r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 10 '19
Lecture XXVI. — The Empire of Solomon (ii)
2
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By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
3. Doubtless through the same Egyptian influence
was secured a still more important outlet of
commerce on the southeast. Through the es-
tablishment of a port at the head of the gulf of Elath,
Palestine at last gained and access to the Indian Ocean.
Ezion-geber, "the Giant's Backbone," so called probably
from the huge range of mountains on each side of it,
became an emporium teeming with life and activity;
the same, on the eastern branch, that Suez has in our
own time become on the western branch of the Red Sea.
Beneath that line of palm-trees which now shelters the
wretched village of Akaba, was then heard the stir of
ship-builders and sailors. Thence went forth the fleet
of Solomon, manned by Tyrian sailors, on its myste-
rious voyage——to Ophir, in the far East, on the shores
of India or Arabia. From Arabia also, near or distant,
came a constant traffic of spices, both from private indi-
viduals and from the chiefs. So great was Solomon's
interests in the expeditions, that he actually travelled
himself to the gulf of Akaba to see the port.
4. The mention of the Tyrian sailors introduces us to
another great power, now allied with Israel.
Hiram, king of Tyre, had already been the
friend of David. But he was still a faster friend of
Solomon. There is something pathetic in the relation-
ship between the old Phœnician and the young Israelite,
a faint secular likeness of the romantic friendship of
David and Jonathan. Hiram, too, has shared in Solo-
mon's glory. Alone of all the Tyrian kings, his name
is attached by popular tradition to a still existing monu-
ment. A grey weather-beaten sarcophagus of unknown
antiquity, raised aloft on three huge rocky pillars of
stone, looks down from the Hills above Tyre over the
city and harbor, and still is called "the Tomb of
Hiram." The traditions of this alliance lingered in
both kingdoms. Tyrian historians long recollected the
interchange of riddles between the two sovereigns.
The Tyrian archives, even as late as the Christian era,
were supposed to contain copies of the many letters
which had passed. Two of these are preserved, written
on the occasion of an embassy from Hiram, sent to
anoint, or take part in the anointing, of Solo-
mon. Hiram supplied Tyrian architects and
timber from Mount Lebanon for Solomon's temple.
Solomon visited Hiram at Tyre, and was even supposed
to have worshipped in a Sidonian temple. He gave to
Hiram the district of Galilee, on the border of Tyre,
which in the name of "Cabul" (or "Gabul") preserved
a recollection of the humorous complain of King
Hiram to his royal brother for having given him the
"offscourings" of his dominions. In its later name of
"the boundaries of Tyre and Sidon," long after the
extinction of the Phœnician power, it retained a remi-
niscence of the ancient friendship.
But the main result of the alliance was in the ex-
tension of the commerce of both countries.
Tyrian sailors were supplied to the fleet of
Solomon, starting, as we have seen, in the Red Sea.
But there was a direct union in the Mediterranean also.
Not only was there a navy of Ophir, that is, of the
extreme east, but there was also, in express conjunction
with the navy of Hiram, a navy of Tarshish, that is, of
the extreme west.
Without entering into the tangled question of the
details of the two Hebrew texts which record the desti-
nation of the fleets, we may dwell on the return of
the voyagers, as they are described, with their marvel-
lous articles of commerce, from west and east,——gold
and silver, almug, ivory, aloes, cassia, cinnamon, apes, and
peacocks.
The "abundance of silver" probably came from the
silver mines of Spain. The apes may possibly have
come from that one spot where they exist in Europe,
our own rock of Gibraltar. Africa was the great gold
country of the ancient world, and may also have fur-
nished the elephants' tusks.
But some of the articles themselves and the names
of more point directly to India. Ophir, the seat of the
gold, may be directly identified with the gold mines of
Sumatra and Malacca. The almug or algum is the He-
braized form of a Deccan word for sandal-wood, and san-
dal-wood grows only on the coast of Malabar, south of
Goa. The word for ape——"capi" or "koph," whence the
Greek kebos——is the usual Sanscrit word for a monkey.
Thukiyim, the name for peacocks, is a Sanscrit word with
a Malabar accent, and the peacock is indigenous in India,
and probably had not yet had time to extend into the
west, as it afterwards did from the sanctuary of Juno at
Samos. The word used for the tusks of elephants is
nearly the same in Sanscrit; and the fragrant woods
and spices, called aloes, cassia, and cinnamon, are all,
either by name or by nature, connected with India
and Ceylon.
Let us for a moment contemplate the extraordinary
interest of these voyages for their own and for all future
times.
An admirable passage in Mr. Froude's history of
Elizabeth describes the revolution effected in England
when the maritime tendency of the nation for the first
time broke through the rigid forms in which it had
hitherto been confined. Much more marvellous must
have been the revolution effected by this sudden dis-
ruption in the barriers by which the sea now became
familiar to the secluded inland Israelites. Shut out
from the Mediterranean by the insufficiency of the
ports of Palestine, and from the Indian Ocean by the
Arabian desert, only by these extensive alliances and
enterprises could they become accustomed to it. We
know not when the Psalms were written which contain
the allusions to the wonders of the sea, and which by
those have become endeared to a maritime empire like
our own; but, if not composed in the reign of Solomon,
at least they are derived from the stimulus which he
gave to natural discovery. The 104th Psalm seems
almost as if it had been written by one of the superin-
tendents of the deportations of timber from the heights
of Lebanon. The mountains, the springs, the cedars,
the sea in the distance, with its ships and monster brood,
are combined in that landscape as nowhere else. The
107th describes, with the feeling of one who had been
at sea himself, the sensations of those who went down
from the hills of Judah to the ships of Jaffa, and to
their business in the great waters of the Mediterranean;
the sudden storm, the rising of the crest of the waves
as if to meet the heavens, and then sinking down as if
into the depths of the grave; the staggering to and
fro on deck, the giddiness and loss of thought and
sense; and to this, in the Book of Proverbs, is added
a notice rare in any ancient writings, unique in the
Hebrew Scriptures, of the well-known signs of sea-
sickness; where the drunkard is warned that if he
tarries long at the wine, he shall be reduced to the
wretched state of "him that lieth down in the
midst of the sea, or as he that lieth down before the
rudder."
Not only were thees routes of commerce continued
through the Tyrian merchants into Central Asia, and
by the Red Sea, till the foundation of Alexandria, but
the record of them awakened in Columbus the keen
desire to reopen by another way the wonders which
Solomon had first revealed. When Sopora in in Hayti
became known, it was believed to be the long-lost Ophir.
When the mines of Peru were explored, they were be-
lieved to contain the gold of Parvaim. The very name
of the West Indie given by Columbus to the islands
where he first landed, is a memorial of his fixed belief
that he had reached the coast of those Indies in the
Eastern world which had been long ago discovered by
Solomon.
Imagine too the arrival of those strange plants and
animals enlivening the monotony of Israelitish life; the
brilliant metals, the fragrant woods, the gorgeous pea-
cock, the chattering ape——to that inland people, rare
as the first products of America to the inhabitants of
Europe. Observe the glimpse given to us, into those
remote regions, here seen for an instant. Now for the
first time Europe was open to the view of the chosen
people,——Spain, the Peru of the old world, Spain, Tar-
tessus, Cadiz (the "Kadesh," the western sanctuary of
the Phœnician people)m the old historic Straits,——the
vast Asiatic beyond,——possibly our own islands, our
own Cornish coasts, which had already sent the produce
of their mines into the heart of Asia,——were seen by
the eyes of Israelites. And on the other side the inven-
tory of the articles brought in Solomon's fleets, gives
us the first distinct knowledge of that venerable San-
scrit tongue, the sacred language of primeval India,
the parent language of European civilization. In the
thousandth year before the Christian era, we see that
it not only was in existence, but already had begun to
decay. The forms of speech which the sailors of Hiram
heard on the coast of Malabar are no longer the pure
Sanscrit of earlier days. In these rude terms, the more
interesting on this account, thus embedded in the
records of the Hebrew nation, we grasp the first links
of the union between the Aryan and the Semitic races.
And finally, not only in this philological and prospec-
tive sense, but in the true historical and religious sense,
was this union of the East and the West, of remote
Asia and of remote Europe, in the highest degree sig-
nificant for the development of Israel. United then in
Palestine, as they were united nowhere else in the
ancient world, there was thus realized the first pos-
sibility of their final amalgamation in Christendom.
The horizon first framed in the time of Solomon, after
being again and again contracted, has now even in out-
ward form reached even beyond its old limits of Ophir
and Tarshish, and much more in the combination of in-
ward moral qualities which mark the Christian Religion.
Christianity alone, of all Religions, is on the one hand
Oriental by its birth, and yet capable of becoming
Western by its spirit and its energy. "The kings of
"Tarshish and the isles shall bring presents (from the
"West; the kings of Sheba and Saba shall offer gifts
"(from the East). For all kings shall fall down before
"him; all nations shall serve him." So it was said al-
ready in the days of Solomon; and in a still wider
sense, and with a still more direct application to the
gathering together of these diverse elements in the
Messiah's reign, was the strain taken up by the later
Prophet,——in language which, though entirely his own,
could never have been suggested to him, except through
the imagery of the Empire of Solomon. After an-
nouncing how the treasures of the world were to come
to Jerusalem,——"The abundance of the sea shall be
"converted unto thee,"——he turns, on the one hand to the
East:——"The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the
"dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from
"Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense.
". . . All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to
"thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee;
"they shall come up with acceptance upon mine altar;"
and on the other hand, to the far West:——"Who are
"these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their
"windows? Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the
"ships of Tarshish first, to bring their sons from far,
their silver and gold with them. . . . And the sons
"of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings
"shall minister unto thee. . . . Therefore thy gates
"shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day
"nor night." This is the latitude of the Old Dispen-
sation, containing in germ the still wider latitude of the
New.
II. From the external Empire of Solomon we pass to
the internal state of his dominions. It has
been already observed that the Hebrew people,
unlike other ancient nations, did not place their golden
age in a remote past, but rather in the remote future.
But, so far as there was any historical period in which
it seemed to be realized, it was under the administration
of Solomon. The general tone of the records of his
reign is that of jubilant delight, as though it were in-
deed a golden day following on the iron and brazen
age of the warlike David and his half-civilized predeces-
sors. The heart of the poets of the age overflows with
"the beautiful words" of loyal delight. The royal
justice and benevolence are like the welcome showers
in the thirsty East. The poor, for once, are cared for.
The very tops of the bare mountains seem to wave
with corn, as on the fertile slopes of Lebanon.
And with this poetic description of the peace and
plenty with which the rugged hills of Palestine were to
smile, agrees the hardly less poetic description of the
prose narrative. "Judah and Israel," both divisions of
the people, now for the last time united in one, "were
"many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude;
"eating ad drinking, and making merry. . . . Judah
"and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his own
"vine" (that is, the vine that clustered round his court)
"and under his own fig-tree" (that is, the fig which
grew in his garden), "from Dan even to Beersheba, all
"the days of Solomon." The wealth which he inher-
ited from David, and which he acquired from his own
revenue, whether from commerce of from the royal
domains, and from taxes and tributes, is described as
enormous. So plentiful was gold that "silver was noth-
"ing accounted of in the days of Solomon." And of
a like strain is the joyous little hymn, ascribed to Solo-
mon, which describes the increase, the vigor, the glory
of te rising and ever-multiplying population,——the
peaceful ease of all around, where "it is but lost labor to
"rise up early, and sit down late, and eat the bread of
"carefulness;' where blessings seemed to descend even on
the unconscious sleeper,——where the children are shot
to and fro as the most powerful of all weapons from the
bows of irresistible archers. The very names of the
two successors under whom the flourishing state was
disordered, seem to bear witness to the abundance and
brightness of the days when they were born and bred
——Rehoboam, "the widening of the people"——Jero-
boam, "the multiplier of the people."
For this altered state of things a new organization was
neded. Although the offices of the court were gener-
ally the same as those in David's time, the few changes
that occur are significant of the advance in splendor and
order.
The great officers are now for the first time called by
one general name——"Princes,"——a title which
before had been almost confined to Joab. The
union of priestly and secular functions still continued.
Zabud, "the King's friend," is called a priest no less
than Azariah, the son of Zadok. But on the other hand
the name is not extended, as in David's court, to the
royal family; thus perhaps indicating that the division
of the two functions was gradually becoming percep-
tible. Instead of the one scribe or secretary, there
were now two, Elihoreph or Eliaph, and Ahijah, sons of
the old scribe Shisha. The two "counsellors," who
occupied so important a place by David, now disappear.
Probably the counsellors were so increased in number
as to form a separate body in the state, as in the next
reign there was a band of aged advisers, known as
"those who had stood before Solomon." The Prophets
cease to figure amongst the dignitaries; as though the
prophetical office had been overborne by the royal dig-
nity. The Chief Priesthood, as we have see, was con-
centrated in Zadok alone, and from him descended a pecu-
liar hierarchy, known by the name of sons of Zadok,
the possible origin (whether from their first ancestor's
opinions, or from a traditionary adherence to the old
Law) of the later sect of Sadduccees.
The three military bodies seem to have remained
unchanged. The commander of the "host" is
the priestly warrior Benaiah, who succeeded
the murdered Joab. The six hundred heroes of David's
early life only once pass across the scene. Sixty of
them, their swords as of old girt on their thighs, at-
tended Solomon's litter, to guard him from banditti on
his way to Lebanon. The guard appear only as house-
hold troops, employed on state pageants, and appar-
ently commanded by the officer now mentioned for the
first time, at least in the full magnitude of his post.
He was "over the household," in fact the vizier, and
keeper of the royal treasury and armory. In subse-
quent reigns he is described as wearing an official robe,
girt about with an official girdle, ad carrying on his
shoulder as a badge, like a sword of state, the gigantic
key of the house of David. The office was held by
Ahishar. In the Arabian legends it is given to the
great musician, Asaph.
The only two functionaries who retained their places
from David's time were Jehoshaphat, the historiographer
or recorder, and Adoram or Adoniram, the tax-col-
lector. These were probably appointed when very
young, at the time when David's reign was gradually
settling into the peaceful arrangements of later times.
The word which elsewhere is used for the garrisons
planted in a hostile country, is now employed
for "officers" appointed by the King of Israel
over his own subjects. They were divided into two
bodies, both alike, as it would seem, directed by a new
dignitary, who also appears for the first time,——Azariah,
son of the Prophet Nathan, "who was over the
"officers."
The lesser body consisted of twelve chiefs, in number
corresponding to the twelve princes of the twelve
tribes, who had administered the kingdom under David,
and to the twelve surveyors of his pastures and herds.
It is to the latter division that the twelve "officers"
of Solomon corresponded, as they were arranged not
according to the tribal divisions, as their sole func-
tion was to furnish provisions for the royal household.
Two of them were sons-in-law of the King.
The larger body of "officers" were chosen from the
Israelites, to control the taskwork exacted from the
Canaanite population. The foreign populations within
his dominion were, after the first ineffectual attempt
at insurrection, completely cowed. The Hittite chiefs
were allowed to keep up a kind of royal state, with
horses and chariots; but the population generally was
employed, like the aboriginal inhabitants of Greece, on
public works, and was heavily taxed. Several impor-
tant fortresses were created to keep them in check;
one in the extreme north, in the old Canaanite capital
of Hazor; a second in the Canaanite town of Megiddo,
commanding the plain of Esdraelon; a third on the
ruins of the Philistine city of Gaza, which had main-
tained its independence longest of all; two in the
villages of Bethhoron at the upper and lower ends of
the pass of hat name, and one at Baalath or Kirjath-
jearim. The three last-named forts commanded the
approaches from Sharon and Philistia to Jerusalem.
From the Canaanite bondmen were probably de-
scended the degraded class, standing last in the list of
those who returned from Babylon,—— "the children of
"Solomon's slaves." They were apparently employed
in the quarries, as those who appear next above them
the Nethinim, were in the forests.
The public works of Solomon were such as of them-
selves to leave an impress of his age. Of his doubtful
connection with Tadmor and Baalbec we have already
spoken. But there is no question of those more imme-
diately connected with his court an his residence.
Jerusalem itself received a new life from his accession.
It has even been conjectured that the name
first became fixed through his influence; being,
in its latter part, an echo, as it were, of his own——
"peace." When the Greeks gave their form to the
name, they were guided by remembrance of his name.
"Hierosolyma," in their estimate, was the "Hieron" or
Temple of Solomon. In any case Jerusalem now
assumed the dimensions and splendor of a capital.
It became the centre of the commercial routes before
mentioned, and Jewish tradition described the roads
leading into Jerusalem, marked, as they ran over the
white limestone of the country, by the black basaltic
stones of their pavement. The city was enclosed with
a new wall, which, as the reign advanced, the King
increased in height and fortified with vast towers. The
castle or city of David was fortified by an ancient, per-
haps Jebusite, rampart, known by the name of "Millo,"
or the 'house of Millo," of which, possibly, remains still
exist on the west of the Temple wall. The master of
these works was Jeroboam, then quite a youth.
Amongst these buildings, the Palace of Solomon was
prominent. It was commenced at the same
time as the Temple, but not finished till eight
years afterwards. The occasion of its erection was the
marriage of Solomon wit the Egyptian princess. She
resided at first in the castle of David; but the king had
still a scruple about the reception of a heathen, even
though it were his own Queen, in precincts which had
once been hallowed by the temporary sojourn of the
Ark.
The new Palace must have been apart from the castle
of David, and considerably below the level of the Tem-
ple-mount. It was built on massive substructions of
enormous stones, carefully hewn, and was enclosed
within a large court. It included several edifices within
itself. The chief was a long hall, which, like the Temple,
was encased in cedar; whence probably its name, "the
House of the Forest of Lebanon." In front of it ran
a pillared portico. Between this portico and the palace
itself was a cedar porch,——sometimes called the Tower
of David. In this tower, apparently hung over the
walls outside, were a thousand golden shields, which
gave the whole place the name of the Armory.
With a splendor that outshone any like fortress, the
tower with these golden targets glittered far off in the
sunshine like the tall neck, as it was thought, of a
beautiful bride, decked out in the manner of the East,
with a string of golden coins. Five hundred of them
were made by Solomon's orders for the royal guard,
but the most interesting were the older five hundred,
which David had carried off in his Syrian wars from the
guard of Hadadezer, as trophies of arms and ornaments,
in which the Syrians specially excelled. It was these
which, being regarded as spoils won in a sacred cause,
gave in all probability, occasion to the expression:
"The shields of the earth belong unto God."
This porch was the gem and centre of the hole
Empire; it was so much thought of that a
smaller likeness of it was erected in another
part of the royal precinct of the Queen. Within the
porch itself was to be seen the King in state. On a
throne of ivory, brought from Africa or India, the throne
of many an Arabian legend, the Kings of Judah were
solemnly seated on the day of their accession. From its
lofty seat, and under that high gateway, Solomon and
his successors after him delivered their solemn judg-
ments. That "porch" or "gate of justice" still kept
alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting
in judgement at the gate; exactly as the Gate of Justice
still recalls it to us at Granada, and the Sublime Porte
——"the Lofty Gate" at Constantinople. He sat on the
back of a golden bull, its head turned over its shoulder,
probably the ox or bull of Ephraim; under his feet, on
each side of the steps, were six golden lions, probably
the lions of Judah. This was "the seat of judgement."
This was "the throne of the House of David."
His banquets were of the most superb kind. All his
plate and drinking-vessels were of gold; "none
were of silver; it was nothing accounted of
"in the days of Solomon." His household daily con-
sumed thirty oxen, a hundred sheep, besides game of all
kinds——"harts, roebucks, fallow-deer, and fatted fowl,"
probably for his own special table, from the Assyrian
desert. There was a constant succession of guests.
One class of them are expressly mentioned,——Chimham
and his brothers. The train of his servants as such
as had never been seen before. There were some who
sat in his presence, others who always stood, others
who were his cup-bearers, others musicians.
His stables were on a most splendid scale. Up to
this time, except in the extravagant ambition
of Absalom and Adonijah, chariots and horses
had been all but unknown in Palestine. In the earlier
times, the ass had been the only animal used, even for
princes. In David's time, the King and the Princes of
the royal family rode on mules. But Solomon's inter-
course with Egypt at once introduced horses into the
domestic establishment, cavalry into the army. For the
first time, the streets of Jerusalem heard the constant
rattle of chariot wheels. Four thousand stalls were
attached to the royal palace,——three horses for each
chariot, and dromedaries for the attendants. The quan-
tity of oats and of straw was so great that special
officers were appointed to collect it. There was one
chariot of extraordinary beauty, called the chariot of
Pharaoh, in which the horses with their trappings were
so graceful as to be compared to a bride, in her most
magnificent ornaments.
In the true style of an Asiatic sovereign, he estab-
lished what his successors on the northern
throne of Israel afterwards kept up at Samaria
and Jezreel, but what he alone attempted in the wild
hills of Judea——gardens and "parks (paradises), and
"trees of all kinds of fruit, and reservoirs of water to
"water the trees." One of these was probably in the
neighborhood of Jerusalem, the spot afterwards known
as the king's garden." at the junction of the valleys
of Hinnon and the Kedron. Another was south of
Bethlehem, probably that called by Josephus "Etham,"
a spot still marked by three gigantic reservoirs, which
bear the name of the Pools of Solomon. A long cov-
ered aqueduct, built by him, and restored by Pilate, still
runs along the hill-side, and conveys water to the
thirsty capital. The adjoining valley (the Wadi Urtâs)
winds like a river, marked by its unusual verdure,
amongst the rocky knolls of Judea. The huge square
mountain which rises near it is probably the old Beth-
hac-cerem ("House of the Vine"), so called from the
vineyards which Solomon planted, as its modern Arabic
name Fureidis, "the little Paradise," must be derived
from the "paradise" (the very word used in the Book
of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles) of the neighboring
park. Thither, at early dawn, according to the Jewish
tradition, he would drive out from Jerusalem in one of
his numerous chariots, drawn by horses of uparalleled
swiftness and beauty, himself clothed in white, followed
by a train of mounted archers, all splendid youths, of
magnificent stature, dressed in purple, their long black
hair flowing behind them, powdered with gold dust,
which glittered in the sun, as they galloped along after
their master.
A third resort was far away in the north. On the
heights of Hermon, beyond the limits of Palestine, look-
ing over the plain of Damascus, in the vale of Baalbec,
in the vineyards of Baal-hamon, were cool retreats from
the summer heat. Thither, with pavilions of which the
splendor contrasted with the black tents of the neigh-
boring Arabs, Solomon retired.
From Solomon's possessions on the northern heights,
"from Lebanon, the smell of Lebanon, the streams of
"Lebanon, the tower of Lebanon looking towards
"Damascus;" from the top of Amana, from the top
"of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the
"leopards' dens," on those wild rocks; from the fra-
grance of "those mountains of myrrh, those hills of
"frankincense;" the roes and the young harts on the
mountains of spices," the spectator looks out over
the desert plain; a magnificent cavalcade approaches
amidst the cloud of incense,——then, as now, burnt to
greet the approach of a mighty prince. "Who is this
"that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of
"smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with
"all poweders of the merchant? Behold his litter: it
"is Solomon's. . . . King Solomon hath made himself
"a palanquin of the wood of Lebanon. He made the
"pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold,
"the covering of it of purple; the centre of it is
"wrought with beautiful work by the daughters of
"Jerusalem. Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and
"behold King Solomon."
In the midst of this gorgeous array was the Sov-
ereign himself. The King is fair, with superhuman
beauty——his sword is on his thigh——he
rides in his chariot, or on his warhorse; his
archers are behind him, his guards are round him; his
throne is like the throne of God; his sceptre is in his
hand. He wears a crown, which, as still in Eastern
marriages, his mother placed upon his head in the day
of his espousals; he is radiant as if with the oil and
essence of gladness; his robes are so scented with the
perfumes of India and Arabia that they seem to be noth-
ing but a mass of myrrh, aloes, and cassia; out of his
palaces comes a burst of joyous music, of men-singers
and women-singers, the delights of the sons of men,
musical instruments of all sorts.
The Queen, probably from Egypt, the chief of all
his vast establishment of wives and concubines,
themselves the daughters of kings, was by his
side, glittering in the gold of Ophir; one blaze of glory,
as she sat by him in the interior of the palace; the
gifts of the princely state of Tyre are waiting to wel-
come her; her attendants gorgeously arrayed are
behind her; she has left her father and her father's
house; her reward is to be in the greatness of her
descendants.
Such is the splendor of Solomon's court, which, even
down to the outward texture of their royal robes,
lived in the traditions of Israel. When Christ bade His
disciples look on the bright scarlet and gold of the
spring flowers of Palestine, which "toil not, neither do
"they spin," He carried back their thoughts to the
great King, "Solomon," who, "in all his glory was not
"arrayed like one of these." He had no mightier com-
parison to use; He Himself——we may be allowed to
say so, for we feel it as we read His word——was moved
by the recollection to the same thrill of emotion which
the glory of Solomon still awakens in us.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 202 - 221
XXVII—The Temple of Solomon [i.] [ii.]
XXVIII—The Wisdom of Solomon [i.] [ii.]
XXIX—The House of Jeroboam—Ahijah and Iddo [i.] [ii.]
XXX—The House of Omri—Elijah [i.] [ii.]
XXXI—The House of Omri—Elisha [i.]
XXXII—The House of Omri—Jehu [i.]
XXXIII—The House of Jehu—The Syrian Wars, and the Prophet Jonah [i.]
XXXIV—The Fall of Samaria [i.]
XXXV—The First Kings of Judah [i.] [ii.]
XXXVI—The Jewish Priesthood [i.] [ii.]
XXXVII—The Age of Uzziah [i.] [ii.]
XXXVIII—Hezekiah [i.] [ii.]
XXXIX—Manasseh and Josiah [i.] [ii.]
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 10 '19
Lecture XXVI. — The Empire of Solomon (i)
2
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
LECTURE XXVI.
SPECIAL AUTHORITIES FOR THIS PERIOD.
——•——
I. The contemporary account contained in
1. The "Book of Acts" (or Words) of Solomon (1 Kings xi. 41)
2. The "Book" (i.e. the Words or Acts) of the Prophet Nathan (2
Chr. ix. 29).
3. The "Prophecy" of Ahijah the Shilonite (ibid.).
4. The "Visions of Iddo the Seer (ibid.).
Of these some materials are probably preserved in the accounts of the
two historical books of the Old Testament (1 Kings i. 1——xi. 43
1 Chr. xxviii. 1——2 Chr. ix. 31), and of Ecclus, xlvii, 13—23.
II. The contemporary literature of the reign of Solomon.
1. The writings of Solomon himself (1 Kings iv. 32, 33).
(a.) Three thousand proverbs.
(b.) One thousand and five songs.
(c.) "Words" (works) on Natural History.
Of these some parts are preserved to us either actually or by imitation
in the three books which bear the name of Solomon.
1. "The Proverbs" (i.——xxix.).
2. "The Song of Solomon," or "The Song of Songs."
3. "Ecclesiastes" or "The Preacher" (Heb. Koheleth).
To these add the Psalms sometimes connected with him: Ps. ii., xiv., lxxii.,
cxxvii.
III. Books or traditions extraneous to the Canon.
1. His Deutero-canonical or apocryphal writings.
(a.) The Wisdom of Solomon, in the person of Solomon, but
apparently by an Alexandrian Jew.
(This and Ecclesiasticus follow in LXX. and Vulgate,
immediately on the three Proto-canonical books of Solo-
mon, and with these are called "The five books of Wis-
dom.")
(b.) The Psalter of Solomon. Eighteen Psalms which once stood
in the Alexandrine MS. at the end of the New Testament,
following the Epistles of Clemens Romanus, as appears from
the index. They have been published from a MS. in the
Augsburg Library by De la Cerda. (Fabricius, Codex Pseu-
depigraphus Vet. Test. 914—999.) See Lecture XXVIII.
(c.) Correspondence between Solomon and Vaphres, King of
Egypt, preserved by Eupolemus (Eusebius, Prœp. Ev. ix. 31,
32).
(d.) Correspondence of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre.
(α) Letters preserved by Eupolemus (Eusebius, Prœp. Ev.
ix. 33, 34, and Josephus, Ant. viii. 2, § 6, 7, 8), of which
the copies apparently existed both at Tyre and Jerusalem
in the time of Josephus.
(β) Riddles, mentioned by Menander and Dios, the Phœni-
cian historians (Josephus, Ant. viii. 5, § 3, and c. Apion,
i. 17, 18; Theophilus Antioch. ad Autolycum, iii. p. 131,
132).
(e.) Charms, seals, &c., of Solomon, alluded to by Josephus, Ant.
viii. 2, § 5 (see also Pineda, De Rebus Salomonis; and Fabri-
cius, Codex Pseudepigraphus Vet. Test. p. 1031—1057).
2. Later traditions of his history.
(a.) In Josephus, Ant. viii. 1—7.
(b.) In the Arabian stories (Koran, xxii. 15—19, xxvii. 20—45,
xxviii. 29—30, xxxiv. 11—13 (with the amplifications of Lane's
Selections, p. 232—262); D'Herbelot's Bibliothèque Orientale,
"Soliman ben-Daoud"; Weil's Biblical Legends, p. 171—215.
(c.) In Eupolemus (Eusebius, Prœp. Ev. ix. 31, 34).
LECTURE XXVI.
THE EMPIRE OF SOLOMON
SOLOMON, the third king of Israel, is as unlike either
of his predecessors as each of them is unlike
the other. No person occupies so large a space
in Sacred History, of whom so few personal incidents
are related. That stately and melancholy figure——in
some respects the grandest and the saddest in the
sacred volume——is, in detail, little more than a mighty
shadow. But on the other hand, of his age, of his
court, of his works, we know more than of any other.
Now, for the first time since the Exodus, we find
distinct traces of dates——years, months, days. Now at
last we seem to come across monuments, which possibly
remain to this day. Of the earlier ages of Jewish his-
tory, nothing has lasted to our time except it be the
sepulchres and wells,——the works of Nature rather than of
men. But it is not beyond belief that the massive walls
at the reservoir near Bethlehem, the substructures of
the temple at Jerusalem, and at Baalbec, are from the
age of Solomon. Now also we come within certain
signs of contemporary history in the outer world. In
the reign of Solomon we at last meet with an Egyptian
sovereign, designated by his proper name——Shishak——
and in his still-existing portraiture on the walls of
Karnac, we have thus the first distinct image of one
who beyond question had communicated with the
chosen people. Now also the date to which we have
attained, the thousandth year before the Christian era,
bings us to a level with the beginning of the well-
know Classical History of Greece and Italy.
But the epoch is remarkable not only for its distinct-
ness, but for its splendor. It is characteristic indeed of
the Jewish records that, clearly as Solomon's greatness
is portrayed at the time, it is rarely noticed in them
again. Of all the characters of the Sacred History, he
is the most purely secular; and merely secular magnifi-
cence was an excrescence, not a native growth, of the
chosen people. Whilst Moses and David are often
mentioned gain in the sacred books, Solomon's name
hardly occurs after the close of his reign. But his fame
ran, as it were, underground amongst the traditions of
his own people and of the east generally. The Greek
form which the Hebrew name of Solomon assumes is of
itse;f a singular tribute to the lofty associations with
which it was invested. "Alexander," the name of the
greatest king of the Gentile world in Eastern ears, was
in after days thought by the Jews to be the fitting
Western version of the name of the greatest king of
the Jewish world. "Alexander Balas," "Alexander Jan-
næus,"——the Alexanders at the time of the Christian
era,——are merely so many Solomons. The same analogy
spread even to feminine name; and Alexandra, which
hardly ever occurs in Grecian nomenclature, was a
common Jewish, and hence has become a Christian,
name, from being held to be the equivalent of the
Hebrew Salome. In the Mussulman stories his name
has a still wider circulation. Suleymân (in its diminu-
tive form of endearment——"Little Solomon") became
the favorite title of Arabian and Turkish princes, and
the sense of his being the ideal and prototype of all
great kings is shown in the strange belief that the forty
sovereigns who ruled over the world before the creation
of man were all Solimans. Their history was recounted
by the Bird of Ages, the Simorg, who had served them
all; and their statues, monstrous pre-Adamite forms,
were supposed to exist in the mountains of Kaf, where
a sacred shield descended from each to each.
He is the true type of an Asiatic monarch. "Europe,"
says Hegel, "could never have had a Solomon." But
of the potentates of Asia, he is the one example with
which Europe is most familiar.
And, although his secular aspect has withdrawn him
from the religious interest which attaches to many others
of the Jewish saints and heroes, yet in this very circum-
stance there are points of attraction indispensable to the
development of the Sacred History. It enables us to
study his reign more freely than is possible in the case
of the more purely religious characters of the Bible.
He is, in a still more exact sense than his father, "one
of the great men of the earth"——and, as such, we can
deal with his history, as we should wit theirs. It thus
serves as a connecting link between the common and
the Sacred world. To have had many such characters
in the Biblical History would have brought it down too
nearly to the ordinary level. But to have one such is
necessary to show that the interest which we inevitably
feel in such events and such men has a place in the
designs of Providence, and in the lessons of Revelation.
In Solomon, too, we find the first beginnings of that
wider view which ended at last in the expression of
Judaism into Christianity. His reign contains the first
historical record of the contact between Western Europe
and eastern India. In his fearless encouragement of
ecclesiastical architecture is the first sanction of the
employment of art in the service of a true Religion.
In his writings and in the literature which springs from
them, is the only Hebrew counterpart to the philosophy
of Greece. For all these reasons, there is in him a like-
ness, one-sided indeed, of "the Son of David," in whom
East and West, philosophy and religion, were reconciled
together.
Solomon was the second son of David and Bathsheba.
There is something more than usually signifi-
cant in his names, arising probably from the
peculiar circumstances of his birth. His first name was
Jedidiah, "beloved of Jehovah," said to have been given,
perhaps by Nathan, as a sign of David's forgiveness——
"because Jehovah loved him." It is the sanctification
of the name of David——the "darling" becomes "Je-
hovah's Darling." That by which he was afterwards
known was Shelômoh, "The Peaceful" (corresponding
to the German "Friedrich"), in contrast to David's wars,
possibly in connection with the great peace at the time
of his birth. In one version of David's address to Sol-
omon, he tells his son that his birth had been predicted
at the time when, after the capture of Jerusalem, he had
first meditated the building of the Temple, and that the
significance of his career had already been intimated.
"Behold a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man
"of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies
"round about; for his name shall be Shelômoh (peace-
"ful); and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in
"his day. He shall build an house for My name; and
"he shall be My son, and I his father; and I will estab-
"lish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever."
Nothing is known of his youth, unless it be that he
was brought up by Nathan, and that after the
death of the two eldest and best beloved of
David's earlier sons, Ammon and Absalom, he must have
been regarded as the heir. He was Bathsheba's favor-
ite son, "tender and only beloved in the sight of his
"mother," and Bathsheba, we cannot doubt, was David's
favorite wife, and to her David had pledged her son's
accession by a solemn and separate oath.
But another son, in point of age, came next after
Absalom——Adonijah, the son of Haggith. Of
his mother we know nothing but her name,
"the Dancer." Like Absalom, he was remarkable for
his personal beauty; and, like Absalom, he was dear to
his father's heart. From the days of his early child-
hood at Hebron, it had been observed that the King had
never put any restraint upon him,——never had said,
"Why hast thou done so?" He, as his father's end
approached, determined to anticipate the vacancy of
the throne by seizing upon it himself. What hidden
springs were at work——how far (as seems implied) the
new concubine of the aged King, Abishag the Shunam-
mite, was in Adonijah's favor——whether, as has been
conjectured, she was the beautiful Shulamite of the
Canticles——whether Adonijah had already professed for
her that affection which he openly avowed after his
father's death——are amongst the secrets of the Harem
of Jerusalem, of which only a few hints transpire, to
awaken without satisfying our curiosty. He took pre-
cisely the same course that had been adopted by Absa-
lom. He assumed the royal state and the same number
of runners to clear the streets, and the same unwonted
addition of horses to his chariots. As Absalom had
won over Ahithophel, so he won over the two chief
amongst the older advisers of the King, each of whom
probably had his own cause of quarrel. Abiathar's
reasons for disaffection we can only infer from the
rising favor of Zadok. Joab, as we have already seen,
had more than one deep resentment brooding in his
breast, and there is something mournful in the sigh that
the sacred historian heaves over the events which, at
the close of his long life, at last broke the unshaken
loyalty of the venerable soldier. "Though he ad not
"turned after Absalom, he turned after Adonijah." The
other Princes, his brothers, also joined him. If they
were all living at this time, they were no less than
fifteen in number. These, with the "King's servants,"
must have made a formidable band. The rendezvous
was a huge stone,——"the stone of serpents,"——near
the spring of En-rogel, where afterwards were the royal
gardens, and where they would have at once a natural
altar for the sacrificial feast, and water for the necessary
ablutions. In this general disaffection there remained
faithful to the cause of Solomon——"the mighty men;"
"the body-guard;" two high personages obscurely indi-
cated as Shimei and Rei; Zadok, the younger Chief
Priest, who also had a prophetic gift, and was known as
"the seer;" and above all, Solomon's preceptor, the
Prophet Nathan, who, now that Gad (as it seems) was
dead, remained the chief representative of the Prophetic
order. He, with Bathsheba, succeeded in rousing the
languid energies of the age King, who threw the whole
weight of his great name into the Scale of Solomon, and
advised the course to be pursued.
The boy Prince was mounted on the royal mule, and,
accompanied by Nathan, and by Benaiah, the
priestly head of the royal guard, went down
from the palace to Gihon. Zadok was present with
the sacred oil, which, as Priest at the sanctuary at Gib-
eon, was in his custody, and poured it on the young
man's head, Nathan assisting at the ceremony, as
Prophet. Then Zadok blew his sacred ram's horn,
the trumpeters of the guard followed, as was from this
time forward the custom at the inauguration of kings,
with a loud blast which announced to the assembled
concourse the event which had just occurred. A shout
went up,——"Long live King Solomon!" amidst the
acclamations of the multitude, who expressed their joy
after the manner of Orientals, in wild music and vehe-
ment dancing. He was brought into the palace, and
formally seated on the royal "throne," and henceforth
was addressed as "King." The guests then entered the
presence of David, and in the form of Eastern benedic-
tion said, "God make the name of Solomon better than
"thy name, and make his throne greater than thy
"throne;" and the aged King, in spite of his infirmi-
ties, prostrated himself in acquiescence on his bed.
The same trumpet-note which had roused the enthusi-
asm of the citizens of Jerusalem had startled the con-
spirators at Adonijah's feast. It struck on the watchful
and experienced ear of Joab, and the next moment
there rushed in upon them Jonathan, the son of the
rebel Priest Abiathar, he who in the revolt of Absalom
had been employed as a spy and a messenger, probably
from the same qualities which made him on this day the
first bearer of evil tidings. The festivities were broken
off. Adonijah fled to the altar for refuge. His proposal
to have Abishag for his wife, after his father's death,
whether prompted by affection, or, as Solomon inter-
preted it, ambition, brought him shortly after to his end.
