King David’s story gets the ‘Game of Thrones’ treatment
Amazon Prime’s new series ‘The House of David’ draws out the palace intrigue of ancient Israel
David and his slingshot in the famous moment as he confronts Goliath. Courtesy of Amazon Studios
By Mira Fox February 28, 2025
The story of David and Goliath is so well known it’s a shorthand for any smaller force taking on a larger one. David and Batsheva’s affair is commemorated in Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” And yet TV and movies have tended toward other biblical stories — Moses’ story has been told in The Ten Commandments and Dreamworks’ Prince of Egypt, Joseph has a Broadway musical and Noah got the Darren Aronofsky treatment. (And, of course, Jesus has countless films and shows about him.)
But even though David is a major biblical hero in every Abrahamic faith — he’s considered the ancestor of Jesus and a prophet in the Quran, and he’s known for establishing the kingdom of Israel in Jerusalem — and his plotlines are full of of sex, war and music, any attempts at bringing his life to the screen have flopped. Aside from VeggieTales, the last major treatment of his story was in 1985.
David might finally get his moment with Amazon Prime’s new show The House of David, a big-budget series with high production values produced by the same Christian filmmakers behind numerous other Christian films such as 2023’s Jesus Revolution.
More of the Hebrew bible is devoted to David than almost any other character. Noah gets only a few lines in Genesis; Abraham gets a few chapters. David, on the other hand, is in most of I Samuel, nearly all of II Samuel and a large portion of I Chronicles, not to mention the fact that he’s often credited as the author of most of the book of Psalms.
But that wealth of text means he’s a far more complex and flawed character than some other biblical heroes. David’s arc with Batsheva, in which he commits adultery and subsequently arranges for Batsheva’s husband to die in war, is controversial, to put it lightly. His hinted-at love affair with Saul’s son Jonathan also poses problems for conservative audiences. He’s not easy to adapt into a preachy morality tale — which constitutes the bulk of bible media.
The first season of House of David, which dropped this week, sidesteps much of this controversy, at least for now, by focusing on David’s early days, culminating in the famous battle with Goliath. Instead, the show focuses at least as much on Saul, first king of Israel, ordained by the great prophet Samuel, as it does on David.
Saul disobeys one of God’s commands when he keeps an enemy king alive and enjoys the spoils of war instead of destroying them all — in return, God curses him to madness. Yet despite all that, The House of David navigates Saul’s story with remarkable delicacy. The king struggles with the idea that God no longer favors him; he still sees himself as devout, and thought he’d followed the spirit of God’s commandments if not the letter.
Scenes show his love for his wife, to whom he gives a necklace of river stones to recall their humble origins even as he rages at her in his fits of madness. His adoration for his children is clear, and theirs for him. Even Samuel, who tells Saul of God’s rejection, sobs over the curse laid on a king he chose and loved as a son. Ultimately, it is this familial love that leads the house of Saul to sinfulness; his family, willing to do anything to protect each other, turns to forbidden black magic, hiring a priestess of Ba’al to try to repel God’s curse.
This is where the House of David’s religious morality does show. It empathizes with Saul, but never questions whether his relatively small disobedience merits such a virulent curse. Instead it delineates good and bad purely on devotion to God.
Saul’s son Jonathan and his daughter Michal — who will later separate from their sinful family and side with David — make numerous speeches about their love for God. David, too, does an awful lot of praying and pontificating about God. The character of Samuel exists mainly to give monologues about God. No one ever really wonders if God’s will is good, or if they should obey; they are the Good Guys because they are devoted to God, and it’s as simple as that.
This speechifying isn’t just heavy-handed; it makes the show drag. To offset that, some of the details of the show are a bit embroidered to add drama. There aren’t any priestesses of black magic in the biblical version, for example; the scenes of voodoo-doll rituals feel far more Game of Thrones than Tanakh.
Nevertheless, most of the details in The House of David are well-researched, and often have roots in extra-biblical Jewish traditions. The idea that David was an illegitimate son, a plotline that gets a lot of air in the show, arises from Jewish midrash. Goliath’s backstory is explored, with references to the story of the Nephilim, mythical giants born from angels and humans — a niche story that barely gets one line in Genesis.
That strong base of research makes one choice particularly odd: David, in the show, has dark hair and olive skin, a far cry from the traditional understanding that King David was a redhead or, at the very least, “ruddy.” But this is true of many recent, and particularly Christian-led, shows and movies set in ancient Israel. Strange accents dominate. The foreignness of the ancient world is emphasized, and even exaggerated. And The House of David is built in this same mold; there are gratuitous scenes of David singing prayers in Hebrew. And David would feel far less exotic if he was just a white guy with red hair.
But The House of David is certainly much better than most of the Christian bible media coming out — better researched, with a better dialect coach. The real test for the show will arise if and when the series continues and deals with Jonathan or Batsheva. For now, it’s mostly a great hack if you’re ever going to be tested on the book of Samuel. Just make sure you don’t mention the voodoo.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
