When I first saw that Amazon was releasing a series on the life of David, I thought I should watch it to let you know how bad it is. Those are our expectations in 2025, aren’t they? Having watched four out of eight episodes, I can say it’s a good, solid show, but being also a biblical show means it will likely push some viewers away, because many Christians want biblical stories just so. When dramatizing a biblical story, writers have to make creative decisions that will naturally appear to deviate from the text because the Bible wasn’t written for full dramatization.
The first episode will provoke Bible-lovers more than the next three. In fact, I saw an interview with Michael Iskander, who depicts David very well, and he said his mother raised the question of biblical accuracy daily. The series attempts to head off such complaints by opening with a notice about creative liberties and historical accuracy. It essentially says we can’t all agree on every detail when telling stories like this.
Season one of House of David covers 1 Samuel 15-17, introducing King Saul at the time he fails to obey the Lord in completely destroying the Amalekites and framing the season in terms of David’s battle with Goliath. That framing is one of the things that sounds off. A child asks us, “Can one stone change the course of history?” Well, the stone wasn’t the one who changed things.
David is introduced as a disfavored son of Jesse, disfavored because his mother was an outcast and not married to Jesse, whose first wife must have died at some point. I got the impression this woman, Nitzevet, had married Jesse, but calling David a bastard would contradict that. Presenting David as an outcast comes from Jewish tradition, which says David describes his upbringing in Psalm 69. “I have become a stranger to my brothers” is one description (v 8). But David being a bastard or Jesse being shunned by his community for having a dishonored concubine is not the traditional view.
As many characters are introduced in the first episode so is a lion who threatens Jesse’s land. The beast is a divisive point between father and son; Jesse says he handled it before, but it has returned (because there’s only ever one evil lion) and David defiantly decides to handle it himself. Why do the heroes always have to rebel against their parents to begin their path to greatness? Can we be done with this cliché?
In this part of the narrative, the writers introduce an odd maxim that is not repeated beyond this first episode (at least for the first half). Jesse is teaching his family about Moses and Joshua and God’s command to “be strong and courageous.” He summarizes that command as “Fear is the enemy. Fear is the thief.” This is what David repeats when he seeks out the lion, and it just sounds secular. Why doesn’t he say something like, “Be strong and courageous for the Lord will given your enemies into your hands”? David, Jesse, Jonathan, and Samuel are depicted as the most expressively faithful characters in these episodes, so why can’t David something about confidence in God instead a parody of the famous line from Dune.
I do appreciate how attractive Michal is–I have sympathy for her. I’ll be surprised if seasons two depicts how David’s womanizing and wife-collecting hurts her. They’ll probably gloss over that part. I also appreciate everything they do with Jonathan. He’s the solid, righteous one in the royal family, though Michal appears to be equally devout.
There’s also a bit of drama involving the Philistines that is utterly cliché, but we shall not speak of it.
I’ve enjoyed the series so far. I’ll let you know what I think of the rest of it soon.
Photo by Lukáš Kačaliak on Unsplash
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