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THE KINGDOM OF ALL-ISRAEL
ITS HISTORY, LITERATURE,
AND WORSHIP,
MORRISON ANUGIBU, l^^DINBURGH,
KKINTKKS TO HKK MAJI'STY's STATIONERY OFFICE.
THE
KINGDOM OF ALL-ISRAEL
ITS HISTORY, LITERATURE,
AND WORSHIP.
BY
JAMES SIME, M.A.
F. R. S. E.
LONDON:
JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
1863.
PREFACE.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to tell in our
English tongue a story that was told well-nigh three thousand
years ago in a language, which has long ceased to be a living
language on the earth. It is the story of the kingdom of
All-Israel, as the Hebrew empire was called in its most
flourishing days. Small though that kingdom was, its annals
have always been regarded as a heritage of mankind, fraught
with w^elfare to the whole world.
The w^ritings which contain this history are frequently
described as not altogether worthy of credit. While they
contain much that is undeniably ancient, they are also believed
to contain much that is comparatively recent. The original
books are said to have l^een curtailed of parts which are now
lost beyond recovery ; and parts are alleged to have been
added which can only be ascertained by skilful inquirers and
the application of most delicate tests. Evidently, then, it is the
duty of a historian either to vindicate the reality of the history,
or to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of romance.
The proofs of authenticity are so numerous and so convincing,
that I have accepted the history, as it is read in the Hebrew,
notwithstanding undoubted difficulties in the narrative.
Of the skill and industry shown by several authors, who,
after careful inquiry into words and things, have undertaken
to distinguish the true from the false in the history, no one
can speak without respect. But the value of their researches
is to be measured, less by the theories they liave proposed,
than by the necessity, under which they have laid those wlio
differ from them, of examining every difficulty that liad
formerly been passed by or lightly esteemed.
The rules of historical research, on which I have worked,
are those which have been applied in verifying the literature
of Greece and Eome. Two of them were first stated in a
vi Preface.
book written eighteen hundred years ago to vindicate the
truth of the Hebrew records. Josephus, a learned Jewisli
priest, was the author of that book ; and the position lie
maintained was the necessity of public documents for an
accurate history of any nation. This involved, first, a know-
ledge of the art of waiting, and second, the drawing up and
the safe keeping of state papers. He also claimed for his
countrymen specially, and for the East generally, the honour
of handing down from remotest antiquity documents which
had been faithfully written and kept by national officials.
On the value of his two tests of a true history there has
long been universal agreement among men. But on the
antiquity of writing and of state or family papers there was
a wide divergence of opinion till, within the last half century,
the revelations of science compelled the same general acquies-
cence in the views first published by Josephus.
Besides these two great principles, science recognises a
third, which gives life and coherence to all literature. Every
nation has a fountainhead of thought, from which a liviuff
stream flows into the darkest corners of its history. Homer's
poems are such a fountainhead ; Shakespeare is another ; the
Pentateuch is a third. If, then, the Pentateuch be the chief
source of Hebrew literature, living rills will be found running
from it throughout the after history in words, in quotations,
and in ideas. I have endeavoured to discover these streams
and threads of life, and to trace them back to the one
fountainhead. Fuerst's Concordance was an indispensable
help in the work ; but the omissions in that book, few though
they be, sometimes occur where the oversights, if undetected,
would have weakened my argument.
Another rule, which cannot be too strongly insisted on,
is to use professional w^ords in the sense attached to them in
the legal or historical books of a nation. Both Josephus and
Philo recognised its importance for the literature of their
people, by the care which they took to expound the twofold
Preface. vii
meaning of the legal word ' sacrifice.* Had modern writers
attended to their teaching, much useless discussion might
liave been avoided.
No history or biography can be trusted, if the autlior dis-
regards these four rules. And a book of annals, in which all
four are observed, gives its readers the best guaranU?e (jf
historical accuracy. Such a record is the book of Samuel.
But an observance of these rules by a historian cann(jt re-
move every bit of ruggedness from a reader's path. On tlie
contrary, an ancient book in which unvarying smootlniess
distinguishes the narrative, will always be regarded with sus-
picion. A brief record of remote antiquity, which contains no
difficulty in fact or in law, may be a record from which
all difficulties have been skilfully and designedly removed :
' An English judge once remarked on hearing minutely cir-
cumstantial evidence, that when a lock works too smoothly,
there is reason to believe it has been oiled.'
I have had recourse to footnotes only where they seemed
necessary for elucidating the meaning or showing the agree-
ment of the past with the present. I have also avoided using
Hebrew and Greek words ; for an English reader, wlio wishes
to master the deepest secrets of the history, can do so without
difficulty in his own tongue. And I have generally adhered
to our English translation, though sometimes changes had to
l>e made on it, especially in passages, which a fuller study of
the original has proved to have been erroneously rendered.
The chronology of the history is still in a state of un-
certainty. At present we can only be said to Ije groping after
accuracy. Something similar is true of the length of the
Hebrew cubit, and of Hebrew weights and measures generally.
The Old Testament referred to, in estimating the number of
pages in any of the books, is Hahn's (Van der Hooght) large
type edition, containing 1392 pages.
Edinburgh, Fclruary 1883.
^>
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ELECTION OF A KINO
Nature of Hebrew historical writing,
Doubts regarding its trustworthiness,
Supposed order of merit among the books,
Unity of the Tribes ; their rejection of Jehovah,
Introduction of Saul ; his ignorance of Samuel,
The sacrifice— not a sacrifice proper,
The anointing, and the 'signs,'
* Is even Saul among the prophets ? '
Self-command of Saul,
The choice by lot ; reasons for it, .
Accuracy of the story.
Proofs of indebtedness to older writings,
PAGE
1
5
7
10
15
22
25
29
30
31
35
36
CHAPTER II.
THE TESTING OF SAUL.
Nahash at Jabesh ; his 'reproach ' on All-Israel,
Saul's kingly spirit towards the messengers.
Distinction between Israel and Judah,
The feint of the messengers ; its success, .
• Renewal of the kingdom ; sacrifices.
Leave-taking of Samuel ; mixing up of first person and third,
41
44
45
47
49
CHAPTER III.
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
Blank in the chronology, .
Prostration of Israel under the Philistines,
Rising inaugurated by ' the burnt-olfering,
54
55
58
Contents.
March of Philistines by Beth-horon,
Saul's alarm, ami disobedience at Gilgal, .
Position of Samuel and Saul : the two armies,
Surprise by .lonathan and his armour-bearer,
Saul's rash vow ; the pursuit,
The curse ; the sin ; the altar ; the lots, .
Shadow on Jonathan's life and on Saul's. .
Triumphs of Saul : prolepsis,
CHAPTER IV.
FIXAL REJECTION OF SAUL.
Order to destroy Amalek, .
The Kenites, ....
Saul's trimming policy,
Message to Samuel ; his meeting with Saul,
Obedience to ' the voice,' .
Proofs of accuracy in the narrative,
jMoralitv of the destruction of Amalek,
CHAPTER V.
LAW AND LEGISLATION AMONG THE HEBREWS.
Laws not enacted or codified by kings,
Origin of legislation — Moses,
Earliest Code, Ex. xxi.-xxiii., may have been in force in Egypt,
Laws taken into the desert sanctioned on Sinai,
Not contradicted by later laws,
High civilisation of earliest Code : Twelve Tables, etc.
Renewal of the Covenant : objections.
Legislation of Leviticus : Bleek's ' probables,
Use of * Levite ' in legislation progressive,
liook of Numbers —
(1) The gap of thirty-eight years,
(2) The Sabbath-breaker,
(3) Beginning age of the Levites,
(4) 'Southside southward,' .
Quoting and borrowing by Ezekiel
(5) The first-borns ; the priesthood, ,
CHAPTER VL
ANOINTING AND ADVANCEMENT OF DAVID.
Samuel at Bethlehem— rei)ctition of history,
A sacrifice or a fei\st ? — Josephus's view, .
128
132
Cant cuts.
XI
Feeling of Samiiol towards David,
Contrast between Saul and David — their meeting ]iTevente
Positions and nature of the two armies,
'The j\Ian,' Goliath, reproaches All-Israel,
His ' reproach ' stands unavenged,
David arrives in the camp,
First meeting with Saul : Saul's equal,
He rolls away 'the reproach of Goliath,* .
His first meeting with Jonathan, .
The women's songs and Saul's madness,
Saul attempts David's life.
The great difficulty no difficulty, .
1 l»v border war,
VKV,V,
las
135
1:57
139
141
143
146
148
\:a
If. 5
ir.7
159
CHAPTER VII.
DAVID AN OUTLAW AND AN EXILE
Betrothal of Michal : delay about dow-ry,
Renewal of attempts on David's life,
Flight to Samuel and Ramah,
Flight to Bethlehem — Ezel or Argob,
Flight to Gath — Ahimclech's fear,
The debateable land,
Saul, Doeg, and the priests,
David's elegy on the ' Saints of the Lord,
At Keilah and Ziph — 'the Courses,'
Engedi — David's magnanimity,
The story of Nabal — 'the sling,' .
David's marriages and renewed persecution.
References to the law-book,
The struggle between Providence and Saul
David at Gath and Ziklag ; his doings,
161
165
169
171
175
178
179
183
184
188
191
197
201
202
203
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEATH OF SAUL.
David's Policy and its consequences.
Invasion of Israel by the Philistines,
Position of Saul — visit to Endor, .
The witch ; her knowledge and skill.
Her pretences and Saul's terror.
Her prediction ; her vengeance,
Discussion of the reality of the Vision,
Aphek and Gilboa,
Sack of Ziklag ; recovery of the booty.
The Amalekite's story,
Hebron — David's first public anointin<
206
207
208
212
215
217
218
2 J 2
2'J6
231
233
Xll
Contents.
CHAPTER IX.
LlTEUATUllF, AND WOllSIIIP OF THE I'EOPLE.
Rending ami writing common iu Israel,
Lyric poetry : Hebrew and Greek, .
Professional literature,
Temple at Shiloh ; its doors and sanctuary,
Its Sacrifices ; Dent, xviii. (Quoted in 1 Sam.
Incense, and feasts,
Golden Candlestick and Shewbread,
The ark : professional terms and places, .
Priests and temple servants,
* The garments : ' the cphod and the me"il,
Urim and Thummim,
Law of vows — Hannah ; Elkanah ; Absalom,
ii. 1
CHAPTER X.
RECONSTRUCTION OF ALL- ISRAEL.
Beginning of David's reign in Hebron,
Abner and Joab ; the one battle ; its results,
The king-maker, and his end.
Captains of Ishbosheth ; their crime and fate,
David king of All- Israil, .
Jerusalem ; its capture and importance, .
Alarm of the Philistines, .
Zion becomes a national high place,
The story of IMichal,
A temple proposed ; preparations for it, .
David's conquests : reasons for them ; prophecy,
David's allies, ministers, and courtiers.
War with Ammon ; orilers of Moses,
David's goodness— story of Mephibosheth,
David's wickedness — story of Bathsheba, .
CHAPTER XI.
THE AVENGER OF BLOOD.
First stroke of the Avenger's * sword,'
Reason of David's sudden composure,
War at Rabbah, and in Philistia, .
The Avenger's 'sword,' — Tamar ; Amnon,
Disaffection in the kingdom ; Absalom's return,
Plans and popularity of Absalom,
Contents.
xiu
Increasing disaffection : three years' famine,
Ahithophel's hand,
Absalom's feast at Hebron,
David's flight : ' grace and truth ; ' 'a seer,'
Turning of the tide ; Hushai, Ziba, Shimei,
The Avenger's 'sword :' Ahithoiihel and Hushai
The spies ; Azmaveth's wife,
Rebels and royalists ; the march ; the battle.
Carelessness of Absalom — The Avenger's ' sword,
The two runners, ....
David's excessive grief ; reasons for it,
Return of the king ; sullenness of Jndah, .
David's treatment of traitors and friends, .
Disaffection in ten parts of All-Israel,
Murder of Amasa ; death of Sheba-ben-Bichri,
pac;e
328
333
336
336
340
342
345
346
350
354
357
361
362
367
368
CHAPTER XII.
THE CLOSE OF DAVID S REIGN.
Numbering of the people, .
Sin of king and people ; what was it ?
The muster-rolls ; their lessons.
The plague ; another Avenger's ' sword,' .
' The plague was stayed' — a quotation,
Araunah — the two prices for Moriah,
David's order of ' Mighties, '
His army ; his judges ; his people,
Adonijah's imitations of Absalom,
Nathan procures the coronation of Solomon,
David's dying charge justifiable, .
David's character as a man and a king,
David as a poet and a prophet,
373
375
377
380
382
383
387
389
392
394
400
403
409
CHAPTER XII I.
DEUTERONOMY — ANTIQUITY OF THE BOOK— INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
Positions of the writer and editor of the book,
Comparison with Thucydides, Book viii., ....
Proof—
(1) Changes in Israel ; Assyria, ....
Theory of interpolations, .....
(2) There ought to be mention of Jerusalem, .
(3) Remembrances of Egypt ; horses and chariots ; forbidden birds and
beasts, ....•••
(4) References to, and quotations from, the three ["receding books.
412
414
415
417
419
420
425
XIV
Contents.
Ditfioulties —
^1) 'On this side Jordan,' ....
(2) 'The land of his possession,'
(3) ' Passovers of the flock and the herd,'
(4) Boiling the passovi-r, ....
(5) Central altar law — quotations from it in later books,
Examination of proofs alleged for its non-existence,
Samuel's principle and procedure,
Proofs of a dispensing power,
(6) The law of the king, ....
Traces of its existence in the time of the Judges,
Applies to Gideon as well as to Solomon,
Cannot have been borrowed from Solomon's court,
435
437
438
440
441
445
447
454
456
458
460
461
CHAPTER XIV.
BKGINXING OF SOLOMON S FAME.
Sources of the histor}' : their purity,
Kenewed conspiracy, and its results,
Solomon's dealings with Shimei, .
The new high places — The vision,
Solomon's wisdom in judgment,
Pharaoh ; his daughter and his visit,
Social comlitiou of Solomon's cities and people,
464
465
470
473
475
477
479
CHAPTER XV.
THE TEMPLE AND PALACE OF SOLOMON.
The temple enclosure, platform, and ramparts.
Inscription ; and comparison with other temples,
Historians : the builders, and their payment.
Gold, silver, copper, and iron used,
Castings for the temple ; the roads,
Workers ; drains ; water-supply, .
The temple ; its threshold and surroundings,
The court ; its furniture and sacrificial system,
The interior, fully described in the history,
The gates and guards.
The living forces ; their permanence.
The dedication ; the prayer of Solomon, .
Solomon's i)alace ; its courts and halls,
j\Iillo : the tower of David,
Fortifications of passes and trade routes, .
Store cities ; chariot cities.
482
483
485
488
490
492
496
498
502
508
510
513
523
526
527
529
Conte7its.
XV
CHArTKlJ XVI.
GREATNESS OF SOLOMON.
Solomon's study of botany and natural history, .
Transplanting trees ; his gardens and fountains, .
Trading voyages to Ophir and Tarshish, .
His throne ; his palancjuin ; his guards, .
His cabinet council of ten,
Purveyance ; tribute, ....
Proverbs: 'tablet of thine heart,'
' A tree, a way, a fountain of life,'
Historical origin of proverbs,
Priests, Levites, temple, etc., not mentioned,
Use of ' seven ' ; no coarseness,
Ecclesiastes, a speculation not a repentance,
Aramaic forms no argument against authorship by Solomon,
Examination of Eccles. xii. 12, v. 6, ix. 14, 15,
I'AC.K
531
533
534
540
542
543
545
548
549
549
550
552
554
556
CHAPTER XVII.
FALL OF SOLOMON.
Solomon's scruples of conscience, .
His second vision — a warning,
Eising in the North,
Visit of the Queen of Sheba : the palace kitchen,
Solomon's wives, ....
Silence or helplessness of his counsellors, .
Toleration of idolatry,
* Hill of the Destroyer,'
Change on the influence of women,
Duty of the prophet,
Edom and Damascus,
Civil strife : rending of the kingdom,
Lesson learned by Jeroboam in Egypt,
Failure of Solomon's administration.
Causes —
(1) The price paid by Israel for his magnificence,
(2) The monopolies of the king, .
(3) Taxes in gold as well as in kind,
(4) Disregard of the Divine law : the lifting of himself
brethren ' — Apostasy, . . . •
above hi
559
560
562
563
566
567
569
570
671
572
573
575
577
573
5S0
5S1
5S2
CHAPTER XVIII
PRIESTS AND LEVITES.
Denial of this distinction before the captivity,
Graf's view of it in the Pentateuch examined,
585
587
XVI
Contents,
The Priests tlie Lcvites,' were tlie sons of Aaron —
(1) Refusal of evidence, .......
(2) Witnesses accepted on all sides, Isa. Ixvi. 21 ; Ezek. xlviii. 11, 13 ;
1 Kings viii. 4, .
Efforts made to rebut their evidence,
(.3) Evidence from Deut. x. 8, .
(4) Evidence from Dent, xviii. 1-8, .
(a) Distinction between ' fire-otferings ' and ' priest's due
(ft) Distinctions in the tribe of Levi, .
(5) First contradiction in the Mosaic law of the priests —
(a) Peace-offerings and the priest's due,
{h) Twofold meaning of sacrifice,
(c) Views of Josephus and Philo, .
(6) Second contradiction —
(a) A first tithe and a second tithe,
(6) * The third year, the year of the tithe,' .
(c) Female and twin (male) firstlings,
(7) The concluding chapters of Ezekiel —
(a) Prove the difference (1) between Jerusalem and Shiloh — (2) be
tvveen Zadok's sons and Eli's,
(ft) And distinguish between faithful priests and wandering or
usurping Levites, ....
592
593
596
599
600
601
603
606
608
609
612
614
616
619
CHAPTEE I.
THE ELECTIOX OF A KING.
(1 Sam, viii. 1-x. 27, xii.)
The history and tlie legislation of the Hebrew race are of
an unusual character. They are not like any other history
or any other legislation. From the beginning the national
records, regarded as pieces of literature only, bear a stamp of
their own. In the great conflict with the Egyptian king, at
the outset of the history, only two actors can be said to appear
upon the stage. But there are, besides, an overseer and a
chorus. The overseer is one who, to use the words of the
greatest of Greek poets, ' sees and hears all things from above/
The chorus is a trembling nation, cowering beneath the task-
master's rod, and sending up its bitter cry to the umpire in
heaven. Never were the ancient rules of Greek tragedy
more singularly observed ; they were followed ages before that
tragedy was born. There are two actors, and two only. Never
are more than two speakers introduced on the world's stage.
But the chorus, that is, the whole Hebrew people, pass tlieir
remarks on what is said and done ; feel the weight of decisions
come to ; and, while they are the prize of war, they enjoy as
victors and suffer as vanquished in the drama. Two men, and
two only, stand out before a wondering world, each armed
with immense power. One of them wields the might of the
empire of Egypt, with its vast resources in men and material
of war ; the other is an aged sage, without armies at his back,
A
2 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
without outward show, saving the support of a brother more
aged than himself; but he is gifted with unequalled powers
of word and thought, and utters a name which all nature
obeys. The majesty of man, in its grandest form, meets in
conflict with the majesty of heaven, embodied in two feeble
old men. The text of the great story is the ultimate triumph
of right over wrong. A down-trodden nation is the spoil of
battle between the opposing forces.
It is not usual to write history on these principles and in
this way. With all truth it may be said never to have been
done save in this one instance, and by authors of the same
race, who followed the example thus set. Were it not a
record of facts, it would be called a tragedy on the model of
the great dramas written in Athens a thousand years later. It
is not a history like the work of Livy or Tacitus, like the books
of Herodotus or Thucydides. These writers delight to de-
scribe the crossincT and recrossingr of the threads of human
life, the play of intrigue amongst men, the working of human
passions, the march of movements in a state. But the triumph
of right over wrong, gradually reached by a long course of
events in which wrong has often the better in the conflict,
was not before these authors' minds as the great theme of their
writing. When the march of events hurled a sinner from
his pride of place, and brought a good man to well-earned
honour, they were surprised by the results ; but the tracing
of these results in human life was not their first and their
chief aim. With them the actors are ever shifting, the scenes
are always changing, the stage is full of living things, which
distract the eye even while they impress the imagination. In
the Hebrew story the plot is managed differently. From the
outset the triumph of right is kept steadily in view. Although
the actors are but two in number, the interest never fiao^s, the
living things on the stage are nameless but active, speechless
but full of language. This is history of a different kind from
any other which the world knows of. Each of the two
The Election of a King, 3
speakers is surrounded with servants waiting on his w^ord ; hut
not a name is given to draw a bystander's eye off the chief
figures on the stage. Motives are analyzed with marvellous
power ; hut no one can say that imputations are undeservedly
thrown on king or people, or unworthiness attributed without
reason. To keep firm hold of what he has unjustly seized is
the principle acted on by the king of Egypt, It is a common
failins: with men in all aojes and in all ranks. But this fail-
ing is lifted up to its loftiest height in the history. A whole
nation is the prize won by the king ; cities built, temples
beautified, strongholds fortified, canals dug, without cost to
him or labour to his own people, are the gains he has made
and is determined to increase. The greatness of an empire,
the easing of his own subjects, are the wish and purpose of
the king. Injustice and violence seem gilded over with the
brightest hues of nobleness when he puts forward as pleas for
them, as he may be supposed to have done, the refuge his
country has been to those fugitives, and the welfare of his
own warlike subjects. If wrong could ever be turned into
right, a case could have been made out for it in this plea.
But the great Overseer above looks down on the violence that
is done. He is not deceived by fair seeming. He hears the
cry of the enslaved. And in one man's breast He plants the
resolve to break their fetters, to lead them forth from bondage,
to make them the central figure for all time in the history of
men. A tragedy so grand, ending as it does in so fearful an
overthrow of armed power, leaves no room for fiction. The
very plainness of the facts surpasses imagination. To describe
the tragedy as a kernel of fact, overgrown with brilliant
products of human fancy, is to attribute to man's mind a
power of invention which it has never possessed, and has
never approached since. Xor can the conception and
working out of scenes the most impressive known in
history be attributed to two thinkers, living in different
an-es and writing independently of each other. One mind is
4 Tiic Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
seen at work in the thinking, one hand in the writing out of
the narrative.
Only once again is a similar tragedy enacted. And again
the speakers are few in number, the motives clear, and the
doom terrible. It is the story of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,
with the vindication of Aaron's appointment to the priesthood.
Although it reads less like a Greek tragedy than the story of
the exodus, and more like a piece of ordinary historical writ-
ing, it is different in conception and expression from the
historical }vorks of other men. If it is not a plain statement
of facts, it is useless to call it a fiction in whole or in part.
Wishing to be thought a recorder of facts, the writer of it is
discovered recounting falsehoods more glaring than a story-
teller would dream of inserting in a romance. The solemnity
of the matter, the weight of majesty in the few words spoken,
and the awfulness of the end, lift it out of the region of fancy,
and leave us no choice but to class it with fact or with false-
hood. The story is expressly referred to in the book of
Deuteronomy, it is hinted at in Samuel ; the sin of the men
in claiming and exercising the special right of priests to burn
incense to Jehovah, is carefully avoided by that prophet all
through his actions, and is repeatedly condemned in the
books of the Kings as the source of national ruin. The
aspirations of these wilderness rebels give an unmistakeable
colour to the subsequent history. That colour was imparted
by the story of their doom, as a source colours the stream to
which it gives birth.
The history in the book of Samuel is written on the same
plan as that of the exodus from Egypt. Whoever wrote the
former (about 980 B.C.) must have breathed in the spirit of
the latter, till he thought as it thought, and regarded the world
as it did. Two actors or speakers, and a suffering or a rejoicing
chorus, appear on earth ; an umpire looks down from heaven,
awarding praise or blame, reward or punishment. Although
the scenes are continually shifting, the general plan remains
The Election of a King. 5
the same tlirougliout. Israel is the chorus, which passes its
comments on the deeds done, which suffers or rejoices as
events fall out. Jehovah is the unseen umpire, whose goings
it is sometimes hard to follow in the darkness, hut whose
doings always reveal a power making for righteousness among
men. At the opening of the history Eli and Samuel are tlie
speakers named. As the action proceeds, Samuel and Saul
stand forth before the world. When the scene next changes,
David is the upholder of the right ; Saul is the doer of the
wrong. While one befriends, the other troubles the people.
But ao-ain the scene is chancfed. David is the troubler and
wrong-doer ; Absalom, himself most unworthy, is the avenger
of the wrong. The story in Samuel ends without punishment
befalling the guilty captain, who had heaped up unrighteous-
ness acjainst himself for a sjeneration, the Gjreat soldier, Joab.
But the same plan of writing history pervades the first eleven
chapters in the book of the Kings. Solomon at first main-
tains and represents the cause of right ; Joab meets his doom
by Solomon's command. A history, so singularly written,
carries proof of unity of authorship on its face. While it
differs largely from the history and the legislation in the Pen-
tateuch, the plan leaves no doubt of the writer's indebtedness
to that book. His words and ideas echo its words and ideas
with unmistakeable clearness. While he has a way of his
own in thinking and writing, he is seen borrowing from an
older master with the teachableness of a loving disciple. He
is always thinking of one who has gone before him in the
historical field ; whose pattern he follows, whose words lie
treasures, and to whose master hand he gives himself up for
guidance in the tangled ways of life.
That the history and the legislation have experienced the
fate of all other books in doubts and darkness gathering
round them, as men became farther removed from the age
that gave them birth, is quite true. When the little things
of life, the hinges, as it were, on which events often turn,
6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
are forgotten by failure of narrators or lapse of time, the
events of any history may seem to a later age as if they were
out of keeping with what else is known ; and some one might
even deny their reality altogether. Or an author, in revising
a large work, might alter a word or two in one part, without
observing or without thinking it necessary to observe that,
in so doino:, he was leaviuGj a few words elsewdiere hanf^imr
like loose threads. A critic, seeing the bad joining, might
pounce upon it as a proof of a different hand having tried to
improve what a master worker had left unfinished. But true
criticism is most unwillinsj to resort to these shifts of the
weak. A slight change in the way of looking at historical
events may cause as much confusion to the mind, as the
throwing of a telescope out of focus causes to the eye. The
point from which we regard an arrangement of affairs made
many centuries ago, may be quite different from the point
occupied by the people who were the actors. An apparent
rent in the armour of any author may thus arise froi)^ other
causes than bad workmanship. We know, for example, that
ancient writers sold their works with erasures made by them-
selves. These erasures were held to be proof of genuineness.^
But from them various readings were certain to result, wdien
copyists came to think the author's first thought better than
his second. A book once written was also sometimes revised
and continued by the author, who might not trouble himself to
remove from the early part of the w^ork matter which makes
it look to us as if it were out of joint with the middle or the
conclusion. This was done by Thucydides, the grandest of
Greek historians. Even in that most careful writer, notwith-
standing the editing his book received, it is sometimes impos-
sible to determine his exact meaning, clear though that may
have been to himself and his contemporaries. In one place
it was debated whether he means the north or the south side
of a narrow sea.^ But men dispute in these cases without
^ Martial, vii. 17. 2 Grote, iv. 330.
The Election of a King, 7
losing temper or sense. They want to know the meaning of
the author ; they never think of denying that he wrote the
book. A different atmosphere is breathed as soon as we pass
from classical to sacred criticism. An editor's work, how-
ever slight, is magnified into proof that the original author
never wrote the book, perhaps never had a being ; a diffi-
culty about the meaning of a single word, whether it
denotes the cast or loest of Jordan, has become a reason
for denying the antiquity and authorship of a whole treatise.
A line of argument so narrow does not deserve to be
dignified with the name of science. At least, it is ad-
visable to bear in mind that classical criticism preceded
sacred, and that the former discovered the rules which the
latter has followed. Had the same narrowness of view
which disfigures sacred criticism, which delights in breaking
whole books into miserable fragments, and which exalts every
little peculiarity of an author into a ground for denying his
authorship, continued to prevail in classical criticism as it
once did, the history of mankind would now be in a state of
incredible confusion. But the way of doubting everything
in Latin and Greek spent itself, with the result of leaving
things much as it found them. The upshot of the sifting
to which Hebrew literature has been subjected will be the
same.
According to those recent writers who handle the Hebrew
writings with perhaps more freedom than would be allowed
them in discussing any other documents, there is an order of
merit among the historical books which requires to be care-
fully observed in criticism. While they assign the first place
for reliableness and antiquity to the books of Judges and Samuel
(980 B.C.), they regard with somewhat less respect the two books
of the Kings, compiled about 560 B.C. There are traces, clear
and manifold, of an influence in the latter which they believe to
be largely wanting in the former. The influence discovered
running through these books is usually the law code known to
8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
ns as the book of Deuteronomy. The writer of the Kings had
that law-book in his hands, referred to it, and allowed it to
tinge his liistory of the past. By many critics the real writer
or compiler of Samuel is believed not to have known of its
existence, to have paid no respect to its enactments, and to have
given proof that the book could not then have been in writing.
But the Prophet Samuel and his contemporaries, not less than
the writers who followed them, knew this book, quoted from
it, and regarded it as all generations have regarded it — an
heirloom of the Hebrew race handed down to them from
remotest antiquity. The history in Samuel is unintelligible,
if the book of Deuteronomy was not from the first a household
book in Hebrew homes.
Several recent critics among ourselves, following the leading
of the most advanced section of Continental scholars, have
adopted these views of the historical books of Samuel and the
Kings. They have gone farther in their dealings with the
two books of Chronicles. Their view of that work is copied,
like almost every rule they apply in criticism, from their
predecessors in the field of classical inquiry. There is no
originality in their method or their ideas. So true is this that
we shall give their judgment on the books of Chronicles in
the words of an English writer, describing the kind of history
which became popular in Eome in the first century of our
era: 'The historian of the Flavian era (80 a.d.) is no longer
a chronicler or a romancer. He may seek, perhaps, to mould
the truth to his own prejudices ; but he is not a mere artist
indifferent to truth altogether. He is a philosopher, and
recognises a mission. He has his own theories of society and
politics ; the events of the period before him group themselves
in his mind in certain natural combinations, according to the
leading idea to which they are subordinated. If he is a
man of imagination, he paints the world from the type
impressed on his own organs of vision. Whether or not the
facts be correctly represented, they are at least true to him.
The Election of a Kii\
\ He describes what lie sees, or really fancies that he sees.
Works that bear this stamp of imagination are immortal.
Their details may be inexact ; the genius by which they are
produced may be uncritical ; but their general effect is strong
and vivid, and they leave a mark behind them which cannot
be effaced.'^ These words of Merivale describe the view now
frequently taken of the Hebrew books of Chronicles. He is
writing about Latin works composed four or five centuries
later ; but his words bring before a reader the judgment passed
by critics on the books of Chronicles, with a vividness which
nothing in their writings can be said to approach. Justice
requires us ever to bear in mind that so-called sacred criticism
is, frequently, only a pale reflection of the brilliant results of
classical inquiry. But in denying its originality, we must not
be supposed thereby to deny its worth, or the truth of its
legitimate results. Person's rule holds good : in criticism
as in war nothing should be despised. To the books of
Chronicles, then, it is said, the lowest place among Hebrew
historical writings must be assigned. Using Merivale's
words, we may call the author a man of imagination, who
paints the Hebrew world, previous to his time, as if it had
been always the same as he found it in his own day. The
facts depicted were true to him — that is, he believed them to
be true, but they were not correctly represented. He had one
' leading idea ' — the distinction between priests and Levites ;
and to that idea everything in history was made subordinate.
We may call him an artist, if we like, or an unconscious
romancer, but he is not a recorder of facts. Such, then, is
the view taken of his history. As he gives the critic great
trouble, he must be put out of the way. To brand him as
a forger would grate on a reader's feelings ; he may be
more safely set aside as a simpleton and a romancer, a
man whose attempts at historical writing may cause a smile,
but who is on no account to be trusted. But before this
1 Merivale, The Romans under the Empire, viii. S3.
lo The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
can be allowed, proof must be furnished, and no satisfactory
proof is forthcoming.
There is a marked difference between the object regarded
by the author of the Kings in writing his history, and that
regarded by the Chronicler. While the latter is a writer of
church history, the former is a politician, recording the
fortunes of the people generally. Great as is the difference
between these kinds of historians among ourselves, it was
as great among the Hebrews. Whoever puts the books of
Kings and the Maccabees on one side, with Chronicles on the
other, will feel, on passing from the former to the latter, the
same change of atmosphere which we feel on passing from the
civil to the church history of a country. Everything wears
another look, because we are regarding the world from a new
point of view and through a different medium. Events, which
seemed fully detailed in the civil history of a country, appear
only half recorded when we turn to its church history. From
the nature of things it cannot be otherwise. But this change
of handling is a change which many writers forget to recognise
as imparting a justifiably different colour to the story of
Israel in the pages of the Chronicler, when we compare his
book with that of the Kings.
Twelve generations of Hebrews had lived and died since
their fathers overran the Promised Land. Battles had been
gained and lost by them ; sieges had been undertaken and
borne ; kings had trampled their nation in the dust, and had
themselves been hurled from the highest seats. But when a
balance of gains and losses is struck, it is unquestionable that
tlie Hebrew race had sunk below the heights of freedom and
greatness which it reached under Moses and Joshua. During
these twelve generations of war and peace, — war from which
they won no lasting good, peace which they allowed to slip away
unimproved, — they were held together as one people by bonds
so loose that their princes and chiefs came to regard the
existing constitution of the country as a failure. A common
The Election of a King. 1 1
faith did not seem to tliem a strong enough bond of union for
the twelve cantons. In times of o-reat excitement it midit,
and it often did weld the scattered tribes into a stron!]j, an
almost irresistible whole. But it lost its power the moment
that excitement began to cool. Petty quarrels and local jeal-
ousies repeatedly snapped this bond of union. The high
priest, though the head of the nation's faith, was not the head
of its political life, and could not control the coldness or dis-
putes wdiich weakened the tribes, and exposed them an easy
prey to less powerful neighbours. A common high priest,
a common sanctuary, a common faith, and common yearly
festivals, admirably adapted as they were to bind the separate
cantons of Israel firmly together, failed in their object. The
people lost faith in God as their king ; they also lost faith
in themselves as His subjects. On loss of faith followed loss
of unity and freedom. This loss of faith, with the idolatry
that followed, was their rejection of Jehovah.
A political head seemed as necessary as a common faith to
give thorough unity to the life and work of the nation. But
this the Hebrews could not be said to possess. A regular
succession of judges, as the presidents or chiefs of the country
were called, was unknown to the political constitution of
Palestine. When danger threatened the tribes, or when a
foreign power had planted its foot on the prostrate common-
wealth, a bold and active leader, inspired by Heaven or by
the fire of his own paitriotism, vindicated the freedom of his
country. But this fitful leadership did not meet the wants of
the Hebrews. No sooner had the skilful steersman, who
piloted the ship of tlie state through its perils, quitted the
helm, than the billows again swept her head towards the rocks.
For generations the country had been drifting nearer to reefs
and shoals, pilot who succeeded pilot doing gradually less to
gain for it the safety of a harbour. The work of Othniel, the
first judge, in delivering his countrymen from bondage, was
far easier than that of Samuel, the last ; the task of saving the
12 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
state from sliipwreck in tlie former case was not difficult ; in
the latter it had become a desperate effort to avert an almost
inevitable disaster. So impressed were the chiefs of the
twelve tribes with their nearness to ruin in the days of Samuel,
that, after discussing amoncf themselves the danojers of the
commonwealth, they nrged him as their only hope of safety
to set a king over the land. They had some reason to turn to
this way of escape. So far as we are aware, the judge had
neither the right nor the means to enforce authority ; the people
followed him because the welfare of every man among them
required obedience to be rendered, not because they dared not
disobey his commands. Approaching dangers brought them
round the judge, just as the presence of beasts of prey makes
sheep gather in under the eye of the shepherd and his dogs.
But as soon as the danger passed, the judge seems to have
been abandoned by his followers. His work was finished ;
the people could guide themselves. This temporary banding
together of the Hebrews did not satisfy the chiefs. With some
justice they considered it one cause of the nation's weak-
ness. When they asked a king from Samuel, they asked him
to make a great change in the constitution of the country. The
free will of the people evidently required to be regulated by
the authority of a head, for only a resolute chief could compel
the members of the nation to united action. !N"ot unnaturally
the old man felt the putting forward of this plan to be a dis-
guised censure on his own administration. In vain did they
assure him of their respect and esteem. He regarded their
prayer as a personal affront ; in reality it was the clutching
of a drowning nation at a plank of safety left untried. Samuel
resisted, entreated, warned, reproached in turns ; but in vain.
There was a cloud gathering beyond Jordan, which threatened
to sweep the Hebrews from the lands their fathers conquered.
Princes of tribes, elders of cities, all saw it coming. It
was spreading its gloom over their councils, and compelling
them to action. That cloud was a horde of eastern plunderers
The Election of a King. 13
led by Xaliasli, king of Amnion. A storm of war equally
black was lowering on the land from the west. The brave
and well-armed Cherethites, the Philistines or wanderers, were
threatening the freedom of the southern tribes, if, indeed, they
had not planted their iron heel on the Hebrews' necks. Their
garrisons held strongholds in the most mountainous districts ;
and the roads throughout Palestine, in the neighbourhood of
these fortresses, were not safe. Between the dead pressure of
the triumphant Philistine and the threatening attitude of the
Ammonite, the Hebrew^ commonwealth was breaking up into
fragments, whose only chance of continuing knit together
seemed to lie in acknowledging the authority of a common
visible head. The chief men, reading the signs of the times,
united in demanding a king from the great prophet of the
nation. Samuel condemned the movement, but the voice of
the people was against him, and the voice of Heaven com-
manded him to yield to their wishes.
When the arrangements for the worship and government of
the Hebrews were completed in the wilderness three or four
centuries before the age of Samuel, the distinction between
the political and the spiritual chief of the nation w^as clearly
drawn. And before they crossed the Jordan to conquer
Western Palestine, the unity of the nation, the necessity of
maintaining it at all hazards, and the appointment of a suc-
cessor to their aged political head, were insisted on, and fully
provided for by divine revelation. Moses regarded the wish of
Pieuben and Gad to settle on the east of Jordan as an attempt
to break up the unity of the nation. Xor did he grant their
request till satisfied that it was reasonable, and till full guar-
antees were given for the discharge of their obligations to the
rest of the tribes. Feeling the approach of death, he arranged
also for a leader to take his place, who might be expected to
complete the work he had begun. What ]\Ioses had been as
king of the nation, Joshua in a great measure became after
his death. Steps were thus taken at the very outset of the
14 The Kingdom of A 11- Israel : its History,
history to maintain the unity of the Hebrew people, and to
give effect to it by concentrating authority in the person of
one political head. But the law of the land provided still
further for strengthening these bonds of union. A man so
far-seeing as Moses, and so well acquainted with the science
of croverninGf, knew that twelve tribes, located each in its own
district and held together by no political ties, might soon
become twelve commonwealths, forming alliances and waging
wars with one another. He therefore left them directions to
choose a king for themselves, without determining whom
they should choose, or when the choice should be made.
This, then, was the oldest political constitution of the Hebrews,
national unity under one visible head. It was gradually
departed from after Joshua's death. For centuries another
constitution, largely a growth of circumstances, or rather of an
unhappy letting things alone, had taken its place. Men of
the highest ability, like Samuel, had come to believe that this
secondary growth was the best constitution for the land.
Ptepeated disasters had failed to show them their mistake.
And when men of less ability discovered it, and demanded what
was really the Mosaic arrangement, they were regarded as un-
wisely meddling with what Heaven had sanctioned. Samuel
and his friends were no more justified in their view of affairs
than those who insisted on a chanoje. Amonsj the Hebrews a
secondary political growth was regarded as the oldest consti-
tution of things. This need not cause surprise. It has fre-
quently taken place among the most enlightened nations of
Europe. With them, as with Israel, the cry has oftener than
once been raised, Eeturn to the orio-inal constitution of the
nation. At the same time the chief men, wishing to be like
their neighbours, were guilty of rejecting Jehovah as the safest
centre for political unity as well as national faith.
There was at that time residing in the land of Gibeah, one
of the districts of Benjamin, a man named Kish. That he was
a person of wealth and standing is not said ; but he may have
The Election of a King, i ^
been both, for he had several servants or shaves. His son
Saul is described as 'a choice young man and a goodly, and
there was not a man of the sons of Israel goodlier than he ;
from his shoulder and upward he was higher than any of the
people.' But this tall and goodly youth did not bear among
his friends and neighbours a character equal to the beauty of
his personal appearance.
The incident which introduces Saul to notice was one of
common occurrence in a country where boundary stones
formed the marches of estates, and the fields were all unfenced.
His father's asses, straying in a body from their pastures,
could not be found in the neighbourhood. They were she-
asses, animals far too valuable to be lost without a thorough
search being made for them. They were as highly esteemed
by ancient Hebrews as is the horse by modern Arabs. In the
hilly and rugged regions of Palestine, sureness of foot and
docility rendered them of the highest valae for riding on, and
for the carriage of grain and goods. These hardy animals were
also so easily kept as to be invaluable to Hebrew yeomen.
Saul, accompanied by one of the servants, was despatched in
search of the lost asses. Taking three days' provisions in
their scrips, they journeyed first into Mount Ephraim ; then
they passed through the districts known as Shalisha or ' Thirds,'
and Shaalim or ' Foxes,' which was probably in the Danite
country of Shaalbim, inquiring for the asses at the people they
met on the road. Turning southward and eastward they
next came to the Land of Zuph, a district which took its
name from Zuph, a Levite and an ancestor of Samuel. The
chief town of this district was not in the land of Benjamin
(1 Sam. ix. 16). It was situated on two heights. Probably
the houses clustered on the top of one of them, while the other
and loftier was reserved as a high place for the worship of
God, and a college for training sons or disciples of the pro-
phets. ISTaioth, 'Dwellings,' or Xaioth-on-Ptamah, 'Dwellings
on a Height,' may have been the name of the formur ;
1 6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
Bamali, or ' High Place,' the name of the latter. An altar for
priestly sacrifice is not mentioned in the story, but a dining-room,
in which was held the feast that usually followed a sacrifice,
whether priestly or popular, crowned the crest of the Bamah.
On approaching the town, which, from its position, would
be visible at a considerable distance, Saul proposed to his
servant to return home, although only three days had
elapsed since they set out. The country seems to have been
unsettled and the roads dangerous. Kish, as his son appre-
hended, had become more alarmed for the youth's safety
than he was grieved for the loss of the asses. But the servant,
who had got some hints from the people they met on the
road, proposed to enter the town before them, and ask counsel
of a man of God, who happened to be then dwelling there.
* Behold now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an
honourable man ; all that he saith cometh surely to pass : now
let us go thither ; peradventure he can show us our way that
we should go.'^ It is evident that the servant had an in-
different knowledge of this honoured ' man of God.' However,
Saul was not unwilling to go. But he drew back at first,
because they had not with them a present for the prophet.
' What shall we take to the man ? ' he asked : ' The bread is
spent in our vessels, and there is no present to take to the
man of God.' But the servant showed by his looks that Saul
was mistaken. Scarcely were these words uttered than, sud-
denly changing his tone, Saul asked, on seeing the servant's
look, ' What have we ? ' A silver quarter-shekel was all the
money he had : this he proposed to give to the man of God
^ This ignorance of Saul and his servant is easily illustrated from history. Take,
as a well-known example, the fight at Cramond Bridge, near Edinburgh, between
James v. , king of Scotland, and the masterful beggars, whose cudgels nearly got
the better of the king's sword. James's helper at the crisis of the tight, though
an intelligent farmer, living not five miles from Holyrood Palace, appears to
liave been entirely ignorant of his person. Even when the man he helped on
Cramond Bridge met him in the presence-chamber at Holyrood, he could only
conclude, from both of them keeping their hats on, that either that man or
himself was the king of Scotland.
The Election of a King, 1 7
to declare to them Avhat they should do. The respect due to
one so highly lifted above the common rank as a prophet of
God, called for this acknowledgment. In its origin and in the
right use of it among the Hebrews, the giving of presents to
prophets w^as a praiseworthy custom. But it may be doubted
whether the servant regarded the quarter- shekel as only a mark
of respect. It looks more like the price whicli an ignorant man
would think of paying for divining. When every allowance
is made for the vast difference between Eastern and Western
ways, the tone and words of the servant are those of a man wdio
expected to bring the search to a successful close by means of
a fortune-teller. ' A man of God,' who resided in Naioth, was
unlike others who usurped that name ; ' he was honoured,' the
servant said, ' all that he saith cometh surely to pass.' In
those days the word of God came to few. ' There was no open,'
that is frequent, ' vision.' Prophets did not abound among the
Hebrews. But in their place had risen up a host of men and
women, who pretended to a knowledge of the unseen and the
unknown. In the cities and villages were luitches and wizards,
as these claimants to the prophetic office were then styled by
the followers of Jehovah, or seers, as they called themselves,
by whose tricks the simple people were deceived. They sold
their services for silver and gold. They were mere fortune-
tellers, who, by superior address and cunning, brought their
neighbours to believe in them as servants of the true God.
There is reason to fear, that the prophet they sought was
regarded by the servant of Saul as but a superior member
of this craft. Other members of Saul's family were more
enlightened. His uncle, as is evident from the narrative, was
as well acquainted with the greg-tness of Samuel as any reader
of the sacred books. And the ignorance which the two tra-
vellers show before the meeting with the prophet, stands out in
strono- contrast with the knowledge they show after it. The
if^norance cannot, therefore, have been without a cause. AVhen
they returned home, and were asked by Saul's uncle, ' Whither
1 8 The Ki7igdom of A II- Israel : its History,
Avent ye ? ' their plain answer makes their previous ignorance
almost inexplicable : ' To seek the asses ; and when we saw
that they were nowhere, we came to Samuel.'
As the word for * present ' occurs nowhere in Scripture
but in this passage, it is impossible to infer from the use of
it the sentiments of Saul's servant. But at a much later
period it is applied by Jewish interpreters in a way which
gives rise to suspicion. When they are translating the
Chaldee for gift in the promises of reward made by Nebu-
chadnezzar to the Babylonian soothsayers (Dan. ii. 6, v. 17),
they express the king's meaning by using the Hebrew word,
which they found in this story of Saul and his servant.
That Saul was young, and that he was seldom absent from
home, are inferences fairly deducible from the narrative.
That neither he nor his family were considered likely to have
any dealings with Samuel and his friends is equally certain.
Saul might therefore have been in the neighbourhood of
this town, without recognising in it the city of the judge and
prophet Samuel. If, moreover, the servant was a slave, and
if, besides, he was a stranger brought among the Hebrews by
war or trade, his ignorance of the home and greatness of
Samuel is not a matter for surprise. Men were little given to
travel in those times ; but a journey such as that for the lost
asses might, in a few days, impart more knowledge than young
travellers had gathered all their lives before.
It may possibly seem strange that a youth of Saul's age
and tribe should not have had many opportunities of, at least,
seeing Samuel and knowing somewhat about him at the three
great festivals of the Hebrew people. Even a single visit to
the tabernacle, during one of the feasts, ought to have im-
parted all the knowledge that was needed. But there was in
both him and his servant an ignorance most profound of
Samuel's person, office, and power. An easy way of cutting
the knot of this difficulty is to regard the great feasts of the
Hebrews as the growth of a later age : the feasts of Passover,
The Election of a King. 1 9
Pentecost, and Tabernacles thus become tlie coinacfe of
Solomon or Josiah's age, and have been falsely attributed to
Moses. This is a cutting, not an unravelling, of the knot ;
but history has often to decline what criticism is prone to
accept. Shiloh, the meeting-place of the tribes, had been
desolated by the storms of war under circumstances so dread-
ful that, though not handed down to us in writing, they were
printed on the nation's heart for five centuries afterwards.
No meeting-place of the people existed in Saul's time, at least
no place sanctioned by the command of God. But this scat-
tering of the tribes from their central altar did not come alone.
It was accompanied by conquest and slavery. The anxiety of
Kish for his son shows the danger of travellinf^j : * the hicfh-
ways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through
byways.' Great gatherings of the tribes could not be held.
The conqueror w^ould not tolerate them. The people would
shrink from meeting? in their full strencrth, lest a sudden attack
by armed foes on a peaceful gathering might be the result.
The destruction of Shiloh and the conquest of the land explain
the obscurity into which Samuel had fallen, at least among the
youth of the Hebrews. The Levitical system was then in a
state of paralysis.
As the two travellers were climbing the hill on which
the tow^n w^as built, they met a number of maidens coming
down for water, perhaps to the well Sechu, or Prospect, of
which mention is made at a later stage of the history. The
young men asked if the seer were in the town. The water-
bearers willingly entered into conversation with the tall and
goodly youth who thus accosted them. A long conversation
seems to have taken place, but only the heads of it are recorded.
It is easy, however, to see in them the eagerness of the young
women to communicate to the stranger all tliey knew about
the man of God. Prom them Saul learned that a sacri-
fice was to take place that day, and that the seer had shortly
before arrived in the town. The maidens urged him not
20 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
to waste time. Their words even assured liim of as kindly a
reception from the seer as he had got from them. Perhaps
they thought of him as one of the guests invited to that
sacrificial feast. The tall and goodly youth had touched the
maidens' hearts.
On approaching the gate, Saul and his servant nriet the pro-
cession of citizens on its way to the high place. They stood
aside in the open space fronting the gate to let the crowd pass.
Musicians, playing on flutes and drums, on tabrets and harps,
or singing some song of praise, led the way. The bullock
destined for sacrifice followed, unless it had been already slain
and dressed for the feast. Samuel, attended by about thirty
invited guests, came behind. Ilis eye that day was never
satisfied with seeing; on whomsoever it fell, it looked him
through and through. The keenness of intelligence in Samuel
was sharpened by the restlessness of curiosity and doubt.
While on the road to the town the day before, it was
announced to him that, in or near the city, he should meet the
man chosen to be king over the land. Even the hour for the
meetiug was named : ' About this time to-morrow will I send
thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint
him for prince over my people Israel.' At that very hour
Samuel came forth from tlie city with the procession going to
the high place. Every step was bringing him nearer to the
king and deliverer of the nation. As his eye fell on the
handsome figure of Saul, rising above the heads of all others
in the open space before the gate, he appears to have said
within himself, ' Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him.' He
was answered by the word of God : ' Behold the man whom I
spake to thee of ; this same shall reign over my people.'
There was something in the air and manner of Samuel
which emboldened Saul to step forward and speak. Probably
also a sign, with hand or look, may have been given to the
young man of the seer's wish to enter into conversation. Saul,
ignorant of the ^c^reatness of the man whom he was movinii
The Election of a King. 2 1
forward to address, said, with the respect always paid to age
by well-bred Hebrews, ' Tell me, I pray thee, v/here the seer's
house is.' Samuel at once put his mind at rest. He speaks
to him as to one whom he had known for years, wdiose errand
he understood, and in whose welfare he took the deepest
interest. ' I am the seer : go thou up before me unto the
liigh place ; for ye shall eat with me to-daj^ and in the morning
I will let thee go, and will tell thee all that is in thine heart.
And as for the asses that were lost to thee three days ago, set
not thy mind on them, for they are found. And on whom is
all the desire of Israel ? Is it not on thee, and on all thy
father's house?' Astonished at the honour thus done him,
and unable to understand the reason of it, Saul replies with a
modesty as natural as it was well founded: 'Am not I a
Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my
family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin ?
Wherefore, then, speakest thou so to me?' Probably ^vithin
sight of both of them at that moment was the neighbourhood
or the village of Bethlehem, which a later prophet, catching
up the words as well as the idea of Saul, described as ' little
among the thousands of Judah,' but out of it ' shall He come
forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth
have been from of old, from everlasting ' (Mic. v. 2).
The conversation between the prophet and the future king,
though begun in ' the midst of the gate,' w^as not carried on
there. Some of the loiterers or onlookers might have over-
heard enough to excite surprise, if not suspicion. In that case
the secret w^ould soon have become public talk. But no one
overheard the conversation, and Saul concealed it even from
his nearest relatives. Though begun in the open space fronting
the city gate, it was most likely carried on while they were
w^alking alone in the rear of the procession, as it swept up-
wards to the high place of the town. If Samuel, on the
following day, took the precaution of sending the servant
forward before he anointed Saul, he would be equally cautious
2 2 The Kingdom of All-Is7'acl : its History.
to let no one standing by overhear tlie words lie was speaking
in the gate.
The sacrifice was followed by a feast, if, indeed, it was any-
thing else than a feast. About thirty guests had been invited
to meet the prophet. After the sacred services of the after-
noon were brought to an end, they assembled in a dining-room
built on the hill. The place of honour was reserved for
Samuel ; the guests, seated on the floor, took their places on
either side, according to rank. The stranger and his servant
were seated near the prophet, perhaps beside him, in the
chiefest place among them that were bidden. ISTor was that
the only mark of honour shown to the future chief of the
nation. Agreeably to Eastern custom, the cook received orders
to set before him a choice portion, reserved on the previous
day for that purpose. As he did so, the prophet informed
Saul of the honour and the reason for it : ' Behold that which
is reserved. Begin ; eat ; for unto this meeting hath it been
kept for thee since I said, I have invited the people.'
The custom of offering sacrifice on other high places than
Shiloh or Moriah, though strictly forbidden in the Mosaic law
and condemned under the monarchy, seems to be here sanc-
tioned by Samuel, one of the greatest of all the prophets.
A breach of law so glaring requires no words to make it
more glaring. But before we regard Samuel as a breaker of
the law, we ought to be sure of the accuracy of our position.
Every word in a narrative so brief as this history, requires to
be carefully weighed by a modern reader. A departure, how-
ever slight, from the position of the ancient writer may involve
almost inextricable confusion of thought. Words omitted
from the text require to be examined not less than words
admitted. Now, while a sacrifice is spoken of in the narrative,
not a word is said about an altar. The former does not imply
the latter, nor does the latter imply the former. ' Go thou up
before me unto the high place,' said Samuel ; he did not say,
* unto the altar' (1 Sam. vii. 17). A sacrifice according to the
The Election of a King, 23
law did not always imply an altar, for the word was twofold in
its meaning. It meant a priestly sacrifice, or a popular sacrifice.
These were two different things, strictly defined in the law-
book, and differently taxed for the priests. To confound the
one with the other is to misread the history. A jyojiidav
sacrifice was an animal slain for food in any part of the
country. It was called a sacrifice because the law required
the blood, that is, the life, to be thoroughly drained from the
victim and poured upon the ground. A j)rudly sacrifice was
a whole burnt-offering, a peace-offering, a sin-offering, or a
trespass-offering. It implied an altar, especially the brazen
altar of the tabernacle ; a priest's portion different from tlie
priest's portion of a popular sacrifice ; and the burning of tlie
Avhole or part, 'a sweet- smelling savour' to God. The
popular sacrifice was slain as food for man ; the priestly
sacrifice was slain as atonement to Jehovah. The former is
even called ' a sacrifice to Jehovah,' and tlie celebrants might be
summoned to consecrate themselves for it. Had the Hebrew
word for ' sacrifice ' been always so translated into English
where it occurs in Hebrew, this distinction could not have been
overlooked. Unfortunately, the meaning of the word has been
completely obscured by the treatment it has received. But it
is not necessary to go farther into the matter here. The dis-
tinction is laid down with the utmost clearness in the chapter
of Deuteronomy known as the law of the central altar, and
will be fully discussed in a subsequent part of this work.
The sacrifice which Samuel offered on the high place was
not a peace-offering, that is, not a priestly or atoning sacrifice.
A victim was slain for food, perhaps more than one victim, if
we take thought of the number of guests. Its blood was
poured out on the ground, and the whole of the fiesh was
eaten by the assembled guests. The proof of this is as
convincing as it is simple. Every peace-offering, presented at
the altar, was returned to the offerer to be feasted on by him
and his friends. A few choice pieces were reserved a.s
24 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
'Jehovah's fire dues.' Of these, the shoulder went to the
priest who happened to have charge of the altar.^ But in the
sacrifice of Samuel, this priest's portion, for the word is the
same, is set aside for a man known to belong to the tribe
of Benjamin, and forbidden under severest penalties to eat of
it. If Samuel offered an atoning sacrifice and reserved the
priest's portion for Saul, he was guilty of sacrilege. But the
priest's portion of an ordinary victim slain for food was dif-
ferent. In that case there was no sacrilege in reserving the
shoulder for Saul ; there was, as there was intended to be,
the giving to him a royal honour. But these and other his-
torical puzzles of the same kind will come up afterwards for
fuller solution. On returning from the high place to the village,
Saul became the guest of the prophet. They appear to have
been highly pleased with one another during the few hours they
were then together. The house-top was a secret place, where
they communed alone, safe from the ears of the curious. Saul
manifested a modesty of demeanour, and a willingness to obey,
that confirmed Samuel in the high opinion he formed of the
young man from his handsome looks. * The message of God'
was reserved for the morning. As day dawned, the prophet
liimself, desirous to do honour to the new king, summoned
liim from his couch on the house-top, where he appears to have
spent the night. It was a high honour paid to the youth when
the seer discharged a duty that might otherwise have been the
work of a menial. ' And Samuel called to the house-top to
Saul, saying, Bise, and I will send thee away.'
But the highest mark of respect, and the surest proof of the
reality of what Saul might then have looked on as a dream,
were given when the two strangers were leaving the city.
* The words shoulder (leg), bring, portion (1 Sam. ix. 23, 24), are suggestive
of sacred things found in the Levitical law (Lev. vii. 33, 34). Cook may be the
correct rendering of the Hebrew word (comp. 1 Sam. viii. 13) ; but slayer is as
likely, and may refer to an officiating priest or Levite. * The shoulder, and that
upon it,' is another most puzzling phrase, pointing back to a law that would have
been violated had Samuel been offering a priestly sacrifice (Lev. iii. 4, vii. 28-34).
The Election of a King, 25
Samuel accompanied them part of the way. As soon as they
passed the last of the houses on their way down the hill, Samuel
requested Saul to stay behind, while the servant went forward.
He told the youth that he had received for him a message
from Heaven. They were alone on the hill-side, screened from
the view of all except Him, whose eyes run to and fro through-
out the earth. Suddenly Samuel drew forth from his girdle
pocket a bottle of oil, wherewith to anoint the new king. He
had been instructed by God to set Saul apart for his high
office by this solemn rite. He seems to have taken the young
man by surprise. Pouring the oil on his head before he was
aware, Samuel replied to his looks, if not to his words of
astonishment, * Is it not that Jehovah hath anointed thee for
captain over His inheritance ? ' At the same time he gave the
youth a kiss of friendship and respect, to show that nothing was
farther from his thoughts than insincere homage to a humble
stranger, who came seeking his help. But Saul's fears were
not so easily allayed. Conscious of his own unworthiness, and
knowing of nothing in himself or his family to entitle him to
kingly honours, he seems to have shown by looks and words
an unwillingness, not blameworthy, to believe the prophet.
If, as is not unlikely, he sought counsel of Samuel, as he would
have done of any of the pretended prophets who then filled
the land, his doubts and reluctance were founded in reason.
Be that as it may, his demeanour, if not his freely-expressed
astonishment, demanded from the seer some proof of the right
he claimed to speak in the name of Jehovah. ' Signs,' he had
been taught in the law-book, were given by prophets to prove
their commission. His early teaching may have now come to
his help. Nor was a demand so reasonable refused. On the
contrary, Samuel gave him overwhelming evidence of the truth
of his commission, by foretelling to him several of the inci-
dents of his day's journey. These signs must have removed
from Saul's mind any lingering doubt or suspicion.
The custom of anointing a king, enjoined at this time by
26 The Kingdom of A I I- Israel : its History.
God, continued during the four centuries of the monarchy
Avhich followed. But it was not the ancient way of setting
apart a political chief for the nation. Moses was not thus
installed in his high office ; nor was his successor, Joshua.
A full account is given of the setting apart of the latter, but
the principal features of the ceremony were the placing of
Joshua before the high priest, the laying of Moses' hands on
his head, and the giving of him a charge before all the people
(Num. xxvii. 18). There is no trace of anointing in his case,
or for any office then existing in the civil life of the Hebrews.
Nor is it found in the law of the king delivered in the book of
Deuteronomy. The phrases used there, as well as in Samuel,
are ' to set a king over the nation' and ' to choose a king,'
while other phrases common to Samuel and the later books are
'to anoint a king' and 'to make a king.' Manifestly the
book of Samuel is, as it were, common ground ; while it retains
the phrases of the early law in Deuteronomy, it introduces
a new phrase, which became part of tlie popular speech in all
time coming. But it gives its readers no idea of the source
from which the phrase ' to anoint a king' originally came.
Anointing, the laying on of hands, and the giving of a charge
from the sacred books of the nation, were usual ceremonies
at the coronation of a king in Egypt. Moses was acquainted
with these customs. Far from imitating: them in the rules he
laid down in the law-book, he appears rather to have expressly
left them out in his regulations. There was no anointing pre-
scribed, such as the priests of Egypt, and long afterwards the
high priests and prophets of Israel, are known to have practised.
Nor was the laying on of hands set down by Moses among the
coronation ceremonies, such as may be seen on the monuments
of Egypt, and as is known to have been practised at the instal-
lation of Joshua. The giving of a charge, usual in Egypt, and
delivered by Moses in Joshua's case, was not commanded for the
kings of Israel. A more effectual plan was adopted to secure a
king's respect for law. * He shall write him a copy of this law ;
The Election of a King. 2 J
and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days
of his life/ Although, then, Deuteronomy was not the source
from which the idea of anointing the king came, the propriety
or necessity of the custom found a lodgment in Hebrew
thought at an early period. Jotham, the son of Gideon, about
two centuries after the conquest, and Hannah, the mother of
Samuel, a century later still, are witnesses to the existence of
the phrase in their day. It may have been a traditional
saying, handed down among the Hebrews in anticipation of the
time when the law of the king, embodied in the popular law-
book, should be realized in the nation's history. That it is not
found in the book of Deuteronomy is a clear indication of the
great age of that book, compared with the parable of Jotham
or the anointing of Saul.
Saul had not advanced far on his journey before ' the signs,'
given to him by Samuel, began to come to pass. At the tomb
of Eachel, by the border of Benjamin and ' a little way ' from
Bethlehem, he lighted on two men, who told him of the finding
of the asses, and the grief of Kish at the prolonged absence of
his son. This was the first sign promised. The second befell
a little farther on, at the oak (plain) of Tabor. Meeting Saul,
apparently at a cross-road, came three men, who, after a friendly
greeting, told him they w^ere ' going up to God, to God's
house.' One of them was bearing three kids, another three
rounds of bread, and the third a skin of wine. Had the town
of Bethel been their destination, the words ' to God' conveyed
no meaning. 'To God's house' explained the first part of
their statement, 'Going up to God.' The three kids were
evidently firstlings, which, in terms of the law, they were
conveying to the altar. They could not be tithes, for these
the Levites themselves collected. Nob was evidently their
destination. As the distance they had to go was not more
than a mile or two, they readily furnished the travellers with
two of the three rounds of bread for the longer journey to
Gibeah, which they had still to make. Bethel was twice as
2 8 The Kiiigdom of A II- Israel : its Histojy,
far off as Gibeali, and on the same road. Saul and the
strangers did not require to part company, if Betliel was the
destination of the latter; but the tabernacle at Nob — God's
house — lay off Saul's road. The third sign befell them as they
approached a well-known garrison of the Philistines. It is
called Gibeah (or Hill) of God. It may have been the town
of Gibeah, in or near which Saul dwelt. As he and his servant
passed a rising-ground or Bamah, close to the place, a string
of prophets, as the phrase ran, was seen coming down the
slope. Players on lyre, drum, fife, and harp led the pro-
cession, while the rest of the band accompanied the instruments
with the voice. They were prophesying, or singing the sacred
songs of Hebrew worship, at the hour of afternoon or evening
sacrifice. Saul was warned beforehand that the Spirit of
Jehovah would fall upon him as soon as they came in view,
that he would join the singers, and become another man. He
was urged also to offer no resistance to his feelings when these
things happened. ' Do to thyself,' Samuel said, ' whatsoever
thy hand shall find ; for God is with thee.' The young man
did not forget these words. As he listened to the pleasant
strains of harp and drum, of lyre and fife, swelled by a
chorus of fifty or a hundred voices, there awoke in his bosom
feelings to which he had hitherto been a stranger. In after
years music charmed the spirit of madness out of his heart.
But, in these fresh hours of opening manhood, it stirred within
him a desire to spend his life in following the counsels of a
teacher like Samuel. Joining himself to the band of prophets,
he at once took part with them in singing their songs of praise.
He returned with the procession to the high place from which
it set out, and to which it went back to conclude the after-
noon worship of the day. The onlookers, of whom tliere
would usually be a considerable crowd, especially in the after-
noon when the day's work was mostly done, were surprised.
Saul's home was not far from this Hill of God. Some of them
must therefore have known the young Benjamite who thus
The Election of a King, 29
drew the eyes of strangers. But then, even as it happens
now, they could not see or understand in Saul a change whicli
they did not feel in themselves. Instead of returning thanks
for another name enrolled among the witnesses to Jehovah's
greatness in troublous times, they scoff at the sight of a youth,
well known to be a stranger to religious feeling, making this
sudden show of piety in a public place and before a wondering
crowd. 'AVhat has come over the son of Kish?' they ask,
with a smile at the absurdity of the thing ; ' Is even Saul
among the prophets?' But there were others present equally
ready to turn this scorning of scorners on themselves. ' Who
is their father V was the question put by some pious man
among the crowd. ' You call him son of Kish ; whose sons
are these prophets ? Samuel's ? Then son of Kish no
longer, son of Samuel now.' Such was the idea conveyed in
the few words, 'Who is their father?' The scoffers might be
right in regarding Saul, the son of Kish, as an unworthy
member of the prophetic college ; but the prophets believed
Saul, the son or follower of Samuel, to have been made worthy
of a place in their company.
On reaching home, Saul was met by his uncle, ISTer, who
had heard of his absence without knowing the cause. Probably
the meeting took place on the evening of the day he left
Samuel's house. On asking Saul whither he and the servant
had gone, Ner was informed of the loss of the asses, and of
the visit to the prophet. The mention of Samuel's name
awakened a new train of thought in the mind of Ner. ' Tell
me, I pray thee, what Samuel said unto you,' was a request
prompted by other feelings than mere curiosity. At that time
the prophet was besieged by the nation with demands for a
king to lead them in war. In every town and vilLage one
question stirred all hearts, high and low. Samuel had assured
them their request would be granted. He did not tell tliem
on whom the choice of Heaven had fallen. But every Hebrew
knew that the appointment was in his hands, and would be
30 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
made known through him. If a stranger visited the prophet,
or was seen in earnest conversation with him during those days
of waiting, there were pr}ing eyes quick enough to note the
fact, and ready tongues as quick to spread it far and wide.
In this state of the public mind, in this tossing betwixt hope
and fear, it seems a fair inference, from the request made by
Saul's uncle, to imagine hope or suspicion flashing across his
mind regarding his nephew's visit to Samuel. If the hand-
some figure of the youth made the same impression on him as
on Samuel, it was pardonable to reason thus : ' My nephew is
the most handsome and kingly youth in the land : he has
been visiting Samuel, with whom the selection of a king rests ;
can he be the man chosen for the throne ?' If these thoughts
occurred to -Saul's uncle, it is easy to understand the half-
coaxing, half-respectful tone in the inquiry : ' Tell me, I pray
thee, what said Samuel unto you.' But the question was
awkwardly worded : * What Samuel said unto the two of you.'
Xer had no idea of the prophet having said and done to Saul
things of which the servant was ignorant. Saul appears to
have seen this, and answered accordingly. He was in a
difficult position. Nor do the words that are recorded bring
the scene fully before our minds. Saul carried a strange and
romantic secret in his bosom. It alone might well have made
him another man, and wrought changes in him too marked to
escape the eyes of a friend. When face to face with his uncle,
could the youth have had such command over his eyes and voice,
as to banish every trace of that honourable secret from his tones
and looks and manner ? We cannot imagine him to have been
so practised in concealing secrets. The anointing took place in
the morning ; the day had been full of stirring events in Saul's
history. One scene of excitement had followed another from
morning to noon, from noon to night. The question of Ner
was asked in the evening, a question sufficient to put to the
severest trial a stronger nature than Saul's. Probably the
uncle expected to hear something startling when he asked his
The Election of a King. 31
nephew what Samuel said. But tlie answer of Saul lulled
all suspicion : ' He told us plainly that the asses were found.'
Whatever Ner may have thought, or however closely he
questioned his nephew, lie failed to draw^ from him the slightest
reference to the romantic adventure of which he was the hero.
* Of the matter of the kingdom he told him not.'
Before the choice of Jehovah was made known to the
Hebrews, there appears to have been a private meeting
between Samuel and Saul, at wdiich the rights and duties of the
kingly office were explained by the prophet. Under the guise
of offering a solemn sacrifice to God, Samuel repaired to Gilgal,
a favourite meeting-place of the Hebrews, situated on the
banks of the Jordan, near Jericho. Saul, perhaps according
to agreement made, descended from Gibeah to the same place
seven days before, and waited the arrival of the prophet.
What the reason may have been for allowing Saul to remain
at Gilgal a week before Samuel made his appearance, we
shall be better able to understand when we come to a
repetition of the same command several years afterwards.
But one thing is worthy of being borne in mind. The season
of the year was early spring, as we reckon it, or nearly barley
harvest in Palestine.
When the requisite arrangements w^ere thus made for
discovering to the Hebrew^s the chosen king, Samuel sum-
moned an assembly of the people to Mizpeh, a city in the
highlands of Benjamin, and a favourite meeting-place of the
tribes. It was not heads of cantons and families only whom
the business to be settled at that gathering concerned. Every
man above twenty years of age had a right to be present.
So far as human eyes could see or human understandings
judge, every man had a chance of being chosen for the kingly
seat. Nor did the Philistines, by whose garrisons several of
the tribes w^ere kept in check, prevent this meeting of the
Hebrews. Before the tidings could reach Gath or Ekron, the
assembly would be held, a king appointed, and the people
32 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
have returned to their homes; even if the attention of the'
Philistines was not then engaged with the warlike movements;
of Egypt or Assyria in their own plains.
The plan chosen for ascertaining the will of God at this
meeting, was the same that the Hebrews followed at all
turning points in their history. In the country round the'
camp, and before many thousands of eager onlookers, the
names of the tribes, graven on stones or written on slips of
parchment or paper such as was used at the time in. Egypt,
were placed in the sacred bag of the high priest's breastplate,
in presence of the princes and elders. Then the high priest
seems to have thrust in his hand and drawn one forth. At
this great meeting the stone or slip first drawn forth was
marked ' Benjamin.' From that tribe should come the king
of the land. The heads of families in the canton were next
arranged in order before Samuel. Each threw a lot for his
family in the sacred bag. Again the high priest thrust in
his hand : he brought forth the lot of Matri.-^ The men of
that family then came forward. The circle of choice was thus
gradually narrowing. Most of the men of Benjamin had
lost their personal interest in the matter, when the second
drawing narrowed still further the area from which a king
should be taken. The hopes and interest of the few within
this charmed circle became greater, as their chance of success
grew better. But the third drawing stilled all hopes save one
man's ; it swept away chance in the certainty of a known
result : the name drawn was that of the man who had been
anointed a week or two before, that handsome and goodly
youth, Saul, the son of Kish.
It may seem strange that the plan of ascertaining the wdll
of God by lot should have been chosen, when Samuel knew
beforehand on whom the lot should fall. Would it not have
1 Those wlio hunt after inconsistencies in the story should compare with this
family name Saul's lineage, given a page or two before—' Saul, Kish, Abiel,
Zeror, Beehorath, Aphiah a Benjamite' (1 Sam. ix. 1). Matri is nowhere
mentioned.
The Election of a King, 33
been simpler and more straightforward, had the prophet at
once told the assembled tribes the name of the man chosen
by God, and already anointed to the kingly office ? In
answering this question, we have to bear in mind several
things, whicli must have had great weight with the prophet.
A number of the leading men appear to have entertained
hopes of securing the throne for themselves. And had
Samuel merely informed them of the message he received,
requiring him to anoint Saul, they would not have scrupled
to decry the choice as a trick on the part of the prophet.
' He wishes to keep the reins of power in his own hands,'
they would have said ; ' the best way to manage this is by
placing at the head of affairs a nobody, to be guided as he
pleases.' But the lot silenced all these cavils. The Hebrew
nobles might murmur at the elevation of an unknown youth
to the throne ; but every one must have felt in his heart,
whatever he uttered with his lips, that, when the lot was cast
into the lap at Mizpeh, the ordering thereof was of the Lord.
It is further plain from the story, that the chiefs of the people
no longer reposed confidence in the Judge of Israel. What-
ever the reason may have been, they were ripe for revolt
against his authority, they were suspicious of his actings,
and they distrusted all his arrangements. Had he, in these
circumstances, announced the choice of Saul as king, the
discontented and the seditious would have had ground for
complaining of unfairness. The lot left them no loophole.
Samuel could exercise no control over the names in the bag
of the high priest's breastplate. Beyond doubt, the choice
of Saul w^as the work of Jehovah.
The drawing of the lots occupied a considerable time. But
the third drawing was more tedious than the other two, for
the names of perhaps one or two hundred men had to be
handed to the high priest. While his countrymen and kin-
dred were thus engaged, Saul, with becoming modesty, with-
drew to the camp. As soon as the result of the drawing was
34 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
made known to the people, there arose a general demand for
tlie new king. But he could nowhere be found. His friends
and relatives knew of his presence among them an hour or
two before. Some of tliem, perhaps, observing him leave the
ranks, had inferred that he had gone home. The high priest,
inquiring at the sacred oracle, ' Will he come hither again ? '
was told in reply, ' He hath hid himself among the baggage.'
Saul Avas soon brought forth from his hiding-place to receive
the homage of the people. When Samuel presented him to
the vast assemblage wdth the short speech of introductory
recommendation, ' See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen,
that there is none like him among all the people,' from every
part of the host came the joyful shout, ' God save the king ! '
Before the assembly broke up, Samuel read to them an
important book or state paper, which is called in our trans-
lation, 'The manner of the kingdom.' In it he may have
embodied part of the address wdiich he delivered some time
before, when endeavouring to bring home to the people their
sin in asking a king. Both prince and people accepted the
charter thus drawn out, and Samuel, by laying it among the
national records preserved in the tabernacle, placed it under
the protection of Jehovah. On the one hand, the king knew
his duties and his prerogative ; on the other hand, the people
were made aware of their rights.
The choice of a king was soon found to have broken the
bonds of union in the assembly. Three parties were at once
evident. Of these the largest, numbering in its ranks the
great body of the people, had neither good nor bad to say re-
garding the new king. They delayed making up their minds.
They w^ere waiting to see him show his fitness or unfitness for
ruling the land. But the views of the other two parties were
more decided. One of them, known as ' the band wdiose hearts
God had touched,' hailing the election of Saul with unbounded
joy, at once enrolled themselves as his followers and body-
guard. The other, known as ' sons of Belial,' disappointed,
The Election of a King, 3 5
perhaps, in their hopes of gaining the kingly dignity them-
selves, and scorning to submit to an unknown youth, refused
to pay him tribute or homage, and insultingly asked those
who did, ' How shall this fellow save iis ? ' Their rebellious
speeches were carried to the ears of Saul. With a prudence
that gave ]oroof of his worthiness to fill the throne of a king-
dom, he held his peace till he should have an opportunity of
showinoj his ri^ht to reifrn.
The story of the choice of a king by Samuel has, within
the past few years, become a battle-ground between the advo-
cates of tw^o different theories. All thinkers are agreed in
allowing a close relationship between the words and thoughts
in that story, and the words and thoughts of the book of
Deuteronomy. Not long ago this relationship was neither
seen nor suspected. But it is now admitted. At first the
relationship was believed to be slight, then it was found to be
intimate, at last it was discovered to be so close that out of
100 verses in the story as told in Samuel, nearly one-half
borrow the words and thoughts of Deuteronomy. On another
point there is agreement among scholars. No doubt what-
ever is entertained of the indebtedness of the writer in Samuel
to the writer of Deuteronomy. The latter was the source
from which the former borrowed. But the point of disagree-
ment now comes to the surface. Were the words and phrases,
borrowed from Deuteronomy, borrowed by the man who wrote
the first edition of the book of Samuel, about 980 B.C., or
were they inserted by a reviser, who published a new edition
of the ancient work about 600 B.C. ? One school pronounces
the borrowing to be the work of the original writer in tlie
iirst edition; another school pronounces it additions in a
second and revised edition of the book four centuries after.
The former believes the whole story to be a true narrative of
facts ; the latter regards it as a piece of manufactured goods,
which, to say the least, is stamped with a forged trade-mark,
and is made out of spurious stuff. The theory of a true
\6 I he Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
history and of allowable borrowing rests on assuming tlie
existence of Deuteronomy in the days of Samuel ; the theory
of manufactured goods assumes the fabrication of that book
three or four centuries afterwards.
Let us look first at the theory of a true history and allow-
able borrowing. If Deuteronomy was written by Moses about
1450 B.C., it could have been quoted by Samuel in 1100 B.C.
On this point there is no difficulty. But one of the most
important parts of Deuteronomy is the twelfth chapter, which
lays ^oww, first, the law of a central altar for the nation, on
which alone acceptable sacrifice could be offered ; and, second,
the broad distinction, already mentioned, between priestly or
atoning sacrifice, allowed at that altar only, and popular or
festive sacrifice, allowed in any corner of the land. The
history in Samuel contains frequent references to this chapter
of Deuteronomy. Two of them may be presented here, because
they occur in Samuel's speech shortly after Saul's election :
1 Sam. xii. 23 (20).
* I will teach you the good and the
right way. Only fear the Lord and
serve Him in truth with all your heart'
Deut. xii. 28, x. 12.
(1) ' Observe and hear all these words
which I command thee, that it may go
well with thee . . . when thou doest
the good and the right in the sight of
the Lord thy God.'
(2) 'To fear the Lord thy God, to
walk in all His ways, . . . and to serve
the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul. '
Samuel's leave-taking of the people brought to mind the
leave-taking of Moses. Each of them was handing over the
reins of power to a younger man. But each of them had the
same warning to utter, the same advice to give, and the same
entreaty to make. Most naturally, therefore, does Samuel
repeat the words and thoughts of the lawgiver. With all the
dignity of age and office, he speaks words which his hearers
may have often read in the popular law-book for themselves.
But this parallel does not prove the indebtedness of the
prophet to the lawgiver. It shows the likelihood of the debt.
The Election of a King. 37
A quotation from Deuteronomy in tlie leave-taking speech of
Samuel makes this likelihood of borrowing more likely :
1 Sam. xii. 11. Deut. xii. 10.
' He delivered you out of the hands '"When He giveth you rest from all
of your enemies on every side, and ye your enemies round about, so that ye
dwelled safe. ' dioell in safety. '
xii. 14. xiii. 4 (5).
' If ye will fear the Lord, and serve ' Ye shall walk after the Lord your
Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel God, and fear Him, and keep His coui-
against the commandment (mouth) of mandments, and obey His voice, and
the Lord.' ye shall serve Him.'
The words, ' your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled
safe,' are the same in the Hebrew of both books. And the
adverb safe, occurring in no other part of Samuel, stamps the
passage as borrowed. The quotations in the second passage
are equally clear. And it is as fair a piece of criticism to
say that the Prophet Samuel copied from the law-book, as
to say that a later writer put words from the law-book into
the prophet's lips. How, then, is the point in dispute to be
settled ? There is one way of doing this, to which no objec-
tion can be taken on either side. It is the safest and the
most satisfactory path out of the difficulty. Let a quotation
from Deuteronomy, similar to ' your enemies round about, so
that ye dwell in safety,' and essential to the life of the con-
text, be produced from a part of Samuel which is allowed to
show no trace of a reviser's hand. Our argument will then
be complete. ISTow the story of Eli's sons' abuse of their
priestly rights (1 Sam. ii. 12-17) is confessed to be a part of
Samuel which no reviser had touched. It is even regarded
with favour as a proof that laws were then in force opposed
to the laws of Moses.^ But in that story the book of
Deuteronomy is quoted word for word, as shall be shown in
its proper place (chap. ix.). There are, therefore, quotations
starting up from most unexpected quarters, which prove tlie
existence of Deuteronomy in Samuel's time. Both the prophet
1 Colenso, Tart vii. 117.
2,S The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
and the princes had read the book. The words of the former
are too clear to leave a shadow of doubt on his acquaintance
with it. We even seem to be able to look over his shoulder
as he reads the ancient writing, and to pick out chapter and
verse which made most impression on his mind.
But if the Prophet Samuel had Deuteronomy in his hands,
he may be charged with unwarrantably refusing to allow the
people to exercise their legal right of choosing a king. As the
story is briefly told, mistakes may be easily committed, unless
its words are carefully considered. For Samuel did not refuse
to grant the people's prayer. He was ' displeased ' with it ; he
regarded it as a personal affront, but he never condemned it
as unwarranted by the law of the land. And he was repri-
manded by Jehovah for the selfish view he took of its bearing,
as w^ell as ordered to gjive it effect. The words used throuo;h-
o o
out the narrative of Saul's election are the words and ideas
which a reader of Deuteronomy would use, except in one
point. That exception is the anointing of the king. And as
the exception often proves a rule in other things, so the
exception here proves the indebtedness of Samuel to the fifth
book of the lawejiver.
But let the other theory be looked at in its bearings on the
history. A late reviser, reading the law of the central altar
in the twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy, is believed to have
added quotations from it to the original book of Samuel. He
had a purpose in view. That purpose was to make the wor-
ship of Samuel's time (1100 B.C.) seem to have been the same
as the worship in his own time (600 B.C.) ; or to make Samuel
and his contemporaries seem to have been acquainted with
the book of Deuteronomy, although they were not. He
would not do this with one part of the book of Samuel;
he would do it with the whole, otherwise he would ex-
pose himself to the charges of folly and forgery combined.
But the writers who pretend to have discovered this reviser's
hand, acknowledge the feebleness with which he carried out
The Election of a King. 39
his intentions. He failed completely in liis purpose. His
critics profess to trace what he has done in some parts of the
book, by what he has left undone in others. He knew the
law of the central altar ; he did not dare, they say, to change
any parts of the history which show that that law was un-
known in Samuel's day. According to them, therefore, he
was both a forger in changing what he did change, and a fool
in not changing far more to keep his other changes from being
discovered. This theory does not hang together. A reviser,
who undertook to meddle with an ancient writing for a
specific purpose, ought to be credited with always, or at
least generally, keeping that purpose in view. But he has
scarcely kept it in view at all. More frequently has he left
it out of account. A better solution of the difficulty is there-
fore to treat the theory as the blunder of a puzzled, or baffled,
criticism.
The dishonesty of the forgery is made light of by the
advocates of this theory. I^o right of property was then
recognised in books, it is said. Every man could help himself
to what he found written, could change it at his pleasure, and
could publish it to the world as his own or as the original
autlior's work. Great and serious changes on an ancient book
by an unknown hand did not imply dishonesty or forgery.
Such is the view taken in modern times of the sentiments
entertained 3000 years ago regarding changes made on
written documents. It is more to the purpose to discover
what the men of those distant days thought and said on the
point. Modern writers may be attributing to them sentiments
which they would have repudiated. Half-a-dozen lines from a
hand that has been cold for a score of centuries, are of more
worth than whole libraries of modern thinking on the subject.
And not to mention others, Sargon, the great king of Assyria
(707 B.C.), has left a testimony which might make the advo-
cates of this theory blush. The last words of the long annals
of his reif^n are : ' Whoever shall alter my writings and my
40 The Kingdom of All-Isj^ael : its History,
name may Assiir, the great god, throw down his sword ; may
he exterminate in this land his name and his offspring, and
may he never pardon him this sin.' Dishonesty and forgery
in writings were esteemed as discreditable in Sargon's days as
in ours — perhaps more so.
CHAPTEE II.
THE TESTING OF SAUL.
(1 Sam. xi.)
The fitness of Saul to rule was soon put to the test. For
some time before his election, Nahash, king of Ammon, had
been threatening the country on both sides of the Jordan.
A century before, his predecessor on the throne was content to
demand a peaceable return of the lands which were conquered
by Moses on the east side of Jordan. Nahash is more aspiring.
What his ancestors lost he means to recover ; but he will con-
quer or destroy more. He chose the time of harvest for
making the attempt (1 Sam. xii. 17). His armies had already
overrun the rich fields of Gilead, and were advancing north-
wards to the ford at Bethshean, where the Jordan, opening
out to a considerable breadth, is easily crossed at that sultry
season. The town of Jabesh Gilead, situated on a height
overlooking a long valley that sloped down to the ford of the
river, lay on his road. He could not with safety cross the
Jordan, unless this fortress were wrested from the Hebrews.
He could not reap the fertile fields of Western Palestine, or
eat them up with his flocks and herds, until Jabesh was in
liis hands. When he appeared before the town, he found it
so strong that, though he might have reduced it by famine, he
would, perhaps, have been unable to take it by assault. On
the other hand, the citizens, believing the danger greater if
they resisted his arms, were willing to become his vassals on
lionourable terms of peace. But Nahash was not disposed to
moderation. He was bent on reading the Hebrews a lesson
that should make even their distant tribes unwilling to risk
42 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History,
further opposition to liis progress. Like many other con-
querors, Avlio have made one terrible example pave an easy
way to a score of bloodless triumphs, he resolved on giving
terms to Jabesh which should spread the fear of his name to
the utmost bounds of Israel The plan was simple and not
uncommon : its success or failure depended entirely on the
spirit that animated the Hebrews. When the citizens pro-
fessed their willingness to submit, and requested Nahash to
grant them an alliance, the Ammonite replied that the putting
out of the right eye of every townsman was the first condition
of peace. They and all who should hear of it were left to
infer the fate in store for the next city which dared to close
its gates in the face of his army. ' I will put a reproach on
all Israel,' was the boastful addition made by Nahash to these
hard terms of peace. Not content with punishing the few
who defied his arms, he soars so high as to think, in these
few, of aiming a blow at the honour of the nation and its God.
But the Serpent of Ammon — for such is the meaning of his
name — was not destined to crush out the life of Israel in his
folds.
In this pride of the enemy, the elders of the city found an
opening for at least seeking relief. If the reproach is to be
put on all Israel, not on us alone, they seem to have said, All
Israel should know how far their honour is at stake. ' Give
us seven days,' they said (a period of time which frequently
occurs in the brief story of Saul) ; ' that we may send mes-
sengers to every bound of the land, and if then there be none
to save us we shall come forth to thee.' This appeal touched
the pride of ISTahash. However long he might delay, he
believed the Hebrews would not undertake to relieve the
beleaguered city. By a week's delay, his defiance of the
whole nation would be more thorough, and their fear of his
arms more profound. If the king they had chosen did not
band them together against him, his course after the capture
of Jabesh would be but a march of triumph across the land.
The Testing of Saitl. 43
There would be no siege to detain him, no army to offer him
battle. With these views, the request of the citizens was
granted as soon as it was made.
It seems to have been late that summer afternoon when the
terms of this treaty were settled. Next morning messengers
were on their way to demand assistance from their country-
men. Towards sunset they reached Gibeah, about iifty miles
off. Many of the peasant and farmer citizens, set free from
the labours of the day, were assembled at the gate to talk
over public alfairs or to retail the gossip of the neighbourhood.
Others were joining them every moment. The arrival of the
messengers was a source of excitement to the waiting groups.
Spent with a long and weary journey, covered with dust, they
are soon the centre of an eager crowd, who hang upon their
words. Their message concerns every man of Hebrew blood.
It specially concerns these Benjamites of Gibeah, between whom
and Jabesh there were ancient ties of kindred (Judg. xxi. 1 4).
Unaccustomed to the ways of statesmen, they err in deliver-
ing to a city crowd the message entrusted to them for the
king. But neither he nor they nor the groups in the gate
take the same views of kingly grandeur and kingly reserve,
which modern critics may be surprised they should have
forgotten. It was a message to the whole nation — a message,
too, which their burstins^ hearts could not contain till it
should be delivered to the nation's head. Many years before,
the swift runner, who brouglit the first tidings to Shiloh of
that fatal day when the ark of God was taken in battle,
avoided Eli, the judge of the land, as he sat waiting and
watching at the wayside. He told his tale of sorrow to the
city crowd, in the same way as these messengers from Jabesh
forgot their king and addressed themselves directly to their
countrymen. A loud burst of sorrow from the group in the
gate proclaims how deeply the iron has entered into their
soul. All-Israel still thinks and feels as one people. Xahash
may pride himself on his success : he has struck his enemy
44 ^^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
through the heart. Meanwhile, Saul is on his way townward
from the fields, it may be from threshing barley ; he is driving
oxen before himi. Though the king of a great and enlightened
nation, he is not ashamed to till his father's fields or his own.
He has not forgotten the law which forbade him to lift his
heart ' above his brethren.' The messengers finish their story
as he draws near ; a wild burst of grief rises from the crowd.
As he hears their cry, the spirit of the ruler is stirred within
him ; the heart of the king, the father of his people, is touched.
' What aileth the people that they are weeping ? ' he asks of
those who come running to meet him, some perhaps of his
chosen band. They bring him to the gate, where the
messenojers recount — as if out of a written book — the ' case
of the men of Jabesh.' Instantly a power from above fills
the bosom of Saul. The hour has come to vindicate his title
to the throne ; the tide that shall bear him on to undisputed
empire has begun to flow. The soldier, the ruler, the king
awaken within him, each to play its several part. He stands
forth the only man equal to the time in that hour of alarm.
A couple of the oxen belonging to Saul are slaughtered on
the spot, and cut in pieces. ' Go to every bound of Israel,'
he said to the men who had come from Jabesh, and who
could best tell their own story, * proclaim that thus shall it
be done to the oxen of every one who followeth not after
Saul and Samuel.' He named the trysting-place and the day
of meeting. A ring of triumph, like the ring of pure gold,
sounded from his words and acts. ' Every bound of Israel '
was the borrowing of a phrase used by the elders of Jabesh
when they spoke wdth Nahash. If, as the words in the
Hebrew original imply, they sent a written message to Saul,
there is here, as there is throughout the whole book of
Samuel, an unquestionable quoting from previously existing
documents. As the enemy had command of the whole of
Gilead, the only tribes summoned to the war w^ere the nine
and a half on the western side of Jordan. By this means the
The Testing of Sattl. 45
Ammonite was kept in ignorance of what was passing among
the Hebrews. To seize the fords and prevent spies or traitors
from crossing would be the first step of Saul. The warlike
movements of the tribes were thus kept a secret from Nahash;
for the silver thread of the narrow river was a screen which
he could not pierce to see what was passing on the other side.
Besides, he was too conscious of his own strength to take the
trouble. The messengers made good use of the respite. A
burst of patriotic feeling, such as had not been known for
many years, stirred the nation to its heart. The fear of
Jehovah fell upon the tribes, the fear of evils He would bring
down on them, if they allowed the reproach which Nahash
had already cast on His name to pass unrebuked. Before the
end of the week, Saul was at the head of 330,000 men. The
rapidity with which that army was raised, shows a complete-
ness of organization within each tribe that indicates the
necessity felt for every man to be ready to seize his arms, to
pack up his provisions, and to hasten to the meeting-place of
his district. Israel was then standing prepared for war, its
hand upon the sword. But the comparatively small force
furnished by Judah, and the distinction drawn between it and
Israel, as the other eight or nine tribes are called, have always
been cause of surprise. Because Israel and Judah became
separate kingdoms more than a century afterwards, the
historian is here supposed to indicate the beginning of the
jealousy which ultimately caused the split. But this explana-
tion is too easy. It seems also unreasonable to preface a war
for union among the tribes with a plain hint of their future
disunion. This explanation assumes the author of the book
to have flourished after Solomon's death, and of this there is
not sufticient proof. It also ascribes the distinction to the
author, not to the ancient records wliich he consulted.
Another explanation must therefore be looked for. And
here the small number of men furnished by Judah comes
into play. According to the tribal rolls at the conquest
46 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
under Joshua, it ought to have furnished 50,000, not 30,000.
But according to the rolls in the book of Samuel itself (2
Sam. xxiv. 9), Judah ought to have sent to the war more
than 100,000 men. At a later period in Saul's reign, it
sends 10,000 men to the army, while the other tribes send
200,000. It ought to have sent 30,000 or 80,000. Judah
had evidently a right of exemption from service not enjoyed
by other tribes. While their contingents were slumped
together in the records of the nation, Judah's were entered
separately. Nor is the reason far to seek. The tribe was
strong in men, but weak in position. As soon as soldiers
marched north from its towns and villages, Philistines,
Edomites, and Amalekites might fall on the unprotected
borders. Xo other tribe was in this position. Judah had to
do police duty against evil-disposed neighbours for itself and
for Hebrew kinsfolk. Hence a force sent abroad implied as
great a force retained under arms at home. By giving the
muster roll of Judah at the end of David's reign, the author
of Samuel calls special attention to the small contingents it
furnished for wars abroad. Acting on his usual principle of
not assigning reasons when they lie on the surface, he assigns
none here ; but he furnishes facts, from which a reader can
discover the reason for himself. Writing a century later than
the relief of Jabesh Gilead, he found the numbers entered as
lie states them in the sources from which he borrowed. He
made no change in the entry ; and he gave no reason for the
distinction drawn. He is generally supposed to have made
the distinction himself; but of this there is no proof
whatever.
The soldiers assembled near a place called Bezek, the site of
which, though now unknown, cannot be far from the ford of
Jordan below Bethshean. Samuel was with the army ; and to
add solemnity to the occasion, the ark of God appears to have
been brought from its resting-place at Kirjath. Nahash was
lulled into security by a well-planned stratagem. On the
The Testing of SauL 47
evening of the last day of respite the messengers were seen
returning to Jabesh. They bring no help with them : there
is no army at their back. We can easily imagine their down-
cast looks, their justifiable dissimulation as they pass through
the lines of the besiegers, everything proclaiming that the
Hebrews beyond Jordan are afraid to move to their brethren's
relief. But when the walls of Jabesh are between them and
the Ammonite, they become other men. From mouth to
mouth pass the cheering tidings of help close at hand. In an
assembly of the citizens steps are at once taken to second the
attack of their approaching countrymen. But since they
must send an answer to the enemy's camp, it is also resolved
to lull the Ammonites into security. A deputation from the
elders of the city waits upon the captains of Nahash. Without
saying so in as many words, they profess themselves willing
to become his servants ; at least they give that impression :
' To-morrow,' they said, ' will we come out unto you, and ye
shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you.' The phrase,
' to do according to all the good in thine eyes,' is common in
the book of Samuel. Like other phrases in that history, it
appears to be borrowed from the well-known law of the
central altar in Deuteronomy (xii. 28). The words were such
as people accustomed to read that law would use as a pro-
verbial saying. The feint has succeeded. Nahash and his
captains believe the deputation can have but one meaning.
They are mistaken. While the Hebrews mean to come out in
arms to do battle with the besiegers, Nahash imagines they
mean to come forth from the fortress to have their right eyes
put out. A feeling of security spreads through the camp.
From the highest to the lowest among them, the invaders feel
as safe as if camped in their own Amnion. JSTo enemies are
near : no attack need be feared. To-morrow will see them
masters of Jabesh : to-morrow in one hour will a reproach be
rolled on Israel, which a hundred years may not suffice to roll
away. When the besieged thus fenced with words, they won
48 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
an easy victory over simpletons, who could see only one
meaning in ambiguous language.
Imitating tlie tactics of great Hebrew soldiers in former
days, Saul resolved to surprise the enemy by a night march
and a night attack. Perhaps the moon was favourable for the
attempt. But the people of the district through which he
would have to pass were all bitterly opposed to Nahash, and
would guide his march. Towards nightfall the Hebrew troops
appear to have approached the ford of Jordan, where a strict
watch would be kept against spies and traitors. Choosing the
best of his soldiers as a forlorn hope for a desperate enterprise,
Saul hastened with them towards Jabesh, twelve or fifteen
miles distant. The rest of the army could follow at greater
leisure. Dividing the chosen band into three brigades, a plan
forced on him by the nature of the ground, or adopted in
imitation of Gideon, he fell on the enemy shortly before day-
break. The Hebrews were speedily in the midst of the
careless and slumbering host. A fourth onset from the town
added to the terror and confusion caused by Saul's threefold
battle. A panic fell on the surprised and ill-disciplined
invaders. Multitudes were trampled down by their fellows
on the field and in the pursuit. Before nine o'clock, or about
four hours after the first onset, the invading host had been
thoroughly broken ; not two of them were left together. The
Hebrews, who followed Saul's forlorn hope from the fords of
Jordan, would come up in time to complete the victory, or to
intercept the fugitive army. And thus in the course of that
morning had All-Israel escaped a dreaded reproach by the
energy of its sovereign.
The ' reproach ' which Nahash proposed to put on his
enemies in All-Israel was rolled away from them, and put
upon himself. A king had vindicated his right to reign
by saving his people from an intended disgrace. The same
word turns up afterwards in the history of Saul, and in
the same way. Another champion of the heathen appeared, as
The Testing of Sate L 49
boastful as Nahasb, and like him enjoying for a few weeks
the delight of apparent success. Goliath proposed to do Avhat
Xahash failed in — put a reproach on All- Israel. Tor six weeks
he enjoyed his boasting over Saul and the Hebrew army.
But again, as in Saul's case, a new champion rolled the
disgrace away, and vindicated his right to the throne. ' David
spake to the men that stood by him, saying. What shall be
done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away
the reproach from Israel?' (1 Sam. xvii. 26).
The triumph at Jabesli soon bore fruit. Filled Avith
admiration of their leader, the soldiers demanded from Samuel
the names of the men who had rejected the new king. A
party in the state ridiculed his right and title. Samuel, to
whom the leaders had probably expressed their sentiments,
was the only person who could give their names. Accordingly,
the soldiers sent a deputation to the prophet to express their
views. * Who was it that said, Shall Saul reign over us ? ' they
asked : ' Give up the men that we may kill them.' Soldiers
flushed with victory, full of patriotism, devoted to the king
who had shown them how to win battles, such men meant
what they said. But Saul, who was present at the time, or to
whom the matter was referred, showed himself not less worthy
of the throne in the cabinet than he had been in the field.
' There shall not a man die this day,' he said ; ' for to-day hath
Jehovah wrought salvation in Israel.' Forgiveness, not of an
injury, but of an open affront, so nobly given, revealed in
Saul springs of a manly greatness. Had they welled forth in
later days under different circumstances, his life, instead of
being a barren w^aste, might have been a field fertile of noble
deeds.
With a wisdom befitting his years, Samuel took advantage
of the triumph of the king and of the ardour of the soldiers
to establisli the throne on a sure basis. While strengthening
Saul in his resolution to put no Hebrew to death, he proposed
to the army a march to Gilgal, and a renewal of the kingdom
D
50 The Kingdom of A 11- Israel: its History.
there. If any were lukewarm in the cause of Saul before,
they might now show more fervour ; if any had ridiculed and
rejected the anointed of God, events had convinced them of
their mistake. This renewal of the kingdom was nothing else
than giving the leading men of the land a chance of paying to
Saul the homage which they had formerly refused. It was
a well-planned means of bringing the chiefs cheerfully to
acknowledge a power, against which many of them were
disposed to rebel. And the plan succeeded. Accompanied
by the ark of God, the whole army repaired to Gilgal. Peace-
offerings were burnt on the altar at that place, or on the
brazen altar brought from Nob, some distance off among the
hills. And with such heartiness was Saul acknowledged kinsj
by princes and people, that at no time during the remainder
of his reign does there appear to have been a murmur against
his right to rule. Discontented chiefs may afterwards have
chosen to acknowledge Philistine supremacy instead of his
authority. They appear, indeed, to have followed this course.
But they made no open or recorded attempt to overturn his
throne.
This renewal of the kingdom is said to have been made
* before the Lord in Gilgal.' And * before the Lord ' they at
the same time ' sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offerings.' The
words, ' before the Lord,' in these passages, as in many others,
may and probably do mean ' before the ark of God.' With the
ark went the priests, by whom, according to the law, the
sacrifices would be offered. In this case the word 'peace-
offerings' is expressly added after sacrifices. In other cases,
therefore, when ' sacrifices ' stands alone, we are not at liberty,
without evidence, to regard them as priestly or atoning
offerings. The word may then be used in its popular meaning
for festive victims. Although the offerings are said to have
been sacrificed by the people, the duty was really discharged
by the priests, as representing the nation. Sometimes kings
are said to offer the sacrifices which they command the priests
The Testing of Satd. 5 1
to offer ; but this is a manner of spealdng common to all
languages and nations.^ And had regard been paid to the
ordinary use of words, the history of these times would not
have been deluged with a flood of assertions in our day, which
threatens to sweep away all landmarks of the past.
For several days the rejoicings of the triumphant army
continued. It was the season of Pentecost, the time of wheat
harvest, the beginning of the hot autumn of Palestine, when
for weeks and months together the blue of the heavens is
never spotted by a cloud to shield the earth from the sun's
heat, or to refresh its fields with rain. The national joy at
Gilgal was tempered by the religious awe of that festivah A
nation was again breathing the breath of health after its
deliverance from Ammon. It was beginning to know and to
use its own strength.
Before the assembly broke up, Samuel addressed the people.
It was his leave-taking as their ruler and governor. Hence-
forth the reins of power should be in the hands of the young
king. From childhood, he said, he had walked before them
and their fathers. Old age and grey hairs had come upon
him. But long as his administration had been, he could hold
up his hands before them, and appeal to them to bear out his
words, when he denied that they had ever been stained by
bribe or by violence. With one voice they bore witness to
the purity of his government. It was hard to rule from
youth to old age, and then to be told, we are weary with your
government, and wish a better. Samuel felt this apparent
unkindness. But he mistook the people's feelings. Dissatis-
faction with him was not their reason for asking a king. A
feeling of their own weakness, a distrust of their power to
keep together as a nation without a visible head, were the real
1 David (1 Chron. xxi. 26, 28) and Solomon (2 Chron. i. 6, vii. 4-7) are
said to have sacrificed ; Luc the meaning is, they commanded sacrifices to be
offered, as we find distinctly stated in the case of Ilezekiah (2 Chrou. xxix.
21, 24).
52 The Ki7igdom of All-Israel: its History.
grounds of their desire for a change of government. Samuel
now felt the force of these reasons. Still the distrust was
sinful, because it sprang from disbelief in Jehovah's presence
among them. Accordingly the prophet warned them of the
danger of this disbelief. It nearly brought the nation to ruin
in past generations, when Gideon, and Bedan, and Jephthah,
and Samuel were all raised up to free them from foreign
oppression. The arm of the Almighty had shielded them on
these occasions. When they heard of the preparations of
Nahash, and saw his armies approaching, confidence in their
heavenly King forsook them, and they demanded a visible
head. To bring home to them their own and the inherited
sins of many generations, the prophet, pointing to the cloudless
lieavens overhead, reminded them of the season of the year,
the time, as they all knew, when thunder and rain were
unknown in Palestine — ' I will call unto the Lord,' he said,
' and He shall send thunder and rain.' In answer to his
prayer as well as in proof of his truthfulness, a thunderstorm
bursting over the camp of Israel terrified the people. They
besought the prophet to pray for them that they might not
die, and specially that their sin in asking a king might be
forgiven. As the sun broke out from behind the storm clouds,
so Samuel's favour was secured by this repentance of the
Hebrews. ' I will teach you the good and the right way,' he
said ; ' only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all
your heart. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be
consumed, both ye and your king.' With this mingled
encouragement and warning, the national gathering broke up.
When Samuel in his leave-taking says, 'The Lord sent
Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and de-
livered you out of the hand of your enemies,' the word Samuel
is regarded with suspicion, as an indication of the unreality of
the speech. Elsewhere in it he repeatedly uses /; why
should he not folloAv the same usage here, and say, Bedan,
and Jephthah, and mc'^ There is only one answer to that
The Testing of Said. 53
question. He did not ask our advice. He took his own way.
We may think or speak as we please about it ; but he was
the best judge in his own cause. And there was a sufficient
reason for him doing as he did. The speech he delivered is
full of w^ords and thoughts from Deuteronomy. Witliout a
dissentient voice, all writers agree in regarding it as entirely
borrowed from, or as showings larcje indebtedness to, that book.
But Deuteronomy exhibits Moses speaking, now in the third
person, and again in the first. He changes from the one to
the other without reason and without intimation. Samuel
does the same thing in this short speech of leave-taking. If
Moses thus spoke in a great speech, to which Samuel's brief
leave-taking was indebted for words and thoughts, it may also
be the source of Samuel's mixing up of the third and first
persons. As Moses did not always say me, or / w^hen he
spoke of himself, but Moses ; so, in like circumstances, Samuel,
copying this grand model, said Samuel, where, to our way of
thinking, it would have sounded better had he said me. Allow
indebtedness to Deuteronomy, and many more difficulties
besides this will be found blunders on our part, not difficulties
in the history.
CHAPTER III.
THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
(1 Sam. xiii., xiv. — The Springtime, about 1075 b.c.)
For many years after the overthrow of ISTahash, the history of
Israel is almost a blank. Only two points have been touched
on by the sacred writer, and these very briefly. The first of
them is the selection by Saul of three thousand chosen men
to form his bodyguard. Although these troops were raised
in the second year of his reign, their prowess furnished the
historian with no deeds worth recording till long after. They
were stationed at Gibeah, ready to take the field when
plundering bands broke across the frontier, or to become a
centre round which the national militia might rally, should
attempts be made by large armies to invade the country.
Twice were the ' three thousand chosen men,' as we find them
called, suddenly summoned to follow the king in pursuit of
David. And once were they marched in greater haste to the
w^estern border of Judah to beat back a raid of the Philistines.
It is necessary to bear in mind these sudden calls on the
services of ' the three thousand.' Even when the fact of a
summons to repel invasion is not expressly mentioned, it may
have to be supplied as a link in the chain of events. The
reason for calling this bodyguard ' chosen men of Israel ' is
briefly stated : ' When Saul saw any strong man or any
valiant man, he took him unto him.'
The chronology of this part of the history cannot even be
groped after. Precise details are wanting. The nearest
approach to precision is the verse which makes ' Ahiah, the
son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son
The War of Ifidependence. 55
of Eli, (who was) the Lord's priest in Shiloh,' Saul's companion
during the campaign (1 Sam. xiv. 3). But, a few years after,
the high priest is Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub (1 Sam. xxii. 9),
whose son, Abiathar, since he exercised the priest's office,
must have been over thirty years of age. Nothing can
be inferred from these details regarding the other point
on which the historian has touched — the conquest of
Southern Palestine by the Philistines. When the body-
guard of Saul is first mentioned, two thousand of them
are stationed witli the king in Michmash and in Mount
Bethel, while his son Jonathan holds the district of Gibeah
with the remaining thousand. A deep and dangerous ravine,
running east and west for many miles, lay between the two
divisions. The rest of the Hebrew militia were sent home,
' every man to his tent.' Evidently the country was at peace,
or was only expecting invasion, and taking measures to repel
an enemy. But without a word of warning of any change
having taken place, the next few lines in the history discover
a Philistine garrison in possession of the district previously
held by Hebrew troops, Saul's soldiers and people crushed
and disarmed, and a great army of invaders on the march to
the highlands of Benjamin. The Philistines were masters of
the pass of Beth-horon, leading from the shores of the Medi-
terranean to Bethel, and thence to the Jordan. They had
garrisons also in Geba and Michmash, two strongholds which
gave them complete command of the ravine. Besides holding
this great pathway into the heart of Canaan, they were also
able to enforce a general disarming of the Hebrew people.
