David (Hebrew: דָּוִד, דָּוִיד, David Dāwîḏ; Dawid; Arabic: داود Dāwūd) was a culture hero, and according to the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke an ancestor of Jesus. His life is conventionally dated to c. 1040–970 BCE, his reign over Judah c. 1010–1002 BCE, and his reign over the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1002–970 BCE.
The Books of Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles are the only sources of information on David, although the Tel Dan stele (dated c.850–835 BCE) contains the phrase ביתדוד (bytdwd), read as "House of David", which some take as confirmation of the existence in the mid-9th century BCE of a Judean royal dynasty called the House of David. The Mesha Stele from Moab, dating from approximately the same period, may also contain the name David in line 12, where the interpretation is uncertain, and in line 31, where one destroyed letter must be supplied by conjectural emendation.
David is very important to Jewish, Christian and Islamic doctrine and culture. In the Bible, David, or David HaMelekh, is the King of Israel, and the Jewish people. Biblical tradition maintains that a direct descendant of David will be the Messiah. In Islam he is considered to be a prophet and the king of a nation. He is depicted as a righteous king, though not without faults, as well as an acclaimed warrior, musician, and poet, traditionally credited for composing many of the psalms contained in the Book of Psalms.
Read more about David: Legend and Legacy
Famous quotes containing the word david:
“Our woods are sylvan, and their inhabitants woodmen and rustics; that is selvaggia, and the inhabitants are salvages. A civilized man, using the word in the ordinary sense, with his ideas and associations, must at length pine there, like a cultivated plant, which clasps its fibres about a crude and undissolved mass of peat.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)