Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/876

Rh 840 DAVID occasion). It was probably at a later period, wlion 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 generation; but David received at the same time a prophetic assurance that his house and kingdom should be established for ever before Jehovah. In civil and military affairs David was careful to combine necessary innovations with a due regard for the old habits and feelings of the people, which he thoroughly understood and turned to good account. The 600 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 endurance to the old national militia, exclu sively composed of foot-soldiers. 1 In civil matters the king looked needfully to the execution of justice (2 Sam. viii. 15), and was always accessible to the people (2 Sam. xiv. 4). But he does not appear to have made any change in the old local administration of justice, or to have appointed a central tribunal (2 Sam. xv. 2, where, however, Absalom 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. viii.), which was not without a splendour hitherto unknown in Israel. The palace was built by Tyrian artists. Royal pensioners, of whom Jonathan s sou Mephibosheth was one, were gathered round a princely table. The art of music was not neglected (2 Sam. xix. 35). A more dangerous piece of magnificence was the harem, which, though always deemed an indispensable part of Eastern state, did not befit a servant of Jehovah, and gave rise to public scandal 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 amidst universal remonstrances, and was checked by the rebukes 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 con science 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 Sam. 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. We read of two great battles in the valley of Rephaim, west ward from Jerusalem (2 Sam. v.) ; and a record of in dividual exploits and of personal dangers run by David is preserved in 2 Sam. xxi. and xxiii. At length the Philistines were entirely humbled, and the &quot; bridle &quot; of sovereignty was wrested from their hands (chap. viii. 1, Heb.) But the long weakness of Israel had exposed the nation to wrongs from their neighbours on every side ; and the Tyrians, 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 2 . A deadly conflict with the Ammonites was provoked by a gross insult to friendly ambassadors of Israel ; and this war, of which we have pretty full details in 2 Sam. x. 1-xi. 1, xii. 26-31, 1 For the manner in which this national force was called out, com pare 1 Chron. xxvii. 2 David destroyed two-thirds of the Moabites presumably of their fighting men (2 Sam. viii. 2). Mesha destroys every inhabitant of cities captured in honour of his god Chemosh. assumed dimensions of unusual magnitude when the Ammonites procured the aid of their Aramean neighbours, and especially of Hadadezer, whose kingdom of Zoba seems to have held at that time a pre-eminence in Syria at least equal to that which was afterwards 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. 3 The glory of this victory was increased by the simultaneous subjugation of Edom in a war conducted by Joab with characteristic severity. After 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 Sam. viii. 13; 1 Kings xi. 15-17; Ps. 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 triumph preserved in 2 Sam. xxii. (Ps. xviii.). Before the fall of Rabbah this glory was clouded with the shame of Bathsheba, 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 nations do not seem to have attempted any revolt while he and Joab lived (comp. 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 presumably not in this alone, David suffered for the very excellence of his impartial rule. In truth all innovations 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 Gibeonites to enforce it against the house of Saul, the king involved himself in a feud with the Benjamites (comp. 2 Sam. xxi. with chap. 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 Bathsheba, 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 nation at large was not very sensitive to the moral enormities which flow from the system of the harem is clear from 2 Sam. xvi. 21. But the kingdom of David was strong by rising above the level of ordinary Oriental monarchy, and expressing the ideal of a rule after Jehovah s own heart (1 Sam. xiii. 14), and in the spirit of the highest teaching of the prophets. This ideal, shattered by a single grievous fall, could be restored by no repentance. Within the royal family the continued influence of Bathsheba added a new element to the jealousies of the harem. David s sons were estranged from one another, and acquired all the vices of Oriental princes. The severe impartiality of the sacred historian has concealed no feature in this dark picture, the brutal passion of Amnon, the shomeless counsel of the wily Jonadab, the black scowl that rested on the face of Absalom through two long years of meditated revenge, 4 the panic of the court when the 3 Hadadezer is also mentioned in 2 Sam. viii. in the general sum mary of David s wars, but we can hardly suppose that a different Syrian war is here meant. 4 We owe this graphic touch to Ewald s brilliant interpretation of an obscure word in 2 Sam. xiii. 32.