Three thousand years ago, the elders of Israel came to the prophet Samuel and asked him to give them a king like all the other nations had. After watching the first three episodes of House of David—the new Prime Video series about Samuel, King Saul, and the shepherd who slew Goliath—it’s tempting to think that the show was prompted by a similar cry: “Give us a fantasy series like all the other nations have!”
A fantasy series? Isn’t David historical? And isn’t this supposed to be a faith-based drama that stays true to the biblical narrative?
Well, yes. House of David was created by Jon Erwin, codirector of hit Christian movies like I Can Only Imagine and Jesus Revolution. It is very much geared toward an audience that wants a faithful adaptation of the Bible—not only bringing its characters to life but also presenting them as Scripture-respecting role models to boot. (David, played by newcomer Michael Iskander, says at one point, “I believe all the words of Moses.”)
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But House of David is also aimed at an audience that wants a family-friendly alternative to shows like Game of Thrones, so it leans hard into parts of the Bible that other movies don’t. At the same time, it introduces plot points that push the story closer to The Lord of the Rings than to Gladiator.
This tendency to underline (or even exaggerate) the fantastical is apparent from the show’s first scene. The giant Goliath (British bodybuilder Martyn Ford) steps out from behind the Philistines and challenges the Israelites to send one of their champions to fight him in single combat. He’s huge—super huge. The biblical character was only 6’9”, or maybe 9’9”, depending on which manuscript you read. But the Goliath of House of David is at least twice the height of anyone standing near him; the filmmakers have said he was meant to be 14’.
After its dramatic opening, the series jumps back a year to show the events leading up to the confrontation, with the first three episodes detailing well-known political and familial drama. King Saul (Ali Suliman) lets power go to his head; the prophet Samuel (Stephen Lang of Avatar) rebukes him for disobedience; David’s oldest brother, Eliab (Davood Ghadami), says David is too young and inexperienced to join the army.
But all this is merely groundwork for a sweeping origin story about the giants. That’s because House of David ties the David-and-Goliath narrative to passages from other biblical books that aren’t normally referenced in major films or series about these characters. Usually, Goliath is treated as little more than a Philistine who happens to be somewhat taller than usual. But in House of David, he is part of a much deeper mythos—what you might call a shared universe.
Saul’s son Jonathan (Ethan Kai), spotting a massive handprint high up a wall in a village that’s just been attacked by a mysterious force, is reminded of a verse from Genesis about the giants who lived before the Flood (6:4). Saul, hearing that giants might be afoot, says none have roamed the land since Joshua’s day (Josh. 11:21–22). And David, for his part, calls the giants “the sons of Anak,” claiming they are the offspring of angels who came down from heaven and mated with human women (Num. 13:33; Gen. 6:1–4).
If the series limited itself to these biblical callbacks, that would be intriguing enough. But it doesn’t stop there; it draws on other sources and invents new elements to build an entire subplot around its larger-than-life villains.
Achish (Alexander Uloom), the Philistine king of Gath, goes looking for the giants—he calls them “gods”—because he wants to form an alliance with them against the Israelites. His quest takes him into a valley where Goliath and his brothers (1 Chron. 20:5) live with their mother in a cave—a setting that brings to mind the ghost-haunted, subterranean spaces of J. R. R. Tolkien’s stories. The mother of the giants is a regular-sized woman named Orpah (Sian Webber): a nod, presumably, to the rabbinic tradition that says Goliath and his brothers were the sons of Ruth’s sister-in-law, the Moabite widow who returned to her gods and did not follow Ruth and Naomi to the land of Judah (Ruth 1:3–15).
The series has other supernatural elements too. The king of the newly defeated Amalekites (depicted as blood-drinking cannibals) seems to be casting a spell against one of Saul’s daughters while he is chained and put on display in Saul’s tent. David’s mother, Nitzavet (Siir Tilif)—who is apparently dead before the series begins, though the biblical David’s mother was alive well into his adulthood (1 Sam. 22:3–4)—is seen in flashback and seems to have prophetic knowledge of David’s destiny. And when Saul is finally rejected by God, we suddenly see the world through his spirit-afflicted eyes (1 Sam. 16:14–16). The imagery goes dark, like the world as seen by Frodo when he wears the One Ring.
The series seems to draw from the postbiblical tradition for some of its less fantastical elements as well. The David of this series is belittled by his father and brothers—and overlooked by them when Samuel comes calling—not merely because he is the youngest person in the family but also because he is illegitimate, a “bastard” whose very existence brings shame to his father, Jesse (Louis Ferreira). This might seem like an odd and unnecessarily complicated bit of backstory at first. But a quick check of the Jewish Encyclopedia reveals that this, too, might be rooted to some degree in the rabbinic tradition that says David was thought to be the son of a slave woman and thus did not get the same upbringing as his brothers.
As a faith-based project aimed at a mass audience in general and a family audience in particular, House of David can’t help sanitizing some of the more adult parts of its story. As far as we can tell, the Saul of this series has just the one wife, Ahinoam (Daredevil’s Ayelet Zurer), not the harem alluded to in the Scriptures (2 Sam. 3:7; 12:8). The narrator tells us Saul was told to slay the Amalekite king but doesn’t mention that Saul was told to kill every Amalekite man, woman, and child too (1 Sam. 15:3). Saul’s younger son Eshbaal (Snowpiercer’s Sam Otto) is portrayed as a hedonist, always drinking and flirting—but so far, at least, his debauchery is depicted in very PG terms.
This is not to say that the show doesn’t warrant some sort of parental advisory. There is a fair bit of action-movie violence here, as well as a hint of offscreen cruelty courtesy of a spy named Doeg (Ashraf Barhom). And there is even a brief bit of circumcision humor. (Between this and recent episodes of The Chosen and The Promised Land, that seems to be a thing now.)
Still, it’s interesting to compare this series to, say, Of Kings and Prophets, a major secular network series about Saul and David that aired briefly in 2016. (Fun fact: Martyn Ford, who plays the hairy, bearded Goliath in House of David, played a bald, clean-shaven Goliath in an episode of that series.)
Of Kings and Prophets emphasized the sex, violence, and moral ambiguity in the David story—including David’s own murderous impulses (1 Sam. 25:21–22, 34)—but barely acknowledged David’s faith. House of David has the opposite issue, emphasizing David’s spirituality while (so far) eliminating the sex and downplaying the violence except when it’s committed by the bad guys or absolutely justified on the part of our heroes. It would be encouraging to see an adaptation of the David story that captured both sides of the story. But who would be the audience for it?
In any case, I’m curious to see where House of David goes from here. Erwin has teased an even deeper dive into Goliath’s origins in future episodes. Several characters—including the aforementioned Doeg—are taken from later passages in the Bible; their presence may be a foretaste of where the series will go. (Among other things, Stewart Scudamore, who has at least half a dozen other Bible movies on his résumé, appears here as an elder named Adriel, which suggests there could be a wedding in the show’s near future; see 1 Samuel 18:19 for details.)
Mostly, I’m curious to see how the series follows the template that it’s setting for itself. The Bible does have a few verses about David’s men slaying giants after Goliath dies (2 Sam. 21:15–22; 1 Chron. 11:23; 20:4–8), but those passages are brief.
The shepherd’s story gets a lot more earthbound after this. House of David may have to pad its story even more to keep the fantasy alive.
Peter T. Chattaway is a film critic with a special interest in Bible movies.
