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David the King Who Prayed Twice Before Asking Once

David climbed the Mount of Olives barefoot, weeping, while his son held the throne. He had already learned that walls fall by God's strength alone.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The King Without Shoes
  2. The Cave and the Doubled Voice
  3. Calling All Day
  4. The Archive

The walls of the Jebusite city had never fallen. Every army that came at them went back empty. David arrived with a different calculation: whoever climbed the water shaft first and reached the tower would be made chief (1 Chronicles 11:6). It was not a battle plan so much as a wager. The city had been built around the water shaft, the one passage that ran up through its foundations like a hidden spine. Find that, and you had found the weakness.

Yoav found it. He went up first, through the dark, through the stone. The city fell. Jerusalem passed into Israel's hands, and David wrote down what he had learned from watching his own general do the impossible: by my God I scale a wall (Psalm 18:30). Not by Yoav's nerve, not by the shaft, not by the wager. By God. The general did the climbing. The force that opened the way was not his.

The King Without Shoes

What David learned at the Jebusite wall, he carried to the Mount of Olives. His son Absalom had taken Jerusalem. The court was gone. The throne was gone. David climbed the Mount of Olives on foot, weeping, his head covered and his feet bare (2 Samuel 15:30). People passed him. Some mocked him. He had memorized the entire Torah and his enemies found that contemptible, a king who spent his time in study instead of keeping his house in order.

What he did on that road was compose. He wrote down what affliction felt like from the inside: I have known, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that You afflicted me with faithfulness (Psalm 119:75). A man who has lost his throne, his son, his city, and his dignity, saying that the one who arranged all of this was faithful. The contempt of his enemies did not move him from the verse. He kept walking and kept writing.

This was not resignation. He had seen enough of divine action to know what it looked like close up. He had stood at the fallen Jebusite wall and understood that the shaft was not what had broken the city open. He had felt God work through Yoav's arms. When affliction came, he applied the same recognition. Not performance. Not theology. A discipline acquired over years of watching what actually happened when walls fell and thrones shifted.

The Cave and the Doubled Voice

Later, in the cave, he wrote a different kind of psalm. Whether the cave was Saul's country or his own wilderness during Absalom's revolt, the condition was the same: hidden, surrounded, unable to see how the danger resolved. Psalm 142 opens with a strange doubling in the Hebrew: I cry out to the Lord with my voice; with my voice I plead to the Lord for mercy (Psalm 142:1). My voice. My voice. The word comes twice, and in a language as spare as biblical Hebrew, that repetition is deliberate.

The doubling carries two things: a cry for the request itself, and a cry for the merit to have the request heard. David had stood at enough thresholds to know you could not simply walk in and demand. You came in once with your need. Then you came in again with your acknowledgment that you might not deserve the answer. The doubled voice was not desperation doubling back on itself. It was a structure, a way of approaching that honored the distance between a man in a cave and the one whose attention he was asking for.

Calling All Day

Alongside that doubled voice, Psalm 86:3 carries the same urgency from another angle: Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to You all day long. Again, the weight of repetition. A king who could not afford to assume the channel was open called all day because a single call might not carry. Not from doubt in God. From knowledge of himself, from the long reckoning kept since the Jebusite wall, since the Mount of Olives, since every cave and defeat in between.

He had seen his own failures plainly enough to know he could not stand on certainty. So he prayed twice. He called all day. He composed 176 verses and assigned each one to a letter of the alphabet (Psalm 119), as if no corner of language should go unturned in the work of staying close. The longest psalm in the Hebrew Bible, written by a barefoot king fleeing his son, one letter at a time.

The Archive

Walls, mountains, caves. Each one stripped something away. At the Jebusite wall it was the illusion that his general's nerve had broken the city. On the Mount of Olives it was the illusion that affliction was punishment rather than faithfulness. In the cave it was the illusion that needing God badly enough was, by itself, sufficient grounds for being heard.

What remained when all three illusions were gone was a voice that knew how to double itself at the entrance. Barefoot, uncovered, arriving twice, asking God not to forget him.

DavidPsalmsPrayerFaithEnemiesTorah
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Midrash Tehillim 18:23Midrash Tehillim

The Book of Psalms, or Tehillim, is full of David's prayers, his praises, his cries for help. And Psalm 18, verse 30, it’s a powerhouse: "For by You I run upon a troop... and by my God I scale a wall." (Tehillim 18:30). Beautiful. But the Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary), specifically Midrash Tehillim, doesn’t just let the verse stand alone. It asks: what wall? What troop? And then it answers with a story.

R’ Chiyah, quoting R’ Levi, paints us a vivid picture: David is about to go to war against the Jebusites. A formidable foe! He knows this won’t be easy. So, he makes a proclamation, almost like a challenge: "Whoever smites the Jebusites and reaches the tower..." will be rewarded (Shmuel II 5:8). And in another version, he sweetens the deal: "Whoever smites the Jebusites first will be a chief (l’rosh) and an officer..." (Divre HaYamim I 11:6). The pressure is on!

Yoav, David's general, he’s a clever one. He sees the seemingly insurmountable wall protecting the Jebusite city. So what does he do? He gets resourceful! He finds a fresh, flexible cypress tree – a brosh, in Hebrew. He plants it right next to the city wall. image for a second.

Yoav bends the top of the cypress tree way back. Then – and this is where it gets really interesting – he climbs onto David’s head, uses the leverage to grab the top of the tree, and swings himself onto the top of the wall!

