DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 19

DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL

f'The Promised Land." By Sir Gilbert Parker.' London: Cassells (Through Whitcorhbe and Tombs). Sir Gilbert Parker has many novels to his .name, and he has made valuable contributions to history and politics. His story of David, King of Israel, will come as a surprise to many admirers of his labours in other literary fields. Tho subject, no doubt, was tempting to him for it is full of romance, life, action, colour, and human interest generally, but picturesque as Sir Gilbert Parker's presentation is, it naturally lacks the simplicity and dignity of the Scriptural j -record of the life of David from the time Saul was anointed first King of Israel to the.;time David "slept with his fathers." There are 325 pages to the novel "The Promised Land"; "but the whole story of David is comprised in the, Ist and 2nd Books . of Samuel, and the whole of the first and a quarter of the second chapter of the Ist Book of Kings. The Scriptural narrative is briefer, but not less forceful on that'account, and in many other ways it is to be preferred, especially in the splendid English of the. Authorised Version. There are plenty'of pcoplo who will not read, the Bible, and yet will read with avidity some-long-winded story taken from it. Such, no doubt^will. enjoy Sir Gilbert Parker's story -/rot David, and forgive—if they perceive—his.- departures from- the Scriptures. For instance, , they may become so absorbed by the author's picturesque description of tho entertainment of. the young man Saul by the Seer, before the anointing, as not to notice that Sir."Gilbert Parker makes Samuel say of the Israelites, "Wo were-'a great people in the days of Abraham." The writer also makes the people shout when Saul is proclaimed king at Misspell, "God Save Saul!" whereas the Bible, being nearer to the truth, records that "All the people shouted and said . 'God save the King!'" which proves, as no doubt was the case, that-to the people the monarch was of more importance than, the man, seeing that they called for "a king to reign over us.'' All through the story, fascinating as it is to read as fiction, it is evident that Sir Gilbert Parker has failed in painting tho lily! and guildirig the rose. The Scriptural history of David is much to be preferred to "The Premised Land" on literary grounds alone. It has nothing to do with "best-selling" possibilities. ■. It is often brutally Tealistic, in its presentation of the lives of great men. But it extenuates nothing, sets nothing down in malice. It shrinks not at all from plain speech. Good and bad in men are set down in hard script, grim, but truthful. Sir Gilbert could not, of course, be so'realistic" as'is the Bible on what David did to! the hundred Philistines and the ghastly price he paid to Saul for the hand of the king's daughter. Again, the Bible account, of Nathan's parable of the "ewe lamb is intensely dramatic, but ' the prophet's . reproof is most feebly treated -in "The Promised. Laud." " .Sir Gilbert in a paragraph of . fifteen lines says with no force at all what the Biblerecords David as saying-iii; six words: "I have sinned against the Lord," and extends to one of the most heart-search-ing poemsover written,- the 51st Psalm. Nathan, in the Scriptural account, said "The Lord hatli put away thy : -sin"; Sir.-, Gilbert {Parker's version is "Jehovah'.'wiil''fcirgiye;thysin. Thou hast, given cause, tO;'tiie.f,6es'of God to blaspheme." ' Sir. I.Gilbert has set himself a very difficult' task to improve the Biblo version of David, as most readers familiar with that version are likely to agree on reading "The Promised Land." ■