'...And Not a Drop to Drink': The Story of David's Thirst in the Jewish Scriptures, Josephus, and 4 Maccabees

This article examines the story of David’s wish for water as it is narrated and framed in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, and expanded and reconfigured in Josephus’s Judean Antiquities and 4 Maccabees. Josephus is found to interpret the story in a manner fairly consistent with the aims of the authors/editors of the canonical versions of the narrative, except that he locates the story more clearly within the main story line of David’s dealings with the Philistines and uses the story as an example of the valor of all of David’s mighty men, and not as an exploit that distinguishes ‘the Three’ above the rest. The author of 4 Maccabees, however, much more freely adapts the story in line with his rhetorical goals. A fictive setting is invented and embellished to establish the conditions of David’s experience of thirst (which is no longer merely a wish as in the biblical version), and the focus is taken off the exploits of the soldiers (who are here anonymous) and placed more fully on David’s inner struggle to act in line with the demands of justice as opposed to the drive of his cravings, exemplifying pious reason’s mastery of the passions, in keeping with the author’s thesis.