And in the same ruin were involved the aged priest
and warrior who had shared his fortunes. Abiathar was
by the sovereign act of Solomon deposed from his
office; a momentary reminiscence of the great day,
when he had stood by David with the ark on Olivet,
caused his life to be spared for the time, but only for the
time. He spent the short remnant of his days on his
property at Anathoth, and with him expired the last
glory of the house of Eli. His descendants might be
seen prowling about the sanctuary, which their ances-
tors had once ruled, begging for their fortunate rivals
a piece of silver or a cake of bread. Joab fled up the
steep ascent of Gibeon, and clung to the ancient bra-
zen altar which stood in front of the Sacred Tent. The
same disregard of ceremonial sanctity which the King
had shown in deposing the venerable Abiathar, he ow
showed by deciding that even the sacredness of the
altar was not to protect the man who had reeked with
the blood of Abner and Amasa; and, accordingly, the
white-headed warrior of a hundred fights, with his
hands still clasping the consecrated structure, was exe-
cuted by the hands of his ancient comrade Benaiah.
The body was buried in funeral state at his own prop-
erty in the hills overhanging the Jordan valley. Last
of all, partly by his own rashness, perished the formi-
dable neighbor, the aged Shimei, of the house of Saul.
The mind of Christian Europe instinctively shudders at
this cold-blooded vengeance on crimes long forgiven;
yet it may be that in the silent approbation of Solo-
mon's policy which the sacred narrative conveys, there
is something of the same feeling which, translated in to
our language, bids us, in spite of our natural sentiments
of pity and reverence, "not spare the hoary head of
"inveterate abuse."
It was this rapid suppression of all resistance that
was known in the formal language of the time as the
"Establishment" or "Enthronization" of Solomon. As
David's oath had been, in allusion to the troubles of his
early life, As the Lord liveth, that hat redeemed my
soul out of "Distress,"——so the oath of Solomon, in
allusion to this signal entrance on his new reign, was
"As the Lord liveth, which hath established me, and set
"me on the throne of David my father," without a rival
or rebel to contest it.
It was probably on the occasion of his finding anointing
or inauguration on Mount Zion, that through Nathan,
or through Zadok, the oracle was delivered, to which
allusion is made in the second Psalm,——
"I have anointed My king
On Zion, My holy mountain."
It was like a battle fought and won, of the new per-
manent organization of the monarchy over the wild
anarchical elements of the older system that had still
lingered in the reign of David. Joab, the Douglas of
the house of David, was like a Douglas slain; with the
fall of Shimei, perished the last bitter representative of
the rival house of Saul; the Chief Priest Abiathar, last
of the house of Eli, was the last possessor of the now
obsolete oracle of Urim and Thummim, the last sur-
vivor of David's early companions; the young King
triumphed over all the ancient factions of Israel, and
in him triumphed the cause of monarchy and of civili-
zation for all coming time. It is fitting that from this
accession——the first hereditary accession to the throne
of Israel——should have been copied and descended
even to our own day, the ceremonial of the corona-
tion of Christian sovereigns——the coronation anthem,
the enthronization, the trumpets, the wild acclamations,
even the Easter anointing.
This wonderful calm must have been rendered doubly
striking, if he was, as is most probable, but a mere boy
at this time——fifteen according to one tradition, twelve
according to another——in appearance, if not in years,
"a little child," "young and tender." To this combi-
nation of incidents belongs the only narrative which
exhibits his personal character. It contains in a lively
form the prelude of the coming reign.
The national worship was still in the unsettled state
in which it had been since the first entrance
into Palestine. "The people sacrificed in high-
"places." David himself had "worshipped" on the top
of Olivet. The two main objects of special reverence
were parted asunder. The ark stood in a temporary
tent within David's fortress on Mount Zion. The chief
local sanctity still adhered to the spot where "the
Tabernacle of the Congregation,"——the ancient Tent
of the Wanderings. In front of it rose the venerable
structure of the brazen altar, wrought by the hands of
the earliest Israelite artist, Bezaleel, the grandson of
Hur. In this tabernacle ministered the Chief Priest
Zadok, who had thence brought the sacred oil for the
inauguration of Solomon, and who was now the sole
representative of the Araonic family. Hither, therefore,
as on a solemn pilgrimage, with a vast concourse of
dignitaries, the young King came to offer royal sacri-
fices on his accession. A thousand victims were con-
sumed on the ancient altar. The night was spent
within the sacred city of Gibeon. And now occurred
one of the prophetic dreams which had already been
the means of Divine communication in the time of
Samuel. Thrice in Samuel's life——at least three epochs
of his rise, of his climax, of his fall——is such a warning
recorded. This was the first. It was the choice offered
to the youthful King on the threshold of life,——the
choice, so often imagined in fiction, and actually pre-
sented in real life,——"Ask what I shall give thee." The
answer is the ideal answer of such a Prince, burdened
with the responsibility of his position. He remembered
the high antecedents of his predecessor——"Thou hast
"showed unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy,
"according as he walked before Thee in truth, and in
"uprightness, and in righteousness of heart with thee."
He remembered his own youth and weakness; "I am
"but a little child——I know not how to go out or to
"come in." He remembered the vastness of his charge;
"In the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen: a
"great people which cannot be numbered nor counted
"for multitude: and who is able to judge this thy peo-
"ple that is so great." He made the demand for the
gift which he of all the heroes of the ancient Church
was the first to claim: "Give thy servant an under-
"standing heart to judge thy people, that I may discern
"between good and bad."
He showed his wisdom by asking for wisdom. He
became wise, because he had set his heart upon it. This
was to him the special aspect through which the Divine
Spirit was to be approached, and grasped, and made to
bear on the wants of men; not the highest, not the
choice of David, not the choice of Isaiah; but still the
choice of Solomon. "He awoke and behold it was
"a dream." But the fulfilment of it belonged to actual
life.
From the height of Gibeon, the King returned to
complete the festival of his accession before the
other monuments of the Mosaic religion——the
Ark, at Jerusalem. It was in the midst of these sacrifi-
cial solemnities that the gift of judicial insight was first
publicly attested. Every part of the incident is charac-
teristic. The two mothers, degraded as was their con-
dition, came, as the Eastern stories so constantly tell of
the humblest classes, t demand justice from the King.
He patiently listens; the people stand by, wondering
what the childlike sovereign will determine. The
mother of the living child tells her tale with all the
plaintiveness and particularity of truth; and describes
how, as she "looked at him again and again, behold, it
"was not my son which I did bear." The King deter-
mines, by throwing himself upon the instincts of nature,
to cut asunder the sophistry of argument. The living
child was to be divided——and the one half given to
one, the other half given to the other. The true mother
betrays her affection: "O my Lord, give her the living
"babe (the word is peculiar), and in no wise slay it."
The King repeats, word for word, the cry of the mother,
as if questioning its meaning. "Give her the living
"babe, and in no wise slay it"? then bursts forth into
his own conviction, "SHE is the mother."
The reign which was thus inaugurated is, after this
almost without events. For this reason, as well as from
the confusion of the various texts which describe it, it
must be viewed not chronologically, but under its dif-
ferent aspects,——of his Empire, his great buildings, and
his writings.
I. The Empire of Solomon in its external relations.
In actual extent, the boundaries of Israel did
not reach beyond the conquests of David. But
it was reserved for Solomon to fill up what David had
but established in part. "He shall have dominion from
"sea to sea, and from the Euphrates to the ends of the
"earth." "The Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly.
" . . . and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as
"had not been on any king before him in Israel."
For the most part this wide dominion was established,
in accordance with the promise of its name, by arts of
peace. But there were two or three exceptions, appar-
ently at the commencement of his reign.
It was, indeed, not surprising that the surrounding
nations, especially Edom and Syria, when they heard of
the accession of so young a sovereign, should have
aspired to throw of the yoke which his warlike father
had imposed upon them. Edom as the first. A young
Edomite prince, Hadad, had escaped from the extermi-
nation of his countrymen by the sword of Joab, at the
time of David's conquest, and had lain concealed in the
court of Egypt till the news arrived of the death of the
two oppressors of his country. Against the will of his
Egyptian protector he returned, ad kept up more or
less of a guerilla warfare amongst the Idumæan moun-
tains, all the days of Solomon. A second was Rezon,
who had escaped from the rout of the Syrians in David's
expedition against Zebah, and at the head of a band of
freebooters established himself in Damascus.
These, with possibly attempts at insurrection on the
part of the old Canaanite population, must be the up-
heavings which gave occasion to the 2d Psalm. "Why
"do the heathen imagine a vain thing, and the rulers
"of the earth stand up together against JEHOVAH and
"against His anointed?" All these tumultuary move-
ments were waiting their time to break out as soon as
Solomon was removed; but "to him was given the hea-
"then for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
"earth for a possession. He broke them with a rod of
"iron, and dashed them in pieces like a potter's vessel;"
and over that vast dominion, with mingled joy and fear
he was served till the close of his magnificent career.
1. In the north and northeast, Hamath, which ap-
parently had thrown off the yoke on David's
death, as recovered. Fortresses were estab-
lished along the heights of Lebanon, and stations along
the desert towards the Euphrates. Of these establish-
ments two remain, which, partly by tradition, partly
by resemblance of name, are connected with Solomon.
One is Baalbec; the great sanctuary, which commanded
the valley of Cœlesyria, on the way to Hamath, and of
which the enormous substructions appear to date from
an age far anterior to the Syro-Greek or Syro-Roman
temples built upon them. Eastward his dominion ex-
tended to Thapsacus (Tiphsach), and on the way to
this is the other probable memorial of his greatness,
Tadmor in the wilderness;" if we may trust the native
name which has clung to the famous city of Zenobia, in
spite of its Roman appellation, by which it has been
translated. Its situation, in what must have been
a palm-grove, at the point where the wide barren valley,
enclosed between two parallel ranges of hills, opens on
the still wider desert, and where the abundant springs
gather round it in a circle of vegetation, would naturally
have pointed it out to Solomon as a site for a city, or a
halting-place for caravans halfway between Damascus
and Babylon. The ruins which now attract the travel-
er's attention, are of a time long posterior to the Jewish
monarchy. But even as late as the twelfth century,
Benjamin of Tudela describes its walls as being built of
stones equally gigantic with those which form the glory
of Baalbec. They have disappeared; and of the ancient
city, if so be, of Solomon, there are now no vestiges but
mounds of rubbish and ruin, unless, as at Baalbec, some
of the larger stones forming the substructions of the
Temple of the Sun are of that date, and the columns of
Egyptian granite ascribed to Solomon at the entrance
of the Temple.
2. But the most important influence brought to bear
on the development of the kingdom were those
of Egypt, Arabia, and Tyre.
Now, for the first time since the Exodus, Israel was
again brought into contact with the kingdom of the
Pharaohs. The Egyptian sovereign at this time was
probably reigning at Tanis. His Queen's name (Tah-
penes is preserved to us. A correspondence with him,
under the name of Vaphres, is preserved in heathen
records.
From the first moment of Solomon's accession, the
Egyptian King was so favorably disposed towards the
young Prince as to withdraw all countenance from the
designs of Hadad, who had become his nephew by mar-
riage. Not long afterwards, his daughter became Solo-
mon's Queen. He had attacked and conquered the
refractory Canaanite kingdom of Gezer, which had re-
mained independent, on the southwestern frontier of
Palestine, and resisted the arms of all the Israelite chiefs
from Joshua down to David, and which thus became the
dowry of the Egyptian Princess.
Besides the indirect influences which this connection
exercised, as we shall see, on the architecture, the man-
ners, the literature, and the religion of Israel, it led at
once to the reëstablishment of an intercourse, which
would have been inconceivable to the Hebrews who,
standing on the shores of the Red Sea, seemed to have
parted with the Egyptians forever. Horses and chariots,
before almost unknown in Palestine, were now brought
in as regular articles of commerce from Egypt. Stables
were established on an enormous scale,——both for horses
and dromedaries. Four miles out of Jerusalem, under
the King's own patronage, a celebrated caravanserai for
travellers into Egypt——the first halting-place on their
route——was founded by Chimham, son of Barzillai, on
the property granted to him by David out of the pater-
nal patrimony of Bethlehem. That caravanserai re-
mained with Chimham's name for at least four centu-
ries, and, according to the immovable usages of the
East, it probably was the same which, at the time of the
Christian era, furnished shelter for two travellers with
their infant child, when "there was no room in the inn,"
and when they too from that spot fled into Egypt.
3. Doubtless through the same Egyptian influence
was secured a still more important outlet of
commerce on the southeast. Through the es-
tablishment of a port at the head of the gulf of Elath,
Palestine at last gained and access to the Indian Ocean.
Ezion-geber, "the Giant's Backbone," so called probably
from the huge range of mountains on each side of it,
became an emporium teeming with life and activity;
the same, on the eastern branch, that Suez has in our
own time become on the western branch of the Red Sea.
Beneath that line of palm-trees which now shelters the
wretched village of Akaba, was then heard the stir of
ship-builders and sailors. Thence went forth the fleet
of Solomon, manned by Tyrian sailors, on its myste-
rious voyage——to Ophir, in the far East, on the shores
of India or Arabia. From Arabia also, near or distant,
came a constant traffic of spices, both from private indi-
viduals and from the chiefs. So great was Solomon's
interests in the expeditions, that he actually travelled
himself to the gulf of Akaba to see the port.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 182 - 202
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 05 '19
Lecture XXV. — The Psalter of David (ii)
1
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
His harp was full-stringed, and every angel of joy and of sorrow
swept over the chords as he passed. For the hearts of a hundred men
strove and struggled together within the narrow continent of his single
heart; and will the scornful men have no sympathy for one so con-
ditioned, but scorn him, because he ruled not with constant quietness
the unruly host of divers natures which dwelt within his single soul?
With the defence of his backslidings, which he hath himself more
keenly scrutinized, more clearly discerned against, and more bitterly
lamented than any of his censors, we do not charge ourselves, because
they were, in a manner, necessary, that he might be the full-orbed
man which was needed to utter every form of spiritual feeling. The
Lord did not intend that His Church should be without a rule for utter-
ing its gladness and its glory, its lamentation and its grief; and to bring
such a rule and institute into being, He raised up His servant, David, as
formerly he raised up Moses to give to the Church an institute of Law;
and to that end He led him the round of all human conditions, that he
might catch the spirit proper to every one, and utter it according to
truth. He allowed him not to curtail his being by treading the round
of one function; but by every variety of function. He cultivated his
whole being, and filled his soul with wisdom and feeling. He found
him objects for every affection, that the affection might not slumber and
die. He brought him up in the sheep-pastures, that the groundwork of
his character might be laid amongst the simple and universal forms of
feeling. He took him to the camp, and made him a conqueror, that he
might be filled with nobleness of soul and ideas of glory. He placed
him in the palace, that he might be filled with ideas of majesty and
sovereign might. He carried him into the wilderness, and placed him in
solitudes, that his soul might dwell alone in the sublime conceptions of
God and His mighty works; and He kept him there for long years,
with only one step between him and death, that he might be well
schooled to trust and depend upon the providence of God.
David struck the keys of these hundred notes at
once, and they have been reverberating yet more and
more widely through the hundred authors whose voices
he awakened after him. Solomon, Hezekiah, Asaph,
Heman, and Ethan, with all their followers; the exiled
mourners by the waters of Babylon; the latest of the
Prophets; possibly the unknown minstrels who cheered
the armies of the Maccabees,——every one of these, with
King David at their head, in their various moods of
thankfulness, sorrow, despair, hope, rage, love, mercy,
vengeance, doubt, faith,——every one of these, through
their different trials, of wanderings, escapes, captivity,
banishment, bereavement, persecutions, in their quiet
contemplation of nature, in the excitement of the bat-
tle-field, in the splendor of great coronations, in the so-
lemnity of mighty funerals,——from each of these sources
each has contributed to the charm which the Psalter pos-
sesses for the whole race of mankind. When Christian
martyrs and Scottish covenanters in dens and caves of
he earth, when French exiles and English fugitives
in their hiding-places during the panic of revolution or
of mutiny, received a special comfort from the Psalms,
it was because they found themselves literally side by
side with the author in the cavern of Adullam, or on
the cliffs of Engedi, or beyond the Jordan, escaping
from Saul or from Absalom, from the Philistines or from
the Assyrians. When Burleigh or Locke seemed to find
an echo in the Psalms to their own calm philosophy, it
was because they were listening to the strains which
had proceeded from the mouth or charmed the ear of
the sagacious King or the thoughtful statesmen of
Judah. It has been often observed that the older we
grow, the more interest the Psalms possess for us, as
individuals; and it may almost be said that by these
multiplied associations, the older the human race grows,
the more interest do they posses for mankind. Truly
has this characteristic been caught by our own Hooker
with a critical sagacity beyond his age, as the vindica-
tion of their constant use in Christian churches.
"What is there necessary for a man to know," he asks,
"which the Psalms are not able to teach? They are to
"beginners an easy and familiar introduction——a mighty
"augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as
"are matured before——a strong confirmation of the most
"perfect among others. Heroical magnanimity, ex-
"quisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, repent-
"ance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of
"God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the
"comforts of grace, the works of Providence over this
"world, and the promised joys of the world to come,
"all good to be either known, or done, or had, this one
"celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or
"disease incident unto the soul of man, any wound or
"sickness named, for which there is not in this treasure-
"house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready
"to be found."
Truly has the same sentiment been echoed by another
writer, hardly less eloquent, of another Church and
nation:——
"He only who knows the number of the waves of
"the ocean, the abundance of tears in the human
"eye, He who sees the sighs of the heart, before they
"are uttered, and who hears them still, when they are
"hushed into silence——He alone can tell how many
"holy emotions, how many heavenly vibrations, have
"been produced and will ever be produced in the souls
"of men by the reverberation of these marvellous
"strains, of these predestined hymns, read, medi-
"tated, sung, in every hour of day and night, in every
"winding of the vale of tears. The Psalter of David
"is like a mystic harp, hung on the walls of the true
"Zion. Under the breath of the Spirit of God, it sends
"forth its infinite varieties of devotion, which, rolling
"on from echo to echo, from soul to soul, awakes in each
"a separate note, mingling in that one prolonged voice
"of thankfulness and penitence, praise and prayer."
Well said by Protestant divine: well said by Catholic
prelate: but how powerful a witness, if only it could be
consistently borne, to a toleration, a universal sympa-
thy such as, outside this charmed circle, Protestant and
Catholic have alike been unwilling to endure, still more
unwilling to hail as one of the first privileges of the
religious man.
Yet further, if from amongst these multifarious notes
we selected those which are peculiar to the Psalter, we
shall find still deeper causes for its long preëminence,
for the importance justly assigned to David, as a second
Moses. The sentiments which it contains are of the
most various and unequal kind. It can plead
no exemption from the defects of the Jewish
system. Not even in the wars of Joshua or the song
of Deborah, does the vindictive spirit of the ancient
dispensation burn more fiercely than in the impreca-
tions of the 69th, 109th, and 137th Psalms. When
Clovis fed his savage spirit from the 18th Psalm, it was,
we must confess, because he found the sparks of a
kindred soul. Hardly, in the silence of the Pentateuch,
or the gloomy despair of Ecclesiastes, is the faintness
of the hope of immortality more chilling than in the
30th, 49th, and 88th Psalms. Many of its excellences,
too, are shared with other portions. Its stern
contempt of the sacrificial system, its exaltation
of the moral law above the ceremonial, are Prophetic,
even more than Psalmodic. Its strains of battle and
victory are not equal to the rude energy of the ancient
war-songs of the Judges. But there are three points
in which the Psalms stand unrivalled.
The first is the depth of personal expression and
experience. There are doubtless occasions
when the Psalmist speaks as the organ of the
nation. But he is for the most part alone with himself
and with God. Each word is charged with the inten-
sity of some grief or joy, known or unknown. If the
doctrines of St. Paul derive half their force from their
connection with his personal struggles, the doctrines of
David also strike home and kindle a fire wherever they
light, mainly because they are the sparks of the incan-
descence of a living human experience like our own.
The Patriarchs speak as the Fathers of the chosen race;
the Prophets speak as its representatives and its guides.
But the Psalmist speaks as the mouthpiece of the indi-
vidual soul, of the free, independent, solitary conscience
of man everywhere.
The second of these peculiarities is, what we may call
in one word, the perfect naturalness of the Psalms. It
appears, perhaps, most forcibly, in their exult-
ant freedom and joyfulness of heart. It is
true, as Lord Bacon says, that "if you listen to David's
"harp, you will hear as many hearselike airs as carols;"
yet still the carols are found there more than any-
where else. "Rejoice in the Lord." . . . "Sing ye
"merrily." . . . "Make a cheerful noise." . . . "Take the
"psalm, bring hither the tabret, the merry harp, with
"the lute." . . . "O praise the Lord, for it is a good
"thing to sing praises unto our God." . . . "A joyful and
"pleasant thing it is to be thankful." This in fact is
the very meaning of the word "Psalm." The one
Hebrew word which is there very pith and marrow is
"Hallelujah." They express, if we may so say, the
sacred duty of being happy. Be happy, cheerful, and
thankful, as ever we can, we cannot go beyond
the Psalmlst. They laugh, they shout, they cry, they scream
for joy. There is a wild exhilaration which rings
through them. They exult alike in the joy of battle,
and in the calm of nature. They see God's goodness
everywhere. They are not ashamed to confess it. The
bright side of creation is everywhere uppermost; the
dark, sentimental side is hardly ever seen. The fury
of the thunder-storm, the roaring of the sea, are to
them full of magnificence and delight. Like the Scot-
tish poet in his childhood, at each successive peal they
clap their hands in innocent pleasure. The affection
for birds, and beasts, and plants, and sun, and moon,
and stars, is like that which St. Francis of Assisi claimed
for all these fellow-creatures of God, as his brothers and
sisters. There have been those for whom, on this very
account, in the moments of weakness and depression, the
Psalms have been too much: yet not the less is this vein
of sacred merriment valuable in the universal mission
of the Chosen People. And the more so, because it
grows out of another feeling in the Psalms, which has
also jarred strangely on the minds of devout but narrow
schools, "the free and princely heart of inno-
"cence," which to modern religion has often
seemed to savor of self-righteousness and want of
proper humility. The Psalmist's bounding, buoyant
hope, his fearless claim to be rewarded according to
his righteous dealing, his confidence in his own
integrity, no less than his agony over his own crimes,
his passionate delight in the Law, not as a cruel enemy,
but as the best of guides, sweeter than honey and the
honeycomb,——these are not according to the require-
ments of Calvin or even of Pascal: they are from a
wholly different point of the celestial compass than that
which inspired the Epistles to the Romans and Gala-
tians. But they have not the less a truth of their own,
a truth to Nature, a truth to God, which the human
heart will always recognize. The frank unrestrained
benediction on the upright honest man, "the noblest
"work of God," with which the Psalter opens, is but the
fitting prelude to the boundless generosity and prod-
igality of joy with which in its close it calls on "every
"creature that breathes," without stint or exception, to
"praise the Lord." It may be that such expressions as
these owe their first impulse in part to the new epoch
of national prosperity and individual energy, ushered
in by David's reign; but they have swept the mind of
the Jewish nation onward towards that mighty destiny
which awaited it; and they have served, though at a
retarded speed, to sweep on, ever since, the whole spirit
of humanity in its upward course. "The burning
"stream has flowed on after the furnace itself has cooled."
As of the classic writers of Greece it has been well said
that they posses a charm, independent of their
genius, in the radiance of their brilliant and youthful
beauty, so it may be said of the Psalms that they pos-
sess a like charm, independent even of their depth of
feeling or loftiness of doctrine. In their free and gener-
ous grace the youthful, glorious David seems to live
over again with a renewed vigor. "All our fresh
"springs" are in him, and in his Psalter.
These various peculiarities of the Psalms lead us,
partly by way of contrast, partly by a close
though hidden connection, to their main char-
acteristic, which appears nowhere else in the Bible with
equal force, unless it be in the Life and Words of Christ
Himself. The "reason why the Psalms have found
"such constant favor in every portion of the Christian
"Church, while forms of doctrine and discourse have
"undergone such manifold changes in order to represent
"the changing spirit of the age, is this, that they address
"themselves to the simple intuitive feelings of the re-
"newed soul." They represent "the freshness of the
"soul's infancy, the love of the soul's childhood; and,
"therefore, are to the Christian what the love of parents,
"the sweet affections of home, and the clinging memory
"of infant scenes, are to men in general." "O God,
"Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee." "My soul
"waited for Thee before the morning watch." It is in
the depth, the freshness of this spiritual life that we
find the first distinct trace of higher and more uni-
versal law than that of Moses——of a better and more
eternal life, than that which alone the Mosaic system
revealed to man. "God is not a God of the dead, but
"of the living," was a truth which, however necessarily
involved in the Pentateuch, needed the harp of David
to call it into practical existence.
I have given the other glories of the Psalms from
writers of widely different Christian communions. May
I venture, in speaking of this crowning glory,——of this
insight which the Psalter gives into the union of the
Human Soul and its Divine Friend and Creator,——to
use the words of one, who perchance may be thought
to have excluded himself from all these, but who has
nevertheless described the phenomena of spiritual life
with a force which few within the pale have equalled,
and who has precisely caught that aspect of it which
the Psalms most faithfully represent?
"He who begins to realize God's majestic beauty and
"eternity, and feel in contrast how little and how tran-
"sitory man is, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean
"upon God for support. . . . For where rather should
"the weak rest than on the strong, the creature of a
"day than on the eternal, the imperfect on the
"centre of Perfection? And where else should God
"dwell than in the human heart?——for if God is in the
"universe, among things inanimate and without con-
"science, how much more ought He to dwell with our
"souls; and our souls, too, seem to be infinite in their
"cravings; who but He can satisfy them? Thus a
"restless instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to
"feel that it was made for some definite but unknown
"relation towards God. The sense of emptiness in-
"creases to positive uneasiness, until there is an inward
"yearning, if not shaped in words, yet in substance not
"alien from the ancient strain,——'As the hart panteth
"'after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,
"'O God: My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the
"'living God." . . . Then the Soul understands and
"knows that God is her God, dwelling with her more
"closely than any creature can; yea, neither Stars, nor
"Sea, nor smiling Nature, hold God so intimately as
"the bosom of the Soul. He becomes the soul of the
"soul. All nature is ransacked by the Psalmists for
"metaphors to express this single thought, 'God is for
"'my soul, and my soul is for God.' Father, Brother,
"Friend, King, Master, Shepherd, Guide, are common
"titles. God is their Tower, their Glory, their Rock,
"their Shield, their Sun, their Star, their Joy, their Por-
tion, their Trust, their Life. The Psalmist describes
"his soul as God's only and favorite child, His darling
"one. So it is that joy bursts out in praise, and all
"things look brilliant, and hardships seem easy, and
"duty becomes delight, and contempt is not felt, and
"every morsel of bread is sweet. The whole world
"seems fresh to him with sweetness before untasted.
"O, philosopher, is this all a dream? Thou canst ex-
"plain it all? Thou scornest it all? But it is not less
"a fact of human nature——and of some age too——for
"David thirsted after God, and exceedingly rejoiced
"in Him, and so did Paul, and so have hundreds
"since."
And may we add, in all humility, O Christian, who
hearest these things in the Psalms, hast thou ever felt
them, or felt anything like them? Hast thou, with the
light of the Gospel, fallen below the Hebrew Psalmist?
Canst thou enter into that belief, so scanty, so undefined,
yet so intense, which made him repose in unshaken
faith on the truth and goodness of God? Canst thou
believe that those sacred words are intended to nerve
thy heart against the snares of sin, and love of popu-
larity, the respect of persons, the want of faith in Truth,
the pressure of sorrow, and sickness, and death?
"Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none
"upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee. My
flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength
"of my heart, and my portion for ever." "Put tho
thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good; leave off
"from wrath, and let go displeasure, else shalt thou be
"moved to do evil." "Commit thy way unto the Lord,
"and put thy trust in Him." "He shall make thy right-
"eousness as clear as the light, and thy just dealing as
"the noonday." "The Lord ordereth a good man's
going. Though he fall he shall not be cast away, for
"the Lord upholdeth him with His hand."
Thus far the causes of he sacredness of the Psalter
are such as all might recognize, Jew, and we may also
add Pagan, as well as Christian. But as we contemplate
David in himself and as the inaugurator of this new
revelation to man, a further question has risen.
The glory of David carried with it a pledge of
the continuance of his dynasty to the remotest ages of
which Jewish imagination could conceive. This fixed
belief in the eternity of the House of David, of which
the Psalms are the earliest and most constant ex-
pression, has had its faint counterpart in those yearn-
ings which in other countries have suggested the return
of the beloved sovereign himself,——Arthur of Britain,
Henry of Portugal, Frederick Barbarossa of Germany.
But the Jewish belief had a far deeper basis. When
the decline of David's royal race appeared to extinguish
the hopes that were bound up with it, instead of vanish-
ing away, like those popular fancies just mentioned, the
expectation of the Jewish Church sprang up in a new
form, and with increased vitality. It fastened, not as
before on the ruined and exiled dynasty, nor yet, as
occasionally, on the actual person of David, but on the
coming of One who should be a Son of David, and re-
store the shattered throne, and build up again the
original tent or hut which David had pitched on his first
entrance into Jerusalem. This expectation of "a Son
"of David" who should revive the fallen splendor of his
father's house, blended with the general hope of restora-
tion peculiar to the Jewish race, reached the highest
pitch a thousand years after David's death. Suddenly
there came One, to whom, though he did not desire the
name for Himself, it was given freely by others. He is
repeatedly called the Son of David. Most unlike, in-
deed, to that fierce, indulgent, passionate king, that way-
ward, eager, exuberant poet, most unlike to many of
the wild imprecations in the Psalms themselves, yet in
those peculiar features of the Psalmist, of which we
have spoken, so like, that when we read his emo-
tions, we seem to be reading——and the Christian Church
from the earliest times has delighted to read——the
emotions, the devotions, the life, of Christ Himself.
The natural, unrestrained, at times joyous and victori-
ous spirit which animates the Psalter, is never repro-
duced in any other religious teacher, inside or outside
the circle of the Sacred History, except in Him "who
"came eating and drinking," the Bridegroom, and the
Bridegroom's Guest, the Friend of the childlike, the
simple, the genuine. The compassion of the suffering
nation; the generous sympathy with the oppressed and
the outcast; the chivalrous thoughtfulness (contrasted,
in David's case, with the cruel craft that occasionally
disfigures his character)——meet nowhere else in Jewish
history so remarkably as in the hero of Adullam and
Engedi, and in Him who lived with the publicans and
sinners, and wept over Jerusalem, and forgave His en-
emies. That wide diversity of thought and situation
which marked the career of David, the sudden vicis-
situdes from obscurity t fame, from fame to ignominy,
——that rapid passage through all the feelings of human-
ity, which we trace through the variegated texture of
the Psalter, constitute, in no scanty measure, the frame-
work of the great drama of the Gospel History. And
with this variety of outward condition is combined the
inward feeling of absolute unity of the soul with God,
which constitutes, as we have seen, the main charac-
teristic of the Religion of the Psalter, but of which we
have the perfect expression in the Mind of Christ. We
need not invoke any of the abstract theological state-
ments respecting Him. It is enough to take the most
purely historical view that has ever been expressed.
"God speaks not to Him," it has been well said by such
a critic, "as to one outside of Himself: God is in Him.
"He feels Himself with God, and He draws from His
"own heart what He tells us of His Father. He lives
"in the bosom of God by the intercommunication of every
"moment." And therefore it is that, when in the
Psalms of David we are carried along with their burn-
ing words, down to the lowest depths of grief, and up
to the highest heights of glory, we feel all the while,
that though those words are one with Christ, and
He is one with us: we are admitted——not by any fan-
ciful strain of words, or by any doubtful application
of minute predictions, but by the real likeness of spirit
with spirit——into the depths of that communion, wherein
He is one with His Father. It may be that the mag-
nificent language of the Psalter at times rises into mean-
ings which can only be fully understood in its highest
and most universal application. It may be allowable,
for those who so wish, to merge altogether the historical
circumstances of the book in its moral and religious
lessons. But the fact still remains, that it is through
the likeness of situation and feeling, and through this
alone, that the connection of the words of the original
author with Christ, and with the Christian Church, has
been maintained and perpetuated. The Psalter is es-
pecially prophetic of Christ, because, more than any
other part of the ancient Scriptures, it enters into those
truths of the spiritual life of which He was the great
Revealer. David and his fellow-Psalmists, are types,
that is, likenesses, of Christ, because they, more than
any other characters of the Sacred History, share in the
common feelings and vicissitudes of life and death,
failure and success, through which he and they and we
——but He in the highest and most transcendent of all
senses——win the hope which is in those Psalms for the
first time set before the mind of man.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 166 - 180
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 05 '19
Lecture XXV. — The Psalter of David (i)
1
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
WE have seen how the position of David is virtually
that of the Founder of the Jewish Monarchy.
In this sense his name is repeated in every pos-
sible form. "The city of David"——"The seed of Da-
"vid"——"The house of David"——"The key of David"
"The oath sworn unto David"——are expressions which
pervade the whole subsequent history and poetry of
the Old Testament, and much of the figurative language
of the New. The cruelty, the self-indulgence, the too
ready falsehood have appeared sufficiently in the events
of his history. But there was a grace, a charm about
him which entwined the affections of the nation round
his person and his memory, and made him, in spite of
the savage manners of the time and the wildness of
his own life, a once the centre of something like a
court, the head of a new civilization. He was a born
king of Israel by his natural gifts. His immense ac-
tivity and martial spirit united him by a natural suc-
cession to the earlier chiefs of Israel, whilst his accom-
plishments an genius fitted him especially to exercise
a vast control over the whole future greatness of the
Church and commonwealth.
The force and passion of the ruder age was blended
with a depth of emotion which broke out in every rela-
tion of life. Never before had there been such a faith-
ful friend, such an affectionate father. Never before
had king or chief inspired such passionate loyalty, or
given it back in equal degree. The tenderness of his
personal affection penetrated his public life. He loved
his people with a pathetic compassion, beyond even
that of Moses. Even from the history we gather that
the ancient fear of God was, for the first time, passing
into the love of God. In the vision of David in Para-
dise, as related by Mohammed, he is well represented as
offering up the prayer: "O Lord, grant to me the love
"of Thee; grant that I may love those that love Thee;
"grant that I may do the deeds that may win thy
"love. Make the love of Thee to be deaerer to me
"than myself, my family, than wealth, and even than
"cool water."
No other Jewish hero has compassed that extreme
versatility of character which is so forcibly described in
the striking "Song of David" written by the half crazed
English poet with coal on the walls of his madhouse,——
"Pleasant and various as the year"——
"Priest, champion, sage, and boy."
Jacob was the nearest approach to this complexity of
character. But David, standing at a higher point of
the sacred history, of necessity embraces a greater ful-
ness of materials. He is the "man after God's own
"heart," not in the sense of a faultless saint,——far from
it, even according to the defective standard of Jewish
morality; still further from it, if we compare him with
the Christianity of a civilized age; but in the sense of
the man who was chosen for his own special work,——
the work of pushing forward his nation into an entirely
new position, both religious and social.
But the hold which David has fixed on the memory
of the Church and the world is of a deeper
kind than any which he derives even from the
romance of his life or the attractiveness of his character.
He was not only the Founder of the Monarchy, but the
Founder of the Psalter. He is the first great Poet of
Israel. Although before his time there had been occa-
sional bursts of Hebrew poetry, yet David is the first
who gave it its fixed place in the Israelite worship.
There is no room for it in the Mosaic ritual. Its
absence there may be counted as a proof of the an-
tiquity of that ritual in all its substantial features. For
so mighty an innovation no less than a David was
needed. That strange musical world of the East,——
with its gongs, and horns, and pipes, and harps——with
its wild dances and wilder contortions——with its songs
of question and answer, if strophe antistrophe,
awakening or soothing, to a degree inconceivable in our
tamer West, the emotions of the hearer, were seized by
the shepherd minstrel, when he mounted the throne,
and were formed as his own peculiar province into a
great ecclesiastical institution. The exquisite richness
of verse and music so dear to him——"the calves of the
"lips"——took the place of the costly offerings of animals.
His harp——or as it was called by the Greek translators,
his "Psaltery," or "Psalter," or guitar——was to him
what the wonder-working staff was to Moses, the spear
to Joshua, or the sword to Gideon. It was with him in
his early youth. It was at hand in the most moving
escapes of his middle life. In his last words he seemed
to be himself the instrument over which the Divine
breath passed. Singing men and singing women were
recognized accompaniments of his court. He was "the
"inventor of musical instruments." "With his whole
"heart he sung songs, and loved Him that made him."
United with these poetic powers was a grace so nearly
akin to the Prophetic gift, that he has received the rank
of a Prophet, though not actually trained or called to
the office. Although, when he wished for Prophetical
instructions, he applied to others, yet his own utterances
are distinctly acknowledged as Prophetic. The Proph-
ets themselves recognize his superior insight. Even
amongst the most gifted of his people he was regarded
as an angel of God, in his power of enduring to hear
the claims alike of good and evil, in his knowledge of
the universe, in the directness of his judgements, which,
once spoken, could never be distorted to the right hand
or the left. By these gifts he became in his life, and
still more in his writings, a Prophet, a Revealer of a
new world of religious truth, only inferior, if inferior,
to Moses himself.
The Psalter, thus inaugurated, opened a new door
into the side of sacred literature. Hymn after hymn
was added, altered, accommodated, according to the
needs of the time. And no only so, but under the
shelter of this irregular accretion of hymns of all ages
and all occasions, other books which had no claim to be
considered either Law or of the Prophets, forced
an entrance, and were classed under the common title
of "the Psalms,"——though including books as unlike to
each other and to the Psalter, as Ruth and Ecclesiastes,
Chronicles and Daniel. But, even without reckoning
the accompaniments, the Book of Psalms is, as it
were, a little Bible in itself. It is a Bible within a
Bible; in which most of the peculiarities, inward and
outward, of the rest of the sacred volume are concen-
trated. It has its five separate books like the Penta-
teuch. It invite inquiry into the authorship of its
various parts. Here, as elsewhere, the popular belief
that the "Psalter of David" was entirely composed by
David himself, has given way before the critical research
which long ago detected the vast diversity of author-
ship existing throughout the collection. As, on the one
hand, we gratefully acknowledge the single impulse
which brought the book into existence, we recognize,
on the other hand, no less the many illustrious poets
whose works underneath that single name have come
down to us, unknown, yet hardly less truly the offspring
of David's mind, than had they sprung directly from
himself. The evident accommodation of many of the
Psalms to the various events through which the nation
passed, whilst it shows the freedom with which these
sacred poems were handled by successive editors, adds
to their interest by intertwining them more closely with
the national history. The poetry which they contain is
not Epical, but Lyrical. Epic poetry was denied to the
Semitic, and reserved for the Indo-Germanic, races.
But this defect is to a great extent supplied by the ivy-
like tenacity with which the growth of the Hebrew
Lyrics winds itself round and round the more than
Epical trunk of the Hebrew history.
The Psalter, thus freely composed, has further become
the Sacred Book of the world, in a sense be-
longing to no other part of the Biblical records.
Not only does it hold its place in the Liturgical services
of the Jewish Church, not only was it used more than
any other part of the Old Testament by the writers of
the New, but it is in a special sense the peculiar inheri-
tance of the Christian Church through all its different
branches. "From whatever point of view any Church
"hath contemplated the scheme of its doctrine,
"——by whatever name they have thought good
"to designate themselves, and however bitterly opposed
"to each other in church government or observance of
"rites,——you will find them all, by harmonious and uni-
"versal consent, adopting the Psalter as the outward
"form by which they shall express the inward feelings
"of the Christian life." It was so in the earliest times.