And so thoroughly was this done, that swords and spears
became almost unknown in the land. Axes, spades, ox-goads,
shares and coulters of ploughs, all of which were required by
the peasantry, could only be sharpened or repaired in the
villages of Philistia, for the forge and the art of the smith
were forbidden to the Hebrew^s. Here and there, throughout
the country, some had hidden away files, which served for
56 The Kingdom of All- 1 S7'ael: its History,
sharpening the implements of the husbandmen. Even Saul's
own bodyguard had been disarmed by the oppressors. The
three thousand chosen men probably remained in attendance
on the king during this time of national disgrace. But they
were either unarmed altogether, or could find no better equip-
ment than rude bows, strong clubs, and ox-goads. Saul and
Jonathan alone could boast of a sword. Peace had evidently
been purchased for Israel at a heavy price. The oppressor
ruled in every village, blew out every forge, carried away
every weapon of war, and plundered the people at his will.
Freedom was dead in the Hebrew land. Never in all its
history had the spirit of the nation been so crushed. No
period of bondage during the time of the Judges w^as more
galling — not even the days of Deborah, of which she sang :
' Then were the gates besieged : was there a shield or spear
seen among forty thousand in Israel ? '
A crushing of a whole nation, so complete as is implied in
this state of dependence on the enemy, could not have been
the result of subjection for a year or two. As in Deborah's
time, it meant fifteen or twenty years of grinding bondage.
Manifestly Saul was then but a tributary prince. The skill
and daring which he displayed in rescuing Jabesh Gilead, at
the beginning of his reign, made him a foe whom neighbouring
nations could not despise. Apparently the Philistines, deter-
mined to meet this new danger before it became too formidable,
liad entered the country in force, and reduced it to subjection.
Their conquest was most thorough. Nor was the disarming
of the people the only proof of their success. Many of the
Hebrews were serving in the armies of the conqueror. And
when the war of independence broke out, a part of the invading
force, sent to trample down the revolt by rapine and slaughter,
was drawn from the Hebrews themselves. Judging by what
has often happened in like circumstances elsewhere, we see a
nation divided into two parties. One of them, believing all
attempts to throw off the yoke useless, was disposed to turn
The War of Independence. 5 7
compliance with the humours of their conquerors into a source
of profit for themselves ; while the other, although submitting
for a season, was only waiting for an opportunity to regain
their freedom. But the spirit of the Hebrews generally was
broken by years of oppression. There were pages of the
history at that time which no true patriot could read or write
without blushing. Like the history of similar periods of
bondage in the book of Judges, they are, so to speak, torn out
of the record ; while the story of the deliverance is written at
full length, with a pen which seems to betray its joy in almost
every word.
The outbreak of national spirit, which led to the overthrow
of Nahash, alarmed the Philistines, and prompted them to
these strong measures. But a high-spirited king like Saul,
proud of a triumph so complete as the defeat of Ammon, did
not abandon his crown without a lengthened struggle. He
was driven to the hills; his men were frightened and scattered;
even his chosen bodyguard melted away to a fifth of its
numbers. The armoury of warlike weapons, which the flight
of Ammon left to be picked off the field of battle by the
Hebrews, was wrested from them ; neither spear nor shield
nor sword was seen in a soldier's or a captain's hand. This
record of disgrace is not a record of one, or two, or five, but
of many years' oppression. It covered pages in the history of
the Hebrew race, so black with dishonour that a writer may
well be excused if he has crowded the sorrows of twenty years
into the compass of as many lines. By striking out this
period of shame, the length of Saul's reign is reduced by
modern authors from about forty years to fewer than twenty.
As the weary season of bondage came to an end, wliispers
of approaching deliverance arose in Israel. Whether it were
that Saul had resolved to strike a blow for freedom, or that
Samuel had received warning of the crisis which was at hand ;
or, as recent discoveries give ground for believing, that the
Philistines were entangled in other wars, tJiere was clearly an
58 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
unwonted stirring among the down-trodden Hebrews. The
spring of the year was chosen for revolt. The people could then
be gathered from all quarters — ' at an appointed season,' for so
the words run in the history — without exciting the suspicions
of their conquerors. The place of meeting was Gilgal, near
Jericho, which was comparatively safe against attack. Sheltered
from the Philistines by a screen of hills and of difficult passes,
Hebrew patriots could gather there for consultation or war.
Samuel had intimated his intention of being present, but he
kept away from the meeting for seven days. The assembly
may have been the annual feast of the passover, observed by
stealth in a place made sacred by old associations. At Gilgal
this festival was observed for the first time in Palestine, a few
days after the crossing of the Jordan under Joshua. 'The
children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover
on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of
Jericho ' (Josh. v. 10). Shiloh became the place of celebration
after Joshua's time. When the curse of desolation fell on that
city, no other was chosen for the central altar and the scene
of national festivals. King and people may have fallen back
on the recorded precedent of Gilgal as a place of celebration,
but if such was the case, Samuel did not sanction it by his
presence. Twice we find him delaying ' seven days ' before
he went down to join the king at Gilgal. He then came to a
meeting of the people for consultation in trying times. Another
explanation of this waiting for seven days is possible. When
Moses set his brother apart for the priesthood, he forbade him
' to go out of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation
seven days' (Lev. viii. 33). The days of consecration were
spent in keeping 'the charge of the Lord day and night.'
Aaron w^aited precisely as Saul was told to do. What the
first high priest did at his solemn setting apart by a prophet,
Samuel, that prophet's successor, might well lay on the first
king of the nation at two turning points in its history. It
seems as if Samuel said to Saul, ' Wait, and meditate on your
The War of Independence, 59
high charge for seven days, before you begin to act.' Be that
as it may, the crisis had arisen in Israel's history ; great events
were about to happen, and Samuel came with a definite
purpose — to offer not a burnt-offering, as the English version
puts it, but tlu burnt-offering. Mention is made of this
sacrifice four times as 'the burnt-offering,' a special victim
chosen for a special purpose (Num. xxviii. 19).
Before the gathering took place at Gilgal, the signal for war
was given by Jonathan, the son of Saul, then a young man
apparently above twenty years of age. By means now unknown,
and with a force which it would be rash to identify with the
thousand men whom he is found commanding a line or two
before, he surprised the Philistine garrison of Geba, a mountain
fastness on the south side of the pass of Beth-horon. The strong-
hold which he thus gained gave its occupants a view of all
hostile movements on the north side of the pass, and was
of inestimable value in the operations which soon followed.
Tidings of the capture spread far and near. The trumpet was
blown throughout the wdiole land, summoning the Hebrev/s to
obey their rightful sovereign ; not the priestly trumpet of the
wilderness, which we shall find reappearing at a later period,
but the soldier's trumpet of battle. And the terms of the
proclamation were the same as Israel had been accustomed
to from their arrival at Sinai, after their escape from
Egypt. 'Hear my voice,' was the command first uttered
from Sinai; 'Let the Hebrew^s hear,' w^as the proclamation
published throughout the land by Saul. 'To hear' had
a well-understood meaning among the people from ancient
times. It ran as a living nerve through their whole
literature ; the string:, on which the events of history are
threaded, is often of the thinness of gossamer, while it has the
strength of steel But the loss of Geba also called the
Philistines to arms. Nor did they scruple to utter threats of
vengeance in the hearing of many Hebrews then in the
country, peasants perhaps getting their implements of hus-
6o TJie Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Histo7y.
bandry repaired, or traitors receiving orders from their masters.
"Word was soon carried to the patriot camp that ' Israel was
had in abomination of the Philistines.' The haughtiness of
conquerors was arrayed against the despondency of an ill-
equipped array of patriots, whose crushed hearts preferred flight
to fifrhtingf. An immense host of Philistines and their allies
speedily marched by the pass of Beth-horon to the rebellious
uplands of Benjamin. Besides an uncounted body of foot
soldiers, there were thirty thousand Eecheb and six thousand
horse. By the Eecheb are commonly understood chariots.^
But that does not appear to be the meaning of the word,
any more than thirty thousand artillery in a modern army
would signify thirty thousand pieces of cannon. The men
who formed the Eecheb, or chariot force, numbered thirty
thousand, and were the flower of the army. But if the
warrior and charioteer and the supports be all taken count of,
the force of chariots may be reduced to four or five thousand at
the most, a number sufficiently large for an army operating on
a plain, but most dangerous when the field of war was among
the hills. According to the Assyrian annals, it was a number
which was sometimes exceeded by the petty princes of Syria,
when banded together to fight for their freedom.
The men of Israel assembled in Gilgal at the ' set time,' but
it was soon seen that few of them were worthy to fight the
battles of freedom. A more formidable foe than Midian had
mastered the land of the Hebrews ; a smaller handful than
even Gideon's three hundred was destined to humble the
enemy's pride. Samuel was not present in the Hebrew camp
during the seven days of the feast, as the assembly may
reasonably be called. As day after day passed, and brought
fuller tidings of the advance of the invaders, men slunk from
following their king. Without shame they hid themselves in
caves and thickets, or among the rocky wastes of mountains
' Those who take the word in this sense suspect a copyist's error in the
number.
The War of Independence, 6 1
which, in a former age, furnished a refuge to the spies, whom
Eahab sent out of Jericho in safety. Others fled to the lofty-
watch-towers, or found at once a dwelling and a safe retreat
in the sepulchres hollowed out on the rock-faces of desolate
valleys. But a greater danger threatened the Hebrew army.
The soldiers lost heart. Many of them, despairing of their
country, crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and the more
distant region of Gilead. Safety had been secured to these
districts by the defeat of Nahash, from which Amnion had not
yet recovered, while the Jordan was a barrier which the
Philistines might not cross. Those who remained with Saul
' followed him, trembling ' for the future. A more mournful
sight could not be witnessed than a great nation, divided into
fugitives and tremblers in presence of a powerful enemy.
Even Saul himself belonged to the tremblers.
For seven days Saul waited at Gilgal, expecting Samuel to
join him at the end of that time. ' A seven days,' or a week,
is a form of words which occurs repeatedly in the Pentateuch,
and in the books of Samuel. In the former, it is frequently used
of the passover feast ; in the latter, it twice appears as a set or
solemn time. Here it fell in the spring, ' at the time when
kings go forth to battle.' The people assembled in great force.
The burnt-offering and peace-offerings were to be sacrificed.
The ark and the high priest, Ahiah, were present in the camp ;
and as Saul's first altar was built some time afterwards, there
was either an altar permanently at the place, or, what is more
probable, the brazen altar of the wilderness had been brought
to Gilgal from Nob by Ahiah and his attendant Levites.
Everything points to the great feast of passover as the occasion
seized by Saul for inspiring his people with warlike ardour.
The place reminded them of some of the greatest deeds of
ancient days : the coming from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan,
the overthrow of Moab by Ehud. The cheering presence of
the ark, which had often led Joshua to victory from tlie same
spot, must not be overlooked. Because the Greek translator
62 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
bungled his work in a passage relating to the ark in this story,
as he bungled it in many other passages, several writers refuse
to allow the presence of the ark in the camp. Not observing
the parenthetic clause in the Hebrew, and not knowing the
usage of the language, he attempted to improve a clear
narrative by altering ' ark ' into ' ephod.' The words, literally
rendered, are, ' And Saul said unto Ahiah, Bring near the ark
of God (for the ark of God was present in that day) and the
children of Israel.' Two things vvere brought near to Saul —
the ark and the people — a form of words precisely the same
as Elijah used at his great sacrifice on Carmel two centuries
later. 'Elijah said unto all the people. Come near unto me.'
The presence of the ark, therefore, cannot be denied. In short,
nothing was left undone which seemed fitted to inspire men
with courage in desperate times.
When Saul saw the people melting away, and heard from
Geba of the enemy's approach, his feverish impatience drove
him to usurp the place and office of Samuel. ' The burnt-
offering,' which no one was to sacrifice till Samuel came, had
been ready for some time. Saul believed there was virtue in
the mere offering. Already had the invaders reached the
summit of the pass at Michmash. If he delayed longer, they
might descend on the few hundreds who still clung to their
king, surprise them before the victim could be offered, and
deprive him of the influence which he evidently thought the
sacrifice could of itself procure for him with God. The fol-
lowing day proved the correctness of this forecast of the
enemy's plans. But, ignorant of the prophet's design in
delaying, and urged on by rash views, he would wait no
lonfrer for Samuel. ' Brincr near to me the burnt-offerinsr and
o o o
the peace-offerings,' he said to the attendants of the high
priest. And he ordered Ahiah to proceed with the sacrifice.
According to a form of words common in all tongues, he is
said to have done himself what he gave orders for another to
do. ' I forced myself and offered the burnt-offering,' are not
The War of Independence, 63
-words wliicli necessarily imply a usurpation of the priest's
office by Saul, but they imply a violation of the command
laid on him to wait for Samuel. While the sacrifice was still
in progress, messengers arrived with news of the prophet's
approach. Saul went forth from the camp to meet him.
But Samuel had seen the smoke of the burnt-offering as
he descended the higher ground to the plains of Gilgal.
And there came to him also a message from heaven, exactly
as, at an earlier time, a message came to him on his journey
to prepare him for his first meeting with Saul. But the
second message was unlike the first. 'What art thou
doing ? ' he asked. Saul is full of excuses, a feature of
his character which comes out with equal prominence
afterwards. The melting away of the people, the failure
of the prophet to keep his appointment, the advance of the
enemy are all mentioned. 'God's favour I have not pro-
pitiated,' he said, ' the enemy will be upon me ; I did
violence to my own feelings that I might offer the burnt-
offering.' Every one was to blame but the king. He could
not understand that, as the force of Gideon was weeded out
till it numbered only three hundred men, so it was his duty
to let the weeding out of his followers proceed till it pleased
the prophet to come to his help. Gideon was a man of little
faith, as any one would have been in similar circumstances.
Saul had shown himself to be a man of no faith at all, but of
high presumption. He was tried and found wanting. He
was unfit to be the captain of the chosen people. * Thou hast
done foolishly,' Samuel said, without regarding his excuses ;
' thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God,
which He commanded thee : for now would the Lord have
established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy
kingdom shall not stand ; the Lord hath sought Him a man
after His own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be
captain over His people, because thou hast not kept that which
the Lord commanded thee.' The words of Samuel breathe the
64 The Kingdom of All-Is7'ael: its History.
spirit of tlie lawgiver in Deuteronomy. They do more. They
echo, if they do not quote, tliese very words. So clear is this
relation of the one to the other, that the only way of escape
from the difficulties in which it involves the newest school of
critics, is by resorting to the device of pronouncing these
words an interpolation in an ancient narrative, made by an
unknown reviser four or five centuries after Samuel was dead.
AVe may well discard this idea as destructive, not of one part
of the history, but of the whole.
Saul received neither light nor guidance from Samuel.
Both of them immediately withdrew from Gilgal to the strong-
hold of Geba. The place was safer from attack than Gilgal,
and gave a clear prospect of the movements of the enemy,
whose forces were now filling the country beyond the ravine.
Evidently Samuel had a plan in his mind when he delayed
his visit to Gilgal, and when he removed from Gilgal to Geba.
Another Gideon was destined to fight for Israel, but with help
far inferior to the three hundred men he commanded. A great
deliverance w^as at hand ; but a great opportunity was for ever
lost by King Saul. The scene that lay spread out before the
eyes of Saul's soldiers in Geba filled them with alarm. An
outpost of the invaders had seized Michmash, right in their
front. The pass below was thus in the enemy's power.
Three bodies of spoilers were seen issuing from the camp.
Their course could be traced by the smoke of burning home-
steads or ripe barley crops. One body went westward,
another north-east, and a third turned the way of the
border which looketh on the valley of Zeboim toward the
wilderness.' It was the third detachment which would have
fallen on Saul or intercepted him, had he been much later in
escaping to the high lands. Of these eight Hebrew words,
four or five suggest words and things already well known in
Hebrew history. ' The boundary ' refers us to the northern
boundary of Benjamin described in the book of Joshua. And
* the boundary which looketh on ' is the form of words, in
The War of Independence, 65
which Balaam's position is twice described, *the top of
Pisgah, which looketh on the face of Jeshimon.' The whole
story in the book of Samuel is a reflection of words and
things written long before by Hebrew pens, and read in
Hebrew households.
There was a movement among the Philistines who formed
the garrison of Michmash which seems to have escaped the
eyes of all but Jonathan. He was watching them closely.
Evidently they were somewhat uneasy about the company of
spoilers, who had gone down the ravine towards the wilderness
of Jordan. ' They went out to the pass of Michmash ' to have
a better view. Night fell upon the disheartened patriots, the
spoilers, the garrison of Michmash, and the Philistine camp.
Saul, with six hundred of his bodyguard, and Ahiah the high
priest, had not trusted themselves in Geba. They were in
the neighbourhood, prepared apparently for flight if the
enemy forced their way across the pass. Saul himself was
sheltered, at the extreme end of the region called Gibeah,
' under the pomegranate tree,' in a precipitous place called
' Migron.' The exactitude of the description proves the future
fame of the spot. Samuel appears to have left the camp.
But if we knew the whole story, we might be able to trace
his hand in the brave deed which entirely altered the com-
plexion of affairs on the following morning. Before daybreak
Jonathan proposed to his armour-bearer to cross over from
Geba to the garrison of Michmash, and challenge them to an
equal combat. Had he revealed his plan to Saul, he would
have been hampered by orders, or would have been forbidden
to make the attempt. Without making known their design,
the two young men slipped away from the Hebrew camp to
undertake a deed of daring that has seldom been paralleled in
the history of any nation.
At the crossing-place of the ravine where the road, such as
it was, ran from Geba to Michmash, were two rocks, rising
like giant pillars, one on each side of the pass. The northern
E
66 The Kingdom of All- Israel: its History,
rock at Miclimasli was named Bozez (shining), from the bril-
liance with which its smooth face reflected the rays of the
southern sun. The rock on the Geba or southern side was
called Seneh. At one time it was thought to have been so
•named from its tooth -like shape. But that idea has been
abandoned, as Seneh can only be got to mean a tooth by
doinrr violence to the letters of the name. There is another
and a better meaning of the word, which also helps to throw
lioht on the events that followed. Seneh in Hebrew is a
bush; it is especially used of the bush which Moses saw
burning and not consumed. Apparently, the rock in front of
Geba got its name from the bush with which it was partly
covered. But the word suggested high thoughts to Jonathan
during the stillness of that night of waiting. With irresistible
force it reminded the prince of ' the goodwill of him that
dwelt in Seneh, or the bush.' It recalled the marvellous
work of one man in freeing the nation from bondage four
centuries before. It suggested the hope of a like deliverance
again. Seneh was on the Hebrews' side of the pass. And
because of its peculiarly suggestive name, the two rocks are
probably mentioned in the history (Deut. xxxiii. 16).
' There is no restraint to the -Lord,' said the prince to his
armour-bearer, * to save by many or by few.' The proverb, as
it apparently was, had seized hold of the prince's mind with a
power that seemed to betoken a great fulfilment. He inspired
the armour-bearer with the hopes he felt himself : ' Do all
that is in thine heart ; turn thee ; behold, I am with thee
according to thy heart.' They arranged their plans. If the
enemy had the courage to come down the steep hill- face, with
the view of forcing a passage, as Jonathan thought they
intended, the two Hebrews were to abide their coming on the
higher ground or in the bottom of the valley. But if they
challenged the Hebrews to equal combat on their own side of
the pass, Jonathan and his armour-bearer were then to climb
the rock, and put their trust in God for the rest. The invita-
The War of Independence, 67
tion to come up was to be ' the sign ' which should determine
their course. Hebrews were taught in their popular law-book
to look for ' signs ' to guide them in life. Samuel, it will be
remembered, followed this teaching, and may have suggested
it to Jonathan. It was also a feature of the prince's character
thus to arrange for alternative courses of action. At a later
period, the same way of looking at two possibilities will be
seen in his dealings with David. The writer of the history
in Samuel had a keen insight into such peculiarities of
character.
When the two Hebrews neared the bottom of the pass,
they discovered themselves to the men of the garrison above.
It was early morning ; their numbers could not be known.
But as soon as they were seen, the guards above called to
each other : ' Behold, Hebrews coming forth from holes in the
rocks, where they hid themselves.' When challenged by the
two youths, they replied by inviting them to come up : ' We
shall make you know something,' they said. Accepting * the
sign,' Jonathan climbed the rocky slope as best he could, ' on
his hands and his feet.' His armour-bearer followed. It was
fifteen or twenty minutes of hard work. A narrow ledge at
the top, well known, it may be, to the prince, seems to have
made the beginning of the fray more even for the wearied
climbers than it could otherwise have been. At first it was
single combat ; when a Philistine fell, the armour-bearer com-
pleted with an ox-goad what Jonathan had commenced with
the sword. Every fresh victory emboldened the young men,
and struck terror into the enemy. Soon a score of Philistines
lay dead on a narrow stretch of ground. The rest of the out-
post took to flight. The spoilers, returning up the pass from
the direction of Gilgal, appear to have heard the uproar or
seen the flight of their comrades, and were themselves seized
with terror. Their retreat was cut off. As the fugitives from
the first slaughter burst into the Philistine camp, they spread
alarming tidings of defeat at the hands of one Hebrew
68 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
cliampion. Another Samson had arisen to avenge his country ;
a worse slaughter than any he caused might be looked for
amid the rocky defiles of Beth-horon. An earthquake hap-
pening at the same time alarmed them still more. The
garrison was running away, the spoilers were running ; no
one could get or give exact information. A sleeping host,
plunged in careless security, was awaking to find its
outposts defeated and death hastening to its tent-doors.
Want of discij^line produced its usual fruits. The whole
army of the invaders fled before two young men. Six
thousand horses, thirty thousand Eecheb, an uncounted mass
of foot were struggling with each other, and trampling one
another down to get away in safety from two youths, wearied
with a steep climb and a battle agaiust terrible odds. But
when the flight once began there was no stopping of it.
Imagination lent it wings : every friend became a foe.
As the morning light grew stronger, the sentinels of Saul
in Gibeah saw the disorder in the enemy's camp. Their eyes
were sharpened by the noise of battle, which had already
reached their ears. A scene of wildest confusion was passing
before their view, to them inexplicable confusion. They saw
no fighting with a foe, no pursuit by a victor ; the enemy was
rapidly moving off the ground, one beating another down.
Saul was informed of the confusion amoncj the invaders. He
could not make out whether it was a surprise of the enemy
by his own people, or a trap laid to entice him and his handful
of men across the ravine. His first step was that of a cautious
soldier. By numbering his men, he ascertained that Jonathan
and his armour-bearer alone w^ere wantino-. It was therefore
a surprise, not a trap. His next step was equally wise. He
summoned the high priest with the ark to ask counsel for
king and people. ' Bring near the ark of God and the children
of Israel,' he said. Ahiah was dressed in his sacred robes ;
the people were standing round ; and Saul was putting the
questions for decision by the sacred lot. While he was
The War of Independence, 69
speaking, the noises of a lost battle rose clearer on the morning
air ; and the scenes of confusion became plainer to the spec-
tators round the ark. Ahiah was putting his hand into the
pocket of the breastplate. A minute more, and the counsel
of Heaven would have been known. But Saul interfered.
' Withdraw thine hand,' he cried ; and the counsel desired was
not got. A feverish excitement had seized the king, depriving
him for the moment of the calmness of judgment necessary in
a great crisis. But that idea is not a sufficient explanation of
his rashness. There is another, and perhaps a better. Samuel
had evidently left Geba, in anger at the presumption of the
king. A great triumph had been gained, and was proceeding
beneath Saul's eyes, but it brought no glory to him. He had
been told a day or two days before, that, while he himself
was rejected, another captain had been chosen over the Lord's
people. Eeasoning on these grounds, Saul may have feared
the threats of Samuel were working themselves out into facts.
His fancy may have seen the new captain over the people already
taking the command, routing the foe, and putting himself at
the head of the nation. If, as Saul had reason to think, the
Urim and Thummim of the high priest should refuse him light
and guidance before the people, his rejection by Jehovah
might become public talk. ' Withdraw thine hand,' he cried,
lest no answer should be given. ' The noise and the flight '
are answer enough, he seems to have said to his followers,
who may have been as eager to pursue the enemy, as he was
to arrest the hand of Ahiah. But there were those present
who saw the insult offered to the majesty of Jehovah.
As Saul lay on the south side of the pass, and was thus
between the enemy and their own land, short cuts across the
hills would soon bring him on their flank or rear. His
soldiers seem to have hurried forward with loud shouts, whicli
would both strike more terror into the fugitives, and summon
the Hebrews from the hiding-places to which they had fled.
But a worse disaster befell the enemy. A body of Hebrews,
70 The Kingdo7n of All-Israel: its History,
Avho had joined them in prosperity, deserted them in adversity.
As soon as they saw their own king and people threatening
the fugitives, they made their peace with them by falling on
their former friends — a lesson of caution not forgotten by the
invaders. There was thus civil war among the Philistines.
Xo one knew who was friend and who was foe. When the
pursuers at length came up wdth the enemy, the scene re-
minded them of the promise which they had been accustomed
to read in their sacred books, ' The Lord thy God shall deliver
them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty dest7mc'
tion' (Deut. vii. 23). * With a very mighty destruction! or
confusion, for so the narrative in Samuel reads, was the pass
found to be blocked that morning. From Ephraim on the
north, from Benjamin on the south, every commanding point
was seized by mountaineers, who, as in later days, could hurl
rocks down on the struggling crowd below. The shouts of
pursuers increased the terrors of fugitives. For four or five
miles the pursuit was urged by the Hebrew king, till Betliaven
was reached. Of the greatness of the victory there could
then be no doubt. Every foot of the road showed inviting
proofs of its completeness, in arms thrown away, spoils
abandoned, cattle and sheep deserted, men dead or dying.
Saul was afraid of the temptations which he saw his unarmed
and hungry soldiers exposed to. The day before he had left
his camp to * bless ' or welcome Samuel, it^ow, with strange
inconsistency, he has left his camp to reap the fruits of a
victory which he had not won, and to curse the soldiers who
might have made it complete. With a loud voice, so that all
the little band of Hebrews heard the words, Saul exclaimed,
* Cursed be the man that eateth food until evening, that I may
be avenged on mine enemies.' A curse so rashly uttered was
productive of most serious consequences to the king and
his family. The two youths, who gained the victory, had
not joined Saul when the words were spoken. They knew
nothing about the prohibition. Meanwhile the day was
The War of Independence. 7 1
advanciiiGj ; the sun ^vas G^rowinGj hot, entailiiiGj tliirst ainl
faintiiess upon the pursuers. ]\Iile after mile they hastened
on thi'ough a friendly country, and along roads covered with
abandoned spoils ; but the fainting Hebrews dared not partake
of the refreshment provided for them by Heaven's own hands.
In passing through a forest on the line of the enemy's flight,
honey was seen flowing from the comb so copiously, that
every one could have helped himself without delaying the
advance. Streams of honey, such as the soldiers beheld,
proved the heat of the day and the weariness of the chase.
Jonathan, who had by this time joined the main body, lifted
some of it to his burning lips. A fresh life blazed in his
very eyes. The honey, which was forbidden in any offering
made by fire (Lev. ii. 11), was a fatal indulgence in this
sacrifice of enemies, devoted to utter destruction in the king's
vow. One of the soldiers, seeing the prince dip the end of a
spear, with which he had armed himself, into a honeycomb,
told him of the curse uttered by the king. A rash word fell
from Jonathan when he heard what Saul had done. ' My
lather hath troubled the land,' the same word which Joshua
applied to Achan when he asked him, 'Why hast thou
troubled us ? ' and which Ahab in his anger applied to Elijali,
'Troubler of Israel, art thou here V The prince regretted his
language, for he proceeded to explain, how that ill-advised
curse lessened the splendour of the triumph by the faintness
which want of food caused to the pursuers.
From Bethaven the tide of war rolled all day westward to
Aijalon, a distance of twelve or thirteen miles. It was a
weary chase for fasting men. When word was passed to
encamp for the night, and freedom was given to partake of
food, impatience led the soldiers to break one of the most
solemn laws in all the Hebrew ritual. Without waiting till
the blood had been drained from the sheep and oxen, slain
for their evening meal, some cut up the animals and dressed
the pieces before camp - fires kindled by their comrades.
2 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Histo7y.
Several of the priests, alarmed at this breach of the law,
appear to have called Saul's attention to what was going on.
In all haste he bade them disperse themselves throughout the
camp, and order every man to bring the cattle to a large stone
or perhaps cairn, which his attendants had rolled together.
Order was thus taken with these breakers of the law. They had
to wait their turn, while the sheep and the oxen were slain
or sacrificed in presence of the king and priest. The victory,
for which thanks were due, the victims, and the stone or cairn,
seem to have put it into Saul's mind that, in token of his
gratitude, he should convert this slaughter-table into an altar,
or, at least, should call it by that name. Our translators have
overlooked the fact of the stone or cairn and the altar being
one and the same. ' And Saul built an altar to Jehovah ; it
(the stone or cairn) he began to build — an altar to Jehovah.'
There is not ground for regarding the stone, which was thus
converted into an altar, as a place of priestly sacrifice. The
blood, which was there poured out, made it an altar according
to the definition of a popular sacrifice. And it was also a
lasting memorial of the great deliverance wrought that day,
a monumental cairn, different from an idolatrous pillar, and
perhaps the same as the ' hand ' or ' pointer ' which Saul is
known to have erected elsewhere in gratitude for victory. As
soon as the army should be refreshed with food and sleep,
Saul proposed to descend from the heights on which they were
encamped, and attack the enemy before morning. If the
' seven days ' were really the passover week, the assailants
would be guided in their march by the moon, which rose at
an early hour in the morning, and would give them light till
day broke. Saul's plan was thus full of promise. The
Philistines had reached a broad valley running towards Ekron,
and, as they were extricated from the straits and rocks of
the hills, considered themselves safe. Saul's officers entered
heartily into his plans. But the high priest urged them to
ask counsel of God before venturing on an attack : ' Let us
The War of Independence. "j^^
draw near hither unto God,' he said, meaning by ' hither,'
apparently, to the altar and the ark (1 Sam. x. 22). His
advice was taken. But the oracle gave neither ' yes ' nor 'no/
when the questions asked by Saul were put, * Shall I go down
after the Philistines ? Wilt Thou deliver them into the hand
of Israel ? ' The brightness of the triumph gained was blurred
by sin somewhere ; an opportunity which might never again
recur was slipping from Saul's grasp. Evidently he was not
to be any more the deliverer of the chosen people.
Vexed at the failure of a plan which bade so fair for
success, Saul, instead of seeing in himself the cause of the
failure, hoped to discover it elsewhere. Exhorting the chiefs
present to assist him in finding out the sinner, whoever he
might be, and denouncing death as his due, Saul divided his
little army into two bands, himself and Jonathan forming one,
and the rest of the soldiers another. His captains heard him
in silence. To most of them death in battle was part of a
soldier's lot, from which they would not shrink ; but to risk
life on the uncertainty of the lot, and as the forfeit due to a
broken vow, filled them with alarm. Could they have read
each other's faces by the dim light of the camp-fires, no one
would have had reason to rally another on his frightened
looks. ' Not one of all the people answered ' to the threat of
death. ' Do what seemeth good unto thee,' was their reply
about the taking of the lot.-^ With all solemnity the king
besought Jehovah ' to give perfection ' in a matter so serious.
It was soon decided. The people escaped. Saul was terribly
in earnest now. According to his way of taking the lot, the
sin lay with him or his son. ' Let the lots fall between me
and between Jonathan my son,' he said ; and Jonathan was
taken. His father asked him what he had done. ' I did
certainly taste with the end of the spear which was in my
1 The high priest was not asked to decide by Urim and Thummim. Neither
yes nor no might have been the result as before. With tlie ordinary lot a
decision one way or the other was inevitable.
74 The Kingdom of All- 1 S7'ael: its History,
hand a little honey. Here I am, ready to die.' ' God do so
to me and more also/ replied the king ; ' but, Jonathan, thou
shalt surely die.' With the calmness of a hero, the prince
stood prepared for death. In the morning he risked his life
in an enterprise which covered him with honour and saved
his country from bondage. In the evening he found himself
condemned as the sinner whose wronGj-doinsj had marred the
great deliverance which he and his armour-bearer had wrought.
A zeal bordering on madness, inflamed, too, by the feeling
that the fault was wholly his own, was driving the king to
take his son's life. Jonathan was ready to lay it down.
But the common-sense of the army revolted against a deed
so dreadful as the slaying of a victim who was not only
innocent, but was also the Gideon of his day. Murmurs arose
in the army. A life so precious to a people, casting away
the chains of a weary bondage, should not be thus lightly
taken. An instinct stronger than reason told the people that
the prince was not the sinner, because of whom an oracle had
been refused. The first sacrifice offered on this first altar
built by Saul was to be his own son ! ' There shall not one
hair of his head fall to the ground,' the soldiers say, ' for he
hath been a fellow- worker with God this day.' And despite
the terrible earnestness of the king, they rescued the prince
from death.
Though the people thus saved Jonathan from death, nothing
could ever efface from his mind the remembrance of that
moment of danger. Perhaps, too, he feared — and feared till
the fear became a settled belief — that a father's rash vow had
blighted his hopes of the kingdom. So far as a vow went,
Jonathan was dead in law from that moment. The sun of his
renown was under an eclipse, and it might never again come
forth. The effects of this chain of events on Saul may also be
easily traced. He familiarized himself with the idea of a son's
guilt and a son's death. His son had taken his place as
champion of the nation at a time ^Yhen Jehovah refused to
The War of Independence, 75
give Saul light or guidance. While the king was earnestly
seeking Jehovah's honour, this champion of the people was
crossing his plans and breaking the vow he uttered. His own
family were turning against him. The idea which thus took
root in his mind, seems never to have lost its hold during
the rest of his life. It broadened out into unfounded
suspicions and cruel deeds. It led to the murder of the
priests of Nob, to repeated attempts on the life of David,
and to the throwing of a spear at Jonathan himself. Saul
had begun the downward course, which ended in madness
and death.
Saul was not justified in thus appealing to the sacred lot as
a means of discovering the sinner whose guilt had sealed the
lips of Heaven. His own presumptuous act two or three days
before, and his insult to the sacred oracle that very morning,
rendered further search for a sinner unnecessary. No com-
mission was given to him to destroy the invading army.
Another had felt and had shown the faith which he neither
felt nor showed. But notwithstanding these clear facts, he
put himself in the position of God's avenger on the oppressors.
And he presumed to x^lay this part at a time when his
interference was not desired. His help, according to his own
view of things, seemed indispensable ; his right to guide the
flow of events seemed indisputable. Heaven was not needing
his help, and did not respect his claim of right. It could
dispense with his vow as it dispensed with his sword. But
a second place in God's arrangements he was resolved not to
take. Pride and presumption lured him on to his own ruin
and the ruin of his family. Whether Jonathan were guilty or
not, according to the way the law of the Hebrews was regarded
in that age, need not be asked. But Saul had put himself
out of court in a case so solemn. He was acting as both
judge and plaintiff. When the high priest was within a
minute or two of ascertaining God's will on Saul's enterprise
that morning, the king stopped him because the thing was
']6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
clear in itself; confusion such as reigned in the enemy's host
was warrant enough for attack, without waiting for God's
direction. He had therefore no right to ask counsel in the
evening, when he had refused to wait for it in the morning.
A night assault on a panic-stricken enemy, still quivering
with the excitement of a disastrous day, was not more
dangerous than the morning's march. The beaten soldiers
were weary after a flight of many miles ; they were over-
powered with sleep. If suddenly roused by fresh sounds of
war, they would seek safety, not in resistance, but in a
more headlong retreat. Saul's soldiers, on the other hand,
were refreshed after their fatigue; they were inspired with
the highest hopes ; they would choose their own time for
delivering the attack; and they were constantly receiving
reinforcements of men who had not shared in the weariness of
the previous day, and who longed to strike a blow for freedom.
On every view of the case, the man who refused to wait for
the high priest in the morning, had no call to listen to the
high priest in the evening. All the mischief that happened
lay at his own door. If the rashness of the morning were
right, Saul could not expect an answer in the evening. If
that rashness were wrong, still less could he expect an answer
about a night attack. Saul's vow was perhaps the direct
result of a feeling of guilt in his own heart. It may have
been meant by him as an atonement for his rashness in
stopping the high priest at the last stage of consultation.
Jonathan's breach of law — if it was such — and the people's
eating of the blood could not have happened, unless the vow
had been thrown as a stumblingblock in their path. The
rod of punishment fell, as it often does, not on the offender,
in the first case at least, but on Jonathan, Saul's pride and
hope. The first stroke blighted the life and prospects of the
prince when they looked fairest to the view ; the later and the
heavier strokes fell on his father. Saul's rashness in acting as
both judge and plaintiff in a cause which demanded him for
The War of Independence. jj
the accused, involved his brave son in a network of sorrow
from which he never escaped.
The success of the Hebrews in this campaign revived the
spirit of freedom among them. They had the wrongs of many
a year of suffering to avenge on other nations. In the hour
of Israel's weakness spoilers had ravaged all his borders.
Edom, ]Moab, Amnion, and Syria had grown rich by plundering
and enslaving the disheartened Hebrews. But day had at
length broken on the long night of oppression. In a series
of campaigns Saul led his people to battle against these
neighbours. The terror which had weakened Israel now lay
heavy on them. As oppressors of the chosen people, they
are called wicked men ; and the triumphs achieved over them
by Saul are described by a word which refers to the over-
throw of the unrighteous, ' Whithersoever he turned himself,
lie proved them unrighteous.' Thus early had Israel become
accustomed to the idea, fully developed in later ages by the
prophets, that whoever set himself against the chosen race was
a sinner in God's sight, and would meet a sinner's fate. For
four or five years, it may be, Saul was thus engaged in building
up his throne by paying back to his neighbours these out-
standing scores. On every side, from the far north to the
deserts of the south, from Amnion on the east to the shores of
the Great Sea on the west, success crowned his efforts. To
maintain the freedom of his country and the dignity of his
crown, he was now also able to support an army, of which his
cousin Abner became commander-in-chief And though the
three thousand of the bodyguard only were actually kept
under arms, steps seem to have been taken for training to war
all the able-bodied men in the land.
Anions^ the enemies whom Saul overcame at this time are
mentioned the Amalekites : ' He gathered an host, and smote
the Amalekites, and delivered Israel out of the hands of them
that spoiled them.' This expedition is put along with the
expeditions against Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Zobah. It is
yS The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
the same expedition of which a full account is given in the
following chapter. But the value of this anticipative mention
of it is very great. By a device common to all writers, a
series of events is sometimes mentioned by anticipation, before
the writer proceeds to deliver his full narrative of the facts.
A short-hand statement precedes ; a detailed history follows.
This is called in grammar prolepsis or anticiixttion. If a
reader neglect to observe this rhetorical device, which indeed
is often essential to a good record of events, he may regard as
different two narratives, which form really only two accounts
— the first short and the second detailed — of one and the same
event. The author of the books of Samuel indulges sometimes
in this grammatical device. He is forced to it by the nature
and course of the story. In most cases the device is clearly
seen by the reader, as in the passage under review. But if
the reader miss the writer's manifest purpose in using a
prolepsis or anticipation of the narrative, he will find himself
involved in confusion, and may do the author grievous wrong.
When we come to David's first appearance on the stage of
history, we shall see the advantage of bearing this grammatical
device in mind.
CHAPTEE IV.
FINAL EEJECTION OF SAUL.
(1 Sam. XV.)
The threateninii of Samuel, that the kiiiQ-dom of Saul should
not stand, remained a dead letter for several years. Per-
haps it was forgotten in the tide of prosperity, which
carried the Hebrews onward to freedom and honour. But the
prediction, though seeming to sleep, again scared the king
with its unwelcome waking. The threat of approaching ruin
was renewed after an interval of years : in this, as in other
cases, the scenes of Hebrew history are acted over again.
Because judgment against an evil work did not come to pass
speedily, Saul believed, or at least hoped, that it would never
come at all.
After Saul had attended to what might be reckoned pressing
calls on the resources of his kingdom, in vindicating its
freedom against the stranger, he was reminded of other duties
still undischarged. He was not a law to himself, like the
kings of neighbouring nations. ISTor had he merely to seek
the greatest good of his people, as a wise ruler would do. He
had, besides, to render obedience to the higher Power which
drew him forth from obscurity and set him on the throne.
The command lying on him especially as the king of Israel,
was the command first given to the people on their arrival at
Sinai four centuries before, ' Thou shalfc obey the voice of
Jehovah.' And the time at last arrived for putting forth its
claims : ' Samuel said unto Saul, Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid
wait for him in the way when he came up from Egypt.
8o The Kingdoiii of A II- Israel : its History,
ISTow go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all tliat they
have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.' This was
the oath called clicrem, or utter destruction : ' Thou shalt save
alive nothing that breatheth,' it said (Deut. xx. 16). The com-
mand thus given by Samuel was connected with an attack
made by a body of Amalekites or Bedouin on the Hebrews,
in the neifrhbourhood of Sinai, about two months after the
departure from Egypt. Though driven off by Joshua, they
seem to have hung on the outskirts of the camp, and done
what mischief they could to stragglers, to women and children,
during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness. The attack,
in which they were beaten back, is recorded in an early part
of the wilderness history ; their hanging on the rear of the
Hebrew camp and army, for the purpose of cutting off the
feeble and the hindmost, is recorded at the close of the
march towards Canaan (Ex. xvii. 14, 16; Deut. xxv. 17).
The blood feud, which thus arose, continued throughout the
following centuries. Amalek's robbers repeatedly wasted the
farms of Judah. Twice did Moses record the hatefulness of
these people's inhospitality to the fugitive strangers from
Egypt. Tw^ce also he recorded the punishment, which the
children of the fugitives were ordered to inflict. It was an
endless blood feud between two nations, but a feud counte-
nanced by the Judge of all the earth.
At no other period since the conquest of Canaan could the
Hebrews have undertaken this war. Joshua was too busy,
and the people's work of conquest too heavy, to allow them to
turn their thoughts to the Amalekites. After Joshua's death
there was even less hope of punishment overtaking the free-
booters. On two occasions, indeed, during the times of the
Judges, Amalek was able to plunder the country of the
Hebrews, once as the ally of Moab and again as the ally of
Midian. For three hundred years after the conquest, Israel
was helpless to undertake foreign wars. His strength was
Final Rejection of Saul, 8 r
spent in shalving off tlie yoke of strangers, wliicli was soon
cast again on his neck. In Saul's days the Hebrews began to
see the advantages of acting together under one head. When
the nation was then renewing its youth, awaking after a long
sleep to a knowledge of its own might, the command came to
Saul to pay back into Amalek's bosom the misdeeds as well
of former ages as of his own. Obeying without delay ' the
voice of the Lord,' he assembled his forces to the number of
210,000 men at a place called Telaim, perhaps the same as
Telem, a town not far from Ziph, in the pastoral districts of
Southern Judah. Of this large army the tribe of Judah
furnished only ten thousand men, a singular circumstance
when w^e consider its resources, and the ravages to which its
position exposed it from the desert rovers. Other employ-
ment must have been found for the soldiers of Judah.
Edomites and Philistines might both have fallen on that tribe,
if the borders were left unguarded. The first place attacked
by Saul was a town called Ir-Amalek (city of Amalek).
Xear it, and forming part of the defences, was a deep valley,
in which a body of troops was placed to lie in ambush, while
a feint was made to deliver an assault on another side. But
the siege could not be pressed so long as the nomadic
Kenites, who were allied to both parties, occupied a lofty
rock in the neighbourhood of the town. By the law of Moses,
as w^ell as by lengthened custom, it was forbidden to injure a
tribe wdiich had rendered important service to the Hebrews
amid the dangers of their wilderness journey four hundred
years before. But if the town or stronghold of the Amale-
kites were suddenly taken by assault, there was danger of
Kenite blood being: shed, and the alliance between that tribe
and Israel broken. Accordingly Saul gave them a free
passage through his lines, as the quarrel w^as with Amalek,
not with them. This remembrance of their fathers' kindness
to the Hebrews, not less than the vengeance on Amalek, is a
testimony to the truth of one of the smaller incidents in the
82 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
story of the coming np of Israel out of Egypt. The same
feeling of national gratitude towards the Kenite encampment
was afterwards shown by David, in the raids made by him
and his men from Ziklag. If Israel inherited a blood feud
from the past, they also inherited and faithfully kept ancestral
obligations of friendship.
Of the assault of this stronghold we have no account. It
is included in the brief summing up of the events of the
campaign : ' Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until
thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt,' probably
the range of desert claimed by these rovers as their own land,
extending from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf to
the borders of Egypt. ISTot a soul whom the Hebrews found
was spared save Agag, king of the freebooters. On the lofty
rocks, beside the lonely wells, and amid the sands, two
hundred thousand Hebrew swords avenged the ancient quarrel
between the two nations. But though vengeance fell on
as many men and women and children as were met in battle,
overtaken in pursuit, or seized in strongholds, Saul, in defiance
of the orders he had received, allowed his people to drive off
the choicest of their flocks and herds. Everything of little
worth in their camping grounds was destroyed ; whatever was
worth taking was carried away : ' All the property, the worth-
less, and the refuse, it they utterly destroyed.' As the
Hebrews w^ere spread over a wide wilderness, seeking their
enemies beside the wells, or following them to known lurking
places, Saul might not, in the first instance, have been able to
keep his soldiers from saving alive the best of the captured
llocks. There may also have been many in the Hebrew army
who imagined they recognised sheep and oxen which the
rovers had driven off from the pastures of Israel. But as soon
as the army reassembled, it became Saul's duty to give full
effect to the commands he was himself acting under. He
failed to do so. While the issue of the campaign was still in
the balance, it might have been easy to destroy these captures.
Final Rejection of SmcL Z'i^
But as soon as complete success crowned the Hebrew arms,
there would be unwillingness to destroy valuable property,
which may have been supposed to be the people's own.
When Sihon and his people were overthrown, and when the
Midianites were punished, Moses himself set an example which
Saul may have thought he was entitled to follow : * The cattle
we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities
which we took' (Deut. ii. 35). But the cases were not
similar. Evidently Saul lacked the boldness needed to deal
with soldiers in the circumstances. We may w^ell believe
him when he laid the guilt, as he did a few days after, on the
people. And it seems as if he consented to save the choicest
sheep and cattle alive, only for the purpose of offering them
all in sacrifice as soon as the army reached Gilgal. A great
feast would please the soldiers ; a great sacrifice would please
Heaven. Trying to please both parties by a trimming policy,
he pleased neither. In a moment of weakness, he again turned
the joy of a great triumph into the bitterness of a life-long
sorrow.
Punishment speedily overtook the disobedient king.
Scarcely had he gathered together his forces and turned his
face homewards, than a message from God came to the
Prophet Samuel in Eamali. An affectionate regard for the
brave king, several years of prosperity, and the clearness of
the political sky, seemed to have lulled Samuel into the hope
of forgiveness for Saul's former disobedience. In one moment
his hopes are dashed in pieces. Clear and plain amid the
silence of night spoke the still small voice which he knew
full well : ' It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be
king ; for he is turned back from following me, and hath not
performed my commandments.' The vow of utter destruction,
spoken in Jehovah's name, Saul had not performed or
established, for the historian uses the very word wliich the
law of vows uses in the Pentateuch to denote fulfilment or
ratification. A night of restless anguish followed. The
84 The Kingdom of All- Israel: its History,
affections of the prophet were twined firmly round the king.
Without ceasing, the man of prayer fought all that night for
the soldier. Connected with him by no tie of kindred,
Samuel appears in this pleading for the fallen king as one who
was girt about with the moral greatness of a loving heart.
That night spent in prayer for his friend raises the old man to
the loftiest heights of nobleness. But his prayers could not
change the purposes of Almighty wisdom. When assured
that the words of doom would not be recalled, his spirit
settled into contemplation of the king's guilt. Having faith-
fully discharged the duty of a friend, he could then, in the
calm which followed the storm of his first anguish, as faith-
fully discharge the duty of a messenger of God. Our know-
ledge of the tenderness with which he did the former, inspires
us with the greater awe, as we read the sharpness with which
he did the latter. To be reproached by an enemy is easily
borne ; but to be reproached by a friend like Samuel, after a
night spent in praying for the turning aside of a king's ruin,
might crush the stoutest heart.
At daybreak Samuel went to meet the returning host. As
the city in which he lived lay on or near the road it was
likely to take, he expected to meet Saul in a few hours. But
the king, after building a pillar or trophy of victory on the
top of Carmel, a hilly district in Judah, eight miles south of
Hebron, had turned eastward, and was gone to Gilgal, on the
banks of Jordan. Samuel found him there. Several years
before Saul had waited for the prophet in the same place —
waited till he was weary, and till impatience led him to usurp
Samuel's office. No such wrong was committed this time.
Fatlings of sheep and oxen were ready for the altar, but not a
knife would be lifted on them till Samuel came. On the
former occasion, a mighty army of invaders threatened from
the neighbouring heights to overwhelm Saul's little band;
but at this time a host of two hundred thousand Hebrew
soldiers, rejoicing in victory and laden with plunder, rested in
Final Rejection of Said, 85
conscious strength at the sacred meeting-place. Then, as
before, the king went out to meet the prophet, as soon as
watchers announced his approach. Perhaps on the same road
as before ; perhaps, indeed, on the very spot, Samuel and Saul
again met. The pride of victory, the conviction of having
fulfilled the mission laid on him, animated the king ; the sad
message which he came to deliver, and tlie anger which he
felt, depressed the mind of the prophet. ' Thou hast not kept
the commandment of the Lord,' were Samuel's words to the
king when they last met in this place. ' I have done the
word of the Lord,' was Saul's greeting now, a salutation
which recalls the former to our mind, and shows it was
present to his.
With an unwillingness to remember the past, but with an
evident looking back on it, quite in keeping with the place,
Saul had addressed himself to Samuel. Our English transla-
tion of Saul's words is far from happy. He was sent to fulfil
a vow long registered against the freebooters. He was report-
ing his discharge of it to the prophet, who sent him on the
mission. Accordingly he uses the professional or legal word,
which indicated a fulfilment of the vow on man's side. ' I
have established or fulfilled the word of Jehovah,' therefore,
conveys a better idea of the nature of Saul's welcome to
Samuel. The prophet answered by expressing surprise at the
voice or bleating of flocks and herds around the camp. In
his eyes the Hebrew army seemed liker a host of plunderers,
laden with spoil, than of obedient followers of Jehovah. Saul
replied : * The people spared the best of the sheep and of the
oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have
utterly destroyed.' There was condemnation in every word
spoken by the king. He was sent to obey the voice of
Jehovah — the iirst commandment given from Sinai, and one
which included all the others. But Samuel hears the voice
of sheep and the voice of oxen ; and Saul has obeyed the
voice of the people. The keynote of the whole story is
S6 The Kingdom of A 11- Israel : its History,
obedience to a voice. That forbidden sparing of the spoil was
done by the 'peo'ple, not by Mm ; the rooting out commanded
was done by ^is. * Leave off/ said Samuel ; * I will tell thee
what the Lord hath said to me this night.' And then, sweep-
ing away Saul's pretence about the people sparing the choicest
spoil, he laid the guilt on the king himself. ' "Wherefore, then,
didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon
the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?' Samuel
was quoting well-known words from the law-books in Exodus
and Deuteronomy, passages w^hich might almost have been
given by chapter and verse. The whole force of the words he
used lies in this fact. Saul would not have regarded them
with the same alarm, nor striven to rebut the charge made,
had he not seen how every hope of forgiveness for past wrong-
doing perished, if Samuel's utterances were well founded.
Eeady as of old to justify himself and to throw the blame on
others, Saul again asserted, in reply, ' I have obeyed the voice
of the Lord, and have walked in the way which the Lord sent
me.' Both prophet and king were quoting the words of their
law-books, and both knew they were. Modern readers are
apt to overlook this link in the story. But Saul also again
laid the guilt on the people. His excuses were of no avail.
Eeminding him, as it were, of his great zeal for the honour
of God in his efforts to root witchcraft out of the land, Samuel
replied that a ruler who disobeyed Jehovah's commands, as
Saul had done, was as heinous a wrong-doer as any who pre-
tended to consult the dead, or by similar means to read the
future : ' Ptebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborn-
ness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.'
His concluding words, ' To obey is better than sacrifice, and
to hearken than the fat of rams,' became the original of one of
Solomon's proverbs : * To do justice and judgment is more
acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice ' (Prov. xxi. 3). Dis-
mayed at the dark gulf on the brink of which he saw himself
Final Rejection of Saul, 8 7
standing, Saul is driven to the confession : ' I have sinned
because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now,
therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with
me that I may worship the Lord.' There was fire in the
prophet's eye and scorn in his looks ; all his love changed
into bitterness as he replied : ' I will not return with thee ;
for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath
rejected thee from being king over Israel.' Sacrifice was the
chief thing in Saul's eyes. Like the people in Jeremiah's
time, he counted burnt-offerings and peace-offerings the sum of
the law. But he discovered, as they discovered, that ' to
obey' precedes sacrifice (Jer. vii. 22). The scenes of Hebrew
history, though always changing, were often the same in their
general outlines.
If the sacred writer had not recorded the tenderness of
Samuel in crying to Jehovah all night for the king, a reader
might think every gentle feeling was dead in the prophet's
bosom. In the interview which took place between them,
there is a sternness of language in Samuel, and an uncommon
boldness of rebuke. Not a gleam of sympathy with his lost
favourite, not a trace of joy at the success achieved over
Amalek, forces its way through the darkness of this scene.
The overturning of a throne, unwept and unpitied, is
recorded. King and princes are going down before an
avenger, whom the king himself called up. Saul attempted
to shut his eyes to this dismal fact ; but Samuel compelled
him to look it in the face. He is dethroned, he is doomed ;
this he is made to feel and to know. But the sternness of
Samuel goes hand in hand with his tenderness. And when
these two feelings invite our judgment on the part he bore
in this interview, there is but one thing to be said : while the
prophet loved Saul much, he loved Jehovah more. Because
he loved Saul much, he cried to God all night, striving to
tiirn aside the sword of justice. When he failed, the greater
love which he bore to Jehovah came into play. By Saul's
SS The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael: its History,
presumption, dishonour Avas done to his heavenly Master,
His own love to Saul had met with an unworthy return.
And thoucjhts of these thinc^s turn the sw^eetness of a lovin^^
nature into wormwood. By some such process the tenderness
of Samuel changed into severity, as he looked on the flocks
and herds which the army brought from the desert. A man
whose sense of honour and whose love of truth are high, will
speak more sharply to those he loves than we might think at
all possible, when he finds them stooping to the dishonourable
as the only way of covering a fault. Saul had stooped thus
low in his dealings with Samuel. Not only did he maintain
as a fact what he knew to be untrue, but when driven to
make confession of his guilt, he cast the blame off himself on
his soldiers. Samuel's heart was moved, by these unkingly
doings, to clothe his feelings in words of sudden and sharp re-
buke. It must also be borne in mind that Saul did not destroy
Amalek, as he professed to have done. Before many years
elapsed, these freebooters were again plundering Judah, and
one of them was a slave in the Hebrew army at the battle in
which Saul lost his crown and his life. Their strength may
have been broken, but enough was left to terrify Judah when
its soldiers were called elsewhere to fight their country's
battles. Three of Jesse's sons are known to have followed
Saul to the border during the campaign in wdiich Goliath fell.
David only was at home, and four sons remain unaccounted
for. Evidently they were on duty somewhere, most probably
in the south against Amalek. And when Saul was encamped
on Mount Gilboa, a destroying band of these rovers burst
from the desert on the unprotected south country. Saul had
not executed his commission; his boast was an untruth
designed to cover a breach of orders.
Having delivered his message, Samuel turned his back on
the fallen prince, determined to quit the camp. But Saul,
seizing hold of his mantle, attempted to detain him. In
haste to leave a man towards wdiom bitterness had taken the
Fmal Rejection of Saul. 89
place of love, the prophet hurried away. The loose skirt of
the robe, on which Saul had laid hold, was torn in the
struggle. Indignant at this breach of dignity, Samuel turned
on the king : * The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from
thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine
that is better than thou.' Stunned, it would seem, by the
suddenness of a blow which was dashing to the ground every
remnant of hope, the humbled prince besought the prophet
not to disOTace him before the elders of Israel : ' I have
sinned ; yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of
my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I
may worship the Lord thy God.' A request so reasonable was
not refused. The rending of the mantle, the sharpness of the
rebuke, and the humility of the king's prayer, cooled Samuel's
anger as quickly as it had grown hot. But several were
probably standing by who witnessed the king's fall. Some of
his officers may have seen and heard all that passed. In
course of time the story of this interview, with the rending of
the mantle and of the kingdom, would pass from mouth to
mouth as a whispered secret, till it became the talk of the
whole nation.
Samuel yielded to the prayers of Saul, but it was to act
according to his own views, not to humour king or people.
Of worship and thanks for the victory the briefest mention is
made. ISTor was a feast such as Saul intended possible, for
the flocks and herds were accursed. After the worship,
Samuel ordered Acja^ to be brou^lit forward. He came
cheerfully, congratulating himself that the bitterness of death
was past. Expecting to be received with respect, he finds
himself face to face with death. ' As thy sword hath made
women childless,' exclaimed his judge, ' so shall thy mother
be childless among women.' And the soldiers standing by cut
him in pieces. The king's disobedience had laid this terrible
necessity on the prophet. Gilgal, the scene of friendship between
Samuel and Saul in days bygone, thus witnessed the rending
90 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
of all tlie ties that bound them to one. another. The prophet
withdrew to his own house to pray for the helpless prince,
but he visited him no more. Saul also shunned the company
of Samuel. Flatterers appear to have gained the king's ear,
and to have set him against the prophet. Threats also seem
to have been spoken by them, which alarmed Samuel for his
life. Instead of being softened by the calamities w^hich
were gathering round their sovereign, the courtiers became
desperate. In the king, the beginnings of that madness
which clouded his later years were alreadv working^, unknown
to himself and to his servants. Disobedience to his superior
led to tyranny of the worst kind toward his inferiors. But
the two together unhinged his mind, till his insanity became
a danger to every one who opposed his wishes.
The story of the war with Amalek points back to the past
as well as forward to the future. Xo reader even of our
English translation can fail to discover in it the echo of
words and ideas familiar to him in the Pentateuch : ' To obey
the voice of Jehovah,' ' To do right or to do evil in the eyes
of Jehovah,' and 'To be rejected' of Him, are phrases which
would alone suffice to prove the existence of Exodus and
Deuteronomy when the story was written. This is not
denied now. Historical doubt has taken another and a more
singular turn. The story is assumed to have been either
inserted as it stands, or greatly embellished by a very late
writer. Of this there is no proof. But the echo of a part of
the story, heard afterwards in Hebrew history, justifies a
reader in considering the story itself as containing an echo of
earlier times. Samuel's rent robe indicated the rending of
the kingdom. In the same way, though nearly a century
later, the rending of Jeroboam's robe indicated the splitting
up of Solomon's empire. An idea so similar in two cases, far
apart in time, points to one as the original and the other as a
copy. History frequently repeats itself on similar lines to
these. Even the rebuke of Saul by Samuel is made more
I
Final Rejection of SaiiL 9 1
forcible by a quotation which it contains from the Song of
Moses in the book of Deuteronomy : * To obey is better than
sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams/ The burning
of the fat by the priests is not the only reference to the law in
these six Hebrew words, important though it is in its bearing
on the existence of Leviticus at that time ; * fat of rams ' is
found elsewhere only in the song (Deut. xxxii. 14): 'With
fat of lambs and of rams.' It is impossible to get rid of these
and other coincidences of phrase as accidental. They are
nerves of life running through the history, and giving feeling
to every part. If they be taken away, the history is reft of
its life. It becomes a machine, wound up to go through
certain movements, but destitute of the living action which
marks this narrative. We have seen also in Samuel's words,
' To obey is better than sacrifice,' the original of one of
Solomon's proverbs. As there is no doubt about the writer
of that proverb, there should be none about the currency of
the history of Saul in his day.
The destruction of Amalek is one of those incidents in
Hebrew history which is sometimes thought to leave a stain
on the moral code of the people by whom it was effected.
Like the slaughter of the Midianites by order of Moses, and
the destruction of the Canaanites by Joshua, it forms an
outstanding difficulty, which seems to conflict with tlie divine
authority of Scripture. Perhaps, also, not a few shrink from
regarding the command to utterly destroy Amalek as a
command issued by Him who doeth good even to the
unthankful and the unworthy. A wdiole nation is doomed to
destruction, apparently for a fault committed by their fore-
fathers four hundred years before. That doom is uttered by
the Judge of all the earth. And the king, to whom the
execution of it was entrusted, is deposed from his throne
because he spared the head man of the nation, and did not
cut the flocks and herds in pieces. These are the facts of the
case. Humanity, it will be said, shudders at the command,
92 The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael : its History.
at the slaughter, and at tlie doom of the hapless monarch.
These breathings of humanity are sometimes turned into
words. The Most High could have had no share in these
transactions, and the book which sanctions them cannot be a
revelation of His will. Or, if any be unwilling to speak so
freely, they stop short on the ground that this slaughter was
a result of customs which produced in the Hebrews a harsh-
ness of manners condemned by our Lord Himself.
In examining the morality of the destruction of Amalek,
the number of men and women slain has nothing whatever to
do with the principle in question. It makes no difference
whether a hundred encampments were sacked, or only one ;
whether ten thousand men were killed, or only one, if Saul
had no right to invade and slaughter. A whole tribe
destroyed, a whole nation blotted from the roll of mankind at
one swoop, bulks more largely in our eyes than the slaughter
of a few. But supposing there were no valid grounds for the
destruction, there could be no difference in principle between
ordering the killing of one innocent man and of ten thousand,
or between the sacking of one encampment and the sacking
of a hundred. So far as the principle of Amalek's destruction
is concerned, the number of the slain does not require con-
sideration. It may make the ruin bulk more largely in a
reader's eyes ; but, if the principle be right, the heaps of dead
have nothing more to do with the matter than hundreds or
thousands of slain with the principle on which a war is
waged in modern times.
But further, this shrinking from the doom of the guilty is
not a new thing in the world's history. It is older than the
Hebrew nation itself. When the Most High made known
His purpose to destroy the Cities of the Plain, Abraham,
moved by the same stirrings of humanity, which we are apt
to regard as the peculiar glory of our age, interceded for
them. Human nature, as represented by the patriarch,
shrank from the destruction. A feeling of wrong about to
Final RejectioJi of SatcL 9 3
be done took hold of him at the thought of a whole com-
inunity being suddenly swept off the earth. He struggled
hard to keep that feeling down. He dared not clothe it in
words, as the men of our time do. But mildly and sadly he
so pleaded as to discover his thoughts. This feeling of
humanity, therefore, is not a new thing. With our present
knowledge, and in our present state, it is almost a necessity
of human nature. But another feeling: has been c^iven to
men to check the too vigorous workings of mere pity. In
Abraham's case, we hear the counter feeling speaking when
he asks himself, ' Shall not the Judi^e of all the earth do
right ? ' A sense of justice and feelings of pity are thus
allowed full play in Abraham's bosom. The latter are more
vehement than the former, they hurry us away, they cloud
our judgment. They look to only one side of a case, while
justice requires us to understand and carefully to weigh both
sides. With feeling there is an excitement which disturbs or
darkens reason ; with justice there must be calmness of
judgment. Far higher than feelings of humanity, there may
be, though unknown to us, a justice requiring the infliction
of a punishment, which our pity shrinks from as harsh or
terrible. Knowing all the facts on both sides of the case, it
is able to judge without the partiality which arises from the
excitement of pity. The Judge of all the earth takes this
dispassionate view. Men neither do, nor can. Seeing the
destruction of a whole race, they judge as they would not
judge were the sufferer one man guilty of crime. Pity is not
allowed to interfere with justice when a traitor, or a spy, or
a murderer meets his fate. But an all-knowing judge may
treat nations and races precisely as men treat their fellows
who have been guilty of crime. This is the position taken
by Hebrew historians. It is a reasonable position ; one, too,
which can be defended and vindicated on principles of the
highest morality. As a man is to his fellow-men for reward
or punishment, so may a nation be to God.
94 ^'^^^ Kingdom of All- Israel: its History,
The present age cannot, then, take credit to itself for
having advanced in refinement beyond these ancient Hebrews.
Abraham, unquestionably, felt as we feel, and spoke as we
would speak. The patriarch, indeed, seems to bear the
character of a representative man in his interview with the
Most High. He speaks for men generally, urging his plea
on the purely human ground of pity for the doomed. He
brings forward precisely the same arguments as are urged
now to throw doubt on the morality of the destruction of
nations by command of Heaven. In answer to his pleadings,
feelings of pity are allowed to have full play. Step by step
humanity carries Abraham into a region where feeling and
ignorance would lead him into error. Divine justice silences
the promptings of pity, and in so doing warns men to
remember that there is a Judge whose sense of justice, arising
from full knowledge of facts, may often do violence to man's
mistaken pity.
There are no other grounds on which the morality of
Amalek's destruction can be placed. The customs of the age,
and the harshness of manners among the Hebrews, furnish no
explanation. God Himself commanded Moses to record the
sin and the doom of the freebooters ; and God Himself
commanded Samuel to send Saul on the work of destruction.
The moral code of the Hebrews, the blood feuds, and other
customs of the age, do not therefore come into play here, nor
can they in any measure soften the apparent harshness of the
doom of Amalek. Human pity looks at but one side of the
case. It has not that knowledge of the other side — the guilt
of the offenders — which enables divine justice to pass judg-
ment without bias.
CHAPTEE V.
LAW AND LEGISLATION AMONG THE HEBREWS.
There is one remarkable fact in Hebrew history wliicli seems
to have been overlooked. At no time during the five centuries
covered by the monarchy (1100-588 B.C.) is a word said of
a body of laws enacted or codified by any of the kings. That
silence of the writers who have recorded the rise and fall of
the kingdom is made more impressive by the one law, and the
only one, which is ascribed to a king — David's regulation for
dividing the spoils of battle between the army in the field and
its baggage guard. A thing so small in itself brings into
bolder relief the fact of no prince either introducing new laws
into the country, or reducing old customs to writing and
giving them the force of law. Evidently a law code existed
before a king filled the throne of Israel. At the choice of a
king for the first time, Samuel the prophet acts the part of a
lawgiver ; but never, except in the one instance referred to, are
Hebrew princes represented as exercising this office. They
make no show in liistory save as administrators or breakers of
a code of laws already in existence. A position so singular is
filled by the kings of no other nation whose annals have come
down to our time. Of the power of law among the Hebrews
too much cannot be said. Their proverbs, their popular speech,
their songs, and the events of their daily life are full of its
praises. Everywhere is seen the reign of law. But the
rulers never pride themselves on, making new or codifying old
laws. They build and endow a magnificent temple, they
restore a neglected worship, they repair a temple that has been
burned or has fallen into ruins. Tliev rearrange the recognised
96 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
ministers of religion according to their ideas of what is fitting
and honourable ; they fortify cities and equip armies at their
will, or according to their ability. But we never see them
ordaining new laws, or altering old laws to meet the changing
needs of society. Always do they appear as if their hands,
quite as much as those of their subjects, were tied by an
existing code. A law of the land, given before kings began
to rule, seems to have stood high above both throne and
people. Unquestionably, a relation so unusual, subsisting for
five centuries, is a peculiarity which distinguishes Hebrew
history from the history of every other people. No romancer
could have invented the idea of laws, once given, remaining
unchanged, without addition and without subtraction. Still
less could a series of historians have imagined the idea of
subjection to these ancient law^s in a race of princes, some of
whom were conquerors, some tyrants, and some obstinate to
their own and to their people's ruin. To call this the result
of a designed concealnxient of facts is an incredible explanation
of the silence. The writers had nothing to conceal. They
knew that these kings dared not add to or alter the people's
law-book. Part of it might be set at defiance for a time, but
their pages showed the ruinous consequences of this course,
and the power of the law to vindicate its majesty. These
writers recognised certain well-marked boundaries, within which
the national code confined both king and people. Fullest
freedom of action w^as allowed to them if they did not overstep
these limits ; no freedom whatever was given to either prince
or people to travel beyond. We must therefore go to the
history itself to ascertain the beginning and completion of the
law code which attained to this paramount rule in the nation.
A law-book, once given and remaining unchanged for centuries,
is pronounced an impossibility. But theoretical views of the
possible or the impossible have no place in the matter. "We
are dealing only with facts, and these carry us back for the
beginning of a law-book to the sojourn of the people in Egypt.
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews. 97
When the Israelites were marching to Mount Sinai, it
required uncommon forethought and practical knowledge in
the leaders to keep order among a host so numerous and so
unaccustomed to freedom as the Hebrews were. Born and
brought up in bondage, they did not at once become free in
mind, as they became free in body. Into the free ways of free
men the vast bulk of the nation carried the thoughts and
feelings of slaves. Their sudden deliverance from hard task-
masters only gave room for fuller play to the slave habits, the
littleness, the trifling, in which their lives had been nursed.
Apparently the two leaders, who had fought the battle for
them with Pharaoh, had none to rely on for preserving order
and maintaining justice among the fugitives but the elders and
the judges (Ex. xxi. 22), whom the experience of a few days
proved to be worthless. Assault, theft, quarrel, smiting to the
death, losses from accident or design, straying of cattle, goring
by oxen, were certain to occur among the people as they fled
before the Egyptians. Possibly, however, the twelve months
which preceded their deliverance gave Moses time and food
for thought, if they were not meant to prepare him for the
troubles of leadership. From Egypt, also, they carried with
them a body of national customs, which had been the growth
of centuries in that land, or which, having sprung up in
Palestine under the patriarchs, had slowly received additions in
Goshen. To suppose that Moses, as a lawgiver, worked on
virgin soil, and that the people he commanded had no law
code, either written or traditional, when he was placed at their
head, is too wild an idea to be entertained. The Hebrews
took down to Egypt with them a body of divinely sanctioned
laws or customs, adapted to their needs. They also took a
similar body of laws and customs with them into the desert
under Moses. Common sense recognises these as first
principles. A vague idea seems to prevail that Moses found
no ties among them to bind society together ; that he was the
giver, or the supposed giver, of every law ; and that till he
98 The Kingdom of A 1 1- Israel: its Literature.
spoke the words none of tliem knew his own rights or duties.
To put this idea in writing is sufficient to show its futility.
It is the same as if we should propose to reduce the Hebrews
below the level of savages. With the laws which the people
took with them into the desert, no one was better acquainted
than Moses. Oricjinatinfr in the land of Canaan, to which
the fugitives were bound, they had been tested by experience
in the somewhat similar land of Egypt, which had harboured
their fathers for ages. Time and custom, working with the
divine sanction, had given them a binding force on the con-
science of every family in the nation. To write down offhand
a complete law-book for two or three millions of men, and to
work its statutes into their hearts immediately, was not the
problem before Moses during the flight from Egypt ; he taught
them ' tlu ordinances and tlie laws' (Ex. xviii. 20), the
ancient ' statutes of God.' Before they have been two
months out from Egypt their leader is seen toiling from
morning to night, dispensing justice among his quarrelsome
followers. Jethro, a desert chief, sees the endless toil; he
knows it cannot last ; and advises the appointment of a
graduated series of judges, who should take this unbearable
weight off their leader's shoulders. These judges, small as
well as great, had the same ancestral laws and customs to
appeal to as Moses himself. Justice would be best dispensed
if they had a written code before them, which the education,
the training, the habits of their leader, made it likely he
would furnish — a transcript of ancestral customs, common
law as it is called in England. New cases were certain to
emerge in the new circumstances, but ancient rules would
suffice in the great body of suits that might arise. The Five
Books contain these ancient laws and customs of the Hebrews.
However much they may be disguised by new legislation, which
a more formal worship and the changed position of the people
made necessary, we shall find them in the Pentateuch. The man
who was first told to commit them to writing, though he need
Lazv and Legislation among the Hebrews. 99
not have first delivered them, may have been the lawgiver of
the Hebrews. Justinian and Napoleon were lawgivers, although
they did little more than commission learned men to reduce to
order laws and customs which had existed ages before their day.
If, then, we examine the book of laws which follows the
promulgation of the Ten Commandments (Ex. xxi.-xxiii.), we
shall find only a small part of it bearing on the reason given
for the people quitting Egypt, ' to hold a feast unto the Lord
in the wilderness.' But that section of the code is too
elementary to be regarded as aught higlier than the beginnings
of legislation on national worship. Unless there be good
evidence to the contrary, we may therefore consider this book
as one which the people largely used in their land of bondage.
It lays down the relations between man and man in the ever-
changing circumstances of life ; but while it contains nothing
peculiarly applicable to Palestine, it introduces and omits
arrangements which point rather to Egypt, if not as its birth-
place, at least as long its field of operation.
Ex. XXI.
Ex. XXII.
Ex. XXI
Hebrew men slaves,
1-6
—
—
Hebrew women slaves,
. 7-11
—
—
rl2-15
ies, . -? 18-28
(26, 27
—
—
Assault, degrees of, and penalt
—
—
—
—
Law of retaliation, .
. 23-25
—
—
AVresting of justice,
—
—
6-9
Theft of men, .
16
—
—
Theft of beasts and goods,
—
1-5, 7, 8
—
Respect to superiors,
17
28
—
Accidents — oxen, .
. 28-36
—
—
Fire-raising, .
—
6
—
Deposits,
—
7-13
—
Hires, ....
—
14,15
—
Seduction,
—
16,17
—
Witchcraft and idolatry.
—
18-20
—
Strangers, widows, etc., .
—
21-24
—
Usury, ....
—
25-27
—
Firstlings and first-fruits,
—
29,30
—
Torn flesh,
—
31
—
Laws of good citizenship.
—
—
1-5
Sabbatic year and day, .
—
—
10-13
Feasts, ....
—
—
14-19
lOO The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature.
The sections in this code are not always kept distinct in the
division according to verses. ' Thou shalt not seethe a kid in
his mother's milk,' has no reLation to the section preceding
(Ex. xxiii. 14-19). Had it formed a line or a verse by itself,
as it obviously ought, some misapprehension would have been
avoided.
There is not one enactment in the code, which might not
have been in force among Hebrew villagers and shepherds on
the banks of the Nile, even to the annual feasts — religious
assemblies which are well known to have been common in
Egypt. According to Graf, it represents the Hebrews as not
only settled in Palestine, but in peaceful and undisturbed
possession of the country. But he goes farther. From the
word 'ruler' (Ex. xxii. 28) he infers that a king is meant, —
a large assumption, although there is nothing to prevent us
applying it to the kings of Egypt, who had sheltered Israel
for generations, — and, from other parts of the code, that the
X^eople were living in peace with strangers about them. With
but one exception, these views seem perfectly just : Palestine
is not mentioned in the code. Twice are the people reminded,
* Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.' But between that
reminder and the ascription of conquered Palestine as the
birthplace of the code, there is a wide gulf. To add the
reminder to an ancient code, when it was ratified at Horeb,
was most natural, and will sufficiently explain its presence.
On the other hand, the mention of houses and door-posts
proves that this law-book did not originate in the wilder-
ness— the land of tents, not of houses.
The laws relating to slaves contemplate none but those of
Hebrew blood, sold by fathers, or bought, it may be, from
creditors. Had these laws originated in Canaan, this narrow-
ness of view would be unintelligible. A people in undisturbed
possession of their country and enjoying the blessings of plenty,
would, in that age of the world, have had other slaves than their
own countrymen and countryw^omen. But the code speaks of
Law and Legislation among the Hebreius. loi
none else. Evidently the state of things contemplated in it is
more applicable to Egypt, the house of Hebrew bondage, than
to Palestine, the home of Hebrew freedom. Pharaoh, jealous
of the strength of Israel, would not allow the people to increase
their numbers, by purchasing prisoners brought from foreign
parts, or slaves sold in an open market. Their own country-
men they might purchase, slave grinding slave still lower, in
furtherance of the king's pLan to destroy the might of the
Hebrews ; for all the Hebrews in Egypt were not on the
same level of bondage to Pharaoh. All were subject to Egypt,
and all were oppressed ; but even then there were various
decfrees of wealth and various ranks amonoj the Israelites. It
ought not, therefore, to cause surprise, if we find the richer
families buying and the poorer selling their own kindred.
The omissions in the code appear to be remarkable. The code
says nothing about boundaries of private lands, — if there were
such in Goshen, — or thefts of ground by removing boundary
stones. An open country, unfenced and undivided, is clearly
contemplated in this most ancient law-book. On the other
hand, the book of Deuteronomy is particularly strong on an
act so dangerous to the peace of an agricultural community
as the removal of a boundary : ' Thou shalt not remove thy
neighbour's landmark, which former men set in thine inherit-
ance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God
giveth thee to possess it,' and ' Cursed be he that removeth his
neighbour's landmark' (Deut. xix. 14; xxvii. 17). As this law
became the source of a proverb in Solomon's reign, the change of
words made on it brings clearly out the effect of time in modi-
fying the view taken : ' Thou shalt not remove a landmark of
antiquity, which thy fathers made.' There is slight mention
of antiqidty or fathers in the law as first given. A code, which
had been in force in Egypt, could say nothing about land-
marks, which would also hold true of Palestine ; for between
the mud dykes of the Nile country and the rocky fragments
of Palestine there was nothing in common. Besides, the
102 The Kingdovi of All-Is7'acl : its Literature,
falling in of the banks of the great river, and the sweeping
away at times of the dykes or other fainter boundary lines of
estates, rendered it necessary to have recourse to surer means
of measurement than any, which then sufficed for countries
bordering on Egypt. In other ancient law-books prominence
is justly given to questions aff'ecting the boundary marks of
private lands.^ A recent discovery of boundary stones,
covered with writing, shows the importance attached to them
as far back as 1175 B.C., even in the alluvial lands of Baby-
lonia." And in the famous Athenian law-code (594 B.C.), the
lawgiver Solon laid down the distances at which walls and
houses required to be built, or olives and other trees planted
on either side, an authority Avhich the Twelve Tables of Eome
afterwards followed. The omission of both the word and
the thing in this Hebrew law-book is therefore not without
meaning.
On the sale or mortgaging of land, the code in Exodus is
equally silent. Private property is recognised, — sheep, oxen, or
any beast, clothes, corn, * money or stuff,' — but not one word is
said about private estates, which men could sell to others or
pawn for a temporary loan. But arrangements for raising money
on land were unavoidable in a country divided, as Palestine
was, into innumerable small properties, occupied by the owners
themselves. There is, therefore, something unusual in the
silence of this ancient law-book on that subject. It seems to
point not to the existence of private estates as in Canaan, but
to a common possession of a wliole district, which was at
first certainly the condition on which tlie Hebrews received
Goshen from Pharaoh. The Israelites may not have had
private estates in Egypt. But they did possess private estates
in Canaan, and detailed arrangements were made in their law-
book for buying and selling, for transfers, and for mortgages.
^ Wordsworth, Fragvients and Specimens of Early Latin, 258.
2 For a recital of the boundaries of estates in Egypt, see Brugsch, Egypt under
the Pharaohs, ii. 174.
Law and Legislation among the Llebrews, 103
So miicli the more singular is the silence of their oldest law
code on these subjects.
A third point about this code is the vagueness of its dealing
with vines and olives. The vineyard is mentioned three times,
in a way so cursory as to suggest doubts of much acquaintance
with it among the people. The olive, again, is dismissed in a
single word. How different with the corn ! Take one
example in proof from the law of lire-raising : ' If fire break
out and catch in thorns, so that the stacks (heaps) of corn, or
the standing corn, or the field be consumed therewith, he that
kindled the fire shall surely make restitution' (see Judges
XV. 5). A vineyard in Egypt was a luxury, fenced in with
walls and guarded by gates and bars.^ But in Palestine it
was a common tiling. Even in the deserts of that country,
the long miles of rough walls for training the vines still show
how plentiful and how common the grape was among the
Hebrews. This luxury of Egyptian kings and nobles w^as
promised to the children of Israel before they escaped from
bondage ; it was used afterwards to taunt their great leader
with : ' Thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth
with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and
vineyards' (Num. xvi. 14). Besides, the very use of the
words for standing corn and vineyards is peculiar. ' Six
years shalt thou prune thy vineyard and gather in the fruit
thereof exhibits the sort of acquaintance with grapes shown
in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. It is theoretical, not
practical But, in Deuteronomy, a living thing is before a
reader, not merely the letter of a law : * We will not turn into
the fields or into the vineyards,' said the Hebrew messengers
to Sihon and Edom when pleading for right of way through
their countries ; and, ' When thou comest into thy neighbour's
vineyard, then thou may est eat grapes thy fill at thine own
pleasure ; ' or, as if to condemn the Egyptian custom of plant-
ing various sorts of trees in their luxurious vineyards, ' Thou
^ Wilkinson, Anc. Egx/p.^ i. 377.
I04 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds.' ^ Since there
is but slight mention made of the vine and the olive in the
Exodus law-book, they were not, up to that time, or had not
been, of practical value in the eyes of the Hebrew people.
Although gardens, containing fruit trees and vines, were not
uncommon in Egypt, strangers seem to have seen little of
them, for early Greek writers did not consider Egypt a grape
country. Vineyards were manifestly things of luxury and
not in common use. In Palestine, again, the vine and the
olive w^ere almost necessities of life.
When, therefore, the Hebrews left Egypt, they had a code
of laws or customs with them, which we cannot be far wrong
in identifying with the precepts contained in Ex. xxi.-xxiii.
They were acquainted with sacrifices also — peace-offerings
and burnt-offerings — from a remote antiquity. Even ' Jethro,
Moses' father-in-law, took a burnt-offering and sacrifices for God'
(Ex. xviii. 12) before they reached Sinai. Clearly, then, they
must have had altars of some kind. The law or custom followed
in building them was probably the same as that in Exodus :
* An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice
thereon thy burnt-offerings and thy peace-offerings. And if
thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone ; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast
polluted it.' But there was growth or development in this
law, for an addition was made to it at the end of the
fugitives' wilderness wanderings : ' Thou shalt not set up to
thee an image of any wood beside the altar of Jehovah thy
God wliich thou shalt make for thyself ; and thou shalt not
raise for thee a stone pillar, which the Lord thy God hateth '
(Deut. xvi. 21, 22). When that addition was made, Israel
^ Num. xxi. 22, xx. 17 ; Deut. xxiii. 24, xxii. 9, vi. 11. The words for
standing corn and vineyards occur eleven times in Deuteronomy, and eight
times in Exodus and Leviticus together. As vineyards are named four times in
Numbers, which recounts the passage of Hebrews through a grape country, we
have to add them to the eleven of Deuteronomy. It was theory in Exodus and
Leviticus ; it was sight in Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews, 105
was in a country abounding with idolatrous pillars, both wood
and stone. They were not heard about; they were seen.
Abominations were connected with them, which made the
addition necessary to the old altar law. Pillars such as it
allowed were no longer permitted. Even the name ' pillar/
though used by Jacob and Moses, ceased to be a word of
honour in the Hebrew tongue. It was a doubtful term at
the best (2 Sam. xviii. 18). A memorial pillar was no longer
called by that word. ' Hand ' or ' Place,' as our version
translates the new word, was preferred. ' Absalom's hand,'
or ' Saul set him up a hand,' are two examples of this use.
Hence the distinction in the law-book, ' A pillar which Jehovah
hateth.' There were pillars which He did hate : there were
others which He did not hate. The same word expressed
both kinds ; but gradually the idolatrous kind secured the
word mainly to itself.
Quite in keeping with both this law and the addition to it,
therefore, is the record of an altar which Moses is said to
have ' builded under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to
the twelve tribes of Israel ' (Ex. xxiv. 4). These twelve stone
symbols, standing round a central altar, betokened unity of
faith as the surest bond of the rescued people. But he did
more than build an altar and pillars. He sent certain young
Hebrews to act as priests in offering sacrifices. Moses him-
self, officiating as high priest, sprinkled half of the blood on
the altar, and sprinkled the people with the other half, after
he had ' read the book of the covenant in the audience of the
people.' This book contained the Ten Commandments (Ex.
XX. 1-17) and the law code, which extends from Ex. xx. 22
to Ex. xxiii. 33. Immediately after comes a record of the
writing out of ' all the words of the Lord,' the building of the
altar, and the ratification of the covenant by Moses as priest
(Ex. xxiv. 7). The story is thus full of instruction. ' Pillar '
and ' priest ' are used in it in ways that were modified or for-
bidden at a later period. Each word thus came to have two
io6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
meanings in the written record. ' Priest ' in this narrative
evidently means a young man of the highest rank in society.
It was the same as first-born when used of the young chief
of a family, or a collection of separate households. Prince or
iiohle is the corresponding word in our language. It retained
that meaning for ages afterwards, though it was gradually lost in
the increasing glories of ' the priests the Levites.' Even pillars,
which Jehovah did not hate, were found near the altar, when
heathenism ceased to be a snare to the people. At the north
side of the altar in the second temple were eight dwarf pillars,
with a cedar beam over them.-^ But, while the narrative
shows the familiarity of the people with the idea of priests,
this law code neither mentions the name nor assigns them
revenues. It existed and was in operation before the Leviti-
cal priests were heard of.
But a serious objection to the authority of this ancient code
is frequently urged. The laws, thus said to be ratified by
Heaven on Sinai, are declared to be contradicted by laws,
which were given forty years after in Deuteronomy on the
plains of Moab. Both sets of laws cannot, therefore, have
come from God ; one .or both must be the growth of man's
experience and man's wants. The whole thing, then, resolves
itself into a question of fact : Are there contradictions between
the two sets of laws ? Let us take the following as a speci-
men, one also that has been strongly insisted on : —
Ex. XXII. 31. Deut. xiy. 21.
' Ye shall be holy men unto me ; * Ye shall not eat anything that dieth
neither shall ye eat flesh torn of beasts of itself ; thou shalt give it unto the
in the field ; ye shall cast it to the stranger that is in thy gates, that he
dogs.' may eat it ; or thou mayest sell it unto
an alien ; for thou art an holy people
unto the Lord thy God.'
The two laws refer to similar things, or rather, the one is an
explanation of the other. But a look at the original Hebrew
discovers a letter added by our translators to the Exodus law,
1 Barclay, Talmud, 261.
I
Law and Legislation among the Hebreius, 107
which has gone far to obscure the meaning. ' Ye shall cast it to
the dogs/ they have put, instead of, ' Ye shall cast it to the dog.'
The whole dispute, then, turns upon the meaning of ' the dog.'
Had the words been, ' Ye shall cast it to your dogs,' the mean-
ing would have been plain. But in one of these codes we
have the law. Thou shalt not bring the price of a dog into the
house of the Lord (Deut. xxiii. 18), which cannot evidently
mean a dog in the literal acceptation of the word. ISTo more
can the word be so taken in the common phrases, * A dead
dog,' ' Am I a dog to do this thing ?' ' A dog's head,' and so forth.
' The dog ' clearly means any one who is not holy as the
Hebrews are, that is, stransjers and aliens. The law then runs
thus : Ye shall be holy men unto me ; neither shall ye eat flesli
torn of beasts in the field ; ye shall cast it to the unholy,
that is, to any one of another race from you, to stranger or
alien. As soon as we put ourselves in the position of those
who at first received this law, all semblance of contradiction
between the two codes disappears.
This most ancient code of Hebrew laws reveals a people far
advanced in civilisation. Private righting of injury is not
allowed, except, manifestly, in the case of wilful murder ; but
even then it is kept within bounds by the intervention of a
higher authority. Magistrates take up the quarrel raised by
wrong-doing. The state, of which they are the embodiment,
stands between the sufferer and the wrong-doer, takes charge
of the offender, and lays down the punishment. It does not
look on with unconcern when a wrong is done, or when tlie
injured cry for justice. A masterful man could do what he
pleased in the heroic age of ancient Greece, till he met wdtli
one more masterful than himself. The widows' and the
orphans' cries were then unheeded. Hebrew law abhorred
this indifference to right. It threw a shield around the weak,
the helpless, the unprotected. It defied the strongest to set
its commands at naught. It warned him of a mightier than
the mightiest, who regarded the tears of the oppressed, with
io8 The Kingdom of All- 1 S7'acl\ its Lite7^ature.
full purpose of avenging their wrongs. The state is taken
bound to discharge these duties as the representative of this
mightiest of overseers. This law-book, therefore, does not
bind men together as members of society by an agreement to
adopt the best plan for securing their own protection, or their
own interest, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
There is nothing abstruse or philosophical in its arrangements.
It is intensely practical; it may even be called so common-
place as to be level to the understanding of the humblest
reader. A higher power is recognised at work in the world,
rewardinsf the cjood and returnimjj evil to the evil. Eiohteous-
ness, not self-interest or • mere utility, binds society together,
and is ever striven against by the passions of evil-doers. All
magistrates and judges are taught to look beyond themselves
to a Judge, who shall weigh their actings in the balance of
purest justice. A view of society so simple is apt to be thought
little of, because it is the view with which all are familiar in
Britain. But Hebrew statesmen held that view more than
three thousand years ago. And they held it in a fulness
and purity unknown to the world at large, till within the last
half century (Ex. xxi. 6 ; xxii. 7, 8, 10, Heb.).
This law code is sometimes compared with the laws of the
Twelve Tables at Piome, which were the gathered wisdom of
Greece and of the Italian states, a thousand years later than
the exodus. Several laws in the two codes are the same, or
almost the same ; but in breadth of view and in humaneness
of feeling, the Hebrew far surpasses the Eoman. It was not
a heavy yoke, thrust by a few above on toiling thousands
below ; nor was it the work of these thousands, bursting the
chains of oppressors, and claiming for themselves something
of justice and fair-play. On its face it bears proof of an
honest desire to lighten the load of ill in man's life, by guard-
ing the rights of the weak against the strong, and by dis-
pensing to great and small the even-handed justice of heaven.
Degrading punishments were not known to this ancient law-
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews. 109
book of Israel. Tree men might be scourged for crimes, for
those who had disgraced their position as citizens forfeited its
rights. But the outrages on humanity tolerated by Koman
law in the prisons of rich men, or in the army, were unknown
in Israel. Unfortunate debtors in Eome were deprived of
every right of manhood and citizenship by creditors, who were
often the guiltier of the two. Officers of standing in her con-
quering legions could be caned by their superiors, as were the
common soldiers. Torture also, as a means of discovering the
truth in legal proceedings, w^as entirely absent from Hebrew
history. Cruelties, which have disgraced the most civilized
nations of modern Europe, were not condemned, because they
were wholly unknown in Israel. ' My son, give glory to God,'
that is, ' confess,' is the only torture read of in the Old Testa-
ment, applied by a judge to a criminal. It was the most
sacred appeal, which could be addressed to a wrong-doer's
conscience. Egypt w^as in this respect less advanced in civi-
lisation than Palestine. Even the exposure of dead bodies
on the gibbet, beyond the day of execution, was forbidden in
the Mosaic law. The sorrowful story of Eizpali in David's
reign is an exception which proves the rule. How different
from the state of things in our own country little more than
half a century ago ! The streets of London, the roads leading
to it, and the river Thames were then barbarously defiled by
the bleaching skulls and bones of dead criminals, exposed to
the public gaze for a terror to evil-doers. We do not wish to
keep out of view a well-known and opposite side to this
account of Hebrew civilisation, as seen in the law-book. The
wholesale slaughter of Midian, the curse on Amalek, the root-
ing out of the Canaanites, are problems in moral philosophy,
which have drawn down on the Hebrew law^giver condemna-
tion for barbarity. But it is most unjust to study these
problems without regard to the legislation of which he was
the author. His critics may have viewed them from a posi-
tion which he knew as well as they, but may have refused to
I lo The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature,
occupy. His laws ought to be considered as a whole ; for
it may turn out that the acts condemned as inhuman prove to
be justifiable in the light of facts. Set over against these
problems, which have two sides, laws for all time like the
following, wliich have but one side, and are found together in
a cluster in the law-book : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself ; ' ' The stranger, thou shalt love him as thyself ; '
* Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in
weight, or in measure ; ' ' The wages of him that is hired shall
not abide with thee all night till morning' (Lev. xix. 13,
18, 34, 35).
The course of the legislation thus begun at Sinai was
broken in upon by a most untoward event — the casting of the
golden calf. As a fault is in geology, parting the strata, and
bringing their faces to an abrupt end against the faces of
other strata, so that event w^as to the course of Mosaic legis-
lation. What preceded it was parted from what followed by
a violent interference, coming from an unlooked-for quarter.
The whole le^^islation had to be done over acjjain. The broken
tables of the law had to be renewed ; the written conditions
had to be repeated, at least in their principal parts, if the
covenant was to stand. In this renewal of the covenant
several of its provisions are repeated word for word. We
have no reason to be surprised at these repetitions. They
occur in other ancient writings as well as in Exodus. But
there is a marked advance in the renewal over the statement
originally made : ' The Lord descended in the cloud, and
stood wath him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.'
Spiritual worship cannot exist along with molten gods.
Evidently the Hebrews thought the two could live together,
without the former receiving hurt from the latter. They
discover now that this cannot be. The renewal of the cove-
nant leaves them no room for doubt.
This way of renewing the broken covenant is regarded as a
suspicious proceeding. Eor 'in Ex. xxxiv. 17-26 there is a
Law a7id Legislation aino7ig the Hebrews. 1 1 1
group of various legal precepts, which are found already
standing together in the collection (chap, xxi.-xxiii.), and in
part agreeing exactly and verbally, and these various laws
are also to some extent connected together in just the same
w^ay in both these passages.' Ultimately the repetition is
pared down to less than half that number of verses ; but it
is reckoned so ' surprising ' as to be an ' argument against
the Mosaic authorship.' ^ If there is any force in the argu-
ment, it comes to this : A history which records the making
of a treaty, the breaking of it, and the renewal of it, cannot
be genuine if, in the story of the renewal, it record again the
main provisions of the treaty as first given ! Or, to ensure
its genuineness, it must distinctly warn the reader of the
reason for thus repeating these provisions. In other words,
by supposing a reader to have the sense to discover for him-
self the reasons of things, the history incurs the charge of
not being genuine ; if it had warned the reader of reasons so
plain, it would have been at once pronounced a forgery. So
difficult is it to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of criticism !
But there is another repetition of larger dimensions ready to
the hand of an objector. The whole section of the book of
Exodus, xxv.-xxxi. 17, respecting the building and appoint-
ments of the tabernacle, is repeated, sometimes word for word
and verse for verse, in the section of the same book, xxxv.-
xxxix. The repetition is no longer three or four verses ; it
is now five or six chapters. But there is even worse. The
former of these two sections ends with a strongly expressed
order to keep the Sabbath ; and the second of them begins
with quoting and even expanding that order. Both of these
orders are substantially repetitions of the fourth command-
ment, already given on the arrival of the people at Sinai.
But these repetitions prove nothing against the genuineness
of the book. On the contrary, the author, acting as many
other writers have acted, repeated sections of his work without
1 Bleek (Wellhausen), § 22 (84).
1 12 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Literatui'e,
thinking the repetitions would ever be quoted as grounds for
denying his honesty or his existence.
We come now to the legislation in the book of Leviticus.
If we accept the statements of the book itself regarding the
course of the legislation after the building of the tabernacle,
we have a plain, and usually a clear narrative of facts.
Should we reject these statements, we find ourselves in a
labyrinth of doubt. Thus, on two pages of Block's Introduc-
tion to the Old Testament (2d ed.), translated for the benefit of
English readers, we have the following mixture of hesitating
view, confident assertion, and condemnation of others respect-
ing the laws in Leviticus.^ While he regards a large portion
of the book of Leviticus to be Mosaic, and none of it as
belonging to a later age than Saul's, he feels himself on such
sinking sand, that his reasoning in the two pages referred to
is a conglomerate of a most elastic nature. ' Perhaps ' occurs
thrice in them ; probably, twice ; probable, twice ; very probable,
twice ; likely, twice ; ' it may be maintained with certainty,'
once ; ' tliis may be certainly assumed,' once ; ' we cannot
analyze this book in detail with any certainty, but I think it
is tolerably certain,' once. And no fewer than nine lines
contain a hearty condemnation of De Wette's view, that ' the
various parts of Leviticus were added gradually by different
compilers.' ' This supposition,' he says, ' is quite inadmissible,
and has been tacitly retracted even by De Wette himself.'
Here, then, are thirteen ' probables ' in about seventy lines.
For any practical purpose the reasoning is absolutely worth-
less. A ' probable ' every five or six lines may prove a
writer's inability to make up his mind ; it can never lead to
definite and sure results. And yet Bleek, whose wide know-
ledge of the subject is universally recognised, is a model of
modesty and fairness in comparison with others who know
much less.
The book of Leviticus, like most of Exodus, and especially
1 Introd. i. 310, 311 (Leviticus). So in 4th eJ. "Wellhausen, § 55 (117).
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews, 113
like Deuteronomy, contains the record of a brief space of
time. While Exodus, from the twelfth chapter to the end of
the book, narrates the events and tlie legislation of little
more than eleven months, Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain
the history of but one month each, at the beginning and at
the end of the march to the Promised Land. What Leviticus
does for the scientific or learned class, Deuteronomy does for
the people generally ; each of them provides a handbook of
rights and duties. In both cases the time seems to be the
same, though Lev. xxv. 32-34 may have anticipated a law
afterwards given by the lawgiver (Num. xxxv. 2). If any
one finds cause for surprise at the rapid march of events in
the later book, he will be equally surprised at the rapidity in
the earlier. Or, if he entertain suspicions of undue crowding
in the story of the one book, he must be prepared to admit
similar suspicions in considering the other. A more cautious
reader will rather feel disposed to regard the month of the
one book as supporting the historical accuracy of a month in
the other. ISTo writer of romance, or unhistorical history,
would be so blind as to repeat an invention which would
betray the inventor.
Where Exodus ends, Leviticus begins ; where Leviticus ends,
the book of Numbers begins. An order is observed which
indicates unity of design, if not of authorship. By failing to
see this order, and by arguing from facts which have no exist-
ence, Bleek and Graf, and many others, have done grievous
injustice to the author of the Pentateuch. Exodus ends with
the setting up of the tabernacle. After preparing it and its
furniture, the builders handed the whole over to Moses. He
was to officiate as the high priest at first, for the priest's due
from a sacrifice at the consecration of Aaron and his sons is
specially assigned to him (Ex. xxix. 26). But the Levites
proper, or the rest of the tribe, are not mentioned in Exodus
as priests' assistants, nor even in the singular passage,
xxxviii. 21. When the children of Levi are found in its pages.
1 14 The Kingdoin of A II- Israel : its Literature,
the meaning is clear. The writer is speaking of the tribe as
a whole, not of a part of it. ' The families of Levi ' occur
twice, ' all the sons of Levi ' once, and ' the sons of Levi '
twice. Not a word is said about part of the tribe becoming
priests' assistants, although this is assumed by many theorists.
Nor are arrangements made in Exodus for taking the taber-
nacle down. Leviticus finds it standing ; but priestly sacrifice
requires a law-book for its regulation. Leviticus supplies
that want. It deals chiefly with priestly duties ; indeed, the
word priest occurs nearly one hundred and eighty times. Of
a distinction among the members of the tribe of Levi the book
does not s^ive the remotest hint. The word Levite occurs four
times in a short section of three verses, and includes both
' priests and priests' assistants, in short, the whole of the tribe
(Lev. XXV. 32-34). Leviticus ends with the tabernacle
standing and priests officiating. The book of Numbers makes
a step forward. It contains the arrangements for taking the
tabernacle down, and for packing and carrying its furniture.
Not a word has been said on these points before. Then also
comes into view, for the first time, the distinction between
2)7'iests, sons of Aaron, and Levites, or the rest of the tribe of
Levi. It is given in Num. iii. 5— 13, and is made the founda-
tion of duties, which are fully detailed in two or three of the
following chapters. Elsewhere the distinction is not broadly
drawn. It is assumed, and it is built on in Deuteronomy;
but it is not again broadly re23eated there. Leviticus insists
on every animal slain for food, ' in the camj) or out of the
camp,' being brought to the tabernacle door, and presented
there as a sacrifice (Lev. xvii. 5). Deuteronomy advances a
step farther. Wherever the animal was slaughtered in the
country of the twelve tribes, it was to be counted a sacrifice,
and part of it was to go as a tax, or offering, to the priests
(Deut. xii. 15). Such, then, is the order of events in these
books. Unless we keep it in sight, mistakes are certain to ,
arise. But such is not the view given by modern criticism.
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews, 1 1 5
Speaking of Deuteronomy, Bleek (Wellhausen), § 62 (124),
says : ' The Levites always appear in the preceding books, in
a subordinate position only, as servants of the temple.' As
they never so appear in Exodus and Leviticus, if, indeed, the
rest of the tribe, as distinguished from the priests, appear in
them at all, the grossness of this blunder might well shake all
confidence in other results of the same writers.
The book of Numbers is distinctly said to consist of two
halves, with a long interval of years between. The one half,
embracing the first nineteen chapters, belongs to the very
beginning of the wilderness wanderings. The other half, or the
remaining seventeen chapters, unquestionably belongs to their
close. A gap of about thirty-eight years exists between these
two halves. This gap is as great a source of offence to critics,
as the rapid movement in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It
ought not to have been. No true historian would have
allowed it to stand in his book without a bridge across,
without plain intimation given that the chasm was there, and
that no effort would be made to fill it up. Therefore it is
argued the book of Numbers cannot be the handiwork of
Moses, nor of any one who followed him through the wilder-
ness. It may have been compiled three or five or ten cen-
turies afterwards by an author, who strung together written
pieces, which he found floating down the stream of time far
apart, or who invented most of the book out of a lively
imagination. Now it is not easy for any one, who knows the
many gaps which exist in historical books without even the
semblance of a bridge across, to comprehend this argument.
If the writer of the book of Numbers considered it necessary
to bury in oblivion the events of these thirty-eight years, he
only did what every other writer would have done. These
Hebrews had had their chance, and had thrown it away.
Politically they were dead men in the eye of the historian
Even their children did not receive the rite of circumcision,
1 Bleek (Wellliausen), § 28 (90).
I
1 1 6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
the seal of the covenant. Civil death had passed on the camp
of Israel (Josh. v. 5). A generation would elapse before they
would sleep in their graves ; but to record their lives, their
doings, their hopes, would have been a barren waste — a record
of a race that had been effaced from the world. Lightning
had struck the stock of the tree. A young shoot was growing
up : thirty-eight years would be required before the blasted
trunk would decay, and the young shoot attain to its most
vigorous growth. Moses refused to write the history of the
lightning-struck stock. The thread of the narrative could
only be resumed when the chance, which the parent stock had
thrown away, should be again given to its better offspring.
Most justly, therefore, does the chasm exist, for the men,
whose deeds would have been recorded, were dead men in the
eye of the law, condemned to life-long imprisonment in that
wilderness peninsula. The long gap, instead of being a proof
of unreality in the history, proves, on the contrary, a deliberate
desigjn in the author.
But a gap in the history of Israel, or indeed of any nation,
is not an unusual thing. Coming down to time which may be
called recent and well known, we find two gaps of large extent
following each other in the history of the Hebrews. From
the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to the return
of the exiles in the reign of Cyrus, is an interval of about
forty-seven years. The story of Daniel does not fill it up in
any way ; nor has Jeremiah or Ezekiel done much to bridge
it across. Another gap, as wide, follows, stretching from the
building of the second temple (536-517 B.C.) to the appear-
ance of Ezra at Jerusalem (460 B.C.). This wide gap of more
than fifty years begins at the last verse of Ezra's sixth chapter,
and ends with the first verse of the seventh. No indication
of this great width is given to a careless reader, not a shadow
of bridge spans the chasm to his eye, for the one chapter
follows the other with the ordinary note of a continuation,
' Now after these thinojs.' The arsjument is therefore worth-
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews. 117
less, which relies on the thirty-eight years' gap in the story of
the wilderness wanderings.
With as little reason can the story of the man gathering
sticks on the Sabbath day be twisted into a proof of the late
compilation of the book of Numbers.^ It begins thus : ' While
the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a
man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.' The note
of time, * While they were in the wilderness,' seems to indi-
cate that the story must have been written when they were
out of the wilderness. There is no room for doubt on the
subject. There is no discovery here ; far less is there a proof
of the late editing or compiling of the book. But there is a
very satisfactory proof of the mis-handling to which the critic
has subjected the author ; for the latter distinctly states that
the book was written or published in the plains of Moab, by
Jordan side, near Jericho.^ It was therefore strictly within
the author's right, if the circumstances of the case did not
require it to be his duty, to say that the story of the man
gathering sticks happened while the people were in the
wilderness. The incident did not take place in a well-
timbered land, such as Israel was then occupying. It hap-
pened where bushes were few in number. The man could
not have pleaded necessity in the plains of Moab. But he
could have made a good case on that plea in the wilderness.
And yet the plea did not avail, for ' all the congregation
brought him without the camp and stoned him with stones,
and he died.' By putting ourselves in the author's place, and
viewing things as he may be thought to have viewed them,
we are more likely to get at the real truth of his story than
by heaping ' perhaps ' on ' probable,' and ' very probable ' on
' more likely,' till we raise a scaffolding high as the heaven,
but with foundations on a quicksand.
^ Bleek (Wellhausen), § 19 (81) ; Num. xv. 32-36.
- The Peiitateucli was not written in the wilderness, for the author of that
work distinctly states that three-eighths of the legislative part were written after
the Hebrews left the wilderness (Num. xx.-xxxvi. ; Deut. i.-xxxiv.).
ii8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature,
A clear proof of disagreement between two sets of laws in
the book of Numbers is found in the age at which the Levites
were ordained to begin their service. In one place the
beginning age is fixed at thirty, and the age for leaving off
work at fifty. But in another passage, separated from the
former by nine or ten pages, the beginning age is fixed at
twenty-five, and the Levites above fifty continue still to
* minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of the congre-
gation, to keep the charge ' (Num. viii. 24—26, iv. 47). These
two sets of laws were given within a few days of each other.
The first is thought to be Mosaic, therefore the other cannot
be. Such is the argument, such is the large conclusion de-
duced from the apparent change of thirty to twenty-five. But
the argument is not fairly stated when the beginning age only
is looked at. If exception be taken to it, exception must also
be taken to the chans^e in the asje assic^ned for leavinff off work.
Fifty years is stated to have been that limit ; but men who
were older were consecrated, and remained in office as
Levites, precisely as were also men under thirty. Fifty and
thirty were the limits of age for work in fetching and carry-
ing ; but men, who were exempted from this work because
they were over fifty, were consecrated to the office. In the
same way, men under thirty were consecrated to the office,
even before the work was assigned to them. It was a natural
arrangement to give young Levites five years of an appren-
ticeship before they commenced their service, whether that
apprenticeship was limited to acquiring a knowledge of the
law, or was extended to occasionally helping in the work.
