
If we read העורים והפסחים as an pre-existing expression, it has to mean, “thus [in situations like this], people say: The blind and the lame! Don’t come to the house!”. That works.
The other explanations need us to realize that the syntax of על כן יאמרו עור ופסח לא יבוא אל הבית is very ambiguous. עור ופסח could be the subject of יבוא, so the sentence means “They say: the blind and the lame will not come”. But עור ופסח could also be the subject of יאמרו: ”The blind and the lame say: he will not come“, referring to David specifically.
Also, על כן in תנ״ך may not mean “therefore” (A על כן B means A causes B). It can mean “because” (A על כן B means B causes A). One example:
So על כן יאמרו עור ופסח לא יבוא אל הבית means that David announced כל מכה יבסי ויגע בצנור ואת הפסחים ואת העורים because ”the blind and the lame“ (which the Jebusites are depending on to defend their city) “say” (their very existence means) “he [David] cannot enter”.
Pipe Dreams
Now, what was the צנור that David wanted attacked?
Almost all the early מפרשים understand it to be the name of a tower:
But the word does appear in תנ״ך two other times, and both times the modern sense of “pipe” or “watercourse” fits better:
So, as we mentioned, the Malbim translates as “pipe” for waterworks:
David is planning the strategy: first take out the guards, then the צנור, then you can take out the עורים ופסחים.
But more likely than a pipe, it’s a tunnel that is part of the water supply for Jerusalem. Before Hezekiah built his tunnel, the water supply came from the Gihon spring just outside the wall.
Like most archeological findings, this is “cute”. It may be true but it certainly tells a nice story.
An Offer They Can’t Refuse
So we put together the story: David’s army surrounds Jerusalem, then Yoav attacks the guards in the spring house, climbs through the צנור and destroys the עורים ופסחים. Then the story ends. Where’s the battle?
I suspect there’s no battle for Jerusalem in the text because there was no battle. The Jebusites were clearly depending on their עורים ופסחים (however we interpret this). Yoav’s ability to sneak in and destroy them let David make them an offer they couldn’t refuse. I think David conquered Jerusalem without a shot being fired.
The Midrash supports this (more metaphorically):
What wall did David jump?
And as we mentioned, David left (at least some of) the Jebusites alive. When David wants to build the altar in the place that would eventually be the בית המקדש, he buys it.
The parallel text in דברי הימים has a different amount:
There are lots of explanations of the difference, but the פרקי דרבי אליעזר says it was for two different things:
David didn’t conquer Jerusalem, he paid for it.
(Admittedly, it was an absurdly small amount. Yoav’s commando raid made it clear that the Jebusites did not have any good options.)
Placing the Blame
So why the differences between שמואל and דברי הימים? שמואל has העורים והפסחים; דברי הימים has Yoav.
I don’t know, but I think it is due to the different purposes of the two books. שמואל pulls no punches in highlighting David’s ethical lapses. דברי הימים, written to inspire the Jews rebuilding Israel, presents David as the archetype of the Jewish king. He never sins; Batsheva is never mentioned; the murder of innocents in Ziklag never comes up. Even the one sin recorded, the census, is not David’s fault:
So I would read this story as: Yoav destroyed the memorials to the treaty between Avimelech and Abraham and then the Jebusites surrendered. David technically never violated the treaty, but the implied threat certainly leaves a bad taste in our mouths. שמואל makes it clear that this was in fact David’s responsibility. דברי הימים places it all on Yoav’s shoulders (and incidentally introduces us to Yoav, who has not shown up in דברי הימים yet).
This idea, that Yoav was David’s ”enforcer“, is consistent with his role throughout the תנ״ך:
Urban Renewal
After David takes over, he builds the city: ויבן דוד סביב מן המלוא וביתה (and ויואב יחיה את שאר העיר). What was the מלוא?
Radak says it was a defensive moat:
But we have no archeological evidence for such a thing, and there’s no way to get that much water around Jerusalem.
Others say it was a housing development (which complements Yoav’s role in urban renewal, יחיה את שאר העיר):
It’s more evidence that the battle of Jerusalem never took place. The Jebusites were not displaced from their homes; the Israelites built new settlements alongside them. And so the last Canaanite stronghold in the land of Israel falls into Israelite hands. The conquest that started under Joshua 400 years earlier has finally ended, and now ילך דוד הלוך וגדול וה׳ אלקי צבאות עמו.