‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22

Abstract In this chapter, it is argued that Saul’s offer of his daughters to David suggests that if he can tempt David to fall in battle against his Philistine enemies, the problem of ‘bloods’ will be avoided for Saul. Jonathan’s own anxieties that Saul will succeed in killing David (1 Sam 19) confirm that Saul will not be protected from guilt by commissioning his own son or his servants to do what the Philistines fail to do. In warning his father, Jonathan suggests that blood (in this case, David’s) is deemed ‘innocent’ if it is shed without sufficient cause. While Saul appears to be persuaded of this, the immediate resumption of his efforts to eliminate David suggest otherwise and lead to the episode in which Ahimelech and the priests and people of Nob are slaughtered at Saul’s command. The Israelite servants’ refusal to do so themselves suggests that Saul has shed the Nobites’ blood without sufficient cause, whether because as priests they are somehow sacrosanct or because any wrong they have done has not been sufficient to warrant their deaths. That David, rather than Saul, admits indirect responsibility for these deaths offers further evidence of Saul’s increasing disinterest in the problem of innocent blood, and the first evidence of David’s anxiety regarding this problem.