Dávid és Ricpá
David and Rizpah (Blurring and Crystallisation of a Royal Portrait from One Generation to Another)

Summary/Abstract: The four concluding chapters of 2 Samuel, the so-called "appendix" of the book, reached their present form after the main blocks of Samuel had already been put together. The six pericopes that constitute these chapters provide, on the one hand, an evaluation of David´s life, and on the other, make him face every kind of difficulty and vicissitude, just to prove that, since he was able to cope with them all, he is rightly considered the ideal ruler, whose life can be interiorised (similarly to the paradigm the psalms made of this figure) either in terms of the problems of everyday life (how to develop relationships with non-Israelites), or as the embodiment of some sort of messianic hopes. Thus the "appendix" shows both forms of the reinterpretation the royal material in the Bible went through. The present article focuses on the initial pericope (2Sam 21,1-14). After a narrative analysis, the episode is discussed as a historical document, trying to detect when and in what circumstances the final redaction took place.

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