But here's where the story takes an unexpected turn. David, witnessing this whole spectacle, recalls another verse from Tehillim: "May a righteous man strike me with kindness and reprove me (yochicheni rosh)..." (Tehillim 141:5). It’s like he's realizing something in that moment. Maybe Yoav's boldness, his willingness to literally climb over David to achieve victory, is a kind of rebuke. A reminder that sometimes, you have to think outside the box, even if it means bending the rules a little.

So, what does the Holy One, Blessed be He, do? The Midrash tells us that God lowers the wall, making it easier for David to follow Yoav. It's a collaborative effort, a divine assist. And then David understands. That is the wall he scales with God's help! That is what he means when he says, "...and by my God I scale a wall” (Tehillim 18:30).

It's not just about physical walls, is it? It's about the obstacles in our lives, the challenges that seem too big to overcome. The Midrash Tehillim invites us to see that even in the face of those walls, with a little ingenuity, a little help from our friends (and maybe a flexible cypress tree!), and a lot of faith, we too can find a way to scale them. We too can find a way through.

So what's the wall you're facing today? And how will you, with God's help, find a way to climb it?

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Midrash Tehillim 119:22Midrash Tehillim

King David knew that feeling intimately. And it's in his struggles, laid bare in the Book of Psalms, that readers often find solace and a path forward.

This isn't just about blind faith; it's about wrestling with the divine, acknowledging pain, and ultimately finding comfort in God's unwavering presence.

David says, "I have known, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that You afflicted me with faithfulness." It's a powerful statement, isn't it? He's saying that even in his suffering, he recognized God's righteousness. All the judgments, all the afflictions… David believed they came from a place of truth and justice. He didn't erupt in protest. He knew, deep down, that God's ways, though often mysterious, are ultimately just. scene in (2 (Samuel 15:3)0), where David is fleeing from his own son, Absalom. He's climbing the Mount of Olives, weeping. You might expect cries of anger, accusations flung at the heavens. But what does he do? He composes a psalm. Psalm 3, to be exact: "A psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son." The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) points out that instead of protesting, he sang. He poured his heart out through prayer. What an incredible example of faith in the face of unimaginable betrayal!

David then implores God: "You afflicted me, now comfort me." It's a plea born of genuine vulnerability. He's not demanding anything. Instead, he is asking for the same mercy, the same compassion, that was there at the very beginning of time. "Just as You afflicted me," he says, "may Your mercy comfort me, as You have promised Your servant." He's reminding God of His covenant, of the promises made.

And here's where it gets really interesting. The Midrash brings in Ethan the Ezrahite, a wise figure known for his wisdom and understanding of God's ways. Ethan asks, "And I am crushed before Him because of His foes?" It's a raw expression of feeling overwhelmed, utterly defeated by life's challenges.

David then echoes this sentiment, praying: "As You have said to Your servant, so may Your mercy come to me, that I may live." He is literally asking God to remember His mercy. As it is said, "Remember Your mercy, O Lord.” This isn't just a passive request; it's an active invocation of the divine attribute of rachamim (compassion). It’s a plea for life itself, sustained by God's unwavering love.

The Midrash Tehillim beautifully connects David's personal struggles to the very foundation of creation, reminding us that God's mercy is not a fleeting emotion but an eternal principle woven into the fabric of existence. It’s there for us, even when we feel most alone, most afflicted.

So, the next time you find yourself facing hardship, remember King David. Remember his tears on the Mount of Olives, his heartfelt psalms, his unwavering faith. Remember that even in the darkest of times, God's mercy endures. And maybe, just maybe, you too can find comfort and strength in that eternal promise.

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Midrash Tehillim 142:2Midrash Tehillim

Psalm 142 opens with just that kind of repetition: "I cry out to the Lord; I plead with the Lord for mercy." (Psalm 142:1). It's right there in the Hebrew, a doubling down: "my voice" appears twice.

Why? What's the significance of saying "my voice" twice? It’s a question the sages wrestled with in Midrash Tehillim, a collection of rabbinic teachings on the Book of Psalms. They weren't just splitting hairs; they were digging for a deeper meaning, a hidden layer within the text.

The Midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) asks, "Why twice 'my voice'?" It’s a powerful question. It isn't just about volume, but about intention. The answer they arrive at is fascinating. It suggests that the repetition isn't accidental; it's deliberate, and it holds a double-barreled request.

To understand, the Midrash draws a parallel to another verse, (Psalm 86:3): "Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to You all day long." Again, we see a doubling, a repetition of the plea for mercy. The implication? Each utterance carries a distinct weight.

The Midrash Tehillim then offers a profound interpretation. It suggests that David, the traditionally attributed author of Psalms, is making two separate appeals. The first, "Have mercy on me," is a plea that he might not fall into God's hand. The second, "Have mercy on me," is a plea that his enemies might not fall into his hand. It's not just about seeking divine favor, but about the responsibility that comes with power, even over one's enemies.

So, returning to Psalm 142, the Midrash concludes that "'my voice to the Lord I cry out' means that I may not fall into His hand, and 'I plead to the Lord with my voice' means that he may not fall into my hand." It's a stunningly balanced perspective. David isn't just worried about his own fate; he's concerned about the potential for vengeance, for the abuse of power, should his enemies be delivered into his grasp.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? How often do we consider the consequences of our prayers, not just for ourselves, but for those around us, even those we consider our adversaries? This ancient interpretation from Midrash Tehillim invites us to consider the double-edged sword of supplication, and the profound responsibility that comes with answered prayers. What are we really asking for, and what are the implications?

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