i88 7 ] KENAN S &quot; HISTOIRE D ISRAfiL &quot; 621 



without feeling pain/ It is fair to read David s earlier 

 life in the light reflected upon it by these considerations. 

 He passed through conditions of extraordinary difficulty 

 in which there was often no straight path, and in such 

 circumstances a certain amount of ruse is not only per 

 mitted but applauded by Semitic morality. But through 

 out a seemingly tortuous course he never failed to retain 

 his own self-respect and the passionate devotion of all his 

 followers, and he emerged from trials in which an ordinary 

 nature would have made shipwreck to do his country 

 services of the first order and to take a place in which he 

 has no rival among Hebrew sovereigns. To condemn 

 him because he was ambitious would be to condemn every 

 great man whose career is impelled by an inward con 

 sciousness of strength : what we are to consider is that his 

 ambition was noble and patriotic. That he played the 

 traitor to Saul and to his country there is not a particle 

 of evidence ; that he may have hoped to succeed Saul is 

 possible, but this was not treason in a kingdom where there 

 were as yet no fixed hereditary rights. The Philistines 

 he certainly deceived ; but here his conduct, however 

 contrary to our point of honour, was not such as to trouble 

 the most sensitive Semitic conscience. That he had any 

 responsibility for the death of Abner is a pure imagination. 

 M. Renan wonders that he did not punish Joab, but under 

 the law of blood-revenge Joab was strictly within his 

 right. Finally, when M. Renan says that few natures 

 seem to have been less religious than David s, and charges 

 him with an absolute lack of the sentiment of justice, he 

 seems to use a false standard both of religion and of 

 justice. David s religion was not cosmopolitan ; in his 

 faith as in all his life he was an Israelite, bound by that 

 strict national feeling and even respect for national 

 prejudice which was then the basis of the whole code of 

 right and honour. But it is a great mistake to suppose 

 that the social virtues are based on cosmopolitanism, 

 that a religion which does not look beyond the nation 



