Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/875

Rh DAVID men, and of the generosity which tempered his fiery nature, is given in 1 Sam. xxv. His force gradually swelled, and he was joined by the prophet Gad and by the priest Abiathar, the only survivor of a terrible massacre by which Saul took revenge for the favours which David had received at the sanctuary of Nob. He was even able to strike at the Philistines, and to rescue Keilah, in the low country of Judah, from their attack. Had he been willing to raise the standard of revolt against Saul, he might pro bably have made good his position, for he was now openly pointed to as divinely designed for the kingship. But though Saul was hot in pursuit, and though he lived in constant fear of being betrayed, 1 David refused to do this. His blameless conduct retained the confidence of Jonathan (1 Sam. xxiii. 16), and he deserved that confidence by sparing the life of Saul. 2 But at length it became plain that he must either resist by force or seek foreign protec tion. He went to Achish of Oath, and was established in the outlying town of Ziklag, where his troops might be useful in chastising the Amalekites and other robber tribes who made forays on Philistia and Judah without distinction. 3 At Ziklag David continued to maintain amicable relations with his friends in Judah, and his little army received accessions even from Saul s own tribe of Benjamin (1 Chron.xii. 1). At length, in the second year, he was called to join his master in a great campaign against Saul. The Philistines directed their forces towards the rich valley of Jezreel ; and Saul, forsaken by Jehovah, already gave himself up for lost. It may be doubted whether the men of Judah took part in this war ; and on his march David was joined by influential deserters from Israel (1 Chrou. xii.). The prestige of Saul s reign was gone ; and the Hebrews were again breaking up into parties, each ready to act for itself. Under such circumstances David might well feel that loyalty to his new master was his first duty. But he was providentially saved from the necessity of doing battle with his countrymen by the jealousy of the Philistine lords, who demanded that he be sent back to Ziklag. He returned to find the town pillaged by the Amalekites ; but pursuing the foes he inflicted upon them a signal chastise ment and took a great booty, part of which he spent in politic gifts to the leading men of the Judean towns. Meantime Saul had fallen, and northern Israel was in a state of chaos. The Philistines took possession of the fertile lowlands of Jezreel and the Jordan; and the shattered forces of Israel were slowly rallied by Abner in the remote city of Mahanaim in Gilead, under the nominal sovereignty of Saul s son Ishbaal. The tribe of Judah, 1 1 Sam. xxiii. 12, 19, Psalm vii., 1 Chron. xii. 17. 1 Sam. xxvi. 1 seems to refer to the same event as ch. xxiii. 19. 8 We have seen that this act of generosity either was repeated or is twice recorded, 1 Sam. xxiv. and xxvi. Neither narrative suggests the existence of the other, and the two are not more divergent than the two forms of the story of Goliath. But it is hard to comprehend how Ewald can give the preference to ch. xxiv. The tour-de-force by which he changes Saul s cruse of water into a basin, and adduces legendary parallels, ignores obvious features of truthfulness in ch. xxvi. Compare Thomson s Land and Book, p. 567. The conversation in ch. xxvi. is full of antique and characteristic ideas wanting in ch. xxiv. That David is recognized by his voice is meaningless in xxiv. 16 (comp. ver. 8), but appropriate in xxvi. 17. 3 1 Sam. xxvii. 7-12, must be compared with ch. xxx. 14, 16. The Cherethites whom the Amalekites attacked were Philistines. It must not therefore be supposed, as ch. xxvii. might seem to imply, that David systematically attacked populations friendly to Achish, and then pretended that he had been making forays against Judah. Such a policy could not have been long kept secret, and M it is pretty plain l jiat the Philistines acquiesced in David s sovereignty in Hebron, it is not easy to see that they ever had an interest in embroiling him with the men of Judah. They coveted the richer lands of northern Canaan (1 Sam. xxxi. 7), and it would be their wise policy to detach Judah from Israel. The details of the text and meaning of 1 Sam. xxvii. 7-li! are very obscure. always loosely attached to the northern Hebrews, was in these circumstances compelled to act for itself. David saw his opportunity, and advanced to Hebron, where he was anointed king of Judah at the age of thirty, and continued to reign for seven years and a half. His noble elegy 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 fallen heroes, show how deeply he sympathized with the disasters of his nation ; and even in northern Israel many now looked to him as their only helper (2 Sam. 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 agree ment 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 Ishbaal s men ; and in the battle which ensued Abner was not only defeated, but, by slaying Asahel, drew upon him self a blood feud with Joab. The war continued. Ishbaal s party waxed weaker and weaker ; and at length Abner quarrelled 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 followers, 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 bottom local or tribal, and the wider influence wielded by the more famous of these rulers took the form of a temporary pre eminence or hegemony 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 (cf. 1 Sam. 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 precedents, and to form a truly national kingdom independent of tribal feel ing. The success of so bold a conception was facilitated by the circumstance that, unlike previous kings, he was surrounded by a small but thoroughly disciplined standing army, having gradually shaped his troop of freebooters into an organized force of 600 &quot; mighty men&quot; (Gibborim), always under arms, and absolutely attached to his person. The king began the execution of his plan by a stroke which at once provided a centre for future action, and gave the necessary prestige to his new kingdom. He stormed the Jebusite fortress of Jerusalem, which its inhabitants deemed impregnable, and here, in the centre of the country, on the frontier between Judah and Benjamin, he fortified the &quot; city of David,&quot; the stronghold of Zion, and garrisoned 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 Jehovah, the only sanctuary of national signifi cance, 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, amidst national rejoicings. No action of David s life displayed truer political insight than this. (See AEK.) But the whole narrative (2 Sam. vi.) shows that the insight was that of a loyal and God-fearing heart, which knew that the true principle of Israel s unity and strength lay in national adherence to Jehovah (comp. Pas, xv. and xxiv., one or both of which may refer to this