Divine Weapons King David Killing 800 People at Once
Question
Shalom aleichem dear rabbi. My name is yakov David. I read a story about David hamelech in Talmud a few days ago. I read that king David used a weapon like a arrow or a spear and hi shoot it to the enemies and it kills thousand worriors in battle field. My question is that are there Devine weapons in Judaism? I read about rabbi nahum ish gamzo that he changes earth into weapons. Please clear my doubts.
Answer
Shalom!
Thank you for your question.
I believe you are referring to the story in Moed Katan 16b where it says that King David killed 800 people at once. I will add that, as the story goes, King David was upset that he was “only” able to kill 800 and not a full 1000! A Divine Voice called out to him and told him that the reason he was limited to 800 at a time and not the full 1000 was a punishment for the sin with Batsheva and Uriah. As Rashi explains, he “lost” the ability to kill 200 people as a result of his sin.
You ask whether this teaching should be taken literally, and the like.
We recently read in the weekly Torah portion that the Ten Spies reported back to the Jewish people that the cities in the Promised Land "great and fortified cities until the Heavens."
The Talmud (Tamid 29a, Chullin 90b) comments on this saying that it is merely an exaggeration or figure of speech. As Rav Ami says, the Torah and the sages are known to speak with embellishment and exaggeration.
There are plenty more example of exaggeration in the Talmud. The Mishna (Tamid 3:4) states that sometimes the pile of ashes on the Temple altar would reach 300 kor (a tremendous and unlikely height). Another Mishna (Shekalim 8:5) says that the curtain covering the Holy Ark in the Temple was so heavy that it took 300 people to lift it. Again, this is unlikely to be taken literally. These images are just meant to convey emphasis or importance.
For more on exaggeration in the Talmud see Rashi to Bava Metzia 38a and Chullin 90.
So here, too, the likely answer is that the Talmud is embellishing King David’s skills as a warrior and his success.