David was in many ways a brutal king. All ancient kings were. They did not have either the technology or management theory to administrate their kingdoms in any other way. What we call brutality they would call a legal system. Imposing 21 century morality on government 2900 years ago is duplicitous.
Events such as Herod killing the children of a village would also not raise Roman eyebrows. The Roman army would at times use little boys in conquered areas as target practice for their javelins(Pilum). The Romans sort of invented the Police State
“David was in many ways a brutal king. All ancient kings were. “
The Bible presents David as a flawed human as we all are, but still a man who worshiped the one true God. He did not act like a Pagan King.
Besides, as I point out, the same people who told us a short time ago these personalities were figments of Biblical fantasy are now explaining them for us.
I agree with what you say about using contemporary standards to judge people of another age.
The Romans, while brutal enough, lived in a brutal world and they did create a society in which people were bound by laws, judges and courts and not the personal whims of a king - at least as long as you didn’t cross Caesar personally.
Herod’s father, Herod Agrippa, was a friend of Augustus and so Judea and the Herodian Dynasty were given special treatment by Rome. Jews did not have to worship Caesar, graven images including the legionary standards,were covered in Jerusalem, Jews were not conscripted into the Roman army, and the taxes imposed by Rome on Judea were less onerous than those imposed by the Temple hierarchy. Rome also kept away those troubling Parthians and other invaders. But no one likes a foreign overlord and that included Judeans, regardless of how mild the Romans were.
I never heard any stories about Romans using captured boys for target practice with Pila. Aside from Judea, the Romans made an effort to incorporate conquered people into their government and military, and eventually citizenship was expanded to all residents of the Empire. As an aside, Jews composed a large percentage of the population of the Empire with large numbers of residents in all Roman cities. Despite the revolts that occurred in Judea, there were no acts of persecution against resident Jews at the time throughout the Empire, many of whom, like Paul, were Roman Citizens.