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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



by Tyrian artists. Royal pensioners, of whom 

 Jonathan's son Mephibosheth was one, were 

 gathered round a princely table. Tire art of 

 music was not neglected (2 Samuel xix. 35). A 

 more dangerous piece of magnificence was the 

 harem, which, though always deemed an indis- 

 pensable part of Eastern state, did not befit a 

 servant of Jehovah, and gave rise to public scan- 

 dal as well as to fatal disorders in the king's 

 household. Except in this particular, David 

 seems to have ventured on only one dangerous 

 innovation, which was undertaken amid univer- 

 sal remonstrances, and was checked by the re- 

 bukes of the prophet Gad and the visitation of 

 a pestilence. To us, the proposal to number the 

 people seems innocent or laudable. But David's 

 conscience accepted the prophetic rebuke, and 

 he tacitly admitted that the people were not 

 wrong in condemning his design as an attempt 

 upon their liberties, and an act of presumptuous 

 self-confidence (2 Samuel xxiv.). 



2. David's wars were always successful, and, 

 so far as we can judge from the brief record, were 

 never provoked by himself. His first enemies 

 were the Philistines, who rose in arms as soon as 

 he became king of all Israel. W read of two 

 great battles in the valley of Rephaim, westward 

 from Jerusalem (2 Samuel v.); and a record of 

 individual exploits and of personal dangers run 

 by David is preserved in 2 Samuel xxi. and xxiii. 

 At length the Philistines were entirely humbled, 

 and the " bridle " of sovereignty was wrested 

 from their hands (chapter viii. 1, Heb.) But 

 the long weakness of Israel had exposed the na- 

 tion to wrongs from their neighbors on every side ; 

 and the Tynans, whose commerce was benefited 

 by a stable government in Canaan, were the only 

 permanent allies of David. Moab, an ancient and 

 bitter foe, was chastised by David with a severity 

 for which no cause is assigned, but which may 

 pass for a gentle reprisal if the Moabites of that 

 day were not more humane than their descendants 

 in the days of King Mesha. A deadly conflict 

 with the Ammonites was provoked by a gross in- 

 sult to friendly embassadors of Israel ; and this 

 war, of which we have pretty full details in 2 

 Samuel x. 1-xi. 1, xii. 26-31, assumed dimensions 

 of unusual magnitude when the Ammonites pro- 

 cured the aid of their Aramean neighbors, and 

 especially of Hadadezer, whose kingdom of Zoba 

 seems to have held at that time a preeminence in 

 Syria at least equal to that which was afterward 

 gained by Damascus. The defeat of Hadadezer 

 in two great campaigns brought in the voluntary 

 or forced submission of all the lesser kingdoms 



of Syria as far as the Orontes and the Euphrates. 

 The glory of this victory was increased by the 

 simultaneous subjugation of Edom in a war con- 

 ducted by Joab with characteristic severity. Af- 

 ter a great battle on the shores of the Dead Sea, 

 the struggle was continued for six months. The 

 Edomites contested every inch of ground, and all 

 who bore arms perished (2 Samuel viii. 13; 1 

 Kings xi. 15-17; Psalm lx., title). The war 

 with Ammon was not ended till the following 

 year, when the fall of Rabbah crowned David's 

 warlike exploits. But the true culminating point 

 of his glory was his return from the great Syrian 

 campaign, laden with treasures to enrich the 

 sanctuary ; and it is at this time that we may 

 suppose him to have sung the great song of tri- 

 umph preserved in 2 Samuel xxii. (Psalm xviii.). 

 Before the fall of Rabbah this glory was clouded 

 with the shame of Bath-sheba, and the blood of 

 Uriah. 



3. As the birth of Solomon cannot have been 

 earlier than the capture of Rabbah, it appears 

 that David's wars were ended within the first half 

 of his reign at Jerusalem, and the tributary na- 

 tions do not seem to have attempted any revolt 

 while he and Joab lived (compare 1 Kings xi. 

 14-25). But when the nation was no longer knit 

 together by the fear of danger from without, the 

 internal difficulties of the new kingdom became 

 more manifest. The inveterate jealousies of 

 Judah and Israel reappeared; and, as has been 

 already mentioned, the men of Judah were the 

 chief malcontents. In this respect, and presuma- 

 bly not in this alone, David suffered for the very 

 excellence of his impartial rule. In truth, all in- 

 novations are dangerous to an Eastern sovereign, 

 and all Eastern revolutions are conservative. On 

 the other hand, David continued to tolerate some 

 ancient usages inconsistent with the interests of 

 internal harmony. The practice of blood-revenge 

 was not put down, and by allowing the Gibeon- 

 ites to enforce it against the house of Saul, the 

 king involved himself in a feud with the Benja- 

 mites (compare 2 Samuel xxi. with chapter xvi. 

 8, which refers to a later date). Yet he might 

 have braved all these dangers but for the disorders 

 of his own family, and his deep fall in the matter 

 of Bath-sheba, from which the prophet Nathan 

 rightly foresaw fatal consequences, not to be 

 averted even when divine forgiveness accepted 

 the sincere contrition of the king. That the na- 

 tion at large was not very sensitive to the moral 

 enormities which flow from the system of the 

 harem is clear from 2 Samuel xvi. 21. But the 

 kingdom of David was strong by rising above the 