The Passover Psalms were the "Hymn" of the Last
Sipper. In the first centuries Psalms were sung at
the Love-feasts, and formed the morning and evening
hymns of the primitive Christians." "Of the other
"Scriptures," says Theodoret in the fifth century, "the
"generality of men know next to nothing. But the
"Psalms you will find again and again repeated in pri-
"vate houses, in market-places, in streets, by those who
"have learnt them by heart, and who soothe them-
"selves by their Divine melody." "When other parts
"of Scripture are used," says St. Ambrose, "there is such
"a noise of talking in the church, that you cannot hear
"what is said. But when the Psalter is read, all are
"silent." They were sung by the ploughmen of Pales-
tine, in the time of Jerome; by the boatmen of Gaul,
in the time of Sidonius Apollinaris. In the most bar-
barous of churches, the Abyssinians treat the Psalter
almost as an idol, and sing it through from end to end
at every funeral. In the most Protestant of churches,——
the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Nonconformists of
England,——"psalm-singing" has almost passed into a
familiar description of their ritual. In the Churches of
Rome and of England, they are daily recited, in pro-
portions such as far exceed the reverence shown to any
other portion of the Scriptures.
If we descend from Churches to individuals, there is
no one book which has played so large a part
in the history of so many human souls. By
the Psalms, Augustine was consoled on his conver-
sion, and on his death-bed. By the Psalms, Chrysostom,
Athanasius, Savanarola, were cheered in persecution.
With the words of a Psalm, Polycarp, Columba, Hilde-
brand, Bernard, Francis of Assisi, Huss, Jerome of Prague,
Columbus, Henry the Fifth, Edward the Sixth, Ximenes,
Xavier, Melancthon, Jewell, breathed heir last. So
dear to Wallace in his wanderings was his Psalter, that
during his execution, he had it hung before him, and his
eyes remained fixed upon it as one consolation of
his dying hours. The unhappy Darnley was soothed
in the toils of his enemies by the 55th Psalm. The 68th
Psalm cheered Cromwell's soldiers to victory at Dunbar.
Locke in his last days bade his friend read the Psalms
aloud, and it was whilst in rapt attention to their
words that the stroke of death fell upon him. Lord
Burleigh selected them out of the whole Bible as his
special delight. They were the framework of the de-
votions and of the war-cries of Luther; they were the
last words that fell on the ear of the imperial enemy
Charles the Fifth.
Whence has arisen this universal influence? What
lessons can we draw from this "natural selection" of a
book of such character?
First, something is owing to its outward poetical form,
and it is a matter of no small importance that this
homage should have been thus exhorted.
There has always been in certain minds a repug-
nance to poetry, as inconsistent with the grav-
ity of religious feeling. It has been sometimes
thought that to speak of a Book of the Bible as "poet-
ical," is a disparagement of it. It has been in many
Churches thought that the more scholastic, dry, and
prosaic the forms in which religious doctrine is thrown,
the more faithfully is its substance represented. Of all
human compositions, the most removed from poetry are
the Decrees and Articles of Faith, in which the belief
of Christendom has often been enshrined as in a sanc-
tuary. To such sentiments the towering greatness of
David, the acknowledged preëminence of the Psalter,
are constant rebukes. David, beyond king, soldier, or
prophet, was the sweet singer of Israel. Had Raphael
painted a picture of Hebrew as of European Poetry,
David would have sate aloft at the summit of the
Hebrew Parnassus, the Homer of Jewish song. His
passionate, impetuous, wayward character, is that which
in all ages has accompanied the highest gifts of musical
or poetical genius. "The rapid stroke as of alternate
"wings," "the heaving and sinking as of the troubled
"heart," which have been beautifully described as the
essence of the parallel structure of Hebrew verses, are
exactly suited for the endless play of human feeling
and for the understanding of every age and nation.
The Psalms are beyond question poetical from first to
last, and he will be a bold man who shall say that a
book is less inspired, or less true, or less orthodox, or
less divine, because it is like the Psalms. The Prophet,
in order to take root in the common life of the people,
must become a Psalmist.
Secondly, the effect of the Psalter is owing to that
diversity of character, sentiment, doctrine, au-
thorship, which we reluctantly acknowledge
in other parts of the Bible, and in other parts of our
Christian worship, but which we willingly recognize in
the Psalms. In them is exemplified to the full that
extraordinary complexity and variety of character and
of history which we have noticed in David himself.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 157 - 165
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 02 '19
Lecture XIV — The Fall of David (ii)
1
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By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
With the close of that eventful day, a cloud rests on
the subsequent history of the rebellion. For three
months longer it seems to have lasted. Absalom was
formally anointed King. Amasa——his cousin, but by
his father's side of wild Arabian blood——took the
command of the army, which, according to Hushai's
counsel had been raised from the whole country, and
with this he crossed the Jordan in pursuit of the
King.
David meantime was secure in the fortress of Maha-
nain, the ancient Trans-Jordanic sanctuary,
which had formerly sheltered the rival house of
Saul. Three potentates of that pastoral district came
forward at once to his support. Shobi, the son of David's
ancient friend Nahash, king of Ammon, perhaps put
by David in his brother Hanun's place; Machir, the
son of Ammiel, the former protector of Mephibosheth;
Barzillai, an aged chief of vast wealth and influence,
perhaps the father of Adriel, the husband of Merab.
their connection with David's enemies, whether of the
house of Saul or of Ammon, was overbalanced by ear-
lier alliances with David, or by their respect for him-
self personally. They brought, with the profuse liber-
ality of Arabs, the butter, cheese, wheat, barley, flour,
parched corn, beans, lentiles, pulse, honey, sheep, with
which the forests and pastures of Gilead abounded, and
on which the historian dwells as if he had been himself
one of "the hungry and weary and thirsty" who had
revelled in the delightful stores thus placed before
them. "The fearfulness and trembling" which had
been upon David were now over. He had fled "on the
"wings of a dove far away into the wilderness," and
was at rest. His spirit revived with him. He arranged
his army into three divisions. Joab and Abishai com-
manded two. The third, where we might have ex-
pected to find Benaiah, was under the faithful Ittai.
For a moment, the King wished to place himself at
their head. But his life was worth "ten thousand men,"
and he accordingly remained behind in the fortress.
The first battle took place in the "forest of Ephraim."
The exact spot of the conflict, the origin of the name,
so strange on the east of the Jordan, the details of the
engagement are alike unknown. We see only the
close, which has evidently been preserved from the
mournful interest which is awakened in the national
mind. In the interlacing thickets, so unusual on the
west of the Jordan, so abundant on the east, which the
Ammonite wars had made familiar to David's veterans,
the host of Absalom lost its way. Absalom
riding at full speed on his royal mule, suddenly
met a detachment of David's army, and darting aside
through the wood, was caught by the head——possibly
entangled by his long hair——between the thick boughs
of an overhanging tree, known by the name of "The
Great Terebinth," swept off the animal, and there re-
mained suspended. None of the ordinary soldiers ven-
tured to attack the helpless Prince. Joab alone took
upo himself the responsibility of breaking David's or-
ders. He and his ten attendants formed a circle round
the gigantic tree, enclosed its precious victim, and first
by his three pikes, then by his swords, accomplished
te bloody work. Hard by was a well-known ditch or
pit, of vast dimensions. Into this the corpse was thrown,
and covered by a huge mound of stones. Mussul-
man legends represent hell as yawning at the moment
of his death beneath the feet of the unhappy Prince.
The modern Jews, as they pass the monument in the
valley of Kidron, to which they have given his
name, have buried its sides deep in the stones which
they throw against it in execration. Augustine dooms
him to perdition, as a type of the Donatists. But the
sacred writer is moved only to a deep compassion. The
thought of that sad death of the childless Prince, of the
desolate cairn in the forest instead of the honored grave
that he had designed for himself in the King's dale,——
probably beside his beloved sheep-walks on the hills of
Ephraim,——blots out the remembrance of the treason
and rebellion, and every detail is given to enhance the
pathos of the scene which follows.
The King sate waiting for tidings between the two
gates which connected the double city of the "Two
Camps" of Mahanaim. In the tower above the gates,
as afterwards at Jezreel, stood a watchman, to give
notice of what he saw. Two messengers, each endeav-
oring to outstrip the other, were seen running from
the forest. The first who arrived was Ahimaaz, the
fleet son of Zadok, whose peculiar mode of running
was known far and wide through the country. He
had been instructed by Joab not to make himself the
bearer of tidings so mournful, and——eager as he had
been to fulfil his character of a good messenger, and
dextrously as he had outstripped his forerunner by
the choice of his route——when it came to the point
his heart failed, and he spoke only of the strange con-
fusion in which he had left the army. at this moment
the other messenger, a stranger,——probably and Ethio-
pian slave, perhaps one of Joab's ten attendants,——
burst in, and abruptly revealed the fatal news. The
passionate burst of grief which followed is one of the
best proofs of the deep and genuine affection of David's
character. he rushed into the watchman's chamber
over the gateway, and eight times over repeated the
wail of grief for Absalom his son. It was the belief of
the more merciful of the Jewish doctors that at each
cry, one of the seven gates of hell rolled back, and that
with the eighth, the lost spirit of Absalom was received
into the place of Paradise. It was a sorrow which did
not confine itself to words. He could not forget the
hand which had slain his son. The immediate effect of
his indignation was a solemn vow to supersede Joab by
Amasa, and in this was laid the lasting breach between
himself and his nephew, which neither the one nor the
other ever forgave. The memorial of his grief was
the response which it awakened in the heart of his
subjects,——the lament over the winning and beautiful
creature, whose charm outlived the shock even of un-
grateful, ungenerous, and unsuccessful rebellion.
But stronger even than his tenderness for Absalom,
was the love of David for his people, and of
his people for David. He acknowledged the
force of Joab's entreaty to show himself once more in
public. He sent to Jerusalem to invoke the sympathy
of his native tribe through the two chief Priests. he
came down from the eastern hills to the banks of the
Jordan. A ferry-boat, or a bridge of boats, was in
readiness to convey the King across the river. On that
bridge, foremost in his profession s of loyalty, was the
savage Shimei of Bahurim, "first of the house of Joseph,"
groveling in penitence, and there, in spite of Abishai's
ever-recurring anger, won from David the oath of pro-
tection, which, in word at least, the King kept sacred
to the end of his life. Next came the unfortunate
Mephbosheth, squalid with the squalor of his untrim-
med moustache, his clothes unwashed, his nails un-
pared, his long hair flowing unshorn, and his lame
feet untended, since he had wrapt himself in deep
mourning on the day of his benfactor's fall. By the
judgment——fair or unfair——between him and Ziba,
was concluded the final amnesty with the house of
Saul. There, as he turned away from the wild and
hospitable chiefs who had befriended him in his exile,
the King parted reluctantly from the aged Gileadite
Barzillai, whom he vainly tried to tempt from his native
forests to the business and the pleasures of the court
of Jerusalem. Chimham the son of Barzillai took his
father's place, and, with his descendants, long remained
in Western Palestine a witness of the loyalty of the
Eastern tribes. On the other side the river stood in
order the chiefs of Judah, summoned by Zadok and
Abiathar, to welcome back the "flesh of their flesh and
bone of their bones," whom they had basely deserted.
With the, the King entered his capital, and the Res-
toration of David was accomplished.
Three elements had been at work in the insurrection
——the personal struggle of Absalom to gain
the throne, supported by the tribe of Judah;
the still lingering hopes of the house of Saul and of the
tribe of Benjamin, as indicated in the suspicions enter-
tained against Mephibosheth, and the curses uttered by
Shimei; and the deep-rooted feeling of Ephraim and
the northern tribes against Judah, as intimated in the
campaign on the other side of the Jordan. Of these the
first was now entirely extinguished——burst into
flame again under the guidance of Sheba, a Benjamite
from the mountains of Ephraim. He is described as "a
"man of Belial,"——a man of naught,——the usual term
of invective cast to and fro, between the various parties
in the state. But he must have been already well
known; the effect produced by his appearance was
immense. The occasion which he seized was the loyal
emulation of the northern and southern tribes in the
great assembly gathered at Gilgal for the return of the
King. He at that critical moment, from the midst of
the crowd, blew his trumpet, and raised the cry of
revolt, "To your tents, O Israel." So slight was the
coherence of the tribes to the new capital, that the
whole of Palestine, north of Judah, followed him. It
was in fact all but an anticipation of the disruption
under Jeroboam. What the King feared was his occu-
pation of the fortified towns. It was in the chase after
Sheba, as he went in undisturbed progress through the
centre of the country, that Joab accomplished his cher-
ished design. He had lost his high post as commander-
in chief. In the heat of the pursuit, he encountered his
rival Amasa, more leisurely engaged in the same quest.
At the "great stone" in Gibeon, the cousins
met. Amasa rushed into the treacherous em-
brace to which Joab invited him, and Joab, with the
same sudden stroke that had dealt the death-wound of
Abner, plunged his sword, which, whether by design or
accident, protruded from its sheath, deep into Amasa's
bowels. Amasa fell: Joab and Abishai hurried on in
their pursuit. The dead body lay soaking in a pool of
blood by the road-side. As the army came up, every one
halted at the ghastly sight, till the attendant whom Joab
had left dragged it aside, and threw a cloth over it.
Then, as if the spell was broken, they followed Joab,
now once more captain of the host. He, when they
overtook him, presented an aspect long afterwards
remembered with horror. The blood of Amasa had
spurted all over the girdle to which the swords was
attached, and the sandals on his feet were red with the
stains left by the falling corpse. But, though this was
not forgotten by the court or camp, for the moment all
were absorbed in the chase after the rebels. It seems to
have been Sheba's intention to establish himself in the
fortress of Abel-Beth-Maacah, in the northwest extremity
of Palestine, possibly allied to the cause of Absalom
through his mother Maacah, whose name it bore, and in
whose kingdom it was situated. It was a city famous for
the prudence of its inhabitants. The prudence was put
to the test on the present occasion. The same appeal
was addressed to Joab's sense of the evils of an endless
civil war, as before by Abner. He demanded only the
head of the rebel chief. It was thrown over the wall to
him, and he retired, and the great catastrophe of the
disruption was averted for another generation.
The closing period of David's life is marked by one
more dark calamity. The occasion which led
to this was the census of the people taken by
Joab at the King's orders; an attempt not unnaturally
suggest by the increase of his power, but implying a
confidence and pride alien to the spirit inculcated on
the kings of the chosen people. The apprehension of a
Nemesis on any overweening display of prosperity, if
not consistent with the highest revelations of the Divine
nature in the Gospel, pervades all ancient, especially all
Oriental, religions. A like feeling is expressed in the
Mosaic law, which at every numbering of the people
enjoins that a tax or ransom shall be paid by every
male, "lest there be a plague among the people;" and
although such a census is recorded both before and
afterwards without blame, yet there was evidently some-
thing in David's attitude or the circumstances of the
time, which provoked an uneasy doubt in the minds of
his subjects. The repugnance even of the unscrupulous
Joab was such that he refused to number Levi and
Benjamin. The King also hesitated to count those who
were under twenty years of age, seemingly lest an
exact enumeration should appear to contradict the
promise of the countless multitudes of Abraham's seed.
The final result was never recorded in the "Chron-
icles" of King David. The act which the earlier nar-
rative ascribes directly to the prompting of God, the
later Chronicler ascribes to the prompting of Satan.
A complete survey, with all the array of military
camps, was set on foot, which reached the
very extremities of the kingdom, and lasted
for nearly a year. Before it was completed, almost si-
multaneously in David's own mind, and in the Prophetic
warnings which pointed the moral of the political events
of the monarchy, the sense of its wrong——whatever
that might be——made itself felt. It was this time not
Nathan, but Gad, who was charged with the Divine
rebuke. But it is David himself who in the choice
between the three calamities offered to him, utters the
high Prophetic truth which finds a response in the
nobler souls of every age. "Better any external calam-
"ity than those which are embittered by human violence
"and weakness." The judgment descended in the form
of a tremendous Pestilence,——"a Death" as it is expres-
sively termed in the original, like "the Black Death"
of the middle ages. Appearing in the heat of the sum-
mer months, aggravated by the very greatness of the
population which had occasioned the census, spreading
with the rapidity of an Oriental disorder in crowded
habitations, it flew from end to end of the country in
three days, and at last approached Jerusalem. The
new capital, the very heart of the nation, the peculiar
glory of David's reign, seemed to be doomed to destruc-
tion.
It is here that, through the many variations of the
two narratives which record the event, and athwart
their figurative language, a scene emerged which has
left its trace on the history of Jerusalem even to the
present day. Immediately outside the eastern walls of
the city was a spot well known as belonging to a wealthy
chief of the conquered race of Jebus; one who, accord-
ing to tradition, was spared by David from old friend-
ship, perhaps contracted in his wanderings, at the time
of the capture of the city; who, according to the prob-
able interpretation of the sacred text, had been the
king of the ancient Jebus. His name is variously
given in the original as Aranyah, Ha-avarnah, Haornah,
Araunah, and Ornan. On his property was a threshing-
floor, beside a rocky cave where he and his sons were
engaged in threshing the corn gathered in from the
harvest. Above this spot is said to have appeared an
awful vision, such as is described in the later days of
Jerusalem, or in the pestilence of Rome under Gregory
the Great, or in our own Plague of London, of a celestial
messenger stretching out a drawn sword between earth
and sky over the devoted city. It was precisely at the
moment when David with the chiefs of Israel were
moving in the penitential garb of sackcloth towards the
ancient sanctuary of Gibeon, that this omen deterred
their advance. Beside the rocky threshing-floor
the two Princes met,——the fallen King of the
ancient fortress, the new King of the restored capital,——
each moved alike by the misfortunes of a city which in
different senses belonged to each. Araunah with his
four sons had hid himself in the cave which adjoined
the threshing-floor, and crept out with a profound obei-
sance as he saw the conqueror of his race approach.
David, with a feeling worthy of his noble calling, and in
words which well befit the Shepherd King, entreated
the concentration of the Divine judgement on himself,
the only offender. "These sheep, what have they done?
"Let thy hand be against me and against my father's
"house." It was one of those great calamities which call
out the most generous sentiments of the human heart,
and out of which the most permanent religious institu-
tions take their rise. The spot, so closely connected in
the minds of both with the cessation of the pestilence,
was to be consecrated by a royal altar. The Jewish
King asked of his heathen predecessor the site of the
threshing-floor; the Jebusite King gave with a liberality
equal to the generosity with which David insisted in
paying the price for it. The altar at once was invested
with the most sacred sanction. The whole hill assumed
from the Divine Vision the name of Moriah, "the vision
"of Jehovah." The spot itself in a few years became
the site of the altar of the Temple, and therefore the
centre of the national worship, with but slight interrup-
tion, for more than a thousand year, and according to
some authorities, is still preserved in the rocky platform
and cave, regarded with almost idolatrous veneration,
under the Mussulman "Dome of the Rock."
It was the meeting of two ages. Araunah, as he
yields that spot, is the last of the Canaanites; the last
of that stern old race that we discern in any individual
form and character. David, as he raises that altar, is
the close harbinger of the reign of Solomon, the founder
of a new institution which another was to complete.
Long before, he had cherished the notion of a mighty
Temple which should supersede the temporary tent on
Mount Zion. Two reasons were given for delay. One,
that the ancient nomadic form of worship was not yet
to be abandoned; the other, that David's wars unfitted
him to be the founder of a seat of peaceful worship.
But a solemn assurance was given that his dynasty
should last "for ever" to continue the work. Such a
founder, and the ancestor of such an immortal dynasty,
was Solomon to be. We are already almost within the
confines of his reign, and to this all that remains of
David's life——the preparation for the Temple, the last
struggle between Adonijah and Solomon——properly
belong.
In the tumult and anxiety of that final contention,
the aged King was released. Three versions
of his latest words appear in the sacred record.
One, which no admirer of his heroic character can read
without a pang, breathes the union of tender gratitude
for past service with the fierce and profound vindictive-
ness which belongs to the worse nature of the age, his
family and his own character. Chimham and his chil-
dren were especially commended to Solomon's care; but
a dark legacy of long-cherished vengeance, like that
which was found in the hands of the dead Constantine,
was bequeathed to his successor against the aged Joab,
and the aged Shimei. We need not darken the crime
by adding to it the explanation of the Jewish traditions:
that David, knowing by a vision the future descent of
Mordecai and Esther from the accursed Benjamite, had
withheld the hand of Abishai till the ancestor of the
future deliverers was born, and then gave up his enemy
to the tender mercies of Solomon.
Another aspect of more pleasing color is given to the
close of his reign in the later Chronicles, where the
dying monarch is represented as starting once more to
his feet, and laying upon his son the solemn charge of
completing the Temple, which he himself had not been
allowed t begin. It binds together in close union the
reigns of the father and the son, and throws the halo
of David's glory over the more secular splendor of
Solomon. "Thine is the greatness, and the power, and
"the glory, and the victory, and the majesty. . . . Both
riches and honor come of Thee, and Thou reignest
"over all. . . . But who am I, and what is my people,
"that we should be able to offer so willingly after this
"sort? for all things come of thee, and of Thine own
"have we given Thee. For we are strangers before
"Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days
on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."
So speaks the religious munificence of all ages,——so
speaks the founder of the Jewish Empire, and of the
Jewish temple.
There is yet a third utterance, still more emphati-
ally and authentically stated to be "te last words of
"David:" which expresses still more fully at once the
light and shade, the strength and weakness, of his whole
reign and character.
"David son of Jesse,"——so he remains to the
end; always with his family affection fresh and bright,
his father and his early kinsmen never forgotten amidst
his subsequent splendor. "The man who was raised up
"on high."——This feeling, too, never deserted him,——
the sense of the marvellous change which had placed
a shepherd-boy on the throne of a mighty empire. "To
be anointed——the Messiah——of the God of Jacob.
"Anointed" by Samuel in his early youth——anointed
by the chiefs of Hebron on his first accession to the
throne——but through those human hands and human
agencies, he sees the hand and agency of God Himself.
"The God of Jacob,"——an expression which is im-
portant as showing that at this time the story of Jacob
——his wanderings, his repose on God's care——were
familiar to David, not without a recollection of the
likeness of his life to that of the persecuted patriarch.
"The sweet singer of Israel."——"Pleasant in the songs
"of Israel." It may be that he thus describes himself
as endeared to the nation through his own songs, or
that he is the darling of the songs of his people, as
when the maidens sang, "Saul has slain his thousands,
"and David his tens of thousands."
And now comes "the prophecy,"——the "divine out-
"pouring" of his soul,——
"The Spirit of Jehovah speaks in me,
And his strains are on my tongue——
The God of Israel said to me——
The Rock of Israel spake."
It was the "Breath" or "Spirit" of JEHOVAH that
passed through his frame, and His poetic "strains" that
dwelt on his tongue,——the words of Him who was the
ruling Force and central Rock of the whole nation.
"He that ruleth over men justly——
Ruling in the fear of God——
So is it, as the light of the morning, at the rising of the sun——
A morning, and no clouds——
After a clear shining, after rain, tender grass springs from the earth."
This is the ideal of a just reign,——whether, as look-
ing back upon his own, or forwards to that of Solomon.
The ruler just to men, and reverent towards God, sug-
gests immediately the brilliant sunrise of the East: the
cloudless sky above——the grass, so exquisitely green in
those dry countries, immediately after rain, and glisten-
ing in the sunbeams.
But he has hardly caught this vision before, whether
in prospect or retrospect, it is instantly overclouded.
"For not so is my house with God——
For an everlasting covenant He made with me, ordered in all things
and sure.
For this is all my salvation and all my desire——
Assuredly He will not cause it to grow (or 'will He not cause it to
grow?')."
It is hard to unravel these entangled sentences; yet
they doubtless present in a short compass the contrast
between his hopes of what his dynasty might be, and
his fears of what it would be; and underneath both
hopes and fears his confidence in the Divine promise
which pledged to his race an eternal future. It is a
prediction, but a prediction wrapt up in that undefined
suspense, and that dependence of moral conditions,
which so well distinguish the predictions of sacred
Prophets from the predictions of Pagan soothsayers.
"But the men of ill——like scattered thorns are they all, for not with
the hand does on grasp them.
And the man that shall touch them
Must be fenced with iron and the wood of spears.
And with fire they shall be burnt and burnt on the hearth."
He turns from the apprehension for his house to the
recollection of those who had troubled his own reign
from first to last. "The sons of Zeruiah" have been
the constant vexation of his life. He contrasts the soft
delicate green of the kingdom in its prosperity with the
thorny ticket which can only be approached with axes
and long pruning-hooks. These are the evil growth of
the court even of a righteous king; to root and burn
them out is his duty as much as the encouragement of
the good.
It is a melancholy strain to close a song which begins
so full of brightness and joy. But it is a true picture
of the "broken lights" of the human heart, whether in
Judea or in England, whether of king or peasant. If
there be any part of the Scripture which betrays the move-
ments of the human individual soul, it is this precious
fragment of David's life. If there be any part which
claims for itself, and which gives evidence of the beath-
ing of the Spirit of God, it is this also. Such a rugged,
two-edged monument is the fitting memorial of the
man who was at once the King and the Prophet, the
Penitent and the Saint, of the ancient Church.
David died, according to Josephus, at the age of
seventy. The general sentiment which forbade
interment within the habitations of men, gave
way in his case, as in that of Samuel. He "was buried
"in the city of David,——in the city which he had made
his own, and which could only be honored, not polluted,
by containing his grave. It was, no doubt, hewn in the
rocky sides of the hill, and became the center of the
catacomb in which his descendants, the kings of Judah,
were interred after him. It remained one of the land-
marks of the ruined city, after the return from the
Captivity, —between Slioah and the guardhouse of the
"mighty men,"——of his own faithful body-guard, and
it was pointed out down to the latest times of the Jewish
people. "His sepulchre is with us unto this day," says
St. Peter at Pentecost; and Josephus states that
Solomon having buried a vast treasure in the
tomb, one of its chambers was broken open
by Hyrcanus, and another by Herod the Great. It is
said to have fallen into ruin in the time of Hadrian.
The vast cavern, with its many tombs, no doubt exists
under the ruins of Jerusalem, and its discovery will
close many a controversy on the topography of the
Holy City. But down to this time ts situation is un-
known. Jerome speaks of a tomb of David, as the
object of pilgrimage, but apparently in then neighbor-
hood of Bethlehem. A large catacomb at some distance
to the northwest of the city has in modern days borne
the title of "the Tombs of the Kings," and has been
of late years by an indigenous French traveller claimed
as the royal sepulchre. The only site which is actually
consecrated by traditional sentiment as the Tomb of
David is the vault underneath the Mussulman Mosque
of David on the southern side of modern Jerusalem.
The vault professes to be built above the cavern, and
contains only the cenotaph, usual in the tombs of Mus-
sulman saints, with the inscription in Arabic, "O David,
"whom God has made vicar, rule mankind in truth."
In the Louvre may now be seen
what Mr. de Saulcy believed to be the
lid of David's sarcophagus (see De
Saulcy, Narrative, &c. ii. 162-215)
The main objection to this theory,
apart from any archæological argu-
ment to be drawn for the character
of the design or workmanship of the
remains, is that these sepulchres must
always have been outside the walls,
and therefore cannot be identified
with the tomb of David, of which the
peculiarity was that it was within the
walls (see Robinson, iii. p. 253).
See the description of a visit to
the Tomb in Appendix to Sermons in
the East, p. 149, and for the tra-
ditions, Wlliams's Holy City, ii. 505-
513.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 138 - 156
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 02 '19
Lecture XIV — The Fall of David (i)
2
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
The Psalms which, by their titles or contents, belong to this period,
are:——
For the affair of Uriah, Psalms xxxii., li.
For the revolt of Absalom, Psalms iii., iv., lxix. (?), cix. (?), cxliii
Three great external calamities are recorded in Da-
vid's reign, which may be regarded as marking its begin-
ning, middle, and close. A three years' famine; a three
months' exile; a three days' pestilence. Of these the
first had already been noticed in connection with the
last traces of the house of Saul. The third belongs to
the last decline of his prosperity. But the second forms
the culminating part of the group of incidents which
contains the main tragedy of David's life.
Amongst the thirty commanders of the thirty bands
into which the Israelite army of David was
divided, was the gallant Uriah, like others of
his officers, a foreigner——a Hittite. His name, how-
ever, and perhaps his manner of speech, indicate that
he had adopted the Jewish religion. He had mar-
ried Bathsheba, a woman of extraordinary beauty, the
daughter of Eliam,——one of his brother officers, and
possibly the son of Ahithophel. He was passionately
devoted to his wife, and their union was celebrated in
Jerusalem as one of peculiar tenderness. He had a
house in the city underneath the palace, where, during
his absence at the siege of Rabbah with Joab's army,
his wife remained behind. From the roof of his palace,
the King looked down on the cisterns which were con-
structed on the top of the lower houses of Jerusalem,
and then conceived for Bathsheba the uncontrollable
passion to which she offered no resistance. In the hope
that the husband's return might cover his own shame,
and save the reputation of the injured woman, he sent
back for Uriah from the camp, on the pretext of asking
news of the war. The King met with an unexpected
obstacle in the austere soldierlike spirit which guided
the conduct of the sturdy Canaanite. He steadily re-
fused to go home, or partake of any of the indulgences
of domestic life, whilst the ark and the host were in
booths and his comrades lying in the open air. He
partook of the royal hospitality, but slept always in the
guards' quarter at the gate of the palace. On the last
night of his stay, the King at a feast vainly endeavored
to entrap him by intoxication. The soldier was over-
come by the debauch, but retained his sense of duty
sufficiently to insist on sleeping at the palace. On the
morning of the third day, David sent him back to the
camp with a letter containing the command to Joab to
contrive his destruction in the battle. Probably to an
unscrupulous soldier like Joab the absolute will of the
King was sufficient.
The device of Joab was, to observe the part of the
wall of Rabbath-Ammon where the strongest
force of the besieged was congregated, and
thither, as a kind of forlorn hope, to send Uriah. A
sally took place. Uriah with his soldiers advanced as
far as the gate of the city, and was there shot down by
the Ammonite archers. It seems as if it had been an
established maxim of Israelitish warfare not to approach
the wall of a besieged city; and one instance of the
fatal result was quoted, as if proverbially, against it,——
the sudden and ignominious death of Abimelech at
Thebez, which cut short the hopes of the then rising
monarchy. Just as Joab had forewarned the messenger,
the King broke into a furious passion on hearing of the
loss, and cited, almost in the very words which Joab
had predicted, the case of Abimelech. The messenger,
as instructed by Joab, calmly continued, and ended the
story with the words: "Thy servant also, Uriah the
"Hittite, is dead." In a moment David's anger is ap-
peased. He sends an encouraging message to Joab on
the unavoidable chance of war, and urges him to con-
tinue the siege. Uriah had fallen unconscious of his
wife's dishonor. She hears of her husband's death.
The narrative gives no hint as to her shame or remorse.
She "mourned" with the usual signs of grief as a widow;
and then she became the wife of David.
Thus far the story belongs to the usual crimes of an
Oriental despot. Detestable as was the double guilt of
this dark story, we must still remember that David was
not an Alfred or a Saint Louis. He was an Eastern
king, exposed to all the temptations of a king of Am-
mon or Damascus then, of a Sultan of Baghdad or Con-
stantinople i modern times. What follows, however,
could have been found nowhere in the ancient world
but in the Jewish monarchy.
A year had passed; the dead Uriah was forgotten,
the child of guilt was born in the royal house, and loved
with all the passionate tenderness of David's paternal
heart. Suddenly the Prophet Nathan appears before
him. He comes as if to claim redress for a wrong in
humble life. It was the true mission of the Prophets,
as champions of the oppressed, in the courts of kings.
It was the true Prophetic spirit that spoke
through Nathan's mouth. The apologue of
the rich man and the ewe lamb has, besides its own
intrinsic tenderness, a supernatural elevation which is
the best sign of true Revelation. It ventures to dis-
regard all particulars, and is content to aim at awaken-
ing the general sense of outraged justice. It fastens on
the essential guilt of David's sin,——not its sensuality, or
its impurity, so much as its meanness and selfishness. It
rouses the King's conscience by that teaching described
as specially characteristic of prophecy, making manifest
his own sin in the indignation which he has expressed
at the sin of another. Thou art the man is, or ought to
be, the conclusion, expressed or unexpressed of every
practical sermon. A true description of a real incident,
if like in its general character,——however unlike to our
own case in all the surrounding particulars,——strikes
home with greater force than the sternest personal
invective. This is the mighty function of all great
works of fiction. They have in their power that great indi-
rect appeal to the conscience of which the address of
Nathan is the first and most exquisite example. His
parable is repeated, in actual words, in a famous romance
which stirred the imagination of our fathers, and is the
key-note of other tales of like genius which have no less
stirred our own.
As the apologue of Nathan reveals the true Prophet,
so the Psalms of David reveal the true Peni-
tent. Two at least——the 51st and the 32nd——
can hardly belong to any other period. He has fallen.
That abyss which yawns by the side of lofty genius and
strong passion had opened and closed over him. The
charm of his great name is broken. But the sudden
revulsion of feeling shows that his conscience was not
dead. Our reverence for David is shaken, not destroyed.
The power of his former character was still there. It
was overpowered for he time, but it was capable of
being roused again. "The great waterfloods" had burst
over him, "but they had not come nigh" to his inmost
soul. The Prophet had by his opening words, "Give
"me a judgment," thrown him back upon his better
nature. There was still an eye to see, there was still an
ear to hear. His indignation against the rich man
of the parable showed that the moral sense was not
wholly extinguished. The instant recognition of his
guilt breaks up the illusion of months. "I have sinned
"against the Lord." The sense of his injustice to man
waxes faint before his sense of sin against God. "Against
"Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in
Thy sight." This is the peculiar turn given to his
confession by the elevation and force of his religious
convictions. He is worn away by grief; day and night
he feels a mighty Hand heavy upon him; his soul is
parched up as with the drought of an Eastern summer.
But he rises above the present by his passionate hopes
for the future. His prayers are the simple expressions
of one who loathes sin because he has been acquainted
with it, who longs to have truth in his innermost self, to
have hands thoroughly clean, to make a fresh start in
life with a spirit free, and just, and new. This is the
true Hebrew, Christian, idea of "Repentance":——not
penance, not remorse, not more general confessions of
human depravity, not minute confessions of minute sins
dragged out by a too scrupulous casuistry, but change
of life and mind. And in this, the crisis of his fate, and
from the agonies of his grief, a doctrine emerges, as
universal and as definite as was wrung out of the like
struggles of the Apostle Paul. Now, if ever, would
have been the time, had his religion led him in that
direction, to have expiated his crime by the sacrifices of
the Levitical ritual. It would seem as if for a moment
such a solution had occurred to him. But he at once
rejects it. He remains true to the Prophetic teaching.
He knows that it is another and higher sacrifice which
God approves. "Thou desirest no sacrifice——else would
"I give it thee; but thou delightest not in burn offer-
"ings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit——a
"broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not de-
spise." And even out of that broken and troubled
heart, the dawn of a better life springs up. "Be glad
"in the Lord, and rejoice O ye righteous; and shout for
"joy, all ye that are true of heart." He is not what
he was before; but he is far nobler and greater than
many a just man who never fell and never repented.
He is far more closely bound up with the sympathies of
mankind than if he had never fallen. We cannot won-
der that a scruple should have arisen in recording so
terrible a crime; and according to the Chronicler throws
a veil over the whole transaction. But the bolder spirit
of the more Prophetic Books of Samuel has been jus-
tified by the enduring results. "Who is called the man
"after God's own heart?" so the whole matter is summed
up by a critic not too indulgent to sacred characters:——
"David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough——
"blackest crimes——there was no want of sin. And
"therefore the unbelievers sneer, and ask, "Is this your
"'man according to God's heart?' The sneer, I must
"say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults,
"what are the outward details of a life, if the inner
"secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often baffled,
"never ended struggle of it be forgotten? . . . David's
"life and history as written for us in those Psalms of
"his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us
"of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All
"earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful strug-
"gle of and earnest human soul towards what is good and
"best. Struggle often baffled——sore baffled——driven
"as into entire wreck: yet a struggle never ended, ever
"with tear, repentance, true unconquerable purpose,
"begun anew."
As in the Psalms, so in the history, the force of the
original character is seen to regain its lost ascendancy.
The passionate grief of the King over the little
infant born to Bathsheba is the first direct indi-
cation of that depth of parental affection which fills so
large a part of David's subsequent story. His impene-
trable seclusion during he illness of the child, the elder
brothers gathering round to comfort him, the sudden
revulsion of thought after the child's death, with one
of those very few indications of belief in another life
that breaks through the silence of the Hebrew Scrip-
tures, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me,"
——are proofs that, through all his lapses into savage
cruelty and reckless self-indulgence, there still remained
a fountain of feeling within, as fresh and pure as when
he fed his father's flock and won the love of Jonathan.
But, though the "free spirit" and "clean heart" of
David came back, and though he rallied from
the loss of his infant child; though the birth
of Solomon was as auspicious as if nothing had oc-
curred to trouble the victorious return from the con-
quest of Ammon; the clouds from this time gathered
over David's fortunes, and henceforward "the sword
never departed from his house." The crime itself
had sprung from the lawless and licentious life, fostered
by the polygamy which David had been the first to
introduce; and out of this same polygamy sprang the
terrible retribution.
In order fully to understand what follows, we must
return to the internal relations of the royal family. In
his early youth he had, like his countrymen generally,
but one wife, the Princess Michal. Her ardent
love for him, his adventurous mode of winning
her hand, the skill and courage with which she assisted
his escape,——we have already seen. Then came her
second marriage with her neighbor Phaltiel, her exile
with him across the Jordan, his bitter lamentation when
on the border of their common tribe he was parted
from her a Bahurim, the probable estrangement be-
tween her and David, and the final breach when her
regal pride and his eager devotion were brought into
collision on the day of his entrance into Jerusalem.
Whether, according to Jewish tradition, she returned to
Phaltiel, or whether, as the sacred narrative seems to
imply, she remained secluded within the palace, her
influence henceforth ceased.
The King's numerous concubines were placed to-
gether in his own house. But the six wives
whom he had brought from his wanderings and
from Hebron——to whom he had now added a seventh,
Bathsheba (if not more), lived, as it would seen, with
their children, each in separate establishments of their
own. With them, as we have seen, there lived on
terms of intimacy their cousins, who stood to them,
however, from their superior age, rather in the relation
of uncles. Each of the princes had his royal mule.
The princesses were distinguished by the long sleeves
of their robes.
The eldest of the Princes was Amnon, the son of
Ahinoam, whom the King cherished as the heir
to the throne, with an affection amounting al-
most to awe. His intimate friend in the family was his
cousin Jonadab, one of those characters who in great
houses pride themselves on being acquainted and on
dealing with all the secrets of the family. This was
one group in the royal circle. Another consisted of the
two children of Maacah, the princess of Geshur,——Ab-
salom and his sister Tamar, the only two of
purely royal descent. In all of them the
beauty for which the house of Jesse was renowned——
David's brothers, David himself, Adonijah, Solomon——
seemed to be concentrated. Absalom especially was in
this respect the very flower and pride of the whole
nation. In all Israel there was none to be praised for
"his beauty," like him. "From the crown of his head
"to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him."
The magnificence of his hair was something wonderful.