Nor was the service regarded by them with a light heart.
Provision had to be made for one family of the Levites, ' that
they may live and not die when they approach unto the most
holy things.' But if a reader of the law-book refuses to
accept this reconciliation of a divergence of its statement, and
if that divergence bulk so largely in his eyes as to hide the
countless proofs which the legislation furnishes otherwise of
Law and Legislation a7nong the Hebrews. 1 1 9
its Mosaic origin, lie can only be urged to carry the same
uncompromising spirit into the study of other histories and
other legislations. He will then find them all sinking beneath
his feet.
Perhaps the strangest of all the objections, advanced against
the Mosaic origin and authority of the legislation, is drawn from
the names given to the cardinal points of the compass. ' There
are phrases,' it is said, 'which prove quite unambiguously
that the Pentateuch was written in Canaan. In Hebrew, the
common phrase for " westward " is " seaward," and for south-
ward, " towards the JST^geb." The word ISTegeb, which primarily
means " parched land," is in Hebrew the proper name of the
dry steppe district in the south of Judah. These expressions
for west and south could only be formed within Palestine.
Yet they are used in the Pentateuch, not only in the narrative,
but in the Levitical description of the tabernacle in the
wilderness (Ex. xxvii.). But at Mount Sinai the sea did not
lie to the west, and the ISTegeb was to the north.' ^ Had these
phrases been carefully examined, the results arrived at might
have been different. The word Mgeh occurs ten times in
Numbers and twice in Deuteronomy. Every one of these
passages will bear the rendering Steppe country or wilderness,
without detriment to the meaning. Our translators have
always used the word south for Mgeh. In this they are pro-
bably not correct; but the Hebrew term might have been
allowed to stand as the name of a known district, and not as
the name of a quarter of the heavens. In Leviticus the word
never occurs at all. In Exodus it occurs five times altogether ;
but in four of them it is treated as a word of doubtful
meaning. Only once does it stand by itself, without another
word to give it clear definition. As the Hebrews looked
towards the rising sun, that is, eastward, when naming the
points of the compass, their name for south was Teyman, or
the right hand. Now this word occurs as often in the legis-
1 Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 323.
I20 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literahtre.
lative portions of Exodus as the word N^geb. But that is of
small consequence. Four times the designation runs, ' the
south side southward' (Ex. xxvi. 18); in the fifth passage
(Ex. xl. 24), there is no necessity for thus limiting N^geb.
But ' the south side southward ' is literally ' the N^geb towards
the rigjht hand.' That there micjht be no mistake about the
meaning of Negeb, the lawgiver added another term clearly to
define it. About that term there could be no doubt — towards
the right hand. A clearer proof could not be given of his
fear lest the word, which his countrymen had brought with
them to Egypt from Canaan, might cause confusion, nor a
clearer proof of the means he took to avoid that source of
error. The use of the word l^egeb is therefore an indication
of the wilderness origin of the book, in which the meaning of
it is so carefully defined.
But even thoudi there had not been this careful use of the
word l^egeb, we should still have had to ask what language
the Hebrews took with them to Egypt, and continued to speak
there. Beyond doubt it was the Hebrew tongue. And if
they took down with them names for the cardinal points, they
would continue to use these names, although the words had
ceased to have the same accurate meaning which they had to
residents in Palestine. In the same way they continued to
call the first month of their year by a name appropriate to
the greatest part of Palestine — Abib, or green ear of corn,
although during their stay in Goshen the harvest had pro-
bably been ready, if not gathered, before that month began.^
Nothing else could have been expected of a people who were
speaking a language which their fathers had used for ages.
But even the word Negeb meant other things than the dry
steppe in the south of Judah. It is used of Egypt as being
the south land to Palestine, and it is also used to express the
^ See Ex. ix. 31 : ' The barley was in the ear,' a considerable time before Abib.
Fields in Egypt are ready for reaping in March. But in Palestine barley harvest
is a month later.
Law and Legislation amo7ig the Hebrews. 1 2 1
south quarter, without the slightest reference to any steppe,
as, ' The kings that were on the north of the mountains, and
of the plains south (N^geb) of Chinneroth,' that is, south of
the Sea of Galilee (Isa. xxi. 1 ; Josh. xi. 2). Most justly,
then, may we dismiss the objection as neither fully and fairly
stating the case, nor as having any weight even if it did.
But what is thus believed to be an insurmountable objec-
tion to the reality of the legislation, becomes an unanswerable
proof of its antiquity. Ezekiel, when sketching with a free
pen the temple which was to be built on the ancient site,
speaks twice of ' the side of the south southward,' or, ' the side
of the ISTegeb southward.'^ There w^as no call on him to add
southvxtrd after N^geb. He was in Babylon, far to the north
of Judah and its dry steppe, at the time of drawing up that
sketch. Only one reason can be given for his unnecessary
plainness of speech. He was echoing or copying the words
which were used in describing the building of the tabernacle
in the wilderness. Nowhere but in Ezekiel's writings, and in
the Pentateuch, do these strange words, ' The side of the south
southward,' occur. One author clearly borrowed the phrase
from another. If the Pentateuch was the book in which it
first occurred, the borrowing of it by Ezekiel is easily under-
stood. But if, as several writers think, Ezekiel used the
phrase first, then the addition of southward to south becomes
a puzzle of greatest difficulty. He had no reason for so doing.
He was uselessly repeating the same idea in other words. He
was committing a fault of style, which laid him open to
censure. But there was no fault and no censure, if he was
echoing, as he unquestionably was, the words of an ancient
and much esteemed author.
But the prophet gives a curious and convincing proof of his
indebtedness to the Pentateuch. ' The south side southward '
1 The word 'side' is very ancient (Amos iii. 12). Its occurrences elsewhere
are singular : Exodus 15 times, Leviticus 6, Numbers 6, Joshua 6, Jeremiah 4,
and Ezekiel 47 times. No one can read the north, south, east, and west in
Ezekiel (xlv.-xlvii.) without feeling that he is copying Exodus and Numbers.
122 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its Literature.
was an archaic phrase, which a reader and imitator of ancient
books was entitled to borrow. 'The east side towards the
sun-rising/ was another found in Exodus (xxvii. 13), Numbers
(ii. 3, xxxiv. 15), and Joshua (xix. 12). Ezekiel altered it
into ' the east side eastward,' by repeating the word for east.
The change of word does not indicate originality. But he
rounded off the four cardinal points in the same way, and he
stands alone in so doing. He spoke of ' the north northward '
(Ezek. xlvii. 1 7), and of ' the west westward ' (Ezek. xlv. V).
He was imitating an old book ; he was not borrowing from it.
Beyond doubt, EzekieTs imitations and borrowings in this
matter show the homage paid by him to the same Pentateuch
which we now study.
The labour of examining all the objections taken to the
Sinaitic origin of the legislation would be great, and the profit
small. No sooner is an objector dislodged from one position
than he entrenches himself in another, as little capable of
defence. Although the marks of originality and antiquity in
the legislation are too distinct to be all explained away, this
fact is not strong enough to override the difficulties which
beset the narrative, as they beset all narratives of the olden
time. Some of these difficulties are historical knots, so
entangled as to call for most careful handling. But a set of
tangled threads needing unravelling is a different thing from
there being no threads to unravel. And when the lawgiver
has left us these knots to disentangle, he has bequeathed to
us a legacy, the same in kind as every historian of any name
has left behind him. An ancient history, free from puzzles
which critics labour in vain to read, would not be a history of
much worth. To infer from them that the historian, whether
Greek, or Eoman, or Hebrew, did not record the puzzles which
baffle our understanding, or that he did not exist at all, is to
confess our inability to discover a solution. One of the most
real of these puzzles in Hebrew legislation is the small number
of first-borns said to have been found in the camp. Had the
1
Law and Legislation among the Hebrews, 123
statement been false or fanciful, it would not have been made,
for the number is so ridiculously small as to carry with it a
conviction of our use of words not being the same as the
historian's. The number of men above twenty years of age
in the camp was 603,550, but the number of first-born males
among them, counted from a month old and upwards, was only
22,273. Practically, according to Bunsen, the proportion of
first-borns was one in a hundred of the whole population ;
that is, every family, whatever the meaning of the word may
have been, contained about one hundred members. As the
proportion in our country is one in five or six, the case,
stated as we have stated it, seems a hopeless puzzle. Bleek,-^
who expresses his views with moderation in a matter so little
known to us, believes that the statement of the number of
first-borns could not have proceeded from Moses, or from a
contemporary author. Does any critic fully understand the
statement made ?
But the case is far from being so hopeless a puzzle as it
looks. We have only a part of the story, not the whole. A
writer acquainted with figures, as the author of the book of
lumbers was, would evidentl}^ have seen the inaccuracy of
the figures, if they had been really wrong. If they had been
correct, according to his way of regarding things, he would
never have thought, when writing the narrative, of the likeli-
hood of strangers looking at the figures in another way, and
deducing from them an impossible result. The case seems so
clear against the accuracy of the numbers, that a fear arises,
lest we be putting on words other meanings than those put
on them in the Hebrew camp. A change of meaning,
insensibly creeping in, may cause grievous miscalculation in
the reckoning. And the first thing which ought to infuse
caution into a reviewer of this passage, is the change of
front presented in the numbering of the Levites, without a
word of explanation. At first they are set down as number-
1 Introduction, § 57 (119) g.
124 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
ing in all 22,300, reckoned from a month old and upwards;
but the sum total is suddenly changed to 22,000 (Num.
iii. 22, 34, 39). Whoever considers the difficulty, cannot
think to remove it by regarding the change as springing from
the common wish to use round numbers. Instead of being a
solution, this is an insult to the good sense of both ancient
author and modern reader. For 22,300 is itself a round
number quite as much as 22,000. Besides, the exact number
of first-borns among the other tribes was 22,273, a very odd
figure to give. Apparently they are fewer by 27 than the
Levites (22,300) ; but really they turn out to be more by 273
(22,000). For each of these 273 a sum of five shekels had
to be paid. View this matter as we may, we must come to
the conclusion, not that the author has made a mistake, but
that we cannot fully understand his words, since the whole
story has not been told.
With this clue in our hands, we should have no difficulty
in threading our way through the narrative. The traditional
altar-service among the Hebrews was to undergo a change.
The honour of acting as priests and altar servants, which had
belonged for ages to a class, then well defined, and called
First-lorns, was irrevocably transferred to others — the sons of
Levi. We do not know precisely who had enjoyed the rights
and honours of priesthood till this time ; in one passage they
are said to have been ' young men of the children of Israel ; '
in another they are simply called 'priests (Ex. xxiv. 5 ;
xix. 22). They are generally allowed to have been Bechorim
or First-horns. But the transference of priestly honour was
made without their consent bein^x asked. The chancre was
resented, was fought against, and was never fully acquiesced
in, though it was sanctioned by the clear voice of Heaven.
Every time we read, as we frequently do, ' The priests the
sons of Levi,' it seems as if a warning finger were lifted
against using some other phrase, such as * The priests the
first-borns.' * Priests,' then, continued to be a word which,
Law and Legislation amojig the Hebi^ews. 125
even in the days of David, seems not to have lost its ancient
meaning of nobU or 'prince. By this transference of honours,
the Levites got what the deprived class lost. The former
were exchanged for the latter. All that we know ahout the
men who were deprived of their rights is their name First-
horns. But the same word may be a title of nobility for a
few, as well as a common name for many. Our own word
chief, in the same way, may mean one man in a multitude, or
many, according to the context. Clear though this is to us, it
is not always clear to foreigners, and might perplex them in
reading the history of our island, especially of the Highlands
of Scotland. If, then, first-horns had two meanings, a narrow
and a wide, our misunderstanding of the passage may be due
to a simple cause. Changes came over the meaning of the
words ' pillar ' and ' priest,' till they were used in two senses
widely different. ' First-born ' appears to have had a similar
history. New laws and new arrangements were causing
changes in language, which were destined to give scholars
trouble in after ages. It has always been so. A reader, who
finds a minister of religion with the word of honour Sir pre-
fixed to his name in pre-Eeformation times, is apt to con-
sider him a member of some noble family. On the contrary,
it indicated the want of honour; it meant he had not taken
his degree at the University.
It is generally allowed that the right of priesthood belonged
to the first-born son of a family. But the number of these
first-borns would depend on the number of families, a word of
which the extent is now unknown to us. A family does not
mean a household, consisting of father, mother, children, and
servants, having the eldest son as priest, in succession to his
father. On the other hand, there seem to have been a
number of such households grouped together to constitute a
family, while several families formed a tribe. Twenty house-
holds grouped together would give a family of 100 or 110 —
the number required for one first-born. A priest for every
126 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature,
five or six, such as a family is with us, would make the
honour so common as to be little esteemed. We know it was
counted a great thing, indeed the greatest thing, among the
Hebrews in very early days. It was therefore something
uncommon. Supposing the priesthood was an office belonging
to a group of households forming a famil}^, and that first-horii
was the official title of the priest, the whole difficulty vanishes.
A word has been used in an official sense which could also be
used in an ordinary sense. At the same time, it becomes
clear how first-horn or ^:>?'ies^ might also mean prince or chief
ruler.
There are other two points about this choice of the first-
borns which seem worth looking at. One is, the small
muster-roll of Levi in comparison with the other tribes. Of
the latter, the smallest roll is that of Manasseh, 32,200 men
above twenty years of age. But in Levi there cannot have
been above a third part of that number. It may be that the
fury of Pharaoh's persecution fell chiefly on Levi's sons.
Another point to be observed is this. While a reason is given
for numbering the people generally from twenty years old and
upwards, no reason is given for numbering the first-borns and
the Levites from a month old. Fitness for war is the reason
assigned in the former case ; the law seems to supply the
reason in the latter. Considering the importance attached to
circumcision, we might have expected the reckoning for first-
borns and Levites to have run from the day on which that
rite was performed — the eighth day after birth. But a
different reckoning is adopted — a month old. It seems as if
this date referred to the presentation of boys at the altar —
three-and-thirty days after birth — a round number, precisely
as the sum total of the Hebrew armies is put down in round
numbers at the beginning of the story, as ' about six hundred
thousand men on foot, beside children.' Here, then, is satis-
factory cross-examining of a witness. While the book of
Leviticus G;ives no indication of a division of the tribe into
Law and Legislation amo7ig the Hebrews. 1 2 7
priests, sons of Aaron, and Levites, assistants at the altar, but
leaves the duties of the latter to be detailed in the book of
Numbers only when the time of their service approaches,
the book of Numbers, on the other hand, assumes, without a
word said on the subject, the law of presentation at the altai-,
previously laid down in Leviticus (xii. 4). A coincidence,
undesigned and clear, ought to carry weight in discussing the
dates and authorship of these two books. They must have
been at least carefully revised. If so, a supposed blunder like
that of the first-borns, or of the Levites' age of service, must
be rejected as unlikely.
CHAPTEE VI.
ANOINTING AND ADVANCEMENT OF DAVID.
(1 Sam. xvi. 1-xviii. 19.)
The bitterness of feeling between Samuel and Saul soon
became known to the people. A heaviness of heart weighed
down the prophet as he mourned night and day over the
casting off of his former favourite. But in Saul, instead of
grief for errors that could no longer be remedied, there was
anger with the messenger by whom judgment was pronounced.
The prophet was alarmed at the threats of violence uttered by
the king, and reported to him from friends at court. Like
many other men who have attempted to thwart the purposes
of Heaven, Saul seems to have threatened with death any one
who should dare to anoint another as king of Israel. Courtiers
and people knew that he would not fear to stain his hands
with the blood of Samuel himself, much less would he hesi-
tate to punish meaner instruments who might venture to
carry out the purposes of Heaven. Samuel had other reasons
to fear violence, if he anointed the wortliier neighbour, who-
ever he might be. Saul was a successful soldier, whom the
people had repeatedly followed to victory. Would the soldiers,
who had threatened the chiefs of the nation with death for
their treatment of Saul at the beginning of his reign, listen
even to Samuel, if he proceeded to depose their favourite ?
Only a spark was needed to awaken into flames the hatred
lurking in Saul's bosom. But none knew when or where the
spark might fall. During that season of uncertainty, the
elders of Bethlehem-Judah were surprised one day by the
appearance of Samuel at the gate of their city. He was then
Anointing and Advancement of David, 1 29
a very old man, whose long and uncut hair had been grey
for more than twenty years. A bullock, driven perhaps by
attendant Levites, went before him. When tidings of his
coming reached the elders, he appeared to be a fugitive seeking
shelter among them from the fury of the king. The storm
which had been years in gathering was bursting at last ;
messengers had been sent from court to take the life of Samuel,
who, apprised of the design on foot, was fleeing from his own
city to Bethlehem. If the two towns lay close to each other,
as some may be disposed to infer from the story of Saul's
anointing, Bethlehem may have been his nearest place of
safety. Eespect for the prophet, and regard for the ancient
custom, which required a host to defend his guest even to the
death, made the elders ' exceedingly afraid.' But they con-
sidered also their relation to the king, who might dare them
at their peril to harbour the man he hated. There were good
grounds for alarm and confusion among them that day.
However, the prophet soon allayed their fears. His coming
betokened peace, not war. He called on them to sanctify
themselves for a sacrifice, w^hich he intended to celebrate to
Jehovah in their city. Jesse, one of its oldest people, was
specially set apart for the solemnity, with seven of his sons.
To see this man and his family Samuel came to Bethlehem.
In visions of the night he had been told to anoint one of
Jesse's sons to the throne in place of Saul.
By a sacrifice to the Lord he did' not necessarily mean a
priestly or atoning sacrifice, in which all or part of the victim
was burnt on the altar. There is no reason for reading that
meaning into Samuel's words. He lived not far from the town
of Bethlehem. He came as a neighbour of the elders, and in
right of his office as a prophet to teach, or to encourage, or to
reform something which may have been amiss. But there is
no word of altar or of priest, or of atonement Mention is
made of a feast, to which the elders were invited with Jesse
and his sons. ' To sacrifice to the Lord ' is a phrase occurring
130 The Khigdom of All-Israel: its History.
in Dent. xvi. 2, for a feast at wliicli all the victim was
eaten. Those who sat down at that feast were consecrated,
as the elders and Jesse were consecrated. The book of
Exodus (xix. 10) preserves a record of a similar consecration,
even when there was no sacrifice : ' Go nnto the people, and
sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their
clothes.' A sacrifice in this meaning implied neither altar nor
atonement, nor high place. It was a word in popular, well-
understood use — a feast.
In this, as in many other cases, the scenes of Hebrew
history are repeated after the lapse of several years, and with
different men. At a sacrifice in a city, Samuel met Saul for
the first time, and honoured him at the feast which followed.
Then, also, he informed the young man of his appointment to
the throne. A few hours later he poured on his head the
sacred oil. More than twenty years after, the same things
happened to David. At a sacrifice in Bethlehem, Samuel met
him for the first time, and honoured him at the feast. Then,
also, he anointed him as chosen kin^^ of Israel. Had the two
narratives been presented in this form only, modern theories
of history would have found in the one a clumsy copy of the
other, or in both two versions of the same story. But the
circumstances which form the settings around them are wholly
unlike. Had these few circumstances been passed over by
the sacred writer in his brief narrative, many in our times
would have pronounced the two narratives copies of one and
the same story by different hands. But this view cannot be
taken. Bamah, or a town now unknown, is the scene of the
one ; Bethlehem of the other. Samuel meets Saul, as it were
by chance, knowing nothing wdiatever about him. But he is
told to repair to David's father's house. He is most anxious
to see Saul ; on the contrary, he is most unwilling to have
any hand in anointing David, and, when he does s^t out on
that errand, it is masked under show of a sacrifice to Jehovah.
The settings of the two narratives are detailed with such effect
i
Anointing and Advancement of David. 1 3 1
that no writer would dream of pronouncing them the same
story, dressed up by different hands. But if the record had
been as brief as in the reigns of other kings, the anointing of
David might have been considered a copy of that of Saul.
Immediately before the feast, Samuel took Jesse and his
sons apart to a retired spot, where, as in the case of Saul,
there should be no onlooker save Him whose eyes run to and
fro throughout the earth. When Eliab, the eldest of the
family, was introduced by his father, the prophet, struck by
his handsome presence, saw in him a worthy successor to
Saul. But an inward voice pronounced Samuel, uninspired
by God, not fit to judge of men. Eliab was not the choice of
Jehovah. Abinadab, Shammah, and four other sons of Jesse
w^ere brought in by their father, one after the other, but the
same inward voice warned Samuel to withhold from anoint-
ing : ' Neither hath the Lord chosen this.' ' Are here all the
young men ? ' inquired the prophet in surprise. ' There
remaineth yet the little one, and, behold, he feedeth the sheep,'
was the answer of Jesse. ' Send and fetch him,' returned
Samuel, ' for we will not sit down till he come hither.' ' The
Lord hath not chosen this,' was the riddle-like sentence
addressed to Jesse by the prophet, as each of his seven sons
withdrew. It must have awakened strange feelings in the old
father's breast. What the meaning might be he could not
tell. Still greater would be his surprise when the prophet
refused to sit down to the feast, till ' the little one,' or ' the
beloved,' as his name, David, meant, was sent for from the hills.
In discharging the duty laid on him, Samuel rises above the
apprehensions which he showed on receiving orders to proceed
to Bethlehem. He was afraid lest Saul, hearing of his journey,
should kill him. To calm his fears, he was allowed to give,
as the reason of his journey, a sacrifice to the Lord. But no
sooner is he engaged in the work than these fears entirely leave,
him. The assembled company must wait the arrival of David.
At the word of the Lord, the chief men of the city, the boy's
132 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History,
father, and the great propliet cannot sit down to meat till he
be present. Were there not whisperings of the reason among
the townspeople that day as they talked the matter over ?
They may not then have connected the honour paid to their
youthful townsman with the sentence uttered against their
king, and known most probably to them all ; but the danger
run by Samuel in thus waiting himself, and in keeping the
elders waiting for the coming of a boy, is manifest. It is
nothing more than often happens, when men of great zeal
and of a high sense of honour find themselves compelled
to face risks from which they used every lawful means to
escape.
Two sacrifices have thus occurred in the history, about the
nature of which reasonable doubts may be entertained — the
first at the anointing of Saul, the second at the anointing of
David. As the word sacrifice is of ambiguous meaning, de-
noting an offering by priests on an altar, or an animal slain
for food, the context alone can help us to the right sense in
any passage, or the traditional interpretation of the story. But
in these two cases the context leaves the meaning undeter-
mined. There is no mention in them of altar or peace-offering ;
there is mention of a feast. So far, therefore, the context
supports the view we have adopted of a purely festive meeting.
But the traditional rendering of the first story among the Jews
puts the accuracy of this view beyond doubt. Josephus is
our authority. He describes the supper or feast which
Samuel prepared ; a sacrifice is neither mentioned nor hinted
at. In his view there was no priestly or atoning sacrifice ;
there was only a feast. But his words are different when he
describes the anointing of David. He then uses the words
for both a sacrifice and a feast. He translates the Hebrew
literally into Greek, precisely as our translators rendered it
literally into English. But he does not indicate the
meaning which he puts on the word sacrifice,. While he
leaves no doubt of his meaning in Saul's case, he does
Anointing and Advancement of David, 1 3 3
leave it doubtful in David's. One tiling, however, is plain.
If Samuel observed only a feast at the anointing of the one,
he is not likely to have done more at the anointing of the
other.
We are not told Samuel's first impressions of David. But
they were not favourable. Every reader is aware of the high
place held by King Saul in the affections of the prophet.
The inspired record breathes it forth in all the incidents which
bring the two together. Nay more, it takes a tone and
colouring from the love which glow^ed between them. From
the effect of Eliab's handsome figure on the imagination of the
prophet, a reader may reasonably assign to him a place in
Samuel's esteem, which would have been as high as Saul's
had he been chosen for the throne. But there is not a word
said of any admiration the prophet had for David. Perhaps
there was no ground for it in the young man's appearance.
His hair was ruddy ; he had beautiful eyes, and his face was
handsome. He was also tall, like some of his brothers. But
the rawness of unformed manhood may have been too great a
drawback for these beauties to captivate a spectator. Neither
then nor in after years does he appear to have held a place in
the affections of Samuel equal to that enjoyed by Saul. In
all their intercourse is perceived the coldness of duty, but
never the warmth of a personal regard. This idea is strength-
ened by Samuel making no movement to rise from his seat
on the entrance of David. In the dialogue carried on between
the Spirit of God and his heart, he was the first to speak
when Eliab passed in review. But he is the last to speak
when David enters. Jesse's youngest son was clearly the
one chosen for the throne. Samuel knew this, but he shows
no enthusiasm as the youth enters. He was then awakened
to his duty by the half-reproachful words : ' Arise, anouit him ;
for this is he.'
The ceremony was probably performed in the presence of
Jesse only. Although said to have taken place in the midst
134 The Kingdom of All- 1 S7'ael : its History,
of David's "brethren/ these words can mean nothing more than
the anointino- of David in the town where his kindred and
clansmen dwelt. And though the story oozed out in course
of years, there is no reason for attributing to Eliab or any of
the brothers an acquaintance at the time with the honour
bestowed on David. As the feast could not begin till he
arrived, suspicion must have been awakened respecting the
cause. From what happens every day in ordinary life, the
probability is that none of the guesses made came near the
truth. Samuel may have wanted a page for a special purpose,
or an officer for his household, or a skilful harper to fill a
vacant post in his college of prophets. But all the guesses
made would be wide of the truth. This much is certain,
Eliab became unfairly jealous of David.
From that day the current of the young shepherd's life
seems to have changed. Deeds of daring were wrought by
him which drew the eyes of men. The lions and bears, that
prowled round the flocks of Bethlehem, found in him a hunter
bold enough to look them in the face. Eepeatedly these
beasts of prey fell on the sheep under his keeping. Ee-
peatedly, too, he bearded them, and killed them with club
or spear. His courage and success became the talk of the
neighbourhood. Men, who knew nothing about his anointing,
said Jehovah was with the lad. In no other w^ay could they
explain his feats as a hunter. But there was at the same
time a gentleness about his bearing, a freedom, too, from boast-
ing, which won for him the esteem of men, who might other-
wise have envied a prowess so far above their own. He
became equally renowned for his skill as a harper. The
same good Spirit from the Lord, which strengthened him for a
hand-to-hand encounter with wild beasts, tuned his young
heart to poetry and music. In Bethlehem and the neighbour-
^ This phrase occurs in no other passage of the Old Testament but in Deut,
xviii, 2 (Heb.), immediately after the law of the king. Its use here at the
anointing of a king is a reflection of its use in Deuteronomy.
Anointing and Advancenierit of David, 1 3 5
hood, David was known as a youth of might and prudence, and
as a skilful harper — ' a man of valour, and a man fit for war.'
In the meantime, Saul had sunk into fits of deep dejection.
They came only at intervals. While they continued, he was a
helpless madman, unable to restrain the passion which pos-
sessed him for the time. Gloomy and sorrow-stricken, he sat
humming to himself the sacred songs sung by the sons of the
prophets when celebrating worship. His vexed heart was
evidently going back to those days of young hope, when he
joined the bands of singers coming down the hill from evening
prayer. Fain was he to be once more what he had been
then. And as he brooded over the past, snatches of its sacred
songs floated up in his memory, relics saved from the wreck
of his hopes. The ghost of departed happiness was mocking
him with pleasant memories. But the servants and courtiers
recognised an unearthly ring in the king's music. To them
his melancholy seemed the work of an evil spirit. Knowing
the real cause to be their master's rejection by God, they
said the sender of the evil spirit was Jehovah. Saul
might thus be reckoned the guiltless victim of a lordly
and inexplicable act of the great Judge, or a criminal
tried in the court of heaven and punished on the earth.
The former was the aspect under which Saul's illness
would be spoken of among his courtiers, and to himself.
He was unlucky ; he was not wicked. But while Saul
was suffering, David was rejoicing. An evil spirit sent
from Jehovah plagued the former. ' The Lord is with
him,' was a common remark regarding the latter. The two
men were weighed against each other before they met in court
or camp.
Saul's councillors were at last compelled to action. As
their master was unfit for business, a remedy must be found
for his illness. Acting on the principle of healing by con-
traries, some of them proposed to provide good music, wliich
might drive away the bad. They told him of his illness, ' an
136 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Histoiy,
evil Gocl's-spirit troubletli thee.* Then they proposed the
remedy, * seek out a cunning player on the harp.' The king,
gratified by their flattery, took their advice. One of them
was ready with a minstrel's name : ' Behold,' he said, ^ I have
seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, cunning in playing, and
a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in
matters, and a comely person ; and the Lord is with him.'
This praise of David came from a courtier whose word carried
weight with Saul. ' I have seen him,' he said, implying per-
sonal knowledge of the hunter and poet. Strangers discerned
his greatness, although his brother counted him only fit for
keeping a few sheep among the hills. Seldom have courtiers
spoken so truly, or kings been served so well. Messengers were
despatched to Bethlehem ; they were told to ask for the son
of Jesse, ' which is with the sheep.' However unwilling Jesse
might be to expose his son to the dangers of a court like
Saul's, there was no help for him but to obey the king. The
purposes of God had begun to unfold ; earth was manifestly
conspiring with heaven to advance the youth to greatness.
Selecting a present for the king such as suited his slender
means, — an ass load of bread, a skin of wine, and a kid, —
Jesse sent David to court along with the messengers. But
Saul and his worthier neighbour were not destined to meet as
king and minstrel. A prince might honourably descend for
a season from his greatness to show his skill as a harper, but
it would not have been becoming had a mere minstrel been
raised to the dignity of prince or captain. And David was
destined to stand before the nation as Saul's equal before he
tuned the harp to soothe that moody spirit. On reaching
Gibeah the minstrel found his aid was not needed. The city
was ringing with the clang of arms ; for the Philistines, with
a suddenness not uncommon (1 Sam. xxiii. 27), had broken
into Judah, and spread terror over the fields. The excitement
of action had charmed the melancholy out of the king's mind.
"War had done what the courtiers trusted in music to accom-
Anointing and Advancement of David. 1 3 7
plisli. David was not required in the camp ; he might at
once return home.^
David returned from the court of Saul to his father's house
at Bethlehem. Every village through which he passed was
mustering its men to resist the inroad. When he reached
home, the same ardour was firing the people of his native
town. As he had seen more of it in the course of his journey
than any of them, his heart was more touched with a longing
to join the contingent from Bethlehem, especially as he was
a soldier of nature's own making. He seems to have asked
leave to join the ranks. But his wish to become a soldier
was first laid before a family council. As far as can be
learned from what afterwards turned up, his elder brother
Eliab upbraided him for his ' wrongness ' or naughtiness of
heart in even daring to put his wishes forward. Perhaps
there was the meanness of jealousy in this upbraiding. ' You
may do well enough for a minstrel, or to be favoured by
Samuel,' was the meaning it conveyed. ' You think yourself
a soldier too ; but let others mind a business which is too
high for you.' When the young men told off. to defend their
country marched out of Bethlehem, David, as the least
esteemed of the family of Jesse, was sent to watch their few
sheep in the upland pastures.
Meanwhile Saul, with his bodyguard of three thousand
men, was marching to the borders. Every village that he
passed poured forth its soldiery to swell his army. So
suddenly had his troops been assembled, and so warlike was
his array, that the Philistines did not dare to move more than
^ Although David's art was not required, the writer of the book of Samuel
follows his usual course of tracing the story farther on, before he passes from it to
other matters. This has caused a difficulty ; but something similar takes place in
all histories. ' Each of us,' says Horace Walpole, when writing of the Countess
of Suffolk, ' knew different parts of many court stories, and each was eager to
learn what either could relate more ; and thus, by comparing notes, we some-
times could make out discoveries of a third circumstance before unknown to
both.' Compare also his note on the passage. Critics seldom think of the third cir-
cumstance that reconciles two differing versions of the same story. — Reminiscences,
chap. vii.
138 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
a few miles beyond their own frontier. Their plundering had
been speedily checked. Drawing their forces together on the
approach of the Hebrews, they pitched their camp on a hill,
whose height and steepness served them instead of a fortress.
Another hill right opposite furnished the Hebrews with an
equally safe camp. The face looking towards the invaders
was too steep to allow an attack in front. Besides, the open
plain of Elah (terebinth tree) lay between the two hills, and
rendered a surprise on that side impossible. A stream with
steep banks, and with terebinths or bushes shading its bed,
flowed through the plain, apparently nearer the Hebrew camp
than that of the invaders. The rear of the Hebrew camp was
less securely guarded by nature. Though a steep crag on the
one side, the hill fell away on the other with a tail of such
gentle slope as not to be difficult of access for the lumbering
bullock waggons of the Hebrew peasantry. Where these
could climb, the light war chariots of the Philistines might
act with advantacje. The Hebrew kino- was aware of his
danger. In later times, a ditch and rampart would have beeii
the defence provided ; but another, equally effectual, could be
thrown round the camp with less trouble. Constantly coming
and going were trains of Hebrew bullock waggons, bringing
stores of all kinds to the soldiers. Some of them were the
king's, but the greater part belonged to families which had
sent sons and brothers to the war. An officer was appointed
to keep this line of defence unbroken, as waggons left and
came to the camp. He was called ' the keeper of the
carriages' (1 Sam. xvii. 22). However much a rampart so
primitive may provoke a smile in our day, it was then a
dangerous obstacle to an advancing enemy, and has proved a
most efficient barrier even in modern warfare. Arranged in
two or three lines with open sp>aces between, these rows of
countr}^ carts gave the Hebrews the advantage of hurling their
weapons from above on an enemy climbing up from lower
ground. A fresh line of defence was ready to furnish a
' Anointing and Advancement of David, 139
second shelter should the first line be forced. Alexander tlie
Great once led his horsemen against a triple line of waggons
'on a hill-top not precipitous on all sides.' ^ Although the
foe thus assailed was only the armed peo^^le of a city in the
Punjab, their rampart proved an effective barrier to his
advance. He would have been driven back had he not
dismounted and led forward the infantry. The energy of the
Hebrew V\\\<^ involved the Philistine chiefs in difficulties.
Knowing the danger of assaulting his camp in front or in
rear, they found themselves reduced to inaction. Should
they risk a march into Judah, flying bodies of Saul's army
might carry fire and sword to the gates of their principal
towns. Unless, then, the Hebrews could be tempted to quit
their hill fortress, the Philistines could not venture to
penetrate into the heart of Judah, while it would be a
disOTace to return home without striking^ a blow. Baffled in
their plans, and seeing no other way of honourable escape,
their leaders had recourse to a device that was often practised
afterwards. They proposed to decide the war by single
combat.
In the army of the invaders was a man of gigantic size,
called Goliath of Gath. He was well known to the Hebrews.
Prom his youth up he had been skilled in deeds of arms,
mostly in wars waged with King Saul. The Hebrews spoke
of him as ' the Philistine,' and ' the Man.' As nearly as we
can judge, he was about eight and a half feet high, or a foot
and a half taller than the o-reat Kin^jj Porus, whom Alexander
conquered on the banks of the Indus, and whom the Greeks
admired for his size and beauty.^ Whether Goliath's stature
1 Arrian, Anab. v. 22, 23.
^ Arrian, v. 19. * Three of the most remarkable men of the century gave a
reception on Friday night at the Royal Aquarium, and were visited by many
persons interested in anthropology. The giant Chang, a tea merchant of Pekin ;
Brustad, a tall Norwegian ; and Che-mah, described as "the Chinese dwarf, the
smallest man in the world," received their friends, and being not much given to
talk themselves, had their history related for them by a showman. It appears
that Chang is the largest giant in existence, that he stands 8 feet 2 inches, and is
140 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History.
was measured with modern accuracy, or whether it was the
fighting height from his brazen shoes to the top of his helmet,
we are not informed, nor does it much matter. He was a
giant, and wielded a giant's might, with probably the
smallness of mind that often attends vast bulk of body.
He was covered with a coat of scale-armour, 5000 shekels
or 230 lbs. in weight. As they were exceedingly burden-
some under a Syrian sun, his helmet and shield were carried
by an armour-bearer. Without a war-chariot, he would
have been as useless in battle as a heavy armed knight five
centuries ago without his war-horse.^ To walk was a trouble
to this weighted giant, while an attempt at running was
almost sure to be destruction. But, as we have seen,
chariots were valueless against the skill shown in pitching
the Hebrew camp. Goliath's heavy spear is compared to an
Eastern weaver's beam, or to a pole not half the length of
a telegraph post, while its iron head weighed nearly 20
Ibs.^ Strapped across his shoulders was a short javelin for
throwing to a distance, and picking up again as the enemy's
line was driven back. It is called a target in our version,
and was of solid brass. He expected to have little use for it.
highly educated, speaking five different languages, including English, which last
he speaks very well, but with the well-known sing-song of the Chinaman. He
is 8 feet high without his boots, he measures 60 inches round the chest, weighs
26 stone, has a span of 8 feet with his outstretched arms, and signs his name
without an effort upon a signpost 10 feet 6 inches high. Next to Chang, and
next by no long interval, stands Brustad, about 7 feet 9 inches high, very
muscular, very broad-backed, having as great a girth of chest as Chang, and a
wider span in proportion to his height. He has a low forehead, but speaks
English fairly well. His ring is 4| ounces in Aveight, and a penny goes easily
through it. To grasp his mighty hand in greeting is like shaking hands with
an oak tree. His weight is 28 stone, greater than Chang's, for his bones are
more massive. His age is 35. Che-mah, the dwarf, gives his age as 42, sings a
Chinese elegy, describes himself with much fluency and variety, and as his
height is only 25 inches, appears to be what he is described, the smallest man
in the world.' — Times, 14th June 1880.
1 Compare Plutarch's account {Demetrius, 21) of Alkimos, who wore a panoply
of two talents, or about 4000 shekels weight.
^ ' His spear's head six hundred shekels of iron. ' Care must be taken to place
the commas so in English as to bring out the sense of the Hebrew. ' His spear's
head (six hundred shekels) of iron.'
A 7iointing and Advanceme7it of David. 141
He made the mistake of not having it handy for throwino- ;
the time required to disengage it from its fastenings would
have given an active enemy an irretrievable advantage.
Goliath was got up for effect more than really equipped for
battle. He was a grand show, that struck dismay into
soldiers who had seen him as a mounted warrior in former
campaigns. A fresh eye would pick out a joint in his
harness, through which a weapon might reach his heart.
Was tradition to prevail, or was a change of tactics at hand
in these border wars ?
The appearance of this ^A'ell-known soldier on the plain
spread terror among the Hebrew skirmishers. The petty
battles, in which outposts or adventurers engaged, stopped at
once : the Philistines giving way to their great champion ;
the Hebrews, from dread of his prowess, crossing the stream
or retreating up the hill. Goliath's shouts overtook the
latter in their flight : ' Why are ye come out to set the battle
in array ? Am not I the Philistine, and ye servants to Saul ?
Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we
be your servants ; but if I prevail against him and kill him,
then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.' He smiles to
himself at the thought of being slain by a Hebrew. ' Kill
me,' he cries, and 'we shall be your servants;' not 'the
Philistines,' nor ' my people,' but ' we,' as if his fall were a
thing to be put out of view. ' I reproach the armies of Israel
this day,' he added ; ' give me a man that we may fight
together.' A terrible dread seized the Hebrew army. The
giant had put them in a difficulty before the world. Brave
men, who would cheerfully have gone to death in a general
battle, shrank from the same danger in a single-handed
encounter with the giant. Their country's freedom perished
with failure ; and their peo^^le's honour. With all, save very
few in any age or nation, the risk could only weaken the
hands in a combat weighted with such momentous issues.
1 42 The Kingdom of xA II- Israel : its History.
Day by clay, about nine o'clock in the morning, and four in
the afternoon, the giant appeared to repeat his reproach. He
Avas doing to Israel and its king what Nahash did — putting
a reproach on All-Israel. It was a parade of war, a boasting
of undisputed prowess. For well-nigh six weeks the defiance
was given, but no one took up the gage of battle so boastfully
thrown down. Saul and the Hebrew chiefs felt the affront.
To encourage volunteers for the fight, the king even offered
his daughter in marriage to a successful champion, and
immunity for his family from taxation and service. But the
offers were made in vain ; day by day the giant delivered his
defiance from the plain, and possibly the last day of his
challenge had come. He gave the enemy six times as long as
Nahash had allowed them to roll away the reproach. His
challenge was not accepted, though every man of might in
All-Israel had known of it for weeks.
Meanwhile the provisions of the Hebrew soldiers were
running short. According to custom, each soldier had to find
himself in supplies, which were usually brought with him, or
sent at intervals from home, if the ground they occupied did
not furnish them with food from an enemy's stores. As the
days of inaction wore on, the trains of country carts, convey-
ino" provisions to the army, became more numerous. In charge
of one of these the hero arrived, who was destined to strip
Goliath of his laurels, and to shed lustre on the Hebrew arms.
The three eldest sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite were in the
army. Of his other sons, only one was at home, ' the little
one,' David. After the campaign had lasted six weeks, Jesse
bethought himself of sending provisions to his three sons.
He was too old to go himself. A servant might have been
sent ; but the father, while perhaps wishing to gratify his
youngest son, may have considered one of the family a more
trusty messenger. David's dream of military service had
passed away. Six weeks of the usual shepherd life had dulled,
i if not effaced, the visions awakened by his journey through
A nointing and A dvancenicnt of David. 1 4 3
a country mustering its forces to repel an enemy. But the
orders of his father to prepare the needed stores, and to set
out on the following morning, brought back the past to his
mind. His sheep were left in a keeper's charge. With
earliest dawn he was driving a bullock waggon towards the
Hebrew camp. The load consisted of roasted corn and loaves
of bread ; for parched or roasted corn was then, as it still is,
the staff of life to soldiers, wayfarers, or peasants in Palestine.
But David had also with him ten slices of thickened milk or
cheese — a cool and agreeable present for the commanding
officer. It was part of his orders to bring back a pledge of
his brothers' welfare ; a proof, at the same time, that he had
delivered the supplies. This pledge was a written slip —
whether paper, parchment, or bark. If David, the youngest
of the family, could write, it is most unreasonable to imagine
the elder members of tlie household ignorant of letters.
Bethlehem appears to have been about twelve miles, in a
north-easterly direction, from Saul's camp. At the present
day, the townspeople cut down firewood on the road more
than half-way to the site of Shochoh, near which the two
armies were posted. Almost every step of the road would
thus be known to David. Although the rough and hilly patli
rendered the journey toilsome for a laden bullock, the young
shepherd would have little difficulty in reaching the army
about nine o'clock or earlier, before the day began to grow hot.
On nearing the waggon rampart, he was directed by the officer
in charge to a vacant space for his cart. But even at tliat
distance from the brow of the hill, the sounds of war could
be made out. The youth was so deeply moved that he
proceeded at once towards the army. Both sides had moved
out in battle order, as if the end of the challenge to single
combat had come. Philistine soldiers were lining one hill-
top ; Hebrew soldiers another. ' Array against array ' was
the scene presented when David reached the higher ground.
As his duty was, he delivered to his brothers the message he
144 ^-^^ Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
had brought from home. Whilst he was thus engaged, the
attention of the Hebrews on the height overlooking the plain
of Elah, was drawn towards the Philistine champion, who was
seen once more advancing to repeat his reproach of Israel.
The Hebrews who happened to be on duty below fled in terror
up the hill-side. Tumult and excitement rose among those
round David. Whether it was eagerness on his part to get a
better view, or the swaying hither and thither of the crowd,
he was separated for a time from his brothers. But he was
among acquaintances from Bethlehem. He was as excited as
any in the army, though for a different reason. Angry at the
patience of his countrymen under the insults of the giant, his
heart gave free expression to his feelings. A knot of men,
apparently from Bethlehem, gathered round him. The excite-
ment of fear was troubling them ; the excitement of indigna-
tion was troubling him. ' Have ye seen this man that is
come up?' they were asking. 'Surely to reproach Israel is
he come up.' The gossip of the soldiers then passed to a
proclamation that had been put forth by King Saul: 'The
man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches,
and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house
free in Israel.' David heard their remarks and gossip. His
spirit was touched with shame at the reproach cast on his people,
and with hopes of prizes so easy to be won. But loftier
thoughts than of self or country swelled his heart. Turning
to the men around him, ' Tell me,' he said, ' what shall be done
to the man that killeth the Philistine there, and taketh away
reproach from Israel ? For who is this uncircumcised Philis-
tine, that he should reproach the armies of the living God ? '
The words and looks of the soldiers, combined with the
promptings of his own heart, were driving David to contem-
plate a deed of arms, that would place him at one bound on
the pinnacle of a soldier's glory.
The modesty of the young shepherd made him insensible
to the greatness of the undertaking; his braveness of heart
Anoiiitifig and Advancemerit of David, 145
despised the danger. But the venture seemed easy of
accomplishment. Knowing no fear himself, he was unable to
understand in others the weakness of shrinking from duty,
or inability to apply the ordinary rules of warfare against
unguarded haughtiness. He was thinking of nothing that
many another in the army might not as well have done. He
was planning in his own mind an easy feat of arms. The
least skilful might be able to say he could have done as much
himself had he only taken thought. But here lay the breath-
ings of genius. At the first glance David saw the rent in the
giant's armour ; he looked at nothing else, for he was skilled
in a weapon which could enter at that rent. Others could
certainly wield the same weapon as well as he ; but they
lacked the wisdom to see the opening in the giant's mail, or
their hearts failed them at the sight of his bulk, and at the
boastfulness of his words. Scarcely had he made up his
mind to accept the giant's defiance, than his brother Eliab
approached the knot of men by whom he was surrounded.
The eager words of the shepherd are passing from man.
to man. Eliab soon gathers their import. He is filled with
angry scorn. IsTot a word of kindness has he for that bold
spirit. His heart is not touched by the danger his youngest
brother was proposing to himself. He utters no entreaty or
remonstrance. He makes no appeal to affection, to home, to
an aged father and mother ; but with cold, hard-hearted
jealousy he upbraids the youth for wrongfully aspiring to
things too high for him, and neglecting the few sheep which
were his proper charge. Almost in as many words he told
David not to make fools of himself and his relations by absurd
speeches. The youth listened to these reproaches mostly in
silence. The men of Bethlehem knew they were unfounded,
and his own heart was not ruffled by upbraidings so unfair.
"When he wished to join the army six weeks before, Eliab's
sharp words might have had a show of reason ; but * What
have I now done V he asked ; and then, pointing to the giant
K
146 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its His lory.
on the plain below, 'Is not that a cause?' Unmoved by
Eliab's cruel tongue, he turned to another knot of people to
speak to them also in language that left no doubt of his
readiness to fight the giant. Eliab withdrew, ashamed to own
as his brother the stripling who was thus offering himself a
victim to the giant's spear.
The discovery of a willing champion was soon noised
throughout the camp. From the men it passed to their officers,
and from these to the king's tent. David was summoned to
Saul's presence. The greatest warriors of the kingdom were
standing round as the shepherd entered. All had declined
the honour of vindicating their country's name. For six
weeks their manhood had been proudly reproached by a
masterful enemy ; the only champion who at last offers is a
raw, unknown shepherd lad. But what seems ridiculous or
out of place to us was neither ridiculous nor out of place
to them ; for the history of their race was a history of
surprises, brought about by means as contemptible. From
smallest things in their former struggles with masterful
foes had grown the greatest, sometimes by imperceptible
degrees, sometimes at one bound. If it could only be
said of a Hebrew, ' The Lord is with him,' there was
nothing which that man was deemed unable to accomplish.
Saul himself could never forget the one step he took from
following the oxen home, in the beginning of the week, to the
overthrow of an Ammonite horde at its end. Misrht not this
shepherd lad work a deliverance as great against Goliath ?
The king seems to have been more touched with the youth's
modesty than was Eliab. His heart warmed at the bold
words David uttered when he stood within the circle of
chiefs : ' Let no man's heart fail because of him ; thy servant
will fight with the Philistine there.' Saul hesitated to accept
the offer ; for the difference between the men seemed to him
too great to risk the chance of battle. 'Thou art but a
youth,' he said, ' and he a man of war from his youth.' But
A nointing and A dvancernent of David. 1 4 7
the shepherd entertained neither doubt nor difficulty ; opposi-
tion made him more eager. With the simplicity of one who
believed himself a favourite of Heaven, he told the king his
adventures with beasts of prey in the hill pastures round
• Bethlehem. Lions and bears pounced on the lambs of his
flock. But he never failed to face, or, as he called it, to
beard the robbers. And often as he had faced them, he never
came to harm. Conquered lions and bears were witnesses to
his skill and courage, spoken of throughout the whole neigh-
bourhood. His heart kindled with a generous w^armth as he
added, by way of clinching his argument, ' The Lord that
delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw
of the bear, He will deliver me out of the paw of the Philistine
there.' David's words were ringing with victory. All that
was good in Saul caught their generous glow ; ' Go,' he said,
' and the Lord be with thee.' But Saul's second thoughts
were his worst. A right royal nature lay on the outside of his
heart : a leaven of meanness lurked below. Saul discovered
that his own small ideas were requisite to complete David's
great ones. Instead of letting him go forth to fight in his
own way, and with his own weapons, Saul is so foolish as to
prescribe both to the Hebrew champion. He equipped the
untrained lad with the coat of mail, the helmet of brass, and
the great sword that he wore himself. It was a well-meant
act, but the good intentions of the foolish are often the ruin of
great enterprises. David walked out from the king's presence
in this glittering armour. It was an unfortunate attempt ; his
courage was oozing away ; his heart w^as sinking. Fears, that
he had been a strangjer to, were comin^f and f^roinof in his breast.
Pieturning to the king, he calmly said, 'I cannot go in these,
for I have not proved them ; ' and he laid them aside as things
he should never have put on. Possibly his return to the king
was greeted with remarks from both officers and men that
w^ould have disheartened other soldiers. But David knew
w^here his strength lay, if allowed to fight after his own fashion.
148 The Kingdo7n of All- Israel : its History,
Saul's armour could not have fitted David unless he had
been almost of as great size as Saul himself, taller by a head
than the rest of the people. His only objection to tlie brass
helmet and mail coat of the king was that he had never tried
them in combat. His three eldest brothers were tall and
handsome. Samuel was even as highly pleased with their
figures as he had been with Saul's. In point of size, then,
there may not have been the great disparity between the two
champions that is commonly thought. The staff, that he laid
aside in his attempt to grasp a sword, David took up again
before leaving the king's presence. It had been a companion
of all his toils ; it was a reminder of past achievements, and
an encourager to still greater. Captains and soldiers may
well have held their breath when they witnessed a shepherd,
in ordinary country dress, stepping forth to meet in single
battle the mightiest of mighties, clad in full fighting gear.
Few of them could fail to fear that the combat would either
be shunned by the youth, or would speedily end in his death
and their own disgrace. But there was no faltering of pur-
pose in David when his hand grasped his staff, and he saw
the leathern wallet slung again from his girdle. Without a
look of regret at the shelter behind him, he descends the
crowded heights of the Hebrew camp. He had marked the
stream from the high grounds ; its channel contained all the
artillery he required. ISTeither excitement nor flurry disturbed
his arrangements, for he left the heights, and advanced half-
way to the battle without completing his preparations. He
asked no one for help ; he seems to have confided to no one
his plans, and he left it in no one's power to claim even the
smallest share of his glory. On reaching the streamlet he
was lost to sight, for the fringe of trees and bushes or the
high banks would screen him from observation.^ But the
^ The bed 'some ten to twenty feet wide, with banks over ten feet high,
would form a natural barrier between the hosts, and a formidable obstacle to
the flight of the defeated. . . . The gleaming torrent bed, and the steep water-
Anointing and Advancement of David. 1 49
time lie spent in making his arrangements unseen would
appear to many to indicate unwillingness to meet the giant.
The sunken bed of the brook, and the fringe of bushes or
trees on its banks, enabled him, at the last moment, safely to
shun the combat, without being seen till he was far beyond
the reach of danger. But David was not thinking of escape ;
he was busied about his artillery while those on the heights
were impatient for the encounter. From the rounded stones
in the deep bed of the brook he chose five of the smoothest
for his hitherto concealed slinc^. It was a work of some
time ; an ordinary choice would not be sufficient when the
issue of the battle was the rolling away of a kingdom's
reproach. At last he is seen on the giant's side of the brook.
Few in either army could be doubtful of the result, and
bitterly would Eliab deplore the evil chance which sent
David thither that morninej to brin^; disgrace on him and all
the family.
When David cleared the fringe of trees, and stood full in
view of the giant, he seemed far less formidable than when
seen at a distance, descending the slope of the hill. Then his
tallness may have deceived Goliath into the belief that the
biggest of the Hebrews had been chosen as their champion, a
picked man sought out from the whole nation. But a nearer
look of the Hebrew hero inspired the giant with disdain. He
was bareheaded ; his hair seems to have been auburn or red,
and his beardless face showed inexperience in war. Tall and
raw% perhaps somewhat uncouth in his gait or looks, David
seemed a mockery, not a reality. His beautiful eyes were too
far off to strike the enemy with fear of a dangerous foe. The
Hebrews, in Goliath's opinion, were befooling him by sending
to the. combat one who might run away but would never
stand CO fight. He despised his foeman ; he thought there
worn banks, consist of pebbles of every size, worn smooth by tlie great winter
l)rook which has brought them from the hills.'— Lieut. Conder, Palestine
Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement, October 1875.
150 The Kingdom of All-Is7'ael : its History.
was no purpose of battle : ' Am I a dog/ he exclaimed,
evidently in the words of a proverbial saying, ' that thou
comest to me with the staves ? ' The sling was hidden over
the staff-head in the hollow of David's hand ; but the giant
saw and thouo-ht of nothinsj save the staff. It was the
shepherd's only defence against the throw of his mighty
spear. Saul and his captains watched the progress of David
from the hill-top. Not one of them had asked who he was,
or how he came to volunteer so late in the campaign.
Wearied with long waiting, they had lost all spirit and all
curiosity. The king himself appears to have been the first to
ask who the youth was. Abner, to whom the question was
put, knew nothing about him, and none of the officers in
attendance were better informed. Evidently the excitement
caused by his offer to fight the giant had overpowered every
other feeling; the means by which he was brought to the
king were also forgotten. An unknown, heaven-sent champion
had appeared in the Hebrew camp. As David advanced
towards the giant, Saul could only command Abner to inquire
who he was. If disaster befell, he might inform his kindred ;
in the event of success, he would know whom to honour.
Partly from disdain, partly from an idea that the Hebrew
king was playing off a jest in sending a raw youth to sham a
combat with a great warrior, Goliath allowed passion to over-
master judgment. Eaining a shower of harmless curses on
David's head, he invited him to approach, promising, at the
same time, to feast the vulture and the jackal Avith his flesh.
Clean-picked skeletons of fallen soldiers were lying on the
plain within sight, and the threat of sending the shepherd to
keep them company seemed to Goliath sufficient to scare
David away. But there was no thought of flight in the
Hebrew champion. His tongue is sharper and his views
are loftier than the giant's — ' Thou comest to me with a
sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin : but I come to
thee with the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the
A7iointi7ig and Advancement of David. 1 5 1
armies of Israel, whom thou hast reproached. This day will
the Lord deliver thee into mine hand ; and I will smite thee,
and take thine head from thee ; and I will give the carcases
of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the
air, and to the wild beasts of the earth ; that all the earth
may know that God is in Israel.' A right royal spirit does
this anointed king show in his first essay against his people's
enemies. Then, looking round on the heights before and
behind, topped by crowds of soldiers, he added, ' And all the
assembly, this here, shall know that the Lord saveth not
with sword and spear ; for the battle is for Jehovah, and He
will give you into our hands.' Goliath had the worst of the
speaking. His temper was ruffled ; his perceptions were
dulled by the passion that troubled his heart. He resolved
to chastise the Hebrew's insolence without another word.
His foeman was shieldless and bareheaded ; would it not
seem something like fear if he, the chosen champion of a
warrior race, delayed the meeting with this sharp-tongued
stripling till his armour-bearer fitted his helmet on, and
handed him his shield ? ISTo, it could not be ; he would go
as he was, for the youth would not wait his coming.
Beckoning off the soldier who carried the shield and
helmet, Goliath's only safeguards, the giant slowly stalked
forward. His heavy armour forbade rapidity of movement.
David stood still, to allow his foe to increase beyond recall
the distance between him and his armour-bearer. Every step
forward brought the giant into greater danger, and David into
higher hope. This inaction threw Goliath off his guard. A
few steps more, and the Philistine is confident that the
Hebrew will turn to flee. But he is mistaken. Instead of
turning back, the shepherd suddenly comes on at a run.
Men have crossed the spear and the staff in mortal combat
before. Goliath and the spectators who crowd the heights
believe the Hebrew wiU be foolhardy enough to try that way
of battle. He appears to have no other. But wary soldiers
152 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
in both armies begin to see something more in the shepherd
than meets the eye. He is cooler than his foeman ; he is bent
on closing, not on running away. The mystery is soon solved.
David has stopped in his forward run : he has also thrown
his staff on the ground. The giant alone is near enough to
see the cords of a deadly sling flung out from the hollow of
the hand, the rapid gathering up of their ends, the loading of
the leathern belly with a stone sharply drawn forth from the
shepherd's wallet. He is betrayed to death by his own rash-
ness. Neither helmet nor shield are at hand to save that
bared head in front or behind.^ If he turn towards his shield-
man there is greater danger than if he face the slinger. His
only safety lies in baffling the Hebrew's aim. By running
forward, he may escape a pellet, however well shot ; but his
weight of armour tells severely on both body and mind. It
deprives him of that power of rapid action which was essential
to safety; it also confuses vision and thought. Were he near
enough and had the chance, he might draw the brazen javelin
that was strapped across his back, and discharge it at David.
But he is afraid to stand still ; he is even afraid to let go the
weaver's beam which he holds in his grasp. His practised
eye was sharp enough to take in all the danger at a glance,
but he was not cool enough to devise a means of escape or
defence. David was both cool and practised in measuring his
advantage. To hit a bird on the wing, to bring down the
game of the desert at full speed, were feats he, like other
skilful hunters, was accustomed to.^ But to strike a mark
so broad as the great face of the slowly running giant was
work for a tyro, not for a practised slinger. If, however,
1 In the Hebrew original the words, when translated into English, run : ' The
stone sank into his forehead.' But in the Septuagint the same words are
turned into, 'The stone sank through the helmet into his forehead.' Feeling
the difficulty, they solved it in their own way. 1 Sam. xvii. 50 (45).
^ * 1 was very much pleased with the precision with which my black friend
(a tall, fine-looking black fellah) could sling smooth stones : he had no difficulty
in hitting a bird sitting on a bush at 40 or 50 yards, and he could throw con-
siderably further.' — Warren's Underground J erusalem, p. 203.
Anointmg and Advancement of David, 1 5 3
excitement should unsteady his hand, he had other four
pellets in his scrip, wherewith to renew the attack. He did
not need a second shot. As the giant came on, runninfi-
towards the slinger, the smooth stone met him, making a
deep dent on the forehead. Stunned by the blow, he fell on
his face.^ He was not killed, for the seal-stamp of the stone ^
had caught him when his heart was in a flutter, and his vital
powers were worn out with an exhausting run. But he was
on the ground, seemingly dead. That was enough for his
armour-bearer, and for the soldiers of both armies. The
Philistine host broke in disorder ; the Hebrews pressed down
the hillside in pursuit. Great as was the boastful confidence
of the former an hour before, as great was their fainting of
heart when their champion fell ; while from the inaction and
gloom that are fatal to an army, the soldiers of Saul were
suddenly lifted to a gladsome vigour, that plucked the fruits
of victory in their first bloom. The reproach cast on All-
Israel was rolled away that morning as effectually as Saul
rolled away a like reproach at Jabesh. But the hero who
did the deed was greater than Saul. He wrought a deliver-
ance which the king for six weary weeks had in vain
attempted to effect. Faith in his anointing to the throne was
the talisman w^hich he bore with him to the battle, and
cherished in the secrecy of his heart. What Saul had lost,
David had found — the armour furnished by faith in his divine
commission.
Ptunning forward to secure his prize, and safe from attack
by the flight of the armour-bearer, David drew the giant's
^ This proves he was running, and so bending foiward. At the battle of
Tel-el-Kebir (13th September 1882) the same thing was seen in the slain High-
landers : ' The enemy lie dead in hundreds, while only here and there a
Highlander lies stretched among them, lying face downwards, as if shot in the
act of charging, A few feet only in front of one of the bastions, six men of the
74th were lying, heads and bayonets pointed forward.'
^ The stone made its mark on the giant's forehead as a seal makes its mark on
wax. Josephus says : ' This stone fell npon his forehead and sank into his
brain.'— ^7? ^22 . xi. 6, 9. See also "Wilkinson, i. 219.
154 ^^^^ Kingdom of All- Israel: its History,
sword from its sheath. Completing his work by severing the
huge head from the body, he was seen with the dripping
trophy in his hand, as the Hebrews passed him in pursuit.
Abner immediately conducted him with his gory prize to
King Saul. What he had begun, others might safely be left
to finish. When he and Saul met for the first time, it was
not as harper and king. David liad then become as much
the representative of the nation as the king himself. He was
not raised from a menial office to one of the highest in the
land. But he sank his greatness, by laying aside the sword
to play the minstrel for the • king's good. Only the noblest
men in the kingdom could thus act. David w^as known as
a soldier before he was known as a king's minstrel. It was
God's arrangement, and it was the best. On learning that he
was a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, Saul appears to have
requested the father's permission to retain David at court :
' He hath found favour in my sight ' (1 Sam. xvi. 22, xviii. 2).
The march of events, the strange shaping of human ends,
described by our great poet as the work of a divinity, took
from Jesse the power to refuse. His father's house and the
pasture grounds of the village were no longer a fitting place
for David ; ' Saul took him, and would let him go no more
home to his father's house.' His first appointment seems to
have been armour-bearer to the king. During the campaign
that followed the overthrow of Goliath, the gallantry of the
young hero, his modesty and his skill in war, made him a
favourite with chiefs and soldiers. Soon he was appointed by
the king ' over the men of war.' He became second in com-
mand to Jonathan over the three thousand soldiers wdio
formed the king's bodyguard. The three chiefs of thousands
would then be Abner, Jonathan, and David.
Among the officers who watched the fight with the giant,
and were present at the king's interview with David after-
wards, was the brave prince, Jonathan, the favourite of the
Hebrew people. No sentiment of jealousy or envy troubled
Anointing and Advance7nent of David. 1 5 5
his great heart, when he saw his own deliverance of the
country thrown into the shade by a shepherd lad. Far too
noble to be ruffled by a feeling so mean, he was drawn towards
David by the earnestness of his patriotism. ' Jonathan loved
him as his own soul.' A bond of friendship was formed
between them, which neither time nor trouble ever snapped.
As this flame of affection first broke forth in the prince's
breast, so it continued to burn there, with a purity and
strength that it did not always retain in David. Of David's
greatness Jonathan made no secret from the beginning. He
clothed him in his own garments, he armed him with his
own sword, and bow, and girdle. Not a man among the
soldiers was allowed to remain ignorant of David's high position ;
for Jonathan publicly proclaimed it by presenting him to the
army as his own equal. Every one who saw the shepherd
youth, dressed in the prince's robe, girt with the prince's
girdle, and armed with the prince's sword, knew that he
wished David to be as highly esteemed as he was himself.
Friendship could not have shown itself in a purer form.
What his father promised, and sought to avoid performing,
Jonathan performed at once, by recognising David as his
brother and his equal.
From the moment David joined the army, Saul's affairs
prospered. Defeated in battle and cooped up within their
strongholds, the Philistines seem to have abandoned to the
victors the spoils of a virgin country. Booty easily gathered
and triumph undisputed raised the greatness of David higher
every day. "When the campaign ended, and the soldiers
were on their homeward march, a more signal proof of the
position he had won met them at every Hebrew town and
village. "While the warriors were gathering the spoils of
Philistine fields, the women of the nation were preparing a
garland for the hero. With timbrels and triangles and with
gladsome songs they poured out to meet the returning army,
and to offer it the praise that had been got ready against its
156 The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael: its History.
coming. With songs and dances, we are told, tliey formed
themselves into two companies, one on each side of the line
of march. ' Saul has smitten by his thousands,' was the joyous
song of one band ; it was answered, probably by the younger
women, with a more joyous song, ' But David by his ten
thousands.' This harmless play from those whom Saul's
victory had ' clothed in scarlet with other delights, and put
ornaments of gold upon their apparel,' made a deep impres-
sion on all who witnessed it. Somehow it even travelled
into the land of the vanquished Philistines, borne, perhaps, by
captives of high rank in Saul's train. The songs of a nation
rejoicing over victory would not speedily be forgotten by
prisoners. Ten years after, these songs of his countrywomen
were the means of saving David from the danger of fighting
against his own people on Gilboa. But Saul felt more
dejected at the songs than any Philistine captives could do.
Especially when the army was entering Gibeah, did their
welcome jar on the king. His attendants saw there was
something wrong. With the return of peace there came also
the evil spirit on Saul. The songs of the women roused it
from sleep. ' They have given unto David ten thousands,'
he said to his confidants, ' and to me they have given
thousands ; and what can he have more but the kingdom ? '
The fears of Saul had divined the truth. He beheld in
David the * worthier neighbour ' who was to become king. As
he thought over this fear, his crushed heart saw the ' rending
of the kingdom,' thus begun in the women's songs, ending in
his murder by David. Saul came to beUeve in the youth's
purpose to kill him and seize the throne. Nothing could
convince him of the contrary. Evil men around him
encouraged him in this view. But the clearest proofs of
David's innocence failed to produce more than a momentary
impression. And with this clue to his actings, we can easily
understand the outgoings of his madness in the plans he laid
against David's life.
i
Afiohiting and Advancement of David. 1 5 7
The day after Saul's return to Gibeali, his madness appeared
in a serious form. He was singing, as at former times, snatches
of sacred song, unreal and weird. David was called in to
charm the evil spirit by the music of his harp.-^ The two
were alone in the chamber, the elder unsteadied by his thoughts,
the younger calmly alive to the danger. A light javelin was
in the king's hand. Without seeming to notice the madman's
motions, David was an attentive watcher. His fingers touched
the strings of the harp ; his eyes observed every change in
Saul. The clutching of the javelin, the raising of it, and the
unsteadiness of the aim, were all seen by the harper. It was
easy for him to shun the weapon. ' I will pin him to the
wall,' said the king to himself: but David bent his head, and
the spear flew harmless into the wooden partition. Before the
attempt could be repeated, David escaped from the room. A
passing fit of madness, it would be said, prompted this outrage :
nothing of the kind could happen again. David, unconscious
of fault, might be disposed to take the same view. But he
would be more on his guard. And there was need ; for a
second time was the spear thrown, and a second time it missed
the mark. * The Lord is with him,' said the wretched kino;.
A higher power was watching over his rival's life. Fear of
this higher power induced Saul to lay aside these thoughts of
murder. He removed David from court to discharge in
the field the duties of his office as captain of a thousand.
Evidently there was war on the frontier. But the change
from court to camp only heightened Saul's fears. The young
commander became the idol of soldiers and people. Every-
thing seemed to prosper in his hands. His prudence and
gallantry were conspicuous in every enterprise. Erom every
tongue came the acknowledgment, ' The Lord is with him.' But
while the king, wrapped in gloomy fears, was hidden from
^ ' And David played with his hand as at otlier times ' [as usual]. The words
seem to refer to the past. But this is not all the idea conveyed by the Hebrew
phrase, which means, ■pait ox future.
158 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History
public view, David ' went out and came in before ' the nation.
If Saul expected tbe captaincy of a thousand to draw out in
David blemishes of character previously unknown, his spies
soon informed him of the vanity of these hopes. By living in
the public view, David was only making it more clear that
* the Lord was with him,' the highest honour he could enjoy
in public estimation.
Saul had in vain tried two ways to rid himself of David —
open violence in the palace, and the lowering of him before the
world. His mind, fertile in resources for evil, discovered a
more promising means of accomplishing that end : ' Let not
mine hand be upon him,' he said to those who could be
trusted with his secret thoughts ; ' but let the hand of the
Philistines be upon him.' Accordingly, in an interview he
had with David, he put on the air of a man who, while re-
gretting, wished to atone for the past. The reward of David's
success in the fight with Goliath had not been fully paid —
no arrangements had been made for marriage with the king's
daughter. Saul now proposed to pay this reward. ' Behold,'
he said, ' my elder daughter Merab, her will I give thee to
wife ; only be thou valiant for me, and fight the Lord's
battles.' David does not appear to have entertained suspicions
of plot or treachery. He avowed his unworthiness of the
honour ; his very life was a small thing to spend in the king's
service ; he would spare no effort in fighting tlie Lord's battles.
The betrothal of David and Merab took place ; the time was
fixed when she should have been given him in marriage.
But David was not slain in the passages at arms to which his
brave heart prompted him during the year of betrothals.
Saul's third plan for ridding himself of a rival had thus failed.
He was blind to his own interests. Instead of receiving
David into the bosom of his family by marrying him to Merab,
he gave her ' to Adriel the Meholathite to wife.' It was well
for the princess that her father's sins brought no further harm
to her, for she is the only one of Saul's family who can be said,
Anointing and Advancement of David, 1 5 9
if not to have lived happily, at least to have died in peace.
As her sons are called the sons of her sister Michal (2 Sam.
xxi. 8), she may not long have survived the death of her father
and her brothers on Mount Gilboa.
The fight with Goliath has given rise to many a fight be-
tween critics. In 1 Sam. xvi. 21, David the harper is said to
have become Saul's armour-bearer; but (1 Sam. xvii. 15)
about a page farther on in the story, he goes back to Bethlehem
to keep the sheep. Then in 1 Sam. xvii. 40, he appears
dressed as a shepherd; and in 1 Sam. xvii. 55, both Saul and
Abner know nothing about him. A great difficulty exists
here, or there is no difficulty whatever. The former view of
the passage has been in favour for many centuries. As long
ago as the copying of the oldest manuscript of the Septuagint
Greek, not only was the difficulty felt, but an attempt was
made to remove it out of the way. That attempt has met
with approval in modern times. It consisted in omitting 1
Sam. xvii. 12-31 from the text. The going back of David to
his father's house, his visit to the camp, his conversation with
Eliab, and with the soldiers, were left out as pieces somehow
added to the real story. This solution is accepted as giving
the ancient Hebrew account of the fight. The twenty verses
omitted are considered a later embellishment, which a blunder-
ing editor found current, and thrust into the Hebrew text
without thought, or in despair of reconciling the two. Does
this solution remove the difficulty, as several critics imagine ?
It does not ; it leaves matters worse than it found them. In
1 Sam. xvi. 21, David appears as Saul's armour-bearer; but
in 1 Sam. xvii. 40, immediately after the omitted verses, he
appears in shepherd's dress with staff, scrip, and sling. And
in the previous verse (39), he avows himself ignorant of
sword, and helmet, and arms generally, although he is supposed
to have been Saul's armour-bearer. What, then, is gained by
omitting the verses ? ISTothing ; but the inconsistency in the
i6o The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
story only becomes greater. David tlie armour-bearer turns
out to be David tlie shepherd ! The omitted verses have
actually to be supplied in some way before we can understand
the verses which are retained.
Eeally, however, on a fair reading of the story, there is
no difficulty whatever. A writer is entitled to anticipate in
his book parts of the story which he intends to relate fully
afterwards. This is done every day. Let the last three
verses of 1 Sam. xvi. be read on the supposition of the writer
having adopted this principle, as he has often adopted it in
other passages, and the difficulty will prove to be no difficulty
at all. Thus 1 Sam. xvi. 21, 22: 'David came to Saul,
and [as I shall relate fully afterwards] stood before him ; and
he loved him greatly, and he became his armour-bearer. And
Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand
before me, for he hath found favour in my sight.' After the
story of the fight, this sending to Jesse is clearly hinted at
(1 Sam. xviii. 2) as a point already related : ' Saul took him
that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's
house.' A view of the passage which reduces everything
to order without violence, and without resorting to ' critical
subterfuges,' is the simplest way. It is also in accordance
with the rules of historical writing, which have been followed
in all acres, and which are observed in the book of Samuel.
Thus there are two accounts of Abiathar's coming to David
(1 Sam. xxii. 20-23, xxiii. 6). But the Greek translators,
believing he did not join the outlaws at Keilah, and yet
fearing this inference might be drawn from the Hebrew,
brought the two into agreement by a slight change on one
word : —
1 Sam. xxiii. 6 (Heb.). 1 Sam. xxiii. 6 (Greek).
When Abiatliar fled to David to When Abiathar fled to David, he
Keilah, he came down with an ephod also came down with David to Keilah,
in his hand. having an ephod in his hand.
CHAPTER VII.
DAVID AN OUTLAW AND AN EXILE.
(1 Sam. xviii. 20-xxvii. 12.)
[The chronology of the events related in this section may be
thus arranged : —
B.C.
1066. Fight with Goliath, about harvest-time (April or May).
1065. Marriage of Merab at the end of her year of betrothal.
1064. {Autumn.) Marriage of David with Michal at the expiry of
'the days,' i.e. the year of betrothal, xviii. 20-28.
1063, Year of inaction, Deut. xxiv. 5.
1061. {April.) "War again, xviii. 30-xix. 8.
1061. {October.) Flight of David to Gath.
1060. {April.) David saves Keilah in harvest-time.
1060. {June.) Flees to Ziph.
1059. {April.) Is at Engedi, xxiii. 29.
1058. {Spring and Autumn.) At Maon.
1058. {Winter.) At Ziph.
1056. {April.) Becomes king in Hebron, after residing one year and
four months among the Philistines.
As David was thirty years of age at Saul's death, 2 Sam.
V. 4, and was fit for war, that is, twenty years of age, when
he slew Goliath, Num. i. 3, the above may be regarded as an
approximation to the truth.]
Michal, the younger daughter of Saul, was a woman of a
bold and forward spirit. She was not one who would shrink
from publishing in the palace her right to become the wife of
David, after Merab was bestowed on Adriel. Every person
was aware of Saul's promise t-o bestow one of his daughters
on the hero ; and there would not be wanting handmaidens
to whisper to Michal his praises, and tlie happiness of the
woman who might become his wife. Things fell out as
1 62 The KiJtgdom of All-Is7'ael: its History,
might have been expected : the story spread through the
palace that ' Michal was in love with David.' That love was
connected in some measure with the right which her father's
promise gave him to claim her as his wife. Eumour carried
to the ears of Saul word of his daughter's feelings. Another
chance to rid himself of a dangerous neighbour was thus
offered to the king. Nor was he slow to seize it. ' I will
give him her that she may be a snare to him, and that on
him may be the Philistines' hand.' And thus the sunshine
of a court seemed again to beam on David. The king spake
as his friend ; captains and statesmen had a kindly greeting
for the soldier. In a few days David and Michal were
betrothed. Saul affected satisfaction at their approaching
union ; ' a second time this day,' he said, ' art thou become
son-in-law to me.' His words almost imply a reproach of
David for not having married Merab. And the reason is not
far to seek. Unable to pay the ransom required for Merab's
hand, David had been set aside in favour of a w^ealthier
suitor. Would his success be greater with the younger
sister ? As month after month of the year of betrothal
passed away, David began to fear an adverse turn in his
fortunes. He heard whispers of a heavy payment or dowry
for his wife. Men spoke to him of the honour of marrying a
king's daughter, and asked what ransom he intended to give.
David saw the deceit and the snare. Saul, keeping his
promise to the ear, was preparing to break it by again asking
a price he could not pay. He had neither gold, nor silver,
nor lands wherewith to buy Michal. He had bought her at
the risk of his life ; he had no higher price to give, and if
dowry were demanded from liim, he let it be known that
Michal could not become his wife.
Things had fallen out so far exactly as Saul wished. By
his orders, the courtiers threw out hints of the kind's increasincj
desire to have the hero for a son-in-law. Accident brought
about these private meetings between them and David ; in
David an O it t law and an Exile. 163
reality tliey were part of the plot. Tlie talk always turned
on the dowry. ' See/ they said, ' the king delighteth in
thee, and all his servants love thee ; so pay the dowry and
become his son-in-law.' One after another told him the same
story. It was given, as it were, in confidence, and more in
the way of hints than direct encouragement. But David had
no delicacy in making his want of means the reason of his
unwillingness to 00 forward. The burden of his answer to
their hints and words always was, 'You seem to think it a
light thing for a poor man to become the king's son-in-law,
but I cannot pay him any suitable ransom for his daughter.'
The go-betweens reported these answers to their master.
They were precisely such as he wished. ' Tell him,' he said,
' that I have no pleasure in the ransoms commonly paid, but
in a hundred slaughtered Philistines, that vengeance may be
taken on the king's enemies.' The hook was too well baited,
in Saul's opinion, not to lure David on to destruction. No
sooner was the matter set before him in this light, than
honour and patriotism combined to urge him onward. But
the time allowed for gathering this ransom of death was brief.
' The year of betrothal was not run out,' we are told (1 Sam.
xviii. 26); it soon would be, and in that partly lay the danger.
Saul had delayed letting David know the price he wanted,
till the time for paying it was almost come. If not paid on
the very day, the hand of Michal would be forfeited. Should
David attempt to reap the dowry on the fields of Philistia
and fail, his reputation would suffer. But, as he would dare
almost anything rather than fail, this enterprise of hazard
seemed one from which he would never return. Saul was
perhaps in as great a difficulty as David. While unwilling
to receive him into his family, two members of his own
household were eac^er for the alliance. It was not safe to
disoblige either of them. Jonathan, moved by affection for
his friend, could use more freedom than any other man in
representing to the king the dishonour of making a promise,
164 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
which, though perhaps kept to the ear, was broken in its spirit.
And Michal's speeches may have been harder to bear than her
brother's reasoning. She would have her own way in any-
thingj on which her heart was set. If father or friends refused
to humour her wishes, she had means of annoyance at her
command which might make them glad to yield to her will.
David may have suspected guile on the king's part in this
sharp dealing about the dowry. But he had the prudence
to conceal his thoughts. Assembling his men, he at once
repaired to the frontier to seek among the armed bands of the
Philistines, or in some of their border strongholds, the price
of Michal's hand. The level nature of the country, and the
hatred borne by Hebrews and Philistines to each other, made
the enterprise one of unusual danger. Along the borders
men sowed, and ploughed, and reaped their fields with arms
in their hands, and under the shelter of fortresses or of bodies
of troops, to which they could run for safety in a sudden
raid. But David and his men lauc^hed at toil and dan^^er.
Before the year of betrothal expired, he returned with double
the price asked by Saul. The short time allowed for reaping
this harvest of death from the Shephelah may not have been
the only drawback with which David had to contend. *A
hundred dead Philistines without the loss of a Hebrew
life ' may have been a more serious difficulty, leading David,
as it would do, to risk his own safety with a rashness
unwarranted in other circumstances. The marriage of David
and Michal could not be put off, after the dowry asked by
her father had been paid twice over. But these events only
deepened in Saul's mind the bitter conviction of his own
rejection by Jehovah. It bore fruit in due time. He disliked
the marriage, and would gladly have broken it off at the last
moment if he could. Owing to these feelings, Saul declined
to receive David into his own house. The young captain
held hic^h office at court, and was son-in-law to the kins: ; but
he lived in a house at some distance from the palace. Saul
David an Outlaw and an Exile, 165
feared the youth who had stolen the people's hearts, his son's
affection, and his daughter's love : ' the Lord was with him.'
According to Hebrew law, a man who had been newly
married was not called on to go out to war or to undertake
any public business for a whole year (Deut. xxiv. 5). He
was allowed to stay at home. David's union with Michal
was therefore followed by a year of inaction, which gave Saul
no new cause for alarm. For that year, at least, his name
was seldom in the mouths of men. But these days of idle-
ness came to an end. The storm of war again broke out on
the borders, and again a large Hebrew force assembled to
drive back the invaders. ' The princes of the Philistines '
led the heathen army ; Saul, along with Jonathan, David, and
other captains, was in the Hebrew camp. While the two
armies lay watching each other's movements, detachments of
the invaders spoiled the neighbouring country. They were
resisted by Saul's troops. Skirmishes were constantly taking
place, with varying success ; the balance turning now to the
one side, now to the other. But though disasters befell
several of the Hebrew captains, none happened to David ;
'as often as [not afUT'\ the princes of the Philistines w^ent
forth, David behaved more prudently than any servant of
Saul, and his name was exceedingly precious.' This success
awoke the madness that had been slumbering for a year.
Determined to rid himself of this ever-present dread, Saul
issued orders to Jonathan and his chief servants to have
David put to death. Afraid to raise his own spear again, he
trusted to the swords of others to make surer work. The
order was given at night, perhaps at the evening meal in
the kino-'s tent, and the time of executincr it was fixed for
the followinfT morninGj. But Jonathan was horrified at the
wickedness. Anxious to save his father from the guilt of
innocent blood, he discovered the king's intentions to David :
' Saul, my father, seeketh to kill thee ; and now see that thou
assuredly beware in the morning to abide in the secret place,
i66 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History.
. . . in the field where thou art. I will speak of thee to my
father, that I may see his mind and tell thee.' David's place
of hiding was thus well known to his friend. Apparently
this hiding is contrasted with another hiding, immediately
before David fled altogether from Saul's court. The one was
a Sabbath-day's work; the other a week-day's (1 Sam. xx. 19;
see xix. 2).
Next morning Jonathan drew his father near the spot
where David lay concealed. As they walked along, he
reasoned with him on the sin of shedding innocent blood, and
reminded him of the joy he expressed in word and look when
he saw the Philistine fall under the hand of David. When
eJonathan said of this deed of arms, ' The Lord wa-ought great
salvation for All-Israel,' he used almost the same words as
fell from Saul on his refusal to shed his Hebrew enemies'
blood after the overthrow of ISTahash. They touched chords
of tender memories in the king. No wicked advisers were
at hand to take the edge off Jonathan's reasoning. Saul's
heart was softened. Leaving him no escape from following
the path of right, the prince persuaded his father to utter the
solemn oath, ' As Jehovah liveth, he shall not die.' Believing
his friend's life no longer in danger, Jonathan then called for
David, told him what had passed, and presented him to Saul.
And thus, at least for the time, this family quarrel, as
shameful as it was unfounded, was healed.
Before the close of the war against the Philistines, tilings
came to a pitched battle, in which the heathen were defeated
with great slaughter. This success was mainly due to David.
AVhile it brought him the gratitude of his countrymen, it
awoke again in the king's breast a hatred which neither the
ties of kindred nor the solemnity of oaths could allay. The
end of the campaign also brouglit with it a return of Saul's
illness. The same fear of David haunted him ; the same
wicked counsellors, who had sown discord between them in
past years, again gained his ear. Whether by design or by
David an Oittlazu and an Exile. 1 6 7
chance, David was called on one evening to soothe the
madness of Saul. The murderous attempt, made in the same
place four years before, was repeated with a like result. The
spear sank in the wall, and David escaped to his own house.
But Saul's fears were not again awakened by his failure.
Prompted too, perhaps, by wicked men, he despatched guards
to watch the house of David, and put him to death in the
morning. It would have been dangerous to attempt an
attack by night. The man, whose skill brought down Goliath,
was not to be rashly dealt with when he stood at bay. And,
in the confusion of night, his craft might succeed in turning
the guards on each other, while he himself escaped unhurt.
But Saul's own children atrain crossed his desims. Michal
learned that guards were posted round the house, and that
her husband was doomed to die in the morning. Probably
Jonathan sent to inform her of the deed of blood which Saul
had resolved on. He could not venture to visit his sister
himself, for his love to David was too well known ; but the
bearer of the tidings might be some woman-servant, who had
ways and means of passing the guards which the prince had
not. Michal's short and decided way of breaking the news
to David showed no alarm either for his safety or for her
own. ' If thou save not thy life by flight this very night,
to-morrow thou shalt die.' Some of Saul's children inherited
the spirit of their father. Michal was one of them. Her
courage rose with danger. David's heart, on the other hand,
sank within him. In presence of an enemy, the young man
was cool, and ready to run any risk. Struck at from behind
by those who were afraid to meet him to his face, his nature
shrank from the ignoble contest. Had he been left to himself
that night, he would have waited the inevitable approach of
death in the morning. But his wife was of another mind.
When every sound in the household was stilled, the guards
might be expected to watch with less care, if she had not
persuaded them to leave a place unguarded for her hero and
1 68 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its History.
theirs to escape. Then was her husband's chance. Providing
herself with a rope, she waited with him in one of the
chambers on the upper floor of the house till it was time to
make the attempt. Withdrawing the casement and lowering
the rope, she listened as David noiselessly slipped down,
passed the guards, and escaped into the open country.
At daybreak next morning the guards made no attempt to
enter the house. They shrank from taking the life of their
hero. Their unwillingness to do more than watch was
reported to the king, who sent another band, not to kill his
son-in-law, but to bring him a prisoner to the palace. Almost
every one around Saul felt that if the hero were to be put to
death, no hand save Saul's own should shed his blood. But
besides the time lost in this passing to and fro, a further
start of an hour or two was obtained for David by the
cunning of his wife. When the guards arrived from the
palace, she pretended he was sick. She refused to let him
be annoyed with business, however pressing. With an
authority which the wilful daughter of a king can use, she
forbade the men to enter the sick-room. They had no wish
to see their prisoner, and would have been deceived had they
entered. The figure that lay on the bed was a large wooden
idol, which Hebrew women sometimes kept as a household
god unknown to their husbands, and which they regarded as
the giver of good fortune and a happy life. The head was
resting on a pillow woven from dark goat's hair, and the
body was covered with a garment often worn by David, and
perhaps well known. The captain of the guards, believing
his prisoner secure, returned with the soldiers to the palace.
Saul gave him no thanks for his tenderness : ' Bring him on
the bed to me to put him to death,' exclaimed the enraged
king. The trick was then discovered. Again there was a
passing to and fro of messengers between David's house and
the palace, and a further gain of time for the fugitive.
Michal was summoned to answer for her conduct. In the
David a7t Outlaw and an Exile, 169
weakness caused by sudden terror, she held up her face to a lie,
when she would have earned the purest honour by confessing
the truth. 'Wherefore hast thou thus deceived me,' demanded
Saul, wdien she made her appearance, * that thou hast sent
away mine enemy, and he is escaped ? ' Had she boldly
answered, ' Because he is my husband, and I love him,' her
praise would have been in every mouth to this hour. But
she entered in her own defence a plea that was false : ' He
said to me. Send me away ; wherefore should I slay thee ? '
Her defence confirmed Saul in the view he had taken of
David's designs. If he could thus threaten his wife with
death, he w^ould not hesitate to kill her father, who stood
between him and a throne. Michal served her husband in
the evening by helping him to escape ; in the morning she did
him the greatest disservice by this purposeless lie.
After passing through the guards, David made for Naioth
on Eamah, the city of Samuel. It seemed his only refuge.
Samuel, who was afraid to go to Bethlehem to anoint David,
has no fear of consequences in receiving the fugitive. He
learns, perhaps for the first time, the story of the king's
attempts to take David's life. Soon the truth w^as placed
beyond doubt by the approach of soldiers, sent to bring him
to Saul. The prophet met them with the weapons of spiritual
warfare. The ' sons of the prophets,' fifty or more in number,
w^ere arranged in or near their school or college. Samuel led
the worship in which they were engaged. David was with
him, at once the cause and the prize of this contest between
the sword of the State and the sword of the Spirit. As the
troops climbed the hill, strains of sacred music filled their ears.
A change began to pass over the hardy soldiers. They dishked
the business on which they were sent ; they disliked it more
when, as each man looked on his comrade, there was seen
gathering on his face an awe that betokened failure in their
enterprise. Apparently their leader, seeing the looks of his
men, went forward to judge for himself: ' He saw the com-
170 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Histoiy.
pany of prophets singing, and Samuel standing as appointed
over them.' Both he and his men caught up the strains of
the prophets, for the songs of praise were well known. An
nnseen power was moving the whole detachment, as the rising
wind ripples the face of the ocean. When they reached the
buildings, they were powerless to seize their prisoner. Ac-
knowledging the might of Samuel, they joined his band of
singers, and became worshippers themselves.
The tidings of defeat soon travelled to Saul. A second and
a third band were sent on the same errand, with the same
result. Unawed by these warnings of Jehovah's purpose to
shield David, Saul resolved to lead a fourth detachment him-
self, to vindicate his right to rule in his own land. They
halted at ' the great well,' on a shoulder of the double hill of
Eamah, which, from the view obtained on its top, was called
Sechu or ' watch-tower.' Probably near this well Saul met
the maidens at whom many years before he asked where the
prophet lived. He was making a similar inquiry on this
occasion at, perhaps, other maidens sent for water to the
well. Without knowinc^ it, Saul stood on the edGje of a
charmed circle, within which he should no longer be master of
himself or of his soldiers. Every step he took towards its
centre saw his purpose and his authority growing weaker. As
he climbed the hill, the songs of worshippers arose from him
and his men instead of the sounds of war. But Saul did
more. On meeting Samuel he cast off his upper garment and
prophesied, singing the sacred songs of the prophets. The
conflict in Saul's breast between his madness and the feelings
that now stirred it ended, as such conflicts often do, in a
fainting fit of many hours' duration : * he lay down naked all
that day and all that night.' This cannot have taken place
before the crowd in the streets of Eamah, but in the house of
Samuel, where none but the prophet and trusty servants
witnessed the wreck of a great mind. The people, who heard
or saw somewhat of the outer workings of this spirit in the
David an Outlaw and an Exile. i 7 1
king, were reminded of a saying once well known in the
neighbourhood, and which these events saved from being
forgotten altogether : ' Is even Saul among the prophets V
The family quarrel seemed to be again made up, and David
returned to his place in Saul's court. But the wicked men
around the king gave the youth no rest. E"ot long after his
flight from Eamah, as his return to court was called, a plan
was arranged for murdering him in the palace ; the time
chosen was a new-moon feast, at wdiicli the kinq; c^ave a two-
days' entertainment to his courtiers. Knowing Jonathan's
friendship for David, Saul advised his counsellors not to make
the prince aware of their design. The precaution proved to
be useless. David heard of the plot through some other
channel, perhaps through Michal, who lacked neither the bold-
ness nor the cunning to follow up any hints of danger, till she
discovered the whole truth. On hearincf the storv, David
sought the help of his friend and brother Jonathan. Their
interview took place in Gibeah, and perhaps in Saul's own
house. ' What have I done,' he asked, ' that thy father is
again and again seeking my life ? ' He was beginning to lose
heart. Scarcely is he rescued from one net than he is in the
toils of another. Jonathan was somewhat displeased with his
friend for entertaining these suspicions. * Far from it,' he said
in reply ; ' thou shalt not die. Behold, my father doeth
nought, great or small, without making it known to me ; and
wherefore should my father liide this thing from me ? It
is not so.' But David knew the plans of his enemies too well
to be lulled into security by these assurances. Calling Jehovah
to witness to the truth of his statements, he said : ' Thy father
hath said. Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved ;
there is but a step between me and the death designed.'
Half doubting, half believing this tale of bloodshed, the prince
puts himself in David's hands, and asks how he can best show
his friendship. To ascertain the truth or falsehood of the plot,
David proposed a plan which Jonathan undertook to follow.
172 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its History,
Afraid lest there was danger in the house in which they then
were, the two friends withdrew to a spot in the open fields,
in which, according to their plan, David would be in hiding
on the third day after. It was an archery park among the
broken ground on the south of the city, and on the road to
Bethlehem. A large stone, or stone-heap, called Ezel or
departure, marked the place.^ In that retired spot they
renewed their league of kindness and love, Jonathan spoke
as one who had no right to entertain hopes of ever filling the
throne of Israel. Sadness, pervading the view which he took
of the future, threw a deeper gloom over their meeting that day.
According to the plan agreed on between the two friends,
Jonathan returned to the palace, while David hastened towards
Bethlehem, to be present at a yearly festival of all his rela-
tions, to which he had been summoned by his brother. As
the distance was only about ten miles, there was ample time
to go and return before the third day.
The first day of the new-moon feast passed without David
taking his seat at Saul's table. The place set apart for him
remained empty. But the murderers, unaware of his absence,
carried out their designs as far as they could. A messenger
entered the room to summon Jonathan away on business.
Abner at once took the empty seat by the king's side ; but
the victim did not come to the slaughter-house as they wished.
Several who were in the secret feared he had been made
aware of the plot. The king thought differently. ' Not so,'
he said; 'it is a chance. He is not clean, perhaps,' meaning
1 In 1 Sam. xx. 19, 41, the Septuagint Greek renders the Hebrew by 'remain
beside that Ergab,' and he rose 'from the Argab.' The word is supposed to
mean a stone caum ( Argob) ; and several writers prefer the Greek to the Hebrew.
But they overlook the changes made by the Greek on the spelling of the word ;
and they do not seem to be aware of the ignorance of Hebrew, shown in the
Greek, when it gave that very word, ergah, twice in circumstances which render
the use of it exceedingly ludicrous (1 Sam. vi. 11, 15), and once Mergab (1 Kings
iv. 34). And they overlook also a clear mistranslation and ignorance of Hebrew
in 1 Sam. xx. 3, 5, 19. Amattar'i (ver. 20) (a mark) seems to be confounded
with Saul's family of Matri, spelled in the Greek Mattari (1 Sam. x. 21).
David an Outlaw and an Exile, 173
that lie had by accident touched a dead body, or in some
other way broken the ceremonial laws. When the guests took
their seats at table on the following day, there was still no
appearance of David. Saul's suspicions were then awakened.
Turnincj to Jonathan, he asked him the reason of the son of
Jesse's absence. The prince replied that he had given him
leave to run to Bethlehem to see his kindred at their yearly
gathering. The question of Saul and the leave-giving of
Jonathan prove that, whatever was David's rank at court, he
held command under Jonathan. The king had therefore no
reason to find fault with his son-in-law. But his well-laid
plans were again crossed. The gloomy madness that had
spent its force hitherto on David now turned on his own son.
While cruelly reproaching him for his love to the national
hero, he let out the real source of his own hatred : ' All the
days that Jesse's son liveth upon the ground, there shall be no
security to thee and to thy kingdom.' Every one at table
must have then seen the true reason of Saul's jealousy. It
was the crown itself for which he was afraid. And from other
quarters had already come, or soon would come, rumours of
the anointing of David, which, magnified by these heartburn-
ings at court, would pass in ever-increasing whispers from tribe
to tribe throughout the kingdom. Saul's madness urged him
further than was prudent. * Send and fetch him to me,' he
said to Jonathan ; ' he is doomed to death.' But the prince
refused to act till he knew what ground there was for this
step: * Why should he die ? What hath he done?' Lifting
his spear, Saul threw it at his son for daring to stem the tide
of his rage. Indignant at the insults heaped on him by his
father before guests and servants, Jonathan left the room
without tastingj food.
Heavy at heart he repaired next morning to the stone
Ezel, at which he had ac^reed to meet David. As his move-
ments were likely to be watched, he made it appear as if he
were intending to practise archery. A boy, carrying bow and
1/4 1^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel: Us History,
arrows, accompanied him to the shooting ground. When they
neared the stone the boy ran forward, while Jonathan shot
three arrows beyond him. They missed the mark, as was
intended. 'Is not the arrow beyond thee?' the prince
cried, loud enough to be overheard by David, who had
returned from Bethlehem, and lay in hiding hard by. These
words had been agreed between them as the signal of danger.
Displeased, apparently, at missing the mark three times,
Jonathan called to the boy to make haste in gathering up the
arrows and in returning to the town. His hand was not
steady nor his eye true that morning. And if the lad knew,
as it is likely he did, what took place at the king's table on
the previous day, it would seem to him most natural in
the prince, skilful archer though he was, to miss the mark,
and to desire to nurse his grief in solitude. AVhen he was
out of sis^ht, David rose from the south side of the stone or
cairn Ezel, where he lay in hiding. It was tlie side next
Bethlehem, from which he had come that morning. There
was not time for much speaking. Thrice, as he approached,
he cast himself on his face to the earth before the prince in
token of regard. They kissed each other ; they wept bitterly ;
but David's grief, if not more deeply seated than his friend's,
found vent in fiercer bursts of tears. In few but weighty
words, Jonathan sent him away in peace, reminding him as
he did so of the solemn oath they had sworn, to show kind-
ness to each other and to each other's children in all time
coming. This interview took place on a Sabbath morning.
Within an hour or two after leaving Jonathan, David got
from the high priest five of the twelve loaves of shew-bread,
newly taken off the table in the Holy Place. According to
tlie law, these loaves were removed on the Sabbath (Lev.
xxiv. 8). The month seems to have been October. As the
campaign on the borders ended some time before, the new-
moon feast was in the fall of the year. But the moon of
October, from which the Hebrews are believed to have
David ail Oittlaw and an Exile, 175
reckoned tlieir civil year, was a season of general joy, at
which a two days' feast might be held in the palace, or a
family gathering in Bethlehem. The labours of the year
among an agricultural people were then ended ; a harvest-
home could be kept with friendly meetings and general
rejoicing.
After parting from his friend and brother, David hastened
southward to the city of i^ob, in the neighbourhood of whicli
the Mosaic tabernacle had been set up. Ahimelech, the high
priest, and many of his kindred, then resided there. He was
a son of Ahitub, who w^as grandson of Eli. Whether he was
a brother of Ahiah, or the same man with a slightly different
name, — a thing not uncommon in those days, — cannot now
be determined. As David approached the town, hunger con-
strained him to seek for food after his journey from Bethlehem
and his flight from Gibeah. He was sure of a friendly recep-
tion, for he was well known to the high priest, nor had he
any fear of treachery. Even though every priest in Nob had
seen him at the tabernacle, there was no dangler. Holdincj
office from God, and not from the king, the priesthood, when
guided by a man of worth, was a barrier against the encroach-
ments of despotism on the rights of the people. When David
reached the tabernacle, the high priest was engaged in the
duties of his office. Morning worship, which continued longer
on Sabbath than on other days, was just over. Ahimelech
trembled on seeing him alone and unarmed. He loved the
soldier, but there was something in his manner that betokened
anxiety ; his dress also told of travelling during the early
morning. The thought flashed into the high priest's mind,
' He has again fled from Saul's anger ; this time he comes to
the altar of Jehovah, the next resort after Samuel.' ' Why
art thou alone and no man with thee V he asked. David
pretended business of importance, which the king desired to
conceal from others. He was not alone, he said ; the soldiers
appointed to attend him were waiting his coming at a place
176 The Kingdom of A II- Israel \ its History,
not far off. Of the falsehood of the first of these statements
there is no doubt; the second was true. Young men who
had been with him to the family feast at Bethlehem, and
whom he had persuaded to share his flight, — Joab, Abishai,
and Asahel, if not others, — were waiting for him not far from
Nob. They were his own kindred ; his dangers were theirs ;
his honours would also be shared by them. Safety and hope
urged them to cast in their lot with David in this dark hour
of his fortunes. But Ahimelech was unable to furnish the fugi-
tive with the bread he asked. Although the town contained
not less than sixty or eighty households, none of them could
give him a few loaves. The same thing takes place in that
country to this day. Often is the hungry traveller surprised
by finding it impossible to procure bread for himself and his
servants in a good- sized village. But the high priest offered
to give David part of the shew-bread which had been removed
that morning for the priests' use. He took the soldier's word
for it that he could, with a clear conscience, exercise his dis-
pensing power by giving the young men bread, forbidden to
all but the priests. * Although the way or business we are
on is common,' David said, ' you safely may.' But there was
a spy in the court of the tabernacle watching what was going
on. An Edomite, named Doeg, whom Saul had made chief
of his herdmen, and who had become a proselyte to the
Jewish faith, was for some reason detained before the taber-
nacle at that time. He drew near as the high priest was
giving David the loaves. He did not know the sacredness
of the bread, only there were so many loaves given that he
spoke of them afterwards as 'provision for a journey.' But
he overheard what passed. David asked for sword or spear,
as he had hurried away from Gibeah without arms or armour.
Ahimelech said the only weapon in the place was ' the sword
of Goliath, wrapped in the robe behind the ephod.' ' None
like it,' he answered ; ' give it me.' But the mention of the
ephod, the high priest's sacred dress, seems to have suggested
David an Outlaw and an Exile, 177
to David the idea of consulting Jeliovali regarding the future.
Ahimelech had done this for him before, and willingly did it
again. Perhaps, then, the assurance was given, of which we
read afterwards, and which seems to have heartened both him
and his followers when hard pressed by danger, ' I will deliver
thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as
it shall seem good unto thee ' (1 Sam. xxiv. 4).
Accompanied by several of his men, David sought refuge
in the city of Gath, without leave from its king (1 Kings
ii. 39). It was a bold step he took in thus venturing into the
lion's den, for there w^ere not a few among the citizens to
whom lie was known by sight. He may have expected to
escape notice in the crowd till he should find means of return-
ing to his own land. But if he did, he was mistaken. The
attendants of Achish, prince of Gath, heard of the prize that
was caged within their walls. Expecting a reward for their
zeal, they brought him to the palace. But the same cunning
that foiled their champion five years before, foiled them
also. ' Is not this David, king of the land V they ask, when
their prisoner stood before Achish. ' Was it not of him
they sang in the dances, saying, Saul hath smitten by his
thousands, and David by his tens of thousands ? ' The
Hebrew prince was greatly moved by their words. It would
have been well had his outward demeanour answered to the
thoughts that were then passing through his heart. ' I
sought the Lord,' he says, in a sacred song written after his
escape, ' and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.'
But, unhappily, he did more. Before all in the palace he
spoke and acted as if his misfortunes had deprived him of
reason. When shut up in prison he scrawled on the doors,
and let his spittle roll down his beard. One knows not at
which part of these proceedings to feel most grief; at the
hypocrisy which was soiling a great name, or at the meanness
of a hero who, after having often risked his life in battle, was
sacrificing honour to save himself from enemies. David was
M
178 The Kingdam of All-Israel: its History,
suffering from one of those fits of weakness that sometimes
overwhehii the noblest of our race. But Achish did not
thank his servants for the prisoner they brought. Even
though their story were true, he would not have touched a
hair of David's head. ' Is it not clear to you/ the king asks,
in mockery of his servants, ' that he is mad ? Why have ye
brought him to me ? ' Have I not got madmen enough when
I have such as you ? With these and such reproaches
Achish ridiculed his servants, rating them so soundly for
their lack of discernment that they were glad to let the
prisoner go from the town.
The cave of Adullam was the next hiding-place of David
and his men. It appears to have been one of those many-
galleried caverns that are found scooped out by nature in
limestone rocks. As it gave shelter at one time to not fewer
than four hundred men, besides women and children, its
numerous galleries must have been of great extent, well aired,
if not lighted in some parts from above. In short, the cave of
Adullam was an underground city or camp.-^ Trusty messengers
soon conveyed to David's kinsmen in Bethlehem tidings of his
place of refuge. The news arrived in time to save their lives.
His father, his mother, and all his kindred, fled to Adullam.
Men of broken fortune, and of a desperate or discontented
spirit, also saw in him a leader round whom they might rally
with hope of recovery in the world. Because he needed the
swords of daring men, they sold him theirs for the safety or
the honour which they expected in return. Pamiour rapidly
spread the news among all in debt and in distress, for whom
the charms of life could only be regained by some lucky stroke,
that Adullam was a centre at which they would be welcome.
It was on the debateable land between Judah and the country
of the Philistines, a district in which the unfortunate of both
nations would meet as fellow-sufferers, and not as enemies.
Debtors who fled from more guilty creditors ; aspirants to
1 See MerriU's East of the Jordan, 348.
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 1 79
honours, which they had failed to win, while they had incurred
tlie hatred of the winners ; and men whom the law, though
not conscience, counted criminals, found a refuge in this
no-man's zone. People from Gath and other heathen cities
sought safety there — Hittites and Hebrews. Probably some
of the best hearts in Palestine were sheltered in its caves and
hills, and not a few of the worst. There, in all likelihood,
David first met with Uriah the Hittite, Ahimelech the Hittite,
and Ittai of Gath, two of whom rose to hioh honour when
their leader became king. Perhaps Zelek the Ammonite,
Ithmah of Moab, and Igal from Zobah, joined him at the same
time. Outlaws and fugitives of many tribes, heathen as well
as Hebrew, were probably in hiding in the district on David's
arrival at Adullam. The means of forming a little army of
broken men were thus at hand, as soon as a leader with
David's great name appeared among them.
David's first step was to seek a place of safety for his aged
father and mother with the king of Moab. They could not
follow the fortunes of adventurers, who mio-ht have to flee
from fastness to fastness in deserts or on mountains. Ties of
blood through Euth connected their family with the Moabites.
While these could not be disregarded, the Moabite king was
also in subjection to Saul, and might be called to account
for harbouring those whom Saul considered his enemies.
However, Moab gave David's father and mother shelter all
the time he was in the hill stronghold of Adullam. But
this could not have been longjer than eis^ht or nine months.
Whether Moab then betrayed them to Saul, or sent them back
to their son, is unknown. But the vengeance taken on that
people many years after would be a blot on David's name,
if there was no betrayal of trust.
Saul was not so well informed of what passed on the
borders, especially in the debateable land, as to know that a
body of four hundred men had gathered there under the
chieftainship of David. Evidently Adullam was not then
i8o The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
counted part of Juclab. But he soon heard of their passing
through the country to a new hiding-place. While David
was uncertain what step to take. Gad the prophet, who had
joined the band, delivered to him a message from heaven :
' Thou shalt not dwell in the mountain hold : go, that thou
mayest come for thy good to the land of Judah.' Leaving
AduUani, he stole through the country with his men to a place
among the w^estern hills, called the wood of Hareth. They
appear to have arrived there about the end of May. The
passage of a band of four or six hundred men, with women,
children, and baggage, through a peopled country, could not be
kept hid from the court. Saul was told of David's march.
Summoning to his presence the chief men in his service, to
only a few of whom, perhaps, the reason of David's flight was
known, he lays before them what he believes to be his wrongs,
and asks their help in the righting of them. The assembly
met on a hill (Eamah) near Gibeah ; every man was in his
proper place ; and the king, like a modern Arab chief, sat
with a long spear in his hand under the tamarisk tree. * Hear
now, ye Benjamites ; even to all of you,' he said in irony,
' will the son of Jesse give fields and vineyards ; all of you
will he make captains of thousands and captains of hundreds ;
that ye have all conspired against me, and none of you is re-
vealing to me my son's league with the son of Jesse, and none
of you is sorry for me and revealing to me that my son hath
stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait as at this day.'
Benjamin had got a double portion a second time, when the king
bribed his own tribesmen, as he evidently did, by honours and
profits, which they should only have shared with their country-
men. But even these large bribes failed to make the courtiers
forget the free ways of their fathers. They held their peace
at Saul's bitter words. But Doeg, the chief herdman,^ had
not forgotten what he witnessed several months before in the
^ 1 Sam. xxii. 9 : ' Doeg, ... set over the servants of Saul. ' So tlie English ;
but the Hebrew is : ' Set over servants of Saul,' that is, some servants.
