left his son Chimham to receive the favors which he himself was too old to enjoy ; and one of David's last acts was to commend the family to the generosity of Solomon."**

§ 11. The joy of the king's return was disturbed by the angry jealousy of the rest of Israel against Judah for beginning the movement without them.155 The fierce tone of Judah seems to have provoked the old animosity of Benjamin; and Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite, proclaiming that the tribes had no interest in the house of Jesse, blew the trumpet of revolt, and raised the cry, "Every man to his tents, O Israel!" The king, who had now returned to Jerusalem, ordered his new captain, Amasa, to muster the forces of Judah in three days, that the rebellion might be crushed while it was confined to Benjamin. Amasa's slowness compelled David to have recourse again to the sons of Zeruiah, and Abishai led forth the body-guard of Cherethites and Pelethites and the heroes, accompanied by Joab. Gibeon once more became the scene of battle. They found Amasa there before them with the main army, and under the show of an embrace, Joab dealt his favored rival one fatal blow, and then pressed on the pursuit after Sheba with his brother Abishai. One of Joab's followers stood over Amasa as he lay wallowing in his blood on the highway, bidding all the friends of Joab and of David to go forward; but, when he saw their hesitation, he carried the corpse aside into a field, and covered it with a mantle, and so the pursuit went on. Sheba fled northward, raising the tribes of Israel on his way, to Abel-beth-maachah, near the sources of the Jordan, a city and metropolis in Israel."17 The forces of Sheba seem to have melted away before Joab's hot pursuit, and he was besieged in Abel. This city was proverbial for the oracular wisdom of its inhabitants; and "a wise woman" now saved it by first learning Joab's demands in a parley, and then inducing the people to comply with them by throwing the head of Sheba over the wall. 158 The suppression of this rebellion closes the second period of David's reign. Its remaining part was only disturbed by a war with the Philistines at Gezer, the 154 2 Sam. xix, 31-40. See the ground round the "Waters of Mebeautiful use made of this incident by rom. Comp. 1 K. xv. 20; 2 K. xv. Keble: Christian Year, Restoration of 29; 2 Chron. xvi. 4 (Stanley's S. & the Royal Family. P., p. 390, note).

155 2 Sam. xix. 41-43.

156 2 Sam. xx. 1–13.

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156

158 The whole history of Absalom's rebellion and the events that followed, down to the death of Sheba, is omitted in Chronicles.

date of which is unknown, and in which several of David's heroes signalized their individual strength and prowess.

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99160

159

To this epoch ought probably to be referred the remarkable Psalm, which is recorded in the Second Book of Samuel, as "a song spoken by David to Jehovah in the day that Jehovah delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul." It stands in the Book of Psalms as the eighteenth, with the description of David in the title as the servant of Jehovah;" words no doubt intended to ascribe to Him all David's glories. Needless difficulty has been felt about the mention of Saul in the title, which even recent events might have suggested, as Sheba's rebellion was the dying effort of Saul's party; but, what is more natural than that, in thanking God for deliverance from all his enemies, David should lay the greatest emphasis on the earliest and the most dangerous of them all ?161

§ 12. David's life, in the very character of its separate parts, is typical of that whole course of experience which is seen in the men who best represent humanity: a youth of promise, a manhood of conflict, trouble, and temptation, not free from falls, and a serene old age. The work which was properly his own was now done, and the third and closing period of his reign was occupied in preparing for the culminating glories of the earthly kingdom of Israel under his successor. But the parallel would scarcely have been true, had the evening of his life been perfectly unclouded. As has been remarked before, the three periods of his reign were stamped each with a great external calamity, the lesson of which God made plainer by the numerical parallel; three years of famine, to avenge the cruelties of Saul, three months of flight before rebellious Absalom, and now three days of pestilence, a form of judgment analogous to the offense that called it down.

"Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number the people." That this was no ordinary census, is

161 This view is confirmed by the allusions in 2 Sam. xxii. 5-7, 17-20; Psalm xviii. 4-6, 16–19, and especially the words "my strong enemy," v. 18 (17 of the Psalm).

162

160 2 Sam. xxii. Perhaps it may be placed after the pestilence; but the absence of any allusion to that deliverance, and the specific reference to 1 Chron. xxi. 1. We learn from success in war, both in the title and the parallel passage, 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, the Psalm itself, best accord with the that Satan was the allowed agent place here given to it. The title of Jehovah's anger, excited doubtless must be regarded as an integral part by the spirit which the act displayof the Psalm.

ed.

163

66

164

clear not only from the punishment that followed it, but from the remonstrances of Joab, to whom the business was intrusted, and to whom it was so abominable that he omitted the tribes of Levi and Benjamin altogether.' By David's own desire, all under twenty were omitted" because Jehovah had said that he would increase Israel like to the stars of the heavens."165 And that some distrust of this truth was at the root of David's sin, is implied in the terms of Joab's remonstrance. The transaction seems to have sprung from a self-confident desire to consolidate the forces of the kingdom, to exult in their greatness, and to hold them in the readiness of a full military organization for new enterprises. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that some specific conquest was meditated beyond the limits of the promised land. And so God sent a punishment which showed how easily He who had promised that Israel should be increased like the stars of heaven and the sand by the sea-shore,' 166 and who could have added unto the people, how many soever they might be, a hundred-fold, could cut down their numbers at a stroke.

