King David's Military Genius

By Lee Duigon

March 01, 2005

As U. S. Marines on the evening of November 6, 2004, prepared for their assault on the terrorist stronghold of Fallujah, a chaplain anointed them with holy oil. Heavy-metal Christian music played on loudspeakers. A young marine stood up to read a verse from the Bible: how King David overcame the Philistines.

The verse hit home. Marines rose up and roared, “Hoorah, King David! Huhhh!” 1

Did they know they were cheering for a military genius?

As revealed in the Biblical account, King David must rank as one of history’s most gifted military leaders. We get the most information about his military skill in 2 Samuel 15-18, which tells the story of Absalom’s revolt. David’s victory, ordained by God, in this civil war displays the king as a strategist and tactician par excellence.

For those who question whether David ever existed, the uniqueness of his generalship is an embarrassment. Priest and scribes concocting a fiction, centuries after the supposed fact, are hardly likely to have been experts in military science. They would have written it up as a heroic, uncomplicated, glorious victory in a toe-to-toe fight.

David’s victory over his rebellious son really happened as told. The technical details of the story argue strongly for its historical authenticity.

The Surrender of Jerusalem

Hundreds of years after David, the Chinese military sage, Sun Tzu (c. 350 B. C.), in The Art of War, advised against measures that would result in the destruction of a disputed city or territory. “He did not conceive war in terms of slaughter or destruction; to take all intact, or as nearly intact as possible, was the proper objective of strategy,” wrote military historian B.H. Liddell Hart, in a commentary on Sun Tzu’s teachings. 2 In his own words, Sun Tzu said, “Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.”…

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/king-davids-military-genius

King David

The Art of War

Ready David?