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 1 8 1
court of the tabernacle. He told the story of the high priest's
kindness to tlie king's son-in-law, of the provision for the
Avay, of the bringing forth of Goliath's sword, and of the con-
sulting of Jehovah. The king's rage had now an object on
which to break. Ahimelech and all the priests of Nob were
sent for. The distance was about an hour's journey. For them
the last sacrifice had been offered that morning. But among
the reasons guessed for the summons to Saul's presence, David's
visit may have been one that never occurred to Ahimelech or
his companions. On their arrival at Gibeah, Saul accused
Ahimelech of conspiring with David against his life and crown.
With a dignity befitting his rank and character, the high priest
took the part of the slandered hero. N'obly did he assert his
faithfulness to Saul as the king's son-in-law, as one of his
privy council, and as an honoured man in his palace. No one,
he said, was trusty as David was. Then casting from himself
the charge of treason, he reminded Saul that he did not then
for the first time consult Jehovah at David's request ; he main-
tained also his entire ignorance of any conspiracy in which the
young man was engaged. But nothing could soften the heart
of this gloomy prince. He had ceased to obey the voice of
God : he was determined to rule as a king. ' Ahimelech,' he
said, ' thou shalt surely die : thou, and all thy father's house.'
He was bent on reading a lesson to the highest and the most
esteemed, as well as to the humblest, of his unalterable
determination to punish David and all his helpers. But can
he have suspected the high priest of anointing David to be
king that day Doeg saw the two together ? His mind, full of
suspicion, acted on its impulses. On the instant, he ordered
the runners or guards standing round ' to slay the priests of
Jehovah.' But the men shrank from the deed. Doeg was more
pliant. That wicked man slew on the spot eighty-five priests
of God, while Saul looked on approving the crime. Nor was
his vengeance appeased by these murders. Every living thing
in Nob, man, woman, child, ox, sheep, and ass, fell before the
1 82 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
swords of Doeg and like-minded adventurers. According to
the story, Saul made a vow of utter destruction against the
priests and their city. Trom that vow there was no drawing
back. He did not fail here, as he failed when sent against
the Amalekites.
It may seem inconsistent with the Hebrew land laws when
Saul boasted of giving his chief men grants of vineyards and
other estates. As the country was divided by lot among the
people, and as each estate returned at the jubilee to its first
owner's family, there was no room for grants, such as Saul
made, if these laws existed. But the depressed state of
Jesse's fortunes throws some light on the king's doings. He
does not appear to have enjoyed the same affluence as his
ancestor Boaz. Nor did he stand so high in the town of
Bethlehem. Evidently Saul was endeavouring to humble the
nobles of the land, and to exalt his own creatures at their
expense. By seizing their estates and giving them to favourites,
while he let the great body of the people enjoy their property
in peace, he would hope to rid himself of dangerous nobles and
to provide for clamorous friends. The story of Naboth is a
case in point. But there is another way of accounting for
these grants of estates. Saul was not the only king who had
them in his gift. David also had large opportunities of
amassing land, if not of bestowing it on his courtiers. In one
case he got a gift from the Philistine king, Achish, which he is
expressly said to have bequeathed to his successors — ' the
kings of Judah.' That gift was Ziklag, with the pasture
grounds in the neighbourhood — an estate of great value. But
besides, the whole of Canaan was not divided by lot in
Joshua's day. Many districts were held by the heathen in
defiance of the conquerors ; many others, that had been won
by the Hebrews, were lost by their children. In Saul's time
Israel had again lifted its head. Another Joshua was
making his power felt by the heathen in the land. Their num-
bers were becoming less ; their estates were passing in various
David an Outlaw and an Exile, i8
J
ways out of their hands. A shiiilar process went on during
David's reign, perhaps also during Solomon's. Large estates
in many parts of the country would thus fall to the crown, or
could be seized by the king and given to his favourites.
Abiathar, the son of the high priest, alone escaped the fate
of his kindred. As he had with him the sacred garment,
called an Ephod, when he fled for safety to David, he was
probably engaged in priestly duty at a distance from ISTob.
There was only one place at which he might have been so
engaged, the house of Abinadab, near Kirjath-jearim, which
was then the resting-place of the ark. The conscience of
David reproached him when he heard from Abiathar the tale
of bloodshed. The harp which sang the fate of Saul and
Abner, of whom one was the author and the other an approver
of these cruel deeds, can scarcely be thought to have kept
silence over the high priest and his kindred. Certainly the
historian has not embodied in his narrative an elegy, like those
composed over the less worthy men who fell on Gilboa and
at the gate of Hebron. But there was a reason for his silence.
An elegy on the priests could have no effect in setting the
crown on David's head. Elegies on Saul and Abner, as we
shall see, had a political meaning, and served a political end.
But David's feelings towards the doer of these deeds found
expression in a song, which has been preserved in the book of
Psalms (Ps. lii.). He lays all the guilt on Doeg ; precisely as
he did when Abiathar told him the story : he utters not a
word against the king. The latter was no longer responsible
for his acts in the same way as was the former. ' Lover of
evil above good,' he calls Doeg : ' of all devouring words, of
lying above the speaking of right, a sharp razor, a worker of
deceit.' The word lying in this delineation means.coj^s^^i'mc?/,
and is the word which describes the charge urged against
Ahimelech by Saul. But the contrast drawn by the poet
between himself and Doeg, brings the tabernacle scene vividly
before a reader. ' God shall pluck thee out of the tabernacle,
184 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History.
and root tliee out of the land of life/ lie says (verse 5). How
different is to be the poet's fate ! ' I, as a green olive tree in
the house of God : I trust in the mercy of God for ever and
ever. I will wait on Thy name ; for it is good before Thy
saints ' (vv. 8, 9). * Thy holy ones ' was a tribute of praise
paid to the murdered saints of Jehovah. He was accustomed
thus to wait before ' the holy ones ; ' he believes he shall so
wait in time to come.
The harvest w^as gathered, and the threshing-floors were busy
in Judah, while David's camp was still pitched in the wood
of Hareth. It was about the middle of June. But the joys
of harvest did not enliven the camp, for the outlaws were
living in constant fear of discovery. Every hill-top, that gave
a wide view of the country below, was a watch-tower on
which sentinels were placed, who might gain early tidings of
approaching danger. Scouts, looking down on the plains below,
or gathering tidings from frightened Hebrews, who were seeking
shelter, one day brought in the news that a marauding band
of Philistines had crossed the border, shut up the men of
Keilah in the city, and were feeding their cattle on the
threshed corn heaped on the floors outside. The spirit of the
hero awoke in David. Calling for Abiathar, he put the question :
' Shall I go and smite these Philistines ? ' The lot was drawn.
Yes. But his men were afraid to move. ' Here in our own
Judah,' said some of the faint-hearted, ' we are living in fear :
why, then, go against the array of the Philistines ? ' Again
David asked counsel, and again the answer was clear. Go.
Encouraged by the fearlessness of their leader, the men no
longer shrank from followinir. And their success was com-
plete. The robbers were driven back ; their flocks were taken
by the victors ; and the siege of Keilah was raised. Grateful
for their deliverance, the citizens invited David to take up his
abode among them. Xor were he and his men unwilling to
comply. Wanderers as they had been for many months, it
was a pleasant change for them to enjoy once more, among
David an Otttlazu and an Exile. 185
their countrymen, the plenty of home. Saul was overjoyed
on hearino' of David's removal with his band to the walled
o
city of Keilah. ' God hath cast him off/ he said ; ' if it were
not so, he would not shut himself up in a city having gates
and bars.' What a joy to Saul to be able to say, Jehovah is
not with him ! Orders were issued summoning all the people
to assemble for war. The raid of Philistian plunderers formed
a reasonable excuse for thus calling out the militia ; and per-
haps the real object of the expedition was known only to a few.
By one stroke Saul proposed to rid himself of the dangerous
outlaw. But his plans were crossed. From some one that
knew, David became aware of Saul's designs. In his distress
he again appealed to the Friend above, who was watching over
him in all these trials. Abiathar, clothed in the sacred ephod,
drew near to consult Jehovah. As the first question put was,
* Will Saul come down ? ' the preparations he was making
cannot have been generally known. The second question was,
' Will the chiefs of Keilah betray me and my men into his
hand ? ' In the looks and words of the head men, David read
the budding of a purpose to betray their guests, l^or was he
mistaken. 'Yes' was the answer given to this renewed inquiry.
[No resource was left to the deliverers of Keilah but to leave
the place, and wander whithersoever they could. They kept
to the desert, encamping on hill-tops, from which a view could
be had of the surrounding country. Evidently the ingratitude
of the people of Keilah had made them suspicious. At last
they pitched their camp on a hill in the wilderness of Ziph,
near the centre of Judah, four miles south of Hebron. The
region, studded with caves and ravines, seemed favourable for
hiding. Its lofty hill-tops, rising more than 2800 feet above
the sea-level, also gave the fugitives a wider view of the
surrounding country. But Saul allowed them no rest. For a
whole year he hunted them incessantly (1 Sam. xxiii. 14).
Things came to a crisis in Ziph. During a lull in the
chase after David, or while some Ziphites were planning a
1 86 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
betrayal, Jonathan was able to pay liim a stolen visit. They
met in a thick wood, which then furnished the outlaw with a
covert. It was the last interview between the two friends.
But Jonathan had no foreboding of the death that was in
store for himself. He encouraged David to persevere in his
course of right, and not to fear the hand of Saul. He never
expected to be king himself, for even Saul's vow during the war
of independence had entailed on him something like civil death.
He hoped to be the second man in the kingdom, of which his
friend should be the head. Saul himself was opposing this
course of events, while he believed in it as an ordinance of
God. But friendship, however close, could not deceive David
into the desirableness of an arrangement such as Jonathan
sketched, which must have led to disagreement in the end.
The clouds which rested on the future of both of them, were
such as Providence alone could lift without blighting the
friendship which knit them together. David's reply to
Jonathan is not recorded. Probably the answer of a loving
heart, knoAving what it knew, and puzzled how to respond to
a friend's view of futurity, is better omitted from the history.
But the two renewed the covenant of mutual kindness made
about a year before. Then David remained in the wood, and
Jonathan returned to his own house.
After this gleam of sunshine came the storm. Some Ziph-
ites went up to Gibeah to offer Saul their help in catching
David. Actuated by dislike of the outlaw, or by even worse
motives, they described his haunts to the kincr, and nrixed him,
in words which show throughout their acquaintance with the
popular law-book of the country, to come down and seize his
runaway servant. ' Thou shalt not deliver unto his lord the
servant which is escaped from his lord unto thee,' it said
(Deut. xxiii. 15). 'He shall dwell with thee, among you,
where it liketh him best.' ]\Iuch more applicable was this
law to a servant like David, escaped from his lord the king,
than to a fugitive slave. ' Our part,' they said, ' shall be to
David an OutlaiiJ and an Exile. 187
deliver him into the king's hand/ the very word wliich gives
force to the law quoted. Tliese mean men went even further.
At Saul's request they undertook to gain David's confidence,
to find out all his secret haunts, and to betray everything to
the king. As soon as they were ready, Saul would surprise
him : ' I will search him out,' he said, ' throuirliout all the
thousands of Judah.' They succeeded to perfection. David
was deceived by their professions of friendship. When one
well-planned attempt failed, they continued to be trusted by
him, and even arranged a second plot for his seizure. Every-
thing was at last ready. David and his men were then
lurking in that part of the steppe called Midbar-Maon — the
pastures of Maon. Their camp was pitched in the south of the
district. AVhen Saul and his soldiers approached, friends gave
David warnin^:' of their comincj. He thoudit it enouoli to shift
his camp to a place difficult of access, though on lower ground.
It was called the Eock or the Mountain ; and is, perhaps, the
same as the conical hill of Main — a place about five or six
miles south of Ziph, from which it can be seen. Lulled into
security by their neighbours, they seem to have kept little
watch on the surrounding waste. Their lives nearly proved
the forfeit of this rashness. Guided to the spot by the Ziph-
ites, Saul is on them before they are aware. While the outlaws
are marchin^j off at one side of the rock, the kinc; is climbino- the
other, and sending detachments of troops to the right and left,
with the view of cutting off their retreat. Encumbered with
women, with children, and with baggage, David and his men
must almost have lost hope in that hour of danger. But
again Providence checked Saul in his career. When the prey,
which he had hunted so often, was fairly snared in the toils,
his hand was arrested. In hot haste a messenger arrives with
tidings of a Philistine raid across the border. Every hour
spent in hunting David is increasing the losses and sorrow of
Hebrews not twenty miles away. His soldiers are at once
called in, and their faces turned westward, while the hunted
1 88 TJic Kingdom of All- Israel: its History.
outlaws move eastward across the desert. From that day
forward the place was called by the outlaws, ' The Slipping-
away Eock.' It was a spot they should never camp in again
without thinking of their narrow escape. It was a scene
which should always remind them of one of those chapters in
life, which vie in strangeness wdth the most unlikely passages
of romance.
Nor did their leader forget that narrow escape. ' The
divisions or courses ' became a word famous in history. It
had been used three times before in the division of the
Promised Land by Joshua ; but the word assumed a world-
wide character from that escape of David. It w^as used in
later and more peaceful days to denote the ' courses ' or
* divisions ' of David's soldiers, of priests and of Levites.
Thirty-five times is it found in Hebrew literature applied in
that meaning — in the book of Chronicles alone. In six other
places only does it occur. ' The Eock of the Divisions ' or
' of the Courses ' was a turning-point in David's history, burned
into his memory, never forgotten in his after life.
After a journey of about twenty miles across a dreary
waste, David reached Midbar-Engedi, where the ground rises
in high limestone hills, scooped into caves of surprising extent.
Deep glens and ravines, running down to the Dead Sea, part
the hills one from another, and render the capture of outlaws
almost an impossibility. Want of water and the poorness of
the burnt soil impart to the country a look of cheerless gloom.
Here and there throughout the w^aste a spring bursts forth,
and rushes down to the Dead Sea on the east, or wells and
cisterns are found in the desert on the west. Of these springs
the best known is that of Engedi, or the ^ Fountain of the
Kid,' so called from the wild goats which browsed on the
scanty herbage of the rocks. Eushing forth in great volume
from the limestone at a height of five hundred feet above the
Dead Sea, its waters, tasting strongly of lime, leap from ledge
to ledge till they reach the bottom of the hill. For more
David ail Outlaw and an Exile, 189
than half a mile they then flow over a bed of rich loam, that
stretches between the high ground and the beach. The
channel of the brook down the face of the cliff and along the
plain is thickly shaded by willows, and tamarisks, and figs.
In former times it watered the vine-terraces which the art
of man, taking advantage of the chances offered by nature,
formed on the hill-sides. The terraces still remain, memorials
of a rich past, but, excepting petrified leaves, the vine and
the palm have long disappeared ! Farther down, the water,
conveyed to all parts of the bed of loam, enabled the hus-
bandmen of a neighbouring hamlet, known as the town of
Engedi, to reap rich crops of grain and fruit. No harvests
were earlier, and none more plentiful, than those gathered in
the tropical climate of the Dead Sea shores. Desolation,
dreariness, and poverty now reign, where the poet formerly
saw ' clusters of camphire (henna) in the vineyards of Engedi '
(Song i. 14).
Near this fountain David and his men sought refuge after
their escape in Midbar-Maon ; but the hills of the wild goats
were as unsafe as the desert of Ziph. The narrative furnishes
no reason for suspecting the Engedi shepherds of betraying
their fellow-tribesman. But treacherous Ziphites may have
again been the informers, as the pursuit was too soon renewed
to allow gossip time to carry news to Gibeah. Although the
king was but returned from following the Philistines, he lost
no time in again hurrying after David. With his usual body-
guard of three thousand chosen men he hastened southward,
entering the desert at Tekoa, and following the line of wells
to Engedi. As he neared the end of his journey, he came to
sheepfolds among the hills, in which flocks were penned at
night. It was one of David's look-out stations, on which two
or three of his men kept watch for the approach of danger.
A galleried cave in the neighbourhood gave them covert from
the weather, and a hiding-place from enemies. When Saul's
army approached, David was on the outlook himself with a
190 TJie Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
few of his men. His little band of wanderers was probably
encamped in safer quarters. The watchers withdrew into their
retreat till the host should pass. But great was their surprise
to see the tall figure of the king darkening the mouth of the
cavern. He was alone. By those in the galleries of the
cave, everything he did was clearly seen against the light of
the sky outside ; while to him, even had he been looking for
outlaws, nothinc^ was visible on the dark backaround. He
stooped down, not far from David. A wide and flowing
garment covered his body. The men whispered to David to
kill Saul, reminding him as they did so of an assurance he
had received, that Jehovah would one day deliver his enemy
into his hand. But the hero shrank from slaying an unarmed
foe ; still more so when that foe was the anointed of Jehovah.
"Without answering, David crept stealthily along till he came
behind the king ; then, unknown to Saul, he cuts off part
of the loose robe, and steals back with liis prize, leaving the
kincj unharmed. Xone of his men had time to do what their
leader thus left undone. "While he was upbraiding them for
their evil thoughts, Saul rose up and walked away along the
road.
AYhen the army had passed the cave, David followed them
unseen, till they came to a spot where he could sliow himself
without danger. The region in the neighbourhood of Engedi
abounds in narrow ravines of great depth, — places which, from
their gloomy and forbidding nature, David calls, in one of his
finest poems, valleys of Death's shadow. Men can speak
across them with ease, though the passage from one side to
the other, even by sure-footed dalesmen, may take an hour or
so of hard toil. While thus within earshot of Saul, David
may have been more than an hour's march distant. Calling
aloud, ' My lord, 0 king,' his voice, ringing through the silent
air of the hills, caught Saul's ear. ' Why dost thou listen to
a mean man's words, saying, David seeketh thy hurt ? ' he
asked. ' One said to me in the cave to kill thee ; but I did
David an Outlazo and an Exile, 191
not : thou art the Lord's anointed, and niy father. See tlie
proof of my forbearance;' and lie hekl up the skirt of Saul's
robe. ' As for me,' he continued, * I am of as little worth for
the kingj of Israel to trouble himself about as a dead doLi; or
a single flea. The Lord will judge between me and thee.'
The words of David touclied a tender chord in Saul. His
powers of body as well as of mind had become unstrung. He
was haunted by fears, that grew fiercer on the nursing they
got from his own gloomy heart and the suggestions of ' a
mean man.' And no fears are more dreadful. But when he
heard himself spoken to by the hunted outlaw with reproachful
love, his better nature awoke to the wrong he had done, and
he burst into tears. ' Is this thy voice, my son David ? ' he
asked. ' More righteous art thou than I ; thou hast repaid
me good for evil. Jehovah,' he said, using the law word for
deliver which the Ziphites previously used, ' Jehovah delivered
me into thy hand, and thou killedst me not. But when a
man findeth his enemy, sendeth he him well on his way as
thou didst to me ? Behold, I have long known that thou
shalt surely be king. Swear to me, then, thou wilt not root
out my name from my father's house.' Most cheerfully did
the outlaw give the oath that Saul asked. Then the two
parted, — Saul returning to Gibeah, David withdrawing to his
stronghold among the hills. But Saul had published to the
whole nation his belief in David's anointing to the throne.
His words were soon known in all parts of the country.
The king and his hunted son-in-law were friends again,
though the latter still lived in the wilderness as chief of
an outlawed band. David even ventured abroad among his
countrymen. Shortly after this healing over of the quarrel,
Samuel died at a great age, and David appears to have been
present at his burial in Eamah. But the peace between him
and the king was soon broken. "When he shifted his camp
from the hill-country of Judah to the southern desert of
Paran, an event happened which blew the embers of Saul's
192 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
hatred into fiercer flames than before. At that time there
"was dwelling in ]\Iaon a man named Nabal, who belonged to
the house of Caleb, of which the headquarters were in the
ancient city of Hebron, about ten miles farther north. His
name is the Hebrew word for ' fool,' which might be esteemed
rather a nickname given to the man by wiser neighbours,
were it not that, in all countries, some fatliers delight in
bestowinn- on their children names which are outrages on
common sense. He was a person of great wealth ; he owned
three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. *His business/
it is said, or the pasture grounds of his flocks were in Carmel,
two miles north of Maon, the place which David and his men
used to haunt in the previous year till driven from it by Saul.
Among the friends whom David made when encamped in
that wilderness, were the shepherds who tended the flocks of
Xabal. In the neighbourhood of his tents they never had
cause to fear violence from his men or attacks from robbers.
By day and by night they were safe themselves, and so were
ISTabal's flocks. The robbers and the wild beasts in these
wastes were alike kept far away by the help of David. Owing
to the misrule of Saul, and the ravages of the Philistines on
the borders, the country was in an unsettled state. Many
servants, as ISTabal said, were then breaking away from their
masters, and many robber hordes swept the wilderness pastures
of flocks, which the shepherds were unable to defend. But
the flocks of this churlish noble were in safe keeping tinder
the guard of David's band.
When Nabal Avas shearing his sheep in Carmel in spring-
time, David, expecting to be rewarded for the kindness shown
in autumn, sent up ten of his young men to put him in mind
of the past, and to request a share in his good fortune. Had
tlie outlaw been a freebooter, he would have demanded as a
right what he, being an honourable man, sues for as a present
or a blessing. And had his ambassadors used insolent words,
Xabal would have given them all that they asked. But
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 193
hearing tliein speak softly, requesting a favour of liim in
the day of his good fortune, in his foolishness he believed
David was afraid to use other lano-uacje. This was the man's
nature : as was his name, so was he, a fool, without a spark of
generous feeling. ' He was harsh and evil in his doings.' To
their polite requests, to their wishes for long life and health
and happiness to him and his, Nabal replied with drunken
abuse : ' Who is David, and who the son of Jesse ? To-day
many are the servants breaking away every man from his
master. And shall I take my bread and my water and my
slain beasts, which I have slain for my shearers, that I may
give to men whom I know not whence they are ? ' The
servants of Nabal who had introduced the messengers, and
were standing by, did not dare to remonstrate. ' Such a son
of Belial !' they whispered to one another, ' there is no speak-
ing to him.' But the messengers terrified the shepherds by
the threats which they let fall at parting. The camp of
David, in the plains below, was thrown into uproar on the
return of the young men. The outlaws, hoping for some of
the dainties that were to be got in Nabal's halls, had sent ten
of their number, designing thereby gently to remind him that
a whole camp looked for a share of his blessing. But they
return as empty-handed as they w^ent. Instead of David's
politeness being repaid in kind, he is railed on as a runaway,
and his messengers are insulted before the man's household.
' Swords on ! ' was the order at once issued to four hundred
of tlie band. Two hundred remained behind in charge of
the women, the children, and the baggage. David himself
marched up towards Carmel at the head of the four hundred.
He is bent on vengeance for the affront offered to his messen-
gers. He is speaking of nothing but blood as atonement for
the insult. Not even a child shall see the morning light
in Nabal's house. But he has taken a step which miglit have
cost him dear.
In the meantime Abigail, the wife of ISTabal, a woman of
194 ^^^^ Kingdom of A 11- Israel: its History,
great beauty and good sense, becomes aware of the danger
with which her household is threatened. One of the shepherds
told her of Nabal's surly answer to David's messengers, and of
the threats which fell from them when they left the house.
Aw^are, it may be, of the quarrels between this ill-matched
pair, he spoke of his master in terms that few wives would
have borne, however much they may have despised their
husbands at heart. Being a woman of quick parts, she sees
the danger, and is forward to meet it. There is no wringing
of her hands, no beating on her bosom, no hurried flight from
home. Whether she was an heiress w^hom Nabal had married,
or was too high-spirited to regard the authority of one so
foolish, she acts as if his goods were hers to deal with at her
pleasure. Loading six or seven asses with country riches,^
and sending them on before her under the hands of servants,
she followed, w^ithout lettincj Nabal know. ISTor did he
seem to regret her absence. It was drawing towards evening
when she set out. The noise and bustle of feasting were
already beginning. Probably Nabal w^as better pleased at her
absence from his carousals than if she had come to grace his
board.
David and Abigail met in a deep ravine not far from the
house. It was one of the many rents by which the country
in that neiohbourhood is torn. While she was ridini:^ down
one side, under the shadow of the hill, he was marching
down tlie other at the head of his men. On meeting the
^ The present consisted of the following : —
200 loaves of bread.
100 raisin cakes.
200 % cakes.
2 skins of wine.
h sheep, dressed and ready.
\\ bushel of parched corn.
The first three of these items were a full load of two asses (2 Sam. xvi. 1).
Other four asses at least would be required for carrying the rest of the present.
As ten loaves of bread and a bushel of parched corn were deemed sufficient for
three men for some time (1 Sam. xvii. 17), it is clear that the present of Abigail
would keep the camp of David in good cheer for several days.
David ail Otttlazv and an Exile. 195
armed array, she leaped from her ass, threw herself at David's
feet, and besought his favour towards her household. The
homage which this beautiful woman did not give her own
husband, she bestows unasked on the champion of Israel.
David's anger melted away before her words and her beauty.
The sudden change bespeaks unusual tenderness of heart.
Abigail has brought it about by steps which show her to
have been a woman of ability, but not what a wife ought
to have been. If she were sold to Nabal for a sum of money,
as was then too often the case ; or if, being an heiress, she
were given away by law to a man she despised, the difference
between Hebrew manners and ours speaks in her behalf.
And this difference may greatly affect the view we take of
conduct which seems forward and unwomanly in the young
wife of Nabal. ' Upon me, me, my lord,' she said, ' be the
guilt : let thine handmaid now speak in thine ears, and hear
thine handmaid's case.' Abigail was requesting David to
make his men stand aside, while she told her story to himself
alone. When all were out of hearing, she proceeded : * Regard
not, I pray thee, my lord, this man of Belial, Nabal, for as his
name, so is he : Fool is his name, and foolishness is with
him.' Then slie thanked Jehovah for withholding David
* from coming in blood,' and wished his enemies to be fools
like Xabal. Briefly she dismisses the handsome present ' as
a blessing for the young men who walk in my lord's foot-
steps.' Her most persuasive words are reserved for the end :
' Forgive now the sin of thy handmaid, because Jehovah will
certainly make to my lord a sure house. But a mean man
hath risen up to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul ; but tlie
soul of my lord shall be bound up in the bundle of the
living with Jehovah thy God, and the soul of thine enemies
it shall he sling out in the middle of the hollow of the sling.'
Then she added, ' When the Lord shall have appointed thee
ruler over Israel, to have shed blood causeless, and to have
helped thyself, shall be no stumbling-block to thee, and
196 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
heaviness of heart ; but when the Lord shall deal well with
my lord, then remember thine handmaid.'
Words of wisdom so persuasively set forth would have
touched any heart. David grants her request. He does
more. ' I have accepted thee/ he adds at the end. But
Abigail's words are more than proofs of her ability. They
show how widespread in Israel was the belief in David's
succession to the throne. All Israel knew it, as a whispered
secret, which none but Saul himself dared openly to utter.
She also knew, as every one in the land knew, the story of
the bringing down of Goliath by a stone out of the hollow of
the sling. With inimitable skill she touches it so gently but
so surely, that David conld not fail again to hear the women's
songs, ' Saul hath smitten by thousands, but David by ten
thousands.' By the words she deftly uses, Abigail asks him
to think of that victory, and to do nothing which might dim
its lustre. But there are dark parts in Abigail's speech. Her
description of her husband is unbecoming. And her prayer
to David, ' Eemember thine handmaid,' leaves an unpleasant
impression on a reader. It may refer to the thraldom in
which law and custom had placed her to an unworthy
husband. It may be nothing but a prayer for easement to
a sorely tried woman, when David came to be king. But we
are apt to judge it in the light of events w^hich shortly
followed. Perhaps this is unfair.
When Abigail reached the house, she found it in all the
merriment of feast. Her husband was too drunk to be
spoken to of the danger he had escaped : his guests and
servants, copying the example set, were abandoning themselves
to the royal abundance provided. But next morning, when
sleep had put her husband in possession of the little sense he
ever had, she laid before him, with such force as a woman of
her parts easily could, the dangers of the feast, the swords of
the outlaws, and his own narrow escape. His weak heart,
shattered by over -drinking, became as a stone within him.
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 197
Guilt and cowardice drove him perhaps to the only friend he
had, the wine -cup. Carmel, where his business was, may
have been as famous in Nabal's time for its vines as it
became two centuries later (2 Chron. xxvi. 10). He feared
the outlaws might return. Nor was Abigail at all unlikely
to put this view of the case before him. If it were so, one
can readily understand how hard drinking brought the man
to an untimely end. In ten days he was dead. The inspired
writer says, ' Jehovah smote him and he died,' of which the
meaning is that he died more suddenly than was expected by
those near him, especially by the revellers who gathered
round him at the sheep-shearing feast. Drunkenness would
do the work, without an unexpected stroke from Providence.
When David heard of Kabal's death, the charms of Abigail's
beauty and wit came back on his heart. He sent several of
his young men to ask her to become his wife. Nor was the
youthful widow unwilling to make amends for a married life
of bitterness, by as brief a widowhood as possible. She rose
from her seat on hearing the words of the young men ; she
bowled herself before them till her forehead touched the
ground ; and she called herself but a handmaiden, who would
deem it an honour to wash the feet of David and his
followers. Mounting her ass, and accompanied by five
maidens of her household, she followed the messengers, and
became David's wife. Michal had not then been given
away by her father to another husband. Abigail tlius
usurped Michal's place. But she found, when it was too late,
that her fancy had pictured in David a singleness of heart
which was not there. Soon a rival was brought in to share
his affections — Ahinoam, from the neighbouring village of
Jezreel in Judah, the mother of David's son Amnon. A
few years after, Abigail was but one of a host of wives in his
palace.
These marriages brought David into trouble. They were
an affectation of greatness which few but kings paraded.
198 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
But they were also a slur cast on Saul's family. The anger
of the king again burst out as fiercely as ever against his son-
in-law. He beo-an with divorcing^ his dauditer Michal from
David, as he had right and reason to do. Then he gave her
in marriacje to one of his own tribe, Phalti of Gallim, a town
not far from Gibeah (Isa. x. 30). Next, breaking the peace
which had been made between them, he renewed those hunts
which had nearly cost the outlaw his life already, and wliich
gave him endless annoyance during the rest of Saul's reign.
And in this David met deserved punishment. Prompted
perhaps by Saul, the same Ziphites who betrayed David a
year before, again undertook to make his haunts known at
court. They had soon an opportunity of showing their zeal
in the king's cause. Hachilah, a hill on the south of Midbar-
Ziph, had long been a favourite camping ground of David's
band. Having moved northward to that place after the
marriage of their chief with Abigail, they were living there
in peace, fearing neither treachery nor attack. But guided
by the Ziphites, Saul almost surprised their camp. With his
three thousand men he made a hasty march from Gibeah to
Hachilah, a distance of about thirty miles. David knew
nothing of their approach till, from his own stragglers and
shepherd friends, he heard of troops encamped on the hill
before them. Spies were at once sent out to ascertain who
they were, and whether Saul were with them, with the object
of seizing David. There was evidently room for doubt.
Favoured by the gathering darkness, the spies were able to
survey the camp and to discover the king. But Saul's guards
were soon silent in sleep. Overcome by the fatigue of a
thirsty march, the soldiers cast themselves on the ground for
rest. Waggons, conveying provisions for the army, were
drawn up in the form of a rampart, within which Saul and
his chiefs slept on the bare ground. Their upper garments
furnished them with all the covering needed in that hot
climate. Beyond the rampart of waggons, the trench as it is
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 199
called, lay the common soldiers, scattered liere and there as
tliey found places fit for repose. Before long all were sunk
in an exceedingly deep sleep.^ Being encamped in a friendly
country, and not aware, it may be, of the outlaw's nearness,
no means were taken to guard against surprise. But they
were well watched. David, with two of his men, Ahimelecli
the Hittite, and his own cousin Abishai, climbed to the top of
a hill opposite Saul's army. By the light of the fires or by
that of the moon they saw from the higli ground everything
in the camp. Wliich of you will go with me down among
them ? asked David of his two companions. He did not
wish both of them to risk their lives. If they that go perish,
one at least will be left to warn their friends to flee. Abishai
volunteered : Ahimelecli remained on the hill-top to carry
back tidings should they be discovered.
Accustomed to all the shifts of savage life, the two soldiers
crept stealthily down into the slumbering host. The heavy
breathing of men, rising in measured beat on the still night
air, told of the soundness of a first sleep. But who, if suddenly
awakened, would not mistake the outlaws for fellow-soldiers,
whom duty or bodily wants had roused from sleep ? They
reach the waggon rampart. I^ot a sound breaks the stillness
of midnight but the breathing of wearied soldiers. They pass
within, creeping forward till they are beside the king. They
have no fear of discovery, for the deep breathing is a sure
token of safety. Abishai, rejoicing at the chance, and eyeing
the tall spear stuck into the ground at the king's head,
whispers, as he stoops over the prostrate body of Saul, ' Let
me smite him with the spear even into the earth, once only.'
A second stroke from him who spoke that short speech would
not have been needed. The king, who tried three times to pin
his son-in-law to the wall with a spear, might now, with the
same weapon, be pinned to the earth, never again to rise.
^ ' A deep sleep of Jehovah,' not 'from Jehovah,' is the correct rendering, that
is, in the Hebrew language, ■ very deep sleep.'
200 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
But no feelinf? of veno-eance ruffled the heart of David.
' Destroy him not/ he said, ' for who shall stretch forth his hand
on the Lord's anointed and be o'uiltless ? ' Abishai reasoned
against this over-tenderness, as he deemed it. But he could
not change David's purpose. * JSTo/ he said, ' either Jehovah
shall smite him with a plague, or his day shall come to die,
or he shall go down into the battle and be taken away. But
take the spear which is at his head and the cruse of water, and
let us go.' So safe did the two outlaws feel, and so accus-
tomed were they to calmness when environed by danger, that
they hold this conversation at the king's side. Taking with
them the spear and the cruse, they crept back, as noiselessly
as they entered, to the waiting-place of Ahimelech.
On reaching the top of the hill, David called aloud on
Abner. The first sleep of the army was wearing off. As
the call rose loud in the still air of these wastes, the army,
startled by the cry, sprang to their feet. ' Answerest thou
not, Abner ? ' were the words then heard coming from the hill-
top. ' Who art thou that criest to the king ? ' shouted
Abner, unable to make out the voices of two or three calling
together. ' Art not thou a man ? ' exclaimed David ; ' and
who is like thee in Israel ? Wherefore, then, keepest thou
not thy watch, for one of the people came to destroy the king
thy lord ? Not good is this thing ; assuredly worthy of death
are ye, because ye kept not watch over Jehovah's anointed.
Yea, where is the king's spear and the cruse of water that
were at his pillow ? ' The spear and the cruse had been taken
away ; men had been in the camp who had no right to be
there. Saul's heart was touched ; for David alone would have
let a second chance of righting his wrongs pass unimproved.
And this feeling helped him to a knowledge of the voice that
was speaking from the heights. Answering for himself, he
asks, ' Is this thy voice, my son David ? ' Indignant at the
slanders uttered against his loyalty, David prays in the king's
hearing, that, if mean men have set him on to this bootless
David aii Outlazv and an Exile. 201
cliase of the guiltless, vengeance may liglit on their heads.
They had driven him out from the Lord's own land. ' Go,
serve other gods/ was what they said by their doings, if not
in words.^ Saul felt the justice of these reproofs. Acknow-
led«4ino' his sin in seekinsf David's life, he bids him return
again to the haunts of men. And with this holdinc^ out of
peace Saul parted from his son-in-law in the stillness of
night, never again to meet him till they both stood before the
Judge to whom the outlaw had appealed against the king's
injustice.
On thinking over this new outbreak of hatred, David became
afraid of a renewal of those dangers to which he nearly fell a
victim before. J^o oath could bind the king, no proof of
regard for his welfare could still the malice he bore to his
son-in-law. And the men who were near the throne had
succeeded in keeping this malice alive. "VYith pardonable
bitterness the outlaw always spoke of them by a word which
was applied to designate grovellers, earthy like the earth from
which they came. Fearing their power, he made overtures to
Achish, king of Gath, for leave to enter his service. In no
other way did it seem possible for him to save his life. He
did not ask counsel of his Friend in heaven ; ' he spoke to
his own heart.' When passion or fear drives men to follow
counsel of doubtful prudence, the warning or displeasure of a
true friend becomes irksome. The step David proposed to
take was unworthy of his past history. It was sure to lead
him into danger; it might even imperil his chance of ascend-
ing the throne. But fear blinded his judgment ; perhaps also
the temper of his men, indisposed to risk such campaigns as
^ David was quoting the popular laAV-book, Deut. xiii. 6, 7 : 'If thy brother
or thy son entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods. ' The
word mtice is translated stir up in Samuel. Let us keep the same rendering in
both passages, since the word is the same. We then have, ' If a mean man's
sons have enticed thee, cursed be they, . . . they have driven me out from
the Lord's inheritance, saying, Go, serve other gods' (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). The
passage is full of Deuteronomy. 'The Lord's inheritance' (Deut. ix. 26), and
' serve other gods, ' are common phrases in it.
202 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
tliey had already gone through, forced on him a policy of
which he disapproved.
For five or six years this struggle had continued between
Providence and the king of Israel It was like many more
struggles, of which the ripened fruit in man's experience is
the proverb, Threatened men live long. But it differed from
them in several of its leading features. David knew he was
anointed to outlive Saul, and to take his place on the throne.
Whatever dangers befell him, a way of escape was certain to
be opened up, if the Prophet Samuel's word was a reality.
The risk of death from his persecutor's hand was great ; the
sweetness of his life was soured, and he could never count
on a moment of rest from pursuit by the king and his guards.
He lost faith in Providence ; he feared that Saul would suc-
ceed some day. Loss of faith, however pardonable it may
seem, led David to a line of action which caused him bitter
sorrow, many mistakes, and years of waiting for the fulfilment
of his hopes. Saul, on the other hand, knew he could not
take David's life. The anointing was a fact of which he was
probably aware, though the circumstances may have been
unknown to him. But twice he publicly declared his convic-
tion that David was destined to succeed him on the throne.
Yet his knowledge of God's arrangements for the future did
not deter him from striving to thwart them. He deliberately
undertook to cross the purposes of Heaven. And while he
was doing this, he expected Heaven to be on his side. Know-
ing the purposes of Providence, he fought against them all
these years. Madness was an almost inevitable result. Or,
if the fighting against Providence was a symptom of his mad-
ness, the longer he maintained the struggle, the more developed
would the madness become.
Achish Ben-Maoch gladly received the six hundred. In the
warlike country of the Pliilistines they could do no harm,
while, without risking the lives of his own soldiers, he might
despatch the Hebrews on enterprises of difficulty or danger.
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 203
But the people of Gatli could scarcely have relished an
encampment of outlaws either within or without the city.
They disliked them, as citizens dislike robbers ; and David
saw the propriety of moving his camp elsewhere. Without
assigning reasons for his wish to change, he asked the king
for a place in one of the cities of the Field, as the district
near tlie southern wilderness was called. Achish gave him
the town of Ziklag. The place formerly belonged to Simeon.
It was then in possession of the Philistines ; but by the gift
of Achisli it probably became henceforth part of David's
private estate. ISTor was it unreasonable to ask a town
near the desert. The flocks and herds owned by the
exiles could rancje over the wastes without cost or trouble.
And Achish may have looked on Ziklag as a border
fortress, which needed wise heads and strong arms for its
safe keeping against enemies. David thus served himself
by securing for his people's flocks as good pasture as could be
found in the Field, in which they formerly grazed, while
he also served Achish by throwing a garrison into a border
town. Neither of them looked farther into the future, or had
other ends in view. During a year and four months the
exiles held the town for Achish.
David had not been long in Ziklag before he began to
make forays against the tribes of the southern desert, people
with whom Judah was never at peace. The rovers of the
wilderness \vere feared by the nations near them as thieves
and cattle-lifters. Sometimes in large bands, at other times
in whole encampments, they stole from their fastnesses, and
threw themselves on the fields of Judah or Philistia. Corn
was trampled down, flocks and herds driven off, and the
people were either murdered or swept away into slavery.
An efficient police force on the border of the desert alone
prevented these raids. Between Israel and the rovers had
grown up a feud which nothing could appease. Every man
in David's band had thus a quarrel with them; from private
204 The Kingdom of All-Is7'ael: its History.
reasons, perhaps, certainly from national It had been handed
down from father to son with a strensjth of hatred unknow^i
to nations that enjoy the blessings of good government.
When looked at from our western point of view, these blood
quarrels seem a scandal to the people by whom they were
cherished. But this is judging others by our ways, and is
setting up our own blessings as a standard for all time.
Karrow-mindedness was shown in these feuds, a want of right
principle also, and a disregard of the divine command that
the son shall not bear the punishment of the father's crime.
But we ourselves may show as much narrow-mindedness in
passing severe judgment on times and ways altogether unlike
our own.
Standing forth as the champion of his own people, even in
the land of their enemies, David found employment for his
followers in avenging this ancient feud. By doing so he
hoped to earn the thanks of his countrymen, and enrich his
own band. ISTor were these rovers friends of Achish, for the
fields of Philistia offered them a more tempting prey than the
hills of Judah. They dwelt in the sandy wastes that stretch
from the south of Judah to the Isthmus of Suez and the
banks of the Nile. Their camping grounds, the seasons at
which they shifted their abodes, the lines of road across the
wastes, and the springs of water, w^ere known to many in
David's band. It was therefore an easy matter for the six
hundred, leaving their wives and children safe in Ziklag, to
venture into tlie desert, to watch their chance, and to smite
an encampment when no enemy was believed to be near. On
these forays the rule was to bring neither man nor woman
away alive ; no one w^as left to tell the tale. The story of
the ruin that befell an unsuspecting camp was thus kept from
reaching the ears of Achish. If any rovers escaped into the
desert, their fate would be worse than that of their kindred
who perished by the sword, unless they reached the distant
camp of a friendly tribe. Sheep, oxen, asses, camels, clothing.
David an Outlaw and an Exile. 205
were part of the spoil taken. Nor did David conceal these
raids from Achish. After his return to Ziklag with the
plunder of a desert camp, he repaired to Gath, and boasted of
his success in ravaging the fields of his countrymen and their
friends. Achish believed him, especially when a large share
of the spoil fell to him and his captains. ' Have ye not
made a road to-day?' was the usual question put when
David presented himself at court. ' Yes/ was the exile's
answer, varied according to his humour, ' against the south of
Judah, or of the Jerahmeelites, or of the Kenites.' Achish,
as simple as he was four years previously, when he thought
David's acting true madness, prided himself on the thorn he
had found for pricking the side of Israel. ' He is thoroughly
abhorred of his own people,' he said to his courtiers ; ' he shall
be my servant for ever.' The filling of their hands with gold
and of their folds with flocks helped very much to make the
wisest among them see as their master saw, and feel as he
felt. For more than a year David was able to play this
deceitful game, but not without punishment.
C H A P T E E VIII.
THE DEATH OF SxiUL.
(1 Sam. xxviii. 1-2 Sam. ii. 4 ; 1 Chron. x. 1-xii. 22.)
The quarrel between Saul and Samuel, tlie slaughter of the
priests of 'Nob, and the flight of David to the Philistines'
country, betoken a kingdom divided against itself. Foreign
invasion was almost certain to follow. In truth, little more
than a year elapsed between the flight of David and the
death of Saul in a disastrous battle on Mount Gilboa.
Although the guilt of the nation's ruin ought not to be laid
on David, he cannot be wholly excused. A champion of the
Hebrews, so distinguished as he was ; a son-in-law, too, of their
kino' could not transfer his own services and those of his
trained followers to a hostile race without fostering, in its
leading men, the hope of speedily overcoming a weakened foe.
Safety for himself and his followers cannot be pleaded in excuse
for David's conduct. He had forsaken his country : his
country, as it was bound to do, repaid his unworthiness by
forsaking him. Seven years of humiliation were required to
prove that he was still a Hebrew and a patriot. Both the
anointed king and the high priest of Israel had sought
refuge in the Philistines' country.
Considering the time favourable for recovering their lost
dominion, the Philistine lords prepared to seize the centre of
the Hebrews' land with a powerful force. As soon as this
resolution was taken, Achish summoned David from Ziklag
to Gath. ' Know assuredly,' he said, ' that with me thou
shalt go in the host, thou and thy men.' It must have been
The Death of Said. 207
unwelcome tidings to the Hebrew prince. But, putting tlie
best face be could on the affair, be replied, wdtb singularly
cautious courtesy, ' Therefore tbou sbalt know wbat tby
servant shall do.' Achish understood the words in a different
sense from what was perhaps intended. He believed David
to be a renegade Hebrew\ He knew also that renegades are
desperate men, who expect no mercy from those they have
forsaken, and who only prove their truth to those they have
joined, by deeds from which other men shrink. But Achish
did not consider David to be, as he was, a pretended
renegade, walking on a knife edge, carrying his life in his
hand almost every hour. ' Therefore,' said the befooled
Philistine, ' keeper of mine head will I make thee all the
time of the war.' Falsehood had brought things to a crisis
with David. By pretending treason to his own people, he
was lifted to honour among its enemies. To have fled from
Ziklag to Judah would have been his safest course ; to have
offered his sword and those of his followers to Saul w^ould have
been honourable. To have plainly told Achish, I cannot fight
against mine own people, would have been the most honest
course of all. But he had tied his hands by the pretended
raids on Judah. He preferred to dissemble, or to wait on
events, in the hope of finding a loophole of escape. To his
disgrace he joined the soldiers of Achish when they marched
to invade the land of the Hebrew^s.
The Philistines advanced aloncj the level OTound between
the hills of Ephraim and the Mediterranean sea-shore, till
they reached the great opening which gave them admission
to the plain of Jezreel. The road was the same along which
Egyptian armies had marched centuries before, and which
caravans took in their trading journeys from Damascus to the
Nile (Gen. xxxvii. 25). Eising by a gradual ascent through
a broad valley from the Mediterranean plain, it fell as gently
into the rich fields of Jezreel. Mounted archers and a
chariot force secured freedom of way for the invaders. Xo
2o8 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
rocky passes lay on the route, such as those at Betl>-horon and
Aijalon, which proved fatal to their fathers in the beginning
of Saul's reign. ISTor do these passes, leading to the highlands
of Benjamin, appear to have been in their keeping at this time
as they were then. A cautious advance, through a country
dangerous for Hebrew foot -soldiers against a strong cavalry
force, implies far less confidence in the invaders at the end of
Saul's reign than they showed at the beginning of it and in
the middle. But their march was unopposed. They traversed
the plain of Jezreel from west to east till they pitched their
camp at Shunem, a town in the tribe of Issachar, with the
heights of Gilboa on their right hand and Little Hermon on
their left. Their progress was watched by Saul with his
infantry. By short marches along the hills he kept abreast
of the enemy in the plain below. But at last the two armies
came within striking distance of each other, though there
seems to have been no reason for Saul seeking a battle.
"Had he held aloof, the tide of invasion might have spent its
force in wasting the rich lands of Jezreel, and then with-
drawing behind its own borders. But in those days two
thunder-clouds of war seldom came into the same neighbour-
hood without collision and a torrent of bloodshed.
From the high ground of Gilboa, Saul looked down on the
enemies' array, several hundred feet below. Its imposing
appearance filled him with fear ; ' his heart greatly trembled.'
Although he was close to the scene of Gideon's great exploit,
when the three hundred vanquished a hundred thousand in-
vaders, he felt the sinking of heart which precedes defeat.
Perhaps he was camped near the same fountain Harod (Terror),
at which they were chosen for the fight. But to him it was a
place of terror, not of hope. Gideon felt that the Lord was
with him ; Saul said the Lord was departed from him. This
difference of belief explains the difference felt by the two
Hebrew leaders between certainty of victory and fear of
defeat. A small body of men followed Gideon ; a large
The Death of SatcL 209
army — All-Israel — followed Saul ; but the strength of the
Hebrews did not lie in numbers. The dream of a soldier in
the enemy's camp, overheard by Gideon, gave encouragement
for the attack ; but no dream came to hearten Saul or any of
his advisers. Night after night passed without a revelation
of the future. Prophets and sons of the prophets thronged
the schools of learning in the land, or attended the patriot
army in its march along the hills. But no message of
warning or of guidance came from any of them. Every
tongue was silent, though the king seems to have sought far
and near for help. One resource remained. The high priest,
Abiathar, was in David's company in the Philistine camp.
But Saul had the ark in his keeping. Undoubtedly also he
had chosen a successor to the high priest Ahimelech, whom
he had slain. Although history is silent on the subject, the
king was far too superstitious to remain without a priest as
chief representative of the nation's faith. Whoever that
priest may have been, — whether Jehoiada or the father of
Zadok, — the lost king turned to him in his distress. He
had the high priest's ephod, with Urim and Thummim, and
the ark of God. But neither light nor guidance appeared
from that source. All was dark save one thing. Truth was
told to the king even by the hands of the priest whom he
had himself appointed. Every time the light and truth of the
sacred breastplate were appealed to, no light broke the dark-
ness ; but the truth was plain. No answer of yes or no was
returned to the king's anxious questionings. All was dark.
But as often as the attempt was made to obtain an answer,
the blank stone, or whatever else stood for it, came out in the
priest's hand. It meant God's silence : He refused to answer.
To Saul it was clear that he was forsaken of Heaven ; his
advisers had the same feeling. Once before the king ex-
perienced a similar sense of forsaking. A great triumph had
been gained over the Philistines. A greater seemed certain ;
but before the blow was struck, the high priest vainly asked
0
2IO The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
guidance from the Urim of the breastplate pocket. The king
turned in great ahirm from the enemy, and was driven to
condemn to death Jonathan, the best of his sons. The same
shadow had again crossed Saul's path : silence in presence of
the same Philistine enemy brought back to him that dreadful
past, and suggested a more dismal future. ' The Lord
answered him not, neither by dreams nor by the Urim, nor
by the prophets.' The singular omission of Thummim, which
follows Urim in other passages, shows the accuracy of the
story. While Urim means light, Thummim means truth.
The former was refused ; the latter was given. ' God is
departed from me ' was the truth which Saul had learned ;
but it brought no light to his troubled heart.
Overcome with terror, haunted by the evil conscience of
many a wicked deed, this sorely beset king resolves to gain
by unhallowed means an insight into tlie purposes of Heaven,
which he was not allowed to secure by its usual agents.
What he once abhorred, he now had recourse to — the forbidden
art of witchcraft. Some of his retinue appear to have been
beforehand with him in the attempt thus to discover the
future. Perhaps, also, they suggested to their unhappy
master the means, which they themselves believed might be
effectual for the purpose. A heathen like Doeg, or Saul's
Amalekite slayer, though a proselyte to the Hebrew faith,
w-ould retain enough of the old nature in him to find it
asserting its power when life reached one of its turning-
points. But if they suggested, the king only could give the
order : '■ Seek ye for me a woman, mistress of a spirit, that I
may inquire by her.' The servants were ready with the
answer: * Behold a woman, mistress of a spirit, in Endor.'^
When night fell on the hostile armies, Saul, accompanied by
^ This story of the witch has given rise to endless controversy. * The fathers,
reformers, and earlier Christian theologians, with very few exceptions, assumed
that there was not a real appearance of Samuel, but only an imaginary one, '
*Saul does not appear to have seen the apparition himself.' These are the
The Death of SauL 211
two of his officers, ventured on the journey to Endor. He
had spent the hours of daylight in the feverish anxiety which
a mind, ah-eady partly unhinged, could not but feel on taking
a step which all its previous actions condemned. And he
had weakened himself still more by a whole day's fast,
apparently a common way with Saul of displaying his
religious zeal. Endor lay high on the hill slopes, about ten
miles across the valley from Gilboa. Philistine soldiers
swarmed in the low grounds, and rendered the passage from
the south side to the north unsafe. A toilsome night journey
of several miles round the eastern edge of their camp had thus
to be undertaken by the excited and weakened king. Most
of it was also by difficult hill paths along rugged ground.
He was not less than sixty years of age, perhaps he was
nearer seventy. Even, then, though he rode to Endor and
back, his constitution must have been originally of iron to
have stood the strains imposed on it by the anxiety and
fasting of the day, followed by the terrors of the night.
It was thought advisable for Saul to disf^juise himself. He
and his two companions might fall into the enemy's hands as
they crossed the valley. By passing themselves off for
country people fleeing before the storm of war, they might
hope more readily to escape injury. A different reason may
have led the king ' to put on other raiment ' — a desire to
conceal his rank from the ' mistress of the spirit.' It was an
inconsistent act ; but superstition is seldom logical in its
conclusions. He expected to discover the future by means of
a woman from whom he hoped to conceal the present, easily
ascertainable though it was. This attempt at concealment
shows the king to have been in some degree known to the
woman, as his attendants had probably become aware. And
if they arranged this meeting between their master and the
words of Keil and Delitzsch, who believe Samuel really appeared. But tliey
and other writers have overlooked many things which require to be considered
in forming a judgment on this subject.
212 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
witch, they must have given her reason to expect a visit from
a man of consequence. At least everything passes off as if
all the steps had been carefully arranged beforehand. The
journey across the valley was made in safety. The road to
the village was not missed in the darkness, as it easily might
have been ; and the discovery of the woman's abode, even
* by night,' shows an acquaintance with the place on the part
of Saul's attendants, which indicates a previous visit, if not
preparedness in the woman to receive her visitors. Probably
the witch's first sight of the tall stranger disclosed to her his
rank, if she entertained any doubt of it before. He speaks
for himself ; his words are words of command ; he treats his
companions as of no account. A man, who had for many
years spoken as a king in council and in battle, was less able
in this hour of weakness to put on another mind than to put
on other clothes. His rank shines through his words in the
woman's hut. Even though she had never seen him before,
she is too sharp not to recognise his great stature, — a head
taller than the rest of the people, — to discern the ring of
command in his voice, and to see for herself that the king
was come to ask her help that night. The scourge of her
race is now in her power. The man who had burned and
slain her kindred, and had made life a constant danger to
herself, is a suppliant at her feet. She knows the story of
his madness, his suspicions of David, his dethronement by
Samuel, his forsaking by God. People like her made it their
business to wring from terrified dupes secrets which the world
at large might not be familiar with, and might never come to
know. And the wheel of fortune had at last brought to her
feet the king, with whom she and her race were at deadly
feud : ' Divine now for me by the spirit ; and bring thou up
for me whom I shall name to thee.' ^
■^ The Hebrew word for divine is unknown in the Pentateuch except in the
witch-law (Deut. xviii. 10-14). It occurs twice in Samuel. Divination occurs
in Num. xxii. 7, xxiii. 23 ; Deut. xviii. 10. Ex. xxii. 18 cannot have been the
The Death of SauL 213
These words of the king reveal his acquaintance with the
language of necromancy — its inconsistencies and its delusions.
While regarding the woman as ' the mistress of a spirit/ Saul
believed her or her spirit able to ' bring up ' from the abodes
of the dead any one whom he wished to consult. The woman
is a medium between the living and the dead. So Saul
regards her. Evidently he expects the departed, whom she
or her spirit shall bring up at his wish, to speak to himself
directly, and to be spoken to in return by him. But this is
not the witch's view ; though, with the cunning of her race,
she waits the march of events, and holds her hand till
circumstances shape her course. She parries his demand.
' Behold,' she says with well-affected surprise, ' thou knowest
what Saul hath done, that he hath cut off the spirits and the
wizards out of the land : wherefore, then, layest thou a snare
for my life to cause me to die ? ' Every word she spoke
must have made the king wince under her eye. She mentions
his name, instead of calling him the king or our lord the
king: 'Saul hath done.' She reminds him of his zeal in
rooting out her kindred from the land; and she reproaches
him with the meanness of seeking to entrap a lone woman,
into a deed which might cause her death. By her skilful
words he is drawn on to speak still more clearly, and as the
king only could. Saul swears to her : ' As the Lord liveth,
there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.'
Both witch and king recognised Jehovah as far higher than
any of the spirits who could be made to speak. An oath in
His name was thus intended to shield from punishment the
doer of deeds which His law condemned. Inconsistency and
delusion run through the whole of this sorrowful business.
* Whom shall I bring up for thee?' said the woman, now feel-
law followed by Saul, though Colenso (vii. 140) cites it as his autliority. Again,
*to lay a snare'— a word used by the witch {1 Sam. xxviii. 9)— occurs five times
in all, once in Deuteronomy, once in Samuel, and three times in the Psalms.
Saul and the historian were familiar with Deuteronomy.
214 '^^^^ Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
ing sure of her game. ' Bring up Samuel for me/ said the
king. Shortly before the beginning of his reign, he appears
to have been ignorant of the great prophet's name. At the
end of it, not two years after the prophet's death, he expects
this wretched woman in the lonely village of Endor to know
where Samuel was in the abodes of the dead, and to bring
him back to the realms of the living.
The tricks and charms which preceded the great event of
Samuel's appearance are supposed by some to have been
managed, not in the woman's hut, but in one of the numerous
caves near Endor,^ and in presence of Saul only. However,
neither did the strangers require to leave her house, nor
were the two followers shut out, while the divining was going
on. It is quite as easy to terrify three dupes as to terrify
one ; indeed, it is sometimes easier, especially when the alarm
of each of them is heightened by the words and looks of the
others. Perhaps a few silly tricks were at first paraded to
cheat the visitors into the belief of something great coming,
before she began the business which lay nearest Saul's heart.
The names by which women of her mode of life went in those
days were ' bottles ' and ' knowers,' words which are rendered
in our version, ' having familiar spirits ' and ' soothsayers.'
They may have been called * bottles ' from a custom they had
of making their god seem to speak out of a skin bottle, or
from the stoutness of their bodies, by which they looked like
bottles swelled with wine. Their art lay in practising what is
known as ventriloquism.^ By first speaking with the natural
voice, and then suddenly changing its tone, they made it
appear as if they were talking with a spirit underground. By
such tricks this witch-woman cheated her dupes. Eeading in
their faces what they wished or what they feared, or working
out of them by leading questions their hopes and sorrows, she
gave them back as if from a spirit, but in reality by her own
^ ^QQ Recovery of Jerusalem, 459.
^ See the Greek trauslation of 1 Chroii. x. 13. Corap. Isa. xxix. 4.
The Death of Saul, 2 1 5
changed voice, what she had taken from their faces or their
words. She first read their hearts by their looks ; then with
a false voice, which they mistook for an unseen being's, she
gave them the results of that reading. Having thus thrown a
spell around her dupes, she got them to believe that, leagued
with higher powers, she knew more of the future than they
did. The witch of Endor was no wiser than Saul and his two
men. She knew no more about their fate or the coming over-
throw of the Hebrews than they did ; and she had no means
of knowing. But she was able to guess what would soon
happen. She saw the shadow of disaster resting on the
Hebrew camp ; she believed the disaster could not be long
in coming. Saul and his brave sons, looking on defeat as
ruinous to their country, would dare everything to maintain
its honour ; if worsted, they would likely fall in battle. These
probabilities were fairly within her reach. Like all the gipsy
tribe, to which she belonged, her skill had often been spent in
hitting on facts by choosing the likeliest of probabilities.
And on this occasion, the crowning triumph of her life, she
contrived to weave them into a w^eb which turned out, in
most of its threads at least, to be something better than
gossamer.
Looking earnestly forward, and making her visitors believe
that she saw somewhat, she cried out, seemingly in the utmost
distress, * Why hast thou deceived me ? for thou art Saul.' She
saw nothing to make her thus afraid. Her discovery of tlie
king was a pretence, as well as her terror lest he was laying a
snare for her life. She had delayed till then coming out with
what she knew long before. It suited her purpose to astonish
the king, to throw him into confusion, and to secure a breath-
ing space before making her next move. Saul, seeing nothing
himself, but devoutly believing she saw something concealed
from his eyes, reassures her : ' Be not afraid ; for what sawest
thou ? ' ' Gods,' she said, ' I saw ascending out of the earth,'
— a form of words without meanimr that nidit, and without
2i6 ' The Kingdom of All-Is7'ael : its History,
bearing on the words which follow. In reading the faces of
her dupes, the woman, like most others of her class, was
quick-witted and ready. In venturing into the region of the
unknown, she turns out to be a common cheat. But the
king, thinking always of Samuel, puts a meaning on her
words to suit himself. 'What form is he of?' he asked,
though she had said nothing to make him put that question,
or that could lead him to imagine she was speaking of only
one being. Keminded of her visitor by these words, she
answered, 'An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a
mantle.' And then Saul, believing his wishes fulfilled, but
seeing nothing all the while, is certain it is Samuel, and casts
himself on the ground before the imagined prophet. ' An old
man wrapped in a mantle ' was a description which held good
of ten thousand old men as well as Samuel. Had the witch
been dealing with men of sound reason, she could not have
carried the cheat much further. But so shattered is the
mind of the king, that, giving himself wholly up to the
woman, he sees with her eyes and hears with her ears, instead
of using his own. Saul saw nobody but the witch, and the
sacred writer has recorded only what the witch said she saw
or heard.
It is now the woman's turn to avenge, on the persecutor
of her race, the wrongs done to herself and to her kindred.
With unpitying stroke does her sword cut every chord in the
bosom of the king. Unseen by him as he lay prostrate on
the ground, or by his cowering followers, she has now ample
room for playing off her tricks. Slowly, and in the low
wailing tone which was thought best suited to the spirits of
the dead, the woman, casting her voice towards the imaginary
spirit, begins, 'Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me
up ? ' Samuel is speaking to Saul ! The bewildered king
replies by the story of his distress : ' God is departed from
me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by
dreams ; therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make
The Death of Said. 217
known unto me what I shall do.' Then the full storm of the
witch's malignity bursts on Saul, bearing all the more heavily
on him from its likeness to the truth. ' Wherefore, then, dcst
thou ask of me,' said the Voice, ' seeing the Lord is departed
from thee, and is become thine enemy ? And the Lord hath
done to him [for himself] as He spake by me ; for the Lord
hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy
neighbour, even to David : because thou obeyedst not the
voice of the Lord, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon
Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee
this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with
thee into the hand of the Philistines : and to-morrow shalt
thou and thy sons be with me \ yes, the Lord shall deliver
the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.' The
woman has emptied her quiver into Saul's heart. In the
compass of a few words she sums up a roll of griefs that
strikes him with terror. Wearied with his toilsome journey,
and overcome by a lengthened fast, his body cannot bear up
under these tortures of the mind. Surely a groan of anguish
came from him when the woman said, ' To-morrow shalt thou
and thy sons be with me ; ' for, as if to give it more piercing
power, she repeated what she said before, ' Yes, the Lord shall
deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.'
As these words leave her lips, Saul swoons away on the floor
of the hut. And the scene ends.
The words of the Voice were well fitted to fill the king
with terror. They brought back to his mind that day of
anguish, when the clouds began to gather thickly on his
reason, his hopes, and his house. He had heard part of them
before from the lips of Samuel himself in Gilgal. When the
prophet was then tearing himself away in anger after the
mismanaged expedition against Amalek, the king took hold
of his mantle to detain him, and in the struggle rent off the
^ The Greek translators were shocked at this sentiment ; they altered it into,
* Thou and thy sons with thee shall fall. '
2 1 8 Ihe Kingdom of All-Israel : Us History,
skirt : ' Jehovah/ exclaimed the angry seer, ' hath rent the
kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a
neighbour of thine, that . is better than thou,' almost the very
words which were uttered in the witch's hut. She knew
what Abigail knew, what all Israel had long known, the
rending of the kingdom from Saul, and the giving of it to
David. Eather we should say that she had access to a more
accurate knowledge of what took place at that interview than
most of the Hebrews. From Saul's peculiar temperament,
it may be doubted if he could conceal from his servants the
threats of Samuel, and the fears they had caused him. Two
of these servants were then w4th him. If one or both of
them had visited the witch before, on what would the con-
versation more naturally turn than on the hopes and fears of
the king, representing as these did the hopes and fears of the
whole army ? What would the servants be more likely to
repeat than the terrible words which Saul could not keep to
himself? But by whatever means she got this knowledge,
she could not have planted a more stinging arrow in Saul's
heart. Her vengeance was taken without stint or mercy.
This reference to the interview between Samuel and Saul
raises suspicions of the woman's honesty. Of the rending of
Samuel's garment, and of the rending of the kingdom from
Saul, All-Israel soon knew, for the thing was not done, nor the
words spoken, out of sight or earshot of others. But at that
interview the seer had also said, ' Bebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft.' Saul was guilty of the former in not obeying the
voice of Jehovah ; in seeking the help of a witch, he was
guilty of the latter. The pretended Samuel, while inveighing
against the king for rebellion, says not one word about witch-
craft, though he quotes from the memorable conversation in
which these two were joined together as equally hateful to
Jehovah. If Samuel was really in the hut, this passing by of
the sin of witchcraft is an inexplicable feature in the story.
If the woman was speaking in the prophet's name, it is only
The Death of SatcL 219
what she would have done. Manifestly, the seer had no
hand in what was passing in the witch's hut. It may seem
strange that the woman knew of the battle on the morrow,
and of the doom of Saul and his sons. But the word
rendered ' to-morrow ' has a wider and less definite meaning
in the Hebrew than in the English. Besides, the historian
does not say that the battle was then fought. Many good
men who have studied this subject regard the witch's fears
and the appearance of Samuel as realities. In answer to, or
on the back of her incantations, Samuel returned to this world
to upbraid his fallen favourite, and to terrify this wretched
woman. But it jars on our feelings of right and wrong to
imagine the arts of a witch, silly as they must appear to us,
answered, or seeming to be answered, by an appearance in
bodily form of the sainted dead, disturbed from its peaceful
rest. Or is it possible that the awakened sleeper should
complain as the Voice complained, and should even use the
word common in the tricks of necromancers, ' Why hast thou
disquieted me, to hriiig me up .? ' Or is it to be thought that
Samuel, who mourned over Saul's rejection from being king,
should, in the darkest hour of that prince's life, twit him with
the name of David, and utter useless taunts, while he passed
by the sin of consulting a witch, which pious Hebrews shrank
from as rebellion against Jehovah ? The story reads like a
clever piece of vengeful trickery by the witch. There is
nothing in it which bears the stamp of a message from heaven.
And it would be indeed singular if God, after refusing to
answer the rebel king by Urim and Thummim in His own
appointed way, or by visions, or by dreams, should even seem
to employ the unholy service of an artful woman.
Alarmed at her success in frightening the king, the witch
ran up to him where he lay stretched on the floor. Bead-
ing in his haggard looks want of food as much as terror, she
entreated him to partake of a morsel of bread. But the king
refused. Perhaps he wished in that hour of darkness to find
2 20 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History,
a riddance from his load of sorrow in speedy death. But it
is more agreeable to his character to imagine that Saul had
been fasting as a means of gaining the favour of Jehovah, and
that he was bent on keeping that fast for a longer time.
With a stubbornness that was deeply rooted in his nature, he
refused to eat in answer to all the woman's entreaties. His
two followers, standing aloof at first, and looking on the witch
as a superior being, whose word should have far more weight
than theirs, joined in entreating him to partake of food.
Perhaps they were not less faint than he ; at least they had
no chance of a meal unless he should consent. With much
difficulty the three prevailed. Saul rose from the ground and
lay down on a bed, while the woman got ready food for her
guests. A calf was sacrificed, that is, killed, broth was pre-
pared, and cakes were baked. After partaking of these the
king and his men set out for the camp, which they reached
before daybreak.
It is natural to ask how a story so extraordinary found its
way into the sacred record. If we look on it as a mere piece
of history, the details must have been got either from Saul or
from the servants, for they did not come from the woman. The
two men were thoroughly deceived. They would speak of the
appearance of Samuel as a fact ; they all heard a conversation
between the Voice and Saul; and if they whispered the
night's adventure to their friends, it would be with the air
and colouring of a real visit from the world of spirits. The
story, as told in the book of Samuel, is undoubtedly such a
story as the king and his servants would relate. It has a
weird, unearthly air about it, as if bearing the stamp of their
terror, and coined in the gloom of the witch's hut. But a
story, coming direct from one of the principal actors, is pre-
cisely what the sacred writer would have inserted in his
history without note or comment of his own. Having satisfied
himself of the accuracy of the facts (Luke i. 3), he gives them
as matters of history, making no remark on them, and allowing
The Death of SauL 221
his readers to draw conclusions from principles recorded in
more ancient writings. The books of Samuel are written on
the plan of recording facts ; and the adventure of Saul in the
witch's hovel is a case in point. The historian has related
all that happened, or was thought to have happened ; he has
committed himself to no judgment for or against the witch's
power ; he has only laid bare the sin of Saul in believing that
a mortal could awake the dead in defiance of Heaven, and
draw aside the veil which conceals the future.
The hostile armies were only a few miles apart. The
plain of Jezreel, which the Philistines entered from the south-
west, is bounded on the east by two ranges of hills, Gilboa
and Little Hermon, between which lies a valley, narrowing
near the town of Jezreel to a mile in breadth, and sloping
down a wide plain to the Jordan. Several springs, rising on
the flanks of these ranges, flow eastward into that river. The
largest of them, known as the Fountain of Jezreel, bubbles
forth with much noise and a great rush of water at the foot
of Gilboa, near the narrow neck of the valley. About four
miles due north of this fountain was the town of Shunem, not
far from the roots of Little Hermon. The Hebrew army,
resting on the hill-sides, which rise high above the Fountain
of Jezreel, could betake themselves to the loftier heights of
Gilboa in their rear if they were unable to withstand the
invaders. But they were so placed that the Philistines could
not enter the broader valley, leading down to Bethshan and
the Jordan, without fighting at a disadvantage. And it may
have been the plan of the invasion to march down this pass
to the ford, to cross the river, and to waste the fertile fields
of Gilead. By this means the most favoured regions of Israel
would have been trampled down. Saul was watching the
mouth of the pass with the Hebrew army. If the enemy
attempted to enter, a battle could not be avoided.
Before engaging with the Hebrews, the leaders of the
Philistines held a review of their forces at the town of Aphek,
222 The Ki7igdom of All-Israel: its History.
in the plain of Jezreel. During the march past, the prince
under whose banners those who were passing happened to be
ranged, left his place among the chiefs and marched in the
rear with his bodyguard. But the guardsmen of Achish
were David's six hundred exiles. Abiathar, the high priest of
Jehovah, was with them. A high priest of the true faith was
marching to battle in the ranks of the heathen against his
own countrymen ! As these exiles approached the chiefs, their
equipment and their cast of countenance caught the eye.
Murmurs arose at Hebrews being allowed to join the army.
Renegades from Israel had filled up the Philistine ranks
before this time. But the Philistines had cause to repent their
rashness in trustiug traitors. As soon as disaster threatened
the Philistine arms, the renegades passed over in a body to their
countrymen. To the treachery of their Hebrew allies was
partly due one of the most overwhelming defeats ever inflicted
on the Philistines. Although ten or fifteen years had elapsed
since then, many captains in the invading army were old
enough to remember that day of shame, and w^th influence
sufficient to prevent a like result from the same cause. With
good reason the assembled chiefs murmured at the want of
judgment displayed by Achish. ' What,' they say, ' do these
Hebrews here ? ' Surprised, as it were, at their ignorance of
the brave band he had taken into his pay, Achish replies, ' Is
not this David which hath been with me this year or two,
and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me ? '
But the princes were not so easily cheated as Achish.
' Wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master ?
Should it not be with the heads of these men ? Is not this
David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying,
Saul slew by his thousands, and David by his ten thousands V
They had reason to be alarmed. In David's men they saw
a band of disciplined troops, trained to obey one will, to act
together in battle, and who had already reaped a dowry of death
from ' the heads of these men ' of the Philistines. And the
The Death of SauL 223
danger of a band like his deserting, or falling on their un-
guarded rear at the crisis of battle, was too great a risk to be
run. A panic might seize the rude levies of which their
army was mostly made up ; and with ordinary vigour on the
part of Saul to second his servants' onset, this well-planned
inroad would end in disaster. These fears of the princes
resulted in orders for the Hebrews to return to Ziklao-.
o
Summoning David to his tent that night, Achish said to him,
' Surely as Jehovah liveth,' — a form of oath taught him per-
haps by David, — ' thou hast been upright, and thy going out
and thy coming in with me in the host is good in my sight ;
nevertheless, the lords favour thee not. Wherefore now go in
peace.' Glad though David was at this unlooked-for deliver-
ance, he put on the air of an injured man who was kept back
without cause from fighting for his ' lord the king.' Fairly
understood, these words, ' my lord the king,' mean Achish ;
but in his heart David may have meant Saul, king of Israel.
Deceived by his forwardness, the Philistine gave fresh assur-
ances of the value he set on David's services : ' I know that
thou art good in my sight, as an angel of God.' Then bidding
him depart as soon as it was morning, Achish dismissed the
Hebrew captain, to see him no more, perhaps, till at the head
of All-Israel he defeated the Philistines before the very city
where Achish held his court, and where he had received the
outlaw in peace.
About a week or ten days after David marched southward
the battle was fought. The Philistines, emboldened by the
want of spirit in their opponents, climbed the heights and
speedily scattered the Hebrews. Following the beaten army
along the ridge of Gilboa, the invaders strewed the path with
dead and wounded. Among those who fled was Saul. His
three brave sons, Jonathan, Melchishua, and Abinadab, fell in
battle, or in attempting to conduct their father safely from
the field. No one was left with the king but his armour-
bearer. Wounded by the mounted archers who, recognising
2 24 ^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
him by the crown which he wore, were pressing hard on him,
the king besought the armour-bearer to draw his sword and
run him through. But the young man was terrified at the
request. A refusal did not change the king's mind. Leaning
on his spear, he reflected for a little on the rash step despair
was driving him to take. At last, wearied of a life that had
become a burden, he snatched the sword from the armour-
bearer. His own appears to have been lost in the battle.
Planting the hilt in the ground, he fell on the point. The
young man drew it out of his master's body. He could do
nothing to save him. But though the king may have given
himself a death-wound, he lived for some time after. To the
armour-bearer it seemed a point of honour to follow where
Saul had shown the way. Planting the sword again in the
ground he also fell on the point, and died beside his master.
A young Amalekite saw all that took place. Approaching
the bodies, he found Saul still living, able, indeed, at the
sound of footsteps, to raise himself partly from the ground.
The terror of falling alive into the Philistines' hands had
strengthened the dying man for this last effort. But he saw
that it was a young Amalekite, a Hebrew slave, who was
standing near him. He besought the youth to finish the half-
done work. The destroyer of the young man s kindred en-
treated him to destroy in turn. Knowing that Saul could not
survive the deadly hurt he had given himself, the Amalekite
plucked the sword out of the bosom of the armour-bearer
and plunged it through the heart of Saul. He then stripped
the dead body of its kingly ornaments, the crown and the
bracelet ; he hid them in his dress, and hurried southward
with his prize.^
When the dwellers in the fertile valleys near the battlefield
1 By combining two independent accounts of one and the same event, we
thus obtain a clear view of all the circumstances. The theory of two documents,
two authors, two traditions, with other modern shifts, does not require to be
examined.
The Death of Saul. 225
saw the day turning against their countrymen, they left their
homes and fled across the Jordan. Others, living at a greater
distance from the field, also abandoned their cities. Among:
these were many of the villagers on the western bank of the
Jordan, and the people of several towns in the tribe of
Benjamin. Gibeah, Saul's own city, was thrown into terror.
The royal family fled for their lives. In the flight the nurse
let fall Meri-baal, or Mephibosheth,^ the son of Jonathan, then
a child of five years of age. As they had no time to attend
to the hurt the boy had received, he was lamed for life in
body, and perhaps also in mind. Many of the places which
their inhabitants thus abandoned were seized by the Philis-
tines. The fortress of Bethshan, situated at the east end of
the plain of Jezreel, on a height which slopes down to the
Jordan, was one of these towns.
The battle of Gilboa lasted till near sundown. On the
following morning the Philistines, when stripping the slain,
found the bodies of Saul and his three sons. Messengers
were immediately despatched with the heads and armour of
these princes to publish in Philistia the tidings of victory.
The head of Saul was fixed in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod ;
his armour was hung up in that of Ashtaroth. The four
bodies were then nailed in derision to the wall of Bethshan,
under the guard of a Philistine garrison. This outrage on the
national honour shamed into action some of the brave men
who still survived among the Hebrew^s. Within sight of the
ground on which Saul gained the great battle over ISTahash,
and on the wall of one of his own cities, the headless remains
were exposed. And the bodies of these princes might hang
there after the flesh had rotted off their bones, while, by the
law of Israel, the body of the most wicked wrong-doer could
not be exposed beyond sundown. No sooner were tidings of
this outrage carried across the Jordan than the men of Jabesh-
1 The two words have practically the same meaning, 'Contender against
Baal ' and ' Exterminator of an idol.'
P
^26 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its History,
Gilead, in grateful remembrance of the obligations under
which Saul had laid their fathers, resolved to carry off the
bodies. The country on the west of the river was swarming
with enemies. It was early spring, the time of barley harvest,
aad the river, swelled by the melting of the snows on Lebanon,
had overflowed its banks. But these Gadites of Jabesh were
men ' whose faces were like the faces of lions, and who were
as swift as the roes upon the mountains.'^ Travelling all
night, they reached Bethshan before daybreak, took down the
headless bodies, and set out on their return. But their march
lay through an enemy's country, though it was in their own
land. When morning broke, they had to fight their way.
Success attended them, for they drove off the inhabitants of
the valleys, or, it may be, the Anakim, both east and west.
On reaching Jabesh they burned the bodies to prevent the
Philistines repeating the outrage, and then, gathering the
ashes, buried them under an oak near the town.
While David was on his way to Ziklag from the Philistine
camp at Aphek, several men of rank belonging to the tribe
of Manasseh joined his band. The names of seven of them
are given (1 Chron. xii. 19-21). It tells a tale of misrule
when men, able to bear arms and esteemed brave soldiers,
abandon their king, turn their back on his field of battle, and
march off with one who came to take sides against him.
Bidding them welcom.e to fight under his banners, David gave
them a place among his captains. In two days the exiles
had nearly traversed the country between Aphek and Ziklag.
On the third day they reached home. But the town was
silent as the grave. Not a living thing was found in it.
Every house was burned to the ground. Wives, sons, and
daughters ; slaves, flocks, and herds ; gold, silver, garments.
^ 1 Chron. xii, 8-15. The deeds of the Gadites mentioned in this passage
may with all probability be referred to this time. The ' hold in the wilderness '
was Ziklag (1 Chron. xii. 1, 8), and ' the first month ' was the season of barley
harvest.
The Death of Said. 227
the gathered wealth of six years of hardship, were carried off
at one swoop. A bitter cry of grief from the six hundred
showed how deeply their hearts were stirred. At first they
laid the blame on David, and spoke of stoning him. Certainly
his want of foresight deserved punishment, for on him lay the
duty of guarding the town against surprise. His forays into
the southern desert had been repaid by a most successful raid
on his own fortress. Some of the wandering tribes, watching
their cliance, had thus aveno-ed the slaughter of their neisjh-
hours or allies. In the bitterness of that hour David felt the
remorse of a man whose sin has found him out. But, unless
he roused himself to action, he ran greater risks than any he
had yet encountered. The ruined houses and the neighbour-
ing wastes showed no signs of bloodshed. Every person and
thing had been carried off by the robbers ; not a single life
appeared to have been taken. With good reason David saw
ground for hope. Calling to Abiathar to put on the Ephod,
that he might take counsel of his Friend in heaven, he asked :
' Shall I pursue after this troop ? ' ^ Yes,' was the answer.
'Shall I overtake them?' he then asked. Again he was
answered, ' Yes.' Emboldened by answers so favourable, he
asked, ' Shall I recover all ? ' and again ' Yes ' was drawn by
the high priest. Encouraged by these answers, the exiles laid
aside their purpose of stoning David. From a shoreless sea of
sorrow they suddenly behold the wished-for land. They may
both recover their own, and seize what belongs to the robbers.
Setting out with his whole band, David tracked the robbers
as far as the brook Besor. He could not miss the road. It
was marked by traces of sheep and oxen and camels ; by
.pieces of clothing, by footprints, and by other tokens of man's
presence. The brook, on which he encamped for a little to
refresh his wearied men, was perhaps fifteen or twenty miles
from Ziklag. When they prepared again to start, two hundred
of them, worn out with fatigue, were unable to proceed.
Leaving them in charge of the baggage, David pushed forward
2 28 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
more rapidly with the other four hundred. Everything they
saw showed that the rovers, unable to move quickly, and
dreading no enemy, could not be far distant. At last the
advanced guard stumbled on the body of a man stretched on
the waste. He was not dead. Carrying him to David, who
was marching with the main army, they found that he had
fainted. A little water, a slice of fig-cake, and a couple
of pieces of raisin-cake, brought the man round. He was
soon able to answer the questions put to him. He was an
Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite chief. Falling sick, he
had been left behind about three days before. As the foray
had been unusually successful, it was not worth his master's
while to attend to things like slaves, of which he had then
such plenty. The south of Philistia, the south of Judah as far
as Hebron, had been plundered ; but the vengeance of the free-
booters fell especially on Ziklag. * We burned it with fire,'
he said. The mishap to Ziklag was then plain. Knowing
that all able-bodied men had been withdrawn from the south
to the plains of Jezreel, the Amalekite bands fell on the
country, meeting with no resistance, and carrying off every-
thing they could lay hands on. David inquired if the reviv-
ing slave could conduct them to the robbers. He said he
would, if David swore neither to kill him nor to give him up
to his master. In his half- opened eyes, these Hebrews seemed
a band of desert robbers in haste to join their kindred, by
whom he had been left behind. It was no rash promise he
made, for the roads in the desert, and the camping grounds of
the tribes, are nearly as well known as the streets of a great
city. The Egyptian knew where the rovers were at that
moment. If carried by the strong hands of the Hebrews, he
would soon guide them to the camp ; and he kept his word.
It was drawing towards evening when the pursuers came in
sight of the robbers. Creeping forward under shelter of the
sand -hillocks which break the level of these wastes, they
heard the merry noises of a rejoicing camp. From the higher
The Death of Saul, 2 2.9
mounds cautious spies could see groups of men eating and
drinking, bands of careless dancers, and sheep, oxen, and
camels. Far and wide there were riot and security. As
darkness came on, and blazing fires kept off the cold of a
spring night, the watchers could more freely take a view of
the revellers celebrating their triumphs. About twilight the
pursuers made their onset. Before the rovers were aware,
Hebrew swords were in the midst of the groups. The shouts
and the songs of revellers, who never won so easy a triumph
before, were drowned in the war-cries of foemen, or turned
into the silence of death. A surprise so sudden gave them no
time to think of fighting. Many were cut down at their
carousals ; none thought of dying like heroes, from whom the
tide of fortune has turned. Four hundred young men, hurry-
ing like cowards to the swift dromedaries in the camp, mounted
and fled. The desert was a trap from which, when once
caught, the robbers had no chance of escape. It was death
by the sword if they faced the assailant ; it was death by
hunger and thirst if they concealed themselves in the ravines
of the desert. Many attempted to escape by hiding behind
the sand-hills, or in the dried beds of winter torrents. But
they had to deal with soldiers as thoroughly acquainted with
the wilderness and its people as were they themselves. For a
night and a day David and his men made a search after the
rovers. None escaped except the four hundred who secured
the swift dromedaries. The blood feud between Hebrew and
Amalekite had again borne bitter fruit. That cry for blood
had never been appeased. And it was not appeased by the
streams shed that night. Judged by the standard of those
times, there is no reason for crying out against the slaughter
of these children of the desert as a piece of cruelty. It is
not an act agreeable to the rules of war as carried on among
the nations of Europe. But we are not judging Europeans,
who live amid the lights of modern refinement nearly three
thousand years after David's time.
230 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
Some modern writers, dissatisfied with this sharp handling
of these enemies, find ground for praise to the Bedouin, as we
may justly call them, in the mercy w^hich they extended
towards the captive women and children : the robbers had
only burned the town, and carried the people captive, but they
had put none to death. The contrast between the unsparing
A^engeance of the Hebrew chief and the tender mercy of the
desert rovers seems well fitted to disgust the reader with the
former, and to awaken sympathy for the latter. But this is
a surface view of the motives that influenced both. Of the
cruelty and falsehood of David we have spoken already ; the
tender mercy of the rovers is a myth, especially if the
Egyptian slave be called as a witness. Among all nations
there are sufferings and conditions esteemed worse than death.
To this state the women and children left in Ziklag had been
reduced. Men, so regardless of the life of others as the
Bedouin, did not spare these captives from any feeling of
mercy. They had an object in view in carrying them off as
booty : to sell them in neighbouring Egypt, or to glut their
vengeance on them at leisure in the desert, or to retain them
for drudges in their own tents. A fine imagination only can
conjure up a vein of mercy throbbing in the bosoms of these
robbers. It would be a simpler explanation to attribute the
safety of the captives to the overruling hand of Providence,
which brought into distinct view before the captors the advan-
tages to themselves of saving the women and children alive,
and so sheathed every sword that was thirsting for their
life.
However terrible the sliouts and swords of assailants might
be to the robbers, they were sweetest music to the mourning
slaves from Ziklag. All of them were found to be safe.
After resting for a whole day, deliverers and delivered turned
their faces homewards. The sheep and oxen, which the rovers
had driven off from the pastures of the south, were gifted to
David by the soldiery. The other spoil was restored to his
The Death of SaziL 231
followers. As they approached, the brook Besor, the two
hundred who had been left behind came forth to welcome their
comrades and relations. The question then arose, what share
of the booty they were to receive. Selfishness induced several
of the four hundred to stand out against admitting to a share
those who were left behind. They have no right to it, they
said. If they get back their wives and children, it is as much
as they can look for. . Such were the views entertained by
these * sons of Belial.' But most of the band were otherwise
minded. 'Who wdll listen to you?' asked their leader at the
selfish faction ; and with the generosity of a high-minded
soldier, he exclaimed, ' As the portion of him that goeth down
into the battle, so shall be the portion of him that abideth by
the baggage ; they shall share alike.' Such was the hold of
David on his followers that this decision w^as at once accepted.
From that hour it became law in the Hebrew armies.
On the third day after their return home,^ news arrived
of the battle on Gilboa. It had been fought, at the most,
only three days before. The Philistines in the neighbour-
hood of Ziklag had not heard the tidings ; in this case evil
tidings outstripped good. The messenger w^io came to David
was a young Amalekite, the same who witnessed and helped
the mournful death of Saul. Picnt garments and earth upon
his head told the watchers a tale of disaster. He asked for
David, to whom alone he would deliver his message. Im-
^ David reached Ziklag on the third day after leaving Aphek. He was thus
two whole days on the march. Then he followed the band of rovers for, say, the
third and fourth days. Further, he hunted them all the fifth day. And it
would take him the sixth, seventh, and eighth days at least to journey back to
Ziklag with the women and spoil. On the third day after his arrival, that is,
on the tenth or eleventh of our reckoning, tidings of Saul's death are brought
by the young Amalekite. But this messenger lett Gilboa on the evening of the
battle at the latest, for early next morning the Pliilistines stripped the dead.
And as he would make all haste to carry what he thought pleasant tidings, he
cannot have taken more than three days to the journey. It is clear, then, that
the battle of Gilboa was fought at any rate seven days after David withdrew
from the Philistines' camp. The two armies must therefore have been facing
each other for more than a week. Uncertainty is thus introduced into the
meaning of 'to-morrow' in 1 Sam. xxviii. 19.
232 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
patient to hear his story, they conducted him to their leader.
On being admitted into David's presence, he threw himself on
the ground in token of homage. Though a stranger and a
slave, the young man knew from the common talk of the
beaten soldiers, whose hand they missed in the battle, and
whom they considered the successor of Saul. His haste to
reach Ziklag showed more plainly than could be told in words
to whom the eyes of the Hebrews were turned, when they
saw the shadows of defeat stretchincj across their ranks.
'Whence hast thou come?' demanded the exile, half guessing
his news. ' Out of tlie camp of Israel am I escaped,' he
answered. The last word betokened disaster. In answer to
eager inquiries, he continued, ' The people are fled from the
battle ; Saul and Jonathan his son are dead.' And then the
aged king was described by the young man, as seen by him
lying in a sequestered dell on Gilboa, wounded by the
mounted archers to the danger of his life, — so seriously that
he could scarcely hope to escape from his pursuers. He had
crept aside from the line of retreat ; he was alone ; his
brave son was dead ; Abner and other chiefs had been parted
from him in the flight. Hearing footsteps behind, he raised
himself up, leaning on his spear.-^ It is a friend, not a foe,
who approaches. But that friend, instead of endeavouring to
save a life so precious as Saul's, takes it away. His words
revealed Saul making a vain effort to lift himself from the
ground by leaning on his spear. ' I stood over him and slew
him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he
was fallen ; and I took the crown that was upon his head,
and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brouglit them
to my lord ; here they are.' The looks and manner of the
speaker were those of a bringer of good tidings. A high
1 Compare with this act of Saul tlie story related by Livy (viii. 7) of the
death of Geminius Metius at the hand of Titus Manlius. When the former was
thrown from his horse at the second tilt, and was either stunned or hurt by the
fall, the latter pinned him to the ground with his spear, cuspide parmaque
innisum, attolleniem se ah gravi casu.
The Death of Said. oit
-JO
office, a f^reat reward, were a few of the honours which danced
before his eyes, as he pulled forth the diadem and bracelet.
But never did the countenance of disappointed messenger
undergo a greater change. The story which he told could only
awaken feelings of horror. David had twice spared Saul's
life even at the risk of his own. He could not become a
partner in the confessed guilt of this slave by approving
his deed. Tearing his garments in sign of sorrow, David
demanded, 'Whence art thou?' 'The son of a stranger, an
Amalekite,' he replied, discovering too late the danger of his
position. But the w^ord 'stranger* was uttered in vain.
However it might shield others from harm, it should not
shield him. ' Thy blood be upon thy head,' exclaimed David,
as if next of kin to the murdered man ; ' thy mouth hath
testified against thee.' And soon the sword of one of the
exiles, who was called in to act for the avenger of blood,
executed judgment on the stranger. With rent garments and
loud cries, the six hundred fasted for Saul and his son during
the remainder of that day. At the same time David composed
an elegy on the fallen heroes, which, in accordance with
Hebrew custom, he called by a special name, 'The Bow.'
Probably this title was taken from the words in which he
celebrated the praises of his friend Jonathan, ' From the blood
of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan
turned not back.'
After this mourning David sent presents from the spoil of
the rovers to the elders of several cities in the south of Judah,
especially to those who were likely to influence the course of
events. But the Hebrews had lost faith in David from the
time he entered the service of Achish, and especially when
he marched to the plain of Jezreel. Few of them would be
at first aware of his return to Ziklag more than a week before
the battle. In most places it w^ould be told with horror, how
the hope of Israel fought against his own folk in the most
disastrous fight their history had known. The blunder of
2 34 T^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
which he was guilty bore fruit in seven long years of waiting.
Had he been only an outlaw in the desert when Saul fell, he
might have passed at one step from an outlaw's tent to a
king's palace. But David the exile, living at Ziklag under
the protection of a Philistine lord, and serving as the captain
of his bodyguard, was looked on with suspicions which did
not cleave to David the outlaw, who spared Saul's life, and
watched the flocks and herds of Hebrews. That unhappy
blunder was a source of much trouble to David. Some of the
chief men in Israel gave their voices in favour of his elevation
to the throne, and miglit have carried his election, had not
Abner, aspiring to the office of king-maker, turned the scale
against him. But notwithstanding that captain's great name,
brave men from all parts of the land, losing hope of delivering
their country by other means, flocked to David at Ziklag.
Among the first to come was a band of skilful slingers and
archers from Saul's own tribe. Several brave Gadites from
Jabesh, who had distinguished themselves by rescuing the
bodies of Saul and his sons, next joined him in the wilderness
stronghold. But the greatest addition to his little army was
made by a body of soldiers from Judah and Benjamin, more
numerous, it would seem, than the defenders of Ziklao^.
Amasa, the cousin of David, was their leader. Uncertain
whether they meant peace or war, David met them outside
the walls : ' If ye be come peaceably unto me to help me,' he
said, ' mine heart shall be knit unto you ; but if ye be come
to betray me to mine enemies, seeing there is no wrong in
mine hands, the God of our fathers look thereon, and rebuke
it.' Amasa assured him of their help, ' Thine are we, David,
and on thy side, thou son of Jesse.' After that time, scarcely
a day passed without new-comers hastening to rally round
the banner of David. When things seemed ripe for shifting
his headquarters to a place of greater name than Ziklag,
David summoned Abiathar to ask counsel of God. ' Shall I
go up to one of the cities of Judah ? ' was the question put
The Death of Smd. 235
for decision. The answer was, ' Yes.' ' To Hebron ? ' was
the next question, and again the answer was ' Yes.' ' And
there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.' It
was his first public anointing. The second took place in the
same city amid greater pomp and higher hopes. (2 Sam.
V. 3.)
CHAPTER IX.
LITERATURE AND WORSHIP OF THE PEOPLE.
(Reign of Saul.)
Ox turning from the home and foreign policy of King Saul
to consider the literature of the people over whom he ruled,
we find ourselves embarking on an inquiry from which little
fruit seems likely to be reaped. Our sources of information
are hints scattered here and there in a treatise of sixty pages,
which contains, besides the story of his reign, an account of
Eli's and Samuel's administration, along with David's rise and
early adventures. Even though both the books of Samuel be
used for this purpose, there are only 106 pages of Hebrew
to glean information from. But the poverty of these sources
is not so great as it seems. Much more is told regarding the
people and their ways than a surface view of the history
permits us to expect.
When we read, for example, that ' Samuel told the people
the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid
it up before the Lord' (1 Sam. x. 25), the brevity of the
statement is out of all relation to the importance of the infer-
ences which may be drawn from it. In no other passage of
the first book of Samuel is the word vrrite or ivriting found.^
^ Other two words in Hebrew have the sense of to write. One of them, to
count (2 Sam. xxiv. 10), or to recount (1 Sam. xi. 5), as if from a book, occurs
twice in Samuel. The other verb is not found. A scribe (or recounter) is found
twice (2 Sam. viii. 17, xx. 25). These are few examples compared w'ith the
number found in other books, such as the Pentateuch and Kings, but they are
all expressive. Even the word for counting or number occurs but eight times
in Samuel.
Literature and Worship of the People. 237
And in the second book of Samuel it may be said to occur
but twice, also under circumstances still more singular : ' David
wrote a letter to Joab ' (2 Sam. xi. 14, 15 ; also i. 18). The
word hook occurs in the same passages as write. From the
way in which Samuel's writing of a book and David's letter
to Joab are mentioned in the history, books and letters were
evidently matters of everyday life in the eyes of the writer.
Although he uses the word for write in these two passages
only, he regards ability to write not as an accomplishment
which deserves special mention, but as an ordinary thing
which might be looked for in any Hebrew. Joab was, and
always had been, a soldier, bred in camps, trained to war
from his youth, but he could both read and write. David
also had been engaged in war and adventure nearly all his
life. His boyhood and youth were spent on the uplands of
Bethlehem as a shepherd, his early manhood was devoted to
court and camp, his after years to the busiest work of a
conqueror and a statesman. He was the youngest and the
least esteemed of a large family ; notwithstanding, he too, like
Joab, could write and read. In that letter he told the soldier
to make provision for having Uriah slain. Neither the king
nor the general could allow so dangerous a message to be
written or read by a secretary. Both of them could read and
write. A man so wise and learned as Samuel would be able
to conduct business of state by reading and writing quite as
well as these two soldiers. He wrote a book. But he did
more, he placed that book where it could be seen and read by
the people, in whose interest it had been written. There was
a recognised place for its safe keeping. And the words used
to denote that place, as well as the laying up of the book in
it, imply a familiarity with books and with the custody of
them, which naturally points to other books treasured there
under the care of those, to whom Samuel committed this
writing of the kingdom. A state paper called a book, a
place for its safe keeping, guardians to whose trust it could
238 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature.
be securely given, and free access to it by the people when
any of them wished to read the engagements entered into, are
all clearly implied in a dozen Hebrew words. And this
laying up of books, and giving the peo2:)le access to them, was
a custom which had prevailed before Samuel's time. He
found the writing of books existing in his day, the laying of
them in a recognised place, the committing of them to known
guardians. He followed the custom of an earlier age, when
he handed his book of the kingdom to the keeping of the
same men.^
With these clues in our hand, we can now advance some
steps farther, bringing together things which lie considerably
apart. Saul is said to have taken ' a yoke of oxen, and
hewed them in pieces, and sent throughout all the coasts of
Israel by messengers' hand, saying. Whosoever cometh not
forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his
oxen.' By an unhappy addition, our English version makes
Saul send the hewed oxen throughout the land, a mistake too
clear to deserve refutation, even though it is accepted by
critics of all shades of opinion. What did he send by the
messengers' hand ? David again, when despatched to the
army by his father, was told : ' Look how thy brethren fare,
and receive their 'pledge! a word which occurs but twice in
^ Judging from the customs of other nations in the ancient worki, there is
much to favour the idea of Moses having taken the lirst steps to found a national
library for the Hebrews. Of Egypt, long before the time of Samuel, or even of
Moses, it is said: 'Every temple had a library attached to it, in Avhich the
records were preserved by the priests. No doubt, Thothmes caused the history
of the wars, in which he and his ancestors had distinguished themselves, and
the treaties and lists of tributes he had imposed upon conquered peoples, to be
inscribed upon papyrus and stowed away here. Here, too, no doubt were
records of his peaceful triumphs, the temples he had built, the canals and other
public works he had executed, the provisions for the endowment of the temples
and its staff of priests, the local regulations for the government of the surround-
ing district, family genealogies, and many other things. Would that those
precious papyri had survived, what a light they might have thrown upon that
. remote period ; but alas ! there is evidence that they perished on the spot in
some accidental conflagration, or perhaps in some invasion of the Ethiopians,
for the Avails of the library are all blackened- with smoke and covered with a
.tarry deposit.' — Villiers Stuart, Nile Gleanings, 148.
Literatitre and WorsJnp of the People. 239
the Old Testament (1 Sam. xvii. 18; Prov. xvii. 18). What
could their pledge have been but a letter to assure Jesse of
their health and safety ? If David could write, and if Joab
could write, David's elder brothers could also both read and
write. Again, when David wrote an elegy, called The Bow,
on Saul and Jonathan, it is said : ' He bade them teach the
children of Judah The Bow ; behold, it is written in the book
of Jasher.' Here, then, we have another writing, if not a
collection of writings, referred to as having been committed
to the custody of certain men for a definite purpose.
Samuel's Law of the Kingdom, the Book of Jasher, the Song
of the Bow, are under these men's charge. They taught the
people ; they took orders in this matter from the government ;
they had books in their hands for the discharge of their
duties. There was thus a well-known class of men, to whom
writings like The Bow, or the book of Jasher, were committed
for safe keeping, and by wliom they were also taught to the
people. Brief though the information given regarding them be,
we recognise their existence as a class, their functions as public
teachers and guardians of the nation's state papers. Closely
connected with this view of these men and their office, is a
statement made in Deuteronomy. Moses did what Samuel is
known to have done ; he ' connnanded the Levites, which bare
the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying. Take this book of
the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of
the Lord your God' (Deut. xxxi. 25). Evidently in this, as
in other things, Samuel followed the example set to him by
Moses some centuries before. But, without dwelling on that
point, we are not justified in regarding the messages, sent by
kings and others in ancient times, as always sent by word of
mouth, and not more frequently in writing. When Jehoram,
king of Israel, says of the king of Syria : 'Ami God, to
kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to
recover a man of his leprosy?' (2 Kings v. 7), we would not
seek to explain the sending otherwise than by supposing a
240 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
messenger or herald had come, did we not know of the letter
which was presented by Naaman the leper. It is well,
therefore, to exercise caution in this matter. Saul's mes-
sengers, referred to above, may have taken letters with them
from the king and Samuel ; and in other cases written papers
may have been sent, of which we have no knowledge and no
suspicion.
A people devoted to literature, as the Hebrews are known
to have been, trained also to read and write, as we have
reason to believe they generally were, have left scarcely any
monumental records of their acquaintance with letters. Still
there may have been a reason for this want of inscriptions in
and about Jerusalem. Carving of flowers and animals in public
places was practised in the generation after Samuel. But
written inscriptions on walls and smooth rocks are not
mentioned then, nor were they mentioned save once in
former times. For a practice so different from the custom
which prevailed in Babylon and Egypt, no reason is given.
If one is sought for, it is easily found. Hebrew literature,
like our own, was book- writing, not stone-writing. Time and
accident, which often spared the latter, frequently destroyed
the former. Hence the records of the Pharaohs remain, in
part at least, while those of David and Solomon are lost,
except the few pages which, under the guidance of divine
wisdom, have escaped the fire and the rage of enemies.^
The view of Saul's subjects presented in the books of
Samuel is that of a people who enjoyed the blessings of
reading and writing. But other arts were cultivated. David,
a shepherd lad, the son of a father in circumstances which
were not wealthy, was renowned for his skill as a player on
the harp. Before he was born, the psaltery, the drum, the
pipe, and the harp were in use among the people. The
existence of these musical instruments indicates also the
^ On the art of writing among the ancient Greeks, see Mure, Hist, of Grec,
Lit. iii. 397-490.
Literatttre and Worship of the People. 241
existence of a poetic literature. Mucli of it may have
perished; but evidently the collection of national songs was
contained in the work already referred to as the book of
Jasher. How many of these songs remain scattered through-
out the sacred writings it is impossible now to discover. But
the guardians of the national literature — the members of the
tribe of Levi — were not likely to leave the collecting and
preserving of such poems to chance. At the tabernacle, and
in the schools of the prophets, the power of the hymns to meet
the wants of men was tested in practical life. From these
centres they spread to the whole nation. And sacred songs
formed only part of the literature cultivated in the prophetic
schools ; for it is impossible to exclude from the studies
carried on in them the history and legislation of the country.
AVherever a school of the prophets flourished, literature and
law must have flourished also. But the period of greatest
activity in these schools, so far as is known to history, falls
long after the reign of Saul. Other things call for attention
here ; the hymns of the people ran a course in some respects
similar to that of Grecian poetry. Three or four centuries
after the reign of David, Greek poets began to write lyrics
and elegies as he did. As he w^as a singer, so were tliey;
and as he accompanied his songs with the harp, so did they.
We may even say that as he improved the instruments of
music, so did they. But the parallel can be carried farther.
Of the ancient Greek lyric poets it is said : ' In scarcely an
instance, if indeed one can be found, has a lyric composition
of any note been transmitted to posterity anonymously.' ^ In
the same way David has left his mark on the Ij^ics and elegies
which he wrote. He could not do otherwise in many cases.
In some he might escape detection if he were not distinctly
named as the WTiter. The bearing of this curious law of author-
ship in lyric compositions ought to be recognised, in determining
the genuineness of psalm headings in the Hebrew Psalter.
1 Mure, Gr. Lit. iii. 4.
Q
242 The Kmgdom of All-Is7^ael: its Literature.
Besides the popular literature, there appears to have also
been in existence a scientific or professional literature, of
whicli traces from time to time make their appearance in the
history. A feast at the tabernacle is mentioned ; a custom
of vowing vows ; a law of the Nazarite ; certain dues given
to the priests from every sacrifice ; the burning of fat and
incense by the priests ; the eminent holiness of the ark ; a
law of tithing ; meat-offerings, burnt-offerings, peace-offerings,
and trespass- offerings ; the sacredness of the oath called
chermi, or utter destruction ; the sin of eating blood with the
flesh of an animal ; a feast of the new moon ; the law of
fugitives escaped from their masters ; the law against enticing
to serve other gods ; the law of the shewbread, with one at
least of the ceremonies observed on the Sabbath morning ;
week or work day as opposed to the Sabbath ; ceremonial
purity and impurity ; laws against witches ; and a law which
seems to be a shortened expression of the first and second
commandments (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). All these and other
customs or laws are distinctly referred to in the sixty pages
of the first book of Samuel. Men had been appointed to
high office in the state, whose duty it was to see to the
right observance of these customs. But the same men had
charge of Samuel's book of the Kingdom, of the book of
Jasher, and of David's ' Bow.' If, then, the three last
required written papers for their safe keeping and right
transmission to after ages, it is asking too much of us to
believe that the large and important body of laws, briefly
hinted at above, was not in waiting, but was transmitted by
word of mouth from one age to another. A supposition so
incredible for a people who were taught to read and write,
and who knew by whom and where their state papers were
kept, cannot be received. It is a device to evade the force
of facts, not an explanation of history. The existence of
other law books, then, besides Deuteronomy, follows as a
matter of course from the views stated above. That they
Literatitre and IVoj^s/iip of the People. 243
^vere tlie middle books of the rentateuch is the ouly con-
clusion we can come to. And that conclusion is strengthened
by many undesigned coincidences between Samuel and the
ritual of the Pentateuch, which now fall to be examined.
The worship of the people in Saul's reign was the worship
prescribed in the books of Moses. Although this is strongly
denied by many writers, the proof is convincing. Allowance
has to be made on one point, the destruction of the Central
Altar at Shiloh. But whether that allowance be made or
not, the identity of the ritual in Saul's time with the ritual of
the wilderness wanderings can be sustained by proofs which
are a surprise from their number and clearness, when we con-
sider the few pages of Hebrew from which they are drawn.
The subject wall be better understood if the case of those who
deny this identity be stated first. Practically, then, their view
is this : There was a small temple at Shiloh or Nob. There
was also a sacred ark. Both inside and outside everything
was on an insignificant scale. The child Samuel slept in the
one room which formed tlie temple. He even opened the
doors of it in the morning. As Eli the high priest sat at the
doorpost of the temple, it cannot have been a tent. Sacri-
fices were offered there ; but the laws observed in offering
them were unlike the laws laid down by Moses. Xor
was the sacred dress worn by the high priest in later times
regarded with the reverence, which is accorded to it by the
]\Iosaic law. Hence inferences are drawn against the antiquity
of that law. Even Samuel's little coat was an infringement
of one of its precepts. Such, then, is the view sometimes
taken of the ritual as presented to a reader in the book of
Samuel. The case is wdiolly different. But, for the sake of
clearness, we shall arrange the proof under different heads.
First, The, Tcmijle at Shiloh ivas a large flacc.
(1) The pan used at Shiloh for boiling the flesh of peace-
offerings goes by the same name as the laver used for washing
in the wilderness tabernacle. But the laver was made out of
244 T^^^ Kingdom of All- Israel : its Literature.
the looking-glasses ' of the women which assembled at the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation ' (Ex. xxxviii. 8),
words which are repeated in the story of Eli and his sons
(1 Sam. ii. 22). As the word assemUe indicates apparently
an organized service, w^e get from it a glimpse of duties requir-
ing numbers and space for their right discharge at Shiloh as
well as in the wilderness. And when Hannah left her child
with Eli, her acquaintance with these women enabled her to
choose from among them those, who were best fitted to act as
guardians for a child of his tender years. Precisely, also, as
the site of Jerusalem still bears witness to the extent of its
temple courts, so the site of Shiloh warrants a belief in the
large space occupied by the tabernacle. Only one spot on the
hill-top, anciently occupied by that city, could have received
the Mosaic tent with its surrounding court. At that place
the hill slopes down to a broad shoulder, across which has
been cut a sort of level court, 77- feet wide and 412 feet
long. In some places the rock ' is scarped to a height of
5 feet, and along the sides are several excavations and a few
small cisterns.' ^
(2) The space at the door of the tabernacle of the con-
gregation was of considerable extent. Close by the entrance
was the throne of the high priest, the lordly seat of the judge
of the land. Unfortunately our English translators have twice
missed the idea conveyed in the Hebrew word here used.
