ABSTRACT
The story of David, Jonathan, and Saul appears to be a narrative of men for an audience of men, a tale of warriors whose alliances account for the fall of one king and the rise of another. That tale also appears to feature the fullest treatment of male-male friendship in the Hebrew Bible. Yet women are neither absent nor mere sideshows in this tale. Male friendship will here, too, be generated by women's bodies and women's roles in the male homosocial order. This chapter will reveal that masculinity can be negotiated around the feminization of men, one that will not disrupt the male homosocial order, but underpin it. The chapter will also detail how important procuring actual women's bodies is for men who want to achieve rank, status, and power. During his ascension to the throne, David acquires all the women of all Israel, and from his former master, Saul, too. Ownership of women and their bodies—whether proxy or actual—authenticates David as the ideal king. In the Hebrew Bible, women exist in order to validate what makes a man a man.
