DA YID, KING OF ISRAEL. 



17 



to reign for seven years and a half. His noble 

 ele"7 on the death of Saul and Jonathan, and his 

 message of thanks to the men of Jabesh Gilead 

 for their chivalrous rescue of the bodies of the i 

 fallen heroes, show how deeply he sympathized 

 with the disasters of his nation ; aud even in 

 Northern Israel many now looked to him as their 

 only helper (2 Samuel iii. 17). But David was 

 not lacking in the caution and even craftiness 

 proper to an Oriental hero ; and he appears to 

 have been careful not to irritate the Philistines 

 by any premature national movement. As he 

 retained Ziklag, we must suppose that he had 

 some agreement with his former suzerain Achish. 

 Abner gradually consolidated the authority of 

 Ishbaal in the north, and at length his forces met 

 those of David at Gibeon. A sham contest was 

 changed into a fatal fray by the treachery of Ish- 

 baal's men, and in the battle which ensued, Ab- 

 ner was not only defeated, but, by slaying Asa- 

 hel, drew upon himself a blood feud with Joab. 

 The war continued. Ishbaal's party waxed weak- 

 er and weaker ; and at length Abner quarreled 

 with his nominal master, and offered the kingdom 

 to David. The base murder of Abner by Joab 

 did not long defer the inevitable issue of events. 

 Ishbaal was assassinated by two of his own fol- 

 lowers, and all Israel sought David as king. 



The Biblical narrative is not so constructed 

 as to enable us to describe in chronological order 

 the thirty-three years of David's reign over all 

 Israel. Let us look at (1) his internal policy, (2) 

 his relations to foreign nations, (3) other events. 



1. Under the judges all authority was at bot- 

 tom local or tribal, and the wider influence 

 wielded by the more famous of these rulers took 

 the form of a temporary preeminence or he- 

 gemony of the judge's own tribe. The kingdom 

 of Saul was not radically different in character. 

 There was no national centre. Saul ruled as a 

 Benjamite from his paternal city of Gibeah (see 

 1 Samuel xxii. 7). At the risk of alienating the 

 men of Judah, who in fact appear as the chief 

 malcontents in subsequent civil disturbances, 

 David resolved to break through these prece- 

 dents, and to form a truly national kingdom in- 

 dependent of tribal feeling. The success of so 

 bold a conception was facilitated by the circum- 

 stance that, unlike previous kings, he was sur- 

 rounded by a small but thoroughly-disciplined 

 standing army, having gradually shaped his troop 

 of freebooters into an organized force of six hun- 

 dred " mighty men " (Gibborim), always under 

 arms, and absolutely attached to his person. The 

 king began the execution of his plan by a stroke 

 38 



which at once provided a centre for future action, 

 and gave the necessary prestige to his new king- 

 dom. Be stormed the Jebusite fortress of Jerusa- 

 lem, which its inhabitants deemed impregnable, and 

 here, in the centre of the country, on the frontier 

 between Judah and Benjamin, he fortified the 

 "city of David," the stronghold of Zion, and gar- 

 risoned it with his Gibborim. His next aim was 

 to make Jerusalem the religious as well as the 

 political centre of the kingdom. The ark of Je- 

 hovah, the only sanctuary of national significance, 

 had remained in obscurity since its return from 

 the Philistines in the early youth of Samuel. 

 David brought it up from Kirjath-Jearim with 

 great pomp, and pitched a tent for it in Zion, 

 amid national rejoicings. No action of David's 

 life displayed truer political insight than this. 

 But the whole narrative (2 Samuel vi.) shows 

 that the insight was that of a loyal and God- 

 fearing heart, which knew that the true prin- 

 ciple of Israel's unity and strength lay in na- 

 tional adherence to Jehovah (compare Psalms 

 xv. and xxiv., one or both of which may refer to 

 this occasion). It was probably at a later period, 

 when his kingdom was firmly established, that 

 David proposed to erect a permanent temple to 

 Jehovah. The prophet Nathan commanded the 

 execution of this plan to be delayed for a gen- 

 eration ; but David received at the same time 

 a prophetic assurance that his house and king- 

 dom should be established forever before Jeho- 

 vah. 



In civil and military affairs David was careful 

 to combine necessary innovations with a due re- 

 gard for the old habits and feelings of the people, 

 which he thoroughly understood and turned to good 

 account. The six hundred Gibborim, and a small 

 body-guard of foreign troops from Philistia (the 

 Cherethites and Pelethites), formed a central 

 military organization, not large enough to excite 

 popular jealousy, but sufficient to provide officers 

 and furnish an example of discipline and endur- 

 ance to the old national militia, exclusively com- 

 posed of foot-soldiers. In civil matters the king 

 looked heed fully to the execution of justice (2 

 Samuel viii. 15), and was always accessible to the 

 people (2 Samuel xiv. 4). But he does not appear 

 to have made any change in the old local adminis- 

 tration of justice, or to have appointed a central 

 tribunal (2 Samuel xv. 2, where, however, Absa- 

 lom's complaint that the king was inaccessible is 

 merely factious). A few great officers of state 

 were appointed at the court of Jerusalem (2 Sam- 

 uel viii.), which was not without a splendor hith- 

 erto unknown in Israel. The palace was built 