^ Eli the priest,' they say, ' sat upon a seat by a doorpost of the
temple of tlie Lord ; ' and again, ' Eli sat upon a seat by the
wayside watching.' They mistook the meaning of the word.
Often as the word occurs in the historical books from Genesis
onward, it never means aught but a seat of honour. In
about seventy cases it denotes a royal throne, such as the
throne of Pharaoh, or of the Persian emperor, or of kings of
Israel It is found three times in the story of Eli, always
with the definite article, the throne on which the judge of the
1 Pal. Exp. Q. S., January 1873, p. 83.
Literature and WorsJiip of the People, 245
nation sat. As lie watched by the wayside for tidings of
battle, he sat in this chair of state. He was not watching by
the doorpost of the temple ; for its rock-cut court was on
the north side of Shiloh, and the road he sat by was on the
south side, with the houses of the town between them. At-
tendants were about him, for he asked them the meaning of
the noise inside the city when the messenger who had come
was telling to the people his story of defeat and ruin. Clearly,
therefore, the space in front of the door of the tabernacle, in
which the judge's throne was placed, close beside a doorpost
of the temple entrance, was of considerable size. As in many
Eastern cities, it was at once a public square and a court of
justice.
(3) The words, ' Temple of the Lord where the ark was,'
have been turned to a strange use. ' Samuel, as a servant of
the sanctuary, who had special charge of the doors, actually
slept " in the temple of Jehovah, where the ark of God was."
To our English translators this statement seemed so incredible
that they have ventured to change the sense against the rules
of the language.' ^ On this showing, the sleeping-place of the
boy was beside the ark, or, as would now be said, in the holy
of holies. Bishop Colenso goes farther : he makes the taber-
nacle of the congregation Joshua's sleeping-place. But the
translators of our version have neither changed the sense nor
broken the rules of the Hebrew tongue. They have strictly
kept to both. The sleeping-place of Samuel proves, according
to Graf and his followers, that there was nothing common to
the Shiloh temple and the tabernacle, or that there was no
holy place, no holy of holies, no day of atonement, no Levitical
law in Eli's time ; while the sleeping-place of Joshua is
equally full of proof, though it is recorded in the very heart of
the Levitical law-books ! With as much force may most
singular conclusions be drawn from Luke's statements regard-
^ Graf, G. B. p. 56. Colenso, Tart vii. 116. The quotation is from Smith,
Old Testament, 258. Colenso says, * Samuel seems to have slept in this building.'
246 Tlic Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literahtre.
incr Paul : ' The Jews, wliicli were of Asia, when thev saw him
in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on
him, crying out, Men of Israel, help : this is the man that
teacheth all men everywhere against the people, and the law,
and this place ; and further brought Greeks also into the
temple, and hath polluted this holy place.' Paul was neither
priest nor Levite. He could not have been in the temple.
If the criticism, which has been employed in proving the
impossible in Samuel's case, were applied in Paul's, the world
would lauo-h. Accordinsj to the theorists, there could not
have been a Levitical system in Paul's days.^
The words of the passage under review run thus in the
Hebrew : ' ISTot yet had a lamp of God gone out (and Samuel
was asleep) in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God
was.' Samuel was sleeping in the temple, where the ark of
God was, but he was not sleeping in the most holy place,
where the ark was. To sleep at the side of the ark is the
meaning forced on the words by Graf: to sleep in the same
temple with the ark is the inference most people would draw,
although the historian merely says, Samuel was asleep, without
mentioning or even hinting at the precise place. Graf and
his friends invent an additional theory to keep themselves
right. There was only one room in this temple. Samuel
slept there ; the ark was kept there, and the Levitical system
was unknown. Our translators required no crutch of the
kind to keep them in motion. Trusting to common sense, and
in thorough agreement with the genius of the Hebrew tongue,
they regarded ' and Samuel was asleep ' as a parenthetic clause,
standing by itself, and severed from the context. Failure to
see the parenthesis in a passage has frequently caused per-
plexity in interpretation.^ It has done so here. Eli and the
priests must therefore have resided in outbuildings round the
temple. In the smaller and less esteemed place at Nob more
^ The temple included the courts as well as tlie buildings.
2 Compare a similar clause, 2 Sam. iv. 5. See also 2 Sam. viii. 13.
Literahtre and Worship of the People, 247
than eighty priests waited, at the altar, and must have had
houses close by. In similar outbuildings at Shiloh, Samuel
was lodged, evidently close to the high priest.
(4) But, it is said, the temple at Shiloh must have been
small, for Samuel opened the doors of it in the morning. The
elaborate arrangements for opening the doors of the temple on
Moriah, in our Lord's time, seem to make this inference clear.
But there is no clearness about the proof. Samuel the child
was Eli's favourite page. He carried the old man's orders to
priests and Levites in waiting. When he got the revelation
about Eli's house, he ' lay until morning, and opened the doors
of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli
the vision. Then Eli called Samuel,' etc. (1 Sam. iii. 15, 16).
Eli expected the boy to tell him what had happened over-
night as soon as he came to the high priest's room in the
morning. But he was disappointed. The child came as
usual for instructions, and went away to deliver them, for ' he
feared to show Eli the vision.' Then the high priest broke
the silence himself, by afterwards sunmioning his page, and
requesting him to tell all that he heard.
Second, TJie ritual at Shiloh was the same as the ritual in the
wilderness.
(1) The sacrifices were the same in both cases, and regulated
by the same laws.
The first passage which shows distinct traces of this same-
ness is the following : ' The sons of Eli were sons of Belial :
they knew not the Lord. And the priests' custom with the
people was, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant
came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of
three teeth in his hand ; and he struck it into the pan, or
kettle, or caldron, or pot ; all that the flesh-hook brought up,
the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all
the Israelites that came thither' (1 Sam. ii. 12). The words
which introduce this tale of wrong-doing show clearly how
deeply these actings were resented by the people. * Sons of
248 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
Belial/ or worthless fellows, is the name applied to the high
priest's sons. The phrase had not occurred much in literature
before this time. Moses appears to have been the first who
used it, and that only towards the end of his life (Deut. xiii.
14); in Judges, it is found twice; but in Samuel, where it
next appears, it occurs ten times. Here, then, we have a
manifest reference to Deuteronomy, besides a warning that
the things done by Eli's sons were not according to law or
custom. If, now, we set down the story of Eli's sons side by
side with the law of the Levite in Deuteronomy, we shall
have no difficulty in seeing the indebtedness of the former to
the popular law-book. Unfortunately our translators did not
observe that the writer of Samuel was quoting from it word
for word.
Deut. xviii. 3. 1 Sam. ii. 13. ^
And the due of the priests from the And the due of the priests from the
people people
from the sacrificers of a sacrifice : every man sacrificing a sacrifice. —
he shall give unto the priest the The priest's servant came, while the
shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook
maw. in his hand : all that the flesh-hook
brought up, the priest took for himself.
Wellhausen imagines he has discovered that ten verses of the
chapter, from which this quotation is made (1 Sam. ii. 27-36),
were inserted after Josiah's reign by some one who had then
read Deuteronomy. But there is at present no taint of sus-
pected tampering with the passage under review. It is believed
specially to bear a character of unquestionable originality. The
law in Deuteronomy begins with ]priests, and ends with priest ;
in like manner the story in Samuel's life begins and ends. But
in both books, ' the priests' due from the people ' is spoken of,
not ' the heave-offerings of the holy things which the children
of Israel offer unto the Lord.' Animals slain for food, or
popular sacrifices (Deut. xii. 20, 21), are referred to, not
^ Bishop Colenso, failing to see the quotation here, pronounces the two
passages 'quite at variance,' which is true enough of the illegality of the
priest's conduct.
Literature and Worship of the People, 249
victims meant for the altar. Instead of being content with
their legal dues from the former, Eli's sons sent a servant,
that is, a young man or a Levite, to take better pieces than
the law allowed. The priest, then, is seen wdth an attendant,
a helper in sacred things. There is no reason for regarding
that servant as other than an attendant Levite. He conies
with a flesh-hook in his hand, a word of rare occurrence, but
named three times among the furniture of the tabernacle (Ex.
xxvii. 3). As it is here called three-pronged, it was probably
of unusual size, and well fitted for the wicked purpose of the
priests. He then strikes it into the pot which the sacrificer
w^as using to cook the pieces of the slain beast. Here, then,
we have a commentary on the way the Deuteronomic law was
broken by these priests. But everything about the story
brings before us the altar of the wilderness, or such a sacri-
ficial feast as would be celebrated on the plains of Moab.
We come now to the second class of wrongful deeds done by
the sons of Eli. It was their duty to offer priestly or atoning
sacrifices. Their share of the flesh, in such cases, was also
fixed by law. But they were not content with it.
Lev. vii. 31, 32. 1 Sam. ii. 15.
And the priest shall burn the fat Before they burnt the fat, the priest's
upon the altar ; but the breast shall be servant came and said to the man that
Aaron's and his sons'. And the right sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the
shoulder shall ye give unto the priest priest : for he will not have sodden
for an heave- offering of the sacrifices of flesh of thee, but raw. And if any
your peace-ofl"erings. man said unto him. Let them not fail
to burn the fat presently, and take as
thy soul desireth ; then he would
answer him, Nay ; but thou shalt give
it me now : and if not, I will take it
by force.
The burning of the fat ^ was here a priestly duty of sacred
obligation, like the draining of all blood from an animal slain
^ To hum the fat is literally to incense the fat, or to make it smoke away like
incense. The writer of Samuel agrees with Leviticus in this use of the word.
But in Kings and Chronicles it has the meaning, to offer incense, or simply to
offer.
250 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its L iterahtre,
for food. Offerers knew tliis duty of the priests. But in
Sliiloh they were suspicious of Eli's sons : ' Let them burn the
fat at once,' they said. The eagerness of tlie priests to get
flesh to roast evidently filled the sacrificers with apprehen-
sions of sacrilege. Part of the fat might be kept back by
the priests to use for the roast (Lev. iii. 1 7). The sin of Eli's
sons, in these peace-offerings, did not lie in asking more than
their rightful share. The law commanded the people to make
the Levites sharers in the feasts, which followed the sacrifices.
And, probably, the favour of receiving a share had come to
be regarded as a right. But the sin of the priests lay both
in delaying, for reasons unrecorded, to burn the fat, and in
usim? or threatenincj to use force.
(2) The offering of incense may be placed after this head
of offering sacrifice.
' Did I choose thy father,' said the prophet to Eli, ' out
of all the tribes of Israel to me for priest, for to offer upon
mine altar, for to burn incense, for to wear an ephod before
me ? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the fire-
offerings of the children of Israel ? Wherefore kick ye at my
sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in
my habitation?' (1 Sam. ii. 28, 29). The tone, the words,
and the ideas in this extract are the same as in the Penta-
teuch. The outstanding duty, which distinguished priest
from Levite and layman, was to burn incense before the
golden altar, in a part of the tabernacle open to priests only.
ISTow this duty is expressed in two ways, either by the simple
verb, or by the verb and its noun, to incense incense, or to
offer incense. In the books of Samuel it is spoken of as the
priests' work in the only passage in which the two words
occur. Samuel sacrifices, which even the law allowed him to
do in one sense at least ; but nowhere does Samuel appear
offering incense. In the books of Kings, again, princes and
people are repeatedly found usurping this purely priestly
office. Sacrificing was too small a thing for them ; they
LiteratiLre and Worship of the People.
2^1
burned incense on the high ph^ces. The offering of incense
was thus specially a priestly duty. But the phrase quoted
above from Samuel, ' for to offer incense before me,' contain-
ing as it does both the verb and the noun, occurs in only one
other passage of the Old Testament. When the rebels who
followed the counsels of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, were
struck dead, their censers were made into ' a covering for the
altar, to be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no
stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near io offer
incense before the Lord' (Num. xvi. 40). The passage in
Samuel points a reader back to the story of these rebels.
The ri^ht of offerini^ incense was then vindicated for the
Levitical priesthood, and for it alone ; and when, in these
later ages, this right is again set forth as a special privilege
of Aaron's sons, the doom of the rebels and the events of
that terrible day were evidently before the mind of the
prophet who spake, and of the priest who heard the
message.
(3) The law of feasts in Samuel's time was the same as
the Mosaic law.
Elkanah, Samuel's father, was accustomed to visit Shiloh
yearly, ' to worship and to sacrifice.' This visit is generally
supposed to have been paid at the feast of tabernacles.
But to infer from the brief narrative that this was the
only feast then known at Shiloh is too sweeping a con-
clusion ; while to affirm, as Graf does, that Elkanah went
to Shiloh ' only once a year ' is a reading into the story
of his own w^ish that it had so spoken. If these inferences
hold good for the distant days of Samuel, they are equally
good for the better known days of our Lord. His parents,
too, were accustomed to visit the Central Altar. Like
Samuel's, they seem to have paid a yearly visit only :
they ' went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the
passover.' Either, therefore, the argument built on Elkanah's
custom is wrong, or only one feast was observed in the
252
The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literatur
time of Joseph and Mary. So dangerous is it to draw
an argument from a historian's silence ! But the story of
Elkanah's visit to Shiloh contains no mention of a yearly
feast. The business he went on may have been entirely
different. He was a Levite. Duty may have taken him
to the Central Altar every year as a priest's assistant, not
as an Israelite observing a feast; and the one supposition is
as probable as the other. ' He went up to sacrifice and to
worship; expresses a Levite's duties as well as it does a
visit paid in observance of a feast. However, in the history
in Samuel, the weekly festival of the Sabbath is recognised,
with some at least of the ceremonies prescribed in the Mosaic
law. Even the word for a week-day (work-day) is once found.
Nor does it occur again till the time of EzekieL A monthly
or new moon feast is also observed. But festivals of a week's
duration are twice implied in the directions given by Samuel
to Saul : ' Seven days shalt thou tarry ; ' and the phrase for
seven days is exactly the same as in the law of the feasts in
Leviticus.
(4) The furniture of the temple in Shiloh was the same
as the furniture of the Mosaic tabernacle.
The holy place in the latter contained the golden candle-
stick, the table of shewbread, and the altar of incense, or the
golden altar. We find the same furnishings at Shiloh. From
the upright stem of the candlestick branched out three golden
curves on each side, rising to a level with the main stem.
There were thus seven lamps, which were probably all kept
burning during the night. Only two or three may have
remained lighted during the day. But the going out of a lamp
of the candlestick in the night would thus indicate the
approach of morning. Eegarded in this way, we can under-
stand the incident referred to in the words, * Not yet had a
lamp ^ gone out (and Samuel was asleep) in the temple of
^ Gesenius is puzzled with this word in the Hebrew. ' Once used of the
candlestick, ' he says, for which he has no authority whatever.
Liter atitre and Worship of the People. 253
Jehovali, where was the ark of God.' ^ According to the
experience of Jewish priests many ages afterwards, all the
lamps of the candlestick did not go out at the same time.
Not one of them had gone out when the vision came to the
child Samuel. The incident did not take place immediately
after Samuel lay down to sleep. It was long past midnight ;
but the first streaks of dawn had not yet touched the sky ;
not a lamp of the candlestick was gone out. Again we have
in few words a picture of things at Shiloh, which differs in
no respect from the picture painted of things in the wilder-
ness. Let the words be looked at more closely. The ' candle-
stick ' is not mentioned in the life of Samuel ; the lamps of it
are not mentioned ; only a lam'p is mentioned, but in such a
connection as to prove the existence of the other six, and the
candlestick too. This idea of the ever-burning lamps of the
golden candlestick had sunk deeply into Hebrew thought.
At a later period it is seen in historical fact and in popular
proverb. When David's men, alarmed at the danger he once
encountered in fighting with a giant, refused to let him run
like risks again, they assigned as their reason almost the very
words here used, ' Thou shalt go no more out with us to
battle, that thou quench not the (light) lamp of Israel '
(2 Sam. xxi. 17 ; Prov. xx. 27).
The table of shewbread existed at Nob, and may reasonably
be supposed to have existed also in Shiloh, while the purpose
to which it was applied and the rules that were followed are
unmistakeably the same as are set down in the Mosaic law (Lev.
xxiv. 5-9). Another piece of furniture in Shiloh, as in the
wilderness, was the golden altar or the altar of incense, which
^ 1 Sam. iii. 3, 7. The words here translated not yet and xoas asleep are
obviously used in these meanings in the passage. The word temple occurs for
the first time in three passages of this book, 1 Sam. i. 9, iii. 3 ; 2 Sam. xxii. 7.
It is used by the historian and by David. We may therefore assume that it
came into use after David formed the purpose of building a house or temple
(2 Sam. vii.), and began to collect materials. At an early period, it also
meant a king's palace, Ps. xlv. 8, 15 ; Prov. xxx. 28. Both these signiticatious
it continued to retain.
2 54 ^^^^ King dom of A II -Israel : its L iteratitre.
is referred to in the prophet's message to Eli (1 Sam. ii. 28).
Outside of the tabernacle was another altar, called the brazen
altar or altar of bnrnt-offerings. Its existence in Shiloh is
placed beyond doubt by the doings of Eli's sons, although the
names brazen altar and golden altar do not reappear till we
come to the book of Kino's. There are other singular coinci-
deuces with tlie Pentateuch in this passage of Samuel. The
prophet, who speaks to Eli, calls the priests' portions tlic. fire-
offerings of the cliildren of Israel. But the general grant of
these offerings is found first in Deut. xviii. 1, where they are
called the fire- offerings of Jehovah, a form of speech which a
reviser or improver of Samuel would certainly not have
changed. Besides, the use of the words hiek and dioelling
shows what book was in the speaker's mind. He asks,
' Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice ? ' He was thinking of
the first and only other use of the word, in ' Jeshurun waxed
fat and kicked' (Deut. xxxii. 15). And the term cliuelling is
unusual in the Pentateuch as well as Samuel. While it
occurs twice in the latter, used in both cases by this prophet,
it occurs but once in the former (Deut. xxvi. 15). A sacred
dwelling, such as heaven itself, is meant. Borrowing is thus
proved beyond doubt. But inserting words and verses in the
book of Samuel is neither proved nor rendered probable.
Amonfy the furniture of the tabernacle at Shiloh w^as another
and most holy symbol of the faith, ' the ark of the covenant
of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth (between) the cherubim '
(1 Sam. iv. 4). Although the phrase 'which dwelleth (be-
tween) the cherubim ' occurs here for the first time in this dress,
the original passage was undoubtedly Ex. xxv. 22, or ISTum.
vii. 89. No other part of the Pentateuch contains the words.
Isaiah borrowed the form of them in Samuel, not that in jSTum-
bers, when he used the figure in the prayer of King Hezekiah.
Other writers followed the same model.^ The ancient phrase,
^ Isa. xxxvii. 16 (2 Kings xix. 15). See also 2 Sara. vi. 2 ; 1 Chron. xiii. 6 ;
Ps. Ixxx. 1, xcix. 1.
Litei'atin^e and Worship of the People,
OD
as found in lumbers, requires the word leiwccn to be used.
But the writer of Samuel, adopting a mode of speech which
may have been common in his day, as it certainly was com-
mon afterwards, shortened the phrase by leaving out hehueen.
Our own English tongue has words and phrases shortened in
the same way. But we are expected to believe that the verse
in Numbers was written during the Babylonian captivity, and
the phrase in Samuel inserted by a reviser, no one knows
when. Even the cherubim on the mercy-seat have come
under suspicion. Graf sneers at the idea of them having ever
been there.
The holiness of the ark is borne witness to in the life of
Samuel in a way which suggests an intimate acquaintance
with the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua. "When the
priests removed it from one place to another in the wilder-
ness, they were said to hear it by the lifting staves. They
themselves were called ' bearers of the ark.' These, then, were
professional words. At the close of Eli's administration the
w^ord hear is used to describe the way in which his sons
brought the ark to the camp of Israel at Aphek (1 Sam. iv. 4).
But after it fell into the Philistines' hands, the word was not
used. Other six verbs express their dealings with it. A
careful avoidance of the proper term during this time of
captivity, combined with a return to the use of it in David's
reign (2 Sam. vi. 13), is not an accident. It indicates
acquaintance with the legal language of the priests in their
WTitten books. But when Eli's sons bore the ark from Shiloh
to Aphek, it was not exposed to public gaze in its passage
through the country and in the camp of Israel. The tone of
the story proves this. Eli did what Aaron and his sons did,
' took down the covering veil, and covered the ark of testi-
mony with it ' (Num. iv. 5). This covering over requires to
be borne in mind. After its seven months' captivity the Philis-
tines sent the ark back * to its place ' on a new cart. They
expected the kine to take the road to Bethshemesli, upwards
256 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Literahcre,
of twelve miles to the south-east of Ekron (1 Sam. vi. 9). But
this was not the way to ' its place ' at Shiloh, nor was Beth-
shemesh the nearest city of Israel. Aijalon was as near to
Ekron, and was also on the road to Shiloh ; Timnah and Zorah
were nearer. There must have been a reason for the Philis-
tine priests speaking as they did of Bethshemesh. And that
reason is plain. They knew it to be the nearest city inha-
bited by Hebrew priests (Josh. xxi. 16). But Aijalon, though
a Levitical, was not a priestly city, nor Zorah, nor Timnah.
The choice of the Philistine priests or diviners thus clearly
implies the existence of priestly and Levitical cities in Israel.
But the Philistines were also aware of the propriety of send-
ing a trespass-offering back with the ark. Pour times is the
word used under circumstances which suggest an acquaintance
with the book of the law on the part of the author of SamueL^
Quite in keeping with this choice of a city and a trespass-
offering, the historian records what happened as soon as the
oxen stood still in the fields of the city : ' The Levites took
down the ark of the Lord, and the men of Bethshemesh offered
burnt-offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto the
Lord.' These men of Bethshemesh were priests. They were
entitled to handle the ark by its lifting staves, which they
did when they took it down from the cart. But the story
proceeds : ' He smote the men of Bethshemesh because they
looked on the ark of the Lord' (1 Sam. vi. 19). Our English
version makes the men ' look into the ark.' ^ But the mean-
ing seems different. The priests lifted the covering veil off the
ark, perhaps from no motive of curiosity, but to make sure
that everything was right. * To look ' was a thing forbidden
on pain of death to the Levites not priests (Num. iv. 20).
Aaron and his sons took down the covering veil, and put it on
^ It occurs in Leviticus and Numbers thirty-three times ; Samuel four times ;
Ps. Ixviii. 21 ; Isa. liii, 10 ; Pro v. xiv. 9 ; and 2 Kings xii. 16.
^ The Septuagint has, ' The sons of Jeconiah among the men of Bethshemesh
were not glad {i.e. had cause to grieve) because they looked on the ark.'
Litei^ature and Wo7'sh{p of the People. 257
the ark in the most holy place ; here his sons toolz doivn the
ark (the word is the same) and lifted the covering in the
fields of Betlishemesh, and before a gathering crowd (Num.
iv. 5). A great disaster was the result.
Frightened by the havoc caused, the priests resolve to get
quit of their treasure : ' Who/ they ask, ' is able to stand
before this holy Lord God ? ' These also were professional
words. In another passage in which they specially occur (Deut.
X. 8), Levi is said to have been ' separated to stand before the
Lord to minister unto him ;' but in similar circumstances David
says, ' How shall the ark of the Lord come to me ' (2 Sam.
vi. 9) ? These priests of Bethshemesh believed they were
discharging a duty of their office when the disaster liappened.
Acting like their heathen neighbours, they hastened to get the
ark out of their hands. But the plan they took was different.
They do as men would do who have the right to command
the services of others. They do not request, but they order
' the dwellers in Kirjath-jearim to come down from their
heights and fetch it up.' These ' dwellers ' were priests' ser-
vants, made temple slaves by Joshua (Josh. ix. 17), and
bound to obey their masters' orders. The writer of Samuel
afterwards lets his readers know how well he was acquainted
with the lineage and position of these people (2 Sam.
xxi. 2). ' Even Beeroth,' one of their cities, ' was counted
to Benjamin' (2 Sam. iv. 2). As their town lay on the road
to Shiloh, this may have been the pretence used by the
priests of Bethshemesh in sending them the order. But
the servants were nobler than the masters. Wliether they
horc the ark by a hill path now unknown in that desolate
district, or carried it round past Zorah, they went no farther
than Abinadab's house on a hill on the mountain spur which
was crowned by their own city. Orders of some sort were
given to them to stop there. As the Levites were the supe-
riors of their town, and entitled to exact service from them,
one or more of the class may have been resident in the place.
E
258 The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael : its Liter ahcre.
While there is nothing to identify Abinadab and his son
Eleazar, who was set apart ' to the charge of the ark/ with the
descendants of the ancient heathen in Kirjath, there is much
in the narrative to identify them with the Levitical tribe. At
a later period, too, Zadok the high priest officiated at Gibeon,
another city a few miles distant, inhabited by temple slaves.
This narrative of the captivity of the ark is therefore in
keeping w^th the recorded worship and ritual of the Penta-
teuch. All the coincidences discovered are contained in less
than two pages of Hebrew. They are also intimately bound
up with the story ; indeed, they run through it like threads of
life, uniting all the parts into one whole. A reviser's hand
or an interpolator's would have made several points clear,
which the ancient author, writing for people who had as
correct a knowledge of the ritual and customs as he had, did
not dwell on so fully as we could desire. But there is no
revision here. There is a narrative of facts resting on the same
Pentateuch and the same book of Joshua which are in our
hands to-day.
(5) The garments of the high priest were the same at
Shiloh and Nob as in the wilderness. Not only is this
denied, but the wearing of a linen ephod or vest and of
a mdil or coat by Samuel has been turned into an argu-
ment against the existence of the Pentateuch in his time :
' Samuel ministered before the Lord, a child, girded wdth a
linen ephod. Moreover, his mother made him a little coat
{meil), and brought it to him from year to year' (1 Sam.
ii. 18, 19). According to some writers, the Mosaic law forbade
the wearing of an ephod (or vest) and a meil (or long mantle)
by any Hebrew but the high priest. Starting with this idea,
they have built on Samuel's clothes a formidable battery
against the antiquity of the Pentateuch. Had his mother
known the Mosaic law, she never would have made for him
clothes which only a high priest could wear. Hence the
Pentateuch was unknown to Eli, to Samuel, and to the priests
Liter atttre and Wars hip of the People. 259
and people of Sliiloh. But two epliods are mentioned in
Hebrew history ; one is called The Epliod, far excelling in glory
and honourable use; another is called an eiiliod, or a linen
ephod. The former was a splendid vest with shoulder pieces
made of precious stones set in gold, and a double breastplate
having a pocket behind and twelve stones graven with
the tribal names in front. The meil or robe of this Ephod,
Avas a mantle 'of woven work, all blue,' having upon its
hems ' pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet, twined,
and bells of pure gold, ... a bell and a pomegranate
round about the hem of the robe to minister in.' Such,
then, were Tlio, Epliod, the glorious ephod, and the mcil,
with which the high priest entered the holy of holies once a
year. He alone could wear these magnificent robes ; others
could not. But a linen ephod was a different thing. It w^as
worn by ordinary priests, as by the eighty-five slain at Nob ;
it was worn also by David, '^oi a word is ever said about
the use of this robe being confined to the priests, far less to
the high priest. Our knowledge of the meil or mantle, again,
is fuller than our knowledge of the ephod. Jonathan wore
one, which David got in a present. Tamar also wore a meHl ;
Job and his three friends had that article of dress ; and Ezra
also, on his coming from Babylon, was clothed in the same
upper robe. The glorious me'il of the Ephod belonged to the
high priest alone ; but the common robe of that name was
worn by men and women of other classes and of all ages.
To say that Samuel's mother set the Mosaic law aside, or
rather acted in such a way as to show the law did not exist
in her day, because year by year she brought a me'il for her
little son, is to affirm what is in direct opposition to known
facts. Ezra, whose knowledge of the law is universally
allowed, must then have broken it as well as Samuel's
mother, for he tells us twice of the mcil which he wore.
Although he was a priest, he was no more the high priest
than Samuel, and no more entitled than he to wear a kind of
26o J he Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
mantle, which it is now maintained Aaron and his successors
alone had a ridit to wear.
We cannot fail, then, to give its proper meaning to the
word ephod w^hen it suddenly bursts upon us in the story of
David. ' Is there not here under thine hand spear or sword ? '
he asks of the high priest at Nob. ' And the priest said, The
sword of Goliath the Philistine, wliom thou slewest in the
valley of Elah, behold it, wrapped in the garment behind the
E-[)liocV (1 Sam. xxi. 9). For eighteen pages of Hebrew the
word ephod had not occurred in Samuel. Where it is last
mentioned, it so slips in as to make it plain that an ordinary
ephod is meant (1 Sam. xiv. 3). But there is no doubt in
David's case. Tlu Ephod, with splendid shoulder pieces and
dazzling breastplate, was before him and the high priest, in
some repository of the new temple at Nob. Behind it was
Goliath's sword, and apparently Goliath's garment, for the
words run, ' wrapped in the garment,' not ' wrapped in a cloth.'
A picture so distinct needs no explaining. The sword of
Goliath, the garment, the Ephod, are definite ideas familiar to
David as well as to the high priest. What the two first were
to the soldier, the third was to the priest ; his own, and yet
not his own, but God's.
The M&il and the Ephod of the high priest went by a
special name. Along with his inner tunic, they were called
Tlu Garments. A correct use of words might require that
phrase in many cases, without reference to the high priest and
his robes. In point of fact it occurs only seven times in the
Old Testament. Five of them refer to the high priest. Of
these five three are used in a way which leaves no doubt on
the appropriation of The, Garments, or Tlie very Garments, to
the high priests' robes of office (Ex. xxix. 5 ; Lev. viii. 2,
xxi. 10). Other two require no discussion (Ex. xxviii. 4;
Zech. iii. 4), Two passages remain to be examined (2 Kings
xxii. 14; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22). In reality they are the same.
* Huldah the prophetess, wife of Shallum, son of Tikvah, son
Lite7^atit7^e and Worship of the People. 261
of Harhas, keeper of The Garments! It is difficult to avoid
the conclusion here : as there was a wardrobe chamber in Nob
for the state robes, so there was one in Jerusalem, of whicli
Shallum was keeper.
But the proof is not complete. A link is still wanting. If
the ephod mentioned in the history of David was truly the
ephod made in the wilderness, some hint might be expected
of its glorious appointments, — either the shoulder pieces with
their precious adornment, or the breastplate, with its pocket
containing unknown but curious things. Shoulder pieces are
not mentioned in the book of Samuel, nor the splendid front
of the breastplate. But at a later stage of the history, and in
the most incidental way, that which was behind the front, and
which implies the whole breastplate, is mentioned in one word,
once and once only : ' When Saul inquired of the Lord, the
Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor
by prophets' (1 Sam. xxviii. 6, 15). All three methods were
known in his time. If the Urim was connnon in his day, it
is seldom mentioned. What it was we do not even know.
In only seven places altogether is it found ; two of these have
to be at once dismissed as telling lis nothing, one of the others
is now before us, and the remaining four are these — all of
them from the Pentateuch : —
Ex. xxviii. 30. Lev. viii. 8.
And thou shalt put in the breast- And he put the breastplate upon
plate of judgment the Urim and the him ; also he put in the breastplate the
Thummim ; and they shall be upon Urim and the Thummim.
Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before
the Lord.
Num. xxvii. 18-21. Deut. xxxiii. 8.
Joshua shall stand before Eleazar And of Levi he said, Let thy Urim
the priest, who shall ask for him after and thy Thummim be with thy holy
the manner (custom or judgment) of one.
the Urim before the Lord.
The source, from which the custom in Samuel was
borrowed, is now clear. As Joshua stood before Eleazar,
so Saul stood before a high priest of his own making.
262 TJie Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Liter atur^e.
As Joshua asked at Jehovali by the custom of the Urim, so
Saul asked at Jehovah. If a coincidence of fact and phrase
so singular as this between ISTumbers and Samuel be but
the touch of a reviser's vanished hand, the least sceptical
may well doubt all results of modern criticism. Whatever
the Urim may really have been, it was certainly something
put in the pocket of the high priest's breastplate. But this
something could not be consulted till the priest applied his
hand to the breastplate and drew it out, or examined it other-
wise. ' Withdraw thine hand,' Saul cried to the high priest,
when he wished the consulting stopped. If, then, the chapter
in Numbers, which first shows this use of the Urim, was not
w^ritten till one hundred, or perhaps six hundred, years after
Saul's death, both history and criticism may be pronounced
arts in which it is hopeless to look for fixed principles. But,
besides, the breastplate, though not mentioned in the book of
Samuel, is hinted at. It contained the names of the twelve
tribes, graven on twelve precious stones. Levi was one ;
Joseph was another; but Ephraim and Manasseh did not
appear. When the fierce debate was proceeding at Gilgal
between Israel and Judah, the speakers for Israel said, ' We
have ten parts in the king ' (2 Sam. xix. 43). They referred
to the arrangement of the precious stones on the breast-
plate. Levi, as a tribe scattered over the country, was common
to all the others. Eleven remained, of which ten stood out
against Judah. The reference to the breastplate names in this
dispute is not doubtful.
(6) The law of vows was the same at Shiloh as in the
Pentateuch. Thus, at the very beginning of the book of
Samuel, we read, Hannah ' vowed a vow ;' but when the time
came for thinking of fulfilling that vow, she delays, and allows
her husband, Elkanah, to visit Shiloli without her, ' to offer
unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice and his vow.' Without
doubt, the oath to dedicate the child Samuel to the sanctuary,
which was binding on her, had become binding on him too.
Literahtre and Worship of the People. 26
o
The vow was hers ; not spoken loud out so as to he heard hy
him. But the vow was his also : ' Do what seemeth thee
good ; tarry until thou have weaned him ; only the Lord
establish his word.' A glance at the law of vows in Numbers
(xxx. 13) makes the whole matter clear. ' Every vow,' it says,
' and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may
cstaUish it, or her husband may make it void.' We cannot
help falling back on this law when we read of Hannah's vow,
which was hers, and yet was his, her husband's, also ; and of
which he used the very word used in Numbers to mark out a
husband's right, 'The Lord establish His word.' The law of
vows at Shiloh was the same as the law of vows in the wilder-
ness. But it was a special vow that the mother made, first, of
service to the Lord all the days of the child's life ; and second,
' there shall no razor come upon his head.' The second part
of the vow is borrowed, word for word, from the instructions
given about the rearing of Samson (Judg. xiii. 5). The mere
words of the law, again, are different, for they run, ' No razor
shall pass over his head.' We shall find a freedom of treat-
ment in the writer of Samuel when borrowing from the books
of Moses, as well as an exactness of quotation : the one is as
useful as the other in the sure but delicate tests we have
repeatedly to apply for the discovery of truth.
Other examples of the law of vows occur in the history.
Saul was commissioned to carry out the vow of utter destruc-
tion against Amalek. He even made the same vow against
his own people, and to the danger of his own son, Jonathan.
At a later period Absalom professed to have uttered a vow
during his exile at Geshur in Syria : ' If the Lord shall bring
me again unto Jerusalem, then I will serve the Lord.' He
asked his father's leave to discharge this duty, as the spirit,
if not the letter, of the law in Numbers required him to
do : ' Let me go and pay my vow (which I have vowed unto
the Lord) in Hebron ' (2 Sam. xv. 7, 8). Whatever this vow
may have been, a great feast was in some way part of it, for
264 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
he was allowed by David to invite two hundred men to go
with him from Jerusalem. One thing is plain. When Absalom
fled to Geshur for vindicating the majesty of the law by killing
Amnon, he offered a slight to his own birthplace, Hebron, the
city of refuge for manslayers belonging to Judah. Amnon
deserved death by the law. David allowed him to escape.
Absalom, as next of kin to his sister Tamar, then became the
law's minister of vengeance. But Geshur was not the place
he ought to have fled to. Hebron was the place provided for
him by the law of Moses till the authorities made inquisition
into blood. Was this vow a making of amends to his birth-
place for the wrong he thus did the city and its people ? Was
the great feast he proposed to hold, with his father's know-
ledge and countenance, a reparation to the citizens for his dis-
trust of their protection ? ' He sacrificed sacrifices,' it is said ;
just as his imitator, Adonijah, 'sacrificed (not slew) sheep and
oxen and fat cattle' (1 Kings i. 9, 25). He held a popular
feast in Hebron, as the law of the central altar allowed ; he
was not offering priestly sacrifices.
CHAP TEE X.
RECOXSTRUCTION OF ALL-ISEAEL.
(2 Sam. ii. 4-xi. 27 ; 1 Cheon. xi. 1-xix. 19.)
Kingly government had now been tried among the Hebrews
for more than a generation. To all appearance it had failed
to attain the ends for which it was established. It had not
united the people successfully to make head against foreign
foes. On the contrary, it had broken the nation into pieces
Avhich could scarcely ever be brought together again by the
genius of man. The high-priesthood, the most abiding symbol
of the oneness of the twelve tribes, could scarcely be said to
exist. Jealousies and heartburnings had been freely sown
among the leading men by the king. High offices, important
trusts, wide estates, w^ere given to aliens and unworthy flatterers,
while men of mark in the country were passed over. All the
high hopes with which Saul was greeted shortly after his
accession had come to nothing. The strands of national life,
which he once had it in his power to plait into the strong
cord of national unity, had one by one slipped from his grasp,
until they became hopelessly broken or entangled. He had
reigned to little purpose. He had shown the Hebrews what
they could do; but by not doing it, he had turned their
strength into weakness. After showing them the power of
union under one head, he had split the nation into factions.
After repeatedly leading them to victory, he first broke their
spirit and then involved them in ruinous defeat. At the end
of his reign the twelve tribes were farther from union than at
its commencement. An attempt was made to secure unity
2 66 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
and strength under Saul. It succeeded at first, but its
ultimate failure quenched the hopes and well-nigh the
attempts of patriotism.
One of David's first steps, after taking up his abode in
Hebron, was the issuing of an order to the learned men of the
tribe of Judah to teach the people under their charge the
lament he made on Saul and Jonathan. His object in this
appears to have been to show how truly he mourned over the
princes, who fell fighting for their native land. He was
imitating the lawgiver in thus ordering a song to be taught to
the people. His next step was to send a message of thanks
to the men of Jabesh for their gallantry in rescuing the bodies
of Saul and his three sons. But this show of zeal was not
enough to gain the confidence he had forfeited. Abner had
escaped from the battle of Gilboa. He had earned the
gratitude of his countrymen by hazarding his life for their
independence, while David was eating the bread of the enemy
in the enemy's land. When, therefore, he pronounced against
receiving David as king, most of the people followed his
leading. Probably, in taking this step, Abner was really
afraid of losing the power he had in Saul's time. At least it
was evident that he might retain all power in his own hands,
by placing Saul's surviving son on the throne. The name of
this prince was Ishbaal. He was forty years of age, a
circumstance which might induce us to believe him Saul's
eldest son. He was not a man of much vigour of mind ;
like other weak men, he was prone to suspicion and ready for
a quarrel. He was satisfied to wear a crown, and to enjoy
the pleasures of a throne, while another thought and acted for
him. But he was held in little esteem by his subjects, who
changed his name Ishbaal, 'Lordly man,' into Ishbosheth,
' Man of shame ' (bashful) ; by the latter he is known in
history. He was only a king in name. The tribes on the
west bank of the Jordan either stood in awe of the Philistines,
or were unwilling to receive him among them ; for he chose
Rcconstrttction of A II- Israel, 267
Mahanaim, a city on the fertile plain of Gad, as his capital.
That region had good cause to be grateful to the house of
Saul. But, had it not been for Abner s influence and David's
unhappy alliance with the heathen, Ishbosheth would never
have been thought of for the kingdom.
David seems to have kept up friendly relations with Achish
during his stay in Hebron ; he was then a tributary of the
Philistines. Ishbosheth, on the other hand, was at war with
these tramplers on his country. The position of his capital
city and the wrongs of his house preclude the idea tliat he
would wear a crown as their vassal. But at that time neither
David nor his rival enjoyed the confidence of the Hebrews.
They were merely the chiefs of two parties at feud, on whose
purposeless strife the nation looked without interest. In the
first place, Ishbosheth reigned only two years in Mahanaim,
while David reigned seven and a half in Hebron. Assuming
that they began to reign at nearly the same time, there was
thus a period of five years and a half, during which no king
ruled the eleven tribes, and no desire was manifested to unite
with the kingdom of Judah. These years of waiting were
spent in bringing round Israel again to place confidence in
David. But, further, the Hebrews regarded the quarrel of
Ishbosheth and David as a matter of small concern. Perhaps
they had no longer the same desire as of old for a king ; or
they may have had little confidence in either of the two
princes. Whatever the reason of it may have been, the indif-
ference of the people is unquestionable. Only one battle was
fought between the two parties in seven years. If not the
only battle fought, it was at least the only one deemed worth
recording. And it was more like a faction fight between two
petty clans than a battle between two kingdoms. It was
fought under the following circumstances: — An agreement
appears to have been entered into between the chiefs of the
two parties to appeal to arms ; but, with the view of avoiding
bloodshed, twelve champions were chosen on each side, by
2 68 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
Avliose prowess the quarrel should be settled. Gibeon, the
common sanctuary of both, was fixed on for the fight. Ac-
cordingly, Joab met Abner at the large water tank, near the
foot of the hill on which the town was built. Each of them
Avas accompanied by a band of soldiers. They were separated
by the long broad tank. When everything was ready, Abner
called across to Joab, ' Let the young men now stand forth
and play before us.' ' Let them stand forth,' was the reply.
The champions from each side at once marched into the space
between tlie two bands. The battle was over in a few
minutes. The w\arlike play which the captains called for
was not decisive. Animated by hatred of their rivals, and
upholding the honour of their tribe, each of them, selecting
an opponent, gave and received a mortal thrust. The ghastly
5 ^ight of twenty-four strong men, stretched in a moment
bleeding and dead on the ground, awoke in the onlookers a
thirst for blood. A fierce battle between the two bands at
once began. Abner's men gave way before the onset of the
w^ell-trained soldiers of Joab. Broken and scattered, they
fled along the pasture grounds known as Midbar-Gibeon.
Abner, like the others, sought safety in flight, running for
some distance alone, but keeping the rest of his force in sight.
Both he and they were making for a hill on which they
could rall}^ But there was a youthful pursuer behind the
chief. As the latter cast a look now and again over his
shoulder, he saw the space between them gradually growing
less. The pursuer passed others of the fugitives without
turning aside. He was bent on making up with Abner.
And he gained his wish. ' Is this thou, Asahel ? ' asked the
fugitive, as he recognised Joab's youngest brother. ' It is,' he
answers, the fewness of his words showing the eagerness of
his purpose. ' Turn for thy good,' added Abner ; ' lay hold on
one of the young men, and take thou his armour.' But the
rash youth gave no heed to this advice. With sword uplifted
and ready to strike, he pushed heedlessly forward. Abner
Reconstruction of A II- Israel. 269
saw there was no danger so long as Asaliel was behind the
long and powerful spear which he was carrying by the middle.
' Turn aside for thy good/ Abner repeated ; ' wherefore should
I smite thee to the ground ? How then should I hold up my
face to Joab thy brother ? ' But these appeals were thrown
away. A few strides more, and the sword of Asahel would
have smitten Abner. But he was on his guard. Taking
careful aim, he delivered a back thrust with his heavy spear
at the unwary pursuer. The pointed end was shod with iron,
for the purpose of catching firm hold of the ground when tlie
warrior encamped for the night. Asahel was regardless of
this iron end. It was on him, it was forced past his uplifted
arm, and through his flank before he was aware. Turning-
round to withdraw the spear, Abner stood for a little over the
fallen runner. The shadow of death was already resting on
his features, and in his looks Abner read a blood feud between
himself and the two brothers of the slain hero.
The fall of Asahel stopped the pursuit. On coming up to
the dying soldier, the men of Judah stood still, awed, as it
were, by the greatness of the disaster. Drawn to the place
by the crowd, Joab and Abishai discovered their loss. They
marked the spot in which the spear pierced their brother's
side, to pay the slayer like for like at a future day. A
passionate desire for vengeance seized them. Tlie chase was
resumed. But the respite gained by the fall of Asahel gave
Abner time to gather his followers on the top of a hill called
Ammah, near the border of Midbar-Gibeon. Joab and his
men reached the foot of it towards sunset. They appear to
have formed in a long line in the hope of outflanking those
on the top. But the voice of Abner calling out : ' Shall the
sword devour for ever ? Knowest thou not that it will be
bitterness in the latter end ? ' warned Joab not to be too
eager. Unwilling to confess that the position of the beaten
army was too strong for him, Joab, pretending a desire to
save the shedding of blood, answered that his men would not
270 The Kingdom of Ail- Israel: its History.
have withdrawn from the attack and pursuit till daybreak
had Abner not spoken. The trumpet called a halt to the
assailants. Eetiring from the hill, they turned their faces
homewards. Both the Hebrew chiefs marched all night, the
one to Mahanaim, along the banks of Jordan ; the other to
Hebron, the distance in each case being under thirty miles.
The dead body of Asahel was carried to Bethlehem, and laid
in his father's tomb.
In the war between the two kings, all other forays and
fights which took place were thought unworthy of mention
by the sacred writer. Passing them over with the brief
remark, ' There was long war between the houses of David
and Saul/ he goes on to show how the former increased
in greatness, while the latter fell from causes unconnected
with the war. David was becoming known to the petty
kings of Palestine. Talmai, whose kingdom of Geshur lay
not far from Damascus, gave him his daughter Maachah
in marriage, though he was well aware she would be but
one of a large band of wives dwelling in the palace. This
prince was probably a member of the Hittite confederacy of
kings who, when guided by a skilful chief, were able to defy
Assyria on the east and Egypt on the south. But these
numerous marriages are one of the greatest blots on David's
good name. It may have been otherwise in those days, for
when the sacred writer speaks of him as ' going on and
growing stronger,' the first proof given is the number of sons
born to him by his wives. But a man so enlightened as
David must have felt that he was stretching the mere per-
mission of the divine law to breaking point, when he gave
himself up through passion or pride to this savage morality.
Knowing that it was not so from the beginning, knowing, too,
that his people, if not forbidden in the law to have more
wives than one, were at least discouraged from this custom
of the heathen, he put a stumblingblock before the well-
disposed, and he gave the enemies of Jehovah cause to
Reconsti^tcction of A II- Israel, 271
blaspheme. The blots which stained his kingly greatness,
the griefs which cankered his happiness when all things
seemed going well with him, and the terrible blows which
fell on his house, took their birth in this multitude of wives.
The pride of Abner, to which Ishbosheth owed his throne,
proved also the cause of his own death and of the overthrow
of Saul's house. The king, lending a willing ear to the
scandal of servants regarding visits paid by Abner to the
women's apartments, resented an insult which Eastern despots
consider the most heinous that can be cast on their greatness.
But he was afraid to do more than charge his minister with
cjuilt. A storm of answer burst from Abner on hearing^ the
accusation. The helpless prince w^as struck witli terror. He
could neither speak nor act when Abner, reproaching him
with his baseness, threatened to undo all he had done by
handing the kingdom over to David, its rightful sovereign.
If Ishbosheth was a mean man, unworthy to reign, Abner
showed himself to be a haughty aspirant to the office of
king-maker, who might, if he pleased, make David king.
When it suited his own end, Abner proposed to carry
Jehovah's purposes into effect. He believed himself necessary
for their fulfilment. Pride went before a fall ; the boaster
was doomed to shame. It is not likely that he set about
executing his threat openly, and with the knowledge of
Ishbosheth. The first step he took was to send trusty
messengers to Hebron. On arriving, they had an interview
with David, at which they asked him, ' Whose is the land ? '
They discovered that he regarded Abner as the real ruler of
Israel. Before the nation could again be brought under the
sway of one prince, it was clearly his opinion that an engage-
ment must be entered into with that chief Emboldened by
this discovery, they opened out their master's message more
fully : ' Make thy league with me, and behold my hand shall
be with thee, to brincj about all Israel unto thee.' A meetin<:]j
was also proposed between David and Abner, at which
2/2 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
arrangements could be made for settling the business. David
^villingly agreed to this arrangement, if his wife Michal were
first restored to him by Abner. The messengers reported this
condition to their master. He w^as ready enough to comply ;
but, as he wished things to be managed quietly at first, he
seems to have sent other messengers, requesting David himself
to demand Michal from Ishbosheth.
In the meantime Abner w^as busy preparing for a revolu-
tion. He represented to princes and elders the hopelessness
of strucralin^ with the Philistines so lonc^ as Ishbosheth was
on the throne. He reminded them of their desire after Saul's
death to have David for king, and of the assurance given long
before that David was chosen to deliver Israel from all
enemies. But he dealt most earnestly wdth the chiefs of
Benjamin in favour of a new order of things. With them
his word carried most w^eight, and to them a change of
allegiance would bring the greatest loss. When affairs had
thus been managed so far well for the intended change,
messengers arrived from David demanding back his wife
Michal. Abner gave his voice in favour of yielding. He
did more ; he undertook to escort her to Hebron himself,
though his real object was to make David aware of the revolt,
w^hich was swiftly coming to a head. Twenty men accom-
panied him to Hebron ; an insufficient guard through a hostile
country, had not David's messengers gone back with them.
Knowing when they would reach Hebron, or forewarned that
they were already on the road, David despatched Joab with
a band of soldiers against some raiders who had plundered
the south of Judah. He did not intend to make him aware
of what was on foot. Abner was received with open arms at
Hebron. A great feast, at which he was entertained in the
place of honour, proclaimed to the city the approaching end
of civil war. But tidings of Joab's return hastened the close
of these rejoicings. Without delay Abner w^as hurried off to
collect the tribes of Israel for the purpose of making David
Reconstruction of All-Israel, 273
king. Scarcely had he left the city for the north, when Joab
entered with much spoil from the south. The coming of
Abner was soon made known to him, not with any evil
design, but only as the gossip of the town. Given to trickery
and deceit himself, he could not believe that the only reason
for his coming was to restore Michal to her husband. Furious
also at the king for concealing the matter from him, Joab
hastened to the palace, and with a scorning which showed the
mastery he had already acquired over David, he demanded an
explanation of this sending away of Abner. His only object
in coming, he said, was to spy out the land. Unhappily,
Joab was to David almost as imperious and as useful as was
Abner to Ishbosheth. On leaving the palace, Joab sent
messengers to recall Abner to Hebron ; perhaps some of the
very men who had gone to Mahanaim for Michal, and whom
Abner knew. Joab's audacity would not shrink from giving
the order as if it came from the king. Nor would the
messengers sent suspect evil. Abner was only a little way
from the city. Tearing no danger, he turned on receiving
the message. Joab is appeased, he thought; the king has
bought up the blood feud, or the two brothers are as wishful
of peace as David himself. When he drew near to the city
gate, Joab and Abishai met him and his men. There were
no signs of danger. Everything boded peace. Kindly
greetings passed between the rival chiefs. Joab then turned
Abner aside towards the middle of the gate to a retired spot
where they could talk over matters in private. He was not
allowed to enter the city of refuge. Abner, having no fear,
followed the two brothers, leaving his own men to wait his
return. He was snared in the toils. Suddenly turning on
him, Joab threw off the mask of friendship, and stabbed him
in the very part where his spear had given Asahel the death-
wound.
Tidings of the treacherous murder soon spread to the
palace. With horror at the deed, David hastened to clear
S
2 74 ^^^^ Kingdom of All-Isi'ael : its History.
himself from guilt. Almost every man in the eleven tribes,
on hearing of it, would suspect the king's hand, as well as
Joab's. Every one knew that the death of Abner removed
the mainstay of Ishbosheth's throne ; but only a few could be
aware of his real design in visiting Hebron. The deed would
seem black in the eyes of men at a distance. They would
hear of the friendly visit, the bringing back of Michal, and
the message of recall. Alarmed at the appearance things
might wear, David hastened to make his innocence known to
his own people, as well as to Abner' s. While invoking the
vengeance of heaven on the murderers, he issued orders to his
courtiers and soldiers, and especially to Joab, to rend their
garments, to clothe themselves with sackcloth, and to follow
the bier on which Abner was borne to the grave. David
himself headed the procession. And as the loud wail of grief
arose from the mourners, the king also wept aloud. And
well might he weep, for the murder of Abner awoke suspicions
which were not easily allayed. David gave further proof of
his grief for the death of Abner by composing a brief but
beautiful elegy on his mournful end. In substance it was as
follows : —
As dies the fool, did Abner die ?
Thy hands, they were not bound,
And brazen bands did not thy feet surround.
Not so, — as brave men falling die
Before the wicked, so did Abner falling lie.
A general fast for the remainder of the day was the third
token of David's sorrow. But he was unable to do more
to the murderer than deprive him of the office of commander-
in-chief. The blood feud between Joab and Abner gave a
colour of right to the crime, which Joab could plead in his
own defence (Num. xxxv. 26, 27). For five years, if not for
a longer period, David's unscrupulous nephew was in disgrace.
From the day on which he delivered that fatal sword-thrust,
to that other day on which he carried the stronghold of Zion
at the head of his men, he ceased to hold the highest place
Reconstrnction of A II- Israel, 275
among the soldiers of Jiidali. But the king was not able to go
farther. At a meeting of those whom he could trust, David,
in view of all the difficulties of his position, was forced to say :
* I am this day weak though an anointed king, and these men,
the sons of Zeruiah, are stronger than I.'
The murder of Abner was followed by another as base at
Mahanaim. Among the captains of Ishbosheth were two
brothers, named Baanah and Eechab, who, though natives of
Beeroth, one of the heathen cities spared by Joshua, were,
with their fellow-citizens, reckoned members of Saul's own
tribe. One of their townsmen, Kaharai, was armour-bearer to
Joab, and a chief man in the army of Judah. If they were
aware of this, the hope of similar, or even greater honours,
may have had no small influence in determining their course
of action. At noon on a hot summer day, when Ishbosheth
was taking a mid-day sleep, they entered the palace, getting
past the guards on pretence of fetching wheat from the king's
stores.^ Gliding into the chamber, they stabbed him to the
heart as he lay on his bed. To ensure a speedy reward by
convincing David of the service they had done, they cut off
their master's head, they hid it in the bag of wheat, and
made their escape from the palace. Hurrying towards the
Jordan, they travel all night down the dreary Arabah, cheered
by the hope of being numbered among David's chiefest
favourites. Bitterly were they disappointed. Next morning
they reach the capital of Judah ; like the Amalekite who
brought the new^s of Saul's death, they have tidings for the
king and for him alone. They are admitted to an audience.
After recounting to David their tale of blood, tliey draw forth
from the wheat-bag the head of his murdered rival, ghastly,
covered with blood, and blood-stained grains of wheat. It
1 Instead of this, the LXX. have: 'And the porteress of the palace was
cleaning wheat, and was nodding and sleeping, and Rechab and Baanah escaped
notice ' (2 Sam. iv. 6). Such translating as this is sometimes preferred to the
Hebrew^ version ! See also their verse 7.
276 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
was a horrid present. But tlie murderers hoped to make
David a partner in their guilt, for one of them, holding up
the head, exclaimed: 'Jehovah hath given to my lord the king
vengeance this day on Saul and his seed.' The great heart
of David swelled with rage at this wickedness. It was not
worldly policy only, not a cunning stroke to turn aside
suspicion from himself. A noble nature awoke within him
at the sight of the blood-stained head, and the effrontery of
murderers almost asking him to become a sharer in their
guilt. Orders were at once issued to some of the guard
standing round to put the men to death. And that there
might be no doubt of their fate, or of the reason why they
suffered, their hands and feet were cut off and suspended on
poles beside the great tank, to which the people of Hebron
repaired for water. These instruments of the murder and the
flight were left swinging on poles for some time. According
to the law, bodies could not remain exposed after sundown.
The putting up of the hands and feet was thus a politic
evasion of the Mosaic law. The head of Ishbosheth was
buried in the tomb of Abner. But all the precautions taken
by David did not prevent his enemies from fastening on him
the charge of a guilty complicity in the murders of Abner and
Ishbosheth. Nearly twenty years after the overthrow of
Saul's dynasty, that feeling probably found expression in the
invectives hurled at David by Shimei, the Benjamite. ' Thou
man of blood,' ' Thou man of Belial,' shedder of ' all the blood
of the house of Saul,' were some of the charges uttered against
the king, when his power to punish appeared to have passed
away altogether.
Although the anointing of David as king of All-Israel
follows close on the death of his rival in the written record,
there was really an interval of five years. No account has
been preserved of the means taken for winning over the
eleven tribes to David, or of the chiefs by whom that was
managed. But judging from the lists of armed men sent ' to
Reconstruction of All-IsracL 277
turn tlie kingdom of Saul to David,' it is plain that tlie priests
had a leading hand in the change. Their prince, Jehoiada,
and their brave captain, Zadok, are the only men named on
these lists. From this circumstance, as well as from the
horror with which the whole priestly caste would naturally
regard the house of Saul, we may reasonably conclude that
these two took the lead in bringing tlie eleven tribes to
acknowledge David as king. At a later period, after the
rebellion of Absalom, the high priests, Zadok and Abiathar,
persuaded the men of Judah to invite David back to
Jerusalem. From all parts of the land came Israel in
thousands to set the crown on David's head. Judah, Simeon,
and Benjamin, the tribes nearest to Hebron, sent but a small
number of representatives to this general assembly. From
Issachar came only two hundred chief men. But the other
tribes sent armies varying in number from eighteen to fifty
thousand. The tribes on the east of Jordan, which furnished
only 40,000 men for the conquest of Canaan under Joshua,
were now able to send 120,000 to Hebron. Peace and union
had increased their prosperity after Saul saved them from
ruin. They now repaid their debt to the rest of Israel.
Altogether, nearly 340,000 men were under arms in and
around Hebron in honour of the new king. * Thy bone and
thy flesh are we,' were the terms in which these free-born
Israelites made their submission to David. They were his
brethren, not his slaves. Perhaps a greater number of unarmed
men, of women, and of children, were lookers-on. For three
days the rejoicings and feastings continued. Strings of
camels, asses, and oxen brought dried fruits, wines, olive oil,
and bread from a district of country stretching at least
seventy miles to the north of Hebron, while flocks of sheep
and oxen from the south country furnished the vast assembly
with animal food during their stay at the town.
Before the soldiers returned home, David turned their
enthusiasm to account by proposing to capture the stronghold
278 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
of Jebus.-^ Although formerly in possession of the Hebrews,
it had been retaken by the heathen. But David had re-
marked its natural strength, and its fitness for becoming the
capital of a kingdom. Having often passed the Hill of Zion,
having lived within a few miles of it for most of his life, and
knowing thoroughly the sacred traditions which had gathered
round the neighbourhood, he was led to desire it for a metro-
polis. It was one of the strongest places in the country ; art
might make it impregnable. From it also he could fall back
on his own tribe of Judah should disaffection break out in
the north. It was, besides, a centre from which he could
•most easily guide the course of war against the Philistine, the
Edomite, the Ammonite, and the Moabite. Although not the
natural centre of the country, Zion was the centre of the
district within which had been wrought out the life and
history of the twelve tribes. The great events of patriarchal
times, nearly all the battles of the conquest under Joshua,
and most of the wars in the times of the Judoes, were
grouped round Jerusalem. A circle of thirty miles radius,
with that town for a centre, embraced almost every enemy
and almost every achievement in Hebrew annals. Poetry,
piety, and policy combined to make it a fitting metropolis for
the new kingdom.
When David summoned the ejarrison to surrender, his
demand was treated with contempt. They told him the
blind and the lame could hold the fortress against all his
efforts. The Israelites themselves came to entertain a similar
opinion of it : ' The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants
of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and
the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem'
(Lam. iv. 12). But if the confidence of the Jebusites was
great, David's determination was greater. His name and
^ 2 Sam. V. 6 : * The king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jehusite
inhabiting the land. ' The words in italics are unintelligible, except they be a
quotation of a well-known phrase from the Pentateuch and Joshua.
Reconstrttction of A II- Israel, 279
throne were pledged to success. A failure would break the
spell gathering soldiers round him ; success w^ould bind the
people closer to their sovereign and to each other. Impressed
with a deep sense of the greatness of the crisis, David issued
a proclamation/ assuring to the first who should gain the wall
in the forthcoming assault, the office of commander-in-chief.
It was discovered that the only pathway up the rugged sides
of Zion was by a w^atercourse leading down to the valley
two or three hundred feet below. Great changes have been
made on the ground since that time. As Joab himself might
fail to recognise it could he return to tlie scene of bis
exploit, modern inquirers are not justified in attempting to
determine his exact path up the rocks. Perhaps the danger
of an assault at any otlier point w^as too great to be risked.
But the v/atercourse, being deemed secure against an enemy
from its steepness, may have been left unguarded, an omission
far from uncommon in ancient siesres. If so, the besiei^ed
had reason to repent of the oversight. Favoured by the
darkness of the night, or in the dim light of the early
morning, Joab effected a lodgment on the wall by climbing
up the w^atercourse. Only a small force could follow him on
this rugged path. The stronghold was soon in the hands of
the Hebrew troops ; and Joab regained by his daring the post
which he forfeited some years before by the murder of Abner.
There seem to have been two fortresses taken, * a stronghold
of Zion,' as the Hebrew reads (2 Sam. v. 7), and Zion itself.
One w^as a castle, the other was the towai. Apparently they
correspond to the northern and southern ends of the hill of
Zion, the northern and smaller height being separated from
the higher and larger by a narrow neck of land. We are not
^ The substance only of the proclamation is given in 1 Chron. xi. 6 ; tlie
\vords are given in 2 Sam. v. 8, but the sentence is not complete, which may
be owing to the carelessness of some ancient transcriber, but is more probably
due to the Hebrews not having a word for Qt cetera. ' Whosoever smiting the
Jebusite reacheth by the watercourse both the lame and the blind, the hated
of David's soul, ' etc.
2 8o The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael: its History,
told the fate of the vanquished. But as the heights of
Moriah, between Zion and the Mount of Olives, were in
possession of a Jebusite thirty years after this time, and
David, when wishful to secure the hill as a site for the
temple, paid the full price for it, the vanquished were evi-
dently treated with a kindness uncommon in ancient warfare.
Zion, or 'the Sunny,' was a hill of about sixty acres in
extent on the top, and rose at its highest point 2520 feet
above the sea. Its length lay north and south. At its north
end a narrow saddle, fifty yards across, connected it with a
smaller and a slightly lower hill called Acra. But on every
other side it was defended by ravines or sharply sloping
ground, descending to valley bottoms more than one hundred
and in some places more than three hundred feet below.
Across the valley to the east of Zion was another hill,
parallel to Zion, somewhat lower, and less fitted at that time
for building on. Moriah, as this hill was called, sloped
rapidly towards the south for about half a mile. Its narrow,
southern tongue, or part of it, is believed to have been the
Ophel of David's time, and perhaps the site of Solomon's
palace, while its centre, higher, broader, and perhaps longer,
became the site of the temple. Still farther to the east, and
separated from Moriah by the deep cleft of the Kedron or
Blackwater, was the triple-topped mountain called Olivet,
higher than Moriah and Zion, of much greater area, but less
defensible in war. The valleys or ravines, parting these hills
from one another and from the country on the west of Zion,
all met about three hundred yards beyond the famous pool of
Siloam, at the south-western end of Moriah. This meeting-
point is 460 feet lower than its summit, and 100 feet below
its southern end.
As central Moriah is known to have been used for a
threshing-floor till near the end of David's reign, it cannot
have been the fortress which he took from the heathen.
Mount Olivet is also excluded by universal consent. There
Reconstrttction of A II- Israel. 2 8 1
seem to remain only two hills which could have justified the
boasts of the enemy, Zion and Acra. The former is generally
regarded as the place. But by several writers both heights
are made to play a part in the story. Acra is believed to
have been, what it certainly became many centuries after-
wards, a strong castle, which David took before he carried
the stronger fortress of Zion. As the two hills may tlien
have passed under the one name of Zion, the theory may
possibly be correct. But changes have taken place since tliat
time by lowering the high ground and filling up hollows or
valleys, which render a verdict on these points of comparatively
little value.
Eecently, however, an attempt has been made to revive a
different theory. Dr. Birch, followed by several others, has
identified Zion with Ophel, or the southern tongue of Moriah.^
David's palace and David's city thus become the same thing.
The ground on which it was built could not have exceeded
twenty acres, if even so much space was available. As a
fortress, the Ophel slope would be of little worth. At a
distance of a hundred yards, it was completely commanded by
the higher ground up the hill. Besides, on this view David's
capital was only as large as a good-sized castle ; the stories
given of crowds of soldiers, priests, Levites, and citizens
thronging its streets, can be nothing better than romantic
inventions of a later age. Were it not for the support which
some details of the theory seem to derive from the writings
of Nehemiah, it would not be looked at. The names Zion
and City of David are applied sometimes to the whole of
Jerusalem, and sometimes to a part of it, but usually in a
way sufficient to puzzle those wlio are wedded to a theory.
If Zion was a town or castle built by David on the narrow
tongue of Moriah, the description of it in the Psalms is most
misleading. * On the sides of the north ' (Ps. xlviii. 2) con-
1 Birch, Pal. Exp. Q. S., Jan. 1882. Wellhausen's view is the same, and is
advocated in Eucyc. Brit. xiii. 639 a. See also Lewin, Sketch of Jerumhm.
282 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
veys no meaning whatever if the southern slope of Ophel was
in the writer's thoughts. To Zion and Acra, again, the words
were strictly applicable, as the general slope of the ground
there was towards the north.
The fame of David soon spread beyond Palestine. But his
neighbours, the Philistines, were the first to take alarm. A
nnion of the twelve tribes under one kinfj boded evil to them.
Although David might be content to remain their tributary
so long as he reigned over Judah only in Hebron, he would
endeavour to throw off their yoke as soon as he became king
of the whole country in Jerusalem. But while they were
preparing for war with David, Hiram, king of Tyre, was
seeking ]iis friendship. A sincere peace could not exist
between the Tyrians and the Philistines. Livino- on the same
seaboard, and, in the period of the Philistines' greatest power,
having almost the same border at Dor, there must have been
rivalry, if not war, between them. A common enemy thus
became the bond of union, at lirst perhaps, between David
and Hiram. Tlie independence of the one would be a
guarantee for that of the other, and the fortifying of Jeru-
salem may have seemed to Hiram an effectual means of
fortifying Tyre. Accordingly, his messengers to David were
followed by a body of carpenters and masons to assist in
building the walls of the new capital Cedar-wood also was
sent from Lebanon for the beautifying of David's own palace.
But before the City of David, as the town was then called,
became entitled to rank as the chief stronghold of Palestine,
the Philistine armies came to seek the new king. Spreading
over the fertile plain of Eephaim, in the neighbourhood of
Zion, they plundered the open country. On hearing of their
approach, David went down for safety to a place called the
' Hold,' which it is difficult to avoid identifying with Adullam.
Bethlehem was seized by the invaders, who even threw a
garrison into the town. Sick at heart, David appears to have
also fallen sick in body. A longing came over him such as
ReconstriLction of All-Israel. 28
J
men often feel when illness lias struck them down, and a
fancy takes possession of them for something they used to
get but can get no longer : ' Oh that one would give me
drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, wliich is by the
gate ! ' It was harvest time, the hot season of the year.
Three of his Mighties had come down from the highlands to
consult with their stricken chief. They heard his prayer.
Without delay they fell on the enemy, broke their array, and
returned with a skin of water from the gate well of Bethlehem.
An achievement so brilliant brought back life to the sick man
more than the water he prayed for. Pouring it out on the
ground as a drink-offering, ' Forbid, 0 Lord,' he said, ' that I
should do this. Is it not the blood of the men that went in
jeopardy of their lives ? ' The longing for the water had
passed away: 'he desired not to drink' their blood. An
incident like this shows the power exercised by David over
the men who gathered round him. Probably it roused him
to action. But before hazarding an attack, he inquired,
through the liigh priest, whether Jehovah would give him
success. ' Go up,' said the high priest, ' for I will certainly
deliver the Philistines into thine hand.' Whether David
suddenly fell on their camp with his six hundred, or engaged
them in a pitched battle, is uncertain. The scene of the
fight was the high grounds afterwards called Baal Perazim, in
memory of their discomliture. Their defeat was as thorough
as when the side of a water tank, giving way, allows the
hurrying waters to rush forth over the neighbouring valley.
In their headlong retreat they left behind them the w^ooden
images wdiich they carried with the army. The sacred writer
records the contempt of the victor for these vanities — he
carried them off and burned them in the fire.
This display of force on David's part, far from terrifying
the Philistines, determined them to make a greater effort to
seize the new king. Again they spread themselves over the
plain of Rephaim, as if defying him to repeat the blow which
284 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
he had ah'eady delivered. They were more watchful and in
greater numbers. An attack in front and a pitched battle
were forbidden : ' Thou shalt not go up : fetch a compass to
their rear, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees.'
The plan of attack took David towards the great north road,
probably to the valley of Baca (Ps. Ixxxiv. 6). The Hebrews
forbore to move till their king heard the sign of victory,
tlie * sound of a going ' in the tree-tops, intimating that
Jehovah had gone before him to the battle. This sound of a
going may have been caused by the morning wind touching
the tree-tops with its first soft breathings, or by some other
cause equally natural. But the sound, foretold and waited
for, encouraged the Hebrew soldiers, even while it filled them
with awe, especially if its solemn murmur were heard amid
the deep stillness of earliest morning. Complete success
crowned the attack. The final stand of the enemy was made
between Gibeon and Geba, on the southern bank of the ravine
wdiich witnessed their ruinous defeat in the first war of
independence. From that town they were driven westward
down the pass of Beth-horon, as far as Gezer, a stronghold on
the southern border of the plain of Sharon. In that second
war of independence the power of the Philistines was broken.
The sceptre of Israel, which they had wielded for generations,
was wrested for ever from their grasp.
David showed his oratitude to Jehovah for thus delivering"
o o
the kingdom from bondage, by proposing to bring the ark of
God from Kirjath-jearim to Zion. The time chosen w^as
probably the feast of passover or of tabernacles, as All-Israel,
from the river of Egypt in the south to the pass of Hamath
in the north, assembled for the purpose. Priests, Levites,
prophets, and soldiers were present in vast numbers ; but to
so low an ebb had the study of sacred learning fallen among
the twelve tribes, that none of those in power seem to have
known the only allowable way of removing the ark from place
to place. Seventy years before, it came from the Philistines*
Reconstrtictioii of A II- Israel. 285
country on a new cart, drawn by two milch kine unbroken to
the yoke. Traditions of that coming were rife in the neigh-
bourhood ; what better plan of taking it away could be de-
vised ? Accordingly a new cart was prepared, oxen were got
to draw it, and Uzzah and Ahio, the two sons or descendants
of Abinadab, in whose house the ark lay, were appointed over
the oxen. A great host of harpers, musicians, priests, and
soldiers accompanied the cart. All went well till they reached
a place called Nachon's or Chidon's threshing-floor. For some
reason the oxen stumbled and became restive. Afraid of the
ark rolling off, Uzzah, who was walking behind, tried to steady
it with his hand. It was a rash act. No one but the priests
was allowed to handle that sacred symbol of God's presence,
and even they could only put their hands to the carrying
staves provided for the purpose. * The sons of Kohath shall
not touch any holy thing, lest they die,' was the law and the
penalty (Num. iv. 15). In sight of all the people, Uzzah was
struck dead beside the ark. Swiftly as the rumour of his
sad end ran among the assembled thousands, as swiftly would
course after it the remembrance of the multitude who perished
at Bethshemesh seventy years before for looking on the ark.
The rejoicings of the day were turned into mourning, its glad-
some praise into the silence of a terrible dread. Even David
w^as afraid. He was not aware of any wrong for which Uzzah
had paid so heavy a penalty. And in the midst of most
sincere endeavours to honour Jehovah, this terrible blow dashes
his hopes and plans to the ground. ' How,' he said, ' shall
the ark of God come to me V In the terror wrought by the
untoward doom of Uzzah, he had the ark placed in the house
of a Levite named Obed-edom, belonging to the town of
Gath Eimrnon, hard by.
A few weeks sufficed to discover the true cause of this
failure. Uzzah committed an ' error ' — a word not used else-
where in the Hebrew Bible. He was a victim of the sin of
others in their long neglect of the ark. The fallings away of
286 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Histo7y.
former generations brought down punishment on liis head.
But the writer in Samuel does not stay the narrative to give
his readers an insic^ht into the nature of that error. He did
not need. At the beginning of his book he described, in
the professional language of the priests, the proper way of
carrying the ark, and he indicates it twice here and twice
also after David discovered the mistake committed.^ But
the Chronicler records the ignorance of the priests in allowing
the ark to be placed on a cart, their violation of the Mosaic
law, their neglect in not using the carrying staves, and the sin
of touching the ark, precisely as might be expected from one
to whom the law of Moses was familiar. These two writers
were separated by an interval of more than five hundred
years. Events, which took place during that interval, explain
the comparative silence of the one and the free speaking of
the other ; and in this view of the matter there is one thing
left out which it is advisable to bear in mind. The writer of
the books of Samuel had not the same reason to refer to the
law of Moses as the writer of the books of Chronicles. While
the writer in Samuel regarded the Mosaic law as a national
heirloom familiar to all, the Chronicler had been taught by
persecution and by national captivity to regard it also as the
test of happiness or misery to the Hebrews. Exile, famine,
sword, unheard-of privations, had stamped it so deeply on the
mind of the one that his whole heart was full of it to the
exclusion of other things, while the older writer had not had
like experience of the same horrors and calamities flowing
from its neglect. The one lived at a time when the sun of
the Hebrew faith and powder shone with its greatest splendour ;
1 See above, p. 255. The repetition in 2 Sam. vi. 3, 4 is often ascribed to the
blundering of a transcriber. It seems rather an emphatic calling of attention
to the error committed, ' They set the ark of God on a new cart (for they bore it
out of the house of Abinadab that was on the hill), and Uzzah and Ahio drave
the new cart (for they bore it out of the house of Abinadab that was on the hill)
with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.' See similar repetitions,
2 Sam. iv. 5-7 ; xxiv. 21, 25 : 1 Kings vi. 9, 14.
Reconstruction of All-Israel. 287
the other when that sun seemed sunk in the shades of nio-ht.
With good reason, therefore, does the writer of the Chronicles
look on the law of Moses as the only means of bringing back
light and glory to the nation. He feels a terrible want ; the
law may supply that want to him and his people. The writer
of the books of Samuel did not feel the same want of national
life and glory. A bright day of prosperity was shining on
him and his readers. It would therefore have been contrary
to nature had he and the writer of the books of Chronicles
written in like terms of the law of Moses. It must also be
allowed that the law was not carefully studied in the end of
Saul's reign and for the first seven years of David's. The
slaughter of the priests of ISTob, more than anything else,
caused a break in the continuity of sacred customs which,
though fully preserved in writing, acquired additional force
by passing from mouth to mouth as the ages rolled on. The
murder of the high priest, and of the most trusted officials
about the holy place, left a gap between the past and the
future which Abiathar, the only survivor of the priests of ^NTob,
may not have been able to bridge across. The wandering
life, which he led after his escape from Saul, was not
fitted for gathering again together the scattered threads of
that broken cord. With all justice, then, might we look for
ignorance of the law of Moses at this period of David's
history, and for blundering in the minute details of sacred
things. Twenty years' intermission of study or practice will,
in most cases, efface from the memory the less outstanding
details of a man's professional knowledge.^
The discovery of the error committed in setting the ark on
a cart, and the blessings bestowed on Obed-edom, emboldened
^ Within the past five years, a singnhar iUustration of these views happened
in the church history of Europe. It is well known that the smoke arising
from the burning of the voting papers is a signal to the watchers on the piazza
of St Peter's, that the cardinals, to whom belongs the duty of filling up a
vacancy in the popedom, have failed to elect a new pope. At the last election
in 1878, two burnings of the papers, on February 18 and 19, indicated two
288 The Kingdom of All-Isi-ael: its Histoiy,
the king to a renewal of the enterprise. A tent was pitched
in Zion, similar to the Mosaic tabernacle ; or rather a large
uncovered court was curtained off, and within it a wooden
house, richly ornamented, was built for the ark of God.
When the procession of priests, Levites, and people entered
the city, David w^as with them, clothed in a robe of line linen
similar to that worn by the sons of Aaron. As they climbed
the steep and narrow streets, the outpoured blood of a host of
victims, slain before the advancing ark, sought reconciliation
with God. When six paces had been stepped by the bearers,
— the professional word is now used, — oxen and fatlings fell
beneath the sacrificial knife. Evidently the way to the holy
place was a way of blood. The stained streets of Zion,
the rivers of blood, the slaughtered heaps, and the blaze of
altar fires formed a strange contrast to tlie dancing, the sing-
ing, and the harping of the multitudes who crowded the city.
It may not have seemed wonderful to them. Custom, which
familiarizes the eye to the strangest sights, if they do not
outrage conscience, had led them to consider blood and death
two of the essential elements of worship. But no one now
can think of the blood-stained way, along which the ark of
mercy was borne, without seeing in these red rivers the fore-
shadowing of a hidden power in blood to cleanse what it
touched, altogether unlike its power to defile.
As the ark passed along the streets, David showed his joy
by engaging before it in a kind of sacred dance. Among the
Hebrews sacred dances are sometimes mentioned, especially
in the book of Psalms, as acts of divine worship. But they
were not common in David's time. Like other ancient
customs, the dance had fallen into decay during the troublous
age which preceded. But the revived study of ancient
failures. On the following morning the smoke was again seen, but an election
had been made. ' This third burning of the papers seems to have been a mistake ;
perhaps the lapse of thirty-one years [the reign of Pius ix.Jhad sufficed to cause
some important points of the traditional routine to be forgotten.' — Edinburgh
Jievieu', No. 316, p. 438.
Reconstrtcction of A I I- Israel. 289
literature appears to have taught David the lawfulness of the
practice. As Miriam, in the hour of Israel's triumph over
Pharaoh, led the Hebrew women when, with ' timbrels and
dances,' they replied to Moses' song of thanks, so it was not
unbecoming in David to join in the sacred song and in tlie
sacred dance, in commemoration of an event which, consider-
ing the overthrow of the Philistines that preceded, seemed not
unlike another triumphant marching forth from bondage. To
complete the parallel, David, following the example of Moses,
handed to Asaph, the leader of the song, a hymn of praise
similar to that composed on the overthrow of the Egyptians.^
But all the Hebrews did not share in the pious fervour of
their king. Some of them, unread in the holy books, and
with little warmth of heart, despised him for this display
of feelino-. Amono- these was his wife Michal. From a
window of the palace she saw the part he took in the rejoic-
ings. With the same boldness of speech which characterized
her in the first years of their married life, she welcomed him
on his return to the palace with words of bitter scorn.
Several hours had elapsed, giving her time to reflect on her
speech of welcome. The ark had been lodged within the taber-
nacle ; bread and raisin-cake and wine distributed to the
multitude, and the final sacrifices offered. Before David can
bless his own house, as a fitting close to the solemnities of the
day, Michal comes forth to meet him. Wives, concubines,
children, servants are assembled in the court of the palace
to receive the blessing of their lord. But Michal mars the
happiness of the meeting by likening him to one of the ' vain
fellows,' the w^orthless men who were found in Zion as they
1 1 Chron. xvi. 7-36. This hymn now exists in the Psalter as Ps. cv. 1-15,
the whole of Ps. xcvL, besides 2 Chron. v. 13, and Ps. cvi. 47, 48. No one with
the Psalter in his hands would have joined two psalms together in this fashion,
unless he had authority to do so from the history he was consulting. Still less
would he have made changes on the words. The Chronicler has evidently
preserved the first version of the hymn, and we know from Psalm xviii. and
2 Sam. xxii. tliat David did publish two editions of a poem.
T
290 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
are found in all towns. * Eaca ' is the name with which she
scorns her king and husband — Eaca, that word which the
mouth utters when the heart is breaking the sixth command-
ment. And it was uttered, too, in presence of the women
who, like her, had come forth to meet David. It may have
been a stroke of policy on Michal's part, an attempt to intimi-
date her many rivals in the palace, and to cast once more
round David the chains of a submission which he may have
worn in former years. If so, it was a fatal blunder. David
at once deposed her from the office of queen, a place to which
both her rank and the fact that she was his first wife may
have entitled her. But he also condemned her to banish-
ment from his presence. Perhaps, indeed, she was imprisoned
for life in some corner of the palace, where there might be
but one or two handmaidens to wait on her, and to hear her
freely-expressed contempt for the man whose life she saved
at the risk of her own, and whose honour she valued more
than her place as his wife and queen.
When David sat in his own house, admiring the white
stones and the polished cedar work which skilled workmen
from Tyre had prepared for him, he became alarmed lest, in
lodging himself so splendidly, he had forgotten what was due
to the Giver of all honour. ' I dwell in an house of cedar,
but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains,' he said to
Nathan the prophet, one of his chief counsellors. And then
he detailed to him the plan of building a gorgeous temple for
the ark. Nathan encouraged him in his purpose. But the
prophet's advice was given without warrant from Heaven.
That very night he was commanded to forbid the w\arrior king
to build a temple. The honour was reserved for a son not
yet born, who should rule the land in peace. But in return
for the desire which he felt to honour God, the promise was
given him of an endless line of princes, who should succeed
him in the kingdom. The message of Nathan and the prayer
of David (2 Sam. vii. 1-29) are frequently referred to in the
ReconstriLction of A II- Israel, 291
history wliicli follows, while they are themselves allowed to
be distinct echoes of the Pentateuch as the foundation of
Hebrew thought and worship. This interweaving of the pre-
sent with the past and the future is an irrefragable proof of
the writer's truthfulness. The practice also of quoting himself
as well as others, is a peculiarity of style which has not met
with the attention it deserves. But though David was for-
bidden to build a temple, he was inspired to write the hymns
for use in its worship. Before the necessity for these new
songs of praise was felt, David had distinguished himself as
much by depth of feeling and sweetness of song in poetry, as
by skill in arms. His ' Dumb-dove-among-strangers,'^ and
the sacred sonojs which he wrote * in the wilderness and in the
cave ' during his banishment from court," show a passion and
a tenderness which lift them to the highest place among lyric
poems. While they let us into the inmost heart of this
wandering harper, they inspire us with the feeling that never
was poet more worthy to be employed in writing sacred songs,
not for a splendid ritual in Jerusalem, but for mortal hearts
in all ages and in all lands. From the time of the bringing
up of the ark to Zion, down almost to the end of his life,
David seems to have found delisjht in this most honourable
work. Well had it been if that loved employment had saved
him from crimes which stain his name. Many of his com-
positions are headed with the simple words, ^ A psalm of
David.' Others of them, if they are his work, name the chief
singer, for whom they were at first intended ; or by whom
they were written (2 Chron. xxix. 30). Asaph, who then
superintended the music in Zion, is mentioned in twelve
psalms ;^ Jeduthun, whose duty it was to serve in the taber-
nacle of Moses at Gibeon, is mentioned in three ;^ the sons of
Korah, a branch of the family of the Kohathites, to which the
chief singers themselves belonged, are mentioned in eleven.^
1 Psalms 56 and 34. 2 Psalms 52, 54, 57, 59, 63, 142.
3 Psalms 50. 73-83. " Psalms 39, 62, 77. ^ Psalms 42, 44-49, 84, 85, ^1 , 88.
292 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Histoiy.
We may pause at this stage of David's career to mark the
change which the genius of one man had, with the blessing of
God, wrought in the condition of Israel. Towards the end of
Saul's reign the nation resembled a stranded ship going to
pieces. Although still outwardly bound together under one
head, its spirit was gone, its confidence in the king was lost.
The defeat and death of Saul on Gilboa brought to light, what
had formerly been concealed, the miserable wreck of Hebrew
unity. Man ceased to have confidence in man ; a once united
people was broken up into a number of little fragments, which
floated hither and tliither, and were even dashed against each
other by events, precisely as the masts and boards of a wrecked
ship are dashed against each other by the waves. It was
reserved for David to build up in unity and strength this
shattered kingdom. For ten or twelve years he laboured at
the work. Sometimes, when the end seemed almost attained,
an unlooked-for disappointment tlirew things back into wreck
and confusion. But after much weary waiting, the glory of
uniting the scattered fragments of Hebrew nationality became
David's. The reorganized state was assailed from without by
the Philistines, who read their own fate in David's success.
Every failure of the enemy to regain their former footing
among the twelve tribes was, as it were, a fresh rivet driven
in to fasten the new-made kingdom more firmly together.
But success against enemies without was not enough. There
must be somewhat to bind together friends within. And he
sought what Saul had recklessly thrown away, the bond of a
common faith to strengthen that of a common king. Internal
union he justly regarded as the surest bulwark against foreign
foes. By bringing up the ark to Zion, and by restoring the
priests to their former place in the state, he brought back
the nation to that point from which it had gone aside in Saul's
reign. And he brought it back, purified by suffering, to run
a career of glory such as has fallen to the lot of no other
kingdom. At the beginning of this period David proposed to
Reconstritction of All- Israel. 293
build a temple for the ark. Had he been allowed to carry
out his purpose, the energies of king and people would have
been spent for years on a work which the nation was not
prepared to undertake. The enemies of the Hebrews were
nearly as strong as ever. If a weaker hand than David's
swayed the sceptre, they might be able to undo all that he
had done in uniting his people. It was most impolitic to
turn his mind to the building of a temple, a work on which
the best of his years would be spent, while the power of
neighbouring nations was still unbroken. David's work was
to prepare for a lasting peace by waging successful war. A
true view of his position would lead him to think of humbling
thoroughly the many invaders who had often trampled on the
Hebrews. Were he to spend several years in mere works of
building, he might leave to his son a legacy of war and blood-
shed. But by putting himself at the head of the warlike
spirit awakened among his people, he might effectually vindi-
cate the freedom of the Hebrews, and give them, what they
greatly needed, many years of prosperity and peace. The
future of the kingdom would then depend on the observance
of the laws, by which David had united it into a mighty God-
fearing empire. But while he appears, in the next chapter of
his life, as the great securer of his country's freedom, there is
also the beoinninsj of a falling awav, which threatened to
undo the work he had laboriously accomplished. During the
early part of his reign, David is presented to us consulting
Jehovah in every season of danger. He had that confidence
in the uprightness of his policy, which warranted him to
repair with a true heart to this heavenly Friend. Even his
proposal to build a palace for Jehovah is followed by success
in every war undertaken for the safety of his people, as if
that success were a direct reward for his pious purpose. But
in the years which follow, Jehovah is seen sending angry
messages to David, and not David asking counsel of Jehovah.
The contrast is too marked to be without meaning. The
2 94 ^'^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
sunny side of David's life is past ; we begin to enter on days
of cloud and darkness.
Having cleared the soil of Palestine of enemies who had
lorded it there for many years, David now prepared to secure
the liberty of his country by seeking the enemies in their own
strongholds. A reckoning for the past was first sought from
the Philistines. They appear to have been defeated in battle
not far from Gath. That city, with the villages aroimd it,
was then taken and garrisoned by David.^ The man who
had once slunk into the city, who was seized by the king's
officers as a dangerous inmate, and was let go by the king as
a harmless madman, — the man who was afterwards received
within its walls as a renegade from his own people, and was
promoted to be captain of its sovereign's guard, now holds it
as a conqueror. But he did not abuse his power. David,
instead of being tributary to Achish, has become master of him
and of all that he had. He allowed the humbled prince to
retain his throne and to govern his people. David was recog-
nised as lord paramount of the country. In this campaign,
Philistia, to use the expressive phrase of the sacred writer,
was brought to her knees. She was not entirely prostrated.
After tasting the bitter fruits of bondage for a few years, she
gathered strength once more to stand on her feet and defy
her oppressor. But the blow inflicted in this campaign made
her powerless to do much harm to the Hebrews.
The hand of David next fell on Moab, an ancient foe of
the Hebrews. But it was no longer the bringing of a nation
to its knees ; it was now the smiting of it down to the
ground. Like the Philistines, the Moabites had befriended
David when he was an outlaw. But on them, as well as on
the Philistines, the hand of the conqueror fell with crushing
weight. The nations, first attacked by David in his day of
^ Metheg-Ammah, the bridle of Ammah, or the bridle of the mother city.
Gath is called the metropolis or mother city of the Philistines. Having gained
its bridle, David, like a rider on horseback, had it completely in hand.
Reco7istrnction of A II- Is rael. 295
power, were those which had shown him kindness in Ids day
of weakness. The reason of this in the case of the Philistines
is phiin. Had not David thrown off their yoke, his kingdom
could not have held together. Sound policy required the
Hebrew king either to crush Philistia or to become its tribu-
tary. But from Moab he had little or nothing to dread. And
if the independence of jVIoab was not a source of danger to
him, its subjection could be of small advantage. None of the
great commercial roads of those times, the source of toll and
tax to Eastern princes, were controlled by its kings or passed
through its territories. From the hills of Moab a tribute
of several thousand sheep might be brought every year to
Jerusalem ; but, apart from this tax, there does not appear to
have been public advantage or private gain likely to accrue
from conquering the country. The cause of the invasion of
Moab, or Sheth, as it is also called, lies much deeper. Not-
withstanding the hilly nature of the country, it was overrun
and subdued. The people were not soldiers to be despised.
One of the great achievements of David's Mighties was the
slaying, by Benaiah from Kabzeel, of two Moabite soldiers,
evidently in this campaign. They are called Aricls, God's lions
(2 Sam. xxiii. 20). A terrible slaughter seems to have struck
terror into the people, for David's orders were to put two to
death for every one who was allowed to live. To what extent
these orders were carried out,-^whether they applied only to
those who offered resistance, or to the whole nation, — and for
what reason they were given, are points involved in darkness.
History has furnished the simple record of the fact, without
even indicating the numbers who perished. But David was
not a remorseless shedder of blood. Nor was he given to
striking down vanquished foes. He had good grounds for deal-
ing thus sharply with the hill-men of Moab. And we shall
see presently that these grounds may not be altogether beyond
the reach of discovery. But of the thoroughness of the con-
quest, the events of tlie following years furnish convincing
296 The Kingdom of A I I- Israel: its History.
proof. When the Ammonite war broke out, and David's
forces were compelled to return to Jerusalem from a drawn
battle, the highlanders of Moab never lifted a hand to expel
their conquerors. From the far north-east came a mighty
gathering of men and horse to help the enemies of David ;
but the ]\Ioabites, though commanding from their hills a view
of the plains, in which opposing armies wrestled for supre-
macy in the East, never descended from the heights to join in
the conflict. Generations passed away before prostrated Moab
gave signs of returning life.
Whoever believes that the book of the Law was studied by
David as a genuine heirloom of the Hebrew race, can feel no
surprise at this conquest of Moab. He may deplore the rule
of slaying and sparing followed by the conqueror, but he can
account for the overthrow of the Moabite power. Feuds
between nations were handed down from ao;e to ac^e in those
days, as they still are in the East. Such was the custom,
such it continues to be. We may regret it, we may also
condemn it, even though we be not wholly free from it our-
selves ; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact of its exist-
ence among the Hebrews. Although the lawgiver, at the
entrance of Israel into Canaan, forbade the people to meddle
with Moab or Edom, David could not study the book of the
Law without being impressed by its predictions of Israel's
ultimate triumph over Moab, Edom, and Amalek. The smiter
of Moab is called ' a star out of Jacob,' ' a sceptre out of
Israel.' In the prediction of these events (Num. xxiv. 17-20)
this great smiter is not spoken of as also the destroyer of
Amalek. A crown of glory is thrown on the brows of the
former by the ancient seer which is withheld from the latter.
But when sacred learning bloomed into the freshness of a
second youth in David's days, Amalek, as the seer foretold,
had been ' for ever ' blotted out from the roll of nations. Saul
had fulfilled that part of the prediction. But no smiter of Moab
and no possessor of Edom had yet arisen. Saul had waged
RecoJistnictioii of A II- Israel, 297
successful war with both nations, but he neither destroyed ' all
the children of Shetli,' nor made Edom a possession of Israel.
A prince of David's poetic temperament and religious fire could
not read these predictions without seeing in himself, what he
really was, the star of Jacob, the sceptre of Israel, by whom
these nations were destined to be struck down. ' Smite the
corners of Moab,' ' Destroy the children of Sheth ' (warlike
tumult), * Destroy him that remaineth of the city ' (Petra),
were the rules which the smiter of Moab and Edom may
have thought himself bound to follow. After the fate of
Saul, after the more recent death of Uzzah, David would
fulfil them to the letter. Viewed in this light, the fierce war
on Moab and the thoroughness of the conquest are susceptible
of a natural explanation.
The misjht of the Hebrew kini^, and the attitude he had
taken up towards his neighbours, seem to have awakened the
fears of Hadadezer, the powerful king of Zobah, a country on
the north-east frontier of Palestine. He belonged to the great
confederacy called ' The kings of the Hittites,' — perhaps he
was then its head. A dispute had arisen between him and
David regarding a district near the Euphrates. According to
the books of Samuel and Chronicles, the boundary had been
marked by a pillar or hand, a practice which was common in
Egypt, Assyria, and the neighbouring countries. That land-
mark had been thrown down ; and the object of Hadadezer
was to set it up again in defiance of the Hebrew forces, which
were in the neighbourhood. Evidently the Hebrews had taken
possession of lands which he claimed for Zobah. Piaising a
large army, he marched into the district to assert his rights.
Bat David was j^repared to meet force with force. He
engaged the Syrian in battle, defeated him with great loss,
and captured many chariots, horsemen, and foot-soldiers.^
The Syrians of Damascus hastened to succour Zobah. But
^ The number of the captives is thus given, perhaps from different points of
view ; —
298 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
the Hebrews were again victorious. Twenty-two thousand
of the allies fell in battle, and the power of Damascus was
broken for more than a generation. The city was taken by
the conqueror, and Hebrew garrisons were left in its strong-
holds. Great spoil rewarded the victors in these two battles.
Erom the pillage of the camp of Hadadezer David received as
his share, the golden arms or shields, which the guards of that
prince carried when on duty. Some of his chief cities also
were captured, and furnished the Hebrews with a vast weight
of copper, which was afterw^ards used in furnishing the courts
of Solomon's temple.
But the Syrians of Zobah and Damascus, though beaten
in the field, were not subdued. David found himself unable
to follow up his victories. Tidings of disasters which had
befallen his armies in tlie south recalled him from his career
of triumpli. Edom, taking advantage of these entanglements
in the north, had given no small trouble to the Hebrew^
officers on the frontier. Although the history is silent,
David's vexation on receiving news of the losses suffered by
his generals in that quarter has been preserved in one of his
sacred songs : ' 0 God,' it runs, ' Thou hast cast us off, Thou
hast scattered us, Thou hast been displeased ; . . . Thou hast
showed Thy people hard things ; Thou hast made us to drink
the wine of astonishment.' A song of sorrow such as this,
following hard on the victories in the north, reveals the
2 Sam. viii. 4, 1700 horsemen, 20,000 footmen,
1 Chron. xviii. 4, 1000 chariots (recheb), 7000 horsemen, 20,000 footmen.
The word chariot means both that which was used for riding in and the men or
horses employed. 'David houghed all the chariot,' that is, horses. Among
the tribes of Gaul there were six men about every chariot. These might be foot-
men or horsemen. If there was something similar in Syria, it would explain
the difference between 1700 horsemen in the book of Samuel and 7000 in the
book of Chronicles, without having recourse to errors of transcribers. Our own
word artillery has also a twofold meaning, denoting either the guns or the
soldiers and horses who serve them. At the review of British troops in Cairo
(Oct. 1, 1882), ' the heavy Field Artillery brought up the rear of this division,
consisting of 4320 horses and 60 guns.' According to 1 Mace. vi. 35, an
elephant in the Syrian army was supported by 1000 footmen and 500 cavalry.
Comp. 2 Sam. x. 18 and 1 Chron. xix. 18.
Reconstritction of All- Israel. 299
unfortunate issue of the campaign against Edom ; for the
Psalmist continues : * Who will bring me into the strong
city ? Who will lead me into Edom ? Wilt not Thou, 0
God, which hadst cast us off? Even Thou, 0 God, which
didst not go out with our armies ? ' (Ps. Ix.). Serious disasters
only could have wrung from him these bitter words. David's
presence was required in the south of Palestine before he
could thoroughly crush his enemies in the north. But the
report of his coming seems to have filled the Edomites with
alarm. Abishai, the brother of Joab, defeated them in the
Valley of Salt, that narrow plain at the southern end of the
Dead Sea, wdiere miles of lofty salt cliffs, with pillars of salt
and limpid streams of bitterest brine, give a fitting name to
the barren waste.^ Eighteen thousand of the enemy fell in an
eno-ao-ement in wdiich Abishai commanded the Hebrews ; in
another battle David himself or Joab commanded, and twelve
thousand Edomites were slain. The honours of the war fell
to David only : ' He gat him a name (when he returned from
smiting of the Syrians) in the Valley of Salt.' Selah, the
strong capital of Edom, became the prey of the Hebrews.
For six months Joab, fierce and relentless, slaughtered every
man and boy whom he could lay hands on in the country.
A few escaped into tlie pasture-grounds of Midian, carrying
with them a child named Hadad, the only member of the
royal family saved from the slaughter. The oases, the pas-
tures, and the wastes of Edom ceased to be the abode of an
independent race. Hebrew garrisons held all the strongholds ;
Hebrew tax-gatherers collected tribute ; and Hebrew soldiers
were soon watchincj the erreat commercial roads from India by
^ • Jebel Usdom is a solid mass of rock salt ; ' * we walked for three miles
along its eastern face in the hope of finding some means of ascending it, bnt it
was q^uite impracticable. ' ' In several places we found the ground hollow, and
in some a laden camel has suddenly disappeared and been salted to death below. '
' The height of the pinnacle which I climbed was 347 feet above the level of the
Dead Sea.' 'The Sebkha, or salt flat, is a large flat at least six by ten miles,
occasionally flooded, but now dr3^ '—Tristram, Land of Isi'ael, .322-332.
300 The Kingdom of AH- Israel : its History.
the Eed Sea to Damascus or Tyre, which this conquest put in
David's power. Edom, like Moab, was thoroughly crushed.
These victories of David gained him the respect oi' neigh-
bouring princes. Nahash, king of Amnion, was his friend
and ally. Toi, king of Hamath, whose dominions included
the narrow pass by which the Promised Land might be
invaded from the north, sought his friendship. Joram or
Hadoram, the son of Toi, came to congratulate him on the
triumph over Hadadezer, their common foe. Probably Toi,
as well as Hadadezer, was a member of the Hittite con-
federacy. He also requested from David a treaty of peace.
As a pledge of the Syrian king's sincerity, the embassy
brought to Jerusalem a tribute of gold, silver, and brass.
But while the Hebrew kingdom was thus acquiring power
abroad, it was also settling into a regular political system at
home. A body of guardsmen, known as Cherethites and
Pelethites, took the place of the three thousand in Saul's
court. It was their duty to watch over the king's person,
and to perform his commands. They were messengers of
state as well as executioners of justice. Probably the words
mean ' Cutters and runners,' that is, ' Executioners and
messengers.' A body of soldiers, who either followed David
from Gath, or for some other reason received the name of
Gittites, were also held in hidi honour at court. Whether
they had any connection with the Cherethites and Pelethites,
it is impossible to determine. No explanation is given of the
duties, the organization, or the origin of the Runners. The
author of the book of Samuel was evidently writing for
readers, who lived so near David's time as not to require
information on these points. He always mentions them as
one who knew that his readers had a general acquaintance
with the regiment.^ An officer of the highest rank, Benaiah,
^ In a somewliat similar manner the Apostle John makes mention of the
* Twelve,' taking it for granted that his readers had other means of ascertaining
uho these twelve were.
Rcconstrtiction of A II- Israel. 301
the son of Jelioiacla, was their captain. A fifth part of all
the men of Israel able to bear arms was under the conmiand
of Joab. The whole of this large force, numbering 288,000,
w^as seldom called out at the same time. It was divided into
twelve brigades of 24,000 men each, officered by the boldest
soldiers whom David's eventful life had brought into public
regard. Once a year each of them did duty for a month at a
time in Jerusalem, a system which, without pressing heavily
on the people, or withdrawing them from the ordinary duties
of life, was a sure safeguard against invasion. In five years
every man able to bear arms had spent a month at least in
this militia force.
The administration of justice remained in the king's own
hands. Inferior judges throughout the provinces heard com-
plaints in the first instance, although an appeal was always
allowed to the king himself in the capital. But the people
had cause to complain of the king's disregard of his duty as
chief judge in the land. The high-priesthood was no longer
held by Abiathar, the companion of David in his wanderings,
the sufferer for David's sin. Zadok, the brave priest who
took the lead in raising David to the throne of All-Israel, was
joined with Abiathar in discharging the duties of that office.
The two high priests were the heads of rival houses. Zadok
was descended from Eleazar, the third son of Aaron ; Abiathar,
or, as he is also called, Ahimelech (1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 31),
from Ithamar, the fourth son. By what means or for what
reason the family of Eleazar lost the priesthood has not been
recorded. But the honour was not destined to remain in the
house of Aaron's youngest son. Many years before, judgment
had been passed on that branch of Aaron's family. The pre-
diction then made was fulfilled. The Ithamar household were
losing their hold on the nation, while the family of Eleazar
was growing in numbers and in influence. Zadok, the repre-
sentative of the latter house, was the prince of the Aaronites,
the chief man of the tribe of Levi. And when the roll of
302 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
the Levitical families was made np by David and liis officers,
sixteen were found tracing their origin to Eleazar and only
eight to Itliamar. The right of the Eleazar house to the high-
priesthood also could not be gainsaid. Zadok was thus able
to plead in support of his claims great services to David, great
influence as the real leader of the tribe of Levi, and birthright
as the representative of Aaron. But Abiathar was the tried
companion of all David's dangers, and the man whom he swore
to befriend through life. He could not be deprived of his
office. By associating Zadok with him in the high -priest-
hood, a middle way was found for reconciling these conflicting
claims. As the Mosaic altar and tabernacle were at Gibeon,
while the ark was in Zion, the divided worship seemed to
require two high priests. Zadok presided in Gibeon, though he
did not always live there ; Abiathar was priest on Zion. David
thus exerted his sovereign power by retaining for Abiathar the
moiety of a high office to which another had a better right.
He inherited the doom uttered against his ancestor, Eli.
Events were slowly working out that doom. But David
never proved false to the oath of friendship which he sware.
Had he been as regardless of oaths and promises as many
princes have been, he would have bowed to the times, and
have left Abiathar to his fate. But he acted a nobler part.
After the death of Ahithophel, Abiathar was even raised to the
office of king's counsellor, a post of honour which he shared
evidently with Benaiah (1 Chron. xxvii. 34).
Among the great officers of state there appear to have been
a number of dignitaries who, though not belonging to the
tribe of Levi, went by the name commonly given to the sons
of Aaron, Priests {Cohanim). They neither served at the
altar nor shared in its honours and profits. But as the
Hebrew word for priest anciently meant prince also, that
name was retained to designate these dignitaries. The writer
of the first book of Chronicles, aware of this difficulty, calls
them ' chiefs,' and not ' priests.' Among these Cohanim were
Reconstr7tction of All- Israel. 303
the princes of the hkiod. Benaiah, the captain of the guard,
is called the chief Cohen.^ Ira the Jairite is also mentioned
as one of the body of Cohanim. On liigh days of festival or
pageant they stood beside the king (1 Ohron. xviii. 17). But
this use of the word Cohanim was becoming obsolete. As
public business increased by the growth of David's empire,
the necessity of employing several secretaries of state was
forced upon him. Such we may call Jehoshaphat, the son of
Ahilud, who filled the ofhce of recorder, to relate the achieve-
ments of his master in war, and his decisions on the judgment-
seat in peace. Shavsha, or, as he is also called, Sheva, became
scribe ; and Adoram w^as appointed over the tribute, which
now began to come in from subject states. The duties which
the latter discharged varied with the nature of the tribute
imposed on conquered people. Sometimes it was gold and
silver; at other times sheep, cattle, and country produce were
demanded ; but, during many years of Solomon's reign, the
tribute seems to have been also labour from slaves, furnished
by the wealthy and the noble in Israel. In course of time David
gathered round him a few wise men, in whom he put more
confidence than in the officers of state already mentioned.
Among those, to whose counsel he usually had resort, is
mentioned Ahithophel the Gilonite. He belonged to David's
own tribe of Judah. His power of seeing what men ought to
do in trying times seemed to his contemporaries almost divine.
All his counsel to David bore this stamp. Hushai, though
less gifted with this power than Ahithophel, was more a man
after David's own heart. If w^e may judge from tlie name
applied to him, the Archite, he belonged to tlie tribe of
Ephraim (Josh. xvi. 2). He was called the king's friend.
Jonathan, a son of David's uncle (Jer. xxxii. 0, 12), was
^ 1 Chron. xxvii. 5. The English version has * a chief priest ' b}' a wrong
rendering for 'the chief priest.' He belonged to Kabzeel, which was not a
priestly city, and his father Jehoiada must not be confounded with Jehoiada,
the prince of the Aaronites (1 Chron. xii. 27).
304 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
another of tlie wise men whom the king admitted into his
cabinet council. And with such care did David watch over
the training of his young sons for the high offices they might
he called on to fill, that he appointed another counsellor, Jeliiel,
the son of Hachmoui, to guide them by his advice.
For the better ordering of the kingdom, David had recourse
to a plan which formerly prevailed among the Hebrews.
During the sojourn in the wilderness, each tribe had a head
or leader called its prince. David revived this office. Among
the names mentioned on the list of princes are Eliliu, who
became prince of Judah, and Jaasiel, son of Abner, who
became prince of Benjamin. In the former we probably
recognise Eliab, David's ill-natured brother. The great-
hearted king had forgotten past wrongs. He could say of
his brethren what Joseph had said of his : what they meant
for evil, God had overruled for good. The name of Jaasiel is
proof both of the innocence of David and of the sincerity of
his grief, when Abner fell under the assassin's sword. There
was much in Abner's history on which David might have
fastened to j ustify neglect of Abner's children ; but the great
chief of Benjamin died in his service and for his sake.
Whatever may have been the evil points in David's character,
the goodness of heart shown in these appointments of Jaasiel
and Elihu ought to be mentioned to his honour.
Among the neighbours of David who still retained their
independence was JSTahash, king of Amnion. He may have
been the same prince who besieged Jabesh Gilead in the
befrinning of Saul's reign. When neighbouring nations were
conquered, this prince enjoyed his throne in peace, not because
he was too strong to be meddled with, but for a reason which
may be got from the ancient literature of the Hebrews.
While the wandering Israelites were advancing from the
desert towards Edom, Moab, and Amnion, four centuries
before, Moses gave them strict orders to avoid injuring these
kingdoms : ' Distress them not, nor meddle with them, for I
ReconsU'uction of All-Isi-acl. 305
will not give thee of their land a possession' (Deut. ii. 5,
9, 19).^ Xotwithstanding these orders by the lawgiver, David
had taken possession of Edom and Moab ; he acted in
fultilment of prophecy. But Annnon was not mentioned in
that ancient prediction. Hence the distinction drawn in
observing, or not observing, the commands of tlie lawgiver.
