By Diane Howard, Ph.D.
House of David is an historical drama television series created by Jon Erwin for Amazon Prime Video. Set in Judaea and Israel in 1000 BC, the series follows the rise of David, the youngest son of Jesse, as the second king of Israel. His journey in the series includes David as a humble shepherd, his legendary battle with Goliath, and then his kingship.
The first three episodes of this series were released on February 27 with subsequent episodes to be released on Thursdays one at a time. Produced by The Wonder Project, a studio led by Jon Erwin and Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten, this series is in collaboration with Amazon MGM Studios and internationally distributed by Lionsgate.
The character of David is somewhat flat and one-dimensional in the first three episodes. Michael Iskander’s strength as David at this point is his singing ability, as he plays his kinnor (lyre). Action and intensity grow in the next two episodes, especially for Saul. At the end of the third episode, however, David is anointed King of Israel. So, hopefully, the power of the Lord in him will be seen in the coming scenes.
Like typical Biblical films of the past, the characters in these episodes do not look or sound like Westerners with American or British English dialects. Although the main characters do not distinctly sound like Hebrew speakers, they and the other characters of different neighboring groups sound like Mid-Easterners for the most part (although use of American words like okay, alright, funny… challenge linguistic credibility.) Because Saul is played by an Israeli actor and David is played by an Egyptian actor, they lend to a credible look for the series with the other non-Western looking sounding actors.
This series was filmed in 2024 on location in the Mediterranean (mostly in Greece). The settings, costumes, dialects are believable, although not clearly Israeli or Hebrew or of Biblical neighboring groups. For example, the two thrones for King Saul (first in his tent in Gilgal and then in the Amalekite fortress) look wooden, whereas buildings and furnishings in Ancient Israel would have been made of stone.
Based on the Biblical stories of David, there are fictionalized and extra-Biblical elements in the first episodes. The major Biblical theme in the first three episodes is that God must get the glory, not man. This is seen in David himself.
The best acting in the first three episodes is with Israeli actor Ali Suliman as Saul. He shows the building conflict of his mental instability as he insists on seeking his own glory rather than God’s.
The Erwin Brothers have raised the bar of believability in general. The first three episodes honor the God of Israel and of Christians.
Diane Howard, Ph.D. is a dialogue, dialect and voice-over coach, as well as a journalist who writes about the role of faith in movies and in the entertainment field. Her website is dianehoward.com.