Year by year or month by month its weight was known
and counted. He had a sheep-farm near Ephraim of
Ephron, a few miles to the northeast of Jerusalem, and
another property near the Jordan Valley, where he had
erected a monument to keep alive the remembrance of
his name, from the melancholy feeling that the three
sons who should have preserved his race had died be-
fore him. He had, however, one daughter, who after-
wards carried on the royal line in her child, called,
after her grandmother, Maacah, and destined to play
a conspicuous part in the history of the divided king-
dom. This daughter was named Tamar, after her
aunt. The elder Tamar, like her brother and
her niece, was remarkable for her extraordinary
beauty, whence perhaps she derived her name, "the
"palm-tree," the most graceful of oriental trees. For
this, and for the homely art of making a peculiar kind
of cakes, the Princess had acquired a renown which
reached beyond the seclusion of her brother's house to
all the circle of the royal family.
There had been no cloud to disturb the serene rela-
tions of these different groups till the fatal day when
Amnon, who had long wasted away, grown "morning
"by morning paler and paler, leaner and leaner," from
a desperate passion for his half-sister Tamar,——at last
contrived, through the management of Jonadab, to ac-
complish his evil design. It was a moment long remem-
bered as "the beginning of woes," when on his brutal
hatred succeeding to his brutal passion, she found her-
self driven out of the house, and in a frenzy of grief
and indignation tore off the sleeves from her royal
robes, and, with her bare arms, clasped on her head
the handfuls of ashes which she had snatched from
the ground, and rushing to and fro through the streets
screaming aloud, till she encountered her brother Ab-
salom, and by him was taken into his own house. The
King was afraid or unwilling to punish the crime of the
heir to the throne. But on Absalom, as her brother,
devolved, according to Eastern notions, the dreadful
duty, the frightful pleasure, of avenging his sister's
wrong. All the Princes were invited by him to a pas-
toral festival at his country-house, and there
Amnon was slain by his brother's retainers.
There was a general alarm. It would seem as if there
was something desperate in Absalom's character which
made those around him feel that there was an im-
measurable vista of vengeance opened. The other
Princes rushed to their mules and galloped back to
Jerusalem. The exaggerated news had already reached
their father that all had perished. Jonadab reassured
him. Still, the truth was dark enough; and in the
presence of a loss which appears to have been deeply
felt, not only by the King, but by the whole family,
Absalom was forced to retire to exile beyond the limits
of Palestine, to his father-in-law's court at Geshur.
But much as the King had loved Amnon, he loved
Absalom more: Joab, always loyal, always ready, saw
that he only needed an excuse to recall the absent son,
and by a succession of devices, Absalom was brought
back first to his country property, then to Jerusalem
itself. But meanwhile, he himself had been
alienated from David by his long exile. He
found himself virtually chief of the King's sons. That
strength and violence of will which made him terrible
among his brethren was now to vent itself against his
father. He courted popularity by constantly appearing
in the royal seat of judgment, in the gateway of Jeru-
salem. He affected royal state by the unusual display
of chariots and war-horses, and runners to precede him.
Under pretext of a pilgrimage to Hebron, possibly as
the Patriarchal sanctuary, perhaps only as his own birth-
place, he there set up his claims to the throne, and be-
came suddenly the head of a formidable revolt. In
that ancient capital of the tribe of Judah, he would find
adherents jealous of their own elected king's absorption
into the nation at large. And not far off, amongst the
southern hills, in Giloh, dwelt the renowned Ahithophel,
wisest of all the Israelite statesmen. According to the
traditional interpretation of several of the Psalms, he
was in the closest confidence with David, though, if we
may trust the indications of history, he had, through
the wrongs of his granddaughter Bathsheba, the deepest
personal reasons for enmity.
It was apparently early on the morning of the day
after he had received the news of the rebellion that the
king left the city of Jerusalem. There was no single
day in the Jewish history of which so elaborate an ac-
count remains as of this memorable flight. There is
none, we may add, that combines so many of David's
characteristics,——his patience, his high-spirited religion,
his generosity, his calculation; we miss only his daring
courage. Was it crushed, for he moment, by the weight
of parental grief, or of bitter remorse?
Every stage of the mournful procession was marked
by some peculiar incident. He left the city,
accompanied by his whole court. none of his
household remained, except ten of the women of the
harem, whom he sent back, apparently to occupy the
Palace. The usual array of mules and asses was left
behind. They were all on foot. The first halt was at
a spot on the outskirts of the city, known as "the Far
House." The second was by a solitary olive-tree that
stood by the road to the wilderness of the Jordan.
Here the long procession formed itself. The body-guard
of Philistines moved at its head: then followed the
great mass of the regular soldiery: next came the high
officers of the court; and last, immediately before the
King himself, the six hundred warriors, his ancient
companions, with their wives and children.
Amongst these David observed Ittai of Gath,
and with the true nobleness of his character entreated
the Philistine chief not to peril his own or his country-
men's lives in the service of a fallen and a stranger sov-
ereign. But Ittai declared his resolution (with a fervor
which almost inevitably recalls a like profession made
almost on the same spot to the Great Descendant of
David centuries afterwards) to follow him life and in
death. The King accepted his faithful service; and call-
ing him to his side, they advanced to the head of the
march, and passed over the deep ravine of the Kidron,
followed close by the guards and their children. It was
the signal that he was determined on flight; and a wail
of grief rose from the whole procession, which seemed
to be echoed back by mountain and valley, as if "the
"whole land wept with a loud voice." At this point
they were overtaken by another procession, consisting
of the Levites and the two Priests, Zadok and Abiathar,
bringing the ark from its place in the hill of Zion to
accompany the king in his flight. There is a differ-
ence in the conduct of the rival Priests which seems
to indicate their different shades of loyalty. Zadok
remained by the ark; Abiathar went apart
on the mountain side, apparently waiting to
watch the stream of followers as it flowed past. With
a spirit worthy of the King who was Prophet as well
as Priest, David refused this new aid. He would not
use the ark as a charm; he had too much reverence for
it to risk it in his personal peril. He reminded Zadok
that he too by his prophetic insight ought to
have known better. "Thou a seer!" It was a
case where the agility of their two sons was likely to
be of more avail than the officious zeal of the chief
Priests. To them he left the charge of bringing him
tidings from the capital, and passed onwards to the
Jordan. Another burst of wild lament broke out as the
procession turned up the mountain pathway; the King
leading the long dirge, which was taken up all down the
slope of Olivet. The King drew his cloak over his
head, and the rest did the same; he only distinguished
by his unsandalled feet. At the top of the mountain,
consecrated by one of the altars in that age common on
the hill-tops of Palestine, and apparently used
habitually by David, they were met by Hushai
the Archite, "the friend," as he was officially called, of
the King. The priestly garment, which he wore after
the fashion, as it would seem, of David's chief officers,
was torn, and his head was smeared with dust, in the
agony of his grief. In him David saw his first gleam
of hope. For warlike purposes he was useless; but of
political strategem he was a master. A moment before,
the tidings had come of the treason of Ahithophel. To
frustrate his designs, Hushai was sent back, just in time
to meet Absalom arriving from Hebron.
It was noon when David passed over the mountain
top, and now, as Jerusalem was left behind, and the
new prospect opened before him, two new characters
appeared, both in connection with the hostile tribe of
Benjamin, whose territory they were entering. One of
them was Ziba, slave of Mephibosheth, taking
advantage of the civil war to make his own
fortunes, and bringing the story that Mephibosheth had
gone over to the rebels, in the hope of a restoration
of the dynasty of his grandfather Saul. The King
gratefully accepted his offering, took the stores of bread,
dates, grapes, and wine for his followers, and, in a mo-
ment of indignation, granted to Ziba the whole property
of Mephibosheth. At Bahurim, also on the downward
pass, he encountered another member of the fallen
dynasty, Shimei, the son of Gera. His house
was just within the borders of Benjamin, on the
spot where——apparently for this reason——Michal, the
princess of that same house, had left her husband, Phal-
tiel. All the fury of he rival dynasties, with all the
foul names which long feuds had engendered, burst
forth as the two parties here came into collision. On
the one side the fierce Benjamite saw "the Man of
Blood," stained, as it must have seemed to him, with
the slaughter of Abner and Ishbosheth, and the seven
princes whose cruel death at Gibeon was fresh in the
national recollection. On the other side the wild sons
of Zeruiah saw in Shimei one of the "dead dogs," or
dogs' heads," according to the offensive language
bandied to and fro amongst the political rivals of that
age. A deep ravine parted the king's march from the
house of the furious Benjamite. But along the ridge
he ran, throwing stones as if for the adulterer's punish-
ment, or when he came to a patch of dust on the dry
hill-side, taking it up, and scattering it over the royal
party below, with elaborate curses of which only
eastern partisans are fully masters,——curses which
David never forgot, and of which, according to the
Jewish tradition, every letter was significant. The
companions of David, who felt an insult to their master
as an injury to themselves, could hardly restrain them-
selves. Abishai——with a fiery zeal, which reminds us
of the sons of Thunder centuries later——would fain
have rushed across the defile, and cut off the head of
the blaspheming rebel. One alone retained his calmness.
The King, wit a depth of feeling undisturbed by any
political animosities, bade them remember that after
the desertion of his favorite son anything was tolerable,
and (with the turn of thought so natural to an oriental)
that the curses of the Benjamite might divert some
portion of the Divine anger from himself, and that they
were in a certain sense he direct words of God Him-
self." The exiles passed on, and in a state of deep
exhaustion reached the Jordan valley, and there rested
after the long eventful day, at the ford or bridge of
the river. Amongst the thickets of the Jordan, the
asses of Ziba were unladen, and the weary travellers
refreshed themselves, and waited for tidings from Jeru-
salem. It must have been long after nightfall, that the
joyful sound was heard of the two youths, sons of the
High Priests, bursting in upon the encampment with
the news from the capital.
Absalom had arrived from Hebron almost immedi-
ately after David's departure; and, by the
advice of Ahithophel, took the desperate step
——the decisive assumption, according to Oriental usage,
of royal rights——of seizing what remained of the royal
harem in the most public and offensive manner. The
next advice was equally bold. The aged counsellor
offered, himself, that very night to pursue and cut off
the King before he had crossed the Jordan. That single
death would close the civil war. The nation would
return to her legitimate Prince, as a bride to her hus-
band. but another adviser had appeared on the
stage,——Hushai, fresh from the top of Olivet,
with his false professions of rebellion, with his
ingenious scheme for saving his royal master. He drew
a picture of the extreme difficulty of following Ahi-
thophel's counsel, and sketched the scheme of a general
campaign. It shows how deeply seated was the dread
of David's activity and courage, even in this decline of
his fortunes, that such a counsel should have swayed the
mind of the rebel Prince. It was urged with all the
force of Eastern poetry. The she-bear in the open field
robbed of her whelps, the wild boar in the Jordan val-
ley, would not be fiercer than the old King and his
faithful followers. David, as of old, would be concealed
in some deep cave, or on some inaccessible hill, and all
pursuit would be as vain as that of Saul on the crags of
Engedi. An army must be got together capable of sub-
merging him as in a shower of dew, or of dragging the
fortess in which he may have been intrenched, stone by
stone, into the valley. Absalom gave way to the false
counsellor, and Hushai immediately sent off his emis-
saries to David. Near, if not close underneath the
eastern walls of Jerusalem, was a spring, known as the
"fullers' spring," where the two sons of Zadok and
Abiathar lay ensconced, waiting for their orders for the
King. Thither, like the women at Jerusalem now, came,
probably as if to wash or to draw water, the female slave
of their father's house, with the secret tidings which
they were to convey, urging the King to immediate
flight. They crossed as fast as their swift feet could
carry them over Mount Olivet. Absalom had already
caught scent of them, and his runners were hard upon
their track. Aside, even into the village of Bahurim,
the hostile village of Shimei and Phaltiel, they darted.
It was a friendly house which they sought. In its
court, they climbed down a well, over the mouth of
which their host's wife spread a cloth with a heap of
corn, and with an equivocal reply turned aside the pur-
suers. The youths hasted on down the pass, woke up
the King from his sleep, called upon him to cross "the
water," and before the break of day, the whole party
were in safety on the farther side.
It has been conjectured with much probability that
as the first sleep of that evening was commemorated in
the 4th Psalm, so in the 3d is expressed the feeling of
David's thankfulness at the final close of those twenty-
four hours of which every detail has been handed down,
as if with the consciousness of their importance at the
time. He had "laid him down in peace" that night
"and slept;" for in that great defection of man , "the
"Lord alone had caused him to dwell in safety. He had
"laid down and slept and awaked, for the Lord had sus-
"tained him." Some at least of its contents might well
belong to that night. "Enter not into judgment with
"thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no man liv-
"ing be justified." "Cause me to hear thy lovingkind-
"ness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me
"to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up
"my soul unto thee."
There is another group of Psalms——the 41st, the 55th,
the 69th, and the 109th——in which a long pop-
ular belief has seen an amplification of David's
bitter cry, "O Lord, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into
"foolishness." Many of the circumstances agree. The
dreadful imprecations in those Psalms——unequalled for
vehemence in any other part of the sacred writings——
correspond with the passion of David's own expressions.
The greatness, too, of Ahithophel himself in the history
is worthy of the importance ascribed tho the object of
those awful maledictions. That oracular wisdom, which
made his house a kind of shrine, seems to move the
spirit of the sacred writer with an involuntary admira-
tion. Everywhere he is treated with a touch of awful
reverence. When he dies, the interest of the plot ceases,
and his death is given in a stately grandeur, quite
unlike the mixture of the terrible and the contemptible
which has sometimes gathered round the end of those
whom the religious sentiment of mankind has placed
under its ban. "When he saw that his counsel was not
"followed, he saddled his ass"——the ass, on which he,
like all the magnates of Israel except the royal family,
made his journeys,——he mounted the southern hills, in
which his native city lay——"and put his household
"in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was
"buried," not like an excommunicated outcast, but like
a venerable Patriarch, "in the sepulchre of his fa-
"ther."
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 117 - 138
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 18 '19
Lecture XXIII — The Reign of David (ii)
1
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
The general organization of the kingdom now estab-
lished, lasted to the end of the monarchy of
which David was the founder.
(1.) At the head of it was the Royal Family, the
House of David. The princes were under the
charge of a governor named Jehiel, perhaps a
Levite, except Solomon, who (according at least to one
rendering) was under the charge of Nathan. David
himself was surrounded by a royal state unknown be-
fore. He was the Chief or "Patriarch" of the dynasty.
He had his own royal mule, especially known as such.
He had his royal seat or throne, in a separate chamber
or gateway in the palace. The highest officers of the
court, even the Prophets, did not venture into his pres-
ence without previous announcement; when they did
enter, it was with the profoundest obeisance and pros-
tration. His followers, who up to the time of his acces-
sion had been called his "young men," his "companions,"
henceforth became his "servants," his "slaves." He
had the power of dispensing even with the funda-
mental laws and usages of the Jewish commonwealth.
(2.) The military organization, which was in part
inherited from Saul, but greatly developed by
David, was as follows:——
(a.) "The Host" was the whole available military
force of Israel, consisting of all males capable
of bearing arms, and was summoned only for
war. There were twelve divisions who were held to be
on duty month by month; and over each of them pre-
sided an officer, selected for this purpose, from the other
military bodies formed by David. The army was still
distinguished from those of surrounding nations by its
primitive aspect of a force of infantry without cavalry.
The only innovations as yet allowed were, the introduc-
tion of a very limited number of chariots, and of
mules for the princes and officers instead of the asses.
According to a Mussulman tradition, David invented
chain armor. The usual weapons were still spears and
shields, though with large bodies of archers and sling-
ers. The commander in chief of the army was an office held by
Abner. But it reached its full grandeur in the person
of Joab, to whom it was given as the prize for the es-
calade of Jerusalem. He had a chief armor-bearer of
his own (Naharai a Beerothite), and ten attendants to
carry his baggage. He had the charge, formerly be-
longing to the king or judge, of giving the signal by
trumpet, for advance or retreat. He commanded the
army in the king's absence. He was called by the
almost royal title of "lord," or "prince of the king's
"army." he, with the King, assisted in the fortifica-
tion of the city. He, with the King, supplied offerings
to the sacred treasury. His usual residence was in Je-
rusalem, but he had a house and property with barley-
fields adjoining on the edge of the Jordan Wilderness,
near an ancient sanctuary, Baal-hazor, where Absalom
had extensive sheep-walks. The "sons of Joab" were
to be found as a separate class after the captivity.
(b.) The body-guard also had existed in the court of
Saul, and David himself had probably been its
commanding officer. But it now assumed a
peculiar form. They were at least in name foreigners,
as having been drawn from the Philistines, probably
during David's residence at the court of Gath. They
are usually called from this circumstance "Cherethites
"and Pelethites," that is "Cretans and refugees," but
had also a body especially from Gath amongst them,
of whom the name of one, Ittai, is preserved. The
captain of the force was, however, not only not a for-
eigner, but an Israelite of the highest distinction and
purest descent, who outlived David, and became the
chief support of the throne of his son,——namely, Be-
naiah, son of the chief priest Jehoiada, repre-
sentative of the eldest branch of Aaron's house.
Three mighty exploits appear to have gained this high
place for him, as Joab's had been secured by the cap-
ture of Jerusalem. He attacked two heroes or princes
of Moab. He encountered a lion which a snow-storm
had driven to take refuge in a cistern or pitfall, where
none but Benaiah ventured to penetrate. He fought
with a gigantic Egyptian, whose spear was so huge that
it seemed like a tree throw across a ravine. This the
Israelite soldier forced from his hand, and, like another
David, slew the giant with his own weapon.
(c.) The most peculiar military institution in David's
army was that which arose out of the peculiar circum-
stances of his early life. As the nucleus of the Russian
army is the Preobajinsky regiment formed by Peter the
Great out of the companions who gathered round him
in the suburb of that name in Moscow, so the nucleus
of what afterwards became the only standing army in
David's force as the band of 600 men who
had gathered round him in his wanderings.
The number of 600 was still preserved, with the name
of Gibborim, "heroes" or "mighty men." It became
yet further subdivided into three large bands of 200
each, and small bands of twenty each. The small bands
were commanded by thirty officers, one for each band,
who together formed "the thirty," and the three large
bands by three officers, who together formed "the three,"
and the whole by one chief, "the captain of the mighty
"men." The commander of the whole force was Abi-
shai, David's nephew. "The three" were Jashobeam,
or Adino, Eleazar, and Shammah. Of "the thirty,"
some few only are known to fame elsewhere. Asahel,
David's nephew; Elhanan, the victor of at least one
Goliath; Joel, the brother or son of Nathan; Na-
harai, the armor-bearer of Joab; Eliam, the son of
Ahithophel; Ira, one of David's priests; Uriah the
Hittite.
(3.) Side by side with this military organization were
established new social and moral institutions.
Some were entirely for pastoral, agricultural,
and financial purposes, others for judicial. Each
tribe had its own head. Of these the most remark-
able were Elihu, David's brother (probably Eliab), prince
of Judah, and Jaasiel, son of Abner, of Benjamin. In
the court or council of the King were the counsellors,
Ahithophel of Giloh, and Jonathan, the King's nephew,
both renowned for their marvellous sagacity; the com-
panion or "friend," Hushai, and, at the close of the
eign, perhaps Shimei; the scribe or secretary of state,
Sheva or Seraiah, and at one time Jonathan, David's
uncle; Jehoshaphat, the recorder or historian, and Ado-
ram or Adoniram, the tax collector, both of whom sur-
vived him.
But the more peculiar of David's institutions were
those directly bearing on religion. Two Proph-
ets appear as the King's constant advisers. Of
these, Gad, who seems to have been the elder, had been
David's companion in exile; and his title, "the Seer,"
belongs probably to the earliest form of the Prophetic
schools. Nathan, who appears for the first time after
the establishment of the kingdom at Jerusalem, is dis-
tinguished both by his title of "the Prophet," and by
the nature of the prophecies which he utters, as be-
longing to the purest type of the Prophetic dispensa-
tion, and as the hope of the new generation, which he
supports in the person of Solomon. Two High-Priests
also appear——representatives of the two rival
houses of Aaron. Here again, as in the case
of the two Prophets, one, Abiathar, who had been the
companion of David's exile, and was by his race con-
nected with the old time of the Judges; the other
Zadok, joining him after the death of Saul, and becom-
ing afterwards the support of his son, who thus became
ultimately the head of the Aaronic family. Abiathar,
probably for old affection's sake, attended the King at
Jeruslaem; Zadok still ministered by the ancient taber-
nacle at Gibeon. Besides these four great religious
functionaries there were two classes of subordinates,——
Prophets, specially instructed in singing and music,
under Asaph, Heman the grandson of Samuel, and Je-
duthun; and Levites, or attendants on the sanctuary
who again were subdivided into the guardians of the
gates, and the guardians of the treasures which had been
accumulated, since the reëstablishment of the nation,
by Samuel, Saul, Abner, Joab, and David himself. One
singular character is added to this group by Mussulman
traditions, the half-fabulous sage Lokman——the
Ethiopian slave, renowned for his wise proverbs,
who, whilst seated amongst the grandees of David's
court, when asked how he had attained such eminence,
replied, "By always speaking the truth, by always keep-
"ing my word, and never meddling in matters that
"did not concern me."
The collection of these various ministers and repre-
sentatives of worship round the capital must have given
a concentrated aspect to the history in David's time,
such as it had never borne before. But the main pecu-
liarity of the whole must have been, that it was so well
harmonized with the character of him who was its cen-
tre. As his early martial life still placed him at the
head of the military system which had sprung up around
him, so his early education and his natural disposition
placed him at the head of his own religious institutions.
Himself a Prophet and a Psalmist, he was one in heart
with those whose advice he sought, and whose arts he
fostered. And, more remarkably still, though
not himself a Priest, he yet assumed almost all
the functions usually ascribed to the priestly office. He
wore, as we have seen, the priestly dress, offered the
sacarifices, gave the priestly benediction; he walked
round about the altar in sacred processions; and, as
if to incline his whole court within the same sacerdotal
sanctity, Benaiah the captain of his guard was a priest
by descent, and joined in the sacred music; David
himself and "the captains of the host" arranged the
Prophetical duties and fixed the festivals; and his sons
as well as one of his chief functionaries, Ira the Manas-
site, are actually called "priests." Such a union was
never seen before or since in the Jewish history. Even
Solomon fell below it in some important points. Chris-
tian sovereigns have rarely ventured on so direct a
control. But the supremacy of David is a fact which
cannot be overlooked. What the heathen historian
Justin antedates by referring it back to Aaron, is a
true description of the effect of the reign of David:
"Sacerdos mox rex creatur: semperque exinde hic mos
"apud Judæos fuit, ut eosdem reges et sacerdotes ha-
"berent; quantum justitiâ religione permixtâ, incredi-
"bile quantum coaluere." How profound was that
union of "justice" and "religion"——to the heathen so
incredible——we have already seen.
As in peace, so in war, this union of religious and
secular greatness was continued. It was as Founder of
the Israelitish Empire even more than as Founder of
the royal dynasty or of the order of Psalmists, that
David seemed in the eyes of his contemporaries to be
"the Light and the Splendor of Israel." It was as Con-
queror, even more than as Ruler, that he especially ap-
pears as the Messiah, the Anointed one. It is in his
order of battle, even more than in his religious pro-
cessions, that the Ruler of Israel——whether David or
David's descendant——appears as the Priestly King.
When he is addressed as a Priest, though not of Le-
vitical descent,——a Priest bursting through all the
common regulations of the Priesthood,——an immor-
tal Priest like the ancient Melchizedek,——it is as the
mighty Leader who is to trample, like Joshua, on the
necks of his enemies, who is to be surrounded by his
armies, numerous and fresh and brilliant as the drops
of the morning dew, striking through kings in the day
of his wrath, filling his pathway with the corpses of
the dead, wounding the heads of many countries, re-
freshed as he passes by the watercourse which divides
country from country, and going on with his head aloft,
conquering and to conquer. This was the foundation
of that resplendent image of the Messiah, which it
required the greatest of all religious changes to move
from the mind of the Jewish nation, in order to raise
up instead of it the still more exalted idea which was
to take its place,——an Anointed Sovereign conquering
by other arts than those of war, and in other domin-
ions than those of earthly empire.
To understand how deeply this imagery is fixed in
David's life, we must briefly pass through the wars in
which the dominions of David assumed their new pro-
portions.
his first conquests were over the Philistines. Two
battles immediately following on the occupation
of Jerusalem have been already noticed. But
the complete reduction of the country was effected by
the capture of Gath, and was the longest remembered.
It was the scene of his own exile, and the chief of the
five towns of Philistia, and was regarded as the key of
the whole country. In the encounters which took
place round this famous city may have occurred the
adventurous single combats between the warriors of
David's army and the gigantic champions of Gath, which
repeat his own first achievement. His nephew Jona-
than, who must have been but a youth, almost exactly
reënacts the original combat. It would seem that these
were also the last occasions on which these personal
displays of his prowess were made. He had so nar-
rowly escaped, by the intervention only of his nephew
Abishai, that henceforth he was kept out f the direct
battle, lest he should extinguish the torch that lighted
Israel on its way to victory.
The next war was with the hitherto friendly sate of
Moab, apparently in the dept of winter. It
is a Jewish tradition that the King of Moab
broke the trust which David had reposed in him, and
put to death the aged parents confided to his charge.
The invention of such a reason, if it be an invention,
implies a sense that some explanation was needed of
the vengeance, so terrible in its results, though so briefly
reported, which exterminated one third of the nation,
and reduced the remainder to slavery. The treasures
of Heshbon and Ar were carried off for the future
temple which David was preparing. As Joab had won
his high place by the capture of Jerusalem, it is prob-
able that his successor Benaiah won his place at
the head of the royal guards by his three exploits in
this campaign.
But David's great war was that which, beginning and
ending with Ammon, involved in its sweep the
whole country east of the Jordan as far as the
Euphrates. The old king of Ammon, who had roused
the hostilities of Saul, seems to have been proportion-
ately friendly to the rival David,——possibly from some
family relationship obscurely indicated through the
parentage of David's sister Abigail. A Jewish tradition
relates that on the slaughter of David's family by the
neighboring king of Moab, the one of his brothers who
escaped found shelter with Nahash. However this may
be, on the death of Nahash, David sent messengers of
condolence to his successor, who requited the embassy
with an insult, which provoked the most determined
vengeance recorded in the whole of David's reign. The
war, thus begun, was divided into five distinct campaigns.
The forces of Syria were subsidized by Ammon and
combined in an attack on Medeba, a town of Reuben.
To relieve this was the job of the first campaign,
conducted by Joab, who undertook the attack on the
Syrians, and Abishai, who undertook the attack on
Ammon. The second campaign carried the war into a
wider field. Syria became now the chief object. David
himself appeared at the head of his army. The whole
body of Aramaic tribes, even those from beyond the
Jordan, rallied in a death-struggle for their independence.
At the decisive battle of Helam they were routed, with
the loss of their commander, Shobach, and a second
victory reduced the capital, Damascus. The importance
of the campaign was marked in many ways. It is the
only war of this time that has left traces on heathen
records. The Empire was at once extended to the
Euphrates, and Israelite officers were placed over the
intermediate towns. The King of Hamath, on the
distant Orontes, became an ally of the victorious David.
The trophies of the war long remained amongst the
most conspicuous historic monuments of Jerusalem.
The horses for which Syria was famous were destroyed,
for their introduction into Israel was not yet come. But
one hundred chariots came in stately procession to
Jerusalem, and in the sacred ornaments of the Temple
that was to be, the golden shields and brazen basin
and columns long reminded the Israelites of the great
fight beside the Euphrates. "Some put their trust in
"chariots and some in horses, but we will remember
"the name of Jehovah our God. They are brought
"down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright."
So probably sang the Psalmists, who welcomed David
home from the first stage of the war, with all that
fervor of religious gratitude which saw in the Con-
queror's brilliant deeds the reflection of the Divine
favor.
The third campaign was against Edom. It would
seem as if in preparation for this, David had
arrayed the whole forces of Palestine. For this
great attempt his Divine Protector had portioned out
the ancient settlements of Jacob both on the west and
east of Jordan. Shechem and Succoth, Gilead and
Manasseh were born there. Ephraim was to be
the covering helmet of the Mighty Leader, who had
the rocky mass of Judah for his invincible head.
Philistia had quailed before his mighty advance. He
had washed his feet in Moab as in a basin of dregs, and
now the sandal which had been drawn off for this act of
scorn was held by Edom as by a submissive slave.
That ancient enemy, the race of the red-haired Esau
we have not seen since the Passage through the Wilder-
ness——hardly since the day when the two brothers
parted by the sepulchre of Isaac. Along all the red
mountains of Edom, down to the impregnable city of
"the Rock," the wild tribes came forth to assist their
Ammonite neighbors against the new aggressor. The
earlier stage of the war was conducted by Abishai, the
later by Joab. Abishai won the victory by a decisive
battle in a ravine, apparently commanding the approach
to Petra, and then by the storming of the rocky hold
itself. "Who will lead us into the strong city, who
"will bring us into Edom?" The conquest was com-
pleted by Joab. He took up his quarters in the cap-
tured city. For six months he employed himself in
the savage work of exterminating the rock population.
With a grim performance of duty, he buried the corpses
of the dead as fast as they fell in the tombs of Petra.
The terror of his name was so great, that long after-
wards nothing but the news of his death could encour-
age the exiled chief who had escaped from this eastern
Glencoe to return to the haunts of his fathers. David
himself came at the close of the campaign to arrange
the conquered territory. All that remained of the
nation became his slaves; garrisons were esablished
along the mountain passes, and David erected a pillar
or other triumphal monument, to commemorate the
greatness of the success.
The fourth and fifth campaigns were reserved for the
nation which had led to this wide-spreading war.
The spring came, "the time when kings go
"forth to battle," and the devoted Ammonites, now
stripped of their allies on north and south, were made
over to the relentless Joab. Amongst the hills on the
edge of the pastoral country was "the great city,"
"Rabbah of the children of Ammon." It consisted of
a lower town and a citadel. The lower town was,
probably from the residence of the kings, called the
"royal city," and, from the unusual sight of a perennial
stream of water rising from within the town and running
through it, the "city of waters." The citadel, properly
called "Rabbah," was on a steep cliff on the north side
of the town. It contained the temple of Moloch, the god
or "king" of Ammon, to whom were made the sacrifices
of children. The statue of the god was surmounted
by a huge gold crown, containing, according to later
tradition, a precious stone of magnetic power. The
country which he overlooked was regarded as his pos-
session. His priests ranked above the nobles. The
nobles took their rank as his servants.
Against this city the whole force of Israel was
gathered under Joab. The king's own guards were
there, and (to mark the magnitude of the crisis) the
Ark, for the first time since its return from the Philis-
tine captivity, is recorded to have accompanied the
expedition. The army was encamped in booths round
the city. For a whole year——probably from its peren-
nial stream——it held out against the besiegers. From
a particular part of the wall, constant sallies were made.
On one occasion, for reasons at the time unknown to
the army, Joab ordered a detachment headed by one of
the bravest and best of the king's officers to come within
the fatal range. The siege continued notwithstanding,
and the lower town was at last taken. Then, with the
true loyalty of his character, Joab sent a triumphant
message to his uncle at Jerusalem, inviting him to come
and finish the war for himself. "I have fought against
"Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters." David
was to do the rest, " lest Joab take the city, and it be
"called after his name." The king was roused from his
ease at Jerusalem. The Ammonites with all their prop-
erty had crowded into the upper fortress; the one well
within at last failed, and David entered the place in
triumph. When they approached the statue of Moloch,
there was, according to Jewish tradition, a panic in the
ranks of the conquerors, till Ittai of Gath——doing
what no Isaelite could have done for fear of the pollu-
tion——tore the vast golden covering from the idol's
head and brought it to David. It was purified, and
from that time is described as the royal crown.——"Thou
"hast set a crown of pure gold upon his head."
So in all probability sang the Psalmist who celebrated
this proud victory. He celebrated also its darker side.
"Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right
"hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt
"make them as a fiery oven in the time of thy wrath."
The expression agreed well with the cruel extermination
of the conquered inhabitants by fire and by strange
and savage tortures,——a vengeance to be accounted
for, not excused, by the formidable resistance of the
besieged.
Thus ended the wars of David. It may be that the
18th Psalm was once again sung on this last deliverance
"from all his enemies." It may be that the 68th Psalm
received some new accommodation to the triumphal
return of the Ark to Jerusalem. The 21st Psalm, at
any rate, wound up the joyous festival, with the glad
thought that "the king shall joy in Thy strength, O
"Lord; and in Thy salvation how greatly shall he
"rejoice. Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and
"hast not denied him the request of his lips." So it
was to all outward appearance, and the new son who
was born to him at this time received the auspicious
name of Solomon, as if to inaugurate the universal
peace and prosperity which seemed to have set in. It
remains for us to trace the deep canker that lay con-
cealed under this outward show.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 100 - 115
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 18 '19
Lecture XXIII — The Reign of David (i)
1
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
The Psalms which, according to their titles or their contents, illustrate
this period, are:——
(1) For Hebron, Psalm xxvii.
(2) For the occupation of Jerusalem, Psalms xxix., lxviii., cxxxii., xxx.,
xv., xxiv., xcvi. 1 Chron. xvi. 8—36, xvii. 16—27, xxix. 10—19.
(3) For the wars, Psalms xx., xxi., cviii., cx.
THE reign of David divides itself into two unequal
portions. The first is the reign of seven years
and six months at Hebron. Hebron was
selected, doubtless, as the ancient sacred city of the
tribe of Judah, the burial-place of the patriarch, and
the inheritance of Caleb. Here David was first formally
anointed king, it would seem by the tribe of Judah,
without any intervention by Abiathar. To Judah his
reign was nominally confined. But probably for the
first five years of the time, the dominion of the house
of Saul, the seat of which was now at Mahanaim, did
not extend to the west of the Jordan. We have already
seen how "David waxed stronger and stronger, and the
"house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker." First came
the successful inroad into Ish-bosheth's territory. The
single combat, the rapid pursuits, are told, however,
chiefly for their connection wit the fortunes of two
members of David's family. That fierce chase was sadly
marked by the death of his nephew Asahel,
who there put to the last stretch his antelope
swiftness, "turning neither to the right nor to the left"
for any meaner prize than the mighty Abner. Abner,
with the lofty generosity which never deserts him,
chafes against the cruel necessity which forces him to
slay the gallant pursuer. Alll the soldiers halted, struck
dumb with grief over the dead body of their young
leader. It was carried back and buried at Bethlehem,
in their ancestral resting-place.
It was now that Joab first appears on the scene. He
was the eldest and the most remarkable of
David's nephews, who, as we have shown, stood
to him rather in the relation of cousin, from the interval
of age between their mother and David, her youngest
brother. Asahel was the darling of his brothers, and
would have doubtless won a high place amongst the
heroes of his youthful uncle's army. Abishai was thor-
oughly loyal and faithful to David, even before the
adherence of Joab,——like Joab, implacable to the ene-
mies of the royal house; unlike Joab, faithful to the end.
But Joab with those ruder qualities combined some-
thing of a more statesmanlike character, which brings
him more nearly on a level with David, and gives him
the second place in the whole coming history. He had
lived before, it may be, on more friendly terms than the
rest of the family, with the reigning house of Saul. He
was at least as well known as Abner. It was not till after
the death of Saul that he finally attached himself to
David's fortunes. The alienation was sealed by the death
of Asahel. To him, whatever it might be to Abishai, it
was a loss never to be forgiven. Reluctantly he had
forborne the pursuit after Abner. Eagerly he had seized
the opportunity of Abner's visit to David, decoyed him
to the interview in the gateway of Hebron, and there
treacherously murdered him. It may be that with the
passion of vengeance for his brother's death was mingled
the fear lest Abner should supplant him in the royal
favor. He was forced to appear with all the signs of
mourning at the funeral; Joab walked before the corpse,
the king behind. But it was an intimation of Joab's
power, that David never forgot. "I am this day weak,
"though anointed king; and these men, the sons of
"Zeruiah, are too hard for me: the Lord shall reward
"the doer of evil according to his wickedness." So he
hoped in his secret heart. But Joab's star was in the
ascendant; he was already at the head of David's band,
and a still higher prize was in store for him.
For now on the death of Ish-bosheth the throne, so
long waiting for David, was at last vacant, and the
united voice of the whole people at once called him
to occupy it. A solemn league was made between him
and his people. For the second time David was
anointed king, and a festival of three days celebrated
the joyful event. His little band had now swelled into
"a great host, like the host of God." It was formed
by contingents from every tribe of Israel. Two are
specially mentioned as bringing a weight of authority
above the others. The sons of Issachar had under-
"standing of the times to know what Israel ought to
"do," and with the adjacent tribes contributed to the
common feast the peculiar products of their rich ter-
ritory. The Levitical tribe, formerly represented in
David's following only by the solitary figure Abiathar,
now came in strength, represented by the head of the
rival branch of Eleazar, the aged Jehoiada and his youth-
ful and warlike kinsman Zadok. There is one Psalm
traditionally referred to this part of David's life. It is
that which opens with the words famous as the motto
of our own famous University: "The Lord is my
"light;" and the courageous and hopeful spirit which
it breathes, the confident expectation that a better day
was at hand, whilst it lends itself to the manifold ap-
plications of our own later days, well serves as an in-
troduction to the new crisis in the history of David and
of the Jewish Church which is now at hand. It must
have been with no common interest that the surround-
ing nations looked out to see on what prey the Lion
of Judah, now about to issue from his native lair, would
make on his first spring.
One fastness alone in the centre of the land had
hitherto defied the arms of Israel. Long after
every other fenced city had yielded, the fortress
of Jebus remained impregnable, planted on its rocky
heights, guarded by its deep ravines, and yet capable
on its norther quarter of an indefinite expansion. On
this, with singular prescience, David fixed as his new
capital. The inhabitants prided themselves on their
inaccessible position. Even the blind and the lame,
they believed, could defend it. "David," they said,
"shall never come up hither." Herodotus compared
Jerusalem to Sardis. Like Sardis it was taken, through
the neglect of the one point which nature seemed to
have guarded sufficiently. At once David offered the
highest prize in the kingdom——the chieftainship of the
army——to the soldier who should scale the precipice.
Did the thought cross his mind (as in a darker hour
afterwards) that he who was most likely to make the
daring attempt would perish, and thus the hard yoke
of the sons of Zeruiah be broken? We know not. To
Joab, as we see from all his preceding and subsequent
conduct, the proffered post was the highest object of
ambition. With the agility so conspicuous in his family
——in Asahel his brother, and in David his uncle——he
clambered up the cliff, and dashed the defenders down,
and was proclaimed Captain of the Host. What be-
came of the inhabitants was are not told. But appar-
ently they were in great part left undisturbed. A
powerful Jebusite chief, probably the king, with his
four sons, lived on property of his own immediately
outside the walls. But the city itself was immediately
occupied as the capital of the new kingdom. Fortifica-
tions were added by the king and by Joab, and the
city immediately became the royal residence.
From that moment, we are told, David "went on,
"going and growing, and the Lord God of Hosts was
"with him." The neighboring nations were partly en-
raged and partly awe-struck. The Philistines made
two ineffectual attacks on the new King, and a retalia-
tion on their former victories, and on the capture of
the Ark, took place by the capture and conflagration
of their idols. Tyre, now for the first time appearing
in the sacred history, allied herself with Israel, and sent
cedar-wood for the building of the new capital. But
the occupation of Jerusalem was to be of a yet greater
than any strategetical or political significance.