The prophecy of Balaam was fulfilled, and the orders of
Moses were kept. Private reasons also existed for David's
forbearance. In ways unknown to us, ISTahash had befriended
David in less prosperous days. When he died, leaving a prince
named Hanun (Gracious) to succeed him, the remembrance
of kindness, formerly received from the father, prompted
David to repay it by kindness to the son ; especially as the
oreatness of David's kino-dom was castinc^ a danojerous shadow
on the lesser kingdom of Amnion. Accordingly, he sent an
embassy to Eabbah for that purpose. But his officers were
received with suspicion and treated with insult. The
Ammonite chiefs persuaded their prince that David's real
object was to spy out the city. Acting on that idea, he
had the Hebrews seized and so disfigured that their appear-
ance woidd excite ridicule. He then sent them away from
Itabbah. Tidings of the disgrace done to the ambassadors
soon reached David. Men of high standing, the representa-
tives of his own dignity, had been so outraged when in the
discharge of a commission of kindness, that they could not
return to the capital till time had repaired the injuries done.
They were ordered to remain at Jericho.
David lost no time in avenging this outrage. His zeal
was quickened by news from Amnion. An army of 33,000
mercenaries, principally chariot-men and cavalry from Zobah,
* If tlie book of Deuteronomy represented, as is often said, the feelings
common in the time of Isaiah, its orders regardini^ these three nations are in
flagrant opposition to his words. All-Israel ' shall lly upon the shoulders of the
Philistines toward the west ; they shall spoil them of the east together ; they
shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab ; and the children of Ammon shall
obey them' (Isa. xi. 14) — words not explained by Deut. xxiii. 3-6.
U
3o6 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
Maachah, and Islitob, were on their march to defend Eabbah.
A thousand talents of silver was the price paid for their
services. On their arrival, they were posted at Medeba, a
town south-w^est of the Ammonite capital, perhaps as an
incentive to Moab to revolt. The Hebrew army, intended to
act against the allies, was probably the division of 24,000
\vhich happened to be on duty in Jerusalem. But along with
it wTre sent the tried soldiers and captains of David, known
as the ' Mighties,' in themselves a tower of strength to an
army. On their approach the Syrians marched to the
neighbourhood of Eabbah, while the Ammonites kept within
the city. Joab was thus placed in a position of great danger.
He could not bring the mounted Syrians to battle, for the
Hebrews, according to the custom of their nation, fought on
foot ; and he could not assault Eabbah without exposing his
troops to an attack in front and rear at the same time.
Fortunately, however, the allies, trusting to superior numbers,
offered battle. The Ammonites drew up before the walls of
the city ; the Syrians hung off, waiting to fall on the rear of
the Hebrews. Joab adopted the best means of meeting the
danger. Arraying the Mighties and the choicest of his troops
against the Syrians, he put himself at their head, while he
committed the rest of the army to Abishai to watch, rather
than to engage the Ammonites. Joab knew he would have to
fight for safety : victory he could not hope to win. Fierce
and bad though he was, he felt a glow of enthusiasm in view
of the dangers which hung over the Hebrew kingdom at that
moment. The kings of the Hittites had come in force to fight
David, as their fathers fought Eameses of Egypt, and as their
sons fought Sargon of Assyria. ' Be of good courage,' he
said, 'and let us play the men for our people, and for the
cities of our God ; and the Lord do that which seemeth Him
good.' He expected defeat for himself or Abishai. Hope
had not sunk lower in his breast, but many in the Hebrew
army must have feared worse things. In the event of disaster
Reconstruction of A II- Israel. 307
befalling the one general, the other would detach succours for
his help. With his usual skill, Joab infused courage into his
men by leading them against the Syrian horsemen and
chariots. He did not wait, as others mic^ht have done, till
they chose to attack him. He feared the withering influence
on his men of hanoino: back from offered battle. Success
crowned his efforts : the Syrians fled from the Hebrew
infantry. It may have been their design to draw Joab away
from the division of Abishai, or to weary out the pursuing
army by fleeing at one time, and turning to fight at another.
But on seeing the retreat of their allies, the Ammonites with-
drew into the city, a movement not free from danger, if the
enemy felt strong enough to attack. Whatever the cause of
these movements may have been, Joab, feeling himself not
only outnumbered, but in serious danger, took advantage of
his apparent triumph to return to Jerusalem, probably by
night.
Though the allies do not appear to have ha.d the worst in
this combat, they saw the necessity of preparing to meet a
more numerous force. The thunder-cloud, which had passed
over them without doing damage, was but the forerunner of a
fiercer storm. Anticipating the danger, the Syrians summoned
to their aid their Hittite brethren from the eastern bank of
the Euphrates. Hadadezer, smarting under his previous defeat,
was the head of this alliance : his commander-in-chief, Shobach,
led the army. David received tidings of the advancing tide
of war, before it deluged his dominion on the farther bank of
Jordan, and surged around the walls of Eabbah. Gathering
the whole forces of his empire, he led them in person across
the Jordan, and met the enemy at Helam, a town not far from
the borders of Syria. The battle that ensued was bloody and
decisive, a fitting close to the long line of campaigns, in which
David took part. Shobach w^as killed ; forty thousand of his
foot-soldiers and seven thousand of his chariot-men fell in
the combat or in the pursuit. The power of Hadadezer and
3o8 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its History.
the Hittite confederacy was broken ; but David appears to
liave felt the greatness of the danger his kingdom would
encounter, if he forced the tribes of Mesopotamia to band
together against his arms. Accordingly, peace was at once
granted to ambassadors sent from the tributary princes of
Zobah. A barren profession of homage was their only
acknowledgment of defeat ; Zobah was seized, and Eabbah was
left to its fate.
The wars of David occupy but a small space in the history
of his reign. An act of kindness towards the son of his early
friend, Jonathan, is told at greater length than the battles
and triumphs of these numerous wars. Of his own accord,
and in remembrance of his vows of friendship, he caused
inquiries to be made for any of the house of Saul to whom he
could show kindness. That house was sunk so low as to be
lost to sight. Even the estates of the family had been seized
by its servant or slave. No fear could thus be entertained of
any of its sons contending with David for the crown. Neither
Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth, nor Merab's children, had
the courage to claim their father's property from his unworthy
retainer, Ziba. Michal, who could have done them service, had
probably caused them fear by her foolish acting and her
subsequent disgrace. David had allowed ten years to elapse
without thinking of his early vows of friendship. Cares of
state may have interfered with the discharge of this duty.
But at last it asserted its power. Ziba was summoned to the
palace. From him the king learned Mephibosheth's place of
abode : ' he is in the house of Machir, the son of Ammiel, in
Lo-debar,' not far from Mahanaim. The cripple, who was
then about twenty-five years of age, and a dependent on the
bounty of Machir, was sent for to Zion. Apparently the
message filled him with apprehensions. ' Fear not,' the king
said, ' I will restore to thee all the land of Saul thy father ;
and thou shalt eat bread at my table continually.' David, as
chief judge of the nation, was entitled to give this decision
Reconstrtidion of A II- Israel, 309
regarding Saul's estates. But he did more. Calling in Ziba,
he announced to him the change in his condition : * I have
given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul, and to
all his house ; ' thou and thy sons and thy servants go with
the land. Ziba bowed low on hearing these unwelcome
tidings : fifteen sons and twenty servants handed over with
himself to this fugitive cripple! He submitted, but resolved to
bide his time. Mephibosheth became the king s guest in the
palace ; the landowner, Ziba, became the slave of Mephibosheth ;
and David's kindness to the cripple was remembered for his
good by Machir of Lo-debar a few years after. The sacred
writer's object is to show us the man David in his greatness
of soul, more than the king in his majesty of power. And
the same purpose guides his pen in reviewing the wars, which
brought David's career of conquest to an end. It is not his
object to shower praises at random on the head of a hero.
I^OY does he mislead us by enshrining in history a prince
laurelled with unfadinsj flowers of ojoodness. If he delights in
presenting the king of All-Israel in this light, he is not slack
to portray him for us with these flowers withering or dead.
He shows us the triumph of right over might ; the majesty of
uprightness, not the tinsel of a court ; the doings of God, not
the doings of an earthly king.
Ammon offered but a feeble resistance to the Hebrews after
the battle of Helam. All their cities except Eabbah were
taken in the beginning of the following year. Eabbah itself
was closely beleaguered. Its strong position, the existence
of a w^ater supply within its walls, and the inability of the
Hebrews to conduct siege operations, gave the survivors of
the nation a respite from destruction. But the war yields
in importance to events which were then taking place at
Jerusalem. It was a hot day in the beginning of summer.
The army, the Mighties, the chief captains, and the, priests
with the ark of God were before Ptabbah. After his noon-
tide sleep, David was walking on the flat roof of the palace.
3IO TJie Kingdom of All-Israel : its History,
So closely packed were the houses around, that he could see
distinctly from the roof what was passing in neighbouring
dwellings. It was reckoned a breach of good manners to be
curious in these matters. But as the roofs were guarded by
parapet walls, no one could look down on the houses beneath,
unless prompted by curiosity or unlawful ends. There was
one house close by of which David seems to have heard.
In a moment of weakness that evening he looked over the
parapet wall of the palace roof. An open lattice showed what
was passing within. He was near enough to see a woman of
singular beauty bathing beside the window. He calls to his
attendants who were on the roof. Evidently they had told him
of the woman, of her beauty, and of the time when she bathed
— those wretched hangers-on about a palace, who live by
corruption and vice. ' Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of
Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite ? ' he asks of them : for the
question is David's, and not information given by a messenger.
They had laid the train of unlawful passion ; the fire is stealing
on to an explosion ; and instead of stamping it out, they speed it
on its way. By David's orders, some of them invite Bathsheba
to the palace. She does not refuse. Her brave husband is
disregarded. To be the paramour of a king is better in her
eyes than to be the honest wife of a brave soldier. Death by
burning was the doom she merited according to the Hebrew
custom ; death by stoning was the doom incurred by her seducer.
More lingering, painful punishments befell that guilty pair.^
A few weeks pass away ; Eabbah is still holding out ;
there is no prospect of a home-coming of the army. Bath-
sheba sends to inform David that their sin cannot long be
hid from her relatives. He is greatly alarmed. Uriah, the
husband of Bathsheba, belonc^ed to the order of the Miohties.
Every one of these brave men would feel the wrong done to
^ Those who disparage the book of Kings accuse the author, for a purpose of
his own, of deliberately omitting this foul story from his book. But it is they
who deserve disparagement. He does not conceal it : 1 Kings xv. 5.
Reconstruction of A II- Israel, 311
Uriah to be a violation of the sacredness of their own homes.
But Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam, a name which is
also found on the roll of David's Mighties. If Uriah were
married to a daughter of another of the Mighties, the diffi-
culties and fears of David would be greatly increased. And
this Eliam was the son of Ahithophel, the king's chief
counsellor. Disaffection among his bravest soldiers and best
advisers would be the result of a discovery of the intrigue
T/i'ith Bathsheba. Fear took away good sense : one great sin
led to another and a greater, till the end of the whole was
livelong misery to the king.
Driven to desperation, David sends for Uriah from the
army. The king and his servants who were in the plot, men
who would all the while ridicule the terror of their sovereign,
in vain advise him to repair to his own house. Unsuspicious
and straightforward, or knowing too much of his wife's un-
faithfulness to be deceived, the brave soldier sleeps in the
palace court, out in the open air, as Joab and the army were
doing. A more touching tale than the simple honesty of
Uriah and the incredible meanness of David was never
written. At last the king must send the soldier away. But
he sent along with him orders for his death. In a despatch
which Uriah carried to Joab, David directed the general to
place him at a point of danger, to provoke a sally from the
town, to retire without withdrawing Uriah, and to make sure
of his death in battle. Joab acted up to these orders, aware,
perhaps, of the reason for them, since some of the king's
favourite servants may have kept him informed of the most
secret gossip of the palace. A small body of Hebrews, led
by Uriah, attacked one of the best-defended gates of Piabbah.
Shooters discharged stones and arrows from the wall; soldiers
rushed out of the town. A fierce fight ensued. No supports
were sent to strengthen the handful of Hebrews in front of
the gate. Uriah, with several of his soldiers, fell in battle ;
the rest of the assailants were repulsed. Their king had
3 1 2 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
murdered those who fell. Tidings of the death of the
wronged soldier were immediately sent to Jerusalem. David
pretended to look on it as one of the ordinary chances of war.
Bathsheba, too, pretended to mourn for the husband she had
dishonoured and killed. When the usual days of mourning
were passed, David took her into his palace as one of his
wives. Their iniquity seemed to be covered over from the
public gaze. Two or three of the servants knew one-half of
the story ; Joab was aware of another half at least ; and the
relations of Bathsheba, her father and grandfather especially,
may have suspected something wrong. But the dreadful
story was buried out of sight in the almost impenetrable
recesses of an Eastern palace. Only the faintest whisper of
the scandal could at first have reached the outside world.
Vileness had triumphed, blood had been shed, and in the
grave of a brave soldier the guilty king hoped all this wicked-
ness was buried and forgotten. It was not so. There was
an Avenger of blood looking on, who had seen the w^hole from
beginning to end : ' The thing that David had done displeased
the Lord.'
CHAPTEE XI.
THE AVENGEK OF BLOOD.
(2 Sam. xii. 1-xxi. 22; 1 Ciikon. xix. 1-xx. 8.)
The sharp edge of David's fears lest the intrigue with Bath-
sheba should be discovered has worn off; the clouds have
cleared away ; the sky is again bright for the Hebrew king.
A child is born to Bathsheba. But in reality judgment
against an evil work had been delayed only for a few months.
One day David's friend Nathan presents himself in the
king's private chamber, and demands justice. He relates a
touching tale of woeful wrong-doing in a city under David's
sway. A wealthy landowner, rejoicing in numerous herds
and flocks, sees with envious eyes the one ewe lamb which
forms his poor but honest neighbour's sole possession. It
w^as the delight of the poor man's children, it was his own
solace in hours of afterwork, in short, it ' was unto him as a
dauQ-hter.' But when a traveller came to the rich man one
day, the host grudged, to entertain his guest with kid or lamb
from his own numerous flocks ; he sent and with violent
hand reft away the ewe lamb that was as the poor man's
daughter. With kindling anger David listens to this tale of
wrong. Believing some of his great men had done the deed,
and that ISTathan was keeping back the offender's name, lest
justice should be robbed of its due, the king at first passes
sentence of death, and then, remembering the award of the
law in such cases, ordains a fourfold restitution by the robber.
But anger gave place to other feelings, when, perhaps in
reply to his demand for the rich man's name, Nathan sternly
314 1^^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
replied, ' Thou art the man.' Then followed a terrible tearing
aside of the veil which David hoped was thrown over his
crimes. ISTor was punishment concealed. A shadow fell over
the king's whole future life. Evil was to rise against him out
of his own household ; his wives should be dishonoured, not
with the knowledge of two or three servants, but in the sight
of the sun ; in short, the sword should never depart from his
house. David and Bathsheba were forgiven by the real King
of Israel ; sentence of death was not passed by Him whose
grace could pardon. But Jehovah exacted vengeance. And
as a foretaste of coming woes, a warning, too, not to set lightly
by these predictions, Nathan informed him that Bathsheba's
infant son should not live.-^
The awakening of David from his dream of security found
expression in song. Every time his heart was deeply stirred
by joy, or grief, or fear, he seems to have sought an outlet
for his feelings in the companionship of his harp, that pure
delight which cheered him amid the cares of empire, the
dangers of exile, and the quiet of a shepherd's life. The
agony of sorrow, after Nathan left him to his own thoughts,
wrung from him the exquisite elegy over his fall from virtue
which we read in the book of Psalms (Ps. li.). Suddenly,
the child of Bathsheba, the darling, as it is called, fell sick.
Nathan's words were not words of course. They were growing
into things of terrible reality. As the sickness increased, the
alarm of David at a dreadful Something hanging over his
1 The reason assigned by Nathan is that David ' had given great occasion to
the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.' There were thus doubters or sceptics
in Jerusalem in those times. But the existence of a party of philosophic
inquirers into the dealings of Jehovah with His chosen people is of too much
consequence to be passed over without remark. With doubters or philosophers
watching the course of human thought in those times, the quiet addition of
new laws to the existing IMosaic code, and much more the first introduction of
that code under the name of Moses, were feats of invention impossible to David
or any of the sages in his court. They who were ready to blaspheme the
suspicious doings of the king towards Uriah, would not allow to pass an
attempt at cheating the nation into the belief, that Moses wrote what every one
knew Moses had nothing to do with.
The Avenger of Blood. 315
house increased also. IS'ight and day lie fasted, lying on tlie
ground. The elders of his palace stood round him, unable
to divine the causes of this sorrow. But they could not
persuade him to rise, or to partake of food. He fasted, he
prayed, to turn aside an unseen hand raised to strike the first
of many blows. Should that blow not fall, the others might
be turned aside too, or might lose much of their weight. For
the first time he was facing the reality of punishment.
Judgment at last awoke, after slumbering for nearly twelve
months. If its first strokes were so hard to bear, and if
bitterest regret could bring to David no withdrawing of the
rod, the next stroke might be tenfold more heavy. All these
fears passed through the king's heart. An avenger of blood
was on his track — an avenger, too, from whom there was no
escaping, and against whom no city of refuge had been
provided. But the elders and servants of the palace saw
nothing save the illness of a child and the excessive grief
of a father. And they were unable to connect the latter
with the former. For six days the sickness lasted. All that
time David struggled to hold the hand of the Avenger back
from striking. On the seventh day the boy died. The
servants, afraid to inform their lord lest grief might drive
him to despair, stood round, one whispering to another to be
spokesman. But in these looks and whisperings the king
read the boy's death. He asked if it were so. At once, on
learning the truth, he rose from the ground ; he washed, he
anointed himself. Then he appeared in the place of general
concourse, more so, indeed, than the crowded city-gate — the
court of the tabernacle. It was evident to all the people
that the king had recovered from his grief. Eeturning thence
to the palace, he ordered the servants to supply him with
food after his long fast. They expressed their surprise at the
coolness with which he received the tidings of his child's
death. ' I shall go to him,' he said, ' but he shall not return
to me,' — an answer sufficient to blind the servants to the real
J
1 6 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Histoiy.
causes of liis sorrow. But grief does not usually work in
this way ; and, had they known the story as we know it, some
of them might have drawn the true conclusion. David now
found himself compelled to face all the evils threatened
against his house, whatever shape these evils might take.
Meanwhile Joab had effected a lodiijment in Eabbah. The
lower town, situated among streams in the Jabbok valley and
called the ' Eoyal City,' apparently because it contained the
king's palace, was taken. The rest of the town, on the right bank
of the stream, could not hold out much longer. Joab prepared
everything for the assault. But he urged David to bring up
reinforcements and to command the army himself. Probably
the forces besieging Eabbah were insufficient to blockade
the town and cut off hope of escape from the fugitives. By
assembling the whole Hebrew army and surrounding the city,
the war might be stamped out ; while, if the survivors of the
siege escaped into the neighbouring wastes, their marauding
bands might cause endless annoyance along the frontier.
David saw the wisdom of Joab's advice. Assembling the
whole force of his kingdom, he crossed the Jordan and sur-
rounded Eabbah before the besieged could escape. Hanun
and his people soon paid a heavy price for their treatment of
David's ambassadors. From the brief record of the sacred
writer we may gather that, on the day the assault was
delivered, Hanun decked himself in his royal robes, and com-
bated to the last against the Hebrews. His dead body was
found among the slain. The crown which he had worn was
plucked from his head and set on David's by the triumphing
soldiery. Eabbah and all that it contained became the spoil
of the victors. The fate of the surviving citizens is involved
in doubt. While some think they were sent into the royal
forests as hewers of timber or cutters in the saw-pits, or
became brickmakers for the king, others believe they were
cruelly torn with saws or axes, and even burned to death.
But the history of the following years does not square with
The Avenger of Blood. 3 1 7
this alleged cruelty. Many of the people appear to have
been left in the town under the rule of Shobi, a son of
Nahash, and a friend of David. That prince had held aloof
from the court of Amnion when it encouraged Hanun to insult
David's men. He and liis adherents were rewarded for tliis
friendship when the rest of their countrymen had been
punished for the crime. Among the Ammonite captives was
an infant girl named ' Naamah/ or ' Delight.' She may have
belonged to the royal family and been received into David's
palace on the overthrow of her kindred. Many years after-
wards she became the wife of Solomon.
It appears to have been about this time that Philistia,
which had been only brought to its knees in former cam-
paigns, was effectually prostrated. Probably advantage was
taken of David's entanglements in the east to throw off his
yoke. Encouraged by the presence among them of a family
of giants, the Philistines rose against their conquerors at
Gezer or Gob on the northern frontier, and at Gath farther
south. At the first tidings of the revolt, David hurried to
the borders, apparently with a small force. An engagement
took place. The Hebrews were beaten, and David would
have fallen by the sword of one of the giants had not Abishai
brought help in time and slain the enemy's cliampion. So
serious was the danger, that the Hebrew officers resolved
never again to permit the king's presence with the army in
the field. An accident of war might at any moment * quench
the lamp of Israel.' The hopes of the Philistines rested
mainly on a few men of great stature, who * were born to the
giant in Gath.' Whether they were the sons of Goliath, who
was slain by David many years before, or merely of the same
family, cannot now be made out. But one of them bore the
same name, and may have been Goliath's son. Our translators
made him Goliath's brother. In various battles four of these
giants were slain, and the Philistines defeated. In the end
their country was thoroughly conquered.
1 8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
The joy of David in these crowning triumphs of the Hebrew
arms was doomed to be blighted by another stroke of the
Avenger of blood. His large palace was filled with sons and
daughters. Amnon, the eldest, the son of Ahinoam, was
twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. Absalom, the third
born, and Adonijah were a year or two younger. These young
men were sons of different mothers. Amnon, or as he appears
to have been called in the playful language of affection,
Aminon {faithful), is a name found elsewhere on the rolls of
Jewish families. The young prince had apartments in the
palace ; he was waited on by a man-servant, and his most
trusted companion was his own cousin Jonadab, the son of
Shimeah or Shammah, David's brother. The two cousins,
though not perhaps much nnlike in age, were altogether
unlike in parts. Jonadab was ' very wise,' quick to mark
signs of change, which escaped the eyes of less observant
men, ready in counsel, fertile of resource, unscrupulous in
deeds. Probably he aspired to be to the king's eldest son
what Husliai was to the king, his friend. This much we
know with certainty — Amnon was but a tool in his craft}^
cousin's hands. He acknowledged the superior power of
Jonadab ; he yielded to its control, even when his own sense
of right condemned the proposals of his adviser.
Among other inmates of the palace was a young princess
named Tamar {a pcclm tree), the full sister of Absalom. She
was most beautiful, like her brother ; like him too, if we may
judge from her name, she was of goodly carriage. As she was
still unmarried, she may have been about seventeen years of age,
in the perfection of budding womanhood. Though her father
was the powerful ruler of Palestine, and her mother the
daughter of a Hittite king, she had been accustomed to dis-
charge ordinary household duties in the palace. Her skill
in breadmaking was conspicuous. A sick man's disordered
fancy might even be excused for imagining no baker in the
land able to please the palate so well as she. Amnon was
The Ave72ger of Blood. 319
smitten by the beauty of Tamar. Knowing that a marriap-e
so contrary to the law would never be allowed, and believing,
perhaps, that a discovery of his love would alarm David into
removing her from the palace, the young man kept his passion
hidden in his own breast. But Jonadab, his friend, perceived
a secret fire eating at his heart. A confession of the passion
was wrung from the prince. With reckless disregard of all
law, Jonadab fanned the flame. Guided by his counsels,
Amnon, pretending sickness, took to his bed. David, hearing
of his eldest son's illness, paid him a visit. He found, as had
been previously arranged between the cousins, that the prince
would not taste of food. Inquiring what he could do for the
invalid, he was asked by Amnon to send Tamar to bake a
couple of heart-cakes in his room, and to give them to him with
her own hands. David had a fellow-feeling with a sick man's
fancies. When a few years older than Amnon, he had taken
a similar liking for water from the gate-well of Bethlehem.
Xone else could quench his thirst, and brave men risked their
lives to bear away a skin of it for their chief. The unsuspecting
king falls into the trap. Tamar is told to repair to Amnon's room.
The sick man, unable to bear the presence of strangers, orders
every one out : and again the sword of the Avenger descends
on David's head in a deed of terrible foulness. Amnon's love
has turned into hatred. Abused and dishonoured, Tamar is
violently thrust out into the court of the palace by her brother's
servant. She is guilty, it seems ; the prince is shocked, and
innocent. Bending her virgin robe, and defiling her head
wdth ashes, perhaps from the very fire on which she had
baked those fatal cakes, she hurries through the court towards
the apartments of her brother Absalom. Her hand is lifted
to her brow like one in pain ; her cries attract the attention of
passers-by. Absalom is soon made aware of the blight cast
on his sister's young life. He counsels her to conceal the
shameful deed. He even affects indifference to the dishonour
done to his sister. In his meetings with Amnon there is
320 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
never a word said about it, good or bad. David spoke out
his anger and sorrow ; but he allowed the criminal to escape.
He knew human nature too well not to dread vengeance
under that indifference in Absalom's face and manner. For
months and years he feared ; for months and years he watched ;
w^ien he and others had been thrown off their guard, the
careless, easy-going Absalom suddenly startled the world as
his sister's avenger.
Two years passed away ; the crime of Amnon seemed to be
forgotten ; buried, it might be, among other scandals of the
palace. It was spring-time, according to our reckoning ; but
the barley was ripe, and the season for sheep-shearing had
come. Absalom had a farm at some distance from Jerusalem,
called Baal-Hazor (the village-place). As it was not far from
Ephraim, it may have been situated among the hills of Ben-
jamin. It was a modest establishment, large enough for its
owner's wants, but not for his vanity. Being a young prince
of much pretence, a king's son by both father and mother's
side, he wishes to act the great man on the occasion of this
sheep-shearing. He invites all his brothers to the feast. He
even invites the king and the great officers of state. But his
father declines the invitation ; the expense will be too great
for Absalom's means. He still urges his suit, but in vain.
David gives him a blessing, a handsome gift, it may be, to eke
out his own resources ; a gift as well as good wishes. But
although the king declines for himself, he will not surely keep
back Amnon, the heir-apparent, from honouring the feast with
his presence. David has fears on the point. He yields at
length, and Amnon, with all the grown-up princes of the
blood, set out for the merry-making at Baal-Hazor. Absalom
possessed the power, not given to many, of firmly attaching
to himself the young men who served him. They were ready
for any deed he might order. Life itself they made light of,
if the throwing of it away should be for their master's good,
or if the taking of another's were by his command. They
i
The A venger of Blood. 3 2 1
knew Absalom to be David's favourite son, to whom nothing
could be denied, and to whom everything might be forgiven.
But that did not attach them to the prince. There was about
him an easiness of bearing, a kindliness of manner, a readiness
to help, which won the love and the attachment of the lower
ranks. He knew his power over the servants when he invited
Amnon to his house. He used that power to take the ven-
geance which he had waited two years for.
A numerous cavalcade of young gallants from Jerusalem
arrived at Baal-Hazor for the feast. They and their retinue
were all unarmed. Perhaps, indeed, the princes, accustomed
to the soft delights of a palace, had not much of their father's
courage. "Without suspicion they give themselves up to the
pleasures of the day. The servants of Absalom are busied
here and there in the crowded hall. As the feast wears on,
the wine-cup passes freely among the guests. The merriment
rises higher every moment. Amnon, entirely at his ease, feels
the cheering influence of the wine. Suddenly the voice of
Absalom rises above the din of the revelling, ' Smite Amnon ! '
The servants, who had been waiting for the signal to put
him to death, assail the prince with the knives used in
carving for the company. The screams of the victim, the
cries of the onlookers, proclaim to the waiting men outside
the deed of blood which was going on within. One or two
of them mount the mules standing near and ride off. They
carry to Jerusalem a terrible story : Absalom's servants have
murdered all the king's sons, without leaving one. The palace
is thrown into confusion. The king rises from his throne, he
rends his robes in horror, he casts himself on the ground.
His courtiers, standing beside their lord, give way to like
expressions of grief. Desolation has swept through the palace ;
the sword of the Avenger has again fallen with a crusliing
blow on David's house. After the first bursts of grief were
past, Jonadab, the friend of the murdered prince, ventured to
doubt the story. He said Absalom had taken the life of
X
32 2 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
Amnon only. He speaks indeed as one to whom the tidings
were a thing long looked for. He knew the purpose of
murder was formed from the day of Tamar's dishonour.
And probably for that reason Jonadab had taken care not to
put himself in Absalom's power, when his friend Amnon and
the other princes accepted the invitation. His words were
soon shown to be true. The watcher on the gate-tower
reported the coming of much people round the shoulder of
Zion, which looks into the western valley. Jonadab, on the
outlook for the princes, is the first to carry the tidings to the
king. Scarcely had he finished when they burst into the
palace. With ' very sore weeping ' they bewail their brother's
untimely fate. David and his courtiers join in the wail of
grief for the dead. A third time has the crime of David, though
done in secret, been openly avenged. But for the first time
has the sword of the Avenger spilt the blood of his children.
Dissensions in the palace followed the murder of Amnon.
Absalom had fled to the court of his grandfather Talmai, king
of Geshur, a region then, as it still is, an asylum from which
it was difficult to take offenders. Had David chosen to exert
his power for the punishment of the criminal, Absalom could
not have escaped. But he shrank from shedding the blood of
his own son ; and if Absalom had fled to Hebron, the man-
slayer's city of refuge, the law of the land might have defied
king or king's son to touch him. But David's wives and
children had no such scruples. With one voice they were
clamouring for vengeance. While pretending zeal for the law,
they were really actuated by another motive. After Amnon's
death, Absalom, in their eyes, became heir to the throne.
Were he removed, the chance of the crown falling to one of
the other sons would be bettered : ' Let us kill him,' they are
represented saying, ' let us kill him for the life of his brother
whom he slew ; and we will destroy the heir also ' (2 Sam.
xiv. 7). Perhaps there was another reason. If Absalom ever
ascended the throne, his first step might be to rid himself of
The Avenger of Blood, 328
every competitor for the crown. David resisted their entrea-
ties, perhaps also their threats. His affection for the outlaw
grew stronger every day. He did not even conceal from his
counsellors a half-formed purpose of visiting his favourite son
at Geshur. Tor three years these battles went on in the
palace. The avengers of blood were demanding the life of
the murderer ; but, as the blood of Amnon was not shed with-
out cause, the king w^ould not yield to their demand. His
domestic happiness was for ever at an end.
A greater danger alarmed the counsellors of the king. The
murder of Amnon was not a deed which could be confined
within the four walls of the palace. It was done openly
before a crowd of spectators, and by men who knew the cause of
quarrel between the brothers. In a short time the outrage on
Tamar and the death of her ravisher were talked of in Hebrew
households. All were aware that Amnon was doubly guilty
of death. More heinous crimes than his were seldom com-
mitted. !N"o home was safe, no virgin could freely discharge
the ordinary duties of life in her father's house, if Amnon
escaped unpunished. ' The vain fellows,' ' the fools,' as the
debauched and the worthless were called, might soon imitate
the example set them by the heir to the crown. Among a
people bred to strict regard for law, the avenging of Tamar
was considered a sacred duty. Absalom, according to their
view of the matter, had done no wrong ; the father of the
damsel had not discharged his duty ; her brother had taken
it in hand and carried it through. The majesty of the law
had been vindicated by the death of Amnon ; the friends and
relations of the murdered prince called the slayer a criminal,
the people at large counted him a hero. The boldness of the
deed, and the tenacity of purpose which it showed, commended
the prince to the nation as one worthy to rule over men. It
was not therefore in agreement w4th their views of justice to
let Abcalom spend year after year in banishment. Murmurs
began to rise among the people (2 Sam. xiv. 15). Threats
324 The Kingdom of A II- Israel', its History,
even seem to have been uttered, if the prince were not recalled
from exile. Perhaps, indeed, he was already setting in motion
the springs of that discontent which, in a few years, drove
David from his capital, and placed Absalom for a time on the
throne. Several of the king's council became aware of this
state of feeling among the people. But they w^ere also aware
of the battles in the king's own household. And however
anxious to see Absalom recalled, they shrank from incurring
the hostility of the royal family.
At last Joab, aware of the king's own leanings towards his
banished son, contrived to put the views of all parties before
him without coming forward himself. Unless we consider
the danger wdiich Joab ran in moving in the matter, we shall
form a poor estimate of the wisdom he showed in accomplish-
ing the prince's recall. The palace was wholly set against
the measure. The king himself could not think of bringing
back the exile. But Joab knew the kind's lonoino- for a
reconciliation. He was aware also of the discontent among
the people. Without showing his hand in the matter, he got
the case laid before the king by a wise woman of Tekoa, who,
in a friendly spirit towards David, had the skill to hold up to
him a mirror wherein he saw himself and his danger. One
day when he sat in the gate dispensing justice, she cast her-
self on the ground before him, and besought his help. Pre-
tending she was a widow, whose two sons had quarrelled till
the one killed the other, she described her w^oeful plight in
defending the survivor from the rest of her kindred. She
showed how a desire for the inheritance was masked under
zeal for the avenging of blood. Pitying her sorrowful case,
for it was the counterpart of his own, he assured her of his
protection. Seeing he had not apprehended her meaning, she
requested leave to speak further. She then charged him with
fault himself in not fetching home his banished. The speeches
which she heard among the people w^ere making her afraid.
As a loyal subject, she feared the dangers to which these
The Avenger of Blood. 325
speeches against tlie king's government might lead ; for every-
where the Hebrews were regarding Absalom as unjustly cut
off * from the inheritance of God.' * May Jehovah be with
thee/ she said, uttering a prayer, not stating a fact. Before
dismissing her, David ascertained that Joab, faithful as he
ever was, had contrived this little plot.
Joab conveyed to Geshur the king's permission for Ab-
salom to return from exile.^ But the prince was forbidden
to enter the palace, or to approach his father. He was recalled
from exile certainly, but watched like a dangerous neighbour.
David had clogged the boon he bestowed on his son with
conditions which drained it of nearly all its sweetness. While
yielding to the feeling of the people on the one hand by
recalling Absalom to Jerusalem, he was, on the other, deferring
to the fears, real or pretended, of the rest of his family. For
two years the impetuous young man submitted to this shutting
out from the honours of his birthright. But his pride could
stoop to it no longer. He sent for Joab to speak to him on
the subject. Joab refused to come. He sent a second time,
and again he met with a refusal. Absalom replied to these
slights by ordering his servants to set fire to a barley field
belonging to the general. His retainers, as faithful to him
then as they had shown themselves five years before, cared
for neither high nor low who stood in the way of their mas-
ter's orders. The field which he told them to burn was beside
Absalom's house. The grain, almost ready for the reaper and
^ Several slight incidents referred to in the course of the history give grounds
for tlie following chronological table : —
B.C. 1035. RapeofTamar.
March-April, 1033. Murder of Anmon.
,, ,, 1030. Recall of Absalom from banishment.
,, ,, 1028. Restoration of Absalom to David's favour.
The season of the year (March or April) is determined by the two incidents of
sheep-shearing and the burning of the dry and ripened barley in Joab's field.
August-September, 1024. Flight of David from Jerusalem. But the date
1024 B.C. rests on reading four years for forty in 2 Sam. xv. 7 — a doubtful
emendation. Between Absalom's return to Jerusalem and the fulfilment of his
alleged vow in Hebron, four years can scarcely have elapsed.
J
26 T/ie Kingdom of A 11- Israel: its History.
quite dry under the fierce sun, burst into flame. The fire-
raisers did not seek to conceal themselves. In their eager-
ness to destroy Joab's property, they may have laboured to
keep the fire from spreading, as it was likely to do, to other
fields. Every one knew that the prince's men had set the
barley on fire. Joab feared some more serious annoyance if
he still refused to see him. Accordingly he paid Absalom a
visit, and demanded the reason of the barley being set on fire.
Absalom offered no explanation but the messages he had
already sent. He insisted on being restored to his rights.
He denied all wrong-doing. He even professed his willing-
ness to die if the king found fault in him. But he was
resolved not to live the life of an exile within sight of his
father's palace. Conscious that Absalom was right, or afraid
to tempt his anger further, Joab promised his good offices.
He found the king not unwilling to relent. After five years of
estrangement, father and son were again reconciled. But on
the side of the prince it was a reconciliation intended only to
mask the greater wickedness than Amnon's death, on which
he was now setting his heart.
The popularity of Absalom had increased even while he
was under a cloud at court. The confidence, wdth which he
appealed to his innocence before Joab, was but a reflection of
the verdict long before passed by the people in his favour.
The readiness, too, with which the servants obeyed his orders
in firing Joab's barley was a proof, not only of his power of
securing devoted partisans, but also of a fuller consciousness
of that power. During the five years which had passed since
Lis retainers murdered Amnon, Absalom had grown into a
manhood that was aware of its own strength, and disposed to
use it for its own ends. In his seclusion from public life his
servants appear to have kept him informed of the feeling of
the people in his favour, of their admiration of his beauty,
and of their interest in the events of his daily life. Several
petty details are preserved, which show more clearly than
The Avenger of Blood. 327
words the feelings and the gossip of the people at this period.
A more handsome youth could, not be seen in the country.
He was the perfection of manly beauty, from the sole of the
foot to the crown of the head. His children were like their
father in this respect ; and his daughter, whom he called
Tamar, after her unfortunate aunt, but whom the rest of the
family called Maachah, after her grandmother, appears to have
closely resembled him in beauty of person and in the power
of securing the affections of others (2 Chron. xi. 21). Even
the luxuriant growth of his hair was published among the
vulgar by admiring retainers. They boasted of its woman-
like length and weight ; they told how he polled it but once a
year, and how he surprised his friends by weighing down with
it two hundred royal shekels. Had not Absalom been the
idol of the tribes of Israel, these things would never have been
thought of or talked about. Their very smallness is the best
guarantee we could have of his great popularity with all ranks.
Absalom was not long at court before he turned this
popularity to account. He knew the nation was not satisfied
with his father. The business of the law courts, over which
the king himself presided, had become too vast to be attended
to by one man. Appeals from inferior judges, and cases
brought directly before the king, could not all receive a fair
hearing, even though decided in the shorthand ways of
Eastern rulers. Unquestionably the loose administration of
justice formed a real grievance, of which Absalom was forward
to take advantage. But the scandals and intrigues of the
palace had also leaked out into the cities and hamlets of
Israel. They had damaged the king ; they had weakened his
hold on the affections of a law-loving people. Absalom in
their eyes was the representative of law and custom. He
was known to have vindicated the authority of both when
the king would not. He was known also to have paid a
heavy price for his boldness. Absalom was a hero and a
martyr in the people's cause. In their eyes David was a
328 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
breaker of the law himself, and a screener of others from its
penalties. The people were ignorant of the real character of
the prince. They saw only what lay on the surface. But
in popular movements it is too often outward show which
catches the multitude. Were the outer cloak lifted off from
their uuAvorthy idols, the generality of mankind would be the
first to raise the axe which should dash those idols in pieces.
The famine of three years' duration, which weakened the
kingdom sometime in the latter part of David's reign, fits in
exactly with the murmurings of the people at this period.
For three seasons the rainfall was short of the requirements
of the ground. Dry winters were followed by bad harvests.
And among a people accustomed to trust entirely to their
own fields for the following year's food, a deficient harvest
was the cause of much hardship, while a total failure was
ruin to most classes of the community. A three years'
famine produced serious discontent among the Hebrews, for
the governed always find consolation in attributing their
troubles to the incapacity or wickedness of their governors.
David was under a cloud with his people for not vindicating
the majesty of the law himself ; he fell still further in public
estimation by punishing the prince who, having next to him
the best right to become the law's minister of vengeance, had
discharged that duty ; and he seemed to his subjects to be
under the frown of Jehovah, when the heavens refused their
usual rains. Absalom's success in overturning his father's
throne is thus more easily explained/
David became alarmed at the lonfr-continued drouG^ht.
'O >'-'"-- o-
' Among the indications of a probable date for the three years' famine, the
death of Saul's sons, and the four battles with the Philistines, are the following
(2 Sam. xxi.):—
(a) They took place before the rebellion of Absalom ; for (2 Sam. xxi. 17)
David's officers resolved he should not take part in any battle again. Hence
they refused to let him command the army against Absalom.
(6) The reproach of Shimei that David was guilty of the blood of Saul's
house (2 Sam. xvi. 8) points to something more nearly touching David than
the death of Ishbosheth, and more recent.
The Avenger of Blood. 329
P)iit a vision of the Avenger's sword may have made him
unwilling to repair to that Friend, whom he had been accns-
tomed to consult. However, the cause of the drought was
not the wickedness of the palace. It stretched further back.
The oath of assembled Israel to protect the temple slaves
of Gibeon had been outraged by Saul. For reasons now
nnknown, he had planned the utter destruction of their city.
* Zeal for Israel ' was the cause assic^ned, the mistaken zeal of
a fanatic. As the wilderness tabernacle was removed from
Nob to Gibeon, he may have imagined that, in harbouring
tlie priests and the tabernacle, the people of the city were
sheltering traitors. But whatever the reason may have been,
he purposed putting them all to death.^ His hand was stayed
before his purpose could be accomplished. The murder of the
Gibeonites left a blood-stain on the whole kingdom. ' Saul
and his house of blood-guiltiness ' are given as the ground for
punishment falling on the nation. It was slow of foot, it was
long in coming, for the generation which does the sin in a
country is not always the generation which bears the punish-
ment. But when the scourge did come, it fell on all ranks of
men. Between the Gibeonites and the royal household had
grown up a blood feud, for which law and custom in those
times had only one remedy, ' blood for blood.' Deeply
rooted in the national character, this rule was productive
sometimes of good, sometimes of evil It is alien to our
manners. We condemn it for the harm it would give rise to,
if cherished among ourselves ; we overlook the good it may
have done among a totally different race. ^ Blood for blood '
was the demand made by the citizens when their ambassadors
received an audience of the king. Atonement must be made ;
but neither silver nor gold could appease the feud. A sacred
duty lay on them to atone for the blood of their slaughtered
1 Judging from the ordinary law of 'like for like,' we may suppose that he
took the lives of seven of tliem, for as many of the royal family were afterwards
slaiu as an atonement for his crime.
2, so 1 he Kingdom of All-Israel : ils Histo?y,
townsmen by the blood of the household, at whose hands it
was shed. ' Blood, it defileth the land,' said the law, ' and
the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein
but by the blood of him that shed it' (Num. xxxv. 31-33).
Saul had gone to his account ; the stain of blood was crying
for vengeance on his family, just as the stain of Uriah's blood
was resting on David's palace, and claiming victim after victim
from among his children. In neither case did the law against
punishing the children for their father's sins apparently
hold good. In both the father's guilt brought ruin on
the sons. An open slaughter of the innocent is visited on
Saul by an open demand for the lives of his children ; an
underhand murder of the innocent is visited on David by the
violent end of son after son, all happening in the ordinary
course of events, linked together by easily traced causes and
effects. But the same hand was directing the government of
the world in both cases. How such reflection of punishment
from the head of the sinner on to his children consists
with the law, that the children are not to be punished for
the father's sins, is a question in philosophy which we shall
leave alone. But no fact is more clearly written on the face
of history, than punishment glancing off from the guilty on to
the seemingly innocent, while the law of God distinctly forbids
the son to suffer for his father's crime. Men are forbidden to
punish the child for the father's sin ; does the same rule not
hold in the court of heaven and before the throne of God ? ^
To a high-minded man, as David was, the delivering up to
death of seven children of the man whom he followed on the
throne, could not fail to be a source of bitterest sorrow.
Saul's family entertained not the slightest hope of recovering
the crown, nor did David stand in fear of their pretensions.
They were sunk in poverty and neglect. Neither during
Absalom's rebellion nor after it is there a whisper of danger
^ Compare the facts and views given by Grote, History of Greece, viii. pp.
418, 419, in Alexander's massacre of the Brancliidse.
The Avenger of Blood. 331
to David from that source. Still, free tlioiigli he may have
been from apprehension, the demand of the Gibeonites for
seven sons of Saul to return on them blood for blood, put
him in most unhappy straits. Should he say ' No,' he would
set at nought one of the most binding laws of Eastern nations.
Should he say ' Yes,' there were men in those days, as there
are in our own, ready to sneer at the chance so opportunely
presented of ridding himself of the seven ablest men of a
rival family. Judged by the laws and customs of the land,
David could not act otherwise than seize the seven men and
hand them over to the Gibeonites, a painful but an unavoid-
able grief to his great heart. His treatment of Absalom had
already put David in disagreement with the cherished
customs of his peoj^le. Should he set himself against the
same customs a second time, especially when three years of
drought had terrified the nation with fear of divine vengeance,
the crown might be forfeited by his kindness of heart.
The best known of all Saul's kindred was Mephibosheth.
But David's league of love with his father Jonathan threw a
shield of safety over that helpless prince. Nearest of kin
though he was to the shedder of the Gibeonites' blood, him
David could not deliver up to death. Other victims were
found ; two sons of Eizpah, the concubine of Saul, and five
sons of his eldest daughter Merab.^ These seven David
handed over to the injured citizens. Solemn and heart-
rending it must have been to all present that day, when
the inheritors of the father's feud were pierced through
with the sword on the hill of Gibeah, their ancestral town.
Nailed to crosses or stakes prepared for the occasion, the
seven bodies were then raised in the air. From the middle
of April to the first droppings of the winter rains in October,
^ Michal is said to have been their mother. In our version she is said to
have 'brought them up,' a rendering scarcely allowable. If Merab died earl)%
and if the care of her children devolved on her sister JMichal, the latter might
be said to have been their mother. The bringing up of Genubath, not by his
mother, but by his aunt, Queen Tahpenes, is a parallel case (1 Kings xi. 20).
2,^2 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
the crosses with their ghastly burdens stood out against the
sky on the hill-top. But they were not left unguarded.
Eizpah, the hapless mother of two of the men, spread a couch
of sackcloth on the bare rock, and allowed neither vulture by
day nor jackal by night to touch the dead. Her affection
became matter of common talk. It penetrated to the palace,
and was made known to David. Satisfied, when rain began
to fall, that the curse of drought w^as removed from the land,
and touched by the affection of the mother for her dead sons,
he ordered the bones of the slain men to be taken down.
He could honour the dead, thoudi he could not save the
living. Impressed, as every one must have been, with the
fate of a family once so powerful, the king showed his
sorrow by interring the bones of its scattered members in a
common grave. He himself, after bringing the remains of
Saul and his three sons from Jabesh, conveyed them to Zelah,
a place in the canton of Benjamin, where Saul's fathers were
buried. The bones of the seven w^ere carried to the same
spot and laid in the same grave.
Absalom saw his opportunity in the growing unpopularity
of the king. But he was also urged to action by the change
which had come over the gossip of the palace regarding the
succession to the throne. Since his flight to Geshur, his
brother Solomon had grown to be a boy eight or nine years
of age. Bathsheba was known to be chief favourite among
David's wives. And the regard with which her child was
treated must have revealed to the courtiers David's intention
to name him for the throne. Absalom's temper could not
brook this affront. He regarded the crown as his by right,
for he was David's eldest surviving son. His mother, too,
was a king's daughter, while the rest of David's wives were
the daughters of commoners. And of Solomon's mother he
could say nothing too harsh or too scandalous. His brothers
were young men of a small spirit, well enough fitted to
engage in the intrigues of a palace, but not to stand comparison
The Avenger of Blood. 333
with him, or to cross his purposes. Suspicious of his father's
intentions, and determined to wield a king's sceptre, he
resolved to bring matters to a speedy issue.
The weakest part in David's government was the admini-
stration of justice. As chief judge of the nation, to whom
every one was free to bring his suit, the king should have
dispensed justice every morning. For some reason he was
less mindful of this duty than he ouglit to have been.
Absalom saw the chance presented of ingratiating himself
with the people. He laid his plans so as to dazzle the
multitude by unwonted magnificence, to catch them by
unwonted affability, and to cheat them by an affectation of
unwonted attention to business. Early in tlie morning,
even when there may have been suspicious eyes to report his
doings, he drove his chariot into the open space of the city gate.
Fifty runners preceded him on foot. When he reined in his
horses, his retainers stood in advance or round about the chariot.
Horses and chariots were new things in Jerusalem, things, too,
which were sure to be spoken about. They could not be
driven into the public square of the city without drawing
toGfether a lar^i^er number of onlookers than usual. Amoncj
this crowd the servants of Absalom, wholly in their master's
interest, worked their way, seeking out all who had cases to
bring before the king. Word was passed to the prince, and a
servant was sent to ask the suitors to come to his chariot.
He kindly inquired of each to what city he belonged, he
examined the cause which brought him to Jerusalem, he pro-
nounced it good and right, and then expressed his regret that
no one dispensed justice in the king's absence. Overcome by
this kindness and magnificence, the man would have pros-
trated himself before the prince. But Absalom put forth his
hand to prevent the obeisance. He did more. He drew the
man toward him, and kissed him, as he would have done au
equal. Few were able to resist attentions so overpowering.
Almost every one who received them spread abroad most
JJ
34 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
flattering reports of magnificence, of kingly bearing, of gracious
condescension. The whole country was ringing with the
prince's praise. He had stolen the hearts of the people ; he
had sapped the foundations of their allegiance to his father.
If David was aware of the magnificence affected by Absalom,
there was an excuse at hand. The prince had resided for
three years in horse-breeding Syria. In his grandfather's
dominions, every man of substance had one or more horses :
every chief or noble rode in his own chariot. Absalom had
become accustomed to this magnificence. He preferred it to
riding on mules, or walking on foot, as was usual at his
father's court. With an excuse so good, what had the prince
to fear from a father so indulgent as David ?
Absalom was guided in his schemes by Ahithophel, one of
the discontented party at court. Something had evidently
happened to give the chief councillor deep offence. His
character is drawn in one of the Psalms : ' The words of his
mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart ;
his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords '
(Ps. Iv. 21). As Ahithophel's ideas of his own greatness
could not brook the smallest slight, an insignificant cause may
have led to this great dislike of the king. Because Bathsheba
may have been the daughter of his son, Eliam, the wrong done
to her former husband, Uriah, is sometimes given as the cause
of Ahithophel's quarrel with David. But Bathsheba was
David's favourite wife; her son was his destined heir. In
assisting Absalom, Ahithophel would thus be wronging his
own grand-daughter and her child, if not procuring their death.
jSTo connection existed between the murder of Uriah and the
discontent of Ahithophel. But whatever may have been the
cause, discontented he certainly was, and in these measures of
Absalom the hand of Ahithophel may be most surely traced.
Another of the leaders on Absalom's side was Amasa, who
appears to have been of great influence in the rebel camp.
He was the son of Abigail, the sister of Zeruiah, Joab's
The Avenger of Blood.
OJ
mother. Amasa and Joab were thus cousins to each other,
and nephews to David. But there seems to have been some
stain on the birth of Amasa. His father, Jether, is called in
one place an Israelite, in another an Ishmaelite ; his mother was
a serpent's (Nahash) daughter, — an allusion not to parentage,
but to character (Gen. iii. 15), similar to Belial's daughter
(1 Sam. i. 16). Amasa does not appear to have held high
office in David's court or army. The neglect with which he
was treated, combined with his relationship to the royal family,
and perhaps with the traditions of his military skill, may
have pointed him out to Absalom as a man, whose fidelity
might be safely tampered with or easily bribed to a change
of government. When the rebellion succeeded, he became
commander-in-chief under the new king.
Some time elapsed between Absalom's restoration to favour
and the beginning of the rebellion.-^ It cannot have been long,
for not a whisper of the conspiracy reached the ears of Joab
or any of the king's trusted advisers. And yet the rebels had
formed a party in almost every quarter. As soon as things
were ready for the rising, Absalom requested leave of his
father to visit Hebron in pursuance of a vow which he uttered
when in exile. As his restoration to favour was to be fol-
lowed by paying this vow, the interval cannot have been very
many weeks. And the deceiver adopted the surest plan to allay
suspicion. A new-blown zeal for the law screens the villany
he is meditating ; nor could David have refused permission
without injuring himself still more in public estimation. But
instead of suspecting any evil, David was overjoyed at the
appearance of a regard for religion in this request. He not
only gave him leave to go, but he allowed him to invite to
the feast at Hebron two hundred men of Jerusalem. They
^ ' At the end of forty years,' 2 Sam. xv. 7. It is most difficult to account for
forty years in this passage. ' Four years ' or ' forty days ' are no imj)rovement,
for tlie former is too long and the latter too short an interval for fuKilling the
vow and perfecting the treason. * Forty weeks ' would solve all difficulties.
OJ
6 The Kingdom of All-Is7'acl : its History,
had no knowledge of the design on foot. But they gave
Absalom the appearance of a large following as he passed
through the country. His partisans, too, were encouraged by
the sight of numbers ; for in all revolutions an apparent
majority secures the support of waverers.^ While they were
on the way to Hebron, Absalom's messengers were hurrying to
all quarters, warning the disaffected to be ready for the rising.
With such skill was the rebellion planned, that Absalom was
celebrating his coronation feast, and in every tribe the begin-
ning of his reign had been proclaimed by sound of trumpet,
before David knew of the rebellion. And with such celerity
did things move forward, that Absalom, with an overwhelming
force, was within a day's march of the capital before the king
had taken thought of defence. Ahithophel's counsels guided
the arms of the rebel. That crafty adviser left the court of
David before Absalom. He repaired to his own city of Giloh,
a place situated among the mountains of Judah, several miles
south of Hebron. He was thus within easy call of the prince.
Jerusalem was no longer a safe residence for David. Dis-
content was rampant there as well as everywhere else. But
besides, the army of Absalom rendered a defence of the town
impossible. If David and those who continued faithful to
him remained in it, treachery within, and an assault from
without, would speedily terminate the civil war. The only
hope of safety was to delay till it should be seen who remained
loyal. Orders were accordingly issued for withdrawing from
Jerusalem the soldiers who favoured the king. His wives and
children, with the exception of ten concubines who remained
to look after the palace, set out mostly on foot. Every-
thing had to be done in haste. Mules could not even be
found to ride on. They halted for a little, at a place called
' the House of the Distance,' ^ on the declivity leading down to
1 For the vow and the feast, see above, p. 263.
- Some take this to have been the last house of the city. It may be the
boundaiy line between Judah and Benjamin. See Josh, xviii. 16.
The Avenger of Blood, 337
the brook Kedroii, while the king passed in review the soldiers
who remained faithful. He stood near the ark which Zadok
and Abiathar with the Levites had borne out from the city.
The retreat was led by a body of men called David's own ser-
vants ; then the bodyguard of Cherethites and Pelethites passed
before him ; then the Gittites, commanded by Ittai. David
called that captain from the ranks, and urged him to return.
It was not right to expose a stranger to the dangers of civil
strife. But Ittai refused. He had cast in his lot with his
friend, and whatever might be that friend's fate would be his
also. * Go,' the king said, ' pass over,' and the strangers with
their wives and little ones, descendinf? the hill, crossed the
Kedron. David's words tp Ittai, ' grace and truth,' were a
proverb of which the origin can be traced.^ They are found
for the first time in the 'passing hy of Jehovah witnessed by
Moses (Ex. xxxiv. 6). Ittai was told to pass hy almost the
next time they occur in history (2 Sam. xv. 20). Between
these two passages the relationship is both singular and close ;
and the proverb reappears in John i. 14,' fuU of grace and
truth.' But sometimes only the half of it is found, ' full of
grace.' This splitting of a whole phrase into its two halves
we shall find occurring in another case from the Pentateuch.
The direction of David's flight had been agreed on in a
hurried council as soon as the revolt became known. Fortu-
nately the safest road to escape immediate danger was also
the surest for gaining the help of friendly swords. By taking
a north-east direction, David would be on the way to the
ferries of the Jordan, which afforded communication with the
land of Gilead on the east bank. Arrived there, lie would be
in comparative safety. Of all the tribes of Israel, those on the
east side of Jordan had most cause to be grateful to David.
From Syrians, from Ammonites, from Moabites, he had given
them complete deliverance. While they enjoyed the riches of
^ The whole proverb occurs once in Joshua, twice in Sanuiel, frer^uently in the
Psalms, four times in Proverbs, and once in Hosea.
Y
00
8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
their own country, they had a large share of the riches arising
from the traffic of their neighbours with foreign nations.
Should the strong hand of David be lifted from the necks of
these prostrate foes, Gilead and the adjacent districts would
speedily be wasted with fire and sword. If, therefore, the
king could count on finding friends in any place, it was
certain to be in Gilead. And nowhere had he a better chance
of being joined by veteran soldiers. The garrisons of Damas-
cus, of Syria, of Ammon, of Moab, and of Edom, could all
be easily communicated with. It was wise to choose Gilead
as a place of refuge. The king had also recovered from the
stupor of his first grief. He was beginning to see more
clearly in the darkness. Zadok and Abiathar might be of
service to him by remaining in the city : they could be of
none by accompanying him in his flight. Disguising his real
meaning, he told Zadok to carry back the ark of God to Zion,
addin^ir, if it were God's will, he should see it aoain. The hiorh
priest or any of the Levites near him might report these words
to Absalom without fear. But Zadok did not apprehend the
object of sending him back. ' Art thou not a seer ? ' the king
said privately. It was an old-fashioned word, that had been
out of use for a generation. It sharpened Zadok's thinking.
And then, David told him to send his own son and Abiathar's
with such news as they might gather of Absalom's plans.
The brave priests, both of them thoroughly devoted to the
king, were the best men to trust with this dangerous duty.
If Jerusalem could have been held against the rebel army,
sound policy would have forbidden Joab to abandon a place
of its importance. A soldier who surrenders a stronghold to
the enemy, without even striking a blow in its defence, is
guilty of treason. But the first thought of David and Joab,
the greatest soldiers of the day, is flight. They forsake
Jerusalem, before which the rebels might have been delayed
till they grew weary of the enterprise, or till dissension
broke out in their ranks. A military blunder so serious
The Avenger of Blood, 339
cannot be attributed to these experienced soldiers. Jerusalem
was not fortified. The works were in progress then and for
years afterwards. But they could not resist an immense host
such as accompanied Absalom. The truth of this is put
beyond doubt by the prayer of David in Psalm li. : ' Do good
in Thy good pleasure unto Zion ; build Thou the walls of
Jerusalem.' A few months before that psalm was written,
Joab and the Hebrew army made a narrow escape from
destruction in battle with the Syrians and Ammonites. Had
they been defeated, Jerusalem might have shared the fate
which overtook Eabbath-Ammon. David had fallen into
grievous sin ; punishment was coming when he wrote the
psalm. Anticipating a scare such as he and his people
formerly felt in the crisis of the war with Amnion, he prays :
' Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.'
The departure of the king was an event long remembered,
from several of the incidents by which it was attended. As
the multitude filed out of the city, the valley of the Kedron
and the sides of the neiG^hbouringj hills sent forth a wail of
sorrow : ' All the country wept with a loud voice.' Citizens,
who crowded forth to witness the leave-taking, or followed
the retiring soldiers, helped to swell that cry of grief. David
himself, covering his head in token of bitter sorrow, and
walking on his bare feet, joined in the weeping as he climbed
the ascent of Olivet. His captains and soldiers, with Eastern
openness of feeling, also covered their heads and wept aloud.
It was the weeping of strong men, for every one of whose
tears there should run streams of rebel blood. Meanwhile,
rays of hope begin to streak the darkness. While he is thus
plunged in grief, a messenger, perhaps one of the two hundred
who accompanied the prince to Hebron, arrives with tidings
that Ahithophel, the king's sagest counsellor, has proved false.
' Mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance,' wrote David,
' we took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house
of God in company' (Ps. Iv. 13). '0 Lord,' lie said, 'turn
340 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
the counsel of Ahithopliel into foolishness.' He had then
reached the top of Olivet. While he was praying,^ David's
friend Hushai arrives from the other side of the hill. His
clothes are rent, earth is on his head. Well was it for both
David and him that he was not one of the two hundred,
whom Absalom contrived to put out of the way. He had
been residing on his own estate in the north of Benjamin,
and he was then on his road to the capital to share the
fortunes of his friend. But since Hushai could do better
service as a traitor in the council of the rebel prince than as
a friend, uselessly to cumber the little army in the field,
David urged him to proceed to Zion, and put himself in com-
munication with the high priests should he discover anything
of importance. He might thus defeat the plans of Ahithopliel,
while seeming himself to serve Absalom. The two friends
then parted, the one descending the western side of Olivet
towards the city, the other slowly passing down the northern
slope towards the wilderness ferries of Jordan.
Shortly after parting from Hushai, the king's forces met
Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth. He had a couple of asses
with him, laden with 200 rounds of bread, 100 bunches of
raisins, 100 of summer fruits, and a skin of wine. David's
suspicions were awakened. Ziba seemed to him on the way
to pay court to the new king. But when he asked him,
shortly and sharply. What meanest thou by these ? Ziba was
ready with an answer which went to the king's heart. The
asses were for the women and childen to ride on, the food for
the soldiers, and the wine for those to drink who might faint
in the weary wilderness. Faithfulness exists somewhere, the
king thought as he heard these cunning words. Ziba's present
was a ray of hope in the gloom. But, he asked, where is thy
1 David is generally thought to liave worshipped at a chapel or high place on
the top of Olivet. But there is no ground for this in the words : ' When David
was come to the top of the hill, where he prayed to God ' (2 Sam. xv. 32) against
Ahithopliel (in ver. 31). Our version has put worshipped iov prayed (see Ex.
xi. 8 ; 1 Sam. ii. 36, i. 28).
The Avenger of Blood, 341
master's son ? ' At Jerusalem/ was the answer, ' for he said,
To-day shall the house of Israel restore to me the kingdom of
my father.' It was a falsehood. I*robably it was as true as
the story of the bread and the fruit and the wine. Unfor-
tunately, David believed it. And he acted on his belief:
* Thine/ he said, * is everything which was Mephibosheth's.'
Astonished at the turn thin^^s had taken, Ziba is master
enough of himself to reply : * I humbly beseech thee, let me
find grace in thy sight, my lord, 0 king.' David's rash faith
in this deceiver, and his still hastier words, reflect disgrace on
his treatment of the slandered cripple, the son of his friend.
As David journeyed onward he came to a place in Benjamin
called Bahurim, the residence of two men, — one a bitter foe,
the other a true friend of the kino-. Since the latter was from
o
home, and his wife was keeping the house, we can scarcely be
wrong in identifying him with Azmaveth, one of the Mighties
(2 Sam. xxiii. 31) who w^as afterwards placed over the king's
stores or treasures (1 Chron. xxvii. 25). The other was Shimei,
a man connected with Saul's family, and of much influence in
the neighbourhood. He was also on friendly terms with Ziba,
who lived at no great distance, — an intimacy which may be
regarded as another proof of the hollowness of Ziba's professions
of loyalty. Shimei came out to view the fugitives. A ravine
separated the height on which he stood from the ridge along
which they were marching. "When David appeared on the one
liill, Shimei was seen on the other. With curses loudly spoken
he railed on the king as a wicked man, guilty of the blood of
Saul's house. He even threw stones and earth at David,
harmless it may be at the distance, but annoying to men of
spirit. This continued for some time, as Shimei moved in
the direction of their march. David seemed unwilling to act
a king's part. His captains, who were gathered round him,
forbore to speak. At last Abishai angrily requested leave to
cross the ravine and take off that dead dog's head. Joab
urged David to comply. Had Ittai or Benaiah made the
342 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
request, he might not have met with a refusal But Abishai
was one of those, who put it in the power of Shimei to curse
David as a shedder of the blood of Saul's house. The bloody
end of Abner, and the equally bloody end of Ishbosheth to
which it led, rushed at once into the king's thoughts. An
indignant reproof silenced the two brothers : ' What have I to
do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah ? So let him curse, because
the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David.' It was a more
severe punishment to Shimei to let him alone than to take his
life. He w^as treated with contempt. He was allowed to
curse on and to throw stones till he was weary. He made him-
self a fool before the chief men of the kingdom, without the
smallest good to himself or to the rebel cause. From that day
onward he knew there could be no terms of friendship between
him and David. For a half-hour's indulgence in silly cursing
and stone-throwing, his conscience would henceforth never
cease to frighten him with a Eunner's sword. But the pro-
vidential sparing of Shimei's life probably led to Ahithophel's
death.
Meanwhile the rebel army was approaching the capital.
Attended by men from every quarter, Absalom and Ahitho-
phel were reaping the fruits of successful treason in their
triumphant march towards Zion. ]N"or was the success in
Jerusalem less soothing to their pride. Zadok and Abiathar,
the chiefs of the national faith, are in the power of the new
king, if they do not mean to serve him. Hushai the Archite,
the friend of David, presents himself at the palace to pay
allegiance. ' God save the king ' were his words of homage.
Staggered by Hushai's baseness, Absalom, half in doubt, half
in contempt, asked, ' Is this thy kindness to thy friend ? '
Whatever generosity was left in Absalom's bosom w^as ruffled.
But Hushai deftly parried the thrust. ISTothing but skilful
flattery could save him from ruin. Smoothly and readily
came the excuse to Hushai's lips : ' Whom the Lord, and
this people, and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be,
The A venger of Blood, 343
and with liim will I abide.' Absalom's head was turned by
his success. In that short interview Hushai saw, how he
might best manage matters by sailing with the stream of the
prince's own high thoughts. Whatever seemed to exalt the
young man would be preferred to sager counsel, if less skil-
fully proposed. Ahithophel, carried away by the credit due
to successful management, would be less obsequious when it
came to a battle of wits. His first proposal fell in with the
prince's humour, and was followed on the day of their entry
into Zion. The ten concubines left by David in charge of
the j)alace, Absalom took as concubines to himself. It was
the custom in the East for the successor of a king to claim
the wives and concubines he had left behind (2 Sam. xii. 8).
Absalom, by taking these ten women to be his concubines,
avowed his resolution not to stop in his career till he had
hunted his father to death. It was a barrier in the way of
peace which could not be removed. Henceforth there could
be no truce in the civil war.
So long as David lived, Absalom's success was not assured,
and Ahithophel was not safe. Conscious of his danger, the
chief counsellor proposed to finish the war at a blow that
night. The road David had taken was well known. Shimei
could be in Zion as soon as Absalom. He knew the direction
of David's flight, the number of soldiers with him, the host of
women and children who cumbered their march ; and he could
boast of their want of spirit. Ahithophel saw the necessity of
surprising David that night, scattering his troops, and killing the
king himself. Shimei's story showed how easily the thing could
be done. And Ahithophel was not slow to offer his services
for this purpose. Asking twelve thousand men from Absalom,
— a thousand from each tribe (Num. xxxi. 4), — he offered,
with their help, to overtake the fugitives and destroy David.
The prince and his chiefs closed with the offer. Ahithophel
appears, indeed, to have left the cabinet for tlie purpose of
selecting the soldiers. But the military chiefs took the
344 '^^^^ Kingdom of All-Israel : its Histoiy,
matter to heart after he withdrew. The cunning counsellor i
was leaving nothing for the young prince to do but to obey.
All the glory was going to Ahithophel ; no room was left
for a display of Absalom's vanity or his general's prowess.
Ahithophel was setting himself up as king-maker. He was
treating Absalom as a puppet, to be moved when and where
he pleased. Fear and dislike, however they may have been
planted in the prince, turned his thoughts towards the courtly
Hushai. Before it is too late, Absalom orders Hushai to be
summoned. He informs him of the plan which the council
had sanctioned ; then, dislike or doubt cropping out, ' Shall we
do after his saying V he asks ; * if not, speak thou.' Hushai saw
in these words the cloud under which Ahithophel had passed.
David's life was then hanging by a thread ; for the carrying out
of Ahithophel's counsel meant success to the rebellion. But
with a voice and countenance trained to composure, Hushai
pointed out the dangers of a night attack against w^arriors
accustomed to campaigning. They would not wait to be
attacked, as Ahithophel imagined. Their watches would be
set far out. At the first clash of arms the raw soldiers of the
prince, hearing their shouts, would lose heart. They would
immediately run, and would spread reports of an overthrow.
A defeat would be fatal to the new king ; his forces would
melt away as fast as they had assembled. After exciting the
prince's fears, he touched his vanity. 'Gather all Israel,' he
said, 'take the command, and in royal state sweep from the
earth the paltry few who dare to defy thy greatness.' Hushai's
proposal was greeted with applause. ' If he betake himself to
a city, let all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we shall
drag it to the brink of the ravine and topple it over, so that
not even a pebble shall be left.' Hushai knew he was
speaking foolishness. Only a well-trained voice could have
gone on, without faltering, from beginning to end of a proposal
so incredibly senseless. But it pleased the prince ; it pleased
Amasa and the chiefs in the army; it displeased no one but
The Avenger of Blood. 345
the king-maker. Ahithophel's plan was set aside, and the
orders he may have given were countermanded. But Hushai
did not wait to see the result. His own proposal was un-
suited to the case of Absalom ; he could not believe it would
be followed. If Ahithophel's were acted on, nothing could
save the royalists from destruction before morning. On
leaving the council chamber, Hushai repaired to the taber-
nacle, the least suspected place in the city. That he should
meet Zadok or Abiathar there was also above suspicion.
But, in that apparently casual meeting, he made known
the design that w^as on foot. A serving woman was
instantly despatched to En-rogel, a well outside the walls,
where the women of the city washed their clothes then
as now. Ahimaaz and Jonathan, the high priests' sons,
were waitino; near. The maid communicated to them her
message. Less careful than they might have been, the young
men instantly started at runners' speed for the king's camp.
The two spies had not proceeded far on their way when
they w^ere seen by one of Absalom's followers. Their persons
were well known ; their running betrayed their errand.
Before they had got as far from En-rogel as that place is
from Zion, they saw horsemen toiling up the hill in pursuit.
Fortunately the spies had a friend in Bahurim, to whose house
they ran for safety. His wife was at home. With a woman's
quickness she hid them in a bottle-shaped well or corn-pit,
which happened to be in the house-court, threw a covering over
it, and spread peeled barley above. Owing to the hilly ground,
the pursuers had lost sight of the runners. On reaching the
house they found the woman in the court grinding barley for
family use. AVhen asked about the two runners, she says
she saw them, but they had gone over the brook of water.
If the pursuers stopped to search the house, and if the
woman's story were true, the runners would have so much
the more time to escape. And when Absalom's men did
cross the brook and search in vain on the other side, the
346 The Kingdo77i of A II- Israel : its History,
woman would have cause to triumph by twitting them with
their loss of time at the crisis of the chase. When they were
out of sight on the road back to Jerusalem, the runners left
their hiding-place and hastened to report to David the plan of
Ahithophel. The king and his captains saw the danger of
their position. With all haste they set themselves to place
the Jordan between them and the enemy. By daybreak not
one of the fugitives was on the western side of the river.
The tide had at last turned in David's favour. The same
morning, which witnessed David's army safe across the Jordan,
saw Ahithophel riding forth from Jerusalem. In the accept-
ance by Absalom of Hushai's policy, he read the ruin of the
rebel cause. Chaorined, too, at finding himself thrust down
to the second place, Ahithophel preferred death to the dis-
grace of being again humbled in council, and to the certainty
of being called to account for his treason. He reached his
own city of Giloh ; he set his affairs in order, and then
hanged himself in his own house. The anointing of the rebel
chief by the high priests followed immediately after.
Meanwhile David liad reached Mahanaim, a well-known
city of Gilead, situated among the rich fields of the granary
of Syria. Friends from all quarters gathered round him. Of
his immediate helpers, three are specially mentioned, Barzillai,
Shobi, and Machir. They stocked the palace at Mahanaim
with everything fitted to promote the comfort of the women,
children, and soldiers who accompanied the king. A long
and toilsome journey lay before the fugitives after crossing the
Jordan. On both sides of the river the air was fiercely hot.
But the kindness of these great men supplied all the neces-
saries and many of the comforts of life when they reached
the city. Nor is this kindness the only outstanding feature
in the matter. Shobi was a son of ISTahash, and dwelt in
Eabbath-Ammon. He may have been viceroy of the
conquered country. Machir was the kindly noble who
sheltered Mephibosheth till David took him into favour.
The Avenger of Blood. 347
He was now paying back that kindness by favours, which
might have made David Wush for his injustice to the poor
cripple on the previous day. The language used regarding
the three nobles shows they displayed a genuine outpouring
of affectionate regard for David, not obedience to a command
they dared not disobey. But otlier friends soon hastened to
the king's standard. Old soldiers whom he had often led to
battle flocked to his court as the only centre of hope for the
land. The palace of Ishbosheth, which may have been
occupied by David during these months of exile, was guarded
by an army of twenty thousand trusty men,-^ before Absalom
had gathered all Israel and got ready the ropes which were to
pull the city to the neighbouring stream. Arranged in com-
panies and divisions, all under leaders of tried skill, they
waited for the storm to burst from the other side of Jordan.
Amasa lost no time in gathering his levies. Prom the
rapidity of the rebel movements and the forwardness of their
preparations, David considered him to be possessed of powers
of organizing an army in no way inferior to Joab's. When
tidings arrived of the rebels' approach, so high w^as the spirit
of the royal troops that they marched to meet the enemy,
instead of waiting to receive their attack behind the city
walls. David himself wished to lead the army. As his life
and crown were the prizes of battle, it did not become him
to shrink from danger. But all his advisers opposed the
step. Even the soldiers entreated him not to leave the cit}-.
Between David and his men there was the affection inspired
by mutual regard, by common hardships, and by a common
^ This estimate may be accepted as a fair guess, for —
(1) The army or the chiefs said that the enemy wouUl count the king's life
equal to or rather more than the lives of half their whole number (2 Sam. xviii.
3) ; and
(2) They immediately add that he was equal to ten thousand soldiers.
(3) The numbtn- of rebels who appear to have fallen hy the sivord in tho
battle which followed was twenty tliousand (xviii. 7), a number sufficiently
striking to affect the imagination of the royalists, as if each loyal sword had
taken the life of a rebel.
34^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
cause. His leadership was firmly declined. All would fight
with stouter hearts if they knew he were in a place of safety,
and if they were free from the confusion which might arise
from his hurt or death. And the chiefs had not forgotten
the risk run by David not long before in the war with the
Philistines, nor their vow that he should never be allowed
again to expose himself in the field. With one voice they
insisted on leaving him behind in Mahanaim. A sufficiently
strong plea for this arrangement was soon found. ' Stay with
the reserves in the city/ some one, with pardonable craft,
proposed to the king ; ' bring them up if we require help, and
pluck the glory of victory by deciding the battle.' David
found himself compelled to remain as commander of the
garrison. The three brigades into which the royal army was
divided were commanded by Joab, Abishai, and Ittai. As
they marched past the king in the city gate, soldiers and
people heard his charge to these officers, ' Be gentle for me
with the young man, with Absalom.'
The place chosen by Joab as a battlefield was near enough
to be reached by David with fresh troops, to retrieve a lost
day or to save a beaten army from destruction. Others also
besides the general had studied the ground, and knew the
roads from it. Amongj these was the runner, Ahimaaz. The
scene of battle was known as Ephraim's Wood, evidently from
the Ephraimites who perished in the war with Jephthah a
century or two earlier. Two roads led to Mahanaim, one
through a plain girt about by hills, and another across the
ru(?fTed ground at their feet. Absalom mio-lit take either or
both of these roads. As his forces were largely drawn from
the tribes which acknowledged the authority of Ishbosheth,
when that prince reigned in Mahanaim, there were not a few
in the army competent to direct its movements. Eeliance
on these guides may have misled both Absalom and Amasa.
Joab and his fellow-chiefs deemed it safest to meet the storm
of war near the junction of the two roads. While their rear
The Avenger of Blood. 349
was tbiis comparatively safe, for the reserves under David
rendered it dangerous for the rebels to throw themselves
between Joab and the city, their ]30sition on the foot-liills
gave them an advantage over an undisciplined rabble. The
broken ground, on which they seem to have been drawn up,
enabled their small front to face a superior force. Eight
before their position the road northward stretched through a
wood of oaks, tamarisks, and other trees. Gently rising
heights, wholly free from timber, and open glades of sur-
passing richness, here and there offered an easy line of march
to the rebel army ; but in most places the road was so broken
up by watercourses and ravines, that the passage into easier
ground beyond would weaken the spirit of a mere militia
unaccustomed to the hardships of war. Plunging into a steep
glen, then slowly climbing the opposite bank, then toiling for
a short distance through the underwood of the forest, and
repeating this sort of march for hours, the troops of Absalom,
weary and broken, were slowly nearing the ambush at the
outlet from the wood, where their veteran foes were
posted.^
As the rebel army did not expect to meet the enemy
outside the city, no precaution was taken against surprise.
Absalom and Amasa may have thought the royal forces afraid
to face them in the field. But when the leading ranks of the
rebels cleared the wood where the hill path left the plain, an
unpleasant meeting awaited them. The holiday march of
these dreamers of triumph was at once stained with blood.
A brisk attack from the skilled and fresh soldiers of Joab
threw their ranks into confusion. Their prince, unprepared
for battle, without his helmet and riding among the advanced
1 ' Rising, as the couutry does, suddenly from the deep vaHey of tlie Jordan,
it is naturally, along its whole western boi-der, deeply furrowed by the many
streams which drain the district ; and our ride was up and down concealed
glens which we only perceived when on their brink, and, mounting from which,
on the other side, a short canter soon brought us to the edge of the next. ' —
Tristram, p. 462.
350 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
troops on the king's^ mule, tlie symbol of a king's peaceful
progress, had not even time to seize his arms. The wearied
rebels, footsore, broken, and panic-struck, are driven back into
the wood. There is no battle ; there is ruin on all hands,
confusion, flight, and death. Not a moment is given to them
to rally. The very evil came on the mighty host, which
Hushai described so well when he counselled Absalom not to
risk a night attack on David's camp : ' When some of them
be overthrown at the first, whosoever heareth it will say,
There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom ;
and he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a
lion, shall utterly melt.' At the first clash of arms Absalom
hurried to the rear through the wood. The prince was not
fleeing from the enemy. He had shown courage too often
before to allow us to take this view of his conduct. He seems
to have been carelessly riding in front when his men fell
into the ambuscade of Joab. By chance ' he was met by the
servants of David.' Unpardonable carelessness he was cer-
tainly guilty of, but there is nothing in his conduct to warrant
a charge of cowardice. Though within a few miles of the
enemy, he has neither guards around him nor trusty servants
at his side. He counted himself as safe as if he were makin;]:
a royal progress through a friendly canton. The horses and
chariots which he paraded in Zion, and which he would not
exchange for a mule's back on the field of battle, are not at
hand. The faithful servants, who had shown themselves
ready to die for him under less favourable circumstances, sink
out of sight as if they had never existed. Manifestly the
vainglorious prince was snared to his fate by the belief, that
David's veterans would not meet his rope-drawing rabble in
the field. Turning the mule's head, the scared prince hurried
to the rear. He was hasting to gain his chariot and his
guards and his captains. But he was not destined to reach
that shelter. As he swept in headlong riding under a branch-
^ ' Riding upon the mule,' 2 Sam. xviii. 9.
The Avenger of Blood, 351
iiig oak, similar to many still met with in tliat region, liis
liead was entangled in the drooping boughs, while his long
hair, flying behind him from the hardness of the pace, was
whirled round and twisted amid the foliage.^ The mule
galloped from below him, itself frightened by the sounds of
war behind. The reins fell from the grasp of the stunned
rider. Absalom was left hanging, snared by his own beauti-
ful and vaunted locks. He was unarmed. He had no sword
to cut the hair rope or saw the branch and let himself to
the ground. He may also have been at first too much
stunned by the suddenness of the shock to think of freeing
himself with his own hands. He was hanging a helpless
prize to the first pursuer who reached the spot. He was long
in being discovered. Not unlikely he had wisely determined
to sweep at some distance round the flank of his own soldiers
as the surest way of reaching his guards, without causing
alarm among the troops as they entered the battle. And there
he swung midway between heaven and earth, the unworthy
receiver of a nation's love. He had been careless of the lives
trusted to him ; the same carelessness was costincj him his
own. If Joab's swordsmen did not come to end his misery,
he might hang from that tree till, in fulfilment of a Hebrew
proverb, the ravens of the valley plucked out his eyes ; and
hunger, with slow and painful steps, wasted his handsome
body.
Meanwhile the swords of the royalists and the fears of the
rebels had converted the first flight of a few into a headlong
rout of the whole army. Absalom was not at hand to direct
his officers or cheer his men. The idea that he had fallen
in the first passage of arms or been taken prisoner, if it once
gained ground, would undo all the bonds that held the army
together. Amasa and every chief under him would feel their
power gone. The want of Absalom at the crisis of battle
^ ' As I rode under a grand old oak tree, I, too, lost my hat and turban,
which were caught by a bough.' — Trktrarn, p. 463.
352 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael: its History,
relieved tliem of the disgrace of defeat and the responsibility
of command. The panic grew as tidings of the foe passed to
the rear. Only the presence of Absalom could check its
progress, and steady the ranks of the rebels. A great
unwieldy host, unaccustomed to act together, and wearied
with a toilsome march, is suddenly assailed by a compact
body of veterans springing on them from ambush, whom they
imagined too terrified to venture beyond the city walls. From
the height of confidence these raw troops pass at once to the
depths of despair. Their leader, the only common bond they
had, suddenly disappears. All is lost almost before a blow
has been struck. Driven back on the treacherous wood
which they have just left, the fugitives find worse enemies
in its marshes and ravines than in the swords of the enemy.
Twenty thousand fell before the veterans ; a larger number
were trodden to death by their comrades, or met a worse end
from accidents or wounds and from want of food and water
among the ravines of the wood.
The oak in which the prince was snared, while this
slaughter lasted, seems to have been off his soldiers' line of
flight. For some time none of the pursuers approached the
spot. At last one of them, roaming about, a mere straggler it
would seem, recognised the rebel chief. He might have slain
him secretly, but having heard the king's orders to spare the
young man's life, he hurried off to report the discovery to Joab.
A considerable time elapsed, but no other came near the oak,
and Absalom remained fast fixed among the branches. Joab
was angry with the soldier for not killing the rebel on the
spot ; for the death of Absalom was the surest means of
crushing the rebellion. And a fear, lest he may have dis-
entangled himself and escaped, made Joab both bitter and
hasty in dealing with the discoverer of the prince. Ten
silver pieces and a girdle would have been the reward had
the soldier thrust him through where he was hanging. But
the man bluntly told Joab that a thousand pieces in his hand
The Avenger of Blood, 353
would not have persuaded liim to disobey the commands of
the king. And he added, with the boldness of a free-born
soldier, that had he done as Joab wished, Joal) himself would
have been the first to accuse him to the king. In the words
whicli passed between the soldier and the general, we see
most clearly the regard entertained by the army for David,
and the contempt with which they judged the proceedings of
Joab. But there was not time to discuss the matter.
Absalom might escape, and the fruits of the victory be lost.
Hastily snatching up three pointed rods, and summoning ten
of his bodyguard, Joab hurried towards the oak. From the
rudeness of the weapons thus hastily seized, we must infer
that the Hebrew general was unarmed ; a strong proof of the
security he felt in the want of enterprise on the part of
Absalom and his officers, and an equally strong proof of the
importance he attached to his office as commander-in-chief.
The prince was still hanging from the tree. On coming up,
Joab at once struck him. But though the rods were thrust
into his body, the strokes were not mortal. The ten guards-
men standing round gashed the living, Vv^rithing form with
numerous wounds. Their chief had set the example. Sucli
excitement as might arise from the greatness of the conse-
quences that must follow the deed, and from the consciousness
that he was openly defying the king, unsteadied the hand of
Joab; excitement caused the guardsmen to deal these bar-
barous wounds. But the story of the prince's capture had
spread among the ro^^al troops. Many were running towards
the spot. Soon a great crowd gathered round the oak,
witnesses of the guardsmen's butchery. A few stood at a
distance, hanging on the outskirts of the crowd, and knowing
something of what was passing. Unable to prevent a breach
of the king's orders, they kept themselves aloof from a deed
in which they could take no part.
As soon as the prince was dead, Joab saw the time was come
to stop the carnage and the pursuit. The rebellion expired
z
354 ^^^^ Kingdom of All-Israel : its History,
with Absalom's last breath. Every drop of blood shed after-
wards would only delay the return of David to Jerusalem.
As Joab turned away from the scene of the prince's butchery
to stop further bloodshed, one of the men on the outskirts of
the crowd requested leave to run to the city with tidings.
It was Ahimaaz, the son of the high priest Zadok. A request
so reasonable, preferred by a man of standing, could not well
be denied. But as the king's son was dead, Joab refused
leave. Feeling that the story of Absalom's death was too
revolting to be detailed to the king, he preferred to send
tidings of the battle by one of his own creatures. The
Cushite, apparently a negro servant of the Hebrew general,
seemed better fitted for the mission. ' Go, tell what thou
hast seen,' were the orders given in public, whatever else may
have been said in private. The Cushite, proud of the honour,
bowed low to his master, and hurried, by the shorter but more
difficult road across the hills, towards Mahanaim.
Meanwhile the trumpets had sounded to stop fighting.
The royal troops, returning from the pursuit, were mustering
round the mangled body of Absalom. A great pit, used it
may be by the country people for snaring game or wild beasts,
was discovered not far off. The dead body was dragged
thither and thrown in. A huge cairn of stones was then
raised over the grave by the victorious troops, to mark the
spot as a place which should be shunned or spat on by
passers-by in all time coming. No such memorial did the
vain prince hope to leave as a remembrance of his greatness.
His sons had all died in infancy. In a transport of grief at
their loss, he spoke as if he were doomed to go down childless
to the grave ; he bewailed his want of a remembrance among
poRterity. The dead stone of a lordly monument might
supply in some measure the loss of living representatives.
The King's Dale, near Jerusalem, the resort of the citizens of
Zion, furnished a fitting site for the memorial; the pillars,
the pyramids, the tombs of Egypt, furnished examples to
The Avenger of Blood.
ODD
imitate. Accordingly he built a pillar or tomb, known in
Jerusalem as Absalom's Hand. The cairn may still exist in
Gilead; but the Hand of Absalom, though spared by David
on his return from Mahanaim, has long since been swept
away.
While the army was thus engaged, Ahimaaz again urged
Joab to grant him leave to bear tidings to the king. The
general, unwilling to comply, but conscious that he had sent
an nnworthy messenger, endeavoured to dissuade the young
priest. But Ahimaaz still entreated permission, as if he
either were a favourite of the general, or had been appointed
the king's runner. Twice was his prayer refused ; another
was sent in his stead ; but he persisted in his request. At
last he receives permission : Joab bids him ' run.' There had
been a purpose in these repeated requests. Ahimaaz knew
he could outrun the Cushite. Instead of taking the shorter
and more difficult hill path, Ahimaaz turned towards the
longer but easier route by the plain. Meanwhile David was
expecting tidings from the army. He knew the time when
the armies would meet, a clear proof of nearness to the wood
of Ephraim. Seated between the two gates that fronted tlie
quarter in which a runner would first be seen, David was
ready to send succour or to cover a retreat. At the coming
of the king, a watchman went up to the top of the gate above
the spot where he was sitting. Suddenly his voice broke the
stillness, ' A man runninir alone.' ' He has tidino'S, then,' the
king remarked to his retinue, and rising, repaired to the gate
which the man was approaching. 'Another man running
alone,' exclaimed the sentry from the tower, directing his
words towards the gate,^ which the king had then reached.
* He also brincjeth tidin<'s,' were the words in which David
concealed his fears on hearincj of another runner. A sinG^le
runner could only be a messenger, whether of good or of evil.
^ * To the porter' in our version, a pointing of the Ilclirew whidi it is agreed
by the best commentators to discard. ' To the gate ' is the correct rendering.
35^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
But two runners, following close on each otlier, might be
urgent and more urgent messengers for help, or might be the
first fugitives from a broken army. As the first runner came
on apace, the watcher recognised his stride and figure as those
of Ahimaaz. The name was a welcome relief to David when
called out by the sentry. ' He is a good man,' he said, ' and
Cometh with good tidings.' Adonijah, now his eldest son,
appears to have been at his side and heard the words. He
treasured them in his heart and copied tliem on a future day.
The face of the runner, as he drew near, showed the nature
of his message. His breathless eagerness allows him to utter
but one word in answer to the still more eager looks of
David's retinue : ' Peace,' he cried. That one word revealed
the result of the battle. He was too much overcome by his
exertions to add a word of respect or explanation. Touching
the ground with his forehead in token of homaf^e, he com-
municated his tidings to the king with a solemnity befitting
his standing as an heir to the high-priesthood : ' Blessed be
the Lord thy God, which hath delivered up the men that
lifted up their hand against my lord the king.'
Assured of the result, David's first thought was for the
safety of Absalom. A higher motive than a father's fondness
prompted the question, ' Is the young man Absalom safe ? '
But Ahimaaz could not or would not tell. He had hung on
the skirts of the crowd that gathered round the tree when the
ten guardsmen cut down the prince. He had heard the
shouting, and perhaps suspected what was on foot; but he
prefers to let Joab tell his own tale of blood. Meanwhile the
Cushite is nearing the gate. Ahimaaz is bidden stand aside
among the king's retinue. The negro runner arrives. With
the eagerness of one new to the honour of bearing despatches,
he calls out, ' Tidings, my lord the king.' Ahimaaz, with the
easy courtesy of a high-bred noble, had heralded his news
with the ordinary salutation, ' Peace.' But the Cushite is
proud of his office : ' The Lord hath avenged thee this day of
The Avenger of Blood, 357
all them that rose up against thee.' Again David's fears
come to the surface ; his first inquiry at Cushi is for the
safety of Absalom. ' The enemies of my lord the king be as
that young man is/ was the answer of the runner.
' Mucli moved ' was David at the words. Tears flowed
down his cheeks ; with heavy sobbing be went up to tlie
guards' chamber over the gate, and as he went, his sorrow
burst forth in words : ' 0 my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom ! would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my
son, my son !' There was no attempt to hide this outburst of
grief. His counsellors could not have concealed it had they
wished. David himself was overpowered by the shock. He
does not bury the sorrow in his heart till he reaches the
palace ; but struck down by overmastering anguish, he seeks
the nearest place of refuge, the guard-room over the gate.
Through its latticed window all who passed heard the king's
wail for an unworthy son. This was no common grief. The
probability of Absalom's death was present to David before
the armies engaged. He took every precaution to save the
prince's life ; he could not be taken by surprise if these
precautions failed. Even the question put to both the
runners showed the current of his fears, it might almost be
said, of his expectations. Fondness for a misguided son
cannot explain this depth of sorrow. A rebel has met his
death on the field of battle ; the king whom he attempted to
dethrone, instead of rejoicing at his people's victory, is over-
whelmed by grief at the rebel's fate. Looking at the
circumstances of the case as they lie on the surface, David's
grief is inexplicable. He seems to have utterly forgotten the
king in the man, and the man in the father, while we feel
withal that even the fondest father would have shown more
decency in his sorrow.
But this surface view of David's sorrow, though justly
resented by the people as an insult to their faithfulness, was
not the right view. Fondness for the young man was not the
35S The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
cause of this grief, any more than fondness for Bathsheba's
son was the cause of David's first display of excessive sorrow.
In both cases his heart seemed ready to burst ; in both cases
the recoil from grief to composure was equally sudden ; and
in both the servants were unable to control or account for
their master's sorrow. The same cause had been silently at
work during the long years which elapsed between them. A
father's fondness could not be that cause. Tor many years
David and Absalom had seen little of each other. They had
become strangers in feeling, and strangers by high-handed
deeds of blood and violence. For many years, seven at least,
tliey had seldom spoken to each other ; for five of these they
had not seen each other's face. Besides, Absalom had usurped
a place in the empire which David knew he was never
destined to fill. In seizing the throne he had also outraged
natural affection. When we sum up these causes of estrange-
ment between father and son, it seems contrary to the
workings of humanity to ascribe David's grief to fondness for
Absalom. The world has never seen aught approaching to
this faulty tenderness of nature in a king or in a man. But
the theory of such tenderness is unfounded.
David had deeper causes for grief than he could avow to
the world. When, ten years before, ' he fasted and lay all
night on the earth' during the sickness of Bathsheba's infant
son, the sword of the Avenger had only begun to strike his
life. When Absalom fell, that sword had been twice bathed
in his children's blood, and thrice, too, it had cut the tenderest
chords of family life. A fourfold restitution was the punish-
ment David ordered for the stealer of the poor man's ewe
lamb : a fourfold punishment — Bathsheba's infant son,
Tamar's cruel fate, Amnon's death, and the shame of the ten
women left to keep tlie palace — had not satisfied the Avenger
of Uriah. But a fifth blow falls on his household : Absalom
is slain, when his life might have been saved and the arm of
the Avenger stayed. ISTo escape from the doom uttered by
The Avenger of Blood. 359
Nathan seems possible now. Every previous blow liad
been unavoidable, so far as David's power to avert it was
concerned. Absalom's death in battle he feared and endea-
voured to prevent. But for Joab, the prince would not have
died. Never before did David fully realize the doom uttered
against him, * The sword shall never depart from thy house.'
A dim outline of coming sorrow at first floated before his
mind. As blow after blow descended, the outline was filled
in with startling details, and this last stroke of the Avenger
had completed, as it w^ere, the distinctness of the picture.
Hope of a remission of punishment was now gone for ever.
The shock was greater than a sensitive mind could bear ; a
weak mind would have lost its balance. David was bidding
farewell to hope, a farewell which could not be bidden
without uncommon grief. His heart fainted at the prospect of
other strokes from the Avenger's sword : his grief burst all the
barriers of royalty, and of gratitude to his victorious soldiery.
Joab was the first to learn the effects of Absalom's death on
David, and gradually the tidings spread among both officers
and men. A sense of injustice pervaded all ranks. They
had risked everything for the king. And now, when they
have cleared the way for his safe return to the throne, they
are saluted at their liome-coming with tidings of his excessive
o-rief for a rebel, who met the end he deserved. With that
sense of ridit which actuates men in the circumstances, the
army felt the unworthiness of this return for their services.
The king's smile and approving w^ords were the boons they
fought for. But these they were denied. As they approached
tlie city, their fears of an unwelcome reception were confirmed.
Not the slightest show of gladness had been prepared for the
victors. Their waives and daughters ought to have met them
with songs and dances. But gloom and sorrow are reigning
in the city. The king is giving vent to his grief. It was
not the home-coming of a triumphant Hebrew host ; it was the
stealing into the city of soldiers ashamed of their conduct, aud
o
60 The Kingdom of All-Isi'acl : its History,
to whom their couutrymen and countrywomen would not
extend a welcome.
Before the army reached the city, David returned to the
palace from the gate chamber. There was no abatement of
his grief. With muffled^ head, and with deep sobbing, he
continued to bewail his son. Joab, ever rough and ever
faithful, forced his way into David's presence. ISTeither
guards nor servants could keep him out of the chamber,
hateful though his presence was to the king. The man who
had caused this wild grief is allowed admission. He believed
he had done the king and his family effectual service by
j)utting Absalom out of the way. Probably unbiassed minds
found little fault with Joab, except the cruelty of his ten
guardsmen. David himself, king and statesman as he was,
felt that much could be said in favour of the high-handed act,
otherwise he never would have admitted him to an interview.
With sharp reproaches Joab puts a new danger before David.
The wrong- doer is not the general, but the king. The army,
he says, has stolen into the city like beaten men ; there was
no welcome for them, no pride taken in their triumph. They
have saved David and his wives and children : David in
return has affronted them. He has loved his haters, and
hated his friends. Princes and soldiers count as nothing in his
estimation when weighed against Absalom. ' Ptise,' he said,
as if David lay stretched on the earth, ' go to the gate of the
city, otherwise the men who have fought for thee will all leave
thee before morning, a worse evil than any that has befallen
thee from thy youth.' The remedy was rough, but the cure
was effectual. David saw the danger ; perhaps also he felt
the unworthiness of his grief. It was not yet sunset. There
was still time to thank the soldiers for their services in his
cause. Orders were passed to the various divisions of the
^ The Hebrew word for deal gently (with Absalom) (1 Sam. xviii. 5) in David's
charge to Joab, is the same as muffied (head) (1 Sam. xix. 4). The phiy upon
the word, and the thrust in it at Joab, are evident.
The Avenger of Blood. 361
army to muster in tlie city gate. David was tliere waiting to
review them, precisely as he had done when they marched
out to meet the rebels. The murmurs that were beginning to
rise were laid to sleep. Cheerfulness again reigned througliout
the host, and disaster was avoided by the rough but prudent
firmness of Joab.
Although the rebellion was broken, the spirit which gave
it power still lingered west of the Jordan. David had lost
the affections of the people ; their new king had fallen in
battle, and there was not one of his followers competent to
fill his place. The empire seemed to be again drifting on the
rocks, which split it into fragments in the days of Saul. But
there was a party in the land, especially among the central
and northern tribes which, though small in numbers, had yet
the prudence to shape public opinion into a recognition of
David as the only safety of the country. The death of
Absalom emboldened them to speak their sentiments freely.
* Absalom is dead,' they are reported to have argued, * and
there is none among us able to guide the destinies of the
kingdom. Our neighbours are biding their time to impose
on us the yoke of slavery. There is but one leader on whom
w^e can rely ; there is but one tower of safety for us.' Tlie
counsels of these king's friends, as we may call them, were
the more readily listened to because Amasa, the general of
Absalom, was then in Judah with the wreck of the rel)el
army. Although the rising in favour of Absalom had been
general throughout the kingdom, its strength lay in David's
own tribe ; in that canton also the embers of rebellion
smouldered longest. But the other tribes were more prudent
in their manac^ement of affairs. Overtures had been made to
David to resume the headship of the nation. Bat the men
of Judah hung back in sullen estrangement. The high
priests, Zadok and Abiathar, once so influential, had lost all
power. Evidently the leading men of the tribe felt they had
sinned too deeply for forgiveness. A proposal to the king to
o
62 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
forget the past was more than they dared to make. Peace
must come from the king who had conquered, not from the
broken tribesmen. David was not disposed to push his
advantage to extremities against the rebels. With the support
of the other tribes, it would have been easy for him to crush
the sullen remnant in Judah who still stood aloof from
owning his authority. Many in that tribe would probably
have joined him. But calamity had softened David's heart.
He was also looking for a general to take the place of Joab,
whose disregard of orders could not be allowed to pass
unpunished. Hitherto the wars, in which the nation had
been eng[a2;ed, had brouo-ht to li^ht but one man fitted to
o'overn an armv. In vain had the kingj endeavoured to
shake himself free from employing that man. There was
blood on his hands crying to Heaven for vengeance. But
now, for the first time since Abner's death, an opportunity
was presented of displacing Joab. During the rebellion
Amasa had shown a rapidity in action, which pointed him
out to David as worthy to command the army. And as soon
as the king heard of the movement among the other tribes,
he resolved to secure Judah by offering Amasa the place
filled by Joab. Instructions were accordingly sent to David's
friends in Jerusalem, especially to the priests Zadok and
Abiathar. A longer delay might witness the tide of loyalty
rising so high among the other tribes that it would be at
the peril of Judah to hold back. David's horror of Joab
carried him a step too far. A pardonable regard for his own
tribe carried him even farther. Much better would it have
been for him to have undertaken the chief duties of Joab's
office himself. But the appointment of Amasa was unwise.
A beaten rebel was not a leader whom the troops of David
would follow. In eao'erness to degrade Joab, the kinej was
degrading himself and his soldiers. Henceforth treason
became the surest road to office. * My brethren are ye,' ran
David's message to Judah, ' My bone and my flesh are ye.'
The A vcngcr of Blood. 363
He Avas quoting the words of submission, used long "before
when All-Israel came to Hebron to make him king. It is a
peculiarity of the historian in Samuel to quote other writers,
and to quote words recorded by himself also.
Under this sunshine of royal favour the sullenness of
Judah rapidly gave place to exceeding loyalty. Before the
other tribes were ready, perhaps even before they were all
fully warned of David's purpose to return, the men of Judah
had assembled in force at Gilgal, near Jericho, to escort the
king to Jerusalem. The men of Benjamin were also repre-
sented. Shimei, the Benjamite, whose stone -throwing and
cursing gave him reasonable cause for apprehension, was of
the number. A band of a thousand men, all belonging to
his own tribe, attended him, an earnest at once of his power
and of the disaffection his punishment might cause. Ziba,
the servant of Mephibosheth, had come himself, and had
brought with him his fifteen sons and twenty servants as
friends of Shimei. Probably Shimei's knowledge of Ziba's
doings compelled Ziba to maintain an appearance of friendship
with the foolish stone-thrower. But this ill-timed partiality
for Judah produced unexpected fruit. Only one-half of Israel
was in time for tlie meeting at Gilgal. Murmurs, open and
alarming, told their dissatisfaction with the favour shown to
Judah. The men who acted worst and hung back longest
stood hifrhest in the kinsj's recrard, from Amasa, the rebel
chief, and Hushai, who seemed to the world the rebel prime
minister, down to the humblest of the tribe of Judah.
Nothing but a skilful leader was wanting to work greater
trouble than Absalom had given.
Meanw^hile the king, with his household and his men,
approached the eastern bank of the river. The place chosen
for the crossing was at one of those reaches of the Jordan
where the stream spreads over the country, and allows an
easy passage during the summer and autumn months. A
ferry boat had been got ready for the women and cliildren.
364 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Histoij.
Soldiers and others went over by the ford before the king.^
The western bank was thus held by David's guards before he
himself ventured to cross. Almost the first man who met
him on the shore was Shimei, come to crave pardon, with a
whole ' thousand ' of Benjamin to back his petition. Abishai,
Joab, and other officers stood beside David as the traitor
approached. Casting himself on the ground, he confessed
the wrong he was guilty of, and urged as a plea for pardon
that he was first of all the house of Joseph to bid the king
welcome. Abishai could not listen with patience to these
unmanly pleadings. The soldier who had been faithful to his
oaths could not endure this cringing of a baffled rebel. With
justifiable indignation Abishai interposed the question, ' Shall
not Shimei die because he cursed the Lord's Anointed ? ' The
true soldier spoke as he felt, and as all others around him
probably felt. But it was a rash question. Abishai thrust
himself into a matter of which he was not the judge. And he
did this before a crowd of listeners. His words, if allowed to
pass, might alarm thousands of other traitors besides Shimei.
He took the reins of justice out of David's hands by proposing
a punishment most just in itself, but most impolitic in the
circumstances. Whatever David's own purposes may have
been, the question of Abishai forced from him an uncondi-
tional pardon. He was driven into a corner by one of his
most faithful followers. A rash word from the king, an
attempt to impose conditions on Shimei, would give rise to
endless reports and fears. The punishment of the rebel
leaders was only put off; the discarding of Joab was a mere
blind, and the appointment of Amasa was no guarantee for a
' An unfortunate division of the verse 2 Sam. xix. 17 has completely mystified
the meaning. It reads thus (17) : 'And there were a thousand men of Benjamin
with Shimei, and Ziba, the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons
and his twenty servants with him ; and thej'- went over Jordan before the
king. (18) And there went over a ferry boat to carry over the king's house-
liokl.' The arrangement is clearly wrong ; it should be : (17) ' . . . his twenty
servants with him. (18) And they (i.e. the king's own people) went over
Jordan before the king : and there went over . . .'
The Ave7iger of Blood, 365
traitor's safety. David was, perhaps, never before in so
dangerous a position, when a word fitly spoken would still
the gathering storm, or a hasty answer awaken the fears of a
nation. Wliatever he might have done had Abishai not
spoken, there was but one course open to him after the
soldier's luckless meddling — reproof to the one, pardon to
the other; rebuke to a loyal retainer, favour to a traitor.
* With you and your brother,' he said, * I have no community
of feeling ; ye are my evil genius.^ No man shall die to-day.'
Then, turnint^^ to Shimei, he added, ' Thou shalt not die,' and
he confirmed his word by an oath in the name of Jehovah.
Shimei was no friend to his throne or his race. At the first
opportunity he would endeavour to overturn the former and
destroy the latter. But the word passed for mercy David
most faithfully kept. He was suspicious of Shimei ; no trust
could be reposed in him. Events had proved him to be a
blunderer and a coward. But he was an intriguer from whom
more danger might be dreaded than from bolder men. Shimei
himself could not expect ever again to win the king's confi-
dence. He was a man against whom ordinary prudence
required David to be on his guard.
At this great meeting in Gilgal two friends parted from
David, with honour to the king in the one case, with dis-
credit in the other. Barzillai, the Gileadite noble, had
accompanied him as far as the ferries. He crossed the river,
but declined the king's pressing invitation to go up with him
to Jerusalem. He was eighty years of age, he enjoyed in
abundance everything the earth could yield, but the pleasures
of a court were without attraction in his eyes. To die in his
own city, and to be buried beside his father and his mother,
were the prayer of this wealthy noble. He had sustained the
king's household during these months of exile : ' Come with me,'
the king said, ' and I w^ill sustain thee with me in Jerusalem.'
David might have promised him higher and better things
' Literally, ' For Satan to me,'
o
66 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History
than eatino- and drinking-, sinoinrr men and sinmnij women —
thinGfs, too, more suited to the ac^e and standiuf:^ of them both.
Even the Queen of Sheba showed to better advantage, in her
conversation with Solomon, than David in his invitation to
Barzillai. But though the aged noble would not go to Jeru-
salem himself, he asked the kinsj to extend a welcome to his
son Chimham. David gladly consented. He did more. He
seems to have made the son in some way a member of his
own family, and to have given him a home or an estate near
Bethlehem. More than four centuries afterwards, ' the so-
journing place of Chimham beside Bethlehem ' appears in the
history (Jer. xli. 17). But while the parting of David
from Barzillai was a source of honour, his parting from
Mephibosheth was a disgrace. ' When Jerusalem came to
meet the king ' at Gilgal, the helpless cripple was among the
crowd. '■ Wherefore wentest thou not with me V David asked.
' My servant deceived me/ he said. ' I wished to go, but
he went off with the ass that I told him to saddle, and he
forbade his sons to help me. He hath slandered me to the
king. But my lord is as an angel of God. I was honoured
by the king, and have no right now to complain.' David's
conscience was uneasy. He knew the worth of Ziba's loyalty.
Jonathan's son ' had neither dressed his feet, nor trimmed his
beard, nor washed his clothes,'^ while the king w^as an exile
from his capital ; but his servant was an associate of David's
worst enemy, and had secured his master's inheritance by the
basest slanders. It was an unaccountable perversity of judg-
ment to let the slanderer escape punishment. But it was a
cruel act to say to the poor cripple, the son of his earliest and
sincerest friend, ' Why speakest thou any more of thy matters ?
I have said, Thou and Ziba divide the land.' ' Let him take
all,' Mephibosheth replied, ' since the king is come again in
peace.'
^ This is a proof of the short life of Absalom's rebellion, — perhaps only three
months (2 Sam. xxiv. 13).