167

Early in the morning after the work was finished, the prophet Gad was sent to David, whose conscience had already prepared him for the visit, to offer the choice of three modes of decimating the people, a three years' famine, a three months' flight before his enemies, or a three days' pestilence. The king, who had experienced the two former calamities, now chose the latter with pious resignation, saying, "Let us fall now into the hand of Jehovah; for His mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man." The pestilence raged for the appointed time, and 70,000 of the people died, from Dan to Beersheba. Its cessation was a turning-point in the history of the nation. The breaking out of the plague in Jerusalem itself was accompanied by the awful appearance of an angel hovering in the air just outside of the wall, and stretching out a drawn sword toward the city. At this sight, David cried to Jehovah, praying that He would let the punishment fall on him and his house, " but these sheep,

163 2 Sam. xxiv. 3; 1 Chron. xxi. 3. Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. 104 1 Chron. XX1. 6, xxvii. 24. The From 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, we learn that latter passage seems to imply that the it gave 800,000 valiant warriors for plague began before Joab came to Israel, and 500,000 for Judah. these two tribes; but it appears from occupied Joab 9 months and 20 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, that Joab completed days. all he intended.

It

166 Gen. xv. 5. 167 2 Sam. xxiv. 3. 165 1 Chron. xxvii. 23. 168 The result 2 Sam. xxiv. 10-15; 1 Chron. of the census was not recorded in the xxi. 9-13.

169

what have they done?" His intercession was accepted. The prophet Gad came to him again, bidding him to erect an altar to Jehovah on the spot over which the angel had been seen. That spot was occupied by the threshing-floor of ARAUNAH, or ORNAN, one of the old Jebusites of the city. He was evidently a man of the highest consideration; and, from certain expressions, it has even been supposed that he had been the king of Jebus before its capture by David. 1 Araunah was engaged, with his four sons, in threshing corn by means of sledges drawn by oxen, when the vision of the angel caused them to hide themselves for fear; but on seeing the king approach, with his courtiers, Araunah came forth end bowed down before him, offering, as soon as he learned his wish, to give him the threshing-floor as a free gift, and the oxen and the implements for a burnt-offering. But David refused to offer to Jehovah that which had cost him nothing, and paid to Araunah the royal price of 600 shekels of gold for the ground, and 50 shekels of silver for the oxen. There he built an altar to Jehovah, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and the plague ceased."0

This altar first distinctly marked the hill as the sacred spot which Jehovah had long promised to choose for his abode. The ark had indeed been placed for some time in the city of David, but the stated sacrifices had still been offered on the original brazen altar before the tabernacle of Gibeon;' and even after the removal of the ark, God had spoken to David of His choice of a place to build His house

171

as yet to be made. 172 That choice was now revealed by the

descent of fire from heaven on David's sacrifice, as upon the altar of burnt-offering in the wilderness;173 and David recognized the sign, and said, "This is the HOUSE OF JEHOVAH GOD, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel."174 The place received the name of MORIAH (vision) from the appearance of God to David, as the first destroying angel, and then by the sign of fire. 175

David at once commenced his preparations for the edifice. We have seen him long ago devoting to this use the spoils of his victories, which now amounted to 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver;" and now he collected 174 1 Chron. xxii. 1.

169 2 Sam. xxiv. 23. "All these things did Araunah, a king, give unto the king."

170 2 Sam. xxiv. 18-25; 1 Chron. xxi. 18-30. 1712 Chron. i. 3.

172 2 Sam. vii. 10, 13. 173 1 Chron. xxi. 26.

175

2 Chron. iii. 1. Respecting the supposed identity of this Moriah with the place of Israel's sacrifice, see Notes and Illustrations, p. 92, 93.

176 There has been much discussion concerning the enormous and seem

all the skilled foreign workmen that could be found in the land, to hew stones and to do all other work: he prepared iron and brass without weight, and procured the cedar-wood of Lebanon from the Sidonians and Tyrians. But the work itself was destined to another hand. To his son SOLOMON, now designated as his successor, he gave the charge to build a house for Jehovah, God of Israel. He told his son how God had denied him this desire of his heart, because he had been a man of war, and had shed much blood upon the earth; and how He had promised its fulfillment by a son, who was to be named Solomon (peaceful), because under him Israel should have peace, and whose throne should be established over Israel forever. He also charged the princes of Israel to help Solomon, and to set their heart and soul to seek Jehovah.""

178

§ 13. The designation of Solomon gave the deathblow to the hopes of ADONIJAH, the son of Haggith, David's fourth, and eldest surviving son, a man of great personal beauty, whom his father had always treated with indulgence. Taking advantage of David's increasing feebleness," he resolved to make himself king. Like Absalom, he prepared a guard of chariots and horses and fifty foot-runners, and he gained over Joab and Abiathar. Zadok, however, with Benaiah, the captain of the body-guard, and David's heroes, and the prophet Nathan, remained faithful to the king. When Adonijah thought his project ripe, he invited his adherents, with all the king's sons (except Solomon), who seem to have shared his jealousy, to a great banquet at the rock of Zoheleth, near Enrogel, where, amid the mirth of the festival, the cry was raised, "Long live King Adonijah.'

ingly incredible amount of the gold scribes; but we can not be sure that and silver; though, considering the they have been accurately transmitted way in which treasures have always to us, or, if they have, that we perfectbeen amassed in the East, it is hard ly understand their value in our deto assign the limits of credibility. nominations either of weight ormoney. One suggestion is to adopt some other 177 1 Chron. xxii., xxviii. 2-8. The talent than the Babylonian. But the comparison of these passages with 2 safest way is to avoid attaching undue Sam. vii. suggests that David's renewimportance to exact arithmetical com- ed desire to build the Temple had putations, as comparatively indiffer- called forth fuller intimations of God's ent, and to be content with the gen- will both in respect to himself and to cral impression produced by the large Solomon. In another passage, Solonumber of what we know to have been mon himself assigns the constant occuvery considerable units. We may be pation of David in war as the reason quite sure that, in the original docu- of the delay (1 K. v. 3). ments, the exact quantities were faithfully copied from the registers of the

178 1 K. i. 6.

179 1 K. i. 1-4.