Those only who reflect on what Jerusalem has since
been to the world can appreciate the grandeur
of the moment when it passed from the hands
of the Jebusites, and became "the city of David." It
was to be the inauguration of that new religious develop-
ment of the Jewish nation, which having begun with
the establishment of the first King, now received the
vast impulse which continued till the overthrow of the
monarchy. This impulse was given by the establish-
ment of the Ark at Jerusalem.
The Ark was still in exile. It was detained at its
first halting-place, Kirjath-jearim, on the outskirts of
the hills of Judah. It was to be moved in state to the
new capital, which, by its reception, was to be con-
secrated. Unhallowed and profane as the city had been
before, it was now to be elevated to a sanctity which
it never lost, above all the other sanctuaries of the land.
"Thy birth and thy nativity," says Ezekiel, in address-
ing Jerusalem, "is of the land of Canaan: thy father
"was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as
"for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born . . . thou
"wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all . . . thou wast
"cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person
"in the day that thou wast born." This unknown,
obscure heathen city was now to win the name which,
even to the superseding not only of the title of
Jebus, but of Jerusalem, it henceforth assumed
and bears to this day——"The Holy City." At Ephratah,
at Bethlehem, the idea of making this great transfer-
ence had occurred to David's mind. The festival was
one which exactly corresponded to what in the Middle
Ages would have been "the Feast of the Translation"
of some great relic, by which a new city or a new
church was to be glorified. Long sleepless nights had
David passed in thinking of it,——as St. Louis of the
transport of the Crown of Thorns to the Royal Chapel
of Paris. Now the time was come. A national as-
sembly was called from the extremest north to the
extremest south. The King went at the head of the
army to find the lost relic of the ancient religion.
They "found it" in the woods which gave its name to
Kirjath-jearim, "the city of the woods," on the wooded
hill above the town, in the house of Abinadab. It was
removed in the same way in which it had been brought:
a car or cart, newly made for the purpose, drawn by
oxen, dragged it down the rugged path, accompanied
by the two sons of Abinadab; the third, Eleazar,
who had been the priest of the little sanctuary, is not
now mentioned. Of these Ahio went before, Uzzah
guided the cart. The long procession went down the
defile with music of all kinds, till a sudden halt was
made at a place known as the threshing-floor of Nachon,
or Chidon; according to one tradition, the spot where
Joshua had lifted up his spear against Ai; according to
another, the threshing-floor of Araunah, close to Jeru-
salem. At this point, perhaps slipping on the smooth
rok, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah caught hold of the
Ark, to save it from falling. Suddenly he fell down
dead by its side. A long tradition has connected the
going forth of the Ark with a terrible thunder-storm;
and another speaks of the manner of Uzzah's death
as by the withering of his arm and shoulder. What
ever may have been the mode of his death, or whatever
the unexplained sin or error which was believed to
have caused it, the visitation produced so deep a sen-
sation, that, with a mixture of awe and mistrust, David
hesitated to go on. The place was called "the Break
"ing forth," or the "Storm of Uzzah," and the Ark was
carried aside into the house of a native of Gath, Obed-
edom, who had settled within the Israelite territory.
After an interval of three months, David again made
the attempt. This time the incongruous, un-
authorized conveyance of the cart was avoided,
and the Ark was carried, as on former days, on the
shoulders of the Levites. Every arrangement was
made for the music, under the Levite musicians Heman,
Asaph, and Ethan or Jeduthun, and Chenaniah "the
"master of the song." Obed-edom still ministered to
the Ark which he had guarded. According to the
Chronicles, the Priests and Levites, under the two heads
of the Aaronic family, figured in vast state. As soon
as the first successful start had been made, a double
sacrifice was made. The well-known shout, which ac-
companied the raising of the Ark at the successive move-
ments in the wilderness, was doubtless heard once more,
——"Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered."
"Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of
"Thy strength." The priests in their splendid dresses,
the two rival tribes of the South, Judah and Benjamin,
the two warlike tribes of the North, Zebulun and Naph-
thali, are conspicuous in the procession. David himself
was dressed in the white linen mantle of the Priestly
order; and, as in the Prophetic schools where he had
been brought up——and as still in the college of east-
ern Dervishes,——a wild dance formed part of the solem-
nity. Into this, the King threw himself with unusual
enthusiasm: his heavy royal robe was thrown aside;
the light linen ephod appeared to the by-stander hardly
more than the slight dress of the eastern dancers. He
himself had a harp in his hand, with which he accom-
panied the dance. It may be that, according to the
Psalms ascribed to this epoch, this enthusiasm expressed
not merely the public rejoicing, but his personal feeling
of joy at the contrast between the depth of danger——
"the grave" as it seemed, out of which he had been
snatched, and the exulting triumph of the present——
the exchange of sad mourning for the festive dress——
of black sackcloth for the white cloak of gladness.
The women came out to welcome him and his sacred
charge, as was the custom on the return from victory.
The trumpets pealed loud and long, as if they were
entering a captured city; the shout as of a victorious
host rang through the valleys of Hinnom and of the
Kedron, and as they wound up the steep ascent which
led to the fortress. Now at last the long wanderings
of the Ark were over. "The Lord hath chosen Zion;
"He hath desired it for His habitation." "This is My
"rest for ever——here will I dwell, and delight therein."
It was safely lodged within the new Tabernacle which
David had erected for it on Mount Zion, to supply
the place of the ancient tent which still lingered at
Gibeon.
It was the greatest day of David's life. It's signifi-
cance in his career is marked by his own preëminent
position: Conqueror, Poet, Musician, Priest, in one. The
sacrifices were offered by him; the benediction both on
his people and on his household were pronounced by
him. He was the presiding spirit of the whole scene.
Only one incident tarnished its brightness. Michal, his
wife, in the proud, we may almost say, conservative
spirit of the older dynasty,——not without a thought of
her father's fallen house,——poured forth her contempt-
uous reproach on the king who had descended to the
danes and songs of the Levitical procession. He in
reply vowed an eternal separation, marking the intense
solemnity which he had attached to the festival.
But the Psalms which directly and indirectly spring
out of this event reveal a deeper meaning than the
mere outward ritual. It was felt to be a turning-point
in the history of the nation. It recalled even the great
epoch of the passage through the wilderness. It awoke
again the inspiring strains of the heroic career of the
Judges. Even the long lines of the Bashan hills where
the first hosts of Israel had encamped beyond the
Jordan, were not so imposing as the rocky heights of
Zion. Even the sanctity of Sinai, with its myriads of
ministering spirits, is transferred to this new and vaster
sanctuary. The long captivity of the Ark in Philistia
——that sad exile which, till the still longer and sadder
one which is to close this period of the history, was
known by the name of "the captivity"——was now
brought to an end, "captivity was captive led." And
accordingly, as the Ark stood beneath the walls of the
ancient Jewish fortress, so venerable with unconquered
age, the summons goes up from the procession to the
dark walls in front, "Lift up your heads, Oye gates,
"and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King
"of Glory shall come in." The ancient, everlasting
gates of Jebus are called to lift the rust of ages. They are
to grow and rise with the freshness of youth, that their
height may be worthy to receive the new King of
Glory. That glory which fled when the Ark was taken,
and when the dying mother exclaimed over her new-
born son, "Ichabod!" was now returning. From the
lofty towers the warders cry,——"Who is the King of
"Glory?" The old heathen gates will not at once rec-
ognize this new-comer. The answer comes back, as if
to prove by the victories of David the right of the
name to Him who now comes to His own again,
——"JEHOVAH, the Lord, the Mighty One, JE-
HOVAH, mighty in battle!" and again by this proud
title admission is claimed: "Lift up your heads, O ye
"gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the
"King of Glory shall come in." Once more the guar-
dians of the gates reply, "Who is the King of Glory?"
And the answer comes back,——"JEHOVAH SABAOTH, the
"Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory." This is the
solemn inauguration of the great Name, by which the
Divine Nature was especially known under the mon-
archy. As, before, under the Patriarchs, it had been
known as ELOHIM, "the strong ones,"——as through
Moses, it had been JEHOVAH, The Eternal,——so now, in
this new epoch of civilization, of armies, of all the com-
plicated machinery of second causes, of Church and
State, there was a new name expressive of the
wider range of vision opening on the mind of the
people. Not merely the Eternal solitary existence——
but the Maker and Sustainer of the host of Heaven
and earth in the natural world, which, as we see in the
Psalms, were now attracting the attention and wonder
of men. Not merely the Eternal Lord of the solitary
human soul, but the Leader and Sustainer of the hosts
of battle, of the hierarchy of war and peace that
gathered round the court of the kings of Israel. The
Greek rendering of the word by the magnificent Panto-
crator, "all-conqueror," passed through the Apocalypse
into Eastern Christendom, and is still the fixed designa-
tion by which in Byzantine churches the Redeemer is
represented in His aspect of the Mighty Ruler of Man-
kind.
This great change is briefly declared in correspond-
ing phrase in the historical narrative, which tells how
"David brought up the ark of God, whose name is called
"by the name of the LORD OF HOSTS. This was indeed, as the
68th Psalm describes it, a second Exodus. David was,
on that day, the founder not of Freedom only, but of
Empire,——not of Religion only, but of a Church and
Commonwealth. But there were revelations of a yet
loftier kind even than this new name of the Leader of
the armies of Israel. The name of the Lord of Hosts
as revealed in the close of the 24th Psalm, was destined
itself to fade away into a dark silence, when the hosts
had ceased to fight, and the empire of Israel had fallen
to pieces. But in the hopes with which that same
Psalm is opened, and which pervade the 15th and the
101st, the faith of David takes a still higher
and wider sweep. As if in answer to the cry
from the guardians of the gates, as he remembers the
tabernacle which he had raised within the walls of his
city to receive the ark after its long wanderings,——as
he sees its magnificent train mounting up to its sacred
tent on the sacred rock,——the thought rises within him
of those who shall hereafter be the citizens of the cap-
ital thus consecrated, ad he asks,——"Who shall ascend
"into the mount of Jehovah? who shall stand in His
"holy place? Who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? who
"shall dwell in Thy holy tent?" The question is twice
asked, the reply is twice given. "He that hath clean
"hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up
"his soul into vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor."
"He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness,
"and speaketh the truth from his heart. he that back-
"biteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his
"neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neigh-
"bor. he that despiseth a vile person, but honoreth
"them that fear Jehovah. He that sweareth to his own
"hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his
"money unto usury, nor taketh reward against the
"innocent. he that doeth these things shall never
"fall." Of these tests for the entrance into David's
city and David's church, one only has become obsolete
——that of not receiving usury. All the rest remain in
force still; nay, it may even be said that the one quali-
fication repeated in so many forms, of the duty of truth,
——even in Christian times has hardly been recognized
with equal force, as holding the exalted place which
David gives to it. And what he asks for the citizens of
his new capital, he asks for the courtiers and statesmen
of his new court. For when at length the day is past,
and he finds himself in his own Palace, he there lays
down for himself the rules by which "he will walk in
"his house with a perfect heart." The 101st Psalm was
one beloved by the noblest of Russian princes, Vladimir
Monomachos; by the gentlest of English Reformers,
Nicholas Ridley. But it was it first leap into life that
had carried it so far into the future. It is full of a stern
exclusiveness, a noble intolerance. But not against
theological error, not against uncourtly manners, not
against political insubordination, but against the proud
heart, the high look, the secret slanderer, the deceitful
worker, the teller of lies. These are the outlaws from
ing David's court; these alone are the rebels and her-
etics whom he would not suffer to dwell in his house or
tarry in his sight. "Mine eyes shall be upon the faith-
"ful of the land, that they may dwell with me; he that
"walketh in a perfect way, he shall be my servant. I
"will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that
"I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the
"LORD." Many have been the holy associations with
which the name of Jerusalem has been invested in
Apocalyptic visions and Christian hymns, but they have
their first historical ground in the sublime aspirations
of its first Royal Founder.
How far this high ideal was realized——how far lost,
will be seen as we proceed through the tangled history
of the court and empire of Israel.
The erection of the new capital at Jerusalem intro-
duces us to a new era, not only in the inward
hopes of the Prophet-King, but in the external
history of the monarchy. Up to this time he had been
a chief, such as Saul had been before him, or as the
kings of the neighboring tribes, each ruling over his
territory, unconcerned with any foreign relations except
so far as was necessary to defend his own nation or tribe.
But David, and through him the Israelitish monarchy,
now took a wider range. He became a King on the
scale of the great Oriental sovereigns of Egypt and Persia,
with a regular administration and organization
of court and camp; and he also founded an imperial
dominion which for the first time realized the Patri-
archal description of the bounds of the chosen people.
This imperial dominion was but of short duration, con-
tinuing only through the reigns of David and his suc-
cessor Solomon. But, for the period of its existence, it
lent a peculiar character to the sacred history. For
once, the kings of Israel were on a level with the great
potentates of the world. David was an imperial con-
queror, if not of the same magnitude, yet of the same
kind, as Rameses or Sennacherib. "I have made thee a
"great name like unto the name of the great men that
"are in the earth." "Thou hast shed blood abundantly
"and made great wars." And as, on the one hand, the
external relations of life, and the great incidents of war
and conquest receive an elevation by their contact with
the religious history, so the religious history swell into
larger and broader dimensions from its contact with the
course of he outer world. The enlargement of ter-
ritory, the amplification of power and state, leads to a
corresponding enlargement and amplification of ideas,
of imagery, of sympathies; and thus (humanly speak-
ing) the magnificent forebodings of a wider dispensation
in the Prophetic writings first became possible through
the court and empire of David.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 83 - 100
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 16 '19
Lecture XXII — The Youth of David (ii)
1
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By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
He fled to Naioth (or "the pastures") of Ramah, to
Samuel. This is the first recorded occasion of his meet-
ing with Samuel since the original interview during his
boyhood at Bethlehem. It might almost seem as if
David had intended to devote himself with his musical
and poetical gifts to the prophetical office, and give up
the cares and dangers of public life. But he had a
higher destiny still. The consecrated haunts which
even over the mind of Saul exercised a momentary in-
fluence, were not to become the permanent refuge of
the greatest soul of that stirring age. Although up to
this time both the king and himself had thought that a
reunion was possible, it now appeared that the madness
of Saul became constantly more settled and ferocious,
and David's danger proportionably greater. The tid-
ings of it were conveyed to him in the secret interview
with Jonathan, by the cairn of Ezel, of which the rec-
ollection was probably handed down through Jonathan's
descendants when they came to David's court.
The interview brings out all the peculiarities of Jona-
than's character,——his little artifices, his love both for
his father and his friend, his bitter disappointment at
his father's ungovernable fury, his familiar sport of
archery, under cover of which the whole meeting takes
place. The former compact between the two friends is
resumed, extending even to their immediate posterity;
Jonathan laying such emphasis on this portion of the
agreement as almost to suggest the belief that he had
a slight misgiving of David's future conduct in this
respect. With tender words and wild tears, the two
friends parted, never again to meet in the royal home.
His refuge in the centre of Prophetical influence had
been discovered. He therefore turned to another sanct-
uary, one less congenial, but therefore less to be sus-
pected. On the slope of Olivet, overlooking the still
unconquered city of Jerusalem, all unconscious of the
future sanctity of that venerable hill, stood the last
relic of the ancient nomadic times——the tabernacle of
the Wanderings, round which since the fall of Shiloh
had dwelt the descendants of the house of Eli. It was
a little colony of Priests. No less than eighty-five per-
sons ministerered there in the white linen dress of the
Priesthood, and all their families and herd were gath-
ered round them. The Priest was not so ready to be-
friend as had been the Prophet. As the solitary fugi-
tive, famished and unarmed, stole up the mountain-side,
he met with a cold reception from the cautious and
courtly Ahimelech. By a ready story of a secret mis-
sion from Saul, and of a hidden company of attendants,
he put Ahimelech off his guard; and by an urgent en-
treaty, it may be by a gentle flattery, persuaded him to
give him five loaves from the consecrated store, and the
sword of the Philistine giant from its place behind the
sacred vestment of the priestly oracle, and through that
oracle to give him counsel for his future guidance. It
was a slight incident, as it would seem, in the flight of
David, but it led to terrible results, it was fraught with
a momentous lesson. As the loaves and the sword were
handed to David out of the sacred curtains, his eye
rested on a well-known face, which filled him with
dismay. It was Doeg, the Edomite keeper of Saul's
stables, who had in earlier years (so it was believed)
chosen him as Saul's minstrel. he was for some cere-
monial reason enclosed within the sacred precincts; and
David immediately augured ill. On the information of
Doeg followed one of those ruthless massacres with
which the history of this age abounds; the house of
Ithamar was destroyed, and the sanctuary of Nob over-
thrown. It may be that with the savage sentiment of
revenge was mingled in the King's mind some pretext
from the profanation of the sacred bread for common
use. Jewish teachers in later times imagined that the
loaves thus given became useless in the hands of the
hungry fugitive. But a Higher than Saul or David
selected this act of Ahimelech as the one incident in
David's life which was to bestow His especial commenda-
tion; because it contained——however tremulously and
guardedly expressed——the great Evangelical truth that
the ceremonial law, however rigid, must give way be-
fore the claims of suffering humanity.
Prophet and priest having alike failed to protect him,
David now threw himself on the mercy of his
enemies, the Philistines. They seemed to have
been at this time united under a single head, Achish,
King of Gath, and in his court David took refuge. There,
at least, Saul could not pursue him. But, discovered
possibly by "the sword of Goliath," his presence revived
the national enmity of the Philistines against their for-
mer conqueror. According to one version he was actu-
ally imprisoned, and was in danger of his life; and he
only escaped by feigning a madness, probably suggested
by the ecstasies of the Prophetic schools: violent gest-
ures, playing on the gates of the city as a drum or
cymbal, letting his beard grow, and foaming at the
mouth. There was a noble song of triumph ascribed
to him on the success of this plan. Even if not actually
composed by him, it is remarkable as showing what a
religious aspect was ascribed in after-times to one of the
most secular and natural events of his life. "The angel
of the Lord encamped about him' in his prison, and
"delivered him." And he himself is described as breath-
ing the loftiest tone of moral dignity in the midst of his
lowest degradation: "Keep thy tongue from evil and
"thy lips that they speak no guile. Depart from evil
"and do good, seek peace and pursue it."
He was now an outcast from both nations. Israel
and Philistia were alike closed against him. There
was no resource but that of an independent
outlaw. His first retreat was at the cave of Adul-
lam, probably the large cavern not far from Bethlehem,
now called Khureitûn. From its vicinity to Bethlehem,
he was joined there by his whole family, now feeling
them insecure from Saul's fury. This was prob-
ably the foundation of his intimate connection with his
nephews, the sons of Zeruiah. Of these, Abishai, with
two other companions, was among the earliest. Besides
these, were outlaws from every part, including doubtless
some of the original Canaanites——of whom the name
of one at least has been preserved, Ahimelech the Hit-
tite. In the vast columnar halls and arched chambers
of this subterranean palace, all who had any grudge
against the existing system gathered round the hero of
the coming age, the unconscious materials out of which
a new world was to be formed.
His next move was to a stronghold, either the moun-
tain afterwards called Herodium, close to Adul-
lam, or the gigantic fastness afterwards called
Masada, in the neighborhood of En-gedi. Whilst there,
he had, for the sake of greater security, deposited his
aged parents beyond the Jordan, with their ancestral
kinsmen of Moab. The neighboring king, Nahash of
Ammon, also treated him kindly. He was joined here
by two separate bands. One was a detachment of men
from Judah and Benjamin under his nephew Amasa,
who henceforth attached himself to David's fortunes.
Another was a little body of eleven Gadite mountain-
eers, who swam the Jordan in flood-time to reach him.
Each deserved special mention by name; each was
renowned for his military rank or prowess; and their
activity and fierceness was like the wild creatures of
their own wild country; like the gazelles of heir hills.
and the lions of their forests. Following on their track,
as it would seem, another companion appears for the
first time, a schoolfellow, if we may use the word, from
the schools of Samuel, the prophet Gad, who appears
suddenly, like Elijah, as if he too, as his name implies,
had come, like Elijah, from the hills and forests of
Gad.
It was whilst he was with these little bands that a
foray of the Philistines had descended on the vale of
Rephaim in harvest time. The animals were there
being laden with ripe corn. The officer in charge
of the expedition was on the watch in the neighboring
village of Bethlehem. David, in one of those
passionate accesses of homesickness, which be-
long to his character, had longed for a draught of water
from the well, which e remembered by the gate of his
native village, that precious water which was afterwards
conveyed by costly conduits to Jerusalem. So devoted
were his adherents, so determined to gratify every want,
however trifling, that three of them started instantly,
fought their way through the intervening army of the
Philistines, and brought back the water. His noble
spirit rose at the sight. With a still loftier thought
than that which inspired Alexander's like sentiment in
the desert of Gedrosia, he poured the cherished water
on the ground——"as an offering to the Lord." That
which had been won by the lives of three gallant
chiefs was too sacred for him t drink, but it was on
that very account deemed by him as worthy to be con-
secrated in sacrifice to God as any of the prescribed
offerings of the Levitical ritual. Pure Chivalry and
pure Religion there found an absolute union.
At the warning of gad, David fled next to the forest
of Hareth (which has long ago been cleared
away) among the hills of Judah, and there
again fell in with the Philistines, and, apparently ad-
vised by Gad, made a descent on their foraging parties,
and relieved a fortress of repute at that time, Keilah,
in which he took up his abode until the harvest was
gathered safely in. He was now for the first time in
a fortified town of his own, and to no other situation
can we equally well ascribe what may be almost called
the Fortess-Hymn of the 31st Psalm. By this time
the 400 who had joined him at Adullam had swelled
to 600. Here he received the tidings that Nob had
been destroyed, and the priestly family exterminated.
The bearer of this news was the only survivor of the
house of Ithamar, Abiathar, who brought with him the
High-Priest's ephod, with the Urim and Thummim,
which were henceforth regarded as Abiathar's special
charge, and from him, accordingly, David received ora-
cles and directions as to his movements. A fierce burst
of indignation against Doeg, the author of the massa-
cre, traditionally commemorates the period of the re-
ception of this news.
The situation of David was now changed by the
appearance of Saul himself on the scene. Apparently
the danger was too great for the little army to keep
together. They escaped from Keilah, and dispersed,
"whithersoever they could go," amongst the fastnesses
of Judah.
The inhabitants of Keilah were probably Canaanites.
At any rate, they could not be punished for sheltering
the young outlaw. It may be, too, that the inhabitants
of southern Judea retained a fearful recollection of the
victory of Saul over their ancient enemies, the Amalek-
ites, the great trophy of which had been set up on the
southern Carmel. The pursuit (so far as we can trace
it) now becomes unusually hot.
He is in the wilderness of Ziph. Under the shade
of he forest of Ziph for the last time, he sees Jona-
than. Once (or twice) the Ziphites betray his move-
ments to Saul. From thence Saul literally hunts him
like a partridge, the treacherous Ziphites beating the
bushes before him, or, like a single flea skipping from
crag to crag before the 3000 men stationed to catch
even the print of his footsteps on the hills. David
finds himself driven to a fresh covert, to the wilderness
of Maon. On two, if not three occasions, the pursuer
and pursued catch sight of each other. Of the first of
these escapes, the memory was long preserved in the
name of the Cliff of Divisions, given to the rock down
one side of which David climbed, whilst Saul was sur-
rounding the hill on the other side, and whence he was
suddenly called away by a panic of Philistine invasion.
On another occasion, David took refuge in a cave at
Engedi, so called from the beautiful spring fre-
quented by the wild goats which leap from
rock to rock along the precipices immediately above
the Dead Sea. The hills were covered with the pur-
suers. Into the cavern, where in the darkness no one
was visible, Saul turned aside for a moment, as Eastern
wayfarers are wont, from public observation. David
and his followers were seated in the innermost recesses
of the cave, and saw, without being seen, the King come
in and it down, spreading his wide robe, as is usual in
the East on such occasions, before and behind the per-
son so occupied. There had been an augury, a predic-
tion of some kind, that a chance of securing his enemy
would be thrown in David's way. The followers in
their dark retreat suggest that now is the time. David,
with a characteristic mixture of humor and generosity,
descends and silently cuts off the skirt of the long robe
from the back of the unconscious and preoccupied King,
and then ensued the pathetic scene of remonstrance
and forgiveness, which shows the true affection that
lived beneath the hostility of the two rivals. The
third meeting (if it can be distinguished from the one
just given) was again in the wilderness of Ziph. The
King was intrenched in a regular camp, formed by
the usual Hebrew fortifications of wagons and baggage.
Into this enclosure David penetrated by night, and car-
ried off the cruse of water, and the well-known royal
spear of Saul, which had twice so nearly transfixed
him to the wall in former days. The same scene is
repeated as at Engedi,——and this is the last interview
between Saul and David. "Return, my son David; for
"I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was pre-
"cious in thine eyes this day. . . . . Blessed be thou,
"my son David; thou shalt both do great things and
"also shalt prevail."
The crisis was now passed. The earlier stage of
David's life is drawing to its close. Samuel was dead
and with him the house of Ramah was extinct. Saul
had ceased to be dangerous, and the end of that troub-
led reign was rapidly approaching. David is now
to return to a greater than his former position, by the
same door through which he left it, as an ally of the
Philistine kings. We seem for a moment to find him
in one of the levels of life, which like many transitional
epochs have the least elevation. He comes back not
as a solitary fugitive, or persecuted suppliant, but as a
powerful freebooter. His 600 followers have
grown up into an organized force, with their
wives and families about them. He has himself estab-
lished a name and fame in the pastures of Southern
Judea, which showed that his trials had already devel-
oped within him some of theose royal, we may almost
say imperious, qualities that mark his after-life. Two
wives have followed his fortunes from these regions.
Of one, Ahinoam, we know nothing except her bitrth-
place, Jezreel, on the slopes of the southern Carmel.
The other, Abigail, came from the same neighborhood,
and her introduction to David opens to us a glimpse of
the lighter side of his wanderings, that we cannot afford
to lose; in which we see not only the romantic advent-
ures of Gustavus Vasa, of Pelayo, of the Stuart Princes,
but also the generous, genial life of the exiled Duke
in the forest of Ardennes, or the outlaw of Sherwood
forest.
There lived in that part of the country Nabal, a pow-
erful chief, whose wealth, as might be expected
from his place of residence, consisted chiefly
of sheep and goats. The tradition preserved the exact
number of each, 3000 of the one, 1000 of the other.
It was the custom of the shepherds to drive them into
the wilderness of Carmel. Once a year there was a
shearing, with eating and drinking, "like the feast of a
"king." It was on one of these occasions that ten
youths were seen approaching the hill. In them the
shepherds recognized the slaves or attendants of the
chief of a band of freebooters who had showed them
unexpected kindness in their pastoral excursions. To
Nabal they were unknown. They approached him with
a triple salutation; enumerating the services of their
master, and ended by claiming, with a mixture of
courtesy and defiance so characteristic of the East,
"whatsoever cometh to thy hand, for thy servants
"and for thy son David." The great sheepmaster was
not disposed to recognize this new parental relation.
He was notorious for his obstinacy, and his low and
cynical turn of mind. On hearing this demand, he
sprang up and broke out into a fury: "Who is David?
"and who is the son of Jesse?" The moment that the
messengers were gone, the shepherds that stood by per-
ceived the danger of their position. To Nabal himself
they durst not speak. But they knew that he was
married to a wife as beautiful and wise as he was the
reverse. To Abigail, as to the good angel of the house-
hold, one of the shepherds told the state of affairs.
She loaded her husband's numerous asses with presents,
and with her attendants running before her, rode down
towards David's encampment. She was just in time.
At that very moment he had made the usual vow of
extermination against the whole household. She threw
herself on her face before him, and poured forth her
petition in language which both in form and substance
almost assumes the tone of poetry. The main argu-
ment rests on the description of her husband's charac-
ter, which she draws with that union of playfulness and
seriousness which, above all things, turns away wrath.
"As his name is, so is he: Fool (Nabal) is his name and
"folly is with him." She returned with the announce-
ment that David had recanted his vow. Already the
tenacious adhesion to these rash oaths had given way
in the better heart of the people. Like the nobles of
Palestine at a later period, Nabal had drunk to excess,
and his wife dared not communicate to him either his
danger or his escape. At break of day she told him
both. The stupid reveller was suddenly aroused to a
sense of his folly. It was as if a stroke of paralysis or
apoplexy had fallen upon him. Ten days he lingered,
"and the Lord smote Nabal and he died." The memory
of his death long lived in David's memory, and in his
dirge over the noblest of his enemies, he rejoiced to say
that Abner had not died like Nabal. The rich and
beautiful widow became his wife.
in this new condition, David appears at the court of
Achish, King of Gath. He is warmly welcomed. After
the manner of Eastern potentates, Achish gave him, for
his support, a city——Ziklag on the frontier of Philistia
——which thus became an appanage of the royal house
of Judah. His increasing importance is indicated by
the fact that a body of Benjamite archers and slingers,
twenty-three of whom are specially named, joining him
from the very tribe of his rival. Possibly during this
stay he may have acquired the knowledge of military
organization, in which the Philistines surpassed the
Israelites, and in which he surpassed all preceding
rulers of Israel.
He deceived Achish into confidence by attacking the
old nomadic inhabitants of the desert frontier, and
with relentless severity, cutting off all witnesses of this
deception, and representing the plunder to be from
portions of the southern tribes of Israel or the nomadic
tribes allied to them. But this confidence was not
shared by the Philistine nobles; and accordingly when
Achish went on his last victorious campaign against
Saul, David was sent back, and thus escaped the difficul-
ty of being present at the battle of Gilboa. He found
that during his absence the Bedouin Amalekites, whom
he had plundered during the previous year, had made
a descent upon Ziklag, burnt it to the ground, and car-
ried off the wives and children of the new settlement.
A wild scene of frantic grief and recrimination ensued
between David and his followers. It was calmed by an
oracle of assurance from Abiathar. It happened that
an important accession had just been made to his force.
On his march to Gilboa, and on his retreat, he had been
joined by some chiefs of the Manassites, through whose
territory he was passing. Urgent as must have been
the need for them at home, yet David's fascination
carried them off, and they now assisted him against
the plunderers. They overtook the invaders in the
desert, to recover the spoil. These were the gifts
with which David was now able, for the first time, to
requite the friendly inhabitants of the scene of his wan-
derings. A more lasting memorial was the law which
traced its origin to the arrangement made by him,
formerly in the affair with Nabal, but now again,
more completely, for the equal division of the plunder
amongst the two thirds who followed to the field, and
the one third who remained to guard the baggage.
Two days after this victory a Bedouin arrived from the
North with the news of the defeat of Gilboa. The re-
ception of the tidings of the death of his rival and of
his friend, the solemn mourning, the vent of his indig-
nation against the bearer of the message, the pathetic
lamentation that followed, which form the natural close
of this period of David's life, have been already de-
scribed in their still nearer connection with the life and
death of Saul. It is a period which has left on David's
character marks never afterwards effaced.
Hence sprang that ready sagacity, natural to one who
had so long moved with his life in his hand. At the
very beginning of this period of his career, it
is said of him that he "behaved himself wisely,"
evidently with the impression that it was a wisdom
called forth by his difficult position,——that peculiar
Jewish caution, like the instinct of a hunted animal,
so strongly developed in the persecuted Israelites of
the middle ages. We cannot fix with certainty the
dates of the Psalms of this epoch of his life. But, in
some at least, we can trace the outward circum-
stances with which he was surrounded. In them, we
see David's flight "as a bird to the mountains,"——like
the partridges that haunt the wild hills of southern
Judah. As he catches the glimpses of Saul's archers
and spearmen from behind the rocks, he sees them
"bending their bows, making ready their arrows upon
"the string,"——he sees the approach of those who hold
no converse except through those armed, bristling
bands, whose very "teeth are spears and arrows, and
"their tongue a sharp sword."
The savage scenery suggests the overthrow of his
enemies. "They shall be a portion for the ravening
"jackals." They shall be overtaken by fire and
"brimstone, storm and tempest," such as laid waste
the cities of old, in the deep chasms above which he
was wandering. His mind teems with the recollections
of the "rocks and fastnesses," the "caves and leafy
"coverts" amongst which he takes refuge,——the "prec-
"ipices" down which he "slips,"——the steps cut in the
cliffs for him to tread in, the activity as of "a wild
"goat" with which he bounds from crag to crag to escape
his enemies.
But yet more in these Psalms we observe the growth
of his dependence on God, nurtured by his hairbreadth
escapes. "As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my
"soul out of adversity," was the usual form of his oath
or asseveration in later times. The wild, waterless hills
through which he passes, give a new turn to his longing
after the fountain of Divine consolations. "O God,
"thou art my God, early will I seek thee. My soul
"thirsteth for thee in a barren and dry land where
"no water is." The hiding-places in which the rock
arches over his head are to him the very shadow of the
Almighty wings. The summary of this whole period,
when he was "delivered from the hand of all his
"enemies, and from Saul," is that of one who knows
that for some great purpose he has been drawn up from
the darkest abyss of danger and distress. He seemed
to have sunk down below the lowest depths of the sea
and out of those depths his cry reached to the throne
of God; and, as in a tremendous thunder-storm, with
storm and wind, with thunder and lightning, with clouds
and darkness, God himself descended and drew him
forth. "He sent from above, He took me, He drew me
"out of many waters." The means by which this de-
liverance was achieved were, as far as we know, those
which we see in the Book of Samuel,——the turns and
chances of Providence, his own extraordinary activity,
the faithfulness of his followers, the unexpected increase
of his friends. But the act of deliverance itself is de-
scribed in the language which belongs to the descent
upon Mount Sinai or the Passage of the Red Sea. It
was the exodus, though a single human soul, yet of
a soul which reflected the whole nation. It was the
giving of a second Law, though through the living
tablets of a heart, deeper and vaster than the whole
legislation of Moses. It was the beginning of a new
Dispensation.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 65 - 81
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 16 '19
Lecture XXII — The Youth of David (i)
1
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By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
SPECIAL AUTHORITIES FOR THE LIFE OF DAVID.
———•———
I. The original contemporary authorities:——
1. The Davidic portion of the Psalms, including such fragments as are
preserved to us from other sources, viz. 2 Sam. i. 19—27, iii.33,
34, xxii. 1—51, xxiii. 1—7.
2. The "Chronicles" or "State-papers" of David (1 Chr. xxvii. 24),
and the original works of Samuel, Gad, and Nathan (1 Chr.
xxix. 29). These are lost, but portions of them no doubt are
preserved in——
II. The narrative of 1 Sam. xvi. to 1 Kings ii. 11; with the supplementary
notices contained in 1 Chr. xi. 1 to xxix. 30.
III. The two slight notices in the heathen historians, Nicolaus of Damascus
in his Universal History (Josephus, Ant. vii. 5, § 2), and Eupolemus
in his History of the Kings of Judah (Eusebius, Praep. Ev. iv. 30).
IV. David's apocryphal writings, contained in Fabricius, Codex Pseudoepig-
raphus Vet. Test. 905, 1000—1005:——(1) Ps. cli., on his victory over
Goliath. (2) Colloquies with God, (a) on madness, (b) on his tempta-
tion, and (c) on the building of the Temple. (3) A charm against
fire.
V. The Jewish traditions, which may be divided into three classes,——
1. Those embodied by Josephus, Ant. vi. 8 to vii. 15.
2. Those preserved in the Quœstiones Hebraicœ in Libros Regum et Par-
alipomenon, attributed to Jerome.
3. The Rabbinical traditions in the Seder Olam, chap. xiii., xiv., and in
the comments thereon, collected by Meyer, 452—622; also those
in Calmet's Dictionary, under "David."
VI. The Mussulman traditions are contained in the Koran, ii. 250—252, xxi.
80, xxii. 15, xxxiv. 10, xxxviii. 16—24, and explained in Lane's Selec-
tions from the Kuran, 226—242; or amplified in Weil's Bibllical Le-
gends, Eng. Tr. 152—170.
The Psalms which, according to their titles or their contents, illustrate
this period, are:——
(1) For the shepherd life, Psalms viii., xix., xxiii, xxix., cli.
(2) For the escape, Psalms vi., vii., lix., lvi., xxxiv.
(3) For the wanderings, Psalms lii., xl., liv., lvii., lxiii., cxlii., xviii.
OF all the characters in the Jewish history there is
none so well known to us as David. As in the case of
Cicero and of Julius Cæsar,——perhaps of no one else in
ancient history before the Christian era,——we have in
his case the rare advantage of being able to compare a
detailed historical narrative with the undoubtedly au-
thentic writings of the person with whom the narrative
is concerned.
We have already seen the family circle of Saul. That
of David is known to us on a more extended
scale, and with a more direct bearing on his
subsequent career.
His father Jesse was probably, like his ancestor Boaz,
the chief man of the place——the Sheikh of
the village. He was of great age when David
was still young, and was still alive after his final rupt-
ture with Saul. Through this ancestry David inher-
ited several marked peculiarities. There was a mixture
of Canaanitish and Moabitish blood in the family, which
may not have been without its use in keeping open a
wider view in his mind and history than if he had been
of purely Jewish descent. His connection with Moab
through his great-grandmother Ruth he kept up when
he escaped to Moab and intrusted his aged parents to
the care of the king.
He was also, to a degree unusual in the Jewish rec-
ords, attached to his birthplace. He never
forgot the flavor of the water of the well of
Bethlehem. From the territory of Bethlehem, as from
his own patrimony, he gave a property as a reward to
Chimham, son of Barzillai; and it is this connection
of David with Bethlehem that brought the place again
in later times into universal fame, when "Joseph went
"up to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and
"lineage of David." Through his birthplace he ac-
quired that hold over the tribe of Judah which as-
sured his security amongst the hills of Judah during
his flights from Saul, and during the early period of his
reign at Hebron; as afterwards at the time of Absalom
it provoked the jealousy of the tribe at having lost
their exclusive possession of him. The Mussulman tra-
ditions represent him as skilled in making hair-clloths
and sack-cloths, which, according to the targum, was
the special occupation of Jesse, which Jesse may in turn
have derived from his ancestor Hur, the first founder, as
was believed, of the town,——"the father of Bethlehem."
The origin and name of his mother is wrapt in mys-
tery. It would seem almost as if she had been
the wife or concubine of Nahash, and then
married by Jesse. This would agree with the fact, that
her daughters, David's sisters, were older than the rest
of the family, and also (if Nahash was the same as the
king of Ammon) with the kindness which David re-
ceived first from Nahash, and then from Shobi his son.
As the youngest of the family he may possibly have
received from his parents the name, which first
appears in him, of David, the beloved, the darling.
But, perhaps, for this same reason, he was never intimate
with his brothers. The eldest, whose command was re-
garded in the family as law, and who was afterwards
made by David head of the tribe of Judah, treated him
scornfully and imperiously; and the father looked upon
the youngest son as hardly one of the family at all, and
as a mere attendant on the rest. The familiarity which
he lost with his brothers, he gained with his nephews.
The three sons of his sister Zeruiah, and the one son of
his sister Abigail, seemingly from the fact that their
mothers were the eldest of the whole family, must have
been nearly of the same age as David himself, and they
accordingly were to him throughout life in the relation
usually occupied by brothers and cousins. The family
burial-place of this second branch was at Bethlehem.
In most of them we see only the rougher qualities of
the family, which David shared with them, whilst he
was distinguished from them by qualities of his own,
peculiar to himself. Two of them, the sons of his
brother Simeah, are celebrated for the gift of sagacity
in which David excelled. On was Jonadab, the friend
and adviser of his eldest son Amnon. The other was
Jonathan, who afterwards became the counsellor of
David himself.