The Avenger of Blood, 367
A stormy discussion at Gilgal between tlie leading men of
the two divisions of the people disturbed the return of the
king. High words passed between them in David's presence,
which he had not prudence or ability to prevent. Dissatisfied
with the part assigned to them, the men of Israel complained
of the offensive leadership sought for Judah. Although form-
ing ten parts of the kingdom,^ they were treated as inferiors,
whose duty was not to advise, but to obey. The chiefs of
Judah answered these just complaints with reproaches. Their
own shortcomings during the past year ought to have given
another turn to their thoughts. But the softness of speecli
which turns away wrath had no place among the soldiers of
Judah. So fierce became the battle of words, that the peace-
ful meeting at Gilgal resembled the beginning of strife between
two sections of the empire. As ill-timed as it was unwise
was David's favour towards unworthy Judah. A leader
was soon found for the disaffected Hebrew^s of the Ten
Tribes, as unreasoning as were the people themselves.
Passion and unreason forced the multitude to arms ; there
was no thought of the incompetence of the chief who called
them to the field, or of the unfitness of their array to cope
with the soldiers of David. A man of Benjamin, Sheba-ben-
Bichri, cjave the simal of revolt ; he is called a worthless
person. ' Portion in David have we none, and inheritance in
Jesse's son none : every one to his tent, Israel,* was the
proclamation he issued at Gilgal by sound of trumpet.'
Most of the members of the Ten Tribes appear to have
retired to their own homes, dissatisfied and helpless. David
they would not follow ; Sheba they could not trust.
On receiving tidings of the rebellion of Sheba, David
ordered Amasa, the new commander-in-chief, to assemble
within three days the fighting men of Judah. Either they
had returned home from escorting the king, or only the chief
men had gone down to Gilgal. Zion was named as the
^ For the explanation of U)i parts, see above, p. 262.
o
68 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
meeting-place. But the new commander was either too slow
in action, or found difficulties on which David did not reckon,
for the three days passed without any signs of him or his
forces. Tlie king became alarmed ; soldiers might gather round
Sheba ; or fortresses not yet recovered from the grasp of
Absalom's party might admit him within their walls. So
many were the indications of disaffection throughout the
kingdom, that David said this adventurer had it in his power
to do him more harm than Absalom. By gaining over to his
side two or three strongholds, he could make them rallying-
points for evil-minded men. Months might pass before they
could be carried by the royal troops. Eebellion might then
break out in other places and under leaders of greater name ;
the tributary nations would seize the opportunity for revolting,
and the delay of a few days might lead to the shaking of the
whole kingdom. Aware of the danger, David saw the neces-
sity of employing another officer, and perhaps, also, more
reliable troops. ' Now,' he said to Abishai, ' take thou
thy lord's servants and pursue after him, lest he get him
fenced cities and escape us.' This was a most unwise com-
mission to issue. It betrays David's distrust of Amasa's
capacity or his loyalty. Nor could he hide from Joab and
Abishai, any more than from himself, the mistake he had
committed. There was only one safe course ; he ought to
have gone himself on the expedition for which he selected
Abishai. But instead of keeping every one in his own place
by a little self-denial, he remains behind in Jerusalem, and
trusts a general whom he had lately reprimanded, and whose
brother he had disgraced. Following on the unfair dealing
with Mephibosheth, this fresh blunder may be looked on as
an additional proof of a growing weakness of j)urpose in the
king.
Although Joab had ceased to be commander-in-chief, ' the
six hundred ' were under his orders. They knew his skill
as a commander ; many of them had been enrolled at the first
The Avenger of Blood. 369
formation of tlie band in the Cave of Adullani. These tried
soldiers, with the guards of the palace and the order of the
' Mighties,' marched northwards. Abishai was the general in
command, but, as Joab was in the army, every soldier knew
that their real chief was the disgraced commander. At the
Great Stone of Gibeon, on the highway leading to the north,
they met the troops raised by Amasa. That officer at once
assumed the command of Abishai's forces.^ Probably a desire
to make the two brothers feel their inferiority had as much
to do with the act, as the more worthy motive of uniting the
whole army under one head. Joab, pretending friendship,
advanced from the ranks of the six hundred to salute his
superior officer. The two men were cousins, or brothers,
according to the language then current. Joab was armed
with a short sword, sheathed and hanoino- from his girdle.
It was unusual with him to carry arms, for special notice was
taken of the fact that day. As he approached Amasa, the
sheath, by accident or awkwardness, got turned upside down,
and the sword fell to the ground. But it was done of set
purpose. Stooping down, Joab picked up the weapon ; and
as he w^as too near his cousin to return it to its sheath with-
out a breach of politeness, he advanced with the naked sword
in his left hand. Amasa saw nothing to be afraid of He
was a general at the head of his army ; the officer coming to
salute him was his own cousin. ' Art thou in health, my
brother ? ' Joab asked. Then, according to the custom of
the East, he took hold of Amasa's beard with his right hand,
as if to kiss his cheek. But when the victim was thus
caught, with his left hand Joab buried the dagger in his
cousin's right side. One gash was given, not with a faltering,
but with an unskilful hand. Amasa's bowels, shed out on
the ground, presented a sickening spectacle as he fell in his
blood in the middle of the king's highway.
1 ' Amasa went before them ' (2 Sam. xx. 8). Compare 2 Sam, x, 16, * SlioLach
weut before them ;' the meaning is, was their leader, or eommunder-iu-chief.
2 A
3/0 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
A more dastardly murder could not have been committed.
The general of an army slain by one of his own officers on
the highway, and in presence of his soldiers, who imagined,
like their chief, that the murderer was but saluting the
commander ! But the horror which the deed everywhere
awoke touched the throne of David. Abner perished by
Joab's hands at the end of one civil war : Amasa perishes in
like manner at the end of another. Abner was bought over
by David from the opposite side, but did not live to enjoy
his reward : Amasa is bought over with the same price, and
is murdered by the same assassin, before he had fully entered
on office. David had only one way of escape from the charge
of complicity in Joab's guilt, and that was by Joab's death.
But Joab was too strong to be thus punished ; or, more truly,
David was too weak. Even the king's warmest friends must
have felt that blood unavenged was defiling their master's
throne.
All pretence of serving under a superior was thrown aside
by Joab. He took the murdered man's place ; he gave orders
as of old ; the soldiers, accustomed to obey, followed their
former chief. But the feeling of confidence in Joab was not
general among the new levies. They stood still, as they
came up to the spot where Amasa was breathing out his life.
For a leader so foully slain, it wanted but an angry voice and
a ready hand to arm these soldiers against Joab. The longer
they stood, the often er they heard the story of the murder ;
and the greater the numbers that gathered round, the more
imminent was the risk of a pursuit of Joab by those wdio had
taken up arms to pursue Sheba. But one of Joab's officers
had been left behind to guard against this danger. ' He that
favoureth Joab,' he cried, ' and he that is for David — after
Joab.' The appeal was made in vain. Seeing the danger,
the officer removed the dying man from the highway into the
field, and threw a cloak over the body. Since there was no
one so forward for Amasa as was this man for Joab, the
The A veiigei" of Blood. 371
soldiery began to move from the spot. Joab had again won
with the sword the prize, which David had now twice vainly
attempted to WTest from his grasp.
The rebels soon found that a soldier wdiom there was no
trifling with had command of the king's army. No walled
town w^ould receive them ; or, if it did, the approach of the
pursuers forced them to seek another place of refuge. Their
numbers also began to fall off. Men of standing did not join
them. Sheba continued to be their head. Joab's forces grew
in numbers the further the pursuit was continued, for every
city and village was showing its loyalty by sending men to
aid his enterprise. At last the rebels were hunted into the
walled city of Abel-beth-Maachah in the distant north. It
w^as surrounded by the royal troops; an earthen mound,
thrown up at some distance from the wall, was rapidly pushed
forward towards the city. Already had the embankment
reached the trench. Tlie battering- engine, swinging across,
w^as shaking the wall. The defenders, too few or too cowardly,
were doing nothing to prevent these preparations for assault.
But the elders of the city w^ere afraid to propose a surrender
to Sheba, or to open their gates to Joab. They were between
the hammer and the anvil. Sheba and his men had them in
their power for the time ; in a few hours Joab would arraign
them for harbouring traitors. In this emergency the courage
of a woman saved her people from a great calamity. Standing
on the wall, she demanded a parley with Joab. He was soon
ready to hear her proposals. Apparently the city had been
at one time the home of a man of wisdom and uprightness, to
whom people from a distance applied for advice. Eeminding
Joab of the name for wisdom which the place thus came to
enjoy, the woman reproved him for attempting to destroy a
mother city in Israel, a part of the Lord's inheritance. The
general denied the charge ; he wanted nothing but Sheba-ben-
Bichri, the rebel. The terms were easier than the rebels
counted on. Aware of this, the woman at once promised to
2i*]2 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
throw Sheba's head over the walL Xor was it difficult
to persuade those within the town to pay this price for
deliverance. In a brief space the head of the rebel chief was
thrown out to Joab. The royal forces at once returned to
the south, and the rebels dispersed to their own homes. A
second time, mainly by Joab's skill and rapidity of action,
had the storm of civil war been turned aside from the throne
of David. There was at last peace in AU-IsraeL Eut there
was not contentment. The king himself, able from his high
place and accurate knowledge of aftairs to look deeper than
other men, knew there was much cause for fear. Shimei,
with his powerful backing of Benjamites, suspected, if he did
not know, that he owed his life to the ill-judged meddling of
Joab's brother. Abiathar, too, was a disappointed man. The
high-priesthood, which he counted a birthright of his family,
he found himself compelled to share with a rival, Zadok.
And Joab felt that he held both place and life at the sword's
point. But these three were types of many more, who only
waited a chance to throw themselves into the whirlpool of
civil strife.
CHATTEE XIT.
THE CLOSE OF DAYID'S REIGX.
(2 Sam. xxii.-xxiv. 25 ; 1 Kings i. 1-ii. 11 ; 1 Cliron. xxi. 1-xxix. 30.)
Of the events wliicli took place during the last eight or nine
years of David's reign, only two have been recorded ; the one
of them, indeed, serves as introduction to the other. First
was his sin in numbering the people ; tlien his preparations for
building the temple. Whatever the sin may have been, it
was the nation's as well as his. The ven^jeance, that had acjain
and again fallen on the king's house in former years, disposes us
to connect the punishment that came of numbering the people
with David's sins and their consequences. But this is an
error; for the sin that brought down the punishment was
Israel's, not David's only. The writer of the books of Samuel
goes farther ; his v/ords are : ' And again the anger of the
Lord was kindled against Israel' The corresponding passage
in the book of Chronicles is : ' And Satan stood up against
Israel.' While the former recorded two sins of Israel, the
latter recorded only one, for the omission of the word ' again '
from the Chronicles is evidently not an accident. But the
sin of Israel, recorded in the one book and passed over in the
other, is the slaughter of the Gibeonites by Saul, a matter
that had no connection wdth David and his house. Whatever,
therefore, the sin of the nation may have been, it is clear that
the punishment fell on them for their own doings, not for
David's.
Twice before had Moses numbered the soldiers of Israel,
in both cases with the approbation of God. And repeatedly
374 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Histo7y.
in after ages was the census of Judali taken and entered in
the sacred books. But for following in the footsteps of Moses,
David drew down vengeance on his people. Evidently, under-
neath the surface of the story, something is hid away which is
needed to explain the sin and David's sorrow. A difference
of opinion prevailed among the king's advisers. Joab and the
military men were strongly opposed to liis design. They
retained their dislike to it even while the numbering was
going on, and at last left the work unfinished. Something in
the temper of the army, that is, the whole body of men in the
country, lay at the root of this opposition. It may have been
the tax of a half shekel which all those numbered had to pay.
Small though it seems to us, and inadequate as a cause for
grumbling, it ceased to be small when six or eight sons in
one family had each to pay the half shekel. It was also an
addition in money to existing taxes in kind, which were not
light under the monarchy. And in that country money
w^as scarce among Hebrew farmers ; it would be largely
unknown. But if a money tax were exacted then, it might
not only be repeated, but be the beginning of larger demands.
No numbering had taken place for four centuries ; the tax
had fallen into desuetude. To revive it was to lay a burden
on the army, which Joab and his captains, who knew the
temper of the soldiers, feared might lead to rebellion. Pielieve
them of the tax, and the grumbling would lose its foundation.
But to relieve them of the tax was to insult the lawgiver, and
to expose the soldiers to his indignation. By paying the tax
to the sanctuary in a lump sum, David might hope to satisfy
the law, and quell the discontent of his soldiers. But if he
adopted this plan, he would break the law himself, and involve
the whole nation in his guilt. In the darkness which covers
the subject this explanation may be accepted as a hypothesis,
which gives reasons for Joab's repugnance to the numbering,
for the guilt of the people, and for the guilt of the king.
Comparing the numbering of David with that of Moses, we
The Close of Davicfs Reign. 375
remark a broad difference between tlieni. Moses was com-
manded to take the census of the able-bodied men in the
Hebrew host. David not only had no such orders, but was
strongly opposed by some of his best officers. Then there was
a reason for the numberings by Moses ; there is none given
for that of David. The land to be divided among the twelve
tribes lay before the great lawgiver : a fair and equal parting
of it into lots could be managed only by ascertaining the
number of soldiers or families in each tribe. Lut though the
king did not receive orders to take a census, as Moses did, he
had permission from tlie law-book to take it at any time
deemed proper. Punishment must therefore have descended
on the nation, not for the mere act of numbering its able-
bodied men, but for the unrecorded purpose involved in that
numbering. The census was the first step towards some
further piece of statecraft ; but so speedily did punishment
fall on the nation, that the policy thus begun was quietly
allowed to drop, and never figured in its records. At the end
of his reign David completed the census left unfinished by
Joab. According to both accounts of this numbering, the
tribes of Levi and Benjamin were not counted, ' for the king's
word was abominable unto Joab.' But there is added in the
Chronicles, that ' by the last words of David the Levites were
numbered from twenty years and above.' It could not. there-
fore have been the taking of the census that drew down on
Israel the vengeance of Heaven ; there was something deeper,
unrecorded, but perhaps not unknown.
It is maintained by several writers that the sin of David
was his neglect of the law, which required the payment of a
half shekel to the sanctuary for every soldier at the numbering.
Ignorance or disregard of this law, in their view, led the king
into a grave mistake, precisely as a like ignorance, twenty
years before, delayed the removal of the ark for three months
from Kirjath to Jerusalem. But this explanation of the guilt
is liardly tenable. There is not the slightest ground for attri-
2,"/ 6 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its Histoiy.
"billing to David either ignorance or disregard of this payment.
A plague was certainly the punishment threatened if it were
neglected/ But David was offered a choice of punishments,
plague, famine, or, perhaps, civil strife. The fact of a choice
having been given disproves this view of the sin. And its
advocates overlook the strong opposition offered by Joab and
his fellow-captains to the king's wishes, before a step was
taken to number the people. David's chief soldiers based
their dislike to the measure on other "rounds than a neglect
to pay the appointed fine to the sanctuary.
With an nnwillingness which he took no pains to conceal,
Joab began the work. The autumn heats were passed when
he crossed the Jordan and began his review of the Hebrew
militia in the plains, not far distant from the place where
Moses numbered Israel Moving northward and westward,
Joab at last reached ' the strono-hold of Tvre,' from which he
journeyed southward to the utmost border of Judah. For
nine months and twenty days he was engaged in the number-
ing. Even then it was not finished, for Levi and Benjamin
were left nncounted. The ' strano-ers ' scattered throucjhout
the land were carefully numbered, as he journeyed from place
to place ; but the priests and Levites, who were also located
in different parts from, one end of the country to the other,
were not entered on his rolls. David's policy, whatever it
may have been, allowed Joab to dispense with a census of the
tribe of Levi, but not with a census of the men of alien blood.
Even the time spent in the work, if nothing more was done
than number the soldiers of each district, seems excessive. A
country so small as Israel, and so thoroughly under command,
^ Ewald is of opinion that the plague punishment threatened for neglect of the
half shekel payment was added in Ex. xxx. 12 by a later writer, because a plague
did befall the Hebrews in David's time immediately after a census. This turn-
ing of history upside down may be ingenious and bold. But Ewald forgets to
state that the word used for ^:)?ar/?<e in Exodus is not the same as the word used
in Samuel and the Chronicles, — a somewhat formidable barrier to the acceptance
of his theory.
The Close of David's Reign. Z17.
could not have required well-nigli ten months for taking the
number of its able-bodied men. If its military organisation
allowed Saul, at the beghming of his reign, to raise an army of
330,000 men in a few days, Joab had evidently something more
to do than count heads. Nor was it necessary that an officer
so high should be despatched on a service so connnonplace,
for there were well-known agents, called scribes or numberers,
to whom this duty belonged. The time taken, the officer
employed, and the objections urged against the step, go far to
prove that a careful survey of the military resources of the
empire was David's object, with a view to ulterior measures.
Not the slightest hint of their nature is given by the historian.
In this respect the writer of the book of Samuel is consistent
with himself. He states facts as they were unfolded in the
march of events ; reasons and explanations he does not give.
His readers may infer for themselves ; but it is not his pur-
pose to send the plummet of his critical pen down into the
depths, to fathom the secrets of court and camp policy for his
own entertainment or theirs.
In describing Joab's movements on this journey, the sacred
writer mentions the well-known Hebrew towns, Aroer, Jazer,
and Beersheba, and the better-known heathen cities, Sidon and
Tyre. The only other town mentioned by name is a place of
no importance, in the extreme north, called Dan-jaan. But
Joab is also said to have visited ' all the cities of the Hivites
and the Canaanites.' Had we only this account of the journey
left us to serve as our o-uide in forminGj an idea of the census,
o o
we should be disposed to maintain that it was a numbering
not of the Hebrews but of the remnants of ancient heathen,
who still remained in nooks and corners of the land. The
prominence given to the descendants of the original inhal)it-
ants is scarcely what we should have looked for. Tyre and
Sidon were subject states in the reign of David ; not
conquered, as were Damascus and Edom, but states which
had of their own choice placed themselves under the protection
37^ The Kingdom of A I I- Israel: its History.
of tlieir powerful neiglibours. Some years after, Solomon
numbered these strangers a second time. The sum of them
was found to be 153,600 able-bodied men, representing a
population of more than half a million. But Tyre and Sidon,
and the cities of the Philistines, are not counted in this
reckoning. Hence it is not surprising to find the total force
given in the book of Samuel different from that given in the
Chronicles. When two writers preserve lists of the same
returns, which may be summed up on different methods, a
slight change in the way of looking at them necessarily causes
differences in the results, which a superficial view pronounces
inexplicable. The lists preserved are these : —
BOOK OF SAMUEL. BOOK OF CHRONICLES.
Men of Judah, 500,000 above twenty Men of Judah, 470,000 above twenty-
years of age. years of age.
Men of Israel, 800,000 ,, ,, All-Israel, 1,100,000 ,, ,,
Levi and Benjamin not counted. Levi and Benjamin at first not counted.
Levi (afterwards), 38,000 above thirty
years of age.
The total force was thus 1,300,000 or 1,570,000 men.
The mean of these two reckonings is 1,435,000, or in round
numbers 1,440,000. But it will be shown afterwards that
David and Solomon took fifths, not tenths, of the militia for
service in their great enterprises. And the fifth part of
1,440,000 is 288,000. This number is of value in establish-
ing the truth of the books of Kings and Chronicles. David's
standing army consisted of twelve divisions of 24,000 each, or
288,000 men, almost the exact fifth of the total number of
able-bodied men in his kingdom. The population of Hebrew
blood cannot thus have been less than five millions and a half
in an area of 12,000 square miles. Compared with the handful
of people living in the country to-day, the number in David's
reign may well seem incredible. But a survey of its ruined
cities, its terraced hills, its countless tanks and cisterns of
marvellous workmanship,^ its wine or olive presses, its fertile
1 See Pal. Ex. Q. S. 1872, p. 177. Merrill, Ead of the Jordan, pp. 91, 422.
The Close of Davids Reign. 379
soil, its weiglit of corn crops, and its fruit trees, will satisfy
any reasonable man that the land could again support as
dense a population, if similar laws and government gave
security to life and property.
Scarcely had Joab returned to the capital, when David felt
the misgivings which follow measures of doubtful rectitude.
Kor had he Ions: to wait till a messac^^e from heaven struck
him with alarm. His friend and counsellor, Gad the seer,
visited him early one morning, the bearer of tidings from
God : ' Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things. . . .
Shall seven ^ years of famine come unto thee in thy land ? Or
wilt thou flee tln-ee months before thine enemies, while tliey
pursue thee ? Or that there be three days' pestilence in thy
land ? Now advise and see what answer I shall return to
Him that sent me.' No room was left for entreaty or excuse.
David had not a word to say in defence of his conduct. He
could only acknowledge his rashness, but that availed him
nothing. Punishment must fall : a choice must be made.
Naturally he turned to the unknown and the untried with
less bitterness than to the known and the tried. Three years
of drought and want had wasted the land already because of
Saul's sin in murdering the Gibeonites. Discontent among the
people and anguish to himself had been the result. He put
the punishment aside as too bitter to be tasted again. Three
months of flicjht before his enemies he had also tried — a bitter
cup of sorrow to his house and people. A throne overturned,
a kingdom rent in twain, a palace desolated, the tenderest
strings of his heart's affections rudely snapped, a general
foully murdered at the head of his troops and unavenged,
had been the sum of his sorrows. The weight was too
great to be borne a second time. And he turned as a last
resource to the three days of pestilence. It was an untried
punishment. Man with his bitter mocking would not be
employed to carry the decree into effect. ' Let us fall now
^ The correct reading is perhaps 'three,' not ' seven' (1 Chron. xxi. 12).
3 So The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
into the Land of tlie Lord/ he said, ' for His mercies are
great.'
The choice was made : instantly the bolt from heaven fell
on the nation. From that mornins:^, ' even to the time
appointed,' or ' till the time of afternoon prayer and sacrifice,'
the plague raged throughout the land. Seventy thousand
people perished. One in every twenty of the mighty host of
men that kindled David's pride a few weeks before lay dead
in one or two days' time. The Avenger was exacting a
dreadful tithe from the Hebrew militia. And if the strong
men fit to bear arms fell before His shafts, what havoc would
be wrought among the women and children ! One dead out
of every twenty men tells a tale of woe more heartrending
than famine or civil war. Meanwhile, the lofty heights on
which Jerusalem was built escaped the destroying angeh
But he approached them also. With outstretched hand the
angel stood over the highest peak of the city hills, ready to
put in force God's behest.^ Whether it was a fierce simoom
from the desert, working havoc in the low ground before it
topped the crests of the hills, may be open to inquiry. This
terrible plague befell the Hebrews not earlier than mid-
summer,^ the hottest and most unhealthy season of their year,
in the very months during which the poisonous wind of the
desert is looked for. But the high position of Zion, which
saves it from some of the scourges of the valleys, may have shel-
tered its people from the plague for a considerable time.^ It
appears also that David was afraid to leave Jerusalem. When
the storm first swept over the land, he would have repaired to
^ In 1 Chron. xxi. 20, * Oman turned back and saw the angel ; ' but the con-
text requires ' king ' for * angel.' The two words are written and spoken so much
alike in the Hebrew, that the one might easily be mistaken for the other. And
in the Septuagint version, it is 'saw the king,' not ' saw the angel.'
^ The harvest had been gathered at Jerusalem, for Araunah was threshing
wheat. This fixes the season of the year, July or August at the latest, the
hottest months in Palestine (Lsa. xxxvii. 7 ; 2 Sam. xxii. 16).
•^ The storm of thunder and lightning which followed the withdrawal of the
I)lague points to the accuracy of this explanation, 1 Chron. xxi. 26.
I
I
The Close of DavicTs Reign. 381
Gibeon, tlien the seat of Moses' tabernacle and of tlie ancient
altar of burnt-offering ; but he ' dreaded the sword of the
angel of the Lord.' Evidently Gibeon, as * the great high
place,' was esteemed by David liimself a holier spot than his
own Zion. But a pestilential wind from the wilderness would
make the road to it unsafe. It was not David only whose life
would be endangered. The stay and strength of the empire,
the ministers of state, the warriors and others composing his
retinue, would pay their toll to the messenger of vengeance
when passing through the country. Better, then, to remain in
Zion than thus to run into the very jaws of death. If this
plague was the destroying angel, the messenger of God seen
by David may have been the haze, topping the hills, and fore-
telling the bursting of the fiery hurricane on the city. That
haze was truly an outstretched sword in the angel's hand,
hanging over the doomed metropolis. He who makes the
winds His messengers, and the lightning His servant, may
have turned the fiery wind into His angel's sword among the
homesteads of Israel. And the rapidity with which the
plague was stayed is in keeping with this view of the
messenger; for a north or west wind, suddenly rising, would,
as an angel of mercy, speedily sweep the destroyer from the
land.'
But be this view of the plague correct or not, the king and
his counsellors were released from alarm at the very moment
when they were looking for the bursting of the wratli on the
capital They had clothed themselves in sackcloth, they were
fallen on the ground, they were in straits and terror. A
sword was hanging in the heavens over the great city, full in
the king's sight, perhaps in the sight of them all. Soon it
would descend on the citizens. While the king and his
advisers were thus prostrate in helplessness, the people of
Zion could not be ignorant of the danger. More justly may
^ It was probably a cool west or north wind which was blowing immediately
after the X'lague was removed. Comp. Luke xii. 54, 55.
382 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
we imagine the citizens, appalled at the nearness of the ruin,
in that fever of excitement which precedes the first burst of
destruction. In agony, David implores the vengeance to fall
on him and on his father's house. ' These sheep, what have
they done ? ' he asked. Princes are not usually so full of
pity for a stricken people as to offer themselves and their own
kindred a sacrifice instead, least of all is such greatness of
heart looked for from Eastern kings. But David was as great
a man as he was a king : and even the wish to die instead of
his people must be reckoned to his credit in the selfishness of
a royal world. But a message of mercy reached him througli
Gad.-^ The angel of destruction had been told to 'put up
his sword again into the sheath thereof ; ' and David was
instructed to build an altar to God on the threshing-floor of
Araunah the Jebusite, by which the angel was. ' And the
plague was stayed from Israel,' are the words which express
the deliverance (2 Sam. xxiv. 21, 25). They are borrowed
words, taken from the staying of the plague, first when Aaron
stood between the living and the dead (Num. xvi. 48, 50),
and again, when Phinehas turned away wrath from the people
(Num. XXV. 8). Of the borrowing of the words from Numbers
there is conclusive proof in the quoting of them in Psalm cvi.
oO. If a psalmist could thus borrow a strange word and
phrase, why not a historian ? This threshing-floor was on
the hill-top of Moriah. It was outside the city walls, and no
dwellings could be near. Probably also it tlien rose abruptly
on all sides to a top of small size, forming a suitable rock
floor on which tlie oxen might trample out the harvest
sheaves. Its height enabled it to catch every breeze, however
gentle. And when the wind blew, the farmer and his men,
1 In 1 Chron. xxi. 18, 'The angel of the Lord' is said to have 'commanded
Gad to say to David' to build an altar. We must be careful to distinguish
between the angel mentioned here, and the 'destroyer ' whose sword was stretched
over the city. There is no reason for believing them one and the same. Besides,
the ordinary phrase for receiving a message from God is, ' The angel of the Lord '
said or did so and so.
The Close of Daviel's Reign,
O^J
throwing the threshed grain into the air with wooden shovels,
winnowed it from the chaff, which was blown away over the
sides of the hill. Some time may have passed before David
received the message of Gad and repaired to Moriah.
Araunah, or Oman, and his four sons were threshing wheat,
a proof that the Avind was blowing with considerable force. They
were busily engaged, for the king and his retinue were on
them before the fanuly were aware. Turning round, Araunah
saw the king approaching : his sons hastily hid themselves
from sight. A natural enough fear of the great prince of the
land may have suddenly seized the young men. But the
hiding may have been prompted by a consciousness of wrong.
When David and his people were clothed in sackcloth for a
nation's sorrow, they had been engaged in ordinary labours.
The conquering race was stricken with a great grief: the
conquered, hard by the chief seat of superior power, had
chosen that hour of trouble to rejoice. Even Araunah does
not seem to have been free from alarm. Going out of the floor
and touching the ground with his forehead, Araunah inquired
the reason of the king's coming. He was told the cause, and
asked to name his price for the hill. * See the ox for the
sacrifice, and the threshing instruments, and the housings of
the ox for wood : the whole doth Araunah give, 0 king, to
the king.'
The story, plain enough up to this point, now becomes
somewhat obscure. David is in haste to fulfil the commands
of God: the altar must be built at once, and a sacrifice
offered. With truly royal spirit, Araunah offered the king
whatever was required : ' Take and offer,' he said, ' the Lord
thy God accept thee.' He may have really meant all he
said. But possibly it was only an Eastern fasliion of bargain-
making, which considers it polite to begin with offering as a
gift what the owner means all the time to charge well for.
David declined the present. According to one account, he
was to buy the floor and the oxen ' for a price ; ' according
384 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History,
to another, ' for tlie full price.' But when a Hebrew bought
land under the Mosaic law, he bought it only for a certain
number of years. At the time of jubilee, all estates sold
during the previous fifty years returned to their former
owners. The ' price,' therefore, may have been different
from the * full price,' as the purchase may have been either
a lease for a number of years, or a purchase in perpetuity.
The deed of sale between David and Araunah having been
hastily entered into, would, as a matter of course, require
revision, when the pressing necessity that called for an
immediate sacrifice had been satisfied. As soon as Araunah
named a price for the floor and the oxen, David considered
himself entitled to proceed. A gift of the ground he would
not have. Fifty shekels of silver were then asked and paid.
They were earnest money for the full price. David's scruples
were satisfied, and the bargain could be completed at leisure.^
Fifty shekels was not the price of the ground. Abraham
paid four hundred silver shekels for the cave of Machpelah
when the country ^Vas thinly peopled ; and a vineyard in the
time of Isaiah, containing a thousand vines, sold for a thousand
shekels.^ A threshing-floor, situated near the capital of a
populous empire, would bring a very high sum. If David
only gave an earnest penny at first, the fifty shekels of silver
ending in six hundred of gold are at once explained. But
there is no reason for thinking David contemplated the
purchase of ten or eleven acres round the hill-floor, and the
building of a temple on that large area. When the necessity
for these changes on the first purchase arose, as it did in due
time, the deed of sale required adjustment, and six hundred
■gold shekels cannot be considered more than a fair price.
According to the narrative in Chronicles, the burnt-offerings
^ An exact counterpart of the two prices in this stor}-- is given by Thierry in
describing the strange scene at the burial of AVilliaui the (,'onqueror.
^ Isa. vii. 23 ; compare also Jer. xxxii. 9. The word for an earnest penny
in Latin and Greek is Hebrew or Phceuician, arrhabo, which evidently became
a trade word wherever Tyrian ships went,
i
The Close of David' s Reign, 385
and peace-offerings were followed by a storm of liglitning
playing on the top of the hill, Avhich David accepted as a
favourable answer to his sacrifice. A proclamation was also
issued to the people, intimating that the house of the Lord
was to be built on Moriah, and the only altar of burnt-offering
for All-Israel.
The few months or years that remained of David's life
were spent mainly in preparing for building this palace of
Jehovah. The important bearings of this step on the national
worship of the Hebrews do not appear to have bulked largely
before the mind of the writer of the books of Samuel. At
least he stops short in his history with the first purchase of
Araunah's threshing-floor. He was not ignorant of the pre-
parations then made, for at an early period in David's reign
he records the dedication of spoils of war to the service of
God. But the want is fully supplied by the details given in
other books. A work of such magnitude and magnificence
was slow of growth. Quarries had to be opened close to the
site of the building ; for there were neither roads nor rivers
to transport blocks of stone in the rugged country round
Jerusalem. Builders and stone-hewers, goldsmiths, joiners,
and tool-makers could not easily be got, either in sufficient
number or with the needful skill, in a kingdom then only
rising from poverty and weakness into wealth and strength.
Of timber there was plenty in the land, though the neigh-
bourhood of Jerusalem has always been bare of trees. But
as the cedars and cypresses of Lebanon were alone deemed fit
for the palace of Jehovah, great gangs of workmen were
required to cut down the trees and convey them to Mori ah.
When we consider that the arts of building and of ornament-
ing did not flourish in the reign of David, we shall better
understand the obstacles he had to clear away before his son
was in a position to found the temple. Kings in that age
delighted in size and cost. The vastness of a building was
not measured merely by the extent of ground covered, I'ut
2 B
86 The Kiiigdo7Ji of A II- Israel : its History.
also by the size of stones used. Eampart walls rising in solid
grandeur from the valley bottoms to heights of 150 feet or
more, and composed of stones so large that, while many are
still seen 20 or 30 feet long, one stretches for 38 feet 9
inches along the wall, gave this temple of Solomon the vast-
ness which we attribute only to such works as the greatest
Pyramids of Egypt. The builders of the Menai Bridge, in the
early days of railway enterprise, had less credit in lifting an
iron tube 1500 tons in weight to a height of 100 feet above
high-water mark, than Solomon's engineers could claim when
they moved stones of forty and fifty tons weight up or down
the faces of the temple enclosure. The cost of the building was
seen in an unstinted use of the rarest materials of the ancient
world — iron, gold, precious stones, cedar. To erect vast piles
of building on a plain watered by a lordly stream like the Nile,
at once a roadway and a carrier for the heaviest loads, was a
task not free from difficulties to a people far advanced in
knowledge as were the Egyptians. But to build a most
costly temple on the summit of a hill 2400 feet high, and
in the heart of a land of almost inaccessible ruggedness, was
an achievement that demanded years of thought from a people
only beginning to study the arts.
David was aware that the magnificence which the sword
had gained, the sword would also require to keep. And to
maintain a high military spirit among the Hebrews seems to
have been one of his great aims from the beginning to the close
of his public life. Among his earliest arrangements towards
this end was the Order of Mighties. Apparently it was
founded when he was a w^anderer with his band of 600
men. Asahel, who was slain by Abner before David left
Hebron, was among those first enrolled. Uriah, the Hittite,
another of the brotlierhood in arms, perished at the siege of
Ilabbath Ammon ; and the ' Mighties ' are clearly mentioned
as a distinct body, when Abishai received the command of
all the household troops to pursue Sheba-ben-Bichri (2 Sam.
The Close of David'' s Reign. 387
XX. 7). xipparently tlie number in tlie order was tliirty-six.
Three stood in the highest rank, three occupied a lower
place, and other thirty formed the main body of companions.
When a member fell in battle, his name was ke})t on the roll
— an encouragement to brave men to follow in his footsteps,
and an honour to his surviving kindred. Two copies of the
roll have come down to our times. They differ slightly, as
might be expected. The writer of Chronicles has preserved
twenty-nine names of the thirty-seven found in Samuel; he
has added twenty m.ore. The lists present some singular
features, apart altogether from grammatical difficulties raised
by so many names often differently written. There are not
fewer than five pairs of names from the same place or family,
while there are also two triplets. But the names are those
of men from all parts of the land, and include even an
Ammonite, a Hittite, a Moabite, and a warrior of Zobah.
Obviously it is the honour list of a small body of soldiers, not
of the whole host of IsraeL Seven towns or families could not
have furnished sixteen out of the thirty-seven bravest men in
the empire of David. ' The Mighties ' formed an order of merit
among the 600 who composed, first, David's wilderness band,
and then his most trusted soldiers. At least the achieve-
ments recorded of them belong to an early period in his
reisin.
The division of ' the Mighties ' into two threes aud a thirty
is somewhat puzzling. Had there been only one three, it
would have been the old Hebrew arrangement of one officer
for every ten men. But a comparison of the two lists gives
for the names in the first rank, Jashobeam, of the family of
Hachmon (1 Chron. xxvii. 2, 32), who swung his spoar over
800 slain in the course of one battle; Eleazar, the son of
Dodo, and Shammah, the son of Agee. The names in the
second rank are Abishai and Benaiah. Who was the third
for these two ? Allowing that the roll showed thirty- six
names when complete, as is plain from the mention of two
388 The Kingdom of All-Isi^acl : its History.
threes and a thirty, we must reduce the thhty-seven men-
tioned in Samuel by three, one evidently the result of a
transcriber's error, Adino the Eznite, and two who died before
David's greatness had begun to wane, Asahel, the brother of
Joab, and Uriah the Hittite. This will make the number
thirty-four, or two short of the complete roll. But whose
names were more likely to figure on a list so honourable as
those of the two traitors, both of them commanders-in-chief —
Joab and Amasa ? One commander-in-chief, Benaiah of Kab-
zeel, gets a place of honour ; another, long a commander-in-
chief's right-hand man, and who, at the king's bidding, filled
the post for a time, Abishai, is set down side by side with
Benaiah. Add either Joab or Amasa, and the lost name
of the second three is restored. That both were among the
mightiest in David's host, is witnessed by the respect with
which their prowess is mentioned. By a signal display
of boldness at the siege of Jerusalem, Joab won again the
office of chief commander, after he had forfeited it by the
murder of Abner. Few of the ' Mighties ' could boast of a
prowess equal to his. Of Amasa it is said that he was ' chief
of the captains ' who flocked from Judah and Benjamin to
offer their swords to David, while still an outlaw in the hold
of Adullam. Nor is it difficult to assign a reason for the
omission of these two great names. Amasa was a traitor to
David, the only one apparently of that warrior band who
broke his oath of fidelity. That he was received into favour
after Absalom's death was but a piece of statecraft, which
does not prove an unwillingness on David's part to strike a
traitor's name from so honourable a roll.^ Joab, too, had
brought shame on the king and on himself. Blacker became
the disgrace when lie proved a traitor to Solomon. The
omission of these two soldiers is strange enough ; there is a
niche left empty which either of them could well fill, but
^ The two Ithrites, or sons of Jether, may have been related to Amasa, whose
father's name was Jether. Perhaps they were his brothers.
The Close of David's Reign. 389
there were reasons sufficient for placing neither of them in that
niche of honour.
Another of David's arransjements for maintaininor the dis-
cipline of his army was the calHng out of a fifth part of the
Hebrew militia for a month's duty every year. Fifths, or two-
tenths, seem to have been regarded witli more favour by
David and Solomon than the old plan of tithes or tenths.
Twenty-four thousand soldiers were gathered into a camp of
exercise at Jerusalem, as we would term it, for a month's
trainino- at a time. Twelve of these divisions amount to
288,000 men. But the whole Hebrew force was reckoned
by Joab, according to one writer, at 1,300,000 ; and accord-
ing to another, at 1,570,000 soldiers. By taking the mean
of these two sums, we have 1,435,000, of which 288,000 is
almost the exact fifth or two-tenths. This may be not an
accidental coincidence, but an unexpected proof of accuracy
in the numbers. The chiefs of these twelve brigades were
almost all men who had been trained along with David in
the hardships of desert warfare. At the same time, there is
something deeply affecting in the insight we thus gain into
David's character. Stedfast in friendship, he surrounded his
throne with the men who gathered to his banner when he
was ■ but an outlaw. A robber chief might have done the
same kindness to the heads of his gang, had fortune raised
him to a throne. But David was neither a robber nor a
soldier of fortune. He was poet, philosopher, soldier, captain,
chief, and king by turns ; a man who could read the hearts of
those in his service, and esteem the men at their proper value.
And the names of the officers, chosen for the twelve divisions
of the army, show both David's power of reading character
and his affectionate regard for early friendships. He met
with a deserved return; these men became the stay of his
house. Six of them at least belonged to Judah ; three of
them to Bethlehem or its neighbourhood. David was allow-
ing his own tribesmen more than a just share in the manage-
390 The Kingdom of All- Israel : ils Hisloiy.
inent of affairs. But a policy, that seemed certain to ensure
the stability of his throne by engaging them in its defence, was
too narrow for the nation. By keeping the best men of other
tribes mainly in inferior positions, he neither conciliated their
esteem nor curbed their ambition. Every fresh appointment
of a man of Judah to power only embittered the larger half of
the kingdom. Time proved the greatness of the blunder.
Judah was the first to rise acjainst the kin;.^ in Absalom's
revolt ; all Israel followed. A selfish policy, however agree-
able at the beginning, is fatal in the end.
While order was thus introduced into the military affairs
of the Hebrews, the riuht discharoje of civil ojovernment was
not overlooked by David. Centuries of a troubled national
life, and the feeling of insecurity which arises from enemies
in their midst, had taught the people to seek the shelter of
walled towns or villages during the night. These centres of
population were very numerous. Men who worked in the
fields all day slept in towns or villages. By day the fields
were peopled ; the towns were in a great measure empty.
By night the former were deserted except by watchers ; the
latter crowded. Within the narrow bounds of the twelve
tribes there appear to have been about five hundred of these
centres of life. In other words, there was a town or village
for every twenty square miles. Since many extensive districts
were either mountains or wilderness, the meaning of this is
clear. A village or town was met with every three or four
miles in a journey through the country. Judging from the
army rolls, the average population of each town was about
10,000. The census of the tribe of Levi yields nearly the
same result. As they dwelt in 48 cities, and there were
38,000 men of thirty years of age and upwards, the average
number of men for each city was almost 800, representing a
Levitical population of 5000. These village communities w^ere
law-abiding and easy to govern. On a raised seat, covered
with fresh turf, near the gate, sat the elders of the place, —
The Close of DavicTs Reign, 391
men chosen by the people or appointed by the chief of the
tribe. Offenders were brought before them ; accusers, wit-
nesses, and public officers were at hand ; a crowd of onlookers
watched the proceedings from the open space around. Then
and there tlie case was tried, and punishment inllicted on the
guilty. The city or village thus included the neighbouring
country ; or, to speak in modern language, the boundaries of
the former stretched to the utmost field owned by the citizens.
David's home kingdom was thus a collection of well-peopled
villages, each having its own pasture or arable land, its olive-
yards and its vineyards. While every village or town had
elders or rulers, the numerous communities in each tribe were
governed by a chief called ' Prince of the Tribe.' We know
nothing of his duties or position, save that he was a middle-
man between the village elders and the king of the land.
Thirteen of these princes are mentioned, among whom are
included two for Levi and two for Manasseh. Asher and
Gad are omitted. The names teach some lessons that are
both curious and interesting. While several of the princes
are altogether unknown, others occur in circumstances whioli
help to throw light on the policy of David. First, there was
a forgiving remembrance of the past in two of these appoint-
ments. His brother Elihu or Eliab, unworthy though he
seems to have been, became prince of Judah. And Jaasiii
son of Abner, besides being enrolled among the Mighties, w:is
made chief over the tribe of Benjamin. Few things are more
honourable in any man than tliis kindly remembrance of the
son for his dead father's sake. But, second, the weakness of
David, in advancing men of his own tribe, is also seen from
this list of princes. Azareel, the son of Jeroham, became
chief of Dan, — the same who is described as one of a brave
band who joined David in Ziklag. He belonged to Gedor, a
town, as far as we know, in Judah and not in Dan.
Besides the elders of cities and the princes of tribes, there
were other officers appointed by the king to administer
392 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
justice. On the western side of Jordan, a body of 1700
Levites preserved the registers of the militia and judged the
people. Over the tribes on tlie east of that river, another
body, numbering 2700, discharged the same duties. Their
office is described as belonging to the ' outward ' or civil
business of the kingdom. Its duties were twofold. First,
they judged 'in every matter pertaining to God;' cases of
conscience under the ceremonial law ; cases of leprosy ;
redemption money, first-fruits, and tithes. The second head,
' affairs of the king,' manifestly included the correct keeping
of militia registers, and perhaps the taxes paid to government.
We may regard them as commissioners scattered over the
country for administering the ceremonial law, and for attend-
ing to the business of king and Levites. While the elders
judged between man and man in theft, murder, false witness-
ing, and crime of every kind, the Levites judged between priest
and layman, or between king and people. To most of the men
chosen for work, office was nominal and duty light. Only the
cream of the tribe could be trusted to discharge the duties
required. The large number of 6000 judges need therefore
cause no surprise. It was simply the body of men from
whom qualified judges were chosen, for it is contrary to
experience to imagine that out of 38,000 men no fewer than
6000 could be found able to sift evidence, to hear cases, and
to judge righteous judgment. A body of revenue collectors
for the temple and the king, of readers or teachers of the law
of Moses, and of sacred officials, made up the bulk of the
tribe ; the cream of these was drafted to higher and more
responsible duty in judging between priest and layman, or
between prince and people.
Towards the end of his reign, David's health was so
broken that intrigue had full play at court. There were
two great parties in the palace. One, lieaded by Joab and
Abiathar, sought the throne for Adonijah, David's eldest
Nearly all the princes of the blood, and
The Close of David's Reign. 393
nearly all the women of the palace, followed their leading.
The chiefs of Judah were also drawn into the design.
Adonijah claimed the kingdom as his birthright. It was
his only title, nnless the beauty of his person be deemed a
recommendation to him, as it was to his brother Absalom.
Neither in peace nor in war had he shown himself a man
of affairs. To imitate Absalom's grandenr and his father's
speeches seemed to him the right thing to do ; but beyond
stupid attempts at copying his betters, he had no fitness
for statesmanship. Without waiting for his father's death,
he and his friends prepared to seize the government.
Apparently they believed David to be incapable of defeating
their design had he wished. He had sunk, they seemed to
think, beyond all hope of rallying. Perhaps he was un-
conscious of what was passing around him. Or, since the
sick-room was under the charge of the chief wife, Bathsheba,
they may have thought that she and her advisers would
conceal the king's death from the people. Influenced by
these views, and afraid of losing their chance, Adonijah
indulged in the grandeur with which Absalom began his
career of treason : * He prepared him chariots and horsemen,
and fifty men to run before him' (1 Kings i. 5 ; 2 Sam. xv. 1).
'I will be king,' he boasted. He was a poor copier of a
dead traitor. When the time came, as he thought, for
taking the last step to the throne, he again followed the
model of Absalom by summoning a meeting of his chief
followers at a farm near the 'Stone of Zoheleth,' a little
beyond the walls of Jerusalem. It was close to a fountain
known as En-Eogel (The Fuller's Well), on the tongue of
land where the Kedron on the east and the valley on the
west of the city unite, before plunging into the defiles
which lead down to the Dead Sea. Men of rank were
flocking to the farm; sheep and oxen had been sacrificed
for a feast; something of greater consequence than usual
was clearly on foot. The friends of Adonijah neither dis-
394 ^^^^ Kingdom of All-Isi^ael : its History,
trusted their own power, nor dreaded the hostility of the
great officers, whom they had agreed to set aside or to put
to death.
But David was not incapable of attending to business.
His will was law in bequeathing the crown, and that will
had not yet been fully ascertained. More than twenty
years before, his friend Nathan had discovered on whom the
choice of God had fallen. David was also aware of it ;
but the matter appears to have been little talked of between
them. Benaiah, captain of the royal guards, Zadok, one of
the high priests, and the whole of the ' Mighties,' if they did
not favour Solomon, at least stood aloof from his brother.
They were not so well prepared for the king's death as
Joab and his friends. Had David been sunk too far to
indicate his will, the party of Solomon might have had no
head to lead them. But David still had vio-our enough
remaining to act the part of a king whose authority was
defied. Nathan, apprised of the proceedings of Adonijah,
put the right construction on his feast : ' Adonijah is king.'
It w^as treason, as open and barefaced as was Absalom's.
It meant death to Solomon, to Bathsheba, and to not a few
of their friends. Apparently, too, shouts of ' Long live
King Adonijah ' had been raised in the banqueting-room,
and speedily made known within the palace. Nathan at
once saw Bathsheba, and instructed her to claim from David
the fulfilment of his promise. As the favourite wife of the
king, the sick-room was under her special charge. But
when she entered the chamber, it was so clearly on business
of state, that the dying man's attention was arrested by
her looks. There was no one with the king but Abishag,
the nurse, wdiose name and office would never have been
mentioned in history, had she not been made a ground for
the later intrigues of Joab and Adonijah. Bathsheba bowed
with the usual formality of Eastern reverence. ' What is
the matter with thee ? ' asked David. * Didst thou not
The Close of David's Reign, 395
swear to me by tlie Lord/ she said, ' that Solomon my son
shall reign after thee ? ' Then she told her tale of treason
towards him, of danger to herself and her sou. She de-
scribed the feast, she stated that a few traitors, whose
names she gave, were proclaiming a king, while the ' eyes of
All-Israel ' were lookino- to the sovereign to name his heir.
While slie is speaking, the guards announce, * Nathan the
prophet.' Bathsheba retired when Nathan entered. He, too,
is on business of state, for he touches the floor with his
forehead. ' Hast thou named Adonijah king ? ' he asks.
' He is holding a coronation feast, the guests are shouting
" Long live King Adonijah," but,' he added, ' to me, to
Zadok, to Benaiah, and to Solomon no intimation was sent!
Hast thou done this,' he asked, ' without making me aware ? '
Nathan was the king's friend, an honour that made him
second person in the realm. If David had countenanced
these doings of Adonijah, he had. acted unfairly towards
his aged and trusted friend.
Nathan's vigour and prudence ensured success. The
ebbing tide of life in David was arrested : his mind, roused
from the stupor into which it was sinking, strengthened
for a time the bodily powers. He was a king, defied upon
his throne by men whom he had raised to greatness, or
whose crimes he had left unpunished. ' Call me Bathsheba,'
he said to the attendants, as Nathan withdrew\ She was
close at hand. He assured her, as she stood before him,
that the oath he swore by the Lord, who redeemed him
from all evil, had not been forgotten. Solomon should be
king after him. Overjoyed at her escape from a danger
so great and so threatening as the accession of Adonijah,
she threw^ herself on her knees and touched the floor with
her forehead before the king. ' May my lord. King David,
live for ever,' she said. In her case, as in many other
cases since then, this absurd form of court speech did not
seem out of keeping with the near approach of death.
39^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History,
David lost no time in fulfilling the promise thus made
to Ins wife. Xathan, Zadok, and Benaiah, the three great
officers of state in the palace, were at once summoned to the
sick-room. As they were the most trusted heads of the
civil, the religious, and the military departments, it was
fitting that in their presence David should name his heir.
^ Take my guards with you,' he said, ' set my son Solomon
on my own mule, go down to Gihon, and let the high priest
wdth the chief prophet anoint him king. Let the state
trumpeters call attention till ye proclaim, Long live Solomon
the king! then return to the city and set Solomon on my
throne, that all may know him to be king over Israel and
Judah in my room.' Zadok and JSTathan were named to
discharge these duties. It was the business of Benaiah to
see the king's will safely carried out. 'Amen,' said the
soldier, as the king ended ; ' a blessing attend King Solomon
greater than the blessing which rested on King David.'
While the feast was proceeding privately at Adonijah's
farm, the procession was forming in the palace to conduct
Solomon publicly to Gihon. Zadok provided himself w^ith
the horn of sacred oil from the tabernacle ; the guards and
the ' Mighties ' were drawn up to escort the king's officers ;
the trumpeters were ready, and Solomon was riding on the
king's mule. Gihon was a place of public resort, a great
spring of w^ater outside, on the east of the city, with ample
open space all round. What the temple courts came to be
in after years, Gihon was then, — a public square, so to
speak, a general meeting place for the citizens of Zion. All
the men that were disengaged from business, and could move
abroad, probably lounged beside the water tank. And it
was not many hundred yards further up the valley than the
Fuller's Well, with which indeed it was afterwards connected
by a tunnel through the rock. As the procession swept
down the narrow streets, a constantly increasing crowd gave
greater publicity to an event so national as a king's corona-
The Close of David's Reign. 397
tiou. With almost the whole city looking on, and surrounded
by great officers of state, royal guards, and chamberlains of
the palace, Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest.
The trumpeters then sounded, and the crowd of soldiers and
citizens replied with loud shouts of ' Long live Solomon the
king 1 ' But the trumpeters were soldiers, not priests. At
a famous coronation of one of Solomon's descendants, the
trumpets used were, on the other hand, the silver trumpets
of the priests, not the clarions of soldiers. The procession
that climbed the steep streets to the palace, was far more
numerous than that which came down to Gihon. With
music and joyful cries the people followed their young
sovereign into the city — the earth rang with the sound of
their voices.
Adonijah and his guests w^ere startled by this unwelcome
noise, as their feast was drawing to a close. The prince
himself, whose rashness in seizing his father's throne made
every sense more acute, seems to have first heard the cries.
Joab's practised ear caught the blare of trumpets. ' What
means the shouting of the city crowd?' he asked. While the
startled feasters vainly ask from one another an answer to
the question put, David's trusty runner Jonathan, the son
of Abiathar, reached the house. He had not been present
at the feast. He had been a looker-on at the procession of
Solomon. But he waited also to see the end of the coronation,
from a feeling perhaps that David was either not in life, or
was too feeble to sanction what w^as done. Adonijah's
attendants announced the runner to the guests. ' Come in,'
said the prince, imitating almost the very words he may
have heard his father use, when Zadok's son was discerned
approaching with tidings of Absalom's overthrow, ' thou art
a man of might, and thou shalt tell good tidings.' But
Jonathan's lucky star liad set for ever. ' Woe ! ' he exclaimed,
' our lord the king, David, hath made Solomon king.' Then
he described the anointing of the young ruler, the procession
39^ The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
through the city, and the seating of Solomon on the throne
of his father. David had been brought out on his bed to
witness the close of the ceremony, and to give public proof
of his choice. Jonathan was an eye-witness of the scene.
The chiefs of the realm paid homage to the new ruler in
presence of their dying lord. When they wished Solomon a
happier reign and a wider rule than his father, David was
seen bowing himself on the bed, and was heard praying for
a blessing on his son. Of David's ability still to transact
business of state there was thus no doubt.^
Greatly ft-ightened were the guests of Adonijah. Eising
in disorder from the feast, they separated without thought
of united action to save themselves from the fate they
deserved. Joab had blundered beyond recall, in casting in
his lot with men so weak as the princes of the blood,
xldonijah may have been the ablest among thenri ; but even
he was no better than a copier of others. Terrified at his
own rashness, he fled to the tabernacle on Zion, and seized
hold of the horn of the altar. Nor would he let go his
hold till Solomon passed his word not to put him to death.
The shadow of the Avengjer's sword was a^ain darkenino-
David's house. But not yet did that sword fall, for neither
the young king nor his advisers wished the new reign to
be baptized with a brother's blood. Adonijah received the
assurance he sought, backed, however, with the condition that
death sliould be the penalty of further treason. He returned
with the king's messengers, was admitted to an interview, and
then dismissed to his own house. A general pardon appears
to have been given to the guests at the prince's feast.
A considerable time seems to have elapsed between tlie
coronation of Solomon and the death of David. During
these last days of failing strength, the king informed his
^ Jonathan's account of wliat he saw, given by the historian in the runner's
own words (1 Kings i. 43-48), fully bears out the much more detniled account of
the second anointing in the last two chapters of the first book of Chronicles.
The Close of DavicT s Reign, 399
son of the arrangements lie had made for building a temple
to God. Plans had been drawn ; gold, silver, precious
stones, copper, and iron had been stored up ; a site had
been bought ; and the builders, the guards, and other officers
had been named — in some cases many years before the
beginning of Solomon's reign. To the son promised him
David now detailed these arrangements, and asked for him
' wisdom and understanding to keep the law of the Lord.'
At a great meeting of ' all the congregation ' — princes,
captains, chamberlains, and Mighties — held in Jerusalem,
David, while renewing his choice of Solomon for the throne,
pronounced him the predicted builder of the temple, and
encouraged his great men to help in the arduous work.
Solomon was thus solemnly set apart as the chosen heir of
David's greatness and purposes. And the noblest of these
purposes was the building of a palace for Jehovah. On
that object his heart w^as especially set to the latest hour of
his life. ' Arise,' he said to that assembly, ' and build ye the
sanctuary of the Lord God.' The first anointing or corona-
tion was a setting apart of Solomon to reign ; the second was
a further setting of him apart as the heir to David's great
purposes of faith. Along with this setting apart of Solomon
to carry out the purposes of David, is most fittingly recorded
the anointing of Zadok to the sole high-priesthood. The latter
was the complement of the former. On the day following these
anointings, a feast was given to the nobles and people. A
thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, and a thousand lambs,
were slain in the king's honour. Not a few of those who
were present at En-Eogel were also present in this larger
gathering. David's sons, who were then on Adonijah's side,
are specially mentioned as having now submitted to Solomon's
authority. Bred in a palace, they seem to have been fit for
nothing nobler than its unworthy plots and scandals. Their;
father's attempt, many years before, to train them in wisdom, i'
had turned out a failure.
400 The Ki7tgdom of All-Israel : its History,
But the faction of AJonijah, though baffled and disheartened,
had not given up hope. From Solomon they neither expected
nor received favour, beyond the boon of having their treason
overlooked. Abiathar was stripped of his high oftice ; Zadok
became sole high priest. Joab was no longer commander-in-
chief; the faithful Benaiah was elevated to that dignity. But
Joab was not a man who could be expected to bear this open
affront with an even temper. Twice before he had been set
aside for deeds of blood ; once he had regained the office by a
cruel murder; he was prepared to win it a third time by
more desperate measures. Abiathar, whose father's kindness
to David brought almost utter ruin on his family, might justly
regard himself as greatly wronged. These two officials were
centres, round which disaffection would certainly rally as soon
as David was dead. Their power was a menace to Solomon,
ever present, ever ready to act. As soon as they recovered
from the fright received at Adonijah's feast, they imagined
that something might yet be done to regain what they had
lost. But naught save suspicious whispers of a plot seem to
have reached the palace. David knew they could not remain
at rest. Of men like them did David say, ' The sons of Belial
are as thorns. . . . The man that shall touch them must be
fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be
utterly burned with fire in their place.' While Joab lived,
the throne of Solomon would be threatened with these thorns.
The king's fears for his son increased as his end approached.
Absalom, supported by Amasa and Ahithophel, had not half
the power against David that Adonijah, aided by Joab and
Abiathar, might wield against Solomon. Where the former
almost succeeded, the latter might succeed altogether. It was
a troubled inheritance Solomon was entering on ; and no one
saw this more clearly, even amid the flickering lights of
approaching death, than David. Uidess his dying charge be
looked at in this light, it reads as one of the most cruel and
ungrateful returns for past services of which history has
The Close of David's Reign. 401
preserved a record. !N"or can the shame of a purposeless
vengeance be otherwise wiped away from the memory of a
worthy king. ' Be thou strong/ he said, ' and show thyself a
man.' And in two ways were strength and manliness to be
shown : First, by keeping the law of Moses ; and second, by
closely watching and sharply punishing suspected intriguers.
Nor would they be less seen in honouring the children of
faithful subjects, like Barzillai the Gileadite. The dying king
enjoined on his youthful heir to keep the law, to favour those
who had been the friends of his father, and * to bring down to
the grave with blood the hoar head ' of Joab and Shimei. On
reading this dying charge, nearly every one feels that David's
death was unworthy of his life. Unable himself to take
vengeance on Joab and Shimei, he bequeaths to his young
son the disgrace of defiling his throne with their blood.
While he urges on Solomon the duty of keeping the law, he
seems to urge on him, in the next breath, the duty of break-
ing that law by murdering men who had done Solomon no
wrong. Generosity of nature, the obligation of a plighted
word, the recollection of hardships shared in common, till the
tent of a wandering outlaw was left for the palace of a king,
— all seem to be forgotten by David in a charge breathing
nothing but vengeance. David's death, it would seem, is not
an honour to his life. This is the surface view of his dying
charge, and not less is it the common view taken by all
readers. However, it is too unlike David's whole career to
be the view taken by the men of his own time. A call for
vengeance so senseless was unworthy of his experience to
utter, or of Solomon's wisdom to respect. The dying king
knew, and none knew better, Joab's abilit}^ and determination
to accomplish any purpose on which his heart was set. Foul
means came to his hand as readily as fair. Friendship and
kinship were nothing to him, save useful cloaks to hide the
wickedness of his plans. ' What he did to me,' David said to
his son, ' thou knowest.' A story of wrong-doing may lie hid
2 c
402 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its History,
under these few words, which we can never hope to recover.
A cloak seems cast over something which David could not
speak of hut in a whisper. Was it, as some have thought,
that Joab published David's letter of death against Uriah, and
made known to the world the shameful story of Solomon's
mother ? Did he boast of his knowledge, and did he insult
the true heir to the throne at Adonijah's feast ? On these
points history is silent. But the murders of Abner and Amasa,
and his wanton disregard of orders in slaying Absalom, were
never absent from David's thoughts. Benaiah might any day
share Amasa's fate, and Solomon meet Absalom's. To us, who
know that these things did not happen, Joab may seem to
have got scant justice from David. But to David such an
upturning of his own arrangements, especially when he was
dead, seemed both possible and likely. In the meridian of
David's life Joab paid no attention to the sovereign's wishes
when they crossed his own : the death of David would render
him more unscrupulous than ever. Benaiah, long his own
inferior, had been raised over his head. Solomon, a boy-king
at the best, had dared to cast on him a disgrace which the
wise and cautious David had been twice baffled in attempting.
An affront so <2:allin^ Joab would resent, to the ruin of his
adversaries, as soon as he got the chance. And as he had the
will, it was hard to tell whether he had not also the power.
Abiathar, the high priest, was a better right-hand man to
parade before the army and the nation than his brother
Abishai, his great helper in former murders. Adonijah, also,
was not stained with blood as Absalom had been ; and, among
a people who were taught by long-established law and custom
to respect the birthright of the eldest son, could plead a better
title to the crown than Solomon. Shimei, the known enemy
of David, was a man of great influence in Benjamin. The
* Men of Judah ' favoured Adonijah, and the other tribes do
not appear to have had leaders to guide their counsels. Were
these enemies of Solomon to join in united action, or were any
The Close of David's Reign. 403
slip in policy to put the young king in the wrong before the
nation, he might have to maintain his position by arms ; per-
haps he might suddenly meet the fate of Amnon or Absalom.
It is no injustice to Joab, and it is but fair to David, to con-
sider that Adonijah's party had not lost hope of redressing
their wrongs. These fears, imparted to David and justified by
events after his death, explain his dying charge, and fully
account for the cruelty that it seems to breathe. An appear-
ance of cruelty towards Joab and Shimei may rather have
been truest kindness towards Nathan, Benaiah, Zadok, and
Solomon. To order a man's death is in itself a cruel thing ;
but it is infinitely less cruel, and it is vastly more wise, to
order an intriguer's death than to leave it in his power, by
murder or assassination, to throw a kingdom into disorder, to
pervert the course of justice, and perhaps to plunge the people
in civil war.
This last act of David's life is usually condemned as one of
its worst. We have regarded it as a legacy which the state
of his kingdom unhappily compelled him to leave to his heir.
It presents in a strong light one of the many sides to his
character, which it is unjust to pass judgment on without
weighing the evidence in his favour, furnished by the historian
of his reign, who had ample means of ascertaining the truth.
We have not these means now. We see the many-sided
character of the king, and we are too much disposed to judge
it as a w^hole from its weakness or sin, more than from its
strength or virtue. The historian follows a different and a
safer plan. According to him, the character of David was
like a cloudless morning, followed by a stormy noon and a
somewhat troubled sunset. In opening manhood it was pure
and lovely. No words could convey a true idea of its moral
beauty, save those so often quoted and so often abused since
then, ' Jehovah hath sought out a man after His own heart.'
But that high estimate is given only once. It is awarded to
404 The Kingdom of A II- Israel', its History,
David before the cares of life and the dangers of a court had
dimmed the splendour of his morning days. Only in the very
outset of his career is David spoken of as a man after God's
own heart. The praise is nowhere repeated. But it gives us
a glimpse of moral worth seldom seen even in the best of
men. When he first stood before the nation, he was, accord-
ing to his own description of the just ruler, * as the light of
the morning, when the sun riseth, a morning without clouds.'
But the character which shone with this spotless purity in
youth became much stained in manhood. As blot after blot
fell on the once fair surface, stunting and staining at the
same moment, the historian not only embodies them in the
record, but once at least adds the judgment of God on their
nature and desert. When time unfolded the hidden powers
and passions of David, there came to light a host of short-
comings, w^eaknesses, and sins, which the better nature that
was in him had strength enough to vanquish if he had stood
on his defence. The lie that he acted in the palace of Achish
to save his life was among the first of these sorrowful stains ;
the lies that he uttered to the same Achish when, to secure
the protection of that prince, he pretended to have made war
on people with whom he was on terms of friendship, were
meannesses to which he should never have stooped. But his
conscience troubled him for these misdeeds. The lie which
he uttered to Ahimelech when he fled to i^ob, and pretended a
secret mission from Saul, led to the desolation of the priestly
house. ' I knew it,' he said to Ahimelech's son ; ' I have
occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house.'
Where his guilt w^as comparatively small, his conscience w^as
sharp in judgment. Who can tell its keenness of stroke
when his guilt w^as great ? In the height of his power he
debauched the wife of a gallant soldier, who was fighting his
battles, and whom he cruelly got slain to screen his sin from
the world. His morning glory then seemed wholly overcast.
The same hand which once wrote of him as a man after God's
The Close of David's Reign. 405
own heart, wrote of him as a despiser of God, who had given
' great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme.'
And Jehovah, who anointed him king of Israel because he
was a man after his own heart, pronounced on him the
sentence, ' The sword shall never depart from thine house.'
On these unfoldings of the heart and soul of David, Scrip-
ture passes judgment as they arise. In no passage is there
found an estimate of his character as a whole, and regarded
during all his career. The sacred writer praises or blames, pro-
mises or threatens by turns. At one time David is a man after
God's own heart ; at another, a despiser of Jehovah ; now giving
occasion to the enemy to blaspheme, and again so earnest
for the honour of God that ' shall he dwell in houses of cedar
while the ark of God dwelleth within curtains ? ' ; uttering lies
of amazing meanness in Gath, and, almost in the next breath,
publishing truths of amazing beauty in his songs ; showing
a noble greatness of soul in saving Saul's life, and a hateful
wickedness in taking away Uriah's. But nowhere does the
sacred writer speak of David in his general character as a
man after God's own heart, any more than he considers him
throughout life as a despiser of Jehovah. The truth lies
midway between these extremes. At one period he was the
former ; at another, the latter. Underneath the baser part of
his nature lay a greatness of soul that earned for him the
honour of being called ' The servant of God.' When the evil
that was in him mastered the good, its outbreaks seemed
shocking at the time, and are counted equally shocking in
our day. But these surprises were not habitual. They did
not occur so often from month to month, and from year to
year, that all around the king looked for tliem as ordinary
unfoldings of his life. They were falls from a loftier to a
lower state, bitterly regretted and speedily turned from with
loathing.
Such is the view taken of David's character by the sacred
writer. While knowincr much better than we do what was
4o6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
truly good in the king, he does not hide from us what was
really bad. In our eyes, the evil that was wrought by David
bulks more largely than the good ; because, living in an age
of high professions, we see it in its naked vileness : in the
inspired writer's view, the good that David did held its rightful
place, because he knew fully, what we only know in part, the
worth which adorned that prince's life. The evil that David
did lives after him, never losing aught of blackness as time
rolls on, and the obligations of conscience are more recog-
nised. But the good he did, and the worthy name he enjoyed,
may shine with a feebler light, as we travel farther from his
days of comparative darkness into those of clearer light and
loftier morals. Knowing this, we are bound to take the
character of the Hebrew king, drawn by the sacred writer, as
a true picture of what the man really was.
That David was a brave soldier, and as good as he was
brave, is proved both by the testimony of those who knew
him, and by his actions. Of his valour in battle there is no
need to speak. To bravery and goodness of heart combined
was due the restraint he put on himself and his men, when
Saul, an unwearied seeker after his life, fell into his power,
not once, but twice. No generous mind can read the story
of David's twofold forbearance without feeling how brave
and great-hearted he must have been, who could thrust aside
the wish for vengeance, or chide others for giving it room \\\
their thoughts. Or can any one read the lament over Saul
and Jonathan, and not recognise in the words the overflowinjij
of a true mourner's heart ? Or could greater bravery have
been shown than David showed in forbidding Abishai to take
the life of the wretched Shimei, who was insulting a king
and his captains when they were driven to bay ? Some may
see in these actings of David nothing more noble or generous
than happy moves of a skilful player in the political game,
who has learned how much more easily respect for superiors
is won by kindness than compelled by fear. But the facts
k
The Close of David's Reign, 407
of the case are not explained by this theory. If we judge
the king by the modern standard of Western civilization, we
shall find much to admire in the scanty records of his life
which have reached our day. But if we take for a standard
the morality found in the courts of Eastern despots, whether
in ancient or in modern times, we shall see in David a
brightness of moral worth which marks him out as one of
the noblest of our race. It is not to be denied that he was
guilty of meannesses and crimes, which form a mournful
setting to the bright features of his character. But there is
no reason for regarding him as habitually given to low tricks
or to sreat crimes. His errors were blots on an otherwise
good name. Between David and the caricature of him which
is occasionally drawn, there is the same difference as between
a sheet of white paper blackened with several ink stains, and
another wholly covered w^ith ink. Tricks and crimes were
not the outstanding features of his daily life. They appeared
now and again, surprising himself and his friends. They
were stray weeds in a field of rich grain, withered trees in a
noble forest. Since this is the view^ taken of other great
men's weaknesses and sins, it is only common fairness to
apply to David the rules which are applied in judging them.
But perhaps the best proof of David's worth, apart from
the direct statements of history, is the regard in which he
w^as held by those who came much in contact with him. To
have knit together the band of six hundred men amidst
danger and trouble, implies a power to command respect and
even affection by no means common among men. To have
retained their unswerving allegiance for years, notwithstand-
ing many inducements to betray him to his enemies, is a
more singular testimony to his power over their rude natures.
Treason did not exist in their ranks. Men, whose flocks and
property he protected, were not only ungrateful for his kind-
ness, but repaid his care with insult and treachery. None of
the six hundred were traitors. They w^ere devoted friends,
4o8 The Kingdon of A II- Israel : its History.
bound to their leader by an attachment which may well be
called romantic. To gratify a mere whim on his part, three
of them risked their lives in an enterprise against such
superior numbers, that it counted as one of the greatest deeds
in an age of great achievements. Tlie words of the Apostle
Paul were true of David : * Scarcely for a righteous man
will one die ; peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die.' David, while far from being wholly righteous,
was certainly good. A strangely mixed lot these six hundred
were. Xot a few of them were ' men of Belial,' the usual
phrase for bad and unscrupulous men. Towards David they
never manifested treachery and disloyalty. Kot one of them
betrayed their leader to Saul, although the people of Keilah and
Ziph, whom he rescued or protected from danger, were guilty
of this meanness. Stung by the loss of everything they held
dear, when the Bedouin sacked Ziklag, they once spoke of
stoning him ; but the threat was a passing gust of irritation,
wdiich was more than justified by David's want of foresight.
Even when the coarser natures among them had a show of
fairness on their side, they did not dare long to dispute his
authority. His word was law among them : he was a king,
as few men have been kings, amid the fiercest and rudest
natures. His word carried with it a royalty of manhood,
which bids the loudest storm be still, and the most selfish
outbreaks flow in less unworthy channels.
The life of David, like his writings, was full of poetry and
romance. But, unlike them, it was not ' sweet singer's '
work throughout. Genius is not an excuse for want of
harmony between knowledge and action in a man's life.
Although it is sometimes almost pleaded in palliation of a
poet's or a statesman's failings, it ought not to be accepted
as a justifying plea. Far less can it be received as an excuse
for the blots on David's career. If the poet's heart is
warmed to its brightest glow by love and war, never was
there room for a more poetic life than the Hebrew king's. It
The Close of Daz'icfs Reign. 409
begins amid the peaceful scenes of a shepherd's life. The
calmness of its morning time is suddenly broken by tlie din
of arms, though there is heard amid the pauses of battle tlie
sweet strains of a poet's harp. Men and women are seen
uniting in their homage to tlie harper-hero, the young lion-
heart of the nation. From the obscurity of a wilderness, the
shepherd stepped at once into the full blaze of public life, as
the champion of his people. But his heart was not uplifted,
nor his sound sense impaired, by a change as sudden as it
was great. He displayed also a magnetic power, which
separated the men he met into two classes — those whom he
attracted, and those whom he repelled. His followers were
drawn towards him with an irresistible love. Saul was driven
away by the madness of an incredible jealousy. Warriors
and statesmen followed David to an outlaw's camp, and took
the risks of a wandering life, rather than stay in a king's
palace or seek a king's favour. When Saul w^as dead, nothing
but his own want of faith kept his countrymen from placing
the crown on his head. His greatest mistake was enlisting
under the banner of Achish. It made his path to tlie throne
a path of thorns and blood. Abner's assassination w\ns a
direct consequence of this mistake. David had to bear the
blame of that murder, as well as of Ishbosheth's, unjustly, but
unavoidably. Of his innocence in both cases there is not
the least doubt. When the throne was at length reached, and
the kingdom consolidated, luxury and ease began to under-
mine a heart that had withstood danger in the field, danger
in the house, and danger in the wilderness. The women of
iiis palace, by their jealousy and rivalry, seem to have done
more to poison David's life than foreign or domestic foes.
Such was * the sweet singer of Israel ' in the wilderness and
on the throne. It remains only to consider him as the poet
of his people. What Moses was as their lawgiver, David
became as their poet — the first and the greatest. He was
not a lawgiver. He appears in the history as equally sub-
4IO The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
ject to the law with his brethren. But he was the national
poet, who even gave his name to songs which were composed
after models that he left. His fame rose still higher. The
musical instruments of the Hebrew people were improved or
invented by this sweet singer. If changes were made on them
at a later period, greater credit was attributed to David, as
the only name that was worthy of honour (Amos vi. 5). In
tlie writing of sacred songs, he towers high above all who
went before or came after him. This is the testimony of
history not less than the voice of tradition. But modern
scepticism refuses to hear the one or the other. With un-
reasoning prejudice, it denies to David all but a very few of
the songs attributed to him by the ancients. It treats him
as it treats Moses. His existence is not yet called in
question; but, what is of equal worth, his writings are
regarded not as his own, but as the works of pretenders to
his name. History and tradition are both thrust out of court.
The facts they testify to are ridiculed, while the fancies of a
few romancers are exalted to the highest honour.
But David was more than a sweet singer. He was also a
seer or prophet. In ancient nations the singer and the
prophet have usually been found in the same person. Power
of song seemed to lift men above the ranks of mortals into
fellowship with Heaven itself. But this view was not held so
strongly by the Hebrews as by other races. Often their
prophets were poets ; often they were prose writers. Samuel,
Elijah, and Elisha, though great prophets, are not known to have
written poetry. Moses generally wrote in prose, and left
behind him only two or three poems. David, on the other
hand, has left nothing but poetry, unless we except his
prayer of thanks in 2 Sam. vii. His prophecies are usually
sublimely pious meditations on the goodness, the justice, the
loving-kindness of God (Ps. viii., xix., xxix., xxiii.-xxv.). His
religion had no tinge of the gloomy barbarities of heathen
worship common to many ancient races. While it was equally
The Close of David' s Reign. 4 1 1
far removed from tlie light-hearted handling of divine things
usual among the Greeks, it had a joyousness of feeling akin to
the delight which they enjoyed in all the blendings of their
faith with their life (Ps. xviii., Ixviii.). David's religion, as it
can be gathered from his songs, was a religion of intensest
love, interwoven with profoundest justice. Although the one
tempered the other, both had full scope, and both were always
seen in action. But sometimes he soars into the region of the
unknown future, and foretells coming greatness, or glory, or
shame. A Being of human form, gifted with powers that
are not human, floats before him. The prophet-king sees this
Almighty Messiah, the anointed King, — my Lord, he calls
him, — at one time in glory unapproachable by man, at another
bowed under sufferings not common to humanity (Ps. ii., xxii.,
xlv., ex.). There is a shadowiness about the Being whom he
sings of ; an unavoidable dimness, for the prophet is describing
One who is seen through the mists of many intervening ages.
But the majesty of that Being, and His lowliness, His ex-
celling glory, and His exceeding sorrow, are distinctly painted
in the poet's words. Who He is, whence He comes, and
what His mission to men, are all left undetermined. A
purpose in His coming is made clear, and a great work to be
done by Him on earth is made equally clear. It is not the
dim shadowing of a possible future, already lifting itself
within suspected range of a poet's vision. It is the distinct
outline of a great career, to which nothing corresponding is
seen in history for ten centuries afterwards. While the out-
line is distinct, the filling in is left to time. The former is
unmistakeable in its features ; the latter is dim and uncertain.
A higher than mortal power imparted to David the outline,
but withheld the details of the picture. Men call the
working of that power in a human heart inspiration. But in
the poet-king it was an inspiration which looked across future
centuries and unborn kingdoms, with a sureness of vision un-
known and unapproached among the poets of any other people.
CHAPTEE XIII.
DEUTEROXOMY ANTIQUITY OF THE BOOK INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
In the course of the history we have found references made
by the chief actors to a literature existing in their time and
moulding their thoughts and ways. The book of Deuteronomy
has i-epeatedly appeared, among other writings, as a great factor
in the national life of Israel. If it was written by the Hebrew
lawgiver about 1450 B.C., its place and influence are easily
understood. But if the theory of its origin about the reign of
Hezelviah (710 B.C.) be true, the whole history of the inter-
venincj centuries becomes dark or unintellidble. The acje of
the book must therefore be ascertained before the history can
be understood. External evidence for its antiquity, derived
from quotations and references made by later writers, exists in
abundance, as has been frequently shown in the course of the
previous history. But the internal evidence is so over-
whelming, that it leaves no loophole of escape for those at
least, who regard it as neither a real history written at the
time, nor a pious fraud, but a novel or a parable. Seldom, or
we should say never, in literature has there appeared a writing
with so many marks about it, which prove it to be the work
either of the man whose name it bears, or of a forger possessing
unsurpassed power to deceive. It cannot be a parable. At
the beginning Moses appears three times as the speaker of the
laws given in the book. A little farther on he is named as
setting apart on the east of Jordan three cities of refuge for
manslayers, and as calling the people together to hear his
words. But he is more than a speaker and a lawgiver. He
is the writer of the law also, and of the sonsj which follows
Deutei'onony : Antiquity oj the Book, 413
— in fact, of tlie whole book. But tlie third person is not
maintained throughout. Mixed with passages in which he is
so spoken of, are others in which the person changes from the
third to the first. He speaks directly to the Hebrew nation,
of which he was then the leader ; he speaks also to their
children, and their children's children to the latest generations,
till a prophet-lawgiver like himself should arise to show them a
better way. The words / and me, wc and you, are repeated times
without number, now in legal enactment or historic narrative,
now in earnest entreaty, now in fiercest threatening. But he is
more than speaker and writer of the book. He becomes also the
giver of a written copy to the priests, with orders not to let
tlie memory of it perish, but to take such steps for securing
the safe transmission of it down the ages as never were taken
with any other book. When the Emperor Tacitus (275 a.d.)
ordered ten copies of his great namesake's works — the Annals
and the History — to be written out every year, he took a step
wise in itself, but far less effectual than the plan taken by
Moses. These efforts for the preservation of the Eoman
writer bore little fruit. His books were lost, till parts of them
were discovered in 1444 A.D., and again other parts in 1515
A.D. There is really only one manuscript of this great writer.
Eecently a book was published, which, while recognising the
History as a genuine work of antiquity, undertook to prove the
Annals a forgery of the fifteenth century of our era ! The
writer met with less respect than has fallen to the theorists
who have treated Deuteronomy to the same criticism ; but his
case was as good as theirs. From first to last, then, embedded
in legal documents, in exalted speeches, in stories of travel,
and in finished poetry, the name of Moses stands forth as the
author of this book. It is not one chapter, it may be said to
be every chapter, which claims him for the writer. Never in
any literature was evidence of authorship so full and so clear ;
or, if an alternative in such a flood of light must be taken,
never was evidence of cool, deliberate forgery more complete.
414 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
The historical value of the book is shown by the precautions
taken to ensure accuracy. It was not merely spoken to men
who were in their youth eye-witnesses and actors in the great
drama, by one who was himself the chief actor. It was also
written by him or by his orders. A legendary history is
excluded by the written accuracy aimed at. A parable is also
excluded. A true history or a scandalous forgery is the only
alternative left.
. With the question of authorship might also be expected to
come up the farther question of editing. Often the writer of
an ancient book was neither editor nor publisher. Death or
misadventure has been known to pluck the pen of matchless
power from the hand that held it, before the work was ended.
A daughter, a friend, or a successor, was believed to have given
it the tinishinc^ touches. And in such cases critics have been
and will be for ever divided on the lesser things, which seem to
indicate not the great author's, but his editor's hand. The
editing of a noble book, however important in itself, is a small
thing in comparison with its authorship. While the latter
may be clear as noonday, the former may be dark as mid-
night. No critic, worthy of the name, will hesitate to
acknowledge the author because he has doubts or difficulties
about the editor. And it is a strong proof of the resourceless
character of much sacred criticism in our day, that it endeavours
to confound two things, which the best judges of ancient writ-
ings have kept separate. The eighth book of Thucydides
contains somewhat less writing than the fifth book of Moses.
But although the title of the former to the honour of being a
genuine composition has been denied from ancient times, while
the historic reality of the latter was till recently universally
recognised, few critics of Thucydides go farther than to say
they feel certain 'not only that this book remained unpublished
at its author's death, but that it was left by him in an
incomplete state.' Not even this can be said of Deuteronomy,
unless it be a forgery. In Thucydides' eighth book, again,
Deiitc7'07i07ny : Antiquity of the Book, 415
' traces of redaction by a strange hand may also be discerned
in portions of its text.' These are not worth mentioning in
comparison with the authorship. Mure^ dismisses them in half
a page, while he assigns one hundred and eighty alto.o-etlier
to Thucydides and his work. If there were editing of
Deuteronomy by friend or successor of the author, the editor
would not treat the great work to other handling than that of
a reverent disciple, who might wish to clear off a speck of
darkness here and there, but who would regard the precious
things of the book with profoundest respect, and would seldom
allow himself to touch what seemed small.
If the book was a forgery, written seven centuries or more
after the pretended author was dead, we have in it an extra-
ordinary example of reticence. No forger is ever able to
escape the difficulty of letting something out, which helps to
bring home to him his misdoing. However careful he may
be, there is sure to happen at some turn in a story a leakage
which reveals the truth. But in this long and exceedingly
varied book no leakage of later facts has really been discovered.
Ingenuity has searched in vain for this ever-present proof of
forgery. Examples of it have been adduced from the book ;
but the more closely they are sifted, the brighter is seen to
be the sunshine of truth in the story told. Vast changes took
place in Israel during the eight centuries which preceded the
supposed forgery. A fugitive host of foemen entered and
conquered Palestine, divided the country among them, and
then for four centuries fought for existence as separated or
warring tribes. From being a republic, Israel became a limited
monarchy. Kings took the place of judges, and one of them
made the Hebrew State the first empire of his age. Under
another, the kingdom so painfully raised to greatness was split
in two, weakened by civil strife, and preyed on by powerful
neighbours. At last the larger of the two fragments, after
losing towns and provinces to Damascus, Moab, and Amnion,
1 Mure, Hist, of Greek Lit. v. 55,-573.
41 6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
was itself repeatedly wasted and then overwhelmed by the power
of Assyria. Literature was cultivated among the Hebrews
during these eight centuries. Changes, very striking to the
imagination, took place in their worship and in their art of
war. But of all these things there is not one word or one
hint in Deuteronomy. If it be a true history, it could not
contain references to them. If it be a forgery, no man could
have written it without in some way or another showing his
hand. At or near the time it is thought to have been written,
Hezekiah, king of Judah, had been driven from nearly fifty
fortresses by the king of Assyria, and shut up ' like a caged
bird * in Jerusalem. Or if it were published some years
later, his son Manasseh was snubbed and chastised by the
same foreign power. But of all this not one hint is found or
suspected in the book. It is full of Egypt. Israel's danger,
Israel's warning, is Egypt. Of Assyria, the conqueror, the
waster, the insolent chastiser, there is neither word nor hint.
Evidently Assyria was not in the thoughts of the writer. It
had not risen above his horizon.
Had Assyria been a country unknown in Hebrew annals,
this silence might have caused no surprise. But that empire
had been the cradle of Israel. From its people the founders
of the nation had sprung, or had sought wives for tlieir sons.
A true prophet writing a novel, or a false prophet perpetrating
a fraud in Hezekiah's reign, could not have avoided turning
his thoughts more towards Assyria, the home of Abraham,
than towards Egypt, the place of his people's bondage.
Ancient leanings, the lives of the patriarchs, and the surround-
ings of his own time, all pointed towards the Assyrian empire
as demanding from the supposed author mention in the
pages of Deuteronomy. * Asshur shall carry thee aAvay
captive ' occurs in Numbers, entirely in agreement with the
country of Balaam, but Asshur is unknown in Deuteronomy.
This silence is a convincing proof of the antiquity and
historic reality of tlie book. 'A Syrian ready to perish was
D enter 07iomy : Antiquity of the Book. 417
my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there
with a few ' (Dent. xxvi. 5), is the nearest approach to a
recognition of the ancient Assyrian home of the Hebrews.
But it is an approach, which falls so far short of what the
supposed fraud or romance requires as to prove the truth and
antiquity of the book.
But let us suppose the treatise to be a genuine work of the
Mosaic age. The books which follow it in the order of time
ought, then, to show traces of its influence on the people's
life and speech. Formerly it was denied that such traces
existed ; now they are recognised to an alarming extent. But
the theorists were not moved from their theory. A way of
avoiding destruction is open to them which would be rejected
in the field of profane criticism. The forger, they say, or his
followers, were too skilful to be caught in this trap. He or
they went over some of the books in Hebrew literature —
Joshua, Judges, Samuel — which have come down to our day,
and inserted what was needful to bring them into agreement
with the forged Deuteronomy — a word or two here, a verse
or two there, a whole chapter in a third place. "Whatever
view be taken of Deuteronomy, — whether it be called an
innocent parable or a pious fraud, — this falsifying of history
can only be pronounced intentionally dishonest. The men
who were guilty of it, if the theory be true, knew what they
were doing, and why they were doing it. With a skill of
which the justest measure is their success in escaping detection
for over two thousand years, they set themselves to deceive
posterity by darkening the sources of history. A more dis-
creditable performance was never heard of in the history of
literature. But possibly the discredit attaches to the theory
of the moderns, not to the doings of the supposed ancients ;
for to the first theory of tampering with the original books
of Hebrew history, a second theory is found to be indis-
pensable. Some only, not all of these books were thus
tampered with. A few of the historical works were defaced
2 D
4i8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
by revisers ; the prophetic books escaped or were overlooked.
If any one expresses surprise at these skilful revisers showing
themselves so unskilful as to leave several witnesses to testify
against their misdeeds, he is quieted by an additional theory
of which there is as much proof as of the other two. It is
this. The histories which have been tampered with were
'prdhohly all on one roll, or formed one book 1 The revisers,
then, did not consider it necessary to inquire how many other
books there might be, telling a different story from their
manufactured goods. Such, then, are the theories of tamper-
ing by revisers. Well may a reader ask if, w^ith such begin-
nings, the whole is not matter for ridicule more than for
sober argument ? The judgment of Grote, when he quotes
w^ith approval the words of an English writer on similar pro-
ceedings of modern critics, who have as unfairly handled tlie
works of ancient Greeks, holds good in the case before us :
' The usual subterfuge of bafHed research — erroneous readings
and etymological sophistry — is made to reduce every stubborn
and intractable text to something like the consistency re-
quired' (i. 400).
The next piece of internal evidence is the place where the
book professes to have been written — on the east side of
Jordan, before the Hebrews crossed that river for the conquest
of Canaan. It says so at the beginning of the first chapter,
as we shall see fully afterwards. Moses, also, is introduced
in the opening pages praying : ' Let me go over, and see the
good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and
Lebanon' (iii. 25). And again, we read of him telling the
people : * I must die in this land, I must not go over
Jordan ; but ye shall go over and possess that good land '
(iv. 22). The same longing for permission to cross, the same
sorrowful cry of despair at the refusal, turns up at the end as
it does in the beginning of the book : ' And he said unto them,
I am an hundred and twenty years old this day ; I can no
more go out and come in : also the Lord hath said unto me,
Deuteronomy : Antiquity of the Book, 4 1 9
Thou shalt not go over this Jordan ' (xxxi. 2). Nothinp; could
be plainer than these statements. As they ring with the
sound of truth, they are true ; or, as they seem to ring with
the sound of truth but do not, they are the words of a forger.
To find a place for them within the sphere of parable or
romance-writing seems impossible, especially with so many
other marks about the book which compel us to regard it as
either a real history or a fraud.
There is no mention of Jerusalem in the book, or of the
temple, as there ouglit to have been, if it was written when
Hezekiah was attempting to put down the high places, and
make his capital the only seat of ritual worship. AVe say
there ou^ht to have been mention made of Jerusalem, or some
hint let fall about it to prevent mistake. For the writer of
the book gives a place in its pages to Ebal and Gerizim, which
tended to make them eclipse every other region in the land,
as the Samaritans in our Lord's time naturally believed they did.
He ordered a great altar to be built on Ebal ; ' all the words
of this law very plainly ' to be written upon it when
' plaistered with plaister,' — a thing wliich the Hebrews had
been accustomed to in Egypt, but are not known to have
practised after their settlement in Canaan, — the chiefest of the
tribes to stand on Gerizim to utter the blessings, the least of
them to stand on Ebal to utter the curses, and, apparently,
the ark with the priests to occupy the grand amphitheati'e
between. The town of Shechem in this amphitheatre Avas
the central point of Palestine, and the natural capital of tlie
country. By this writer, then, an importance is assigned to
the whole neighbourhood, which went far to defeat the purpose
he had in view, if, as the theory supposes, that purpose was
to write up Zion in the reign of Hezekiah as the only place
of acceptable sacrifice. Besides, Ebal and Gerizim were tliuii
in a kingdom far from friendly with Judah. Perhaps, indeed,
they were occupied at the time supposed by a mixed race of
Israelites and heathens, wholly given to idolatry. The com-,
420 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Litei^atitre.
maud to build an altar, on Ebal is intelligible if published
before the people crossed the Jordan in 1450 B.C.; it is
unintelligible if published many centuries after the conquest.
The next evidence to the truth of the book is that it is
full of remembrances of Egypt, which many of the people still
knew from personal experience, and of the weary wilderness
which they had all left but a month or two before. The land
of bondage is constantly appearing under aspects of singular
variety. No forger, however teeming his brain might be,
could have devised the variety or equalled the freshness of
these remembrances of Egypt. There are about fifty altogether
in the book. Nearly a third of them have for their refrain :
' The Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt;'
but it is so often embellished with lifelike pictures of the
place, — iron furnace, the house of bondage, — or of the wonders
done in furtherance of bringing them out, or of the way
in which they came out, that the variety makes the ever-
repeated phrase pleasing. Nor was it reading of other men's
books, or personal travel in the land, it was actual labour,
which entitled a passage so strikingly true as the following to
a place in its pages : ' The land, whither thou goest in to possess
it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out,
where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot,
as a garden of herbs ' (xi. 10). Had not thousands of them
in their earliest years painfully toiled at the mill, lifting water
from the Nile, and using the foot, as peasants there have
always done, to clear a channel for the bucket to pour its
living stream on the planted ground, this reminder would
have been unintelligible. To people who had spent their
youth in Egypt the words were fresh as the spring grass.
To people who knew the place only by report, who had never
been in it, neither they nor their fathers, for centuries, the
words were as withered as the grass of the desert under an
autumn sun. The language would have been as much out
of place in Hezekiah's reign as would be appeals to English-
Deuteronomy: Antiqidty of the Book. 421
men in Victoria's, which reminded them of the pleasant fields
and clear skies left by their Gorman forefathers seven or
eight centuries ago.
AVhile the house of bondage and heavy labour stands out
in Deuteronomy too clearly to be a fraud, invented to cheat
people into a false idea of the origin of the book, there is
given another view of Egypt which a forger or a parable-
writer could not be expected to take : ' Thou shalt not pervert
the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless ; nor take a
widow's raiment to pledge ; but thou shalt remember that thou
Avast a bondsman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed
thee thence.' A lesson of kindness to the stranger, or of grati-
tude for deliverance wrought from cruel bondage, is drawn
again and again in the pages of this book. Had that and
other lessons been frauds or parables enforced for the first
time eight centuries after the bondage, the book could not
have been received with the reverence shown, by the chiefs
of the land. The king ' rent his clothes : ' ' Great is the
wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us,' he said ;
and Huldah assured him that his eyes should not see all the
evil that was coming on Jerusalem and Judah. Unless the
story of the book, as told in its own pages, be true, we are
again plunged in a farther sea of hypocrisy and deceit.
It is possible to bring out an undesigned contrast between
Egypt and the wilderness by comparing two passages bearing
on the same thing. "When Passover was first instituted, the
people were told to put away all leaven out of their ' houses '
or ' habitations ; ' and * to strike the lintel and two side-posts
of the door with the blood that is in the bason.' The house,
the lintel, the door, the door-posts, are always mentioned in
Ex. xii. But in Deuteronomy there is a marked change
in the idea. Neither Leviticus nor Numbers affords a means
of making the comparison which the fifth book furnishes :
' Thou shalt roast [and boil] and eat,' it says of the seven
days' Passover feast, ' in the place which the Lord thy God
42 2 The Kijigdoju of A II- Israel : its Literatttre.
shall choose : and thou shalt turn in the mornino; and jio
unto thy tents ' (xvi. 7). Long custom, the ways and
manners of forty years of wandering in a houseless wilderness,
had changed the manner of speech. It was tents then, and
had been tents for twoscore years. Houses built of stone
had again become familiar since the people left the desert,
and won the fields and cities of Eastern Palestine ; but ways
of speaking are neither lightly taken up nor lightly laid aside.
* Thou shalt turn in the morning and go unto thy tents ' is
the escape of a phrase, which brings vi\ddly before a reader
the daily life of the writer.
There is a remarkable omission in Deuteronomy wdiich goes
far to confirm the evidence already brought forward. Horses
and chariots w^ere numerous in the land of Egypt at the time
of the exodus. But nowhere in the last four books of Moses
does the horse appear as a domestic animal among the
Hebrews. Ploughing was done by the ox or the ass ; fetching
and carrying were the work of the camel and the ass ; war was
conducted by solid bodies of footmen without support from a
chariot force. The horse is known certainly to the writer of
Deuteronomy, but not as a useful friend of man. It is
regarded with alarm : ' When thou goest out to battle against
thine enemies, and seest horses and chariots and people more
than thou, be not afraid of them ' (Deut. xx. 1, xiv. 4, 7).
All this ignorance of the horse — dislike of it or fear of it — is
easily explained if the book was written at the time it says.
But it is incredible if the work was composed by a foi'ger or
a parable-writer in Hezekiah's or Josiah's time. Horses and
chariots were then familiar things in Palestine, and had been
familiar for ages : ' Their land is full of horses, neither is
there any end of their chariots ' (Isa. ii. 7). They were not
regarded with terror. But no part of the Mosaic record gives
the slightest hint of horses being in use for any purpose among
the Hebrews. Nor would the lawgiver have kept silence on
the redemption money for the firstlings of so valuable an
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book, 423
animal, when he specified those of other and inferior beasts.^
The price of a horse in Solomon's reign was about £17, 10s.
of our money ; the price of an ox at the same time was much
less. But the greatest calamities which could befall a Hebrew
farmer are thus described : ' Thine ox shall be slain before
thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; thine ass shall be
violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be
restored to thee ; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies,
and thou shalt have none to rescue them' (Deut. xxviii. 31).
Only on the supposition that the writer of the book was
living among a people who had no horses in their camp, is
this silence intelligible. And previous to David's time the
horse was unknown as a domestic animal amoncf the Hebrews.
A diligent study of the laws contained in the book of
Deuteronomy might furnish unthought of evidence for the
place of its origin. One example may be sufficient. Of the
animals allowed or forbidden to be eaten (Deut. xiv. 1-20),
fourteen species of quadrupeds are named and twenty-one
species of birds. All these birds are forbidden food ; only
four of the quadrupeds are unclean. Common domestic fowl,
such as the cock and the hen, are never named in the Old
Testament. The monuments of Egypt preserve the same
silence regarding them, though their numbers in that country
may have been as great in ancient as in modern times. Geese
were bred extensively in Egypt ; reference is perhaps made to
that bird in the Hebrew Bible (1 Kings v. 3). Of the twenty-
one kinds of birds forbidden to be eaten, nine are found in the
books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy only — once in each case.
N'one of the others are of frequent occurrence in. the Old
Testament except the eagle (neslier), which is found once or
oftener in fourteen different books. The large number of
forbidden birds is thus a feature in the law-book demanding
explanation. But there is another feature perhaps equally
singular. The general name for eagle is nesher, as may be
'^ See also Amos ir. 10, vi. 12 ; Isa. xxx. 16, xxxi. 1,
424 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Literature,
gathered from the number of books in which it occurs. But
the Deuteronomic law indicates at least three kinds of eagle,
two of which are not mentioned elsewhere save once in
Leviticus, while the third is peculiar to Deuteronomy. Two
or three kinds of vultures and of hawks are also mentioned
almost in these books only. There is clearly a peculiarity
in the prominence given to forbidden birds — to eagles, to
vultures, and to hawks — which nothing in the history of Israel
after the conquest helps to explain. Is it explicable from
their history before the conquest ?
There is no reason for regarding the desert of Sinai as
distinguished for the host of birds, which this enumeration of
twenty-one forbidden kinds clearly implies. Egypt was such
a country, with wild mountain ranges a few miles from
crowded cities, with a mighty river rolling through it, and
with an inundation covering the land every year. It remains
the same to this day. ' Birds of prey are numerous in Egypt,
and of many kinds. Of the most remarkable are three species
of large naked-necked vultures, . . . several species of eagles
and falcons, . . . two kinds of hawks.' ^ Besides, the written
language of that country met the Hebrews at every turn in
their daily labours. It was seen on obelisks, on memorial
pillars, on avenues leading to temples, on the outside of
temples as well as on the inside, on the gateways of towns
and palaces. So splendid was the writing, that it appealed to
the least observant. Greek travellers, surveying these monu-
ments many ages afterwards, described it as ' animal writing,'
from the numerous figures of birds and beasts used for alpha-
betic signs. This writing, wdth its eagles, hawks, vultures,
owls, snakes, and geese, was always before the eyes of Hebrew
bondmen. They were familiar with the birds on the monu-
ments of Egypt. They were also familiar with not a few of
them on the streets of its cities and villages. But they had
other reasons for attaching importance to these birds. Most
1 Em-xj. Brit., 'Egypt,' pp. 712, 713.
D enter onomy : Antiqziity of the Book. 425
of the twenty-one species were sacred birds in Egypt, deified
or worshipped for the services they rendered to mankind in
cleaning the streets or roads, or for the lordliness of their
nature. Mummies, or stuffed specimens of them, carvings of
them in stone or elaborate paintings, were seen everywhere,
wrought so minutely by the artists that the markings on the
stone enabled Wilkinson to detect among the birds of Egypt a
variety of the hawk, which had previously escaped notice.^
Even the State head-dress of the king, and the pictures of the
gods of Egypt, represented one or more of these birds. Mani-
festly, therefore, the Exodus enables a reader to understand
the tables of forbidden birds in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
An intelligent man might almost construct them from the
pictures of birds and beasts given on one or two plates in
Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians. They reflect the times and
manners of Israel in Egypt. At no other period of the his-
tory is an equally good explanation possible, or, indeed, any
satisfactory explanation w^hatever.
The regulation laid down in Deut. xiv. 9 for distinguishing
allowed from forbidden fish, holds good in Egypt to this hour :
* All that have fins and scales shall ye eat.' * Tlie modern
inhabitants of the country are partial to fish as food ; but they
say that only those fishes w^hich have scales are wholesome.'
During the inundation the quantity of fish obtained in every
corner of Egypt is, as it always has been, immense. Herodotus
even imagined the soil to bring them forth in shoals. With
truth, therefore, the murmuring people said to Moses, what
they could never say of Palestine : * We remember the fish
which Ave did eat in Egypt for nothing' (Num. xi. 5).
Eeferences to almost all the chief events related in the three
preceding books are found in Deuteronomy. Bat they are of
such a nature as not merely to suggest but even to compel the
idea, that a reader of them must have known where he could
get full details. Fathers of families, or wandering Levites,
^ Wilkinson, iii. 317.
426 The Kmgdom of All-Israel : its Literature.
might use the book as a primer for the young. Events only
hinted at in its pages they could give more fully from other
writings. On this point no doubt ought to rest. Brief refer-
ences are made in Deuteronomy to a known and written
record of the past. Should any one regard them as written
hints pointing to a known but unwritten history, he makes an
assumption which cannot be allowed. When the hints and
references have been committed to writing, it is natural to
infer that the older history, to which they send a reader back,
is in writing also. But that older history is really satisfied in
all its requirements by the story told in Exodus, Leviticus,
and lumbers. Hence the narrative in these three books is
most justly regarded as the narrative, to which the writer of
Deuteronomy is constantly referring. Attempts have been
made to show a wide divergence in the statements of Deutero-
nomy from those in the three preceding books. That alleged
divergence will be considered in its proper place. But at
present we have to show the close verbal agreement between the
brief hints let fall in Deuteronomy, and the fuller details given
in the preceding books of the Pentateuch. A comparison of
several passages will go far to prove the existence of the latter
as the source from which the former have been quoted or copied.
Let US begin with the story of that terrible judgment, when
a nation was born in a night amid the bitter cries of its
oppressors. ' Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread,' it
says, * the bread of afifiction ; for thou camest forth out of the
land of Egypt in haste ; . . . neither shall there anything of
the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, remain
all night until the morning' (Deut. xvi. 3, 4). The word
here translated in haste occurs only twice elsewhere in the
whole Bible, first in Ex. xii. 11, at the institution of the
Passover, 'Ye shall eat it in haste,' and next in Isa. lii. 12,
' Ye shall not go out in haste, nor go in flight ; for the Lord
will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rere-
ward.' Unquestionably Isaiah borrowed both word and idea
DczUeronorny : Antiquity of the Book. 427
from Deuteronomy. But tlie latter was indebted to Exodus ;
for the eating of the lamb in haste is not likely to have been an
idea coined from the going out of Egypt in haste. The words
' bread of affliction ' prove the same point. * Affliction' is a
term found only in three of the five books of Moses — Genesis,
Exodus, and Deuteronomy. And there can be no difficulty in
tracing the connection between the following passages : — ■
Deut. xxvi. 7. Ex. iii, 7. See also iv. 31.
When we cried unto the Lord God The Lord said, I have surely seen
of our fathers, the Lord heard our the affliction of my peo])le which are
voice, and looked on our affliction, and in Egypt, and have heard their cry by
our labour, and our oppression. reason of their taskmasters.
The writer of Deuteronomy quoted the book of Exodus
with the freedom one could take when he was repeating words
from a story, which he had himself written forty years before.
But his teaching is incomplete. Naturally he would feel it
unnecessary to be so precise in Deuteronomy as he had been
in the earlier books, for they were accessible in one form or
another to all, whose faith or whose curiosity was stirred by
his later and briefer record.
The next event in Hebrew history glanced at by the writer
of Deuteronomy (xi. 2-4) is the escape of the fugitives at the
Bed Sea : ' And know ye this day : for I speak not with your
children which have not known, and which have not seen the
chastisement of the Lord your God, His greatness. His mighty
hand, and His stretched-out arm, and His miracles, and His acts,
which He did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of
Egypt, and unto all his land ; and what He did unto the army
of Egypt, and to their horses, and to their chariots ; how He
made the water of the Bed Sea to overflow them as they pur-
sued after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto
this day.' A story so briefly told is clearly a reminder to
people who had seen the great overthrow with their own eyes,
or had learned it from such as had. This reminder points
back to the book of Exodus, not to a vague tradition. And the
very words used compel this conclusion. The full phrase,
428 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature.
' a mighty hand and an outstretched arm,' does not occur in
Exodus. But the two halves of it are found there — the latter
once, the former five times. The full Exodus phrase is,
* With great power and with a mighty hand,' which reappears
in Nehemiah (i. 10). But the full phrase of Deuteronomy is
comparatively rare. It occurs five times in that book, and is
borrowed in subsequent books only about as often. It is an
original blending of the two halves, which are found in
Exodus separately, one of them only once. Jeremiah, by
borrowing the phrase in its fullest form word for word,
becomes a witness to its originality ; ' with signs, and with
wonders, and with a strong hand, and with a stretched-out
arm, and with great terror' (Deut. iv. 34; Jer. xxxii. 21).
Only the extremest scepticism can suspect Jeremiah of having
coined the phrase and foisted it into Deuteronomy. The
writer of that book thus put together, with original power, the
two halves of a striking figure, which were both used sepa-
rately in an earlier writing. The borrowing of his words by
Jeremiah and others is a proof of the genius with which he
seized hold on the minds of the ablest men who came after
him. But the freedom of his handling comes out also in
other parts of the passage under review. He coins new
phrases, ' the chastisement of the Lord your God, His great-
ness. His mighty hand, and His stretched-out arm.' The first
word, chastisc7nent, occurring but once in the Pentateuch, took
hold of poets so great as Isaiah and Hosea, who used it in the
same sense as it occurs here (Deut. xi. 2 ; Isa. xxvi. 16, liii. 5 ;
Hos. V. 2). ' His greatness ' is less frequently found. And
the word 'overflow,' with which the writer describes the
whelming of Israel's pursuers under the waters of the Eed
Sea, is another proof of his originality and of the power he
wielded over the minds of later writers. It is met with but
three times altogether in the Bible (Deut. xi. 4 ; Lam. iii. 54 ;
2 Kings vi. 6). He was not a slavish borrower of antique
words, which might serve to flavour a writing of to-day with
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book. 429
the fragrance of ancient speech. He has been represented as
such. He was a coiner of singular forms distinguished by rare
beauty. Sometimes they were pieced together from older
books. At other times their novelty, or the remarkable set-
tings in which they were presented to the world, displayed an
unusual fire of genius. But if he merely picked out rare
things from older books, his borrowed plumes could never
hide his poverty of thought, or deceive men into a false
estimate of his wealth. We accept his own account of these
borrowings. He was drawing on himself, as an honest man
is entitled to do. He was not plundering the treasures of
another. And because he was using his own resources, he
did what a writer of ability always does — he changed his
ways of looking at things and of speaking from those he used
in the past. Enough remained to show that it was the same
pen and the same head, though the pen had not lost its
cunning to shape forms of beauty, nor the head its power to
infuse fresh life into what time had made somewhat common.
The keynote to the Mosaic legislation is found in the
opening words of the covenant made at Sinai. They precede
all law and all ritual. They also give a tone to the whole
legislation, which it loses the moment they are overlooked.
The words are : ' If ye will obey my voice and keep my cove-
nant,' etc. (Ex. xix. 5). Or with reference to the angel who
should lead the people to their land of rest : ' Obey his voice,*
and, ' If thou wilt obey his voice.' A form of speech the
same, or nearly the same, runs through the whole of the Old
Testament, though it is unfortunately lost sight of in our
English translation by needless changes in the English words
used. As the Hebrew word for to hear means also to obey, the
mixing up of the two ideas in the English Bible has obscured
the sense in many passages.^ Deuteronomy contains about
1 Thus the English of Ps. Ixxxi. 8, 11, 13, completely disguises the fact that
the poet is sounding, in the very words of Exodus and Deuteronomy, the key-
note of the whole legislation, hearing or obedience.
