David

David’s puns in a nutshell

David is written as דוד dwd, and in a few instances as דויד dwyd. The “strong” letters in David are the 2 Ds. The Waw is here used for a V phoneme, so it’s “semi-strong”. Overall, the name is very “fuzzy”, so we have to rely on the story to find the David puns. It seems there are 2 categories:

1. Most David puns consist of words that are written with two Ds like David, plus “weak” letters.
2. However, quite a few puns only have a single D, or a Ṭet. You could say these are all Davey puns, as the 2nd D is missing. They can still be confirmed though, because they all perfectly match elements in David’s story. Plus, you could always slap on a grammar T suffix, so the pattern is D/Ṭ-(T).

These are the puns:

• David is chosen as the new king, because ידיד ydyd means “chosen”.

• David is liked & loved by both Saul & Jonathan, because דוד dwd means “friend” & “lover”. ידיד ydyd also means “befriended” & “beloved”, in addition to “chosen”. This is the official explanation of the name.

• David is grieving over losing Jonathan, and later his son, because דוי dwy means “grieving” & “mourning”.

• David is a musician playing the harp, perhaps because הדד hdd means “resounding” & “echo”. (The harp itself may double as a smutty pun with “playing” a “string”, see the next pun.)

• David is portrayed as smart, perhaps because חדוד ḥdwd means “sharp” & “acute”. It also means “deception”, which is one reason the spooks love this name. (Saul often “has a spear in his hand” when watching David, because ḥdwd for “sharpening” was also a euphemism for “wanking”.)

• David becomes a rebel, perhaps because Aramaic דוד dwd means “agitation” & “disturbance”.

• David feigns to be crazy at Achish’s court, because Aramaic דוד dwd also means “confused” & “insane”. (Saul likewise goes to Ramah to “get David”, and then “gets insane”, which is the same word.)

• David is an expert spy, sneaking up to Saul and stealing items off his body several times, because דוי dwy means “spying”. This is also one reason the spooks love this name. 🡻

• David fasts for his sick son, because טוות ṭwwt / טוי ṭwy means “fasting”. (We’ll see more ṭwy puns below.)

• David fights in a duel, because Aramaic dˁwtˀ / dˁwˀ / dw means “fight” & “match”.

• David uses a slingshot, because ידוי ydwy / ידה ydh means “throwing” & “hurling” (from yd for “hand”). 🡻

• David is contrasted as weak to the giant Goliath, because דוי dwy means “weak” (see Goliath). This word is not the best choice (it actually means “sickly”), so it’s a clue to the spook pun! 🡻

• David is winning when paired with Goliath in the spook parable beneath, because Arabic طوي ṭwy means “rolled shut” & “concealed”. By contrast, Goliath loses the spook contest, because גלה glh means “rolled open & “revealed” (see Goliath). Not only are the figurative meanings of “concealing” vs. “revealing” a clear contrast, but even the literal meanings match: Both are derived from “rolling”. The “concealing” pun is likely the main reason why spooks love this name. 🡻

• To confirm this, David is rescued by a spider in a non-Biblical story, because Hebrew טוי ṭwy means “spider” & “spinning”. It’s the exact same spelling as Arabic طَوِيَ ṭwy for “rolling up” & “folding”, and the words are officially related. That’s the final clue for the main spook pun! 🡻

• Last but not least, David’s symbol is the Star of David, even though that’s not in the Bible. The reason is that Aramaic טעי ṭˁy means “planet” & “star”, derived from “wanderer” for the planets.

• The Star of David is a spook symbol, because Aramaic טעי ṭˁy also means “deception”, derived from “wandering astray”. The Hebrew name is Shield of David, which then puns with “shield of deception”.

David as pun with dwy for “weak”

David & Goliath are one of the most famous Biblical stories. Their epic battle has been depicted in countless works of art. The 2 very obviously form an opposing pair: David is small & weak, Goliath is large & strong. On the surface, this tells us that the little guy can win, which is nice. For the ancient spook authors, it must have been a pun though. But which one?

Since the contrast between the small David and the huge Goliath is so central to the story, we would expect that the authors of the parable would give them punny names, e.g. “Mr. Small” & “Mr. Big”. And indeed the authors did just that, but with a twist: The names David & Goliath pun with the words דוי dwy deway for “weak” & “sick”, and גל gl gal for “heap”. But these are rather obscure words, which don’t fit the story too well: dwy only means “weak” in the sense of “weakened” & “sick”, not being weaker because you are smaller. And gl only means generally being “great” & “bulky” in Arabic, as jl. In Hebrew, the corresponding word gl only means “heap” & “pile”, not used for persons.

David as pun with ṭwy for “rolled-in” & “concealed”

…but both these curious name choices for David & Goliath are clues:

• In David’s case, the pun with dwy for “weak” is evidence that the authors used very fuzzy homonyms with only a single D. It’s not a David pun, but a Davey pun.
• In Goliath’s case, the etymology of the pun word gl for “heap” gives away the real spook pun: gl for “heap” is officially derived from gll / glh for “things rolled up”.

This leads us to the spooky puns used in the veiled parable underneath:

• In Goliath’s case, that’s easy: gll / glh for “rolling” also means “revealing” & “discovery”, derived from “unrolling”. No wonder Goliath is the big bad enemy: Revealing their nefarious corruption is the worst thing that the spook aristocrats can imagine!!!
• In David’s case, we have to search a bit longer, to find the pun in Arabic: There, ṭwy means “rolling in”, and by derivation “concealing”. No wonder David is the glorified hero: Concealing organized top-level corruption is what spookery is all about!!!

As a confirmation that we found the right puns, we got a perfect contrast: Not only are the meanings “revealing” & “concealing” perfect antonyms, and both central to spookery. But both are also derived from “rolling”, so they are even antonyms in their literal meanings “rolled open” & “rolled shut”.

This is likely the reason why there’s so much talk about a “king David” and why the spook aristocrats always sport “Davidic” bloodlines — what they mean are “concealed” kings, and “concealed” bloodlines! (In Greek parlance, many of them claimed to be descendants of Poseidon ≈ pseudon, i.e. “falsified” bloodlines.)

David as pun with ṭwy for “spider”

One non-Biblical story pairs David with a spider: The spider spins its web over a cave entrance and helps to hide David from Saul’s soldiers.

But the Hebrew root for “spinning” & “spider” is ṭwy — exactly the same spelling as Arabic ṭwy for “rolled-in”, just using a different alphabet. The words are even officially related: Obviously, humans “spin” a thread by “rolling” it. That’s more confirmation that ṭwy is the intended pun for the David & Goliath story.

David as pun with dwy for “spying”

In 2 instances David sneaks up to his arch-nemesis Saul, without Saul noticing, and snatches items off his body as proof. This happens in 1 Samuel 24:4 and 1 Samuel 26:12. This is an obvious repetition. I think the ancient spook authors liked the idea, because they felt that David puns with dwy for “spying”.

David as pun with ydwy for “hurling”

One reason that David uses a slingshot in the story is a pun with ידוי ydwy for “throwing” & “hurling”.

But this is just one of the “storytelling puns”, and the word isn’t used in the text. The used word is קלע qlˁ instead, which means “sling”, but also “curtain”. A concealing “curtain” of deception is what actually protects the spook aristocrats against the “revelation” which Goliath represents.