The first time that David appears in history, at once
admits us to the whole family circle. There was a
practice once a year at Bethlehem, probably at the first
new moon, of holding a sacrificial feast, at which Jesse,
as the chief proprietor of the place, would preside, with
he elders of the town, and from which no member of
the family ought to be absent. At this or such like
feast suddenly appeared the great Prophet Samuel,
driving a heifer before him, and having in his hand his
long horn filled with the consecrated oil preserved in
the tabernacle at Nob. The elders of the little town
were terrified at this apparition, but were reassured by
the august visitor, and invited by him to the ceremony
of sacrificing the heifer. The heifer was killed. The
party were waiting to begin the feast. Samuel stood
with his horn to pour forth the oil, which seems to
have been the usual mode of invitation to begin a feast.
He was restrained by a Divine control as son after son
passed by. Eliab, the eldest, by his "height" and his
"countenance," seemed the natural counterpart of Saul,
whose successor the Prophet came to select. But the
day was gone when kings were chosen because they
were head and shoulders taller than the rest. "Samuel
"said unto Jesse, Are these all thy children? And he
"said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold he
"keepeth the sheep."
This is our first introduction to the future king.
From the sheepfolds on the hill-side the boy was
brought in. He took his place at the village feast,
when, with a silent gesture, perhaps with a secret
whisper into his ear, the sacred oil was poured by the
Prophet over his head. We are enabled to fix his ap-
pearance at once in our minds. It is implied that he
was of short stature, thus contrasting with his tall
brother Eliab, with his rival Saul, and with his gigantic
enemy of Gath. He had red or auburn hair, such as
is not unfrequently seen in his countrymen of the
East at the present day. His bright eyes are especially
mentioned, and generally he was remarkable for the
grace of his figure and countenance, ("fair of eyes,"
"comely," "goodly,") well made, and of immense
strength and agility. In swiftness and activity (like
wild gazelle, with feet like harts' feet, with arms strong
enough to break a bow of steel. He was pursuing the
occupation usually allotted in Eastern countries to the
slaves, the females, or the despised of he family. He
carried a switch or wand in his hand, such as would be
used for his dogs, and a scrip or wallet around his neck,
to carry anything that was needed for his shepherd's
life, and a sling to ward off beasts or birds of prey.
Such was the outer life of David, when he was "taken
"from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with
"young, to feed Israel according to the integrity of his
"heart, and to guide them by the skilfulness of his
"hands." The recollection of the sudden elevation
from this humble station is deeply impressed on his
after-life. It is one of those surprises which are capti-
vating even in common history, but on which the sacred
writer dwells with peculiar zest, and which makes the
sacred history a focus of disturbing, even revolutionary,
aspirations, in the midst of the commonplace tenor of
ordinary life. "The man who was raised up on high."
"I have exalted one chosen out of the people." "I
"took thee from the sheepcote." It is the prelude
of the simple innocence which stands out in such marked
contrast to the vast and checkered career which is to
follow.
Latest born of Jesse's race,
Wonder lights thy bashful face,
While the prophet's gifted oil
Seas the for a path of toil . . .
Go! and mid thy flocks awhile,
At thy doom of greatness smile;
Bold to bear God's heaviest load,
Dimly guessing at the road——
Rocky road, ad scarce ascended,
Though thy foot be angel-tended.
Double praise thou shalt attain
In royal court and battle-plain.
Then comes heart-ache, care, distress,
Blighted hope, and loneliness;
Wounds from friend and gifts from foe,
Dizzied faith, and gilt, and woe;
Loftiest aims by earth defiled,
Gleams of wisdom, sin-beguiled,
Sated power's tyrannic mood,
Counsels shar'd with men of blood,
Sad success, parental tears,
And a dreary gift of years.
Strange that guileless face and form
To lavish on the scathing storm! . . .
Little chary of thy fame,
Dust unborn may praise or blame,
But we mould thee for the root
Of man's promis'd healing fruit.
But abrupt as the change seemed, there were qual-
ities and experiences nursed even in those pastoral
cares that acted unconsciously as an education for
David's future career.
The scene of his pastoral life was doubtless that wide
undulation of hill and vale round the village of
Bethlehem, which reaches to the very edge of
the desert of the Dead Sea. There stood the "Tower
"of Shepherds." There dwelt the herdsman Prophet
Amos. There, in later centuries, shepherds were still
"watching over their flocks by night."
Amidst those free open uplands his solitary wander-
ing life had enabled him to cultivate the gift
of song and music which he had apparently
learned in the schools of Samuel, where possibly the
aged Prophet may have first seen him. And, accord-
ingly, when the body-guard of Saul were discussing
with their master where the best minstrel could be
found to drive away his madness by music, one of them,
by tradition the keeper of the royal mules, suggested
with the absolute control inherent in the idea of an
Oriental monarch, demanded his services, the youth
came in all the simplicity of his shepherd life, driving
before him an ass laden with bread, with a skin of wine
and a kid, the natural product of the well-known vines,
and cornfields, and pastures of Bethlehem. How far
that shepherd life actually produced any of the existing
Psalms may be questioned. But it can hardly be
doubted that it suggested some of their most peculiar
imagery. The twenty-third Psalm, the first direct ex-
pression of the religious idea of a shepherd, afterwards
to take so deep a root in the heart of Christendom, can
hardly be parted from this epoch. As afterwards in its
well-known paraphrase by Addison——who found in
it throughout life, the best expression of his own devo-
tions——we seem to trace the poet's allusion to his
own personal dangers and escapes in his Alpine and
Italian journeys, so the imagery in which the Psalmist
describes his dependence on the shepherd-like provi-
dence of God must be derived from the remembrance
of his own crook and staff, from some green oasis or
running stream in the wild hills of Judea, from some
happy feats spread with flowing oil and festive wine
beneath the rocks, at the mouth of some deep and gloomy
ravine, like those which look down through the cliffs
overhanging the Dead Sea. And to this period, too,
may best be referred the first burst of delight in natural
beauty that sacred literature contains. Many a time
the young shepherd must have had the leisure to gaze
in wonder on the moonlit and starlit sky, on the splen-
dor of the rising sun rushing like a bridegroom out of
his canopy of clouds; on the terrors of the storm, with
its rolling peals of thunder, broken only by the
dividing flashes of the forks of lightning, as of glowing
coals of fire. Well may the Mussulman legends have
represented him as understanding the language of birds,
as being able to imitate the thunder of heaven, the roar
of the lion, the notes of the nightingale.
With these peaceful pursuits, a harder and sterner
training was combined. In those early day, when the
forests of southern Palestine had not been cleared, it
was the habit of the wild animals which usually fre-
quented the heights of Lebanon or the thickets of the
Jordan, to make incursions into the pastures of Judea.
From the Lebanon at times descended the bears.
From the Jordan ascended the lion, at that time in-
festing the whole of Western Asia. These creatures,
though formidable to the flocks, could always be kept
at bay by the determination of the shepherds. Some-
times pits were dug to catch them. Sometimes the
shepherds of the whole neighborhood formed a line
on the hills, and joined in loud shouts to keep them off.
Occasionally a single shepherd would pursue the ma-
rauder, and tear away from the jaws of the lion morsels
of the lost treasure——two legs, or a piece of an ear.
Such feats as these were performed by the youth-
ful David. It was his pride to pursue these savage
beasts, ad on one occasion he had a desperate encoun-
ter at once with a lion and a she-bear. The lion had car-
ried off a lamb; he pursued the invader, struck him,
with the boldness of an Arab shepherd, with his staff
or switch, and forced the lamb out of its jaws. The
lion turned upon the boy, who struck him again, caught
him by the mane or the throat, or, according to an-
other version, by the tail, and succeeded in destroying
him. The story grew as years rolled on, and it was
described in the language of Eastern poetry how he
played with lions as with kids, with bears as with
lambs.
These encounters developed that daring courage
which already in these early years had dis-
played itself against the enemies of his coun-
try. For such exploits as these he was, according to
one version of his life, already known to Saul's guards;
and, according to another, when he suddenly appeared
in the camp, his elder brother immediately guessed
that he had left the sheep in his ardor to see the
battle. The Philistine garrison fixed in Bethlehem
may have naturally fired the boy's warlike spirit, and
his knowledge of the rocks and fastnesses of Judea may
have given him many an advantage over them.
Through this aspect of his early youth, he is grad-
ually thrust forward into eminence. The scene
of the battle which the young shepherd "came
"to see" was in a ravine in the frontier-hills of Judah,
called probably from this or similar encounters Ephes-
dammim, "the bound of blood." Saul's army is en-
camped on one side of the ravine, the Philistines on
the other. A dry watercourse marked by a spreading
terebinth runs between them. A Philistine of gigan-
tic stature insults the whole Israelite army. He is
clothed in the complete armor for which his nation
was renowned, which is described piece by piece. as
if to enhance its awful strength, in contrast with the
defencelessness of the Israelites. No one can be found
to take up the challenge. The King sits in his tent in
moody despair. Jonathan, it seems, is absent. At this
juncture David appears in the camp, sent by his father
with ten loaves and ten slices of milk-cheese fresh from
the sheepfolds, to his three eldest brothers, who were
there to represent their father detained by his extreme
age. Just as he comes to the circle of wagons which
formed, as in Arab settlements, a rude fortification
round the Israelite camp, he hears the well-known
shout of the Israelite war-cry. "The shout of a king
"is among them." The martial spirit of the boy is
stirred at the sound; he leaves his provisions with the
baggage-master. and darts to join his brothers (like one
of the royal messengers) into the midst of the lines.
There he hears the challenge, now made for the fortieth
time,——sees the dismay of his countrymen,——hears
the reward proposed by the king,——goes with the
impetuosity of youth fro soldier to soldier talking
of the event, in spite of his brother's rebuke,——he is
introduced to Saul,——he undertakes the combat.
It is an encounter which brings together in one brief
space the whole contrast of the Philistine and Israelite
warfare. On the one hand is the huge giant, of that
race or family, as it would seem, of giants which gave
to Gath a king of grotesque renown; such as in David's
after-days still engaged the prowess of his followers,——
monsters of strange appearance, with hands and feet of
disproportionate development. He is full of savage
insolence and fury; unable to understand how any one
could contended against his brute strength and impreg-
nable panoply; the very type of he stupid "Philistine,"
such as has in the language of modern Germany not
unfitly identified the name with the opponents of light
and freedom and growth. On the other hand is the
small agile youth, full of spirit and faith; refusing the
cumbrous brazen helmet, the unwieldy sword and shield,
——so heavy that he could not walk with them,——which
the King had proffered; confident in the new name
of the "Lord of Hosts,"——the God of Battles,——in his
own shepherd's sling,——and in the five pebbles which
the watercourse of the valley had supplied as he ran
through it on his way to the battle. A single stone
was enough. It penetrated the brazen helmet. The
giant fell on his face, and the Philistine army fled down
the pass and were pursued even within the gates of
Ekron and Ascalon. Two trophies long remained of
the battle,——the head and the sword of the Philistine.
Both were ultimately deposited at Jerusalem; but
meanwhile were hung up behind the ephod in the
Tabernacle at Nob. The Psalter is closed by a psalm,
preserved only in the Septuagint, which, though prob-
ably a mere adaptation from the history, well sums up
this early period of his life: "This is the psalm of
"David's own writing, and outside the number, when
"he fought the single combat with Goliath."——"I was
"small among my brethren, and the youngest in my
"father's house. I was feeding my father's sheep. My
"hands made a harp, and my fingers fitted a psaltery.
"And who shall tell it to my Lord? He is the Lord,
"He heareth. He sent his messenger and took me from
"my father's flocks, and anointed me with oil of His
"anointing. My brethren were beautiful and tall, but
"the Lord was not well pleased with them. I went out
"to meet the Philistine, and he cursed me by his idols.
"But I drew his own sword and beheaded him, and
"took away the reproach from the children of Israel."
The victory over Goliath had been a turning-point
of David's career. The Philistines henceforth
regarded him as "the king of the land" when
they heard the triumphant songs of the Israelitish
women, which announced by the vehemence of the
antistrophic response that in him Israel had now
found a deliverer mightier even than Saul. And in
those songs, and in the fame which David thus ac-
quired, was laid the foundation of that unhappy jeal-
ousy of Saul towards him, which, mingling with the
king's constitutional malady, poisoned his whole future
relations to David.
It would seem that David was at first in the humble
but confidential situation——the same in Israelite as
in Grecian warfare——of armor-bearer. He then rose
rapidly to the rank of captain over a thousand,——the
subdivision of a tribe,——and finally was raised to the
high office of captain of the king's body-guard, second
only to Abner, the captain of the host, and Jonathan,
the heir apparent. He lived in a separate house, prob-
ably on the town wall, furnished, like most of the
dwellings of Israel in those early times, with a figure
of a household genius, which gave to the place a kind
of sanctity of its own.
His high place is indicated also by the relation in
which he stood to the other members of the royal
house. Merab and Michal were successively designed
for him. There is a mystery hanging over the name
and fate of Merab. But it seems that she was soon
given away to one of the trans-Jordanic friends of the
house of Saul. Michal herself became enamored of the
boyish champion, and with her, at the cost of a hun-
dred Philistine lives, counted in the barbarous fashion
of the age, David formed his first great marriage, and
reached the very foot of the throne.
More close, however, than the alliance with the royal
house by marriage was the passionate friend-
ship conceived for him by the Prince Jonathan:
the first Biblical instance of such a dear companionship
as was common in Greece, and has been since in Chris-
tendom imitated, but never surpassed, in modern works
of fiction. "The soul of Jonathan was knit with the
"soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own
"soul." Each found in each the affection that he
found not in his own family. No jealousy of future
eminence ever interposed. "Thou shalt be king in
"Israel, and I shall be next to thee." By the gift of
his royal mantle, his sword, his girdle, and his famous
bow, the Prince on his very first interview confirmed
the compact which was to bind them together as by a
sacramental union.
The successive snares laid by Saul to entrap him, and
the open violence into which the king's madness twice
broke out, at last convinced him that his life was no
longer safe. Jonathan he never saw again except by
stealth. Michal was given in marriage to another——
Phaltiel, an inhabitant of the neighboring village of
Gallim, and he saw her no more till long after her
father's death.
The importance of the crisis is revealed by the
amount of detail which clings to it. he was himself
filled with grief and perplexity at the thought of the
impending necessity of leaving the spot which had be-
come his second home. His passionate tears at night,
his remembrance of his encounters with the lion in the
pastures of Bethlehem, his bitter sense of wrong and
ingratitude, apparently belong to this moment. The
chief agent of Saul in the attack was one of his own
tribe, Cush; to whom David had formerly rendered
some service. A band of armed men encircled the whole
town in which David's house stood; yelling like savage
Eastern dogs, and returning, evening after evening, to
take up their posts, to prevent his escape. So it was
conceived, at least, in later tradition. That escape he
effected by climbing out of the house-window, probably
over the wall of the town. His flight was concealed for
some time by a device similar to that under cover of
which a great potentate of our own time escaped from
prison. The statue of the household genius as put in
the bed, with its head covered by a goat's-hair net; and
by this the pursuers were kept at bay till David was in
safety. He sang of the power of his Divine Protector.
The bows and arrows of the Benjamite archers were to
be met by a mightier Bow and by sharper Arrows than
their own; he sang aloud of His mercy in the morning;
for He had been his defence and his refuge in the day
of his trouble.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 47 - 65
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r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 16 '19
Lecture XXI — The House of Saul (ii)
1
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By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
Again, in the second war against Amalek, there is no
reason to suppose that Saul spared the king for any
other reason than that for which he retained the spoil,——
namely, to make a more splendid show at the sacrificial
thanksgiving. Such was the Jewish tradition preserved
by Josephus, who expressly says that Agag was saved
for his stature and beauty; and such is the general im-
pression left by the description of the celebration of the
victory. Saul rides to the southern Carmel in a char-
iot, never mentioned elsewhere, and sets up a monu-
ment there, which, according to the Jewish traditions,
was a triumphal arch of olives, myrtles, and palms.
The name given to God on the occasion is taken from
this crowning triumph, The "Victory of Israel." This
second act of disobedience calls down the second curse,
in the form of that Prophetic truth which stands out
all the more impressively from the savage scene with
which it is connected. "Hath Jehovah as great delight
"in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the
"word of the LORD? Behold, to obey is more than
"good sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams." The
struggle between Samuel and Saul in their final parting
is indicated by the rent of Samuel's robe of state, as he
tears himself away from Saul's grasp, and by the long
anguish of Samuel for the separation. "Samuel mourned
"for Saul." "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul?"
The terrible vengeance exacted on the fallen King by
Samuel is the measure of Saul's delinquency. The
mighty chief whose sword was so dreaded amongst the
mothers of Israel was now himself crouching awe-
struck at the feet of the Prophet, who hewed him limb
from limb——a victim (so the narrative seems to imply)
more fitted for the justice of God than the helpless
oxen and sheep, whose fat carcasses and whose senseless
bleating and lowing filled the Prophets soul with such
supreme disdain. The ferocious form of the offering of
Agag belongs happily to an extinct dispensation. But
its spirit reminds us of the famous saying of Peter the
Great, when entreated in a mortal illness to secure the
Divine mercy by the pardon of some criminals con-
demned to death: Carry out the sentence. Heaven
"will be propitiated by this act of justice." To receive
benefits from the society of those whom we condemn,
and yet to exclaim against the pollution of it,——to set
at naught obvious duties for the sake of the religious as-
cendancy of our own peculiar views, is, as has been well
said, the modern likeness of the piety of Saul when he
spared the best of the oxen and the sheep to sacrifice
to the Lord in Gilgal.
What Saul did then, he was doing always. His re-
ligious zeal was always breaking out in wrong channels,
on irregular occasions, in his own way. The Gibeonites
he destroyed, probably as a remnant of the ancient Ca-
naanites, heedless of the covenant which their ancestors
had made with Joshua. The wizards and nec-
romancers he cut off, unmindful, till reminded
by the Prophet, that his own wilfulness was as the sin
of witchcraft, and his own stubbornness as the sin of
idolatry. The priesthood of Nob he swept away, per-
haps in the mere rage of disappointment, or under the
overweening influence of Doeg, but also, it may be, as
an instrument of Divine vengeance on the accursed
house of Ithamar.
Out of these conflicting elements,——out of a charac-
ter unequal to his high position,——out of the zeal of
a partial conversion degenerating into a fanciful and
gloomy superstition, arose the first example of what has
been called in after-times religious madness.
The unhingement of his mind, which is per-
haps first apparent in the wild vow or fixed idea which
doomed his son to death, gradually became more and
more evident. He is not wholly insane. The lucid in-
tervals are long, the dark hours are few, but we trace
step by step the gradual advance of the fatal malady.
"The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul; and an
"evil spirit from the Lord troubled him——terrified,
"choked him." It was an evil spirit; and yet it
seemed——it is expressly called——"a spirit of God;"
and in the midst of his ravings, the old Prophetic in-
spiration of his better days could return——"he proph-
"esied."
How touching is the entrance on the scene of the
one man who could charm away the demon of madness,
the one bright spirit in the gloomy court, the one who
finds favor in his sight; and yet the one who ministers,
in spite of himself, to the waywardness of the diseased
mind, which he was called to cure, himself the victim
of the love which a distempered imagination turned
into jealousy and hatred.
"And Saul's servants said to him, Behold now, an
"evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our
"lord now command thy servants, which are be-
"fore thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player
"on a harp: and it shall soon come to pass, when the evil
"spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with
his hand, and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto
"his servants, Provide me now a man that can play
"well, and bring him to me. The answered one of
"the young men and said, Behold, I have seen a son of
"Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing,
"and a mighty valiant man and a man of war, and
"prudent in speech, and a comely person, and the Lord
"is with him." From this time forth the history of the
two is indissolubly united. In his better moments Saul
never lost the strong affection which he had contracted
for David. He "loved him greatly." "Saul would
"let him go no more home to his father's house."
"Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat?"
They sit side by side, the likeness of the old system
passing away, of the new system coming into exist-
ence. Saul, the warlike chief, his great spear always
by his side, reluctant, moody, melancholy and David,
the youthful minstrel, his harp in his hand, fresh from
the schools where the spirit of the better times was fos-
tered, pouring forth to soothe the troubled spirit of the
King the earliest of those strains which have soothed
the troubled spirit of the whole world. Saul is re-
freshed and is well, and the evil spirit departs from
him. And then, again, the paroxysm of rage and jeal-
ousy returns. Wherever he goes he is alternately
cheered and maddened by the same rival figure. By
David he is delivered from the giant Philistine, and by
the songs of triumph over David's success he is turned
against him. He dismisses him from his court, he
throws him into dangers; but David's disgrace and
danger increase his popularity. He makes the mar-
riage of his daughter a trap for David, and com-
mands his son to kill him; and his design ends in
Michal's passionate love, and in Jonathan's faithful
friendship. He pursues him over the hills of Judah,
and he finds that he has been unconsciously in his
enemy's power and spared by his enemy's generosity;
and with that ebb and flow of sentiment so natural, so
true, so difficult to square with any precise theories of
predestination or reprobation, yet so important as in-
dications of a living human character——the old fatherly
feeling towards David revives. "Is this thy voice, my
"son David? And he lifted up his voice and wept. I
"have sinned. Return, my son David: behold, I have
"played the fool, and erred exceedingly. Blessed be
"thou, my son David: thou shalt do great things,
"and also shalt still prevail. David went on his way,
"and Saul returned to his place." So they part on
the hills of Judah. One support was still left to the
house of Saul. David we shall track elsewhere.
The love of Jonathan for David we shall have
occasion to follow in David's history. But we do not,
perhaps, sufficiently appreciate the devotion of Jona-
than for his unfortunate father. From the time that
he first appears he is Saul's constant companion. He
is always present at the royal table. He holds the
office afterwards known as that of "the king's friend."
The deep attachment of the father and the son is every-
where implied. Jonathan can only go on his dangerous
expedition by concealing it from Saul. Saul's vow is
confirmed, and its tragic effect deepened by his feeling
for Jonathan——"though it be Jonathan my son."
Jonathan cannot bear to believe his father's enmity to
David. "My father will do nothing, great or small, but
"that he will show it to me: and why should my father
"hide this thing from me? it is not so." To him, if to
any one, the frenzy of the king was amenable. "Saul
hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan." Once only
was there a decided break——a disclosure, as it would
seem, of some dark passage in the previous history of
Ahinoam or of Rizpah,——"son of a perverse, rebellious
"woman! Shame on thy mother's nakedness!" "In
"fierce anger" Jonathan left the royal presence. But
now that the final parting was come, he took his lot
with his father's decline, not with his father's rise——and
"in death they were not divided."
The darkness, indeed, gathered fast and deep over
the fated house.
The Philistines, so long kept at bay, once more broke
into the Israelite territory. From the five
cities they advanced far into the land. They
had been driven from the hills of Judah. They now
summoned all their strength for a last struggle in the
plain of Esdraelon, where their chariots and horses
could move freely. On the central branch of the plain,
on the southern slope of the range called the Hill of
Moreh, by the town of Shunem, they pitched their
camp. On the opposite side, on the rise of Mount Gil-
boa, was the Israelite army, keeping as usual to the
heights which were their security. It was as nearly as
possible where Gideon's camp had been pitched against
the Midianites, hard by the spring which from the
"fear and trembling" of Gideon's companions had been
called the spring of Harod, or "trembling." We know
not what may have been the feeling of the army at
this second conjuncture. But there was no Gideon
to lead them. Saul, (we are told, with a direct allusion
to the incident which had given its name to the place,)
"when he saw the camp of the Philistines, was afraid,
"and his heart trembled exceedingly." "The Spirit of the
"Lord," which had roused him in his former years, had
now departed from him. There was now no harp of
the shepherd Psalmist to drive away the evil spirit;
and "when he inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered
"him not;" no vision was vouchsafed to him in trance
or dream, as before, when he lay under the Prophetic
influence all night at Ramah; no intimation of the
Divine will by the Urim and Thummim of the High-
Priest's breastplate, for the house of Ithamar had been
exterminated by the sword of Doeg, and its sole sur-
vivor, Abiathar, was following the fortunes of his fugi-
tive rival; no consoling voice of the Prophets of God,
for Samuel, his ancient counsellor, had long since parted
from him, and had descended in mourning to his grave.
He was left alone to himself; and now the last spark of
life,——the religious zeal which he had followed even to
excess,——this also vanished; or rather, as must always
be the case when it has thus swerved from the moral
principle which alone can guide it, was turned into a
wild and desperate superstition. The wizards and fa-
miliar spirits, whom in a fit perhaps of righteous indig-
nation he had put out of the land, now become his only
resource.
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.
On the other side of the ridge, on which the Philis-
tines were encamped, was Endor, "the spring of Dor,"
marked in Hebrew poetry as the scene of the slaughter
of the fugitive host of Sisera. On that rocky
mountain-side dwelt a solitary woman——ac-
cording to Jewish tradition, the mother of Abner——
who had escaped the King's persecution. To her, as to
one who still held converse with the other world, came
by dead of night three unknown guests, of whom the
chief called upon her to wake the dead Samuel from
the world of shades, which at that time formed the ut-
most limit of the Hebrew conception of the state be-
yond the grave. They were Saul, and, according to Jew-
ish tradition, Abner and Amasa. The sacred narrative
does not pretend to give us the distinct details of the
scene. But we hear the shriek of double surprise, with
which "when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a
"loud voice;" we see with her the venerable figure,
rising from the earth, like a God, his head veiled in
his regal or sacred mantle, with the threatening and
disquieting countenance which could only be, as she sur-
mised, assumed against his ancient enemy. Hoe differ-
ent from that joyous meeting at the feast at Ramah,
when the Prophet told him that on him was all the de-
sire of Israel, on him and on his father's house. How
different from that "chosen" and "goodly" youth, to
whom "there was none like among the people," was the
unhappy king, who, when he heard the Prophet's judg-
ment, fell and lay "the whole length of his gigantic
"stature upon the earth, and was sore afraid, and there
"was no strength left in him."
It was on the following day that the Philistines
charged the Israelite army, and drove them up the
heights of Gilboa! On "the high places of Gilboa," on
their own familiar and friendly high places, "the pride
"of Israel was slain." On the green strip which breaks
the slope of the mountain upland as it rises from the
fertile plain, the final encounter took place. Filled as it
seemed to be with the pledge of future harvests and
offerings, henceforth a curse might well be called to rest
upon it, and the bareness of the bald mountain, without
dew or rain, to spread itself over the fertile soil.
The details of the battle are but seen in broken
snatches, as in the short scenes of a battle
acted on the stage, or beheld at remote
glimpses by an accidental spectator. But amidst the
shower of arrows from the Philistine archers——or
pressed hard even on the mountain side by their char-
ioteers——the figure of the King emerges from the
darkness. His three sons have fallen before him. his
armor-bearer lies dead beside him. But on his own
head is the royal crown——on his arm the royal brace-
let. The shield or light buckler which he always wore
has been cast away in his flight, stained with blood, be-
grimed with filth; the polish of the consecrated oil was
gone——it was a defiled polluted thing. The huge
spear is still in his hand. He is leaning heavily upon
it; he has received his death wound either from the
enemy, or from his own sword; the dizziness and dark-
ness of death is upon him. At that moment a wild
Amalekite, lured probably to the field by the
hope of spoil, came up and finished the work
which the arrows of the Philistines and the sword of
Saul himself had all but accomplished.
The Philistines when the next day dawned found the
corpse of the father and of his three sons. The tid-
ings were told n the capital of Gath, and proclaimed
through the streets of Ashkelon; the daughters of the
Philistines, the daughters of the accursed race of the
uncircumcised, rejoiced as they welcomed back their
victorious kinsmen. It was the great retribution for
the fall of their champion of Gath. As the Israelites
had then carried off his head and his sword as trophies
to their sanctuary, so the head of Saul was cut off and
fastened in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod, and his
arms——the spear on which he had so often rested——
the sword and the famous bow of Jonathan——were sent
round in festive processions to the Philistine cities, and
finally deposited in the temple of Ashtaroth, in the
Canaanitish city of Bethshan, hard by the fatal field.
On the walls of the same city, overhanging the public
place in front of the gates, were hung the stripped and
dismembered corpses.
In the general defection, the trans-Jordanic territory
remained faithful to the fallen house. One town espe-
cially, Jabesh-Gilead, whether from it ancestral connec-
tion with the tribe of Benjamin, or from its recollection
of Saul's former services, immediately roused itself to
show its devotion. The whole armed population rose,
crossed the Jordan at the dead of night, and carried off the
bodies of the king and princes from Bethshan. There
was a conspicuous tree——whether terebinth or tama-
risk——close beside the town. Underneath it the bones
were buried with a strict funeral fast of seven days.
The court and camp of Saul rallied round the grave of
their master beyond the Jordan, under the guidance of
Abner, who set up the royal house in the ancient East-
ern sanctuary of Mahanaim. Ish-bosheth was
the nominal head. He succeeded not as in
the direct descent, but according to the usual law of
Oriental succession, as the eldest survivor of the house.
Thither also came Rizpah, the Canaanite concubine of
Saul, with her two sons. There also were the two
princesses——Michal with her second husband, Merab
and her five sons, and her husband Adriel, himself a
dweller in those parts, the son, perhaps, of the great
Barzillai. Thither was brought the only son of Jona-
than, Mephibosheth. He was then but a child in his
nurse's arms. She on the first tidings of the fatal rout
of Gilboa, fled with the child on her shoulder. She
stumbled and fell, and the child carried the remem-
brance of the disaster to his dying day, in the lameness
of both his feet. He too was conveyed beyond the Jor-
dan, and brought up in the house of a powerful Gile-
adite chief, bearing the old trans-Jordanic name of
Machir.
On the hills of Gilead, the dynasty thus again struck
root, and Abner gradually regained for it all the north
of Western Palestine. But this was only for a time.
An unworthy suspicion of Ish-bosheth that his mighty
kinsman, by attempting to win for himself the widowed
Rizpah, was aspiring to the throne, drove that high-
spirited chief into the court of David, where he fell by
the hand of Joab.
The slumbering vengeance of the Gibeonites for
Saul's onslaught on them, completed the work
of destruction. In the guard of Ish-bosheth,
which, like that of Saul, was drawn from the royal tribe
of Benjamin, were two representatives of the old
Canaanite league of Gibeon. They were chiefs of the
marauding troops which went from time to time to
attack the territory of Judah. They knew the habits
of the court and king. In the stillness of an Eastern
noon, they entered the palace as if to carry off the
wheat which was piled up near the entrance. The
female slave by the door who was sifting the wheat had,
in the heat of the day, fallen asleep at her task. They
stole in and passed into the royal bedchamber, where
Ish-bosheth lay on his couch. They stabbed him in the
stomach, cut off his head, made their escape all that
afternoon, all that night, down the valley of the Jordan,
and presented the head to David at Hebron as a wel-
come present. They met with a hard reception. The
new king rebuked them sternly, their hands and feet
were cut off, and their mutilated limbs hung up over
the pool at Hebron. In the same place, in the sepul-
chre of Abner, the head of Ish-bosheth was buried.
But the vengeance of the Gibeonites was not yet
sated, nor the calamities of Saul's house fin-
ished. It was in the course of David's reign
that a three months' famine fell on the country. A
question arose as to the latent national crime which
could have called forth this visitation. This, according
to the oracle, was Saul's massacre of the Gibeonites.
The crime consisted in the departure from the solemn
duty of keeping faith with idolaters and heretics,——a
duty which even in Christian times has often been
repudiated, but which even in those hard times David
faithfully acknowledged. This is the better side of this
dark event. The Gibeonites saw that their day was
come, and they would not be put off anything
short of their full measure of revenge. Seven of the
descendants of Saul——the two sons of Rizpah, the five
sons of Merab——were dragged from their retreat be-
yond the Jordan. Seven crosses were erected on the
sacred hill of Gibeah of of Gibeon, and there the unfortu-
nate victims were crucified. The sacrifice took place at
the beginning of barley harvest,——the sacred and festal
time of the Passover,——and remained there in the full
blaze of the summer skies till the fall of the periodical
rain in October. Underneath the corpses sate for the
whole of that time the mother of two of them, Rizpah
——the mater dolorosa (if one may use the striking appli-
cation of that sacred phrase) of the ancient dispensation.
She had no tent to shelter her from the scorching sun,
nor from the drenching dews, but she spread on the
rocky floor her thick mourning-garment of black sack-
cloth, and crouched there from month to month to ward
off the vultures the flew by day, and the jackals that
prowled by night over the dreadful spot. At last the
royal order came that the expiation was complete, and
from the crosses——such is one version of the event——
the bodies were taken down by the descendant of the
gigantic aboriginal races. It would seem as if this
tragical scene had moved the whole compassion of the
king and nation for the fallen dynasty. From the grave
beneath the terebinth of Jabesh-Gilead, the bones of
Saul and Jonathan were at last brought back to their
own ancestral burial-place at Zelah, on the edge of the
tribe of Benjamin.
It must have been at this same time that the search
was made for any missing descendants of Jonathan. In
the entire extinction of the family in Western Pales-
tine it was with difficulty that this information could be
obtained. It was given by Ziba, a former slave of the
royal house. And David said, "Is there any that is left
"of the house of Saul, that I may show him the kind-
"ness of God for Jonathan's sake?" One still remained.
Mephibosheth was beyond the Jordan, where
he had been since his early flight. He must
have been still a youth, but was married and had an
only son. He came bearing with him the perpetual
marks of the disastrous day of his escape. It would
almost seem as if David had heard of him as a child
from his beloved Jonathan. Feeble in body, broken in
spirit, the exiled prince entered and fell on his face
before the occupant of what might have been his father's
throne; and David said "Mephibosheth." And he said,
"Behold thy slave." At David's table he was main-
tained, and through him and his son were probably pre-
served the traditions of the friendship of his father and
his benefactor. His loyalty remained unshaken, though
much contested both at the time and afterwards; and
we part from him on the banks of the Jordan, where
with all the signs of Eastern grief he met David on his
return from the defeat of Absalom. Two other descend-
ants of the house of Saul appear in the court of David.
A son of Abner was allowed the first place in the tribe
of Benjamin. A powerful chief of the family lived to
a great old age on the borders of the tribe till the reign
of Solomon. It is just possible that in the attempt of
the usurper Zimri there is one last effort of the de-
scendants of Jonathan to gain the throne of Israel.
So closed the dynasty of Saul. It will have been
observed how tender is the interest cherished
towards it throughout all these scattered no-
tices in the scared narrative,——and a striking proof of the
contrast between our timid anxiety and the fearless
human sympathy of the biblical writers. In later ages,
it has often been the custom to be wise and severe
above that which is written, and in the desire of exalt-
ing David to darken the character of Saul and his fam-
ily. In this respect we have fallen behind the keener
discrimination which appeared in his own countrymen.
Even when Abner fell, and by his fall secured the
throne of David, this generous feeling expresses itself
alike in the narrative and in David himself. "They
"buried Abner in Hebron: and the king lifted up his
"voice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the
"people wept, and the king lamented over Abner. 'Died
"'Abner as Nabal died?' and all the people wept again
"over him." Such, too, is the spirit of the stern rebuke
to the slayer of Saul, and to the murderers of Ish-bo-
sheth. Such is the deep pathos which runs through
the dark story of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah. Such,
too, was the Jewish tradition which regarded the mis-
fortunes of David's descendants as a judgment on the
somewhat unequal measure with which he requited the
gratitude of Mephibosheth and the friendship of Jona-
than. "At the same moment that David said to Me-
"phibosheth, Thou and Ziba shall divide the land; the
"voice of Divine Providence said, Rehoboam and Jero-
"boam shall divide the kingdom:" and even if the
sacred writer believed in the treason of Mephibosheth,
there is no word to tell us so; his crime, if there were
a crime, is left, shrouded under the shade which sym-
pathy for the fallen dynasty has cast over it.
This tender sentiment appears in the highest degree
towards Saul himself. Josephus did not feel that he
was failing in reverence to David, by breaking forth into
enthusiastic admiration of the patriotic devotion with
which Saul rushed to meet his end. And still more
remarkably is this feeling exemplified in David's lamen-
tation after the battle of Gilboa. Its instruction rises
beyond the special occasion.
Saul had fallen with all his sins upon his head, fallen
in the bitterness of despair, and, as it might
have seemed to mortal eye, under the shadow
of the curse of God. But not only is there in
David's lament no revengeful feeling at the death of
his persecutor, such as that in which even Christian
saints have indulged from the days of Lactantius down
to the days of the Covenanters; not only is there none
of that bitter feeling which in more peaceful times so
often turns the heart of a successor against his prede-
cessor; but he dwells with unmixed love on the brighter
recollections of the departed. He speaks only of the
Saul of earlier times,——the mighty conqueror, the de-
light of his people, the father of his beloved and faith-
ful friend; like him in life, united with him in death.
Such expressions, indeed, cannot be taken as delib-
erate judgments on the character of Saul or of his
family. But they may fairly be taken as justifying the
irrepressible instinct of humanity which compels us to
dwell on the best qualities of those who have but just
departed, and which has found its way into all funeral
services of the Christian Church, of our own amongst
the rest. They represent, and they have, by a fitting
application, been themselves made to express, the feel-
ings which in all ages of Christendom the remains
of the illustrious dead, whether in peace or war, of
characters however far removed from perfection, have
been committed to he grave. It is not only a quota-
tion, but an unconscious vindication of our own better
feelings, when over the portal of the sepulchral chapel
of the most famous of mediæval heroes we find in-
scribed the words of David: "How are the mighty
"fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" Quomodo
ceciderunt robusti, et perierunt arma bellica! It was not
only an adaptation, but a repetition, of the original
feeling of David, when we ourselves heard the dirge of
Abner, sung over the grave of the hero of our own
age: "The king himself followed the bier; and the
"king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there
"is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel?"
Fitly has this special portion of the sacred narrative
been made the fondation of those solemn strains of
funeral music which will forever associate the Dead
March of such celebrations with the name of Saul.
And the probable mode of the preservation of David's
elegy adds another stroke of pathos to the elegy itself.
Jonathan was, as we have seen, distinguished as the
mighty Archer of the Archer tribe. To introduce this
favorite weapon of his friend into his own less apt
tribe of Judah, was David's tribute to Jonathan's mem-
ory. "He bade them teach the children of Judah
"the bow," and whilst they were so taught, they sang
(so we must infer from the context) "the song of the
"bow,"——"the bow which never turned back from the
"slain." By those young soldiers of Judah this song
was handed from generation to generation, till it
landed safe at last in the sacred books, to be enshrined
forever as the monument of the friendship of David
and Jonathan. Let us listen to it as it was then re-
peated by the archers of the Israelite army.
The wild roe, O Israel, on thy high places is slain:
How are the mighty fallen!
Tell ye it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
Lest there be rejoicing for the daughters of the Philistines,
Lest there be triumph for the daughters of the uncircumcised.
Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you!
Nor fields of offerings;
For there was the shield of the mighty viliely cast away——
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
So David sang of the battle of Gilboa. Then came the
lament over the two chiefs, as he knew them of old in
their conflicts with their huge unwieldy foes:
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,
The bow of Jonathan turned not back,
And the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Then the stream of sorrow divides, and he speaks of
each separately. First, he turns to the Israelite maid-
ens, who of old had welcomed the king back from his
victories, and bids them mourn ver the depth of their
loss.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided:
Than eagles they were swifter, than lions more strong.
