Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women

The King’s Harp

181 King David was now old, advanced in years, and though they covered him with bedclothes, he never felt warm. His courtiers said to him, “Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, to wait upon Your Majesty and be his attendant, and let her lie in your bosom, and my lord the king will be warm.” So they looked for a beautiful girl throughout the territory of Israel. They found Avishag the Shunammite and brought her to the king. The girl was exceedingly beautiful. She became the king’s attendant and waited upon him; but the king was not intimate with her. —1 KINGS 1:1–4 T here was a silence in the round chamber. A wrong silence. It pervaded the dry air and clung to the bed curtains. It swept over the open books on the cedar table and strummed on the strings of the harp that stood at the head of the bed. Avishag stood in the half-circular doorway and peered into the darkness where there should have been a lit candle. Her hands were braced against the doorposts as if she tensed for some great gust of wind. Opposite her, three stars were framed in the arched window. The Sabbath had ended. King David needed her on the Sabbath as on every other day. He was old, lean, and chilled. Even when he was covered in blanTHE KING’S HARP k kets, only the warmth of her body kept him from shivering. That morning, as they awoke from the bed they shared, he had clung to her as if to a mother. He was too weak to do with her what he had done with so many women, yet she felt tender toward him, as toward a beloved who had gone away years ago. She stayed with him and saw that he ate, not taking the repose to which she was entitled on the Sabbath. When a few ministers came to see him, she had shooed them off. She reminded them that in the afternoon, David studied the sacred writings and could not be disturbed. The king himself had seemed content to read and pray in the peaceful quiet of his chamber. Avishag had napped for three hours in the large room David had insisted she have. She used it rarely, except to bathe or to practice on her own small harp. The Angel of Death had visited while she was gone. The old king lay crumpled near his table. His curls had lost all trace of color years ago. Now his face was colorless too. His hand was clasped to his heart. A parchment had unrolled at his feet. David’s handmaiden felt tears roll down her cheeks in a steady stream. There will be no more music, she thought. David has written his last psalm. Avishag knelt down by David’s side and tenderly touched his body, checking to make sure he had died of natural causes. David’s house had always been full of violence. That was its curse. But Avishag did not expect to find anything suspicious. The king had known he was dying. Only two days before David had given Solomon his final instructions: who to kill, who to reward. Now Avishag’s fate, Israel’s fate, was in Solomon’s hands. Avishag covered David with a regal purple cloth from a cedar chest. She lifted him, bit by bit, onto pillows she had taken from the bed. She did not like to think of him on the cold stone. Many men had perished in the struggle to succeed David. 182 S I S T E R S A T S I N A I Many had waited for this day, mouthing “O king, live forever.” Many had dreaded it, and now it had finally come. Avishag knew she must tell someone. She wanted to wait just a little longer. Just a few more moments before the world changed. Avishag lay down on the bed where she and David had spent so many nights together. She wanted to weep, but also she wanted to feel the silk she had lain in for over a year. It was certain that she would not sleep in this bed again. This place was David’s, not hers. Solomon would insist that she remain part of the household, but as a relic of David’s reign, not as...