430 The Kinodom of All- Israel : its Literatitre,
twenty examples of the same or a like phrase. The writer
of it was deeply impressed with the necessity of sounding the
same keynote throughout his purely popular treatise. And
while he borrowed it from Exodus, that is, from himself,
historian and poet and prophet borrowed it from his books all
dow^n the ages. The phrase, ' To obey my voice,' with its
various changes of form, became the thread on which the
events of history were ultimately strung. By failing to
observe this use of words, passages such as Jer. vii. 22 cannot
be understood : ' I spake not unto your fathers, nor com-
manded them in the day that I brought them out of the land
of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but this
thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice.' ' Obey '
was the first and great thing ; ' sacrifice ' came far behind then,
even as it did in Samuel's da3\
But the borrowing in Deuteronomy from Exodus and the
following books is not confined to one phrase, important
though it be. As examples of similar indebtedness, we shall
quote the following passages, putting in italics the words
which happen to be the same in both. A fairer and surer
proof of borrowing or quoting could not be had : —
Deut. ix. 12-14. Ex. xxxii. 7-10.
The Lord said unto me, Arise, cjet The Lord said unto Moses, Go, 'jet
thee down quickly from hence ; for thy thee down; for thy people which thou
jjeople which thou hast brought forth out hroughtest out o/ tlie land of Egypt
of Egypt have corrupted themselves ; have corrupted themselves. They have
they are quickly turned aside out of the turned aside quickly out of the way
way which I commanded them ; they which I comvianded them : they have
have made them a molten image. And made them a molten calf, and have
the Lord spake unto me, saying, / have worshipped it, and have sacrificed there-
.seen this people, and behold it is a stiff- unto, and said. These be thy gods, 0
necked people. Let me alone that I Israel, which have brought thee up out
may destroy them, and blot out their of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said
name from under heaven : and I will unto Moses, / have seen this people^ and
make of thee a nation mightier and behold it is a stiff-necked jyeojjle. Now
greater [more numerous] than they. ^ therefore let me alone, that my wrath
may wax hot against them, and that I
may consume them ; and I will make
of thee a great nation.
^ 2?um. xiv. 12 has, ' A nation greater and mightier than they.'
Deuleronomy : Antiqttity of the Book. 431
The borrowing in the one book from the other requires no
farther proof. Plainly, too, Exodus was the original writing.
Deut. ix. 17. Ex. xxxii. 19.
I took the two tables and cast them He cast the tables out of his hands,
out of my two hands, and brake them ami brake them beneath the mount,
before your eyes.
D?:uT. ix. 20, 21. Ex. xxxii. 20.
The Lord was very angry with And he took the calf which they had
Aaron to have destroyed him : and I made, and burnt it in the fire, and
prayed for Aaron also the same time, ground it to poivder, and strawed it
And I took your sin, the calf which ye upon the water, and made the chiklren
had made, and burnt it with fire, an<l of Israel drink of it.
stamped it, and ground it very small,
until it was as small as dust : and I
cast the dust thereof into the brook
that descended out of the mount.
Deut. i. 28, 29, 42. Num. xiii. 28, xiv. 9, 42.
The people is greater and taller than The people be strong that dwell in
we ; the cities are great and walled up the land, and the cities are walled, ajid
to heaven : aiid moreover ice have seen very great: and, moreover, ice saw the
the sons of the Anakims there. Then children of Anak there. . . . rebel not
I said unto you, Dread not, neither be ye against the Lord, neither fear ye
afraid of them. the people of the land.
In all these cases, Deuteronomy is unquestionably the book
last written. But while there is no doubt of the reproducing
in its pages of things told elsewhere, as little doubt is there
of additions being made to the narrative which no one but an
actor in the great drama was entitled to make, unless he had
commissioned a friend or secretary to write in his name.
* The brook descending out of the mount,' and the speech,
' Dread not, neither be afraid of them,' are touches added to
the narrative as told in Exodus and Numbers, which compel
us, even without looking to many similar touches, to regard
the writer either as the man he says he is, or as a bold
romancer. Nothing in his way of speaking countenances the
idea of romance or forgery. Every word in his narrative
disposes a reader to take a realistic view of the speeches.
Here, also, we find the writer of Deuteronomy doing exactly
what the writer of Chronicles is charged with — copying and
adding something to the piece copied. It is safer to sa}-, they
432 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literatiwe.
borrowed what they were entitled to borrow, and they added
what they knew to be facts not recorded in histories then
accessible to the public.^
If, then, the preceding books of the Pentateuch supplied
those parts of Deuteronomy wdiich we have considered, we
cannot stop there and say they can have supplied no more.
The curse on Amalek in the one is word for word the same
as in the other. 'Write this for a memorial in the book,'
says Exodus (xvii. 14), ' for I will utterly put out the remem-
brance of Amalek from under heaven.' Clearly the, hook,
whatever it was, is also quoted in Deuteronomy (xxv. 18, 19),
where the same Hebrew words occur, arranged in the same
order : ' Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from
under heaven.' But here also we have the freedom of hand-
ling which we have already had reason to look for in a writer
who was repeating, after forty years, a story told by himself
before. He adds something to the narrative given in Exodus,
and he uses words seldom found in ancient Hebrew books, and
never in other parts of the Pentateuch : * How he met thee
by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that
were feeble behind thee; when thou wast faint and weary.'
The reference to Exodus in this extract from Deuteronomy,
and to the contents of the book, is therefore clear. Nor is
this the end of the borrowing. For the Prophet Isaiah copies,
even while he varies the words quoted above against Amalek :
1 On comparing the numerous historical references in Ps. cv. 23-cvi. 33, with
those in Deuteronomy, the value of the argument in the text is more fully seen.
No doubt rests on the origin of the references in these two Psalms. They were
taken from the three books. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Many of the words
and phrases were also borrowed from Deuteronomy. "While all this is universally
allowed, while, indeed, it is too plain to be denied, one most important fact is
overlooked. The two Psalms contain things which are as fully or even more fully
stated in the book of Deuteronomy. If, therefore, the two Psalms borrowed the
history from the then existing books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, on
what principle can the writer of Deuteronomy be supposed to have got his infor-
mation from a different source ? Only one answer is possible to the question.
He had no other source except the personal knowledge which enabled him to
write all four books.
I
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book. 433
' Write it before them in a table/ he says of his own people
(Isa. XXX. 8), ' and note it in a book, that it may be for
the time to come for ever and ever/ And not to bring for-
ward other similarities in that same sermon of the great
prophet of Hezekiah's court, will any reader refuse to recognise
the filial relation of his words, ' One thousand shall flee at
the rebuke of one ; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee '
(Isa. XXX. 17), to the parent words in Deut. xxxii. 30, ^ How
should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand
to flight?' Manifestly Deuteronomy preceded Isaiah, and
Exodus preceded Deuteronomy. If it were not so, let an
unbeliever attempt to put these passages in what he considers
the order of time.
Let us proceed with the references in Deuteronomy to the
previous history. Immediately after the writer's brief glance
at the overthrow of Egypt in the Eed Sea, he introduces
another incident, taking one only as an illustration of his text :
' And ye know this day what He did unto you in the wilderness,
until ye came into this place; and what He did unto Dathan and
Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Eeuben : how the earth
opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their house-
holds, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their
possession, in the midst of all Israel ' (Deut. xi. 5, 6). Mani-
festly this is a brief note of facts related at length in the book
of Numbers. And in the same way, the full account of what
befell Miriam is hinted at in Deut. xxiv. 8, 9, as a thini]j
well known and recorded elsewhere : ' Take heed in the
plague of leprosy that thou observe diligently, and do according
to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you : as I com-
manded them, so ye shall observe to do. Eemember what the
Lord thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were
come out of Egypt.' One half of this extract refers to the
law ()f leprosy in Leviticus ; the other half to an unhappy
quarrel, w^hich resulted in that plague seizing Miriam. The
former bids us consult a piece of law which some writers say
2 E
434 The Kino dovi of A II- Israel : its Literature,
was then handed down by word of mouth ; the latter sends us
to a piece of history which is allowed to have then been in
writing. A distinction, which we have not the slightest reason
to think ever existed, is thus drawn between two closely con-
nected things. As well might we say that both pieces were
in writing, as that one was written while the other was not.
If both were in writing, and that seems too simple a conclu-
sion to be refused, then it will be extremely hard to avoid the
farther conclusion, that the whole of the two books of Leviticus
and Numbers were in writing when Deuteronomy was published.
But here comes in a singular distinction. Some of the
passages quoted from Exodus and Numbers are allowed to be
of considerable antiquity ; others are declared to be of the age
of Daniel, but not of the age of Moses. Without demanding
any authority for this splitting of the passages into two kinds
so unlike, we may ask why they are quoted so indiscriminately
and so patly, as if they were taken from the same well-known
written book ? The command to eat the passover in haste is
said to be not older than the Exile ; the command to write the
baseness of Amalek in the book is, it seems, also recent ; and
the same is said of the law of leprosy. The story of Miriam
is said to have been written in David's or Solomon's time,
though, as might be expected, more than half of the story of
Israel's escape from Pharaoh's host is an addition by quite a
recent hand. The position in which a reader of Deuteronomy
is put by this splitting of the events, briefly referred to in the
book, is somewhat singular. Many of them were written
fully out two, or more than two, centuries after the short notes
given in Deuteronomy. The fifth book is thus the oldest
written record for some of these events. Since, then, they
were extended and embellished out of that book, it becomes a
quarry from which solid blocks were hewn to adorn the system
called the Levitical legislation. On the other hand, the
author unquestionably borrowed from older writings. His
book thus becomes a reservoir into which were poured old
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book. 435
words, ancient sayings, bits of history, and scraps of law and
tradition, which filled it up to the level of antiquity. Wlio-
ever can accept a theory leading to these results, is far out of
tlie reach of argument.
We have thus established an intimate relationship between
Deuteronomy and the three preceding books. But the writer
of the former is generally believed to have let words and
things escape from an incautious pen, which betray the fact
that he lived long after the days of Moses. It is well-nigh
impossible for a writer living in one age so to transport him-
self into another, separated from it by several centuries, as to
speak and act like a hero of the earlier time. He has too
many pitfalls to avoid, too many slippery paths to tread on,
and too often to balance his trembling foot on the knife-edge
of a precipice, which may afford escape from one danger by
threatening to hurl him into the abyss of another. Forgers
iKive always to dread the risks of their unhallowed calling.
If the writer of Deuteronomy was one of them, he must have
again and again stumbled into pitfalls and toppled over pre-
cipices. But when these alleged stumbles are examined, the
word-slips really dwindle to a solitary one, and that one a pre-
position, which is found nine times in the book, and only once
in all the other writings ascribed to Moses : ' On this side
Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Bed
Sea.' ' On this side Jordan,' if literally rendered, would read,
* At Jordan crossing,' or ' At Jordan ferry.' But precisely as
in English the words ' at Jordan crossing ' do not indicate the
east or west side of the river, unless the context makes it
clear, so in Hebrew * on this side Jordan ' is an ambiguous
phrase, which requires something added to bring out its real
meaning. The preposition, translated on this side, means east
or west of the river, according to explanations given in tlie
context. Thus, on whatever side of the stream the writer of
the book of Deuteronomy may have been, he uses the word
to express both the east side and tlie west side in two passages
43 6 The Kingdom of All-Isi'ael : its Literatu7^e.
separated by about twenty lines. It means the cast side, as
the context clearly shows, in ' We took at that time out of the
hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on
this side Jordan from the river of Arnon unto Mount Hermon'
(Deut. iii. 8) ; while, speaking of the rest of their countrymen
to the tribes settled on the east side, the same writer imme-
diately after uses it to mark out the west side, though he
himself had not changed his place of writing : ' Until the
Lord have given rest unto your brethren, as well as unto you,
and until they also possess the land which the Lord your God
hath given them beyond Jordan' (Deut. iii. 20). The same
word is used by the same speaker in the same passage, and
without change in his position, for our on the other side or
heyond, and our on this side. There is no escape from this
conclusion. An ambiguous word has, by puzzled critics, been
pressed into the duty of convicting the author of forgery. He
was really, it is said, on the west side of the river. Forgetting
his position, he is imagined to have commenced the book by
writing, ' Beyond Jordan in the wilderness.' Meaning to say
' On this side,' that is, on the east side of Jordan, he forgot
himself, and said, ' Beyond Jordan in the wilderness.' Our
translators, taking pity upon him, concealed his blunder by
making him say in English what he is thought not to have said
in Hebrew, ' On this side Jordan in the wilderness.' On a
point so narrow is the proof of forgery based !
But the w^riter of Deuteronomy was aware of the ambiguity
of this and other words. And he was careful to prevent
that ambiguity from giving trouble, or causing perplexity
to any reader who was willing to learn. In every case which
might be a source of doubt, he defines the side intended.
Sometimes it is done by the phrases, ' Toward the sun-rising,'
and, ' By the way where the sun goeth down.* At other times
the ambiguity is avoided by joining the word to places, which
were too well known to cause mistake to any intelligent
hearer or reader. In the book of Joshua, where the phrase
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book. 437
occurs twelve times with respect to Jordan, and more
frequently than in any other writer, the same means of
avoiding the ambiguity are observed (xii. 1, V). But in four
passages it is not defined, for the meaning is clear without any
qualifying clause. In Deuteronomy only one passage out of
nine is left without definition.^ The meaning of the word in
that case could not be mistaken. It appears, then, that the
conclusion, which would sweep away the vast body of evidence
for the historic reality of the book, is built on the use of a
preposition of ambiguous meaning. Nor is that the worst
which can be said. The preposition in question is never used
in the book without a careful defining of its meaning, except
in one instance, which is too clear to cause the slightest doubt.
Unusual care seems, indeed, to have been taken to guard
against this argument for the theory of a forgery, by the pains
which the speaker or the writer put himself to in defining the
word wherever it was used.
Another passage is frequently quoted as a proof of later
writing than the age of Moses : ' The Horims dwelt in Seir
beforetime ; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when
they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their
stead ; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the
Lord gave unto them ' (Deut. ii. 1 2). The English leaves on
a reader's mind the impression that a considerable time had
elapsed since Israel had conquered the land of his possession.
Nine Hebrew words contain, or are believed to contain, this
idea in its fullest extent. Even though this were true, it
might be but a proof of editing by a loving disciple, not the
handiwork of the first author. For these nine words hang
loose from the rest of the text, and can be separated without
the slightest injury to the life of the passage. But the
1 The passages expressly defined are — Deut. i. 1, 5 ; iii. 8, 25 ; iv. 41, 46, 47 ;
xi. 30 ; Josh. i. 15 ; ii. 10 ; v. 1 ; ix. 1, 10 ; xii. 1, 7 ; xiii. 8 : and those un-
defined are— Deut. iii. 20 ; Josh. i. 14 ; vii. 7 ; xxii. 4 ; xxiv. 8. Bleek's (Well-
hausen's) treatment of the phrase, § 19 (81), shows how completely the meaning
Jias been missed through dogmatic prejudice.
43^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature.
Hebrew text does not warrant the English translation. The
phrase ' land of his possession * is used not of Western
Palestine, which Joshua conquered after Moses' death, but of
the kingdom of Sihon and Og, which Moses himself con-
quered in the last year of his life (Deut. iii. 20 ; Josh. i. 15,
xii. 6). Most justly, therefore, might the lawgiver use the
phrase in his last speech to the people. But the descendants
of Esau were dwelling at that time in the land which their
fathers won from the Horims. Accordingly the words ought
to be rendered, in accordance with the genius of the Hebrew
tongue : ' And the children of Esau are dwelling in their stead,
as Israel is doing unto the land of his possession, which the
Lord has given unto them.' The context proves the accuracy
of this rendering. * Behold,' it is said a few lines afterwards
(Deut. ii. 24), 'I have given into thine hand Sihon the
Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land : hcgin ; possess.' The
beginning of the conquest is the point insisted on by the
writer of Deuteronomy, not its completion, of which he could
have known nothing. There is thus nothing in the passage
which Moses himself may not have written during his own
lifetime.
Attempts have been made to establish a most damaging
discrepancy between the passover of Exodus (xii. 1-51) and
that of Deuteronomy (xvi. 1-8). While the latter is sup-
posed to tell the real truth, the former is regarded as a
dressed-up story, invented many generations later. But
Josiah is also believed to have followed the rules laid down
in Deuteronomy, when he kept the great passover of his
reign (2 Kings xxiii. 21—23). In that case the manifestly
incomplete law which he used could have stood him in little
stead as a guide to a correct observance of the feast. On
almost every point he must have been at a loss what to
do. And his terror, lest he should commit a breach of any-
thing * written in the book of this covenant,' was too sincere
to allow of liberties being taken by way of supplementing its
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book, 439
numerous omissions. All this is overlooked in eacferness to
work out a theory of word-slips similar to those already con-
sidered. The writer of Deuteronomy regards the passover as
a seven days' feast, beginning, as the Hebrew day began,
at sunset on the fourteenth day of Abib. Unleavened bread
only could be eaten during the week ; but the paschal lamb
was the first and the greatest, though not the only sacrifice
offered. Other victims from the flock and the herd were
slain. Express mention is made of them in two feasts, of
which records have been preserved (2 Chron. xxx. 17, xxxv.
7, 8, 9, 13). They were called ' passovers,' or 'passover
offerings,' a word which occurs in the plural only four times,
and never refers to the paschal lamb. Thousands of bullocks
were thus offered, and more thousands of sheep. Parts of
these victims were burned on the altar; parts were boiled
and eaten by priests and people. The paschal lamb with
which the feast began could only be roasted ; ' the passovers '
might be and were boiled ; the former required to be a lamb
or a kid, the latter might be oxen as well. Deuteronomy
tells the same story as Chronicles. The extreme brevity of
the narrative unhappily leaves uncertainty on the meaning,
but no uncertainty on its historical accuracy. ' Observe the
month of Abib,' it says, ' and keep passover to the Lord
thy God,' employing the usual phrase, and not adding the
article tlie, though it is inserted in our English version.
Then the law-book proceeds: 'Thou shalt sacrifice [a]
passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd :
thou shalt eat no leavened bread upon it; seven days
shalt thou eat unleavened bread upon it' (Deut. xvi. 1-3).
The paschal lamb was all eaten on the first night of the feast..,
Xone of it was left till the morning. Unleavened bread
could not, therefore, be eaten on it for seven days ; but thatii
bread could be eaten on ' the passovers,' as the other sacri-
fices of the feast were called, or on ' a passover of the flock
and the herd,' according to the law quoted above. The dis-
440 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
tinction thus drawn between the paschal lamb, slain and
eaten at the beginning of the feast, and ' the passovers,'
or paschal offerings slain during the whole week, enables us to
understand what would otherwise be perplexing.
The next section of the passover law in Deuteronomy is
made by Bishop Colenso to say what it does not say.
* Deuteronomy orders that they shall hoil the passover,' he
writes, ' instead of eating it, roast with fire, as it is expressly
ordered in Exodus.'^ Boiling the passover, instead of roast-
ing it, is a most serious view to take. The word is regarded
as a slip, or a leakage, which reveals a truth that would other-
wise be unknown. But both Bishop Colenso and those from
whom he quotes have assumed the accuracy of their own
statement without regarding the original. The writer of
Deuteronomy says no such thing. Whether the word used
by him means toil, as it generally does, or I'oast, as it does
once at least (2 Chron. xxxv. 13), is not of the smallest con-
sequence. He does not say what his critics charge him with
saying. His words are : ' There thou shalt sacrifice the pass-
over (the article is used) at even, at the going down of the
sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. And
thou shalt boil \or roast] and eat in the place which the Lord
shall choose ; and thou shalt turn in the morning and go unto
thy tents.' Not a word is said about what they were to boil
and eat. The Greek translation, made about 250 B.C., might
have kept these critics from falling into this blunder. It
shows the full meaning of the word which they insist on
rendering hoil, and avoids the mistake of limiting the thing
eaten to the paschal lamb. ' Thou shalt boil,' it says, ' and
roast, and eat,' but it adds no more. By it, as well as by the
Hebrew, the whole boiling and eating of, it may be, thousands
of sheep and oxen during the feast are clearly embraced
in the brief statement made. If not, the next clause, ' Thou
shalt turn in the morning and go unto thy tents,' is un-
1 Part vi. 413-419.
Deuteronomy : Antiquity of the Book, 441
intelligible, for the words clearly point to the end of the
seven days' feast. Sorely pressed by this difficulty, the
Bishop gives up his case by representing ' the whole body of
Israelites present, killing, boiling, and eating the Hesh of the
victims together in the Temple Court, feasting all night, and
" returning to their tents," i.e. to their homes or lodgings, " in
the mornins." ' If this scene had been a fact, and not a
sketch from fancy, there would have been no need for debates
on the historical character of the Pentateuch. Fortunately
the fires, the pots, the pans, the night feast continued till
morning in the temple court, are creatures of the imagina-
tion.
Among the greater slips or forgeries which the advocates
of the new theory profess to have discovered are, first, the
law of the central altar, at which alone acceptable sacrifice
could be offered (Deut. xii. 1-32); and second, the law of the
king (Deut. xvii. 14-20). A central altar is held to be in flat
contradiction to the history as it unfolded itself in the seven
centuries from Moses to Hezekiah. A thing, which w^as im-
possible at the beginning of these centuries, came within the
sphere of practical statecraft at the end. Gradually, too, as it
is said, there arose the idea that by no other means could the
nation be saved from heathenism and ruin — a conclusion
which few, save the initiated, can see any reason for drawing
from the facts of history. Such, however, is the theory.
Zion is not mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy. It is,
however, said to be referred to. Some of the critics regard
the references to it as beyond reasonable doubt. But they
overlook one fact. Ebal and Gerizim are named in the
book: why should not the author have named Jerusalem
also ? No reason can be assigned for this silence, except his
ignorance of the place which the city was destined to fill in
the nation's annals. To ascribe it to design, is to make his
guilt in attempting to deceive the people double-dyed. And
between i^^norance and design there is here no alternative.
442 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its Liter at iii^e.
The former is a proof of his truthfuhiess ; the latter is
evidence of fraud practised under the guise of virtue.
Those who refuse to recognise in the central altar of Solomon
a revival of a thing which once flourished in Israel, but had
been fallen from for a season, explain a lesser difficulty by
shutting their eyes on others much greater. It is their first duty
to face the proof already given of the acquaintance shown by
Samuel with the very passages in Deuteronomy, which they
affirm were the growth of later feeling and a later age.
By laying a false foundation we may build the facts of history
into a flimsy structure ; but when building on a sound
foundation, we often find facts which seem too angular to fit
in with other regularly-squared stones. Advocates of the
forgery theory are, at the outset, in the former case, unless
they rebut the evidence adduced to show Samuel's acquaint-
ance with the fifth book of Moses. If that evidence is beyond
reasonable dispute, we are in the latter case. In other words,
the task before them resolves itself into attempting the impos-
sible ; that before their opponents is nothing more serious
than the removal of, it may be, a historical difficulty. Every
historian has to face in his narrative things which he cannot
account for, or set in a proper light, while he is certain that
half a dozen lines from a dead actor in the great drama,
or from a now for ever silent speaker, would completely
resolve the puzzle. The want of a few words has given
birth to volumes, and even to libraries, of learned writing,
as worthless as much of the paper with which Omar
allowed the baths of Alexandria to be heated, when his
generals asked directions about the literary treasures of its
famous library.
It is possible, however, to trace still farther in the language
of the book of Samuel the influence of words and ideas from
the Deuteronomic law of the central altar. While the
former fills above one hundred pages, and was written in 980
B.C., the latter covers a couple of pages, and was composed
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book. 443
in 1450 B.C. The influence of the two pages on the hundred
pages does not seem to admit of doubt.
Deut. xii. 12. ■ 2 Sam. xx. 1.
{Laio of central altar.) Sheba-ben-Bichri blew a trumpet,
The Levite that is within your and said, We have no part in David,
gates ; forasmuch as he hath no part neither have we inheritance in the sou
nor inheritance with you. of Jesse : every man to his tents, 0
Israel.
The peculiarity in this case is that the Pentateuch and
Samuel are the only books which contain the phrase no 'part
nor inheritance} Manifestly the writer of the one repeated a
saying first published by the other. But Sheba-ben-Bichri
was quoting something very well known to his followers,
while he was giving it more force by infusing into it a little
of his own, adapted to the times. When he added, ' Every
man to his tents, 0 Israel,' he was again quoting a form of
speech found for the first time in the book of Deuteronomy.
The indebtedness of Sheba to the fifth book of Moses is at
least made probable from his use of these two phrases.
Deut. xii. 15. 1 Sam. xxiii. 20.
{Law of central altar.) And now, according to all desire of
Thou mayest (kill) sacrifice and eat thy soul, 0 king, to come down, come,
flesh in all thy gates, with all desire of and our part shall be to deliver him
thy soul. iiito the king's hand.
' All desire of the soul ' is a phrase w^hich occurs only five
times altogether in the Old Testament, — three times in the
central altar law, once in another related passage of Deuteronomy
(the law of the Levites), and once in Samuel. Other two
places have the unusual word for desire (Hos. x. 1 0 ; Jer. ii.
24). The evidence of borrowing in Samuel from Deuteronomy
increases when several phrases and sayings are brought together
in this way. One singular w^ord or phrase might be refused,
if it stood alone ; but when it is strengthened by others, the
circumstantial evidence rapidly assumes the dimensions of a
1 See Gen. xxxi. 14; Num. xviii. 20. Similar passages are— Josh, xviii. 7,
xxii. 25, 27 ; 1 Kings xii. 16 ; 2 Chron. x. 16.
444 ^/^^ Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literattire.
demonstration. The corresponding verb to this noun dedre is
more frequently read, but even with it there is something
peculiar in tlie two books.
Deut. xii. 20. 1 Sam. ii. 16, 12.
{Law of central altar.) If any man said unto him, Let them
When thou shalt say I will eat flesh, not fail to burn the fat presently, and
because thy soul desireth (longeth) to take as thy soul desireth.
eat flesh ; with all desire of thy soul [In 2 Sam. iii. 21, 'Whatsoever thy
thou mayest eat flesh. soul desireth ' is from Deut. xiv. 26.]
There is one reference in the second passage quoted above
from Samuel, which, though it has no bearing on the central
altar law, shows unmistakeable indebtedness to Deuteronomy.
It helps materially to strengthen the argument. When the
treacherous Ziphites proposed to betray David to Saul, ' our
part,' they said, ' shall be to deliver him into the king's hand.'
AVe can best understand their wickedness by turning to Nabal's
words (1 Sam. xxv. 10): 'There be many servants now-a-
days that break away every man from his master,' and
comparing them with the law of the fugitive (Deut. xxiii. 15) :
' Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is
escaped from his master unto thee.' Saul was an over-lord or
master; David was his servant (1 Sam. xxii. 8). Bythe law-book
it was forbidden to deliver up the fugitive to his superior. Bad-
hearted though Nabal was, he did not attempt to break this
law. But the Ziphites set it at defiance. The words of the
law, ' to deliver unto his master,' are almost the same as those
used by the treacherous villagers, to deliver him into tlie king's
hand. The historian's purpose clearly is to bring into a strong
light the black-heartedness of these people towards the
innocent fugitive. Not only did they veil treachery under the
guise of friendly hospitality, but they also violated a well-
known and most kindly law of their great legislator. For
Hebrew law forbade the delivering up of political refugees to
their master. The treaty entered into between Eameses ii. of
Egypt and the great king of the Hittites, during or not long
before the time of Moses, made special arrangements for the
DetUero7ioviy : Antiquity of the Book. 445
surrender of these fugitives. The Pentateuch seems as if it
condemned the arrangements.
With these similarities of word and phrase before us, it is
comparatively an easy task to meet the historical difficulty
connected with the central altar law of Deuteronomy. That it
may not be under-estimated, we shall state it in the words of
a school which places it in the strongest possible light. ' It
is quite certain,' they say, * that Samuel, with all his zeal for
Jehovah, made no attempt to bring back this scattered worship
to forms of legal orthodoxy. He continued to sacrifice at a
variety of shrines, and his yearly circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and
Mizpah, returning to Eamah, involved the recognition of all
these altars (1 Sam. x. 3 ; xi. 15 ; vii. 6, 9 ; ix. 12).' The
scattered worship referred to is thus described : ' On every
occasion of national importance the people assemble and do
service at some local sanctuary, as at Mizpah (1 Sam. vii. 6,
9), or at Gilgal (x. 8 ; xi. 15 ; xiii. 4, 9, etc.). The seats
of authority are sanctuaries, Eamah, Bethel, Gilgal (vii.
16, 17, comp. X. 3), Beersheba (viii. 2, comp. Amos v. 5, viii.
14), Hebron (2 Sam. ii. 1, xv. 12). Saul builds altars
(1 Sam. xiv. 35). Samuel can make a dangerous visit most
colourably by visiting a local sanctuary like Bethlehem with
an offering in his hand (1 Sam. xvi.) ; and in some of these
places there are annual sacrificial feasts (1 Sam. xx. 6). At
the same time the ark is settled on the hill (Gibeah) at
Kirjath-jearim, where Eleazar-ben-Abinadab was consecrated
its priest (1 Sam. vii. 1). The priests of the house of Eli
were at Nob, where there was a regular sanctuary with shew-
bread, and no less than eighty-five priests wearing a linen
ephod (1 Sam. xxii. 18).'^ These are the principal statements
to be considered. They involve an assumption, which is
expressly disallowed in the history. It is, that wherever an
1 Bleek, § 62, (124), and Graf, G. B. 31, 32, state the difficulty more care-
fully. And Bishop Colenso (Part vii. 129) is also clearer. The (quotation iu
the text is from Smith, 0. T., p. 261.
44^ Tlie Kingdom of All- Israel: its Lite^^ature,
altar is mentioned, a sacrifice was offered. But an altar was
allowed to be built as a memorial, and ' not for burnt-offering
nor for sacrifice' (Josh. xxii. 26). How often this was done
is now unknown. However, the fact is beyond dispute ; and
it is a fact which deprives of much of its force the reasoning
based on some parts of the history.
Words and phrases are used in these two extracts to which
no definite meaning can be attached. If the sanctuary spoken
of as existing at Nob was a regular sanctuary, some or all of
the others previously spoken of may have been irregular. No
other meaning can be given to the use of the word. But in
that case the theory itself is surrendered by its own advocates,
for they recognise no distinction of the kind. Eleazar is also
said to have been consecrated as priest of the ark. The
authority given for this view is : ' The men of Kirjath-jearim
sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord.'
Not a word is uttered about priest or priest's office in this
passage. On the contrary, ' to keep the charge,' or ' to keep
the keeping ' of, is a phrase used of Levites as well as priests.
' Their charge,' or ' their keeping shall be the ark,' is specially
said of the Kohathite Levites. ' To keep the ark ' can not
be twisted into meaning ' to be made a priest.' Were that
the case, the townsfolk of Kirjath-jearim, which was neither a
priestly nor a Levitical city, exercised the right of making men
X^riests. With the same readiness to overlook the meaning
of words, Hebron is pronounced a sanctuary like Bethel,
apparently because Absalom ' sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite,
.David's counsellor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he
offered sacrifices.' Absalom seems to have been the sacrificer,
and Hebron the place, though Bishop Colenso considers Giloh
the place and xihithopliel the offerer (vii. 129, 135). But
however that point may be decided, the words, ' he sacrificed
sacrifices,' do not mean the peace-offerings or atoning sacrifices
of the temple service. * He slaughtered beasts for a feast ' is
clearly the meaning, which the circumstances of Absalom
D enter oiiomy : Antiquity of the Book. 447
require the words to bear. He hcxd taken two hundred chief
men from Jerusalem with him ; people were pouring in on
all sides ; and a great feast was a necessity at the beginning
of a new reign. Absalom was slaughtering cattle and sheep
for his guests and partisans. He is said to have sacrificed
sacrifices, a phrase which is borrowed here and elsewhere
in Samuel from the law of a central altar laid down in
Deuteronomy. Adonijah at a later period imitated this
proceeding of his rebel brother. Like him, he ' sacrificed,'
that is, slew * sheep and oxen ' for a kingly feast at Zoheleth.
Deuteronomic words and laws meet us at every step we take
in this inquiry, compelling the recognition of that book as an
older piece of writing than Samuel or any section of the
Kings. Absalom was not acting the part of priest at Hebron.
He was aping the king in entertaining at a coronation feast
the crowds who were flocking to his support. Sacrificing of
popular sacrifices was allowed by law in these circumstances
in any corner of the land. But even though Absalom be
thought to have assumed the office of priest, nothing is proved.
He was not acting lawfully in a single step he took. He was
engaged in the wickedest undertaking ever set on foot.
Although he began by sanctifying his crimes with a show of
religious zeal, we cannot learn from his hypocrisy what the
true religion of the land really was. He pleased the worst and
the most unsteady of the people. He did not please the wisest
and the best. Hebron, then, has not been shown to be * a
local sanctuary,' if by that term be meant a corner of the land
in which acceptable priestly sacrifices could be offered.
The proof given for regarding Beersheba as an authorized
local sanctuary also breaks down on a closer examination.
The witness-texts quoted in support have nothing to say in
the case. At Bethlehem, again, a sacrifice was held by the
Prophet SamueL But no attempt is made to discover the
nature of the sacrifice. Was it a priestly sacrifice — a burnt-
offering or a peace-offering ? As a feast followed, it may have
44^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Litei^atiire.
been the latter ; it could scarcely have been the former. Or
was it a popular sacrifice in the same sense as Absalom's
sacrifices and Adonijah's ? The law of the central altar
expressly allowed this kind to be slain in any part of the land.
By distinguishing priestly or atoning sacrifices from popular or
festive, as the lawgiver did, we put ourselves back in the
position of men who lived in Samuel's time, and may see with
their eyes, if we will but hear with their ears. David's
family had a sacrifice in Bethlehem perhaps every year. We
have no right to regard it as other than popular, a victim slain
for a family feast, and eaten according to the rules laid down
in the central altar law. All these offerings, whether atoning
or festive, had a sacredness thrown round them which is seen
in the law-book, and in the necessity of sanctifying the
celebrants. But this sanctifying must not be pressed too far.
When it is mentioned for the first time, it obviously refers to
very simple things, such as the laying aside of all work, and
the putting on of holiday attire : ' Moses sanctified the people,
and they washed their clothes.' The central altar law, then,
allowed these popular sacrifices at Hebron, at Bethlehem, and
at any town or village. But it never exalted them to the
dignity of atoning offerings presented on the national altar at
Shiloh, at Nob, or before the ark. This distinction between
priestly and popular sacrifices is neither new nor doubtful.
It has always been acknowledged. Of late years, however, it
seems to have been overlooked, and the part which it plays
in the history has been lost sight of. We shall return to it
more fully in our discussion of the divisions in the priestly
tribe.
The reference to Saul's altars is of no value in this inquiry.
As the ark was with him when he built the first and only
one of his altars, with which we are acquainted, his act was
justifiable. Sacrifice in its highest form could also have been
offered in strictest agreement with the law, for the high
priest was at his side. But it is impossible to say what the
DeiUerononiy : Antiqidty of the Book, 449
altar which he then built was really intended for. Victims
were slain beside it which were used for a feast and a feast
only. There is nothing to show that any other victims were
then slain or offered. Priestly or atoning sacrifices are merely
inferred because an altar is mentioned. But there is <40od
ground for disputing this large inference from a word, this
filling up of a blank in the history from our own imagination.
We now return to the first of the extracts given above ; apart
from it, the second yields nothing sure or definite.
Samuel, it is said, sacrificed at a variety of shrines, and
recognised the altars at Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpeh, and Ramah.
Five references are given in proof. The first and the third ^
say nothing whatever about sacrifice or altar. "VYe dismiss
them as yielding no result. The second says, ' He sacrificed
sacrifices of peace-offerings before the Lord in Gilgal ; ' the
fourth gives ' a burnt-offering,' with the phrase ' before the
Lord ' supplied ; and the fifth recounts a sacrificial feast ; but
whether the sacrifice was priestly or popular cannot be deter-
mined. The evidence for many altars, many shrines, many
sacrifices, is thus seen to shrivel up into small dimensions.
Nor is that all. However liglitly the phrase 'before the
Lord ' may be skipped over, it may carry with it a meaning
destructive of the whole theory. If it be equal to ' before the
ark,' the great condition of allowable sacrifice may have been
satisfied, and the theory under review suffers a serious if not
a total eclipse.
Without adventuring into the region of what may be called
conjecture by one side and historical fact by the other, let it
be considered here to what poor support the theory has now
been reduced. Nothing is known to be certainly in its
favour except two instances of peace-offerings and burnt-
offerings presented by Samuel at Gilgal and Mizpeh. A
sacrifice by Jesse or Samuel at Bethlehem, or at Eamah by
^ 'They drew water, and poured it out before the Lord.' See 2 Sam. xx.'.ii. 16,
when David poured out water ' unto the Lord.'
2 F
450 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Lito^atui^e.
Samuel, or even at Hebron by Absalom, was not an infringe-
ment of the central altar law so far as history informs us.
Special provision was made by that law for a certain kind
of sacrifice at any spot in Palestine. We may even go
further. Hebrew law did, in this respect, precisely the same
thing as the custom of other nations allowed or enjoined.
* In Italy,' says Mommsen, ' as everywhere among agricultural
tribes whose ordinary food consists of vegetables, the slaughter of
cattle formed at once a household feast and an act of worship.'^
A family feast in Bethlehem, or Eamah, or anywhere, thus
became a sacrifice as well, and was so spoken of. But priestly
offerings were unquestionably presented at Gilgal and Mizpeh
in several cases. These examples also suggest the prevalence
of a custom. They seem to justify the belief that priestly
sacrifices were offered generally in many places. Even
though this large inference be admitted, the peculiar phrase
used in these two cases must not be overlooked, ' Before the
Lord.' In our ignorance of those days, we may fall into the
mistake of Amias Poulet with Mary of Scotland, if we build
a theory on our own imperfect knowledge. Writing to Secre-
tary Walsingham, that stern gaoler of the poor queen says :
' Curie's child remaining unchristened, and the priest removed
before the arrival of this lady, she desired that my minister
might baptize the child, . . . which being refused, she came
shortly after into Curie's wife's chamber, where, laying the
child on her knees, she took water out of a basin, and casting
it on the face of the child, she said, " I baptize thee in the
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," calling the
child by her own name, Mary. This may not be found strange
in her who maketh no conscience to break all laws of God and
man.'"^ Mary was justified by the law of her Church in doing
as she did. If Sir Amias, then, in an England not thirty
years escaped from the power of Eome, was so imperfectly
' Hhit. Bk. I. xii. p. 180.
' Morrice, The Lttter-Boolcs of Sir Amias Poulet, p. 276,
Deuteronomy: Aniiqitiiy of iJic Book. 451
acquainted with its law, we who are writing and speaking of a
very briefly recorded past, more tlian three thousand years
since, may write and speak of laws tlien existing with equal
confidence and equal ignorance.
The utmost, then, which results from these sacrifices of
Samuel is a doubt in our minds, which we have not now the
means of satisfactorily removing. And in this view of the
matter we are confirmed by the handling it receives from a
later writer, who admittedly knew the law of the central
altar, and who regarded the neglect of that law as the chief
cause of the nation's ruin. We refer to the author of the
books of the Kings. Writing of Jehoshaphat, he says : ' He
walked in all the way of Asa his father (he turned not aside
from it), doing the right in the eyes of the Lord ; nevertheless,
the high places were not taken away ; the people offered and
burned incense yet in the high places' (1 Kings xxii. 43).
This passage overflows with Deuteronomy. ' To do the right
in the eyes of Jehovah ' occurs only twice elsewhere in the
Bible in the form in which it appears here (Deut. xiii. 18 ;
2 Chron. xx. 32) : the original passage is in the fifth book of
Moses. ' To walk in his ways ' is a similar phrase.^ And a
tliird thing in the verse quoted from the Kings is the burning
of incense by the people, a priestly duty which Samuel is never
said to have discharged. The worship of the people on the high
places was a revival of that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
We are not at liberty to call it idolatry, at least in this
instance. The people professed to worship Jehovah, even as
these wilderness rebels had professed to do. But the burning
of incense by the , ]Deople and by Korah's company was a
usurpation of the priests' office. Sacrifice might have been
liable to a misunderstanding. A law-breaker might have
pretended to offer a popular sacrifice on a high place, when he
was really offering a priestly or atoning sacrifice ; but the
burning of incense was the usurpation of a priestly and
^ 1 Kings viii. 58 is a Guotation from Deut. x. 12 or xi. 22.
452 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its L iterature,
specially reserved right, wliicli lie could not explain away.
Nor is Samuel ever said to have exercised the right. This
silence of the historian is remarkable ; for the only passages
in the prophet's life which make mention of incense, assign
the offering of it to the sons of the high priest. The contrast
between Samuel and the people in Jehoshaphat's reign, in
regard to this right of the priests, is too clear not to convey
an obvious meaning. The people were usurping the priests'
office, as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram did. Samuel was
following the example of Moses, as the circumstances of his
time, without farther reason, entitled him to do.
In the passage quoted above the writer of the Kings con-
demns worship on high places. But about ten pages before he
records a great sacrifice on a high place. He speaks of it as
one of the greatest acts of worship ever held. It was trans-
acted in sight of king, nobles, and people. It was sealed with
the approval of heaven in ways wondrous and most unusual.
And it was so overpowering in its effects on all who were
witnesses of the scene, that, while many assisted at the death
of 450 court favourites, not one seems to have made an
effort to save their lives. But the author of the history
recounts this amazing scene — this violation, so to speak, of
the central altar law — almost in the same breath with his
repeated condemnation of worsliip on high places. He was
well acquainted with that law. Times without number he
quotes the book in which it is found. His w^hole writing is
incensed with the charm of its words and its thoughts. To
say that he condemns breaches of this law as the cause of his
country's ruin, and yet exalted one of them as among the
greatest acts of acceptable worship ever offered, is to pronounce
him uncommonly foolish. But he was neither foolish nor
ignorant. The ignorance is on our side, not on his. Having
the life of Samuel and the law of the central altar both
before him, he knew perfectly what we may discover
only in part, that the prophet was as well aware of that
DeiUeronomy : Antiqitity of the Book, 453
law as we are. And what was true of Samuel was true also
of Elijah.
Put the case now in its most favourable light for the new
theory. Allow that Samuel did offer priestly sacrifices at
Gilgal and Mizpeh ; allow also that the offerer was Samuel
himself, and not a priest carrying out his orders ; allow
further, that ' before the Lord ' has no special meaning in these
cases, and that the ark was not then with the Hebrew people.
These are large concessions. No one can ask more, and no
one is warranted in granting so much. But even then the case
is not one whit the worse for the legislation in Deuteronomy.
Shiloh had been laid desolate with a desolation which men
regarded then and for ages afterwards, as the curse of heaven
on the place. Nob, though the choice of the priests, had never
been generally reckoned a seat of the central altar, and seems
never to have been a residence of the ark. Samuel is nowhere
said to have visited it, or to have sanctioned the priests' choice,
or in any way to have indicated approval of the place. Had
he shown a disposition to treat Nob as a second Shiloh, it is
incredible that he should have allowed the ark to remain at
Kirjath while the tabernacle was pitched at Nob. A fact so
singular indicates a purpose. Nob was not designed to be a
second Shiloh: it was not to be a seat of the central altar.
While Samuel goes in yearly circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and
Mizpeh ; while his own home is at Kamah ; while he directs
the chosen king to repair to Gilgal, and then summons the
people to meet at Mizpeh, there is not one word allowed to
fall from him which would even seem to countenance Nob.
Nor does he appear turning aside a mile or two from the
straight road to visit either Nob or the tabernacle. The silence
is remarkable. Annual feasts and annual gatherings were
held at Shiloh in Samuel's childhood ; at Gilgal and at Mizpeh
he held national gatherings in his manhood and in his old age ;
but Nob is carefully shunned, as if it were a place designedly
omitted from his thoughts and his life. The new theory gives
454 ^'^^^ Kingdom of All-Israel : its Liter attune.
110 explanation of this remarkable silence. Its advocates see
the dislocation in the history, but pass it by on the other side.
To us, who regard the central law as having then been in
existence, these facts cause no difficulty. Shiloh w^as become
a curse ; ISTob was not recognised ; the high priest's family
was doomed to shame ; the whole Levitical system was in a
state of suspended animation. That system may be said to
have been in some respects abrogated for the time. Israel was
somewhat in the same position as in the days of the Maccabees,
nine centuries afterwards — the temple profaned, the altar
polluted, the ever-burning lamps gone out, the law trodden
under foot ; and in both cases the Hebrews looked for the
same way of escape from surrounding dangers : they were
w^aiting till a prophet arose, who should tell them w^hat to do.
Samuel, the prophet, indicated to his countrymen the path of
duty. He showed them that they must fall back on the
patriarchal w^orship of their forefathers, till they learned more
fully what should be done for the revival of the Levitical
system. With the Maccabees events shaped themselves more
quickly and more in agreement with the ancient law. Time
unfolding itself was their prophet ; for no Samuel arose to guide
their footsteps, eagerly though they prayed for a prophet to
come to their help. On one point even time failed to be a
faiide. The ever-burnim:? flame of the candlestick and the
altar had gone out in the desecrated temple ; how should they
re-light the fire ? An answer to this question must be found
before the temple worship could again proceed. We are told
of the w^ay of deliverance from this perplexity ; w^e cannot
doubt the reality of the story. ' Having cleansed the temple,
they made another altar ; and striking stones, they took lire
out of them, and offered sacrifice after two years, and set
forth incense, and lights, and shewbread ' (2 Mace. x. 3).
Where a prophet was wanting, common sense was present.
But in Samuel's time there were both prophet and common
sense. Each of them said : Fall back on the worship of
D enter 0710 my : Antiquity of the Book, 455
patriarchal times, so far as places of sacrifice are concerned,
till events determine what more must be done. Or both of
them said : Revert to the wilderness worship before the
wandering ark, and the ever-shifting brazen altar. Samuel's
burnt-offerings and peace-offerings are explained and justified
on these elementary principles. But he never offered the
incense, which it was death for any save a son of Aaron to go
in and offer to God ; while, in striking contrast to this, the
re-lighting of the altar fire in the days of the Maccabees was
immediately followed by the ' setting forth of incense.'
Under the Levitical law there was thus a dispensing power,
of which the existence has been unreasonably denied. In
several well-known cases we see it in operation, once by
direct command, and frequently by a breach of law having
been condoned. The first case was the permission to observe
passover in the second month instead of the first. Here the
dispensing power was directly exercised by God, and after-
wards taken advantage of by Hezekiah (Num. ix. 9-14 ;
2 Chron. xxx. 2). The second example was more singular.
Aaron, the high priest, exercised a dispensing power in his
own case without consulting Moses, who, indignant at first,
cooled down on hearing his brother's reason, and allowed the
justice of his procedure (Lev. x. 16-20). In the same way
the dispensing power must have been exercised, /?'s^, when
the rite of circumcision was not performed during the wilder-
ness wanderings ; next, when the passover was celebrated in
Canaan, at Gilgal, by Joshua; and again, when Eahab was
exempted with all her kindred from the doom of her heathen
people (Josh. v. 5-10 ; vi. 17). Ahimelech, the high priest,
also exercised the power, in special circumstances, of giving
David bread which none but priests were allowed to eat.
Mercy, and not judgment, was the ground of this action. But
a dispensing power once admitted, as it must be, explains the
sacrifices of Gideon and Manoah, of Samuel and Elijah. It
permitted them to fall back on the simpler worship of the
45 6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature.
earliest times. Of its existence in more recent days there is
abundant evidence. At first the patriots, who fled from the
Syrian persecution in 168 B.C., refused to engage in battle or
to defend themselves on the Sabbath. Many valuable lives
were lost, and the nation itself would have been ruined by
this mistaken obedience to the law had not the error been
seen and rectified. In the same way Judith, in her speech to
Holofernes, exhibits very plainly the views current at perhaps
an earlier time. Speaking of her own people, she said : ' Their
victuals fail them, and all their water is scant, and they have
determined to lay hands on their cattle, and purposed to con-
sume all those things that God hath forbidden them to eat by
His laws ; and are resolved to consume the first-fruits of the
corn, and the tenths of wine and oil, which they had sanctified
and reserved for the priests that serve in Jerusalem before the
face of our God : the which things it is not lawful for any of
the people so much as to touch with their hands ; for they
have sent to Jerusalem, because they also which dwell there
have done the like, to bring them a licence from the senate '
(Judith xi. 12-14). What they called a licence, we are
speaking of as a dis'pensing power.
We now come to the law of the king (Deut. xvii. 14-20).
It forbids the people to choose a foreigner to that office. It
also forbids the king chosen to trust on or to imitate Egypt,
to multiply wives to himself, or to foiget ' the book of this
law.' By the advocates of the new theory, these regulations
are held to be at variance with the story of Saul's election by
Samuel. They are also said to be a fancy picture of the true
king, in contrast to the picture painted by history of what
Solomon was as a bad king, when he fell away from the
ancient faith. That fancy sketch is said to have been drawn
for the people in this forged book of Deuteronomy about
700 B.C. A popular history of the reign of Solomon is thus
assumed to have then been in circulation among the Hebrews,
ages before the present book of the Kings was published.
D enter onoiny : Antiquity of the Book. 457
What that history was no one knows. No trace of it exists.
The theory, then, is tliis : Three centuries after Solomon's
death, a prophet is thought to have written an ideal law-book
of the kingdom, taken from the blunders and follies of his
court as they were known in a now unknown popular history.
He ascribed it to a lawgiver five centuries earlier than
Solomon, and counted on the world believing his novel or
forgery a sober piece of law, intended for the guidance of
Hebrews long before a king reigned in their country. Many
critics accept this theory. Some even decline to allow in the
writer of the book an intention to deceive his readers. They
say his object was good and innocent. But the intention
cannot be denied without denying the use and the meaning of
words. Acceptance of the theory seems to be one thing here,
belief in it another. Before it had been heard of on the
Continent, and long before it crossed over into Britain, Cole-
ridge had weighed it in the balances of common sense, never
dreaming in the possibility of the theory being given to his
countrymen as a philosophy of Hebrew history. * One
striking proof of the genuineness of the Mosaic books is this,'
he said ; ' they contain precise prohibitions, by way of pre-
dicting the consequences of disobedience, of all those things
which David and Solomon actually did and gloried in doing
— raising cavalry, making a treaty with Egypt, laying up
treasure, and polygamizing. Now, would such prohibitions
have been fabricated in those kings' reigns, or afterwards ?
Impossible !'^
The ground of the alleged opposition between this law of
the king and Saul's election to the throne, does not lie in the
language of the two pieces, but in the thing itself. For the
words and ideas found in the story of the people asking a king
from Samuel are words and ideas peculiar to Deuteronomy.
The similarity between the two is surprising. All thinkers
now recognise this fact. But some of them believe that the
1 TahU Talk, p. 79.
45 S The Kingdom of All-Israel: its Literature,
real book of Samuel, the first edition copy, did not show this
similarity in language. Slowly they began to adopt the idea
that a late reviser had tampered with the original book of
Samuel, and by adding words and phrases in a number of
places, had produced in a very late second edition the similarity
we now observe. Beginning with small researches of this
kind, they have recently extended their discoveries to an
alarming degree. Verses, sections, and even a whole chapter
are branded as a reviser's work of addition. What his work
of subtraction may have been the world can never discover
now. A criticism which bases extraordinary historical results
on a theory so far beyond the reach of proof is satisfactory,
inasmuch as it brings its own conclusions into ridicule. No
fault, then, can be found with the lanmiacje of the law of
the king in Deuteronomy. Exception is taken only to the
fact.
Let us, however, take a somewhat broader view of the law.
If it really was given about 1450 B.C., while a king was not
chosen till 1100 B.C., something would probably happen in
the interval to bridge across that wide gap, displaying a
knowledge of the law in the life and speech of the people.
Moses himself is called a king in the law-book, and he exer-
cised all a king's duties without parading any of his outward
state. His successor, Joshua, was also a king in everything
but the name. From his death onward, no trace of the law
is discernible till we come to the judgeship of Gideon, about
1200 B.C. The story then runs: 'The men of Israel said
unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and
thy son's son also, for thou hast delivered us from the hand of
Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over
you, neither shall my son rule over you : the Lord shall rule
over you.' No one would think of questioning the credibility
of this story, unless he had a tlieory to maintain. A few years
ago the antiquity of the book of Judges, and its freedom from
the tampering by revisers, which other books were thought to
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of iJie Book. 459
show, were allowed by fair-minded scholars.^ These days are
past. The writer of Deuteronomy or one of his followers has
been at work even here ; and for a reason too flimsy to be
worth stating, the passage regarding Gideon and the kingdom
is declared to be 'probahly an insertion by his hand. Eeason-
ing is powerless against this way of proceeding. No weapon
can be wielded against it but ridicule, for which there are too
many justifiable openings in this debated cause.
The law of the king, given in Deuteronomy, was not
forc^otten in after time. It comes to the front in Gideon's
judgeship as a living thing, thought over, talked about among
the people, and ready to be acted on. But Gideon refuses
the honour. He does not condemn the people for making an
unlawful request. He merely puts the kingship aside as an
honour he would not take, but not as an honour which his
countrymen had no right to offer. The law continued to be
talked of among the people. They felt they were entitled to
do as they had done in offering him the throne. They felt,
also, that they were entitled to offer it to his family. At least,
as soon as Gideon died, his worst and boldest son expected to
see supreme power bestowed on his brothers, while he him-
self, as unworthily born, would be shut out. By murdering
all of them except Jotham, he seized, or thought to seize,
the prize which his father put aside when it was offered as a
free gift. Undoubtedly the minds of men were then familiar
with the idea of a kins: for Israel. Althoudi it came to the
surface only in the days of Gideon and Samuel, it lay deep in
the nation's heart, and may have burst forth in other cases.
Of this we have ground for suspicion in the song of Hannah,
more than fifty years before the choice of Saul : * The adver-
saries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces ; out of heaven
shall He thunder upon them ; the Lord shall judge the ends
of the earth ; the Lord shall give strength unto His king, and
exalt the horn of His anointed' (1 Sam. ii. 10). Instead of
1 Bleek, 2d ed. § 145.
460 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature,
regarding these words as an utterance of the nation's deepest
feelings, modern thinkers take the superficial view, that they
could not have been spoken by a poet, unless a king had then
been ruling in Israel. On the supposition that Hannah, like
the elders in her son's old age, was only expressing the
people's deep yearnings for a champion to deliver them from
priestly vileness within and foreign thraldom without, there
would be room for poetry such as breathes in her song ; while
it is difficult to see what she or they had to do with a king
sitting on his throne. Hope gilded the future in her eyes
with a coming glory, in contrast to the baseness which
she saw around her in Eli's sons, and in the incapacity of
the national chiefs. A king on his throne in actual life is
seldom known to have inspired the people with these hopes.
Since, then, Hannah's song was about half-way in point of time
between Gideon's judgeship and the choice of Saul, a bridge is
thus found existing across the gulf of centuries, from Joshua's
death to the beginning of Saul's reign. The idea of a king
ruling over the land never was dead among the Hebrews.
Specially in times of trouble and discontent would it come to
the surface ; possibly it came up in their history many more
times than are recorded in their books. We have therefore
safe ground to go on, in declining to regard the idea as new in
Samuel's judgeship. At least he was well aware that the
people had the will of Jehovah on their side, for, in his view
of the case, they were only rejecting himself as judge. Until
it was pointed out to him, he never imagined they were
rejecting Jehovah as their king.
There is an addition made to the story of Gideon's life,
which has a direct bearing on the Deuteronomic law of the
king : ' He had many wives ' (Judg. viii. 3 0). The Hebrew
words used are practically the same as, ' Neither shall he
multiply wives to himself (Deut. xvii. 17). But the new
theory sees in the latter words an unmistakeable allusion to
Solomon's ways as king. That law was invented, it says,
D enter onoviy : A^itiqtcity of the Book, 461
three hundred years after his time, to prevent a repetition of
the sins which he fell into. But while the language of the
law is wanting in the history of Solomon's reign, it is found
in the story of Gideon's life. Long before the reign of Josiah,
the latter had been circulating in writing among the people.
There is no proof that the history of Solomon had then been
published as a book for popular reading. Gideon's case,
therefore, is more agreeable to the Deuteronom.ic invention, as
the theory regards it, than Solomon's. The crown was offered
to him ; great disasters befell the nation because of the women
• he married ; the words of the law occur in the story of his
life. Solomon had many wives ; but so had Gideon, and so
had Solomon's father and several of Solomon's sons. The
theory is therefore as well, if not better, satisfied by referring
the law to Gideon than to Solomon. It is also made more
absurd, that is, it is disproved.
Another link, which is believed to connect the Deuteronomic
law with Solomon, is found in the prohibition of an Egyptian
alliance : ' He shall not cause the people to return to Egypt,
to the end that he should multiply horses' (Deut. xvii. 16).
The words were appropriate to Israel's circumstances in the
time of Moses ; tliey were not appropriate in the time of
Josiah or Hezekiah. Horses were unknown in the Hebrew
camp during the wilderness wanderings. Egypt was then the
market which could supply them, as the Hebrews well knew.
But the way thither was barred by divine command. !N"o
commerce with that country was allowed, not even to procure
horses for war. The prohibition was therefore most appropri-
ate. On the other hand, it has no meaning if the book was
written in Hezekiah's time, and if the prohibition was intended
for a censure on Solomon. David, not Solomon, was the first
to add a chariot force to the Hebrew army : ' David houghed
all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred
chariots ' (2 Sam. viii. 4). Nor were Solomon's chariots so
numerous as those of inferior kings, who followed him in
462 The Kingdom of A I I- Israel: its Literatui^e.
Israel. While he had 1400 chariots for show more than use,
Ahab had 2000 at least for use and not for show. Because
Solomon's merchants brought droves of horses from Egypt,
Deuteronomy is supposed to have condemned this traffic as
the source of the nation's backsliding and ruin. The people
of Israel are assumed to have been as well acquainted with
it as the critics themselves. But the book which mentions
this trade was not written for a century after the time, when
the theory supposes Deuteronomy to have been published.
So far, then, as we are aware, the people of Israel, in Heze-
kiah's reign, could have known nothing of Solomon's horse
traffic. Hence the alleged hit at his droves of horses loses its
whole point, and the critic's argument its whole force. Illus-
trations of a baseless theory may be so presented to the world
as to offer a fair show of soundness to the unthinking ; but
on being turned round and examined on all sides, they reveal
shortcomings too serious to deceive even the least observant.
But the horses of Egypt did not stand out as an objection-
able feature to the circle of prophets who flourished during
and after Hezekiah's reign. The new theory is at once shorn
of its strength, unless this view of Egypt as a market for
horses at that time can be substantiated. Prophecy and
history both declare it unfounded. And their testimony is
decisive. Isaiah, the great prophet of Hezekiah's court, seems
as if he had the Mosaic law of the kingdom in view when he
wrote : ' Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is
there any end of their treasures ; their land is also full of
horses, neither is there any end of their chariots ; their land
also is full of idols,' — the idols being a result of what precedes
(Isa. ii. 7). Palestine, then, was full of horses at the very
time when a prophet is supposed to have forbidden the king
to multiply horses or to go to Egypt for them. So much,
then, for the testimony of prophecy. History is equally clear.
The very name for horses in Egypt was borrowed from the
Hebrew- speaking races. Even the word for coachman in the
Deuteronomy: Antiquity of the Book, 463
Nile Valle}^ was the same as the Hebrew word, and owed its
existence there to the Hebrew tongue.^ During Solomon's
time, Egypt, instead of importing horses from Syria, was one
of several markets for buyers. But in Hezekiah's reign,
horses abounded in Palestine. A century before, they were
so numerous that Ahab sent 2000 chariots into the field.^
The evidence against the theory furnished by history and
prophecy is thus complete. A fanciful interpretation of the
law of the king, and a fanciful application of a piece of history,
published after the monarchy had fallen, are the supports on
which alone it leans.
There is acknowledged to be one difficulty about this theory
of a reference to Solomon's court in the law of the king — ' one
from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee ; thou
mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.'
There is no meaning in these words, if the law was a picture
of what should be, painted from that which should not have
been but actually existed in Solomon's time. On that point
there is no difference of opinion. An attempt has, however,
been made to evade the difficulty by regarding it as a refer-
ence to the plot, formed several years before, to put the son of
Tabeal on the throne of Judah instead of Ahaz (Isa. vii. 6).
The kings of Syria and Israel invaded Judali with this object
in view. Perhaps Ben-Tabeal, their ally, was a foreigner.
But here, as in other cases, the thing is assumed which requires
to be proved. Ben-Tabeal's parents and country are utterly
unknown. To argue for or against a theory on the ground of
his lineage being this or that, is not only a groping in dark-
ness, but is an insult to a reader's common sense.
1 Brugsch, i. 295 (1600 B.C.). Egypt was the most convenient horse market
for Israel in the wilderness ; it is expressly said to have been one of several
markets in Solomon's reign (2 Chron. ix. 28. See also 2 Kings xviii. 23 ;
Hos. xiv. 3).
^ Records of the Past, III. 99.
CHAPTER XIV.
BEGINNING OF SOLOMON'S FAME.
(1 Kings ii. 12-iii. 28 ; 2 Chron. i. 1-13.)
The reign of Solomon in the book of Kings contains so many
marks of a hand contemporary, or almost contemporary, with
the events recorded, that it has generally been received, even
by the most sceptical, as a trustworthy piece of history.
AVhoever compiled the book of Kings seems to have used
fuller writings, from which he made larger or shorter extracts,
according to his own judgment of what was best. We have
no reason for thinking that he presents the history in his own
words, as a modern writer would do. He makes extracts
from the books which it was in his power to consult, and uses
the very words of the books. A verse or two, seldom more,
serve to connect one extract with another, by phrases con-
stantly repeated, or slightly varied to suit the case. One of
these constant phrases, occurring thirty-three times altogether,
is, ' the rest of the acts of Solomon or Josiah ' are written by
some one or in some manuscript mentioned. Now, * the rest
of the acts of is a form of speech in the Hebrew, which
points to the mode of writing a historical book by extracting
several pieces from an older writing, and leaving ' the rest '
untold. On this plan the compiler seems to have handled
* the book of the acts of Solomon,' from which the account of
his reign in 1 Kings i.— xi. is taken. Recently, however, the
theory has been started, that the compiler used his discretion
in attributing to Solomon and his people words and usages
which were quite foreign to their thoughts, and were the
growth of a later age. If this can be proved, all confidence
Beginning of Solomon s Fame. 465
in the history is gone. But the growth of the idea shows at
once the danger it is sure to lead to, and the attraction it
exercises over men's minds. Thus Graf assi^^ned the foulincj
of less than a fifth part of this stream of history to later
writers (1866); while, thirteen years after (1879), Bishop
Colenso pronounced nearly one-half of it hopelessly muddled.
Estimates which differ so widely from each other, and which
rest on the alleged dishonesty of writers, who have for ages
occupied the highest place for truth, cannot be received as of
any value. ' The book of the acts of Solomon ' is not quoted
by the writer of Chronicles. With a minuteness of detail
which shows he had the writings before him, he quotes ' the
words of Nathan the prophet, the prophecy of Ahijah the
Shilonite, and the visions of Iddo the seer,' for the doings, ' the
first and the last,' of Solomon (2 Chron. ix. 29). The three
together may have formed ' the book ' quoted in the Kings.
Immediately after David's death, the hopes of Adonijah's
party seem to have revived. But there was no open attempt
at treason. Adonijah was a weak man, who modelled his
ways of speaking and acting on those of others, especially
his brother Absalom. The latter began his rebellion with a
festive gathering at Hebron ; Adonijah followed his leading
with a feast at the Fuller's Well. Eating and drinking
formed the first step in the treason of both. The second step
was more serious. Absalom claimed for himself the wives of
the deposed king. Ten women had been left to keep the
palace when David fled from Jerusalem. These Absalom took
as his own wives. Adonijah, prompted by stupidity, or put
up to it by rash counsellors, again imitates his unsuccessful
brother. Kothing mdre thoroughly shows the incapacity of
the prince and his friends than this copying of a vanquished
rebel. The mine that was to be fired beneath Solomon's
throne had a long train. Bathsheba herself was made a
worker in bringing about the threatened ruin. One day she
received a visit from Adonijah. She may not have been
2 G
466 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
alarmed at his coming, but lier words indicate surprise : ' Is
thy coming peace V she asked. The conversation that followed
reveals the unfitness of the prince for a matter so delicate as
the unseating of a newly-crowned sovereign. He does not
hide from the king's mother the soreness he felt in having
been set aside. But he does more. With an unaccountable
disregard of a settlement, which it was at his peril to disturb,
he reproaches Bathsheba with the honour Solomon had gained,
not by merit or by right, but only by means to be spoken
lightly of. ' Mine was the crown, thou knowest ; to me had
All-Israel set their faces to reign; howbeit the kingdom is
turned about, and is become my brother's, for it was his from
Jehovah.' No other meaning could be put on these words
than, ' Feeling myself to have been wronged, I am cherishing
the hope of one day righting that wrong.' But Bathsheba had
not quickness of wit to read his thoughts. He proceeded,
' Speak now to Solomon the king, for he will not say thee nay,
that he give me Abishag the Shunamite to wife.' Bathsheba
passed her word to plead his cause. Adonijah recognised
Solomon's right to dispose of Abishag ; for it was not an
ordinary case of asking or of choosing a wife. But was the
request a feeler thrown out to test the king's sagacity, and the
strength he felt in his position ? Or was it the prayer of a
lover, smitten with the exceeding beauty of the damsel ?
There is not a word of love or of beauty in the request pre-
ferred to Batlisheba. There is a soreness of feelinoj at havino-
lost a grander prize than the fairest maiden in Israel ; but no
one can gather from Adonijah's words that he cared for either
her beauty or her youth. The prince was thinking of other
things.
Compliance with the suit of Adonijah seemed to Bathsheba
a matter of course. Hastening to secure for him a favour
which, in her view, might help to smooth the unpleasantness
existing between the two brothers, she entered the presence
chamber. Solomon's regard for his mother was profound. He
i
Beginning of Solomon s Fame, 467
rose from his throne, made an obeisance before her, and
ordered a tlirone for her at his own right hand. Her ' small
request ' she immediately presents, prefacing it with, ' Say me
not nay.' But Solomon did not consider it a small request.
' Why ask Abishag ? ' he said ; ' ask for him the kingdom also,
for he is mine elder brother, and for Abiathar, and for Joab.'
The clue to secret treason, that Solomon was waiting for,
he had evidently found at last. He had reached the first
rocks in his course as head of the State ; his enemies more
than his friends w^ere watching his first essay in government.
But they had not long to wait. 'God do so to me and more
also,' he appears to have said among his counsellors, ' if
Adonijah have not spoken this word against his own life.'
Benaiah and the royal guards w^ere despatched to carry out
the order for the prince's death. And thus the ostensible
head of the conspiracy w^as removed. But the real chiefs of
the party, Joab and Abiathar, could not be allowed to escape.
They were both in Jerusalem waiting the result of their first
move in this game of treason. A king's messenger summoned
the priest to Solomon's presence. * Worthy of death art thou,'
the king said, ' but I will not at this time put thee to death.
Get thee to Anathoth to thine own estate.' The ground on
which the doom of death was remitted was honourable to the
king, Tlie priest, who had shared all David's wanderings and
dangers, could not be slain as a traitor by David's son. He
w\is finally thrust from the office of high priest ; he was
banished from court. The doom, long before uttered on
Abiathar's family, was fulfilled by Abiathar's treason. So far
as greatness was concerned, Abiathar w^as the last of his race.
Joab was dealt with next. Eumour carried to him tidings of
the discovery or betrayal of the plot. He might, and very
likely he did imagine, that more was known than Solomon
had ascertained. Conscience makes most traitors start at
shadows, as it certainly made Joab. On great battle-fields,
in hand-to-hand fii>;hts, his couraae had been tried too often to
468 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
leave the faintest suspicion of cowardice against him. But
conscience deprived Joab of manliness and sense when he
heard the news of Adonijah's death. One false step made
the bravest of Hebrew soldiers a coward. He had gone too
often into battle and into intrigue with his life in his hand
not to know what he was risking, when he began to play
with treason. Should he fail in overthrowing Solomon, his
own overthrow would be the forfeit. But as soon as he found
his intrigues leading to this result, he fled to the altar of God
for safety. The word used to express his haste is common in
describing the flight of a broken army from a lost battle.
And such was Joab's flic^ht throug^h the streets of Zion to the
tent and altar. What availed to save Adonijah's life after
the first plot, might save his after the second. Tt was a
rough soldier's, not a wise statesman's idea; and a poor
estimate had he formed of the vigour of the kincj. As soon
as his flight was known to the palace, Solomon despatched
Benaiah with the guards to take his life. ' In the king's
name,' Benaiah said, ' come forth.' ' Nay,' Joab answered,
' for here will I die.' The captain was afraid to sacrifice a
man to human law where the priests offered less noble
victims in atonement to God. Blood was shed on that altar
morning, noon, and night for the sins of men ; a traitor and a
murderer should not be allowed to escape by sheltering him-
self at the altar of purest justice. Benaiah was afraid, if not
to take, at least to act on this view. A vague feeling of the
wrongfulness of inflicting death in holy ground checked his
hand, till he sent to the palace for further instructions. ' Do
as he hath said, and fall upon him and bury him,' was the
answer returned — an answer that passes as Solomon's, but
an answer that was, perhaps, prompted by Nathan the
prophet. Thus perished the slayer of two commanders more
righteous than himself While they relied on the sacredness
of human customs as their safeguard, and were sadly deceived,
he relied on the sacredness of God's altar, and may have been
Beginnincr of Solomons Fame, 469
even more sadly deceived than his victims. Joab's body was
removed to his house in the wilderness, and buried there. It
was reserved for what are called more enlightened times to
dishonour the cold clay of a traitor, by exposing his remains for
weeks and months to the gaze of the multitude ; or rather to
insult humanity itself by that warring with the dead, which
kings and law courts long reckoned an enforcement of their
decisions. The sentence passed on a famous servant of the
English crown, Sir Walter Ealeigh, by judges and nobles of
Ensjland in 1G03, is too shockin<:!: in its details even to
be reproduced in print. And Pope Pius 11., or ^.neas
Sylvius, by which name he is better known, after having
seen the friolitful revencje taken on the murderers of the
Scottish king, James I., in 1437, calmly wrote of it in these
terms : ' He could not tell whether he should give them
greater commendations that revenged tlie king's death, or
brand them with sharper condemnation that distained them-
selves with so heinous a parricide.' ^
In reviewing these summary proceedings of Solomon and
his advisers, we are struck with tlie slender grounds avowed
for reopening the charge of treason against the prince and his
followers. But it seems a fairer view to regard their fate,
not as the result of reopening a case long closed, but as the
penalty of a second conspiracy. A promise was made to
Adonijah that, if he showed himself a good man, his treason-
able feast at the Fuller's Well should never be brought up
against him. But the request for Abishag was only a feeler
put forth by the prince, at the bidding of more cunning
intriguers, who believed Solomon either lacked the wisdom
or was consciously too weak to refuse. It was the highest
prudence on his part not to grant the request ; but he might
have been aware of the danger of yielding, and yet not have
^ George Buchanan, writing in 1578, was of another mind : 'The murder was
undoubtedly a cruel one, but it was assuredly revenged with a cruelty beyond
the common bounds of humanity,' etc.
4/0 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
felt himself strong enough to resist. Either from suspicion or
from secret information, the king and his advisers feared there
was a dangerous beyond to this prayer of Adonijah. Other
favours would be asked ; soldiers and people would become
accustomed to see the prince's claims allowed every time he
put them forth, and Solomon's nominal rule would speedily
pass away in some sudden act of bloodshed, such as Joab
never feared to perpetrate.
The treatment of Shimei shows suspicion of his complicity
in the intrigues of Adonijah. At the same time, the king and
his advisers had no solid ground to build an accusation on.
In marked contrast to the summary punishment of other
intriguers stands Solomon's dealing with Shimei. So far
from taking the vengeance on him that David bequeathed to
his heir as a duty, he grants him fair conditions of peace.
Forbearance towards Shimei clearly implies good ground for
the king's dealings with Adonijah and Joab. However,
Shimei was a danoerous man. His home was far removed
from court, and treason might be hatched under his roof
without a chance of discovery. He lived among his own
tribesmen, in the midst of friends who had shown their
regard for him at a time, when few would have stood side by
side with a traitor. He was also too far off to be easily
reached by the young king's arm. And as he was nearer to
Abiathar's estate at Anathoth than to the king's palace, it
was unsafe to allow materials so apt to catch fire to lie in the
same neighbourhood. Precautions were accordingly taken to
guard against danger from Shimei. He was told by Solomon
to build a house for himself in Jerusalem. Imprisonment
within the bounds of that city was the condition on which
his life was spared. But this, though clearly understood, was
awkwardly expressed : * In the day thou Grossest the brook
Kedron know verily thou shalt surely die.' As Kedron runs
at the bottom of the valley on the north and east sides of
Jerusalem, Shimei was thus forbidden to visit Anathoth or
Beginning of Solomon s Fame. 471
Benjamin. Was he also forbidden to leave the city on the
south and the west ? For three years he thought it unsafe.
Lapse of time made him forgetful or bold. When twenty
years younger, he had been guilty of incredible folly during
David's flight from Zion. Longer experience of life had
evidently made him no wiser. One day two of his slaves
were missing. That they had fled from their master is no
proof of cruelty on his part ; but it leaves an unfavourable
impression on our minds. Shimei soon learned that the
fuGfitives were hiding^ in Gath, which seems to be the mean-
ing of the words that they had fled to Achish-ben-Maachah,
king of Gath, a tributary of the Hebrews. Too impulsive, or
too angry, he immediately started on a journey to that city,
claimed the fugitives from the king, and returned with them
to Jerusalem. The Benjamite had many unfriends in Zion.
The survivors of David's guards alone, mindful of the stone-
throwing at Bahurim, and aware of his sentence, would be
quick to catch him in the act of breaking his engagements
with the king. They were as quick to inform their master.
A royal messenger summoned the offender to the palace. His
imprisonment within the bounds of the city, and the condition
attached, were called to his remembrance ; while Gath, the
centre of Philistine intrigue, was probably a dangerous place
for a suspected man to visit, even on the ground of recovering
his servants. He had no plea to offer in bar of sentence ; and
Benaiah, now the kincj's ridit-hand man, received orders for
his death.
The path of Solomon was thus cleared of dangerous enemies.
Although a man of peace, he began his reign with shedding
blood. But it was shed on the side of justice. Another
danger also was engaging his thoughts. A change had come
over the worship of the people. It appeared to the recorder
of his reign as a blot on the national faith. ' Only,' he says,
in abatement of the king's praise, ' the people sacrificed in
liigh places ; Solomon loved the Lord, . . . only he sacrificed
472 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its His lory.
and burnt incense in high places. And the king went to
Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place '
(1 Kings iii. 2-4). This was a new phase of worship, as new
as * the great high place,' Gibeon. Although the historian of
Solomon's reign is generally thought to have written the
books of Samuel also, the ideas he presents of this new
worship are unlike anything found in Samuel. Gibeon was
a city of temple slaves, hitherto unknown in the history of
Hebrew faith. Without warning it bursts upon us as ' the
great high place.' Gibeon may have been so close to Nob
that, though there was a change of name, there may really
have been little or no change of place. And Nob itself
(Jiigh) may be but another name for a spot that was long
held sacred in Israel, and that suddenly sinks out of sight for
centuries — the high place of Mizpeh (watchtower). The
identity of all three, or of Nob with Mizpeh, has been
strongly insisted on, though it is still only conjecture.^ A
reason is given by the Chronicler for this honour paid to
Gibeon. The Mosaic tabernacle and brazen altar, after being
removed from blood-stained Nob, were set up at Gibeon.
Although the writer in Kings is silent on this point, he lets
a reader see there was something singular about the place :
* A thousand burnt - offerings did Solomon offer upon that
altar' — words that are stronger in the Hebrew than in the
English, and that imply a peculiarity about the altar in keep-
ing with the writer's way of only once mentioning other sacred
things. But this reason for the greatness of Gibeon does not
prove the greatness of the town. It is a testimony to the
honour of the tabernacle which was set up there. Greatness
w^ent with it wherever it went. This is the same view of
the tabernacle as is presented in the Pentateuch. It sanctified
any spot, however humble. Unfortunately, however, the long-
continued collapse of Levitical institutions had given rise to
other departures from the law. The people — whether by their
1 Captain Conder in P. E. F. Quarterly Statement, January 1875, p. 34.
Beginning af Solomons Fame, 473
own hands or through the agency of priests — were sacrificing
on high places. Sacrificing meant slaying victims for a feast,
or offering victims as atonement on an altar. While the
former was allowed anywhere, the latter was restricted to
the brazen altar of the wilderness. But the troubles of the
century which preceded Solomon's accession may have done
much to efface this distinction from popular practice, though
it was clearly laid down in the law-book. For a hundred
years there had been no central altar, and during the latter
part of that time, customs had grown up at variance with the
law-book. In all nations, indeed, the law has sometimes
said one thing, and custom allowed another, till attention was
strongly called to the difference between them. Samuel had
passed away without leaving a message from God to guide
the nation to a new Central Altar. Other prophets had
followed him, few in number and of inferior standincj.
Nathan and Gad alone are mentioned. Even the schools of
the prophets, which appear in Samuel's days, cease to be
spoken of for generations after his death. History also
reveals the fact that the law-books of the people were not so
generally studied as they ought to have been. Things had
come to this pass with Hebrew worship in Solomon's reign.
New customs and new places were threatening to cause
trouble.
The two high places preferred by Solomon in the beginning
of his reign were Gibeon and Zion. One of them was the
seat of the Mosaic brazen altar; the other of the ark.
Accompanied by ' the chief of the fathers,' or his principal
ofiicers, he paid a visit to Gibeon. A thousand burnt-offerings
Avere consumed on the altar there. Solomon was the offerer,
for the victims came from his flocks ; but he was neither the
sacrificer nor the burner of incense. Priests placed the sacri-
fices on the altar, and burned incense at his request. A
comparison of this story of sacrifice with that at the beginning
of Jeroboam's reign, makes the diff'erence between the two
474 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
clear. Solomon offered by means of priests in the appointed
way, and was blameless : Jeroboam despised the appointed
way, and took on himself the duty of sacrificing and burning
incense (1 Kings xii. 33-xiii. 1). But a greater event than
tlie sacrifice happened at Gibeon. In a dream that night,
Solomon was asked by a Voice, * What shall I give thee ? '
To the sleeper there was nothing astounding or overpowering
in the heavenly presence, whatever shape it may have taken.
A calm thouo'htfulness, a feelinsf of the nearness of a friend,
is seen in the king's answer. He confesses weakness, perhaps
inability, for the right discharge of duty. The terror which
prompted others to dread instant death from God's appearance,
or to cast themselves on the ground in conscious unworthiness,
has no place here. Even Abraham, the friend of God, never
displayed confidence equal to this. 'I am a little child,'
Solomon said ; ' a weighty burden has been laid on me as judge
of this mighty people ; give me wisdom.' * Eiches thou hast
not asked,' the Vision answered, * nor length of days, nor
victory over thine enemies. Wisdom thou shalt have, such
as none before thee had, and such as none after thee shall
have. Wealth and glory above all kings shall be thine too,
and length of days, if thou keep my laws.' Solomon awoke
from sleep with pleasant feelings. The dream was a reality.
Only the faintest shadow of a threat specked the clearness of
its promise and hope. When the same Voice spoke again,
many years after, the threat, which was no bigger than a
man's hand at first, was covering the whole sky. Wisdom he
did receive ; riches also fell to his lot above all other kings ;
but a long life he did not enjoy, for he broke the condition, ' if
thou keep my law.' Apparently, the Vision awoke fears of
error in his choice of Gibeon for so magnificent a sacrifice.
He returned to Jerusalem ; and before the ark of the covenant
he ' offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and made a
feast to all his servants.'
As wisdom, especially in judgment, was the gift bestowed
Beginning of Solomon s Fame. 475
on Solomon, an opportunity was soon presented of displaying
it in public. Hitherto all his management of state affairs
had been so private, that it was hard to separate his actings
from those of his advisers. A king, whose throne had been
threatened and whose right to rule did not rest on birth or
the people's choice, required to show ability surpassing that of
other men. Saul had done so when he rescued Israel from
Amnion ; David had done the same when he vanquished the
giant ; but Solomon was a man of peace, whose triumphs
were to be soucjht elsewhere. Both Saul and David seem to
have gained the esteem of men by the beauty of their looks,
before they w^on it by valorous deeds. Solomon, the son of a
most beautiful mother, was equally happy, if the portrait of
him drawn in the Song of Songs be a sketch from the life
(v. 10-16): ' Dazzlingly white and ruddy, the chiefest among
ten thousand ; his head is precious fine gold ; his locks are
curly, and black as the raven ; his eyes (moving quickly) like
doves by the rivers of waters ; bathed in milk, fitly set ; his
lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh ; his hands,
rounds of gold set with stones of Tarshish (the topaz) ; his
body, an ivory work of art overlaid with sapphires ; his legs,
pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold ; his counten-
ance, as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars ; yea, he is altogether
lovely.' Seldom has a poet drawn so brilliant a picture of
physical beauty. But grace of person was enhanced by graces
of the mind. Unexpectedly, one day, a chance of distinction
turned up, when he had taken his seat in public to award
justice. Two women appeared before the king. Each of them
had an infant in her arms ; and both were harlots, a class of
women then becoming unhappily numerous in the wealthy
capital of the Hebrew empire. Each had given birth to a
son within two days. They lived together, but there was no
one in the house save the women and the infants. One of
the women overlaid her son in her first sleep. Discovering
the death at midnight, she stealthily took the child from her
476 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
companion's side while she slept, and put the younger infant in
its place. When day broke, the injured mother found a dead
child in her bosom. Examining it, she became convinced it
was the other woman's son, not hers. The mother who stole
the living child denied this story entirely. Wrangling could
not settle the matter : they came to the king for judgment.
Solomon's guards are standing round. Crowds of citizens,
as usual, are looking on. The court is in the open air ; the
time is early morning ; the place is perhaps the city gate,
the ordinary resort of all who wished gossip, or scandal,
or news. Suddenly a knotty point is brought forward for
solution. It was one of those cases which would rivet the
attention of a crowd on the action of the judge. No witnesses
can be called ; no marks can be referred to in proof of either
woman's averment. The judge's sagacity is the only resource
to trust to for discovering a touchstone of truth ; and that
judge is an untried youth. Neither women nor bystanders
were kept long in doubt ; the inspiration of genius does not
wait the slow march of reason. The judge stated the case, that
there might be no mistake about the point in dispute. He
also made clear the hopelessness of coming to a decision. His
words were few and distinct. Every onlooker apprehended
from them the difficulty of judging. ' Bring a sword for me,'
the king then cried, addressing an officer of the guards. The
sword was brought and laid before the king. The child in
dispute was also taken by a soldier. ' Divide the living child
in two,' was the king's next order to his guards. * Give
half to the one w^oman, and half to the other.' The sword
was raised by one soldier, the child was held by others. A
decision so cruel would horrify the onlookers. Was this man
of peace to turn out a man of blood in early youth ? But
the glittering sword pierced the real mother's heart before it
reached her offspring. * For my sake, my lord, give her the
living child,' she cried in horror. ' Kill him not.' ' Neither
mine nor thine let it be,' exclaimed the thief of the infant ;
Beginning of Solomon s Fame. 477
' cut.' ' Hold/ the king said, for the touchstone of a mother's
tenderness had revealed the truth. ' Give her the living child,
and in no wise slay it. She is the mother.' The story of
this trial spread throughout the nation ; the people felt that
a wise and understanding king was seated on the throne.
After Solomon began to build the temple, he ' made affinity
with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter,
and brought her into the city of David until he had made an
end of building his own house ' (1 Kings iii. 1). She was
neither his first nor his favourite wife. But the marriase
was attended by events, which are briefly mentioned in the
history, and on which recent discoveries are shedding light.
At that time, Gezer, a town on or near the high road from
Egypt to Assyria, revolted from Solomon. Situated on an
outlying hill (756 feet above the sea) at the mouth of the
pass of Beth-horon, where the rolling plain and the highlands
meet, — cut off or isolated, as its name imports, — it was well
adapted for defence. A copious spring of water bursts forth
at the hill-foot ; assistance in men could be hoped for from
the Philistines in the neighbourhood. The town was seized
by descendants of the ancient heathen, who probably preferred
to die with arms in their hands, rather than submit to a
lingering death as slaves in the Lebanon woods or the quarries
for Moriah. Solomon's generals did not or could not reduce
the fortress. Pharaoh undertook and finished the work. He
probably found the fortress blocking his road to Jerusalem.
Evidently he did not come to Solomon's country merely for
the festivities connected with his daughter's marriage. Nor
did he trust his officers with conducting her in safety across
the desert to her new home. He came to Palestine himself
with the men and appointments required for the siege of a
fortress. But this sovereign seems to have been the <?reat
King of Assyria as well as the Pharaoh of Egypt. A double
title of this kind occurs elsewhere in Hebrew literature. Cyrus,
though he is generally called King of Persia, figures once as
478 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
King of Babylon, the city and empire which he conquered
(Ezra V. 13). Profane history sanctions his double title, for
on one brick, preserved in the British Museum, he bears the
title King of Babylon, which was long regarded as a suspicious
reading in tlie Hebrew of Ezra. In Solomon's day the
Pharaoh of Egypt may also have been Emperor of Assyria,
A revolution had taken place in the Nile Valley, which com-
pelled the reigning family to seek refuge in the great Oasis.
That family was connected by marriage with Assyria. In
course of years their wrongs were avenged by the Mesopo-
tamian king, who invaded Egypt, nominally for the purpose
of restoring the exiled family to their rightful place, but really
with the view of subjugating the country. A change in the
government of Egypt was the result. Two or three satraps,
owning for overlord the great Emperor of Assyria, ruled the
land. Solomon also had begun to reign about that time. If,
then, the great King, returning home to Nineveh from Egypt,
passed through Palestine wuth his army, the siege of Gezer
is invested with a meaning hitherto unknown. Pharaoh's
daughter also becomes a doubtful phrase. It may mean the
daughter of the Assyrian king, now also Pharaoh of Egypt,
or one of the princesses related to him and born of Chaldean
blood. In marrying her, Solomon may have done nothing
more than Isaac and Jacob did. He sought a wife from the
original stock of his race. But the languages, thus introduced
into Solomon's palace by the queen and her women, imply an
acquaintance on his part with foreign tongues, of which he is
too hastily assumed to have been ignorant. Xor was she the
only one of his princesses who spoke another language than
Hebrew. All the dialects of Palestine and Northern Syria
were in course of years represented in his house. But the
languages of the palace were also those of the empire. Hence
there must have been an acquaintance with foreign tongues
at Jerusalem, to which we do not attach weight till we begin
to think of its value in literature. The Syrian dialect was
Beginning of Solomons Fame. 479
spoken at court in Hezekiah's reign, two centuries later. The
same tongue and others also would be as well known at the
court of Solomon.
The visit of Pharaoh to Jerusalem — for though not expressly
stated, it is clearly implied — imparts meaning to the text,
' Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of
the East, and all the wisdom of Egypt ; for he was waser than
all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol,
and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all
nations round about.' Pharaoli came to Palestine with an
army. But wise counsellors were with him as well as brave
captains. The former were more to Solomon's liking than
the latter. Their philosophy pleased him better than the
science of war. Perhaps there were among them wise men
from the East, as well as wise men from Egypt. Ethan and
others, whose names are given as tests of the king's greatness
in wisdom, were famous members of the tribe of Judah in
ancient times (1 Chron. ii. 6). Two of them, indeed, appear
as psalm writers (Ps. Ixxxviii., Ixxxix.). But evidently a large
acquaintance with the languages and literature of neighbouring
nations must be ascribed to Solomon.
The book of Proverbs reveals a state of society in the cities
of Solomon's empire not unlike what prevails among ourselves.
The same passions are seen at work ; the same desires ; the
same strength, and the same feebleness of virtue. A greed
of gain, which brought about its owner's ruin and death, meets
a reader at the beginning of the book, and darkens many a
saying to the end. Men, hasting to be rich, sought for buried
treasure with the consuming eagerness which a lottery is
known to cause at the present day. The search for wisdom
w^as neglected for the finding or the making of mone}'.
Nothing was allowed to stand in the way. In spite of the
curses of a starving people, dealers withheld tlieir corn from
sale till enormous gains rewarded them, contrary to the spirit
of Hebrew law. Unjust trading in other forms contrived to
480 The Kingdom of All-hi-acl : its History.
acquire great revenues, while righteous dealing secured only
what is called 'a better little.' False balances and unjust
weights were common, the hope of gain outweighing the loss
sure to follow on detection. The pursuit of wealth was thus
the fruitful mother of selfishness and wrong-doing in every
form. Men broke their words or faithlessly repudiated their
engagements. But the extensive commerce of Solomon's reign
also presented chances of honourably realizing great riches,
which were unknown to the simpler tastes of a former genera-
tion. Nor were these chances lightly esteemed by the public
sentiment. ' In all labour there is profit,' says the writer,
correctly laying down the first principle of our political
economy ; ' but the talk of the lips tendeth to penury.' A
mere talker was contemptible in his sight. A true worker
was one who profited by honest labour, and of whom the
farther saying held good, * The crown of the wise is their
riches.'
Wealth, unjustly got, brought many evils in its train.
Justice was not always administered with purity : ' A mean
man's <;ift maketh room for him, and bringjeth him before
great men.' Princes and judges gave way also to wine and
strouGj drink. Drunkenness had become common. A stacjcfer-
m^ winebibber was not an unusual si2;ht in the streets. He
is compared to the voyager on a stormy sea, who chooses for
his bed the unsteady top of a mast in a swaying, pitching
ship. And never was a more graphic description written
of the helpless drunkard, muttering incoherent thoughts to
himself, than ' Who hath woe ? who hath sorrow ? who hath
quarrels ? who hath babbling ? who hath wounds without
cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that tarry long
at the wine' (xxiii. 29). Fools attained to high positions,
which would have been beyond their hopes, had not money
formed a ladder up which they could climb. A fool without
wealth is a fool, and nothing more. A rich fool may be
laughed at, or used to point the moral of a sharp saying.
I
Beginiimg of Solomoii s Fame. 48 1
Sometimes he becomes a danger to society as well as to
himself. Solomon may have seen or heard of these and
similar results of money-making, without being able to apply
a remedy. But there were other results. Indecent women
seem to have abounded in the cities of Palestine. They are
not said to have been of Hebrew birth. As a vast body of
heathen labourers were pressed into the king's service, and
transported from home to the Lebanon woods, many women
must have been left destitute and friendless. The indecency,
which was the curse of Solomon's large cities, may have largely
arisen from tliis forcible shifting of the population. Honest
women, again, were the fairest ornament and the strongest
bulwark of the land. !N"othing is more striking in the book
of Proverbs than the contrast drawn between the two classes.
Shame and ruin attend the one ; wealth and honour follow
the other. Deceit and treachery were waiting at street
corners to snare unwary youth. Honourable marriage, and
vows honourably kept, enabled thrifty women to place their
husbands among the rulers of the land, to clothe all their
household in scarlet, and to fill their houses with every good
thing. A virtuous wife is compared to ' the merchants' ships ;
she briufifeth her food from far.' What men and women are
to-day in the various duties and labours of life, they w^ere
also in the age of Solomon. Nothing is changed ; but experi-
ence has added many an example to confirm the grand aim of
his proverbial philosophy, The fear of the Lord is a fountain
of life.
2 H
CHAPTEE XY.
THE TEMPLE AND PALACE OF SOLOMON.
(1 Kings V. 1-viii. 66, ix. 15-25 ; 2 Cliron. ii. 1-vii. 11, viii. 1-10.)
The threshing-floor of Araunali was too small for tlie site of
a great temple. More room was obtained by a device then
generally practised among Hebrew farmers and vine-growers.
Wherever a hill face seemed suitable for the growth of vine,
or olive, or corn, a retaining wall, brought up from a lower
level, and filled in behind with stones and soil, gave them a
terrace more easily worked and of a better nature than a
rocky slope. Sometimes a stream, of water, led along the
upper edge of the terrace, greatly increased its value to the
husbandman. By adopting this device, the area required for
the temple buildings on Moriah was obtained, though at vast
cost and labour. The retaining walls were in some places
more than one hundred and fifty feet high. And if liollows
existed anywhere in the hill face, on the site selected for the
main building, the foundations of masonry might be laid far
below the floor or platform from which the temple ultimately
seemed to rise. These retaining walls are now spoken of as
the rampart walls ; the whole area gained by the device is
called the enclosure. But while there was thus a large filling
up behind the rampart walls, in some parts there was a
cutting down of the rock to allow easy access to the enclosure
from the deep valley on the west, or to let the part of it
chosen for the building stand higher than the courts. This
loftier part was the platform, to which access was probably
gained by flights of steps. On the stone pavement or
platform the temple rose, a conspicuous building of dazzling
The Temple and Palace of Solo77to7i, 483
white stone, built in magnificent courses, with the centre of
each stone in high relief and the joints considerably sunk.
Underneath the enclosure and platform was an amount of
arching, buttressing, building, and filling up, of which we can
form no adequate idea. Solomon had more reason to boast
of the foundations of this temple than any king of Egypt or
Babylonia of his ' embankments,' and ' mountains,' and ' plat-
forms.' If the magnificent masonry, which has been laid
bare eighty feet below the present surface of the ground, be
the work of Solomon's builders, he has left a proof of his
greatness in a wall, to which there cannot be found a ' parallel
in any subsequent building in any part of the world.' The
courses of masonry vary in height from \^ feet 3 in. to 6 feet,
and one stone at the south-west angle is 38 feet 9 inches
lonsj. What was thus done on a lar^je scale in the case of
Moriah seems to have been done on a small scale by Herod,
when he raised the rampart walls of the fortress or mosque
which covers the site of Abraham's burial-place, the cave of
Machpelah. In the rampart walls of the latter we may study
those of the former.
'In the four hundred and eightieth year after the children
of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth
year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which
is the second month, Solomon becjan to build the house of the
Lord,' was the inscription, which any other builder but a
Hebrew king would have carved on the temple. A place so
holy allowed no praise of man to be written on its walls, and
no carvings of priests, or symbols, or ceremonies, such as the
temple faces of other nations show to illustrate their faith,
even when their books are silent. Books have preserved the
inscription for Solomon's temple. But instead of being
thankful for the record, many writers delight in showing its
falsehood, or in imagining the process by which it was
manufactured. While we ought to recognise and give due
weight to the difficulties connected with the inscription, we
484 The Kingdom of A II- Israel', its History,
ought also to acknowledge its singular agreement with the
ways of other temple restorers and temple builders in the
East. One example is found in Jerusalem itself. Eight
centuries after Solomon, when the temple on Moriah was
restored, and the freedom of the people secured by the
Maccabees, the same respect was shown for the walls of the
holy house. As a memorial of the worth and services of
Simon, the great high priest of that family, the people wrote
their thanks ' on tables of brass, which they set upon pillars
in Mount Zion,' or, since Zion was a word of elastic meaning,
* they commanded the tables of brass to be set up within the
compass of the sanctuary, in a conspicuous place ' (1 Mace.
xiv. 27, 48). A second, and in many respects a singular,
example is furnished by the annals of Assyria. 'After 418
years,' says Sennacherib, ' the gods Kimmon and Sala from
Babylon I caused to come forth, and to the temples I restored
them.'^ This interval is justly regarded as of the highest
value in chronology. And Tigiath Pileser writes, ' The temple
of Anu and Vul, having lasted for 641 years, fell into ruins.
For 60 years the foundations of it were not laid.''^ The
value of these dates is great. An attempt has been made by
Wellhausen and his school to invalidate the 480 years of
Solomon, because the number can be divided into three
periods of 160 years each. They should apply the same
rule of doubt to Tigiath Pileser's 641, for it is obviously
divisible into four periods of the same length, or 1 6 0 years !
To quote illustrations of the dating by day and month, and
the king's regnal year, as in Solomon's case, is unnecessary ;
they are found throughout the monuments of Egypt and
Mesopotamia. But the employment of slaves in Lebanon,
the cutting of cedar beams there for temple and palace, with
the conveyance of squared stones to Nineveh, are not un-
common in the history of Assyria. 'I assembled 22 kings,'
says Esarhaddon ; ' great beams and rafters of cedar and
1 Records of the Past, ix. 27. ^ Records, v. 23.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 485
cypress from the niountaiiis of Sirar and Lebanon, slabs of
granite, and alabaster, and various other stones from the
mountain quarries, with labour and difficulty, unto Nineveh
they brought along with them.' Manasseh, of Judah, was
one of these kings. But perhaps the most curious illustra-
tion of the example set by Solomon is Sargon's description
of the temple palace which he built at Khorsabad. Among
other things he says, ' I made a spiral staircase similar to
the one in the great temple of Syria, that is called in the
Phoenician language Bethilanni.' By Syria he means the
region of which Ashdod was a city. This brings a reader's
thoughts near to Jerusalem. But the Phoenician and the
Hebrew were the same tongue. And Bethilanni has in it a
clear ring of Bethel, House of God. However, it is more
agreeable to the speech of both nations to regard the word as
standing for Beth-el-dyon, House of God Most High — a name
which Hebrews would use in speaking to foreigners of the
temple of Jehovah (Hebrew of 1 Kings ix. 8).
The preparations made by David for this great building are
given in the books of Chronicles. Little is said on the sub-
ject by the earlier writer in the first book of Kings. But
he gives in fuller detail the outlay of costly material on the
building ; while the Chronicler, writing more than one hundred
years after, presents us in bulk with the vast weight of gold,
silver, brass, and iron gathered for the work. There is a
meaning in this twofold handling of the subject. The writer
of the Chronicles never looked on the temple built by Solomon.
Details of its glory would thus strike his readers' fancy less
strongly than a recital of the vast wealth laid out on its
adornment. Six hundred talents of gold were spent, he says,
in gilding one room of the temple ; and the weight of gold nails
used was fifty shekels.^ But the first writer of Solomon's
reign in the book of Kings indulges in details, which it is
not easy in our days to understand. He was writing from
* 2 Chron. iii. 8, 9. See 1 Kin^js vi. 20-22.
486 The Kitigdorn of All-Israel : its History,
sight, not from memory or from books. If a reader failed to
"understand his words, he could discover the truth by a visit
to the building itself. As ' the pattern ' was delivered ' in
writing ' to Solomon by his father, we probably have, in the
book of Kings, part of the specifications which David and the
architects he employed drew up for the work. Page after
page has all the look of an architect's paper of instructions,
not of a historian's description. Builders, carvers, designers,
could easily work out these details from tlie specifications,
provided the head that devised them overlooked the building.
It is the want of this oversight which renders hopeless all
attempts at complete restoration, on paper, of Solomon's
temple.
Solomon felt himself unequal to the w^ork he had in view
without help from abroad. Precisely as Egypt furnished the
teaching required to build the tabernacle in the wilderness, so
Tyre was destined to furnish the designer who should put
•into shape and carry fully out the great plans of David and
Solomon. Already had the craftsmen of that city built a
house of cedar for David. And when Solomon, aware of the
greatness of his undertaking, would not trust it to * his own
cunning men and the cunning men of David his father,' he
sent for help to his friend and ally, Hiram, king of Tyre.
There was then residing in that city a famous worker in
brass, named apparently after the king. He w^as the son of
a Tyrian father, who had followed the same craft, and of a
Hebrew woman ' of the daughters of Dan.' His mother was
then a widow. Eecommended by Hiram the king, and invited
by Solomon, Hiram the worker repaired to the Hebrew court,
and was naturally regarded as a member of the tribe of
Naphtali, to which the outlying district of Dan, called Dan-
Laish, probably belonged. In the Tyrian king's letter he was
extolled as * skilful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in
iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine
linen, and in crimson ; also to grave any manner of graving,
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 487
and to find out every device which shall be put to him.'
But the historian in the Kings only describes fully the
marvellous designs in bright brass, which he executed at a
foundry on some clay ground at Zarctan, near the Jordan.
From the letter of the Tyrian king, preserved in the book of
Chronicles, it appears, however, that Hiram was a designer
generally, and a builder or engineer also. Some of the
magnificent masonry, recently laid bare, and marked with what
seem to be masons' signs, may have been his work — not
merely ' great stones of ten cubits and eight cubits' (1 Kings
vii. 10), but stones often twice or thrice as larci'e. He was
not the only Tyrian craftsman sent to help the Hebrew king.
Other men of ability were employed for various purposes.
The cisterns and tunnels for bringing in and carrying away
water within the temple enclosure may have been largely their
work. However, the existence of cisterns for storing water or
grain, cut out of the live rock and found in every part of
Palestine, forbids us to attribute all the engineering triumphs
of the temple to foreign skill. Many Tyrian craftsmen were
also engaged in the Lebanon woods to prepare cedar for trans-
port to Tyre, while Hiram the king arranged to send on
the logs in great floats to Joppa by sea. According to the
letters which passed between the two kings, the price for
these services was paid partly to the Tyrian prince and partly
to his people. Every year about twenty thousand quarters of
wheat, with twelve hundred gallons of purest olive oil, pre-
pared after the manner of the tabernacle,^ were sent to Hiram's
court for household use (1 Kings v. 11). To the men them-
selves the same quantity of wheat, as much more of barley,
with one hundred and twenty thousand gallons of wine and
oil, formed apparently the yearly payment (2 Chron. ii. 10).
Fortunately a standard of comparison exists by which we
^ Tlie word is pounded, as if the olives were beaten in a mortar. The only
other passages in which it occurs are Ex. xxvii. 20, xxix. 40 ; Lev. xxiv. 2 ;
Num. xxviii. 5.
488 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
may estimate the value of tliis price for work rendered. At
Solomon's court the household provision for a day included
* thirty measures of fine flour and threescore measures of
meal.' Eeckoning this fine flour and meal as wheat, we have
ninety quarters for daily use, or upwards of thirty-two thousand
in a year. Solomon tlius paid Hiram with about one half
the quantity of wheat consumed at his own court. For
the Tyrian workers the payment was a little more than
Solomon's court expenditure of corn every day, if the book of
Chronicles has preserved the yearly outlay and not the total
remuneration. By calculating roughly the value of the crafts-
men's corn, wine, and oil, in English money, we find that the
Hebrew king paid them yearly about £90,000. And allow-
ing an average of £300 for each overseer, we may see that
there may have been about three liundred of them altogether.
Gold and silver were of less value in Tyre tlian corn as
payment for work done. What the former are in our day,
the latter was in Solomon's. But calculations of this kind
are not merely curious. They shed light on the history ;
they bring it home to our own hearths ; they give it life
and movement ; and, by strongly contrasting one set of
numbers wdth another, they establish truth or they disclose
falsehood.
Tlie weight of gold laid up, chiefly during David's prosper-
ous reign, or got from the great men of the court, was about
five hundred tons, of silver more than a thousand tons, of
brass about eleven hundred, and of iron six thousand tons.
In one passage these vast weights are justly spoken of as
hundreds or thousands of thousands, — that is to say, in
common speech, countless. To turn the gold and silver into
English money is about as wise as to reckon the iron at its
cost in our country and in our time. Neither was gold so
dear in Palestine, nor iron so cheap as in Britain. The gold
and silver were never meant to be coined into money. ' And
vast as were these weights according to the Chronicles, the
The Temple and Palace oj Solouion. 489
outlay was as unstinted according to tlie Kings. A passing
remark by the writer of the former book shows that the
thickness of gold-plate which covered the walls, the ceiling,
and the floor of the Holy of Holies, was about an eighth of an.
inch. The metal was not beaten out into leaf for gilding : it
was laid on as solid plates and fastened with golden nails. A
weight of six hundred talents was tlie outlay for this inner
room, or about thirty tons. The ten candlesticks made by
Solomon w^eighed more than half a ton of trold. Gold was
also required for basons, spoons, snuffers, and plates for cover-
ing the ten tables, as well as the altar of incense. But all
the plating in other parts of the temple was not of pure gold.
Apparently silver was used as an alloy or an offset — ' apples
of gold in pictures of silver,' or ' borders of gold with studs of
silver ' — in the less sacred parts of the building, and in the
vessels which \vere not devoted to the holiest purposes. In
a temple built by Nebuchadnezzar four centuries afterwards,
some of the rooms w^ere coated with silver, some with copper,
and others with gold. Solomon used silver for the same
purpose, especially in decorating the rooms built against the
temple walls, for nearly a half of the weight of silver was
applied 'to overlay the walls of the houses' (1 Chron. xxix. 4).
More details have been given regarding the copper. The
brazen pillars in front of the temple entrance were hollow
tubes, a handbreadth thick, and each contained upwards of
fifty tons of metal. The brazen sea was a hemispherical bowl,
of which the breadth was above thirteen feet, and the depth
nearly seven. Whoever drew up the original account from
which the dimensions are taken, w\as acquainted with the
relation which the diameter of a circle bears to its circum-
ference. Probably he conld also calculate the weight of brass
required for the casting. Eighty or one hundred tons, if not
more, would be used for the brazen sea alone. However
uncertain these calculations may be from our ignorance on
various points, yet, on a rough estimate, the brazen sea, the
49 o The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Histoiy.
oxen on whose backs it rested,^ and the two pillars of the
temple porch, must have required not less tlian one-fifth of
all the brass collected for the temple. Little is said about
the purposes to which the great weight of iron was applied ;
the sawing of the hewn stones with saws for the rampart
walls was probably one of them. But the enormous number
of wood-cutters, stone-hewers, quarry-men, and road-makers,
mentioned in the history, would not have had eighty pounds
weight of iron a-piece had the whole mass been divided among
them. And if we spread this over a period of seven years,
during which the work was in progress, we shall find the
outlay scanty enough.""^
Of the skill required in devising and finishing the great
castings for the temple no one can speak too highly. They
stand favourable comparison with the work of modern days.
The largest bell at present in use in the world weighs
more than did the brazen sea, but others not one-third or
one-fifth of its size are also of world-wide fame. It cannot,
therefore, be thought that brass vessels, great and small, such
as those made by Hiram for Solomon, were unworthy of the
reputation for grandeur and wisdom enjoyed by that king.
Each of them also appears to have been cast as one piece, not
put together from separate fragments. At least the Chaldeans
found it necessary to break the largest of them in pieces
before transporting them to Babylon (Jer. lii. 17). Other
conquerors, who had mastered Jerusalem and spoiled it of
much treasure, despaired of carrying aw^ay the pillars and the
sea, except by a wanton destruction of beauties which they
could not fail to admire. Ahaz, a degenerate successor of
Solomon, took the sea from the backs of the supporting oxen,
^ Sargon, one of tlie greatest of the Assyrian kings, placed eight double lions of
copper between the doors of a temple palace. They weighed above thirty tