The Quran

Preface

يا داوودُ إِنّا جَعَلناكَ خَليفَةً فِي الأَرضِ فَاحكُم بَينَ النّاسِ بِالحَقِّ وَلا تَتَّبِعِ الهَوىٰ فَيُضِلَّكَ عَن سَبيلِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ الَّذينَ يَضِلّونَ عَن سَبيلِ اللَّهِ لَهُم عَذابٌ شَديدٌ بِما نَسوا يَومَ الحِسابِ

Yusuf Ali

O David! We did indeed make thee a vicegerent¹ on earth: so judge thou between men in truth (and justice): Nor follow thou the lusts (of thy heart), for they will mislead thee from the Path² of God. for those who wander astray from the Path of God, is a Penalty Grievous, for that they forget the Day of Account.

Cf. 2:30, and n. 47. David’s kingly power, and the gifts of wisdom, justice, psalmody, and prophethood were bestowed on him as a trust. These great gifts were not to be a matter of self-glory.
As stated in 4171 above, this vision and its moral are nowhere to be found in the Bible. Those who think they see a resemblance to the Parable of the prophet Nathan (2 Samuel, 12:1-17) have nothing to go upon but the mention of the “one ewe” here and the “one little ewe-lamb” in Nathan’s Parable. The whole story is here different, and the whole atmosphere is different. The Biblical tide given to David, “a man after God’s own heart” is refuted by the Bible itself in the scandalous tale of heinous crimes attributed to David in chapters 11 and 12 of 2 Samuel, viz., adultery, fraudulent dealing with one of his own servants, and the contriving of his murder. Further, in chapter 13, we have the story of rapes, incest, and fratricide in David’s own household! The fact is that passages like these are mere chroniques scandakuses, i.e., narratives of scandalous crimes of the grossest character. The Muslim idea of David is that of a man just and upright, endowed with all the virtues, in whom even the least thought of self-elation has to be washed off by repentance and forgiveness.(R).