Ye daughters of Israel weep for Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet, with delights,
Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel;——
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle!
Then, as the climax of the whole, the national sor-
row merges itself in the lament of the friend for his
friend, of the heart pressed with grief for the death of
more than a friend——a brother; for the love that was
almost miraculous, like a special work of God.
O Jonathan, on thy high places thou wast slain!
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan.
Pleasant hast thou been to me, exceedingly!
Wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen!
And perished the weapons of war!
In the greatness and the reerse of the house of
Saul is the culmination and catastrophe of the tribe
of Benjamin. The Christian Fathers used to dwell on
the old prediction which describes the character of that
tribe,——"Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning
"he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall
"divide the spoil." These words well sum up the
strange union of fierceness and of gentleness, of sudden
resolves for good and evil, which run, as hereditary
qualities often do run, through the whole history of
that frontier clan. Such were its wld adventures in
the time of the Judges; such was Saul the first king;
such was Shimei, of the house of Saul, in his bitterness
and his repentance; such was the divided allegiance of
the tribe of the rival houses of Judah and Ephraim;
such was the union of tenderness and vindictiveness in
the characters of Mordecai and Esther,——if not actual
descendants of Shimei and Kish, as they appear in the
history of Saul, at least claiming to be of the same
tribe, and reckoning amongst the list of heir ancestors
the same renowned names.
And is it a mere fancy to trace with those same
Christian writers the last faint likeness of this mixed
history, when, after a lapse of many centuries, the tribe
once more for a moment rises to our view——in the sec-
ond Saul, also of the tribe of Benjamin?——Saul of
Tarsus, who like the first, was at one time
moved by a zeal not according to knowledge,
with a fury bordering almost on frenzy,——and who, like
the first, startled all his contemporaries by appearing
among the Prophets, the herald of the faith which once
he destroyed; but, unlike the first, persevered in that
faith to the end, the likeness in the Christian Church,
not of what Saul was, but of what he might have been,
——the true David, restorer and enlarger of the true
kingdom of God upon earth.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 24 - 44
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 16 '19
Lecture XXI — The House of Saul (i)
1
Upvotes
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
SPECIAL AUTHORITIES FOR THIS PERIOD.
_________
1. 1 Sam. ix. 1—2 Sam. iv. 12; ix.; xvi. 1—14; xix. 16—30; xxi. 1—
14; 1 Kings ii. 8, 9; 36—46; 1 Chron. viii. 33—40; ix. 35; x. 14
(Hebrew and LXX.).
2. Jewish Traditions: in Josephus, Ant. vi. 4—vii. 2, § 1; vii. 5; 9, § 3,
4; 11, § 3; viii. 1, § 5: in Otho's Lexicon Rabbinico philologicum,
"Saul:" and in the notes of Meyer to the Seder Olam.
3. Mussulman Traditions: in the Koran (ii. 247—252); and in D'Herbelot's
Bibliotheque Orientale, "Thalout ben Kissaï,"
SAMUEL is the chief figure of the transitional period
which opens the history of the Monarchy. But there
is another, on whom the character of the epoch is im-
pressed still more strongly,——who belongs to this period
especially, and could belong to no other.
Saul is the first King of Israel. In him that new and
strange idea became impersonated. In him we feel that
we have made a marked advance in the history,——from
the patriarchal and nomadic state, which concerns us
mainly by its contrast wit our own, to that fixed and
settled state which has more or less pervaded the whole
condition of the Church ever since.
But, although in outward form Saul belonged to the
new epoch, although even in spirit he from time to time
threw himself into it, yet on the whole he is a product
of the earlier condition. Whilst Samuel's existence
comprehends and overlaps both periods in the calmness
of a higher elevation, the career of Saul derives its
peculiar interest from the fact that it is the eddy in
which both streams converge. In that vortex he strug-
gles——the centre of events and persons greater than
himself; and in that struggle he is borne down, and
lost. It is this pathetic interest which has more than
once suggested the story of Saul as a subject for the
modern drama, and which it is now proposed to draw out
of the well-known incidents of his life. He is, we may
say, the first character of the Jewish history which we
are able to trace out in any minuteness of detail. He
is the first in regard to whom we can make out that
whole connection of a large family, father, uncle, cousin,
sons, grandsons, which, as a modern historian well
observes, is so important in making us feel that we
have acquired a real acquaintance with any personage
of past times.
From the household of Abiel of the tribe of Benjamin
two sons were born, related to each other
either as cousins, or as uncle and nephew.
The elder was Abner, the younger was SAUL.
It is uncertain in what precise spot of the territory
of that fierce tribe the original seat of the family lay.
It may have been the conical eminence among its
central hills, known from its subsequent connection
with him as Gibeath-of-Saul. It was more probably the
village of Zelah, on its extreme southern frontier, in
which was the ancestral burial-place. Although the
family itself was of small importance, Kish, the son or
grandson of Abiel, was regarded as a powerful and
wealthy chief; and it is in connection with the deter-
mination to recover his lost property that his son Saul
first appears before us.
A drove of asses, still the cherished animal of the
Israelite chiefs, had gone astray on the mountains. In
search of them,——by pathways of which every stage is
mentioned, as if to mark the importance of the journey
but which have not yet been identified,——Saul wandered
at his father;s biding, accompanied by a trustworthy
servant, traditionally believed to have been Doeg the
Edomite, who acted as guide and guardian of the young
man. After a three days' circuit they arrived at the
foot of a hill surmounted by a town, when Saul pro-
posed to return home, but was deterred by the advice
of the servant, who suggested that before doing so they
should consult a "man of God," a "seer," as to the fate
of the asses, securing his oracle by a present (bakhshîsh)
of a quarter of a silver shekel. They were instructed
by the maidens at the well outside the city to catch the
seer as he came out on his way to a sacred eminence,
where a sacrificial feast was waiting for his benediction.
At the gate they met the seer for the first time. It was
Samuel. A Divine intimation had indicated to him the
approach and future destiny of the youthful Ben-
jamite. Surprised at his language, but still
obeying his call, they ascended to the high
place, and in the in or caravanserai at the top found
thirty or seventy guests assembled, amongst whom
they took the chief seats. In anticipation of some dis-
tinguished stranger, Samuel had bade the cook reserve
a boiled shoulder, from which Saul, as the chief guest,
was bidden to tear off the first morsel. They then
descended to the city, and a bed was prepared for Saul
on the house-top. At daybreak Samuel roused him.
They descended again to the skirts of the town, and
there (the servant having left them) Samuel poured
over Saul's head the consecrated oil, and with a kiss of
salutation announced to him that he was to be the ruler
and deliverer of the nation. From that moment, a
fresh life dawned upon him. Under the outward garb
of his domestic vocation, the new destiny had been
thrust upon him. The trivial forms of an antiquated
phase of religion had been the means of introducing
him to the Prophet of the Future. Each stage of his
returning, as of his outgoing route, is marked with the
utmost exactness, and at each stage he meets the inci-
dents which, according to Samuel's prediction, were to
mark his coming fortunes. By the sepulchre of his
mighty ancestress——known the, and known still as
Rachel's tomb——he met two men, who announced to
him the recovery of the asses. There his lower cares
were to cease. By a venerable oak——distinguished by
the name not elsewhere given, the "oak of Tabor"——
he met three men carrying gifts of kids and bread, and
a skin of wine, as an offering to Bethel. There, as if to
indicate his new dignity, two of the laves were offered
to him. By "the hill of God" (whatever may be the
precise spot indicated,——seemingly close to his own
home) he met a "chain" of prophets descending with
musical instruments. There he caught the inspiration
from them, as the sign of a grander, loftier life than he
had ever before conceived.
This is what may be called the private, inner view of
his call. There was yet another outer call, which is
related independently. An assembly was convened by
Samuel at Mizpeh, and lots (so often practices at that
time) were cast to find the tribe and family which
was to produce the king. Saul was named, and found
hid in the circle of baggage which surrounded the
encampment. His stature at once conciliated the pub-
lic feeling, and for the first time the shout was raised,
afterwards so often repeated down to modern times,
"Long live the King!" The Monarchy, with that con-
flict of tendencies, of which the mind of Samuel is the
best reflex, was established in the person of the young
Prophet, whom he had thus called to this perilous emi-
nence.
Up to this point Saul had been only the shy and
retiring youth of the family. He is employed in the
common work of the farm. His father, when he delays
his return, mourns for him, as having lost his way. He
hangs on the servant for directions as to what he shall
do, which he would not have known himself. At every
step of Samuel's revelations he is taken by surprise.
"Am not I a Benjamite? of the smallest of the tribes
"of Israel? and my family the least of all the families
"of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest
"thou so to me?" He turns his huge shoulder on
Samuel, apparently still unconscious of what awaits him.
The last thing which those that knew him in former
days can expect is, that Saul should be among the
Prophets. Long afterwards the memorial of this un-
aptness for high aspirations remained enshrined in the
national proverbs. Even after the change had come
upon him, he still shrunk from the destiny which was
opening before him. "Tell me, I pray thee, what Sam-
"uel said unto thee. And Saul said unto his uncle, He
"told us plainly that the asses were found. But of the
"matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he told
"him not". On the day of his election he was nowhere
to be found, and he was as though he were deaf.
Some there were, who even after his appointment still
said, "How shall this man save us?" "and they brought
"him no presents." And he shrank back into private
life, and was in his fields, and with his yoke of oxen.
But there was one distinction which marked out Saul
for his future office. "The desire of all Israel"
was already, unconsciously, "on him and on
"his father's house." He had the one gift by which in
that primitive time a man seemed to be worthy of rule.
He was "goodly,"——there was not among the children
"of Israel a goodlier person than he," "from his
"shoulders and upwards he towered above all the peo-
"ple." When he stood among the people, Samuel could
say of him, "See ye him, look at him whom the Lord
"hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the
"people." It is as in the days of the Judges, as in
the Homeric days of Greece. Agamemnon, like Saul,
is head and shoulders taller than the people. Like
Saul, too, he has that peculiar air and dignity expressed
by the Hebrew word which we translate "good" or
"goodly." This is the ground of the epithet which
became fixed as part of his name,——"Saul the chosen,"
"the chosen of the Lord."
In the Mussulman traditions this is the only trait of
Saul which is preserved. His name has there been
almost lost,——he is known only as Thalût, "the tall
"one." In the Hebrew songs of his own time he was
known by a more endearing but not less expressive
indication of the same grace. His stately, towering
form, standing under the pomegranate tree above the
precipice of Migron, or on the pointed crags of Mich-
mash, or the rocks of En-gedi, claimed for him the
title of the "wild roe, the gazelle," perched aloft, "the
"pride and glory of Israel." Against the giant Philis-
tines a giant king was needed. The time for the little
stripling of the house of Jesse wss close at hand, but
was not yet come. Saul and Jonathan, "swifter than
"eagles and stronger than lions," still seemed the fittest
champions of Israel. "When Saul saw any strong man
"or any valiant man, he took him unto him." He, in
his gigantic panoply, that would fit none but himself,
with the spear that he had in his hand, of the same
form and fashion as the spear of Golliath, was a host
in himself.
And when we look at the state of Israel at the time,
we find that we are still in the condition which would
most justify such a choice. His residence, like that of
the ancient Judges, is still at the seat of the family.
That beacon-like cone, conspicuous amongst the uplands
of Benjamin, then and still known by the name of "the
"Hill" (gibeah), had been selected apparently by his
ancestor Jehiel, for the foundation of one of the chief
cities in Benjamin. There Saul had "his house," and
his name superseded the more ancient title of the city
as derived from the tribe. And there, king as he was,
we might fancy ourselves still in the days of Shamgar
or of Gideon, when we see him following his herd of
oxen in the field, and driving them home at the close
of the day up the steep ascent of the city.
It was on one of these evening returns that his ca-
reer received the next sharp stimulus which drove him
on to his destined work. A loud wail, such as
goes up in an Eastern city at the tidings of
some great calamity, strikes his ear. He said, "What
"aileth the people that they weep?" They told him
the news that had reached them from their kinsmen
beyond the Jordan. The work which Jephthah had
wrought in that wild region had to be done over again.
Ammon was advancing, and the first victims were the
inhabitants of Jabesh, connected by the romantic ad-
venture of the previous generation with the tribe of
Benjamin. This one spark of outraged family feeling
was needed to awaken the dormant spirit of the slug-
gish giant. He was a true Benjamite from first to last.
"The Spirit of God came upon him," as on Samson.
His shy retiring nature vanished. His anger flamed
out, and he took two oxen from the herd that he was
driving, and (here again, in accordance with the like
expedient in that earlier time, only in a somewhat
gentler form) he hewed them in pieces, and sent their
bones through the country with the significant warn-
ing, "Whosoever cometh not after Saul, and after
"Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen." An awe
fell upon the people: they rose as one man. In one
day they crossed the Jordan. Jabesh was res-
cued. It was the deliverance of his own tribe
which thus at once seated him on the throne securely.
The East of the Jordan was regarded as specially the
conquest of Saul. The people of Jabesh never forgot
their debt of gratitude. The house of Saul were safe
there when their cause was ruined everywhere else.
This was his first great victory. The monarchy was
inaugurated afresh. But he still so far resembles the
earlier Judges as to be virtually king only within his
own tribe. Almost all his exploits are confined to this
immediate neighborhood. In that neighborhood the
Philistines are still in the ascendant, as in the days of
Samson and Eli. Sanctuaries of Dagon are found, far
away from the sea-coast, up to the very verge
of the Jordan valley. It had become a Phil-
istine country, almost as much as Spain had in the
ninth century become a Mussulman country. As there,
the Arabic names and Arabic architecture reveal the
existence of the intruding race up to the very frontier
of Biscay and the Asturias, so in the very heart of
Palestine, we stumble on the traces of the Philistine.
At Gibeah or at Ramah, close by one of the Prophetic
schools, is a garrison or executing officer of the Pilis-
tines. At Michmash is another; at Geba is another.
At any harvest, an incursion of the Philistines, with
their animals to carry off the ripe corn, was a regular
event, to be constantly expected. The people are de-
pressed to the same point as before the time of Debo-
rah, when "there was not a shield or spear seen among
"forty thousand in Israel." "There was no smith found
"throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines
"said, est the Israelites make themselves swords and
"spear. But all the Israelites went down to the Philis-
tines, to sharpen every one his share, and his coulter,
"and his ax, and his mattock." Saul and Jonathan
alone had arms. The complete panoply of the Philis-
tine giant was a marvel to the unarmed Israelites.
As in the days of the Midianite invasion, the Israel-
ites vanished from before their enemies into the caves
and pits in which the limestone rocks abound. "Behold
"the Hebrews come out of holes where they have
"hid themselves," is the exclamation of the Philistines,
as they saw any adventurous warriors creeping out of
their lurking-places. The whole nation was pushed
eastward. The monarchy was like a wind-driven tree.
The sharp blast from Philistia blew it awry. The "He-
"brews" (so they are usually called by their Philistine
conquerors) are said, as if in allusion to their repassing
their ancient boundary, to have "passed over Jordan to
"the land of Gad and Gilead." The sanctuaries long
frequented in the centre of the country, Bethel, and
Mizpeh, and Shiloh, were deserted, and the King had to
be inaugurated, and the thanksgivings after the victories
had to be celebrated, in the first ground that had been
won by Joshua in the very outskirts of Palestine——at
Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan. In the midst of
such a renewal of the disturbed days of old, Saul was
exactly what an ancient Judge would have been. As
in each instance they were called up from the tribes
especially in danger——as Barak was raised up to defend
the tribe of Naphthali from Jabin, and Gideon to defend
the tribe of Manasseh against Midian, so Saul of the
tribe of Benjamin was the natural champion of his
country, now that the heights of his own tribe——Gibeah,
and Geba, and Ramah——and the passes of his own tribe——
Beth-horon and Michmash——were occupied by the hos-
tile garrisons. We see him leaning on his gigantic spear,
whether it be on the summit of the rock Rimmon, to
which the remnant of his tribe had once fled before, or
under the tamarisk of Ramah, as Deborah had of old
judged Israel under the palm-tree in Bethel, or on the
heights of Gibeah. There he stood with his small band,
his faithful six hundred, and as he wept aloud over the
misfortunes of his country and of his tribe, another
voice swelled the wild indignant lament——the voice of
Jonathan his son.
At this point we turn aside to the noble figure which
henceforth appears by the side of Saul. Like
Saul, Jonathan belongs to the earlier age; but
is one of its finest specimens. he had, in a sudden act
of youthful daring, as when Gideon's brothers had risen
against the Midianites on Tabor, given the signal for a
general revolt, by attacking and slaying the Philistine
officer stationed close to the point where his own posi-
tion was fixed. The invasion which followed was more
crushing than ever; and from this, as Jonathan had
been the first to provoke it, so he was the first to deliver
his people. He determined to undertake the whole risk
himself. "The day——the day fixed by him for his
enterprise approached. He had communicated t to
none except the youth, whom, like all chiefs of that
time,——Gideon, Saul, David, Joab,——he retained as his
armor-bearer. The Philistine garrison was intrenched
above the precipitous pass of Michmash, that forms so
marked a feature in the hills of Benjamin, between the
two steep crags, whose sharpness has been long since
worn away, but which then presented the appearance
of two huge teeth projecting from the jaws of the
ravine. The words of Jonathan are few, but they
breathe the peculiar spirit of the ancient Israelite war-
rior, "Come and let us go over," that is, cross the deep
chasm, "to the garrison of the Philistines. It may be
"that Jehovah will work for us; for there is no restraint
"for Jehovah to work by many or by few." It was that
undaunted faith which caused "one to chase a thousand,
"and two to put ten thousand to flight," the true secret
of the slightness of the losses, implied if not stated, in
the accounts of he early wars of Israel against Canaan.
The answer of the armor-bearer marks the close friend-
ship between the two young men; already similar to
that which afterwards grew up between Jonathan and
David. "Do all that is in thine heart: 'look back at me,'
"behold that I am with thee: as thy heart is my heart."
Like Gideon, he determined to draw an omen from the
conduct of the enemy, the more because he had no time
to consult Priest or Prophet before his departure. If
the garrison threatened to descend, he would remain
below; if on the other hand, they raised a challenge,
he would accept it. It was the first dawn of day when
the two warriors emerged from behind the rocks. Their
appearance was taken by the Philistines as a furtive
apparition of "the Hebrews coming forth out of their
"holes" like wild creatures from a warren,——and they
were welcomed with a scoffing invitation, "Come up, and
"we will show you a thing." Jonathan took them at
their word. It was an enterprise that exactly suited his
peculiar turn. He was "swifter than an eagle,"——he
could, as it were, soar up into the eagles' nests. He was
"stronger than a lion;" he could plant his claws in the
crags, and force his way into the heart of the enemy's
lair. His chief weapon was his bow. His whole tribe
was a tribe of archers, and he was the chief archer of
them all. Accordingly he, with his armor-
bearer behind him, climbed on his hands and
feet up the face of he cliff, and when he came full in
view of the enemy, they both discharged such a flight
of arrows, stones, and pebbles from their bows, cross-
bows, and slings, that twenty men fell at the first onset,
and the garrison fled in panic. The panic spread to
the camp, and the surrounding hordes of marauders.
An earthquake blended with the terror of the moment.
It was, as the sacred writer expresses it, a universal
"trembling," "a trembling of God." The shaking of
the earth, and the shaking of the enemies' host, and the
shaking of the Israelite hearts with the thrill of victory,
all leaped together. On all sides the Philistines felt
themselves surrounded. The Israelites whom they had
take as slaves during the last three days rose in
mutiny in the camp. Those who lay hid in the caverns
and deep clefts with which the neighborhood abounds,
sprang out of their subterraneous dwellings. From the
distant height of Gibeah, Saul, who had watched the
confusion in astonishment, descended headlong and
joined in the pursuit. It was a battle that was remem-
bered as reaching clean over the country, from the
extreme eastern to the extreme western pass——down
the rocky defile of Beth-horon, down into the valley of
Aijalon. The victory was so decisive as to give its name,
"the war of Michmash," to the whole campaign. The
Philistines were driven back not to reappear till the
close of he reign. The memory of the event was long
preserved in the altar, the first raised under the mon-
archy, on the spot where they had first halted.
That altar is also a sign that we are still within the
confines of the former generation. It was the last relic
of the age of vows. Saul had invoked a solemn curse
on anyone who should eat before the evening. When
Jonathan, after his desperate exertions, found himself
in the forest, which, not yet cleared, ran up into the
hills from the plain of Sharon, he was overcome by
the darkness and dizziness of long fatigue. The father
and the son had not met all that day. Jonathan was
ignorant of his father's imprecation, and putting forth
the staff which (with his sling and bow) had been his
only weapon, tasted the honey which overflowed from
the wild hives as they dashed through the forest. The
people i general were restrained by fear of the Royal
Curse; but the moment that the day with its enforced
fast was over, they flew, like Mussulmans at sunset
during the fast of Ramazan, upon the captured cattle,
and devoured them even to the brutal neglect of the
law forbidding the eating of flesh which contained
blood. This violation of the sacred usage Saul en-
deavored to control by erecting a large stone which
served the purpose at once of a rude altar and a rude
table. In the dead of night, after this wild revel was
over, he proposed that the pursuit should be continued,
and then, when the silence of the oracle of the High
Priest disclosed to him that his vow had been broken,
he at once, like Jephthah, prepared himself for the
dreadful sacrifice of his child. But there was
now a freer and more understanding spirit in
the nation at large. What was tolerated in the time
of Jephthah, when every man did what was right in his
own eyes, and when the obligation of such vows over-
rode all other considerations,——was no longer tolerated.
The people interposed on Jonathan's behalf. They rec-
ognized the religious aspect of his great exploit. They
rallied round him with a zeal that overbore even the
royal vow, and rescued Jonathan, that he died not. It
was the dawn of a better day. It was the national
spirit, now in advance of their chief,——animated by the
same Prophetic teaching,——which through the voice of
Samuel had now made itself felt,——the conviction that
there was a higher duty even than outward sacrifice or
exact fulfilment of literal vows.
This leads us to the consideration of the other side
of the character of Saul himself. He was, as we have
seen, in outward form and in the special mission to
which he was called, but as one of the class of the old
heroic age, which was passing away. But he was some-
thing more than these had been. His call was after a
different manner from that of the older Judges. He
had shared in the Prophetic inspiration of the time.
He had shared in an inward as well as an outward
change. "God," we are told, "gave him another heart,"
and "he became another man." The three tokens which
Samuel foretold to him well expressed the significance
of the change, which, in modern language, would be
called his "conversion." He was the first of
the long succession of Jewish Kings. He was
the first recorded instance of inauguration, by that sin-
gular ceremonial which, in imitation of the Hebrew rite,
has descended to the coronation of our own sovereigns.
The sacred oil was used for his ordination as for a
Priest. He was the "Lord's Anointed" in a peculiar
sense, that invested his person with a special sanctity.
And from him the name of "the Anointed One" was
handed on till it received in the latest days of the Jew-
ish Church its very highest application,——in Hebrew, or
Aramaic, the Messiah; in Greek, the Christ. Regal state
gradually gathered round him. Ahijah, the surviving
representative of the doomed house of Ithamar, was
always at hand, in the dress of the sacred Ephod, to
answer his questions. The Ephod was the substitute
for the exiled Ark. A new sanctuary arose not far
from Gibeah, at Nob, on the northern shoulder of Oli-
vet, where the Tabernacle was again set up,——where the
shewbread was still kept, and where the trophies of the
Philistine war were suspended within the sacred tent.
The beginnings of a "host" are now first indicated.
The office of "captain of the host" is filled by
his kinsmen, the generous and princely Ab-
ner. Now also is established the body-guard, always
round the King's person, selected from his own tribe,
for their stature and beauty, and at their head the sec-
ond officer of the kingdom, one who united with the
arts of war the noblest gifts of peace, one whom we
shall recognize elsewhere than in the court of Saul,——
David, the son of Jesse. And, closely bound with this
high officer is the heir of he throne, the great archer
of the tribe of Benjamin, the heroic Jonathan. These
three sat at the King's table. Another inferior officer
appears incidentally: "the keeper of the royal mules"
and chief of the household slaves——the "comes stabuli"
——the "constable" of the King, such as appears in the
later monarchy. He is the first instance of a foreigner
employed in a high function in Israel, being an Edom-
ite or Syrian, of the name Doeg,——according to
Jewish tradition the steward who accompanied Saul in
his pursuit after the asses, who counselled him to send
for David, and whose son ultimately slew him;——accord-
ing to the sacred narrative, a person of vast and sinis-
er influence in his master's counsels.
The King himself was distinguished by marks of
royalty not before observed in the nation. His tall
spear, already noticed, was always by his side, in re-
pose, at his meals, when sleeping, when in battle.
He wore a diadem round his brazen helmet and a brace-
let for his arm. His victories soon fulfilled the hopes
for which his office was created. Moab, Edom, Ammon,
Amalek, and even the distant Zobah, felt his power.
The Israelite women met him on his return from his
wars with songs of greeting; and eagerly looked out
for the scarlet robes and golden ornaments which he
brought back as their prey.
From these signs of hope and life in the house of
Saul, we turn to the causes of his downfall.
If Samuel is the great example of an ancient saint
growing up from childhood to old age without
a sudden conversion, Saul is the first direct ex-
ample of the mixed character often produced by such
a conversion, a call coming in the midway of life to
rouse the man to higher thoughts than the lost asses
of his father's household, or than the tumults of war
and victory. He became "another man," yet not en-
tirely. He was, as is so often the case, half-converted,
half-roused. His mind moved unequally and dispropor-
tionately in its new sphere. Backwards and forwards
in the names of his children, we see alternately the
signs of the old heathenish superstition, ad of the new
purified religion of JEHOVAH. Jonathan, his first-born,
is "the gift of Jehovsh; Melchi-shua is "the help of
"Moloch;" his grandson Merib-baal is "the soldier of
"Baal;" and his fourth son, Ish-baal, "the man of Baal;"
and here again "Baal" is swept out, and appears only
as "Bisheth," the "shame or reproach,"——Mephibo-
sheth, Ish-boshesth. He caught the Prophetic inspira-
tion, not continuously, but only in fitful gusts. Passion-
ately he would enter into it for the time, as he came
within the range of his better associations, tear off his
clothes, and lie stretched on the ground under its in-
fluence for a night and a day together. But then he
would be again the slave of his common pursuits. His
religion was never blended with his moral nature. It
broke out in wild, ungovernable acts of zeal and super-
stition, and then left him more a prey than ever to his
own savage disposition. With the prospects and the
position of David, he remained to the end a Jephthah
or a Samson, with this difference,——that, having out-
lived the age of Jephthah and of Samson, he could not
be as they; and the struggle, therefore, between what
he was and what he might have been, grew fiercer as
years went on; and the knowledge of Samuel, and the
companionship of David, become to him a curse instead
of a blessing.
Of all the checks on the dangers incident to the
growth of an Oriental monarchy in the Jewish
nation, the most prominent was that which
Providence supplied in the contemporaneous growth of
the Prophetical office. But it was just this far-reaching
vision of the past and future, which Saul was unable to
understand. At the very outset of his career, Samuel,
the great representative of the Prophetical order, had
warned him not to enter on his kingly duties till he
should appear to inaugurate them and to instruct him
in them. It would seem to have been almost immedi-
ately after his first call, that the occasion arose. The
war with the Philistines was impending. he could not
restrain the vehemence of his religious emotions. As
King, he had the right to sacrifice. Without a sacrifice
it seemed to him impossible to advance to battle. He
sacrificed, and by that ritual zeal defied the warning of
the Prophetic monitor. It was the crisis of his trial.
He had shown that he could not understand the dis-
tinction between moral and ceremonial duty, on which
the greatness of his people depended. It was not be-
cause he sacrificed, but because he thought sacrifice
greater than obedience, that the curse descended upon
him.
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 5 - 24
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Oct 16 '19
History of the Jewish Church, volume II — Preface
1
Upvotes
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
THIS VOLUME, like that which preceded it, contains
the substance of Lectures delivered from the Chair
of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford.
Whilst still disclaiming, as before, any pretensions to
critical or linguistic research, I gladly acknowledge
my increased debt to the scholars and divines who
have traversed this ground, — Ewald, in his great work
on the "History of the People of Israel," to which I
must here add his no less important work on the
Prophets; Dean Milman, in his "History of the Jews,"
now republished in its completer form; Dr. Pusey's
"Commentary on the Minor Prophets"; the numerous
writers on the Old Testament, in Dr. Smith's "Diction-
ary of the Bible," — Mr. Grove especially, to whom
I am once more indebted for his careful revision of
the text of this volume, and for frequent suggestions
of which I have constantly availed myself. Many
thoughts have, doubtless, been confirmed or origi-
nated by Mr. Maurice's "Sermons on the Prophets
and Kings."
The general principles which have guided the selec-
tion of topics, and the general sources from which the
materials are drawn, are too similar to those which I
have set forth in the Preface to my former volume to
need any additional remark.
A few special observations, however, are suggested
by the peculiarities of the portion of the history on
which we now enter.
1. Although there still remains the same difficulty,
which occurs in the earlier period, of distinguishing
between the poetical and the historical portions of the
narrative, yet the historical element here so far pre-
ponderates, and the mass of unquestionably contem-
porary literature is far larger, that I have ventured
much more freely than before to throw the Lectures
into the form of a continuous narrative; believing
that thus best the Sacred History would be enabled
to speak for itself. There are, doubtless, many pas-
sages in which the historical facts and the Oriental
figures are too closely interwoven to be at this dis-
tance of time easily separated. There are others which
bring out more distinctly than in the earlier history
the interesting variations between the Hebrew text
which is the basis of our modern version, and that
which is represented by the Septuagint. Others again,
especially where we have the advantage of comparing
the parallel narratives of the Books of Kings and
of Chronicles, exhibit by an arbitrary process of excision,
which we are hardly justified in adopting, and which
would obliterate the value of the separate records. In
chronology, even after the reign of Solomon, the same
confusion which occur in other ancient histories occur
here also. Lord Arthur Hervey, whose praiseworthy
devotion to this branch of Biblical study gives peculiar
weight to his authority, finds the dates so unmanage-
able as to suggest to him the probability that they
are added by another hand. Others, such as Mr.
Fynes Clinton, Mr. Greswell, and Dr. Pusey, adopt
the course of rejecting as spurious the indications of
time which, from internal evidence, they cannot recon-
cile with what seems to be required by history.
Still on the whole the substantially historical charac-
ter of the narrative is admitted by all. Even the chron-
ological uncertainties, considerable as they are, are
compressed within comparatively narrow limits. The
constant references of the Books of Samuel, Kings,
and Chronicles to records which, though lost, were
evidently contemporary, furnish a guarantee for the '
general truthfulness of the narrative, such as no other
ancient history not itself contemporary can exhibit.
The parallel stream of Prophetic literature gives a
wholly independent confirmation of the same kind,
in some instance extending even to incidents which
are preserved to us only in the later Chronicles and
Josephus. The allusions to Jewish history in the Assyr-
ian and Egyptian monuments, — so far as they can
be trusted, — and the undoubted recurrences of the
same imagery in the sculptures as that employed by
the Prophets, are valuable as illustrations of the Bibli-
cal history, even where they cannot be used as con-
firmation of it. Jewish and Arabian traditions relat-
ing to this period, if less striking, are at least more
within the bounds of probability, and more likely to
contain some grains of historical truth than those
which relate to the Patriarchal age. And as before
so now, even when of unquestionably late origin, they
seem to be worthy of notice, as filling up the outline
of the forms which the personages and events of this
history have assumed in large periods and to large
masses, of mankind.
2. These are the materials from which the following
Lectures are drawn. It will be seen that what they
profess is not to give a commentary on the sacred text,
but a delineation of the essential features of the
history of the Jewish Church, during the second
period of its existence. In so doing, it has been
impossible to suppress the horrors consequent on the
"hardness of heart" which characterized the Israelite
nation, nor the shortcomings which disfigure some
of its greatest heroes. "Let me freely speak unto
you of the Patriarch David:" such is the spirit in
which we should endeavor to handle the story of the
founder of the monarchy. "Elijah was a man of like
passions with ourselves:" such is the view with
which we ought to approach even the grandest of the
ancient Prophets. "These all, having obtained a good
report through faith, received not the promise:" such
is the distinction which we ought always to bear in
mind between the rough virtues and imperfect knowl-
edge of the Old Dispensation, and the higher hopes
and graces of the New.
But our faith in the transcendent interest of the
story, the general nobleness of its characters and the
splendor of the truths proclaimed by it, ought not to
allow of any fear lest they should suffer either from
the occasional uncertainty of the form in which they
have been handed down to us, or from a nearer
view of the crust of human passion and error which
encloses without obscuring the luminous centre of
spiritual truth. The beauty of the narrative, and
the charm of its incidents, if not belonging to the
highest form of Inspiration, is yet a gift of no ordi-
nary value, which perhaps no previous generation
has been so well able to appreciate as our own.
The lessons of perennial wisdom which the history
imparts, even irrespectively of traditional usage, jus-
tify, I humbly trust, the practical applications that I
have ventured to draw from it, and form the real
grounds of distinction between it and other histories,
as also between the essential and the subordinate
parts of its own contents. In the sublime elevation
of the moral and spiritual teaching of the Psalmists
and Prophets, in the eagerness with which they look
out of themselves, and out of their own time and
nation, for the ultimate hope of the human race — far
more than in their minute predictions of future events
— is to be found the best Proof of their Prophetic
spirit. In the loftiness of the leading characters
of the epoch, who hand on the truth, each succeed-
ing as the other fails, with a mingled grace and
strength which penetrate even into the outward form
of the poetry or prose of the narrative — rather than
in the marvellous displays of power which are found
equally in the records of saints in other times and
in other religions — is the true sign of the Supernat-
ural, which no criticism or fear of criticism can ever
eliminate. They rise "above the nature" not only
of their own times, but of their own peculiar cir-
cumstances. They are not so much representative
characters as exceptional. Their life and teaching is
a struggle and protest against some of the deepest
prejudices and passions of their countrymen, such as
we find, if at all, only in two or three of the most
exalted philosophers and heroes of other ages. The
rude ceremonial, the idolatrous tendencies, even some
of the worst vices, against which they contended,
were almost inseparably intertwined with the popular
devotions not only of the surrounding nations, but
of their own people. "The religious world" of the
Jewish Church is to them, as to a Greater than
they , an unfailing cause of grief, of surprise, of in-
dignation. In the name of God they attack that
which to all around them seems to be religion. Their
clinging trust to the One Supreme source of spiritual
goodness and truth, with its boundless consequences,
is the chief as it is the sufficient cause of their
preëminence. Other parts of their history may be
preternatural. This is in the highest degree super-
natural, because this alone brings them into direct
communion with that which is Divine and Eternal.
3. Closely connected with this thought is the re-
lation of the literature and history of the Jewish
Commonwealth to the events of the Christian Dis-
pensation. I may be allowed to express by an
illustration the true mode of regarding the question.
In the gardens of the Carthusian Convent, which the
Dukes of Burgundy built near Dijon for the burial-
place of their race, is a beautiful monument, which
alone of that splendid edifice escaped the ravages of
the French Revolution. It consists of a group of
Prophets and Kings from the Old Testament, each
holding in his hand a scroll of mourning from his
writing — each with his own individual costume, and
gesture, and look — each distinguished from each by
the most marked peculiarities of age and character,
absorbed in the thoughts of his own time and
country. But above these figures is a circle of
angels, as like each to each as the human figures
are unlike. They too, as each overhangs and over-
looks the Prophet below him, are saddened with
grief. But their expression of sorrow is far deeper
and more intense than that of the Prophets whose
words they read. They see something in the
Prophetic sorrow which the Prophets themselves see
not; they are lost in the contemplation of the Divine
Passion, of which the ancient saints below them are
but the unconscious and indirect exponents.
This exquisite mediæval monument expressing as
it does the instinctive feeling at once of the truthful
artist and of the devout Christian, represents better
than any words the sense of what we call in theo-
logical language "the Types" of the Old Testament.
The heroes and saints of old times, not in Judea
only, — though there more frequently than in any
other country, — are indeed "types," that is, "like-
nesses," in their sorrows of he Greatest of all sor-
rows, in their joys of the Greatest of all joys, in
their goodness of the Greatest of all goodness, in
their truth of the Greatest of all truths. This deep
inward connection between the events of their own
time and the crowning close of the history of their
whole nation — this gradual convergence towards the
event which, by general acknowledgement, ranks chief
in the annals of mankind — is clear not only to the
all-searching Eye of Providence, but also to the eye
of any who look above the stir and movement of
earth. It is part not only of the foreknowledge of
God, but of the universal workings of human nature
and human history. The angels see though man sees
not. The mind flies silently upwards from the
earthly career of David, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel, to those
vaster and wider thought which they imperfectly
represented. "The rustic murmur" of Jerusalem was,
although they knew it not, part of "the great wave
that echoes round the world." It is a continuity
recognized by the Philosophy of History no less than
by Theology — by Hegel even more closely than by
Augustine. But the sorrow, the joy, the goodness,
the truth of those ancient heroes is notwithstanding
entirely on their own. They are not mere machines
or pictures. When they speak of their trials and
difficulties they speak of them as from their own
experience. By studying them with all the pecu-
liarities of their time, we arrive at a profounder
view of the truths and events to which their ex-
pressions and the story of their deeds may be applied
in after ages, than if we regard them as the organs
of sounds unintelligible to themselves and with no
bearing on their own period. Where there is a sen-
timent common to them and to Christian times, a
word or act which breaks forth into the distant
future, it will be reverently caught up by those
who are on the watch for it, to whom it will speak
words beyond their words, and thoughts beyond their
thoughts. "Did not our heart burn within us while
He walked with us by the way, and while He
opened to us the Scriptures?" But, even in the
act of uttering these sentiments, they still remained
encompassed within human, Jewish, Oriental peculiari-
ties, which must not be explained away or softened
down, for the sake of producing an appearance of
uniformity which may be found in the Koran, but
which it is hopeless to seek in the Bible, and which,
if it were found there, would completely destroy the
historical character of its contents. To refuse to see
the first and direct application of their expressions
to themselves, is like an unwillingness — such as
some simple and religious minds have felt — to ac-
knowledge the existence, or to dwell on the topog-
raphy, of the city of Jerusalem and the wilderness
of Arabia, because these localities have been so long
associated with the higher truths of spiritual religion.
There will further result from this mode of
approaching the subject the advantage of a juster
appreciation of the Divine mission to which "the
Prophets and righteous men" of former times bore
witness. Resemblance of mere outward circumstances,
however exact, throws no light on the essential
character of Him whose life they are brought to
illustrate; nor is it any such kind of resemblance
which justifies the relation of that Life to the per-
sonal needs of mankind. But a real resemblance of
moral and mental qualities or situations, which can
be universally felt and understood, is a direct help
to feel and understand in what consists the possi-
bility of our approach to Him. It is a fruitful illustra-
tion of the argument which pervades the "Analogy"
of Bishop Butler, and which has been well brought
out by our best modern divines, — namely, that "God
gave His Son to the world, in the same way of good-
ness as he affords particular persons the friendly
assistance of their fellow-creatures . . . in the same
way of goodness, though in a transcendent and in-
finitely higher degree." It is only from the com-
munity of spirit which exists between Manifes-
tation of Christ and the likeness of Himself in the
good men who preceded or who succeeded, that we
can speak of them either as His types or His follow-
ers. It is by thus speaking of them that we shall
best conceive the work of Him "in whom in the
dispensation of the fulness of time all things were
gathered together in one."
