Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ruthy & Baruch" <alster AT comandcom.com>]

Ben wrote:

>  IIRC, it was Hugo Grotius, 1583-1645, who first suggested that Psalm
51:5
>  meant that David was the son of Jesse and an unnamed harlot. That's why
>  David was sent out of the way looking after the sheep whilst his
legitimate
>  brothers were paraded before Samuel. According to 1 Samuel 17:12-14,
David
>  was the youngest of eight sons of Jesse. But nowhere is any slur cast on
the
>  legitimacy of any of them. Saul called his own son "son of a perverse
woman"
>  (1 Samuel 20:30); if he could have said the same of the son of Jesse, he
>  surely would have done so!

An interesting interpretation of the birth of David is given by a Midrash
from an unknown source, which was quoted by a few medieval commentators and
yalqutim.  The Midrash says that David was the son of Jesse and his wife,
but that there was talk in the family that the _wife_ had committed
adultery, which resulted in David's being cast out as a possible "mamzer". 
Jesse, it is told, wanted to lie with another woman, but his wife changed
places with that woman.  Samuel's annointing of David put an end to all
speculation.  Recently, Eliezer Schlossberg has tried to present this
Midrash as a likely interpretation of the David story (in _Megadim_ 27,
1996-7 [Hebrew]), but IMO he was _quite_ unconvincing.

Kol Tuv,
Baruch Alster
Kochav Ya`akov, Israel