Chapter 4 focuses on the dynamics whereby God rejects Saul as king, including the pressures on Saul, the mistakes he makes, the way David emerges on the scene as Saul’s potential replacement, and the relationships and dynamics in the royal family.

This chapter explores how music and liturgy intersected with models of the monarchy that emphasized military prowess and strength. Shortly after Louis XIII had had Concino Concini assassinated in 1617, the figure of Saint Louis IX, crusader, model king, and literal forbear of Louis XIII came to prominence, with the elevation of his feast and with a new liturgy and hymns that emphasized how the saint emulated David’s model of kingship. At the same time, David himself, frequently portrayed as a musician, featured widely in pamphlets and psalm translations or paraphrases that invited the reader or listener to consider how Louis battled heresy as David battled Goliath. In musical terms, this interest was not manifest in the liturgy of the chapelle royale, but the musicians of the chambre and chapelle nonetheless sang psalms together at the king’s mealtimes in the liturgy of Benedictio mensae, and in non-liturgical performances of psalm settings by Artus Auxcousteaux and others.

Chapter 5 explores the violence of arrogant speech. If scheming was considered a hidden form of verbal violence, gloating and taunting are its public forms. I focus first on ways that enemies join themselves to – and thus become complicit in – acts of violence through gloating. Edom is an example. Edom joined in the Babylonian violence against Judah and was held liable. When describing violent acts, biblical writers also tend to fixate on the taunts that accompany them. They are the verbal dimension of public acts of violence. In taunting, the enemy brings another into a state of reproach and seeks recognition for that act of verbal violence. In turn, that verbal expression of violence plays an important role in characterizing the moral affront of the boastfully violent against the protective prerogatives of Yhwh, and against his rightful claims to power.