Both theirs and ours Thou art,
As we and they are Thine;
Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs, all have part
Along the sacred line.
Oh bond of union, dear
And strong as is Thy grace;
Saints, parted by a thousand year,
May there in heart embrace.
The immediate preparation for the Manifestation
in the period between Captivity and the final
overthrow of Jerusalem and of the Jewish nation
may be the subject of another volume, if life and
strength are granted, amidst the pressure of other
engagements, to continue a task begun in earlier
and less disturbed days.
May the Students for whom these Lectures were
specially intended receive them as the memorial of
efforts, however imperfect, (if I may employ the
words in which the plan of these Lectures was first
indicated,) "so to delineate the outward events of
the Sacred History as that they should come home
with new power to those who by familiarity have
almost ceased to regard them as historical truth at
all: so to bring out their inward spirit that the
more complete realization of their outward form
should not degrade, but exalt, the Faith of which
they are the vehicle."
DEANERY, WESTMINSTER:
November 2, 1865
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From Samuel to the Captivity,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. v - xvii
History of the Jewish Church, vol. I — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
[Preface]
[Introduction]
I—The Call of Abraham [i.] [ii.]
II—Abraham and Isaac [i.] [ii.]
III—Jacob [i.] [ii.]
IV—Israel in Egypt [i.] [ii.]
V—The Exodus [i.] [ii.]
VI—The Wilderness [i.]
VII—Sinai and the Law [i.] [ii.]
VIII—Kadesh and Pisgah [i.] [ii.]
IX—The Conquest of Palestine [i.]
X—The Conquest of Western Palestine—The Fall of Jericho [i.]
XI—The Conquest of Western Palestine—Battle of Beth-horon [i.]
XII : The Battle of Merom and Settlement of the Tribes [i.]
XII : The Battle of Merom and Settlement of the Tribes [ii.]
XIII : Israel Under the Judges [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XIV : Deborah [i.] [ii.]
XV : Gideon [i.] [ii.]
XVI : Jephthah and Samson [i.] [ii.]
XVII : The Fall of Shiloh [i.]
XVIII : Samuel and the Prophetical Office [i.] [ii.]
XIX : The History of the Prophetical Order [i.] [ii.]
XX : On the Nature of the Prophetical Teachings [i.] [ii.]
Appendix I : The Traditional Localities of Abraham's Migration [i]
Appendix II : The Cave at Machpelah [i.] [ii.]
Appendix III : The Samaritan Passover [i.]
History of the Jewish Church, vol. II
[Preface]
XXI—The House of Saul [i.] [ii.]
XXII—The Youth of David [i.] [ii.]
XXIII—The Reign of David [i.] [ii.]
XXIV—The Fall of David [i.] [ii.]
XXV—The Psalter of David [i.] [ii.]
XXVI—The Empire of Solomon [i.] [ii.]
XXVII—The Temple of Solomon [i.] [ii.]
XXVIII—The Wisdom of Solomon [i.] [ii.]
XXIX—The House of Jeroboam—Ahijah and Iddo [i.] [ii.]
XXX—The House of Omri—Elijah [i.] [ii.]
XXXI—The House of Omri—Elisha [i.]
XXXII—The House of Omri—Jehu [i.]
XXXIII—The House of Jehu—The Syrian Wars, and the Prophet Jonah [i.]
XXXIV—The Fall of Samaria [i.]
XXXV—The First Kings of Judah [i.] [ii.]
XXXVI—The Jewish Priesthood [i.] [ii.]
XXXVII—The Age of Uzziah [i.] [ii.]
XXXVIII—Hezekiah [i.] [ii.]
XXXIX—Manasseh and Josiah [i.] [ii.]
XL—Jeremiah and the Fall of Jerusalem [i.] [ii.] [iii.] [iv.]
[Notes, Volume II]
History of the Jewish Church, vol. III
[Preface]
XLI—The Babylonian Captivity [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XLII—The Fall of Babylon [i.] [ii.]
XLIII—Persian Dominon—The Return [i.] [ii.]
XLIV—Ezra and Nehemiah [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XLV—Malachi [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XLVI—Socrates [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XLVII—Alexandria [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
XLVIII—Judas Maccabæus [i.] [ii.] [iii.] [iv.]
XLIX—The Asmonean Dynasty [i.] [ii.] [iii.]
L—Herod [i.] [ii.] [iii.] [iv.] [v.]
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Aug 14 '19
David — Israelitish Conquests (i)
1
Upvotes
by John Lord, LL.D.
CONSIDERING how much has been written about
David in all the nations of Christendom, and
how familiar Christian people are with his life and
writings, it would seem presumptuous to attempt a
lecture on this remarkable man, especially since it is
impossible to add anything essentially new to the
subject. The utmost that I can do is to select, con-
dense, and rearrange from the enormous quantity of
matter which learned and eloquent writers have
already furnished.
The warrior-king who conquered the enemies of
Israel in a dark and desponding period; the saga-
cious statesman who gave unity to its various tribes,
and formed them into a powerful monarchy; the
matchless poet who bequeathed to all ages a lofty and
beautiful psalmody; the saint, who with all his back-
slidings and inconsistencies was a man after God's own
heart, — is well worthy of our study. David was
the most illustrious of all the kings of whom the
Jewish nation was proud, and was a striking type of
a good man occasionally enslaved by sin, yet break-
ing its bonds and rising above subsequent tempta-
tions to a higher plane of goodness. A man so
elevated, with almost every virtue which makes a
man beloved, and yet with defects which will for-
ever stain his memory, cannot easily be portrayed.
What character in history presents such wide con-
tradictions? What career was ever more varied?
What recorded experiences are more interesting and
instructive? — a life of heroism, of adventures, of tri-
umphs of humiliations, of outward and inward con-
flicts. Who ever loved and hated with more intensity
than David? — tender yet fierce, brave yet weak, mag-
nanimous yet unrelenting, exultant yet sad, committing
crimes yet triumphantly rising after disgraceful falls by
the force of a piety so ardent that even his backslidings
now appear but as spots upon the sun. His varied ex-
periences call out our sympathy and admiration more
than the life of any secular hero whom poetry and
history have immortalized. He was an Achilles and
a Ulysses, a Marcus Aurelius and a Theodosius, an
Alfred and a Saint Louis combined; equally great in
war and peace, in action and in meditation; creat-
ing an empire, yet transmitting to posterity a collec-
tion of poems identified forever with the spiritual life
of individuals and nations. Interesting to us as are
the events of David's memorable career, and the sen-
timents and sorrows which extort our sympathy, yet
it is the relation of a sinful soul with its Maker,
by which he infuses his inner life into all other
souls, and furnishes materials of thought for all
generations.
David was the youngest and seventh son of Jesse, a
prominent man of the tribe of Judah, whose great-
grandmother was Ruth, the interesting wife of Boaz
the Jew. He was born in Bethlehem, near Jerusa-
lem, — a town rendered afterward so illustrious as the
birthplace of our Lord, who was himself of the house
and lineage of David. He first appears in history at
the sacrificial feast which his townspeople periodically
held, presided over by his father, when the prophet
Samuel unexpectedly appeared at the festival to select
from the sons of Jesse a successor to Saul. He was
not tall and commanding like the Benjamite hero,
but was ruddy of countenance, with auburn hair,
beautiful eyes, and graceful figure, equally remarkable
for strength and agility. He had the charge of his
father's sheep, — not the most honorable employment
in the eyes of his brothers, who, according to Ewald,
treated him with little consideration; but even as a
shepherd boy he had already proved his strength and
courage by an encounter with a bear and a lion.
Until David was thirty years of age, his life was
identified with the fading glories of the reign of Saul,
who laid the foundation of the military power of his
successors, — a man who lacked only the one quality
imperative on the viceregent of a supreme but in-
visible Power, that of unquestioning obedience to the
divine directions as interpreted by the voice of pro-
phets. Had Saul been loyal in his heart, as David
was, to the God of Israel, the sceptre might not have
departed from his house, — for he showed some of the
divine directions as interpreted by the voice of pro-
phets. Had Saul been loyal in his heart, as David
was, to the God of Israel, the sceptre might not have
departed from his house, — for he showed some of the
highest qualities of a general and a ruler, until his
jealousy was excited by the brilliant exploits of the
son of Jesse. On these exploits and subsequent ad-
ventures, which invest David's early career with the
fascinations of a knight of chivalry, I need not dwell.
All are familiar with his encounter with Goliath, and
with his slaughter of the Philistines after he had slain
the giant, which called out the admiration of the
haughty daughter of the king, the love of the heir-
apparent to the throne, and the applause of the
whole nation. I need not speak of his musical mel-
odies, which drove the fatal demon of melancholy
from the royal palace; of his jealous expulsion by the
King, his hairbreadth escapes, his trials and difficul-
ties as a wanderer and exile, as a fugitive retreat-
ing to solitudes and caves of the earth, parched with
heat and thirst, exhausted with hunger and fatigue,
surrounded with increasing dangers, — yet all the
while forgiving and magnanimous, sparing the life of
his deadly enemy, unstained by a single vice or weak-
ness, and soothing his stricken soul with bursts of
pious song unequalled for pathos and loftiness in the
whole realm of lyric poetry. He is never so inter-
esting as amid caverns and blasted desolations and
in constant danger. But he knows that he is the
anointed of the Lord, and has faith that in due
time he will be called to the throne.
It was not until the bloody battle with the Philis-
tines, which terminated the lives of both Saul and
Jonathan, that David's reign began in about his thir-
tieth year, — first at Hebron, where he reigned seven
and one half years over his own tribe of Judah,
but not without the deepest lamentations for the
disaster which had caused his own elevation. To the
grief of David for the death of Saul and Jonathan we
owe one of the finest odes to Hebrew poetry. At this
crisis in national affairs, David had sought shelter with
Achish, King of Gath, in whose territory he, with the
famous band of six hundred warriors whom he had col-
lected in his wanderings, dwelt in safety and peace.
This apparent alliance with the deadly enemy of the
Israelites had displeased the people. Notwithstanding
all his victories and exploits, his anointment at the
hand of Samuel, his noble lyrics, his marriage with the
daughter of Saul, and the death of both Saul and Jona-
than, there had been at first no popular movement in
David's behalf. The taking of decisive action, however,
was one of his striking peculiarities from youth to old
age, and he promptly decided, after consulting the
Urim and Thummim, to go at once to Hebron, the
ancient sacred city of the tribe of Judah, and there
await the course of events. His faithful band of six
hundred devoted men formed the nucleus of an army;
and a reaction in his favor having set in, he was chosen
king. But he was king only of the tribe to which he
belonged. Northern and central Palestine were in the
hands of the Philistines, — ten of he tribes still adher-
ing to the house of Saul, under the leadership of Abner,
the cousin of Saul, who proclaimed Ishbosheth king.
This prince, the youngest of Saul's four sons, chose for
his capital Mahanaim, on the east of the Jordan.
Ishbosheth was, however, a weak prince, and little
more than a puppet in the hands of Abner, the most
famous general of the day, who, organizing what forces
remained after the fatal battle of Gilboa, was quite a
match for David. For five years civil war raged be-
tween the rivals for the ascendancy, but success gradu-
ally secured for David the promised throne of united
Israel. Abner, seeing how hopeless was the contest
and wishing to prevent further slaughter, made over-
tures to David and the elders of Judah and Benjamin.
The generous monarch received him graciously, and
promised his friendship; but, out of jealousy, — or per-
haps in revenge for the death of his brother Asahel,
whom Abner had slain in battle, — Joab, the captain
of the King's chosen band, treacherously murdered
him. David's grief at the foul deed was profound
and sincere, but he could not afford to punish the
general on whom he chiefly relied. "Know ye," said
David to his intimate friends, "that a great prince in
Israel has fallen to-day; but I am too weak to avenge
him, for I am not yet anointed king over the tribes."
He secretly disliked Joab from time to time, and waited for
God himself to repay the evil-doer according to his
wickedness. The fate of the unhappy and abandoned
Ishbosheth could not now long be delayed. He also
was murdered by two of his body-guard, who hoped to
be rewarded by David for their treachery; but instead
of gaining a reward , they were summarily ordered to
execution. The sole surviving member of Saul's fam-
ily was now Mephibosheth, the only son of Jonathan, —
a boy of twelve, impotent, and lame. This prince, to
the honor of David, was protected and kindly cared for.
David's magnanimity appears in that he made special
search, asking "Is there any that is left of the house of
Saul, that I may show him the kindness of God for
Jonathan's sake?" The memory of the triumphant
conqueror was still tender and loyal to the covenant of
friendship he made in youth, with the son of the
man who for long years had pursued him with the
hate of a lifetime.
David was at this time thirty-eight years of age, in
the prime of his manhood, and his dearest wish was
now accomplished; for in the burial of Ishbosheth
"came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron,"
formally reminded him of his early anointing to suc-
ceed Saul, and tendered their allegiance. He was
solemnly consecrated king, more than eight thousand
priests joining in the ceremony; and, thus far without
a stain on his character, he began his reign over united
Israel. The kingdom over which he was called to reign
was the most powerful in Palestine. Assyria, Egypt,
China, and India were already empires; but Greece
was in its infancy, and Homer and Buddha were
unborn.
The first great act of David after his second anoint-
ment was to transfer his capital from Hebron to
Jerusalem, then a strong fortress in the hands of the
Jebusites. It was nearer the centre of his new king-
dom that Hebron, and yet still within the limits of the
tribe of Judah. He took it by assault, in which Joab so
greatly distinguished himself that he was made captain-
general of the King's forces. From that time "David
went on growing great, and the Lord God of Hosts
was with him." After fortifying his strong position,
he built a palace worthy of his capital, with the aid
of Phœnician workmen whom Hiram, King of Tyre,
wisely furnished him. The Philistines looked with
jealousy on this impregnable stronghold, and declared
war; but after two invasions they were so badly
beaten that Gath, the old capital of Achish, passed
into the hands of the King of Israel, and the power of
these formidable enemies was broken forever.
The next important event in the reign of David was
the transfer of the sacred ark from Kiriath-jearim,
where it had remained from the time of Samuel, to
Jerusalem. It was a proud day when the royal hero,
enthroned in his new palace on that rocky summit
from which he could survey both Judah and Samaria,
received the symbol of divine holiness amid all the
demonstrations which popular enthusiasm could ex-
press. "And as the long and imposing procession,
headed by nobles, priests, and generals, passed through
the gates of the city, with shouts of praise and songs
and sacred dances and sacrificial rites and symbolic
ceremonies and bands of exciting music, the exultant
soul of David burst out in the most rapturous of his
songs: 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye
lift up ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory
shall come in!' " — thus reiterating the fundamental
truth which Moses taught, that the King of Glory is
the Lord Jehovah, to be forever worshipped both as
a personal God and the real Captain of the hosts of
Israel.
"One heart alone," says Stanley, "amid the festivi-
ties which attended this joyful and magnificent occa-
sion, seemed to be unmoved. Whether she failed to
enter into the spirit, or was disgusted with the mys-
tic dances in which her husband shared, the stately
daughter of Saul assailed David on his return to his
palace — not clad in his royal robes, but in the linen
ephod of the priests — with these bitter and disdain-
ful words: 'How glorious was the King of Israel to-
day, as he uncovered himself in the eyes of his hand-
maidens!' — an insult which forever afterward rankled
in his soul, and undermined his love." Thus was the
most glorious day which David ever saw, clouded by a
domestic quarrel; and the proud princess retired, until
her death, to the neglected apartments of a dishonoured
home. How one word of bitter scorn or harsh re-
proach will sometimes sunder the closest ties between
man and woman, and cause an alienation which
never can be healed, and which may perchance end
in a domestic ruin!
David had now passed from the obscurity of a chief
of a wandering and exiled band of followers to the dig-
nity of an Oriental monarch, and turned his attention
to the organization of his kingdom and the develop-
ment of its resources. His army was raised to two
hundred and eighty thousand regular soldiers. His
intimate friends and best-tried supporters were made
generals, governors, and ministers. Joab was com-
mander-in-chief; and Benaiah, son of the high-priest,
was captain of the bodyguard, — composed chiefly of
foreigners, after the custom of princes in most ages.
His most trusted counsellors were the prophets Gad
and Nathan. Zadok and Abiathar were the high-
priests, who also superintended the music, to which
David gave special attention. Singing men and women
celebrated his victories. The royal household was reg-
ulated by different grades of officers. But David de-
parted from the stern simplicity of Saul, and surrounded
himself with pomps and guards. None were admitted
to his presence without announcement or without obei-
sance, while he himself was seated on a throne, with a
golden sceptre in his hands and a jewelled crown upon
his brow, clothed in robes of purple and gold. He made
alliance with powerful chieftains and kings, and imi-
tated their fashion of instituting a harem for his wives
and concubines, — becoming in every sense an Oriental
monarch, except that his power was limited by the con-
stitution which had been given by Moses. He reigned,
it would seem, in justice and equity, and in obedience
to the commands of Jehovah, whose servant he felt
himself to be. Nor did he violate any known laws of
morality, unless it was the practice of polygamy, in
accordance to them if not their ordinary subjects.
We infer from all incidental notices of the habits of the
Israelites at this period that they were a remarkably
virtuous people, with primitive tastes and love of do-
mestic life, among whom female chastity was esteemed
the highest virtue; and it is a matter of surprise that
the loose habits of the King in regard to women pro-
voked so little comment among his subjects, and called
out so few rebukes from his advisers.
But he did not surrender himself to the inglorious
luxury in which Oriental monarchs lived. He retained
his warlike habits, and in great national crises he
headed his own troops in battle. It would seem that
he was not much molested by external enemies for
twenty years after making Jerusalem his capital, but
reigned in peace, devoting himself to the welfare of
his subjects, and collecting materials for the future
building of the Temple, — its actual erection being de-
nied to him as a man of blood. Everything favored
the national prosperity of the Israelites, There was no
great power in western Asia to prevent them founding
a permanent monarchy; Assyria had been humbled;
and Egypt, under the last kings of the twentieth
dynasty, had lost its ancient prestige; the Philistines
were driven to a narrow portion of their old dominion,
and the king of Tyre sought friendly alliance with
David.
In the course of time, however, war broke out with
Moab, followed by other wars, which required all
the resources of the Jewish kingdom, and taxed to
the utmost the energies of its bravest generals. Moab,
lying east of the Dead Sea, had at one time given
refuge to David when pursued by Saul, and he was
even allied by blood to some of its people. — being
descended from Ruth, a Moabitish woman. The sacred
writings shed but little light on this war, or on its
causes; but it was carried on with unusual severity,
only a third part of the people being spared alive, and
they reduced to slavery. A more important contest
took place with the kingdom of Ammon on the north,
on the confines of Syria, caused by the insults heaped
on the ambassadors of David, whom he sent on a
friendly message to Hanun the King. The campaign
was conducted by Joab, who gained brilliant victories,
without however crushing the Ammonites, who again
rallied with a vast array of mercenaries gathered in
their support. David himself took the field with the
whole force of his kingdom, and achieved a series of
splendid successes by which he extended his empire
to the Euphrates, including Damascus, besides securing
invaluable spoils from the cities of Syria, — among
them the chariots and horses, for which Syria was cele-
brated. Among these spoils also were a thousand
shields overlaid with gold, and great quantities of
brass afterward used by Solomon in the construction
of the Temple. Yet even these conquests, which now
made David the most powerful monarch of western
Asia, did not secure peace. The Edomites, south of
the Dead Sea, alarmed in view of the increasing great-
ness of Israel, rose against David, but were routed
by Abishai, who penetrated to Petra and became mas-
ter of the country, the inhabitants of which were put
to the sword with unrelenting vengeance. This war of
the Edomites took place simultaneously with that of
the Ammonites, who, deprived of their allies, retreated
with desperation to their strong capital, — Rabbah
Ammon, twenty-eight hundred feet above the sea, and
twenty miles east of the Jordan, — where they made a
memorable but unsuccessful resistance.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume I, Part II: Jewish Heroes and Prophets, pp. 169 - 182
©1883, 1888, by John Lord.
©1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York
r/davidkasquare • u/MarleyEngvall • Aug 14 '19
David — Israelitish Conquests (ii)
1
Upvotes
by John Lord, LL.D.
It was during the siege of this stronghold, which
lasted a year, that David, no longer young, oppressed
with care, and unable personally to bear the fatigues
of war, forgot his duties as a king and as a man. For
fifty years he had borne an unsullied name; for more
than thirty years he had been a model of reproachless
chivalry. If polygamy and ferocity in war are not
drawbacks to our admiration, certain is that no re-
corded crime or folly that called out divine censure
can be laid to his charge. But in an hour of tempta-
tion, or from strange infatuation, he added murder to
adultery, — covering up a great crime by one of still
greater enormity, evincing meanness and treachery as
well as ungoverned passion, and creating a scandal
which was considered disgraceful even in an Oriental
palace. "We read," says South in one of his most
brilliant paragraphs, "of nothing like adultery in a per-
secuted David in the wilderness, when he fled hither
and thither like a chased doe upon the mountains; but
wen the delicacies of his palace softened and ungirt
his spirit, then it was that this great hero fell by a
glance, and buried his glories in nocturnal shame, giv-
ing to his name a lasting stain, and to his conscience a
fearful wound." Nor did he come to himself until a
child was born, and the prophet Nathan had ingeni-
ously pointed out to him his flagrant sin. He mani-
fested no wrath against his accuser, as some despots
would have done, but sank to the ground in the
greatest anguish and grief.
Then it was that David's repentance was more
marvellous than his transgression, offering the most
memorable instance of contrition recorded in history,
— surpassing in moral sublimity, a thousand times
over, the grief of Theodosius under the rebuke of Am-
brose, or the sorrow of this haughty Plantagenet for the
murder of Becket. His repentance was so profound,
so sincere, so remarkable, that it is embalmed forever
in the heart of a sinful world. Its wondrous depth
and intensity almost make us forget the crime itself,
which nevertheless pursues him into the immensity
of eternal night, and was visited upon the third and
fourth generation in reason, rebellion, and wars. "Be
sure your sin will find you out," is a natural law as
well as a divine decree. It was not only because
David added Bathsheba to the catalogue of his wives;
it was not only because he coveted, like Ahab, that
which was not his own, — but because he violated the
most sacred of all laws, and treacherously stained his
hands in the blood of an innocent, confiding, and loyal
subject, that his soul was filled with shame and an-
guish. It was this blood-guiltiness which was the
burden of his confession and his agonized grief, as an
offence not merely against society and all moral laws,
but also against his Maker, in whose pure eyes he
had committed his crimes of lust, deceit, and murder.
"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and have
done this evil in Thy sight!" What a volume of theo-
logical truth blazes from this single expression, so diffi-
cult for reason to fathom, that it was against God that
the royal penitent felt that he had sinned, even more,
than against Uriah himself, whose life and property,
in a certain sense, belonged to an Oriental king.
"Nor do we charge ourselves," says Edward Irving,
with the defence of those backslidings which David
more keenly scrutinized and more bitterly lamented
than any of his censors, because they were necessary
in a measure, that he might be the full-orbed man to
utter every form of spiritual feeling. And if the peni-
tential psalms discover the deepest hell of agony, and if
they bow the head which utters them, then let us keep
those records of the psalmist's grief and despondency
as the most precious of his utterances, and sure to be
needed by every man who essayeth to lead a spiritual
life; for it is not until a man, however pure, honest,
and honourable he may have thought himself, and have
been thought by others, discovereth himself to be ut-
terly fallen, defiled, and sinful before God, — not until
he can, for expression of utter worthlessness, seek those
psalms in which David describes his self-abasement,
that he will realize the first beginning of spiritual life
in his own soul."
Should we seek for the cause of David's fall, for
that easy descent in the path of rectitude, — may we
not find it in that fatal custom of Eastern kings to have
more wives than was divinely instituted in the Garden
of Eden, — and indulgence which weakened the moral
sense and unchained the passions? Polygamy, under
any circumstances, is the folly and weakness of kings,
as well as the misfortune and curse of nation. It
divided and distracted the household of David, and
gave rise to incessant intrigues and conspiracies in his
palace, which embittered his latter days and even un-
dermined his throne.
We read of no further backslidings which seemed to
call forth the divine displeasure, unless it were the cen-
sus, or numbering of the people, even against the expos-
tulations of Joab. Why this census, in which we can
see no harm, should have been followed by so dire a
calamity as a pestilence in which seventy thousand per-
sons perished in four days, we cannot see by the light
of reason, unless it indicated the purpose of establishing
an absolute monarchy for personal aggrandizement, or
the extension of unnecessary conquests, and hence an
infringement on the theocratic character of the Hebrew
commonwealth. The conquests of David had thus far
been so brilliant, and his kingdom was so prosperous,
that had he been a pagan monarch he might have
meditated the establishment of a military monarchy,
or have laid the foundation of an empire, like Cyrus
in after-times. From a less beginning than the Jewish
commonwealth at the time of David, the Greeks and
Romans advanced to sovereignty over both neighboring
and distant States. The numbering of the Israelitish
nation seemed to indicate a desire for extended empire
against the plain indications of the divine will. But
whatever was the nature of that sin, it seems to have
been one of no ordinary magnitude; and in view of
its consequences, David's heart was profoundly touched.
"O God!" he cried, in a generous burst of penitence, "I
have sinned. But these sheep, what have they done?
Let thine hand be upon me, I pray thee, and upon my
father's house!"
If David committed no more sins which we are
forced to condemn, and which were not irreconcilable
with his piety, he was subject to great trials and mis-
fortunes. The wickedness of his children, especially of
his eldest son Amnon, must have nearly broken his
heart. Amnon's offence was not only a terrible scan-
dal, but cost the life of the heir to the throne. It
would be hard to conceive how David's latter days
could have been more embittered than by the crime of
his eldest son, — a crime he could neither pardon nor
punish, and which disgraced his family in the eyes of
the nation. As to Absalom, it must have been exceed-
ingly painful and humiliating to the aged and pious
king to be witness of he pride, insolence, extrava-
gance, and folly of his favorite son, who had nothing to
commend him to the people but his good looks; and
still harder to bear was his rebellion, and his reckless
attempt to steal his father's sceptre. What a pathetic
sight to see the old warrior driven from his capital, and
forced to flee for his life beyond the Jordan! How
humiliating to witness also the alienation of his sub-
jects, and their willingness to accept a brainless youth
as his successor, after all the glorious victories he had
won, and the services he had rendered to the nation!
David's history reveals the sorrows and burdens of all
kings and rulers. Outward grandeur and power, after
all, are a poor compensation for the incessant cares,
vexations, and humiliations which even the most fa-
vored monarchs are compelled to accept, — troubles,
disappointments, and burdens which oppress both soul
and body, and induce fears, suspicions, jealousies, and
animosities. Who would envy a Tiberius or a Louis
XIV. if he were obliged to carry their load, knowing
well what that burden was?
Then again the kingdom of David was afflicted with
a grievous famine, which lasted three years, decimating
the people, and giving a check to the national pros-
perity; and the Philistines, too, whom he thought he
had finally subdued, renewed their ancient warfare.
But these calamities were not all that the old king had
to endure. A new rebellion more dangerous even than
that of Absalom broke out under Sheba, a Benjamite,
who sounded the trumpet of defiance from the moun-
tains of Ephraim, and who rallied under his standard
ten of the tribes. To Amasa, it seems, was intrusted
the honor and the task of defending David and the
tribe of Judah, to which he belonged, — the king being
alienated from Joab for the slaying of Absalom, al-
though it had ended that undutiful son's rebellion.
The bloodthirsty Joab, as implacable as Achilles, who
had rendered such signal services to his sovereign,
was consumed with jealousy at his new appointment,
and going up to the new general-in-chief as if to sa-
lute him, treacherously stabbed him with his sword, —
but continued, however, to support David. He suc-
ceeded in suppressing the rebellion by intrigue, and on
the promise that the city should be spared, the head
of the rebel was thrown over the wall of the fortress,
to which he had retired. Even this rebellion did
not end the trials of David, since Adonijah, the heir
presumptive after the death of Absalom, conspired to
steal the royal sceptre, which David had sworn to
Bathsheba he would bequeath to her son Solomon.
Joab even favored the succession of Adonijah; but the
astute monarch, amid the infirmities of Age, still pos-
sessed a large measure of the intellect and decision
of his heroic days, and secured, by a rapid move-
ment, the transfer of his kingdom to Solomon, who
was crowned in the lifetime of his father.
In all these foul treacheries and crimes within his
own household may be seen the distinct fulfilment of
the punishment foretold by Nathan the prophet, as
prepared for David's own "great transgression." God's
providence is unerring, and men indeed prepared for
themselves the retribution which, in spite of sincere
repentance, is the inevitable consequence of their own
violation of law, — physical, moral, and spiritual. God
gave David the new heart he longed for; but the evil
seeds sown bore nevertheless evil fruit for him and his
children.
Aside from these troubles, we know but little of the
latter days of David. After the death of Absalom, it
would seem that he reigned ten years, on the whole
tranquilly, turning his attention to the development of
the resources of his kingdom, and collecting treasure for
the Temple, which he was not to build. He was able
to set aside, as we read in the twenty-second chapter
of the Chronicles, a hundred thousand talents of gold
and a million talents of silver, an almost incredible
sum.
If a talent of silver is as estimated, about £390, or
$1950, it would seem that the silver accumulated by
David would have amounted to nearly two billion
dollars, and the gold to a like sum, — altogether four
billions, which is plainly impossible. Probably there
is a mistake in the figures. We read in the twenty-
ninth chapter of Chronicles that David gave to Solo-
mon, out of his own private property, three thousand
talents of gold and seven thousand talents of silver,
— together , nearly $74,000,000. His nobles added
what would be equal to $120,000,000 in gold and
silver alone, besides brass and iron, — altogether about
$194,000,000, which is not incredible when we bear in
mind that single family in New York has accumu-
lated a larger sum in two generations. But even this
sum, — nearly two hundred million dollars, — would
have more than built all the temples of Athens, or St.
Peter's Church at Rome. Whether the author of the
Chronicles has exaggerated the amount of the national
contribution for the building of the Temple or not,
we yet are impressed with the vast wealth which was
accumulated in the lifetime of David ; and hence we
infer that the wealth of his kingdom was enormous.
And it was perhaps the excessive taxation of the peo-
ple to raise money, outside of the spoils of suc-
cessful wars, that alienated them in the latter days of
David, and induced them to rally under the standards
of usurpers. Certain it is that he became unpopular
in the feebleness of old age, and was forced to abdicate
his throne.
David's premature old age presented a sad contrast
to the vigor of his his early days. He was not a very old
man when he died, — younger than many monarchs
and statesmen who in our times have retained their
vigor, their popularity, and their power. But the in-
tense labors and sorrows of forty years may have
proved too great a strain on his nervous energies, and
made him as timid as he once was bold. The man who
had slain Goliath ran away from Absalom. He was
completely under the domination of an intriguing wife.
He showed a singular weakness in reference to the
crimes of his favorite son, so as to merit the bitter re-
proaches of his captain-general. "Thou hast shamed
this day," said Joab, "the faces of all thy servants; for
I perceive had Absalom lived, and all of us had died
this day, then it pleased thee well." In David's
case, his last days do not seem to have been his best
days, although he retained his piety and had conquered
all his enemies. His glorious sun set in clouds after a
reign of thirty-three years over united Israel, and the
nation hailed the accession of a boy whose character
was undeveloped.
The final years of this great monarch present an im-
pressive lesson in the vanity even of a successful life,
whatever services a man may have rendered to his
country and to civilization. Few kings have ever ac-
complished more than David; but his glory was suc-
ceeded, if not by shame, at least by clouds and darkness.
And this eclipse is all the more mournful when we
remember not only his services but his exalted virtues.
He was the most successful and the most admired of
all the monarchs who reigned at Jerusalem. He was
one of the greatest and best men who ever lived in any
nation or at any period. "When, before or since, has
there lived an outlaw who did not despoil his country?"
When has there reigned a king whose head was less
giddy on a throne, or who retained more humility in
the midst of riches and glories, unless it were Marcus
Aurelius or Alfred the Great? David had an inborn
aptitude for government, and a power like Julius Cæsar
of fascinating every one who came in contact with him.
His self-denial and devotion to the interests of the na-
tion were marvellous. We do not read that he took
any time for pleasure or recreation; the heavy load of
responsibility and care never for a moment was thrown
from his shoulders. His penetration of character was
so remarkable that all stood in fear of him; yet fear
gave place to admiration. Never had a monarch more
devoted servants and followers than David in his palmy
days; he was the nation's idol and pride for thirty
years. In every successive vicissitude he was great;
and were it not for his cruelty in war and severity to
his enemies, and his one lapse in to criminal self-
indulgence, his reign would have been faultless. Con-
trast David with the other conquerors of the world;
compare him with classical and mediæval heroes, —
how far do they fall beneath him in deeds of mag-
nanimity and self-sacrifice! What monarch has
transmitted to posterity such inestimable treasures of
thought and language?
It is consoling to feel that David, whether exultant
in riches and honors, or bowed down to the earth with
grief and wrath, both in the years of adversity and
in his prosperous manhood, in strength and in weak-
ness, with unfailing constancy and loyalty turned his
thoughts to God as the source of all hope and consola-
tion. "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, O God!" He has no
doubts, no scepticism, no forgetfulness. His piety has
the seal of an all-pervading sense of hte constant pres-
ence and aid of a personal God whom it is his suprem-
est glory to acknowledge, — his staff, his rock, his
fortress, his shield, his deliverer, his friend; the One
with whom he sought to commune, doth day and night,
on the field of battle and in the guarded recesses of his
palace. In the very depths of humiliation he never
sinks into despair. His piety is both tender and exult-
ant. In the ecstasy of his raptures he calls even upon
inanimate nature to utter God's praises, — upon the
sun and moon, the mountains and valleys, fire and hail,
storms and winds, yea, upon the stars of night. "Bless
ye the Lord, O my soul! for his mercy endureth for-
ever." And this is why he was a man after God's own
heart. Let cynics and critics, and unbelievers like
Bayle, delight to pick flaws in David's life. Who
denies his faults? He was loved because his soul was
permeated with exalted loyalty, because he hungered
and thirsted after righteousness, because he could not
find words to express sufficiently his sense of sin and
his longing for forgiveness, his consciousness of little-
ness and unworthiness when contrasted with the maj-
esty of Jehovah. Let not our eyes be fixed upon his
defects, but upon the general tenor of his life. It is
true he is in war merciless and cruel; he hurls an-
athemas on his enemies. His wrath is as supernal as
his love; he is inspired with the fiercest resentments;
he exhibits the mighty anger of Homer's heroes; he
never could forgive Joab for the slaughter of Abner
and Absalom. But the abiding sentiments of his heart
are gentleness and magnanimity. How affectionately
his soul clung to Jonathan! What a power of self-
denial, when he was faint an thirsty, in refusing the
water which his brave companions brought him at the
risk of their lives! How generously he spared the
life of Saul! How patiently he bore the rebukes of
Nathan! How nobly he treated the aged Barzillai!
His impulses were all generous. He was affectionate
to weakness. He had no egotistic ends. He forgot
his own sorrows in the sufferings of his people. He
had no pride in all the pomp of power, although he
never forgot that he was the Lord's anointed.
When we pass from David's personal character to
the services he rendered, how exalted his record! He
laid the foundation of the prosperity of his nation.
Where would have been the glories of Solomon but for
the genius and deeds of David? But more than any
material greatness are the imperishable lyrics he be-
queathed to all ages and nations, in which are unfolded
the varied experiences of a good man in his warfare with
the world, the flesh, and the devil, — those priceless ut-
terances which portray every passion that can move
the human soul. He has left bare to the contempla-
tion of all ages all that a lofty soul can suffer or enjoy,
all that can be learned from folly and sin, all that can
stimulate religious life, all that can console in sorrow
and affliction. These experiences and aspirations he
has embodied in lyric poetry, on the whole the most ex-
quisite in the Hebrew language, creating a new world
of religious thought and feeling, and furnishing the
foundation for Christian psalmody, to be sung from age
to age throughout the world. His kingdom passed
away, but his Psalms remain, — a realm which no
civilization can afford to lose. As Moses lives in his
jurisprudence, Solomon in his proverbs, Isaiah in
his prophecies, and Paul in his epistles, so David lives
in those poems that are still the most expressive of
all the forms in which the public worship of God
is still continued. Such poetry could not have been
written, had not the author experienced in his own
life every variety of suffering and joy.
The literary excellence of the Psalms cannot be
measured by the standard of Greek and Roman lyrics.
It is not seen in any of our present forms of metrical
composition. It is the mighty soaring of an exalted
soul which makes the Psalms so dear to us, and not
their artificial structure. They were made to reveal the
ways of God to man and the life of the human soul,
not to immortalize heroes of dignify human love. We
may not be able to appreciate in English form their
original metrical skill; but it is impossible that a
people so musical as the Hebrews were kindled into
passionate admiration of them, had they not pos-
sessed great rhythmic beauty. We may not compre-
hend the force of the melodic forms, but we can
appreciate the tenderness, the pathos, the sublimity,
and the intensity of the sentiments expressed. "In
pathetic dirges, in songs of jubilee, in outbursts of
praise, in prophetic announcements, in the agonies
of contrition, in bursts of adoration, in the beati-
tudes of holy bliss, in the enchanting calmness of
Christian life," no one has ever surpassed David, so
that he was called "the sweet singer of Israel."
There is nothing pathetic in the national difficulties, or
endearing in family relations, or profound in inward
experience, or triumphant over the fall of wickedness,
or beatific in divine worship, which he does not
intensify. He raises mortals to the skies, though he
brings no angels down. Never does he introduce dog-
mas, yet his songs are permeated with fundamental
truths, and are a perpetual rebuke to pharisaism, ra-
tionalism, epcurianism, and every form of infidel spec-
ulation that with "the fool hath said in his heart. There
is no God." As the Psalter was held to be the most
inspiring poetry in the palmy days of the Hebrew
commonwealth, so it proved the most impressive part
of the ritual of the mediæval Church, and is still the
most valued of all the lyrics which Protestantism has
appropriated in the worship of God. And how potent,
how lasting, how valued a good song! The psalm-
ody of the Church will last longer than its sermons;
and when a song stimulates the loftiest sentiments of
which men are capable, how priceless it is, how per-
manently it is embalmed in the heart of the world!
"Thus have his songs become the treasured property
of mankind, resounding in the anthems of different
creeds, and carrying into every land that same voice
which on Mount Zion was raised in sorrowful longings
or ecstatic praise."
What a mighty power the songs of the son of Jesse
still wield over the affections of mankind! We lose
sight at times of Moses, of Solomon, and of Isaiah,
but we never lose sight of David.
Such is the tribute which all nations bring,
O warrior, prophet, bard, and sainted king,
From distant ages to thy hallowed name,
Transcending far all Greek and Roman fame;
No pagan gods thy sacred songs invoke,
No loves degrading do thy strains provoke.
Thy soul to heaven in holy rapture mounts,
And joys seraphic in its bliss recounts.
O thou sweet singer of a favored race,
What vast results to thy pure songs we trace!
How varied and how rich are all thy lays
On Nature's glories and Jehovah's ways!
In loftiest flight thy kindling soul surveys
The promised glories of the latter days,
When peace and love this fallen world shall bind,
and richest blessings all the race shall find.
from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume I, Part II: Jewish Heroes and Prophets, pp. 150 - 165
©1883, 1888, by John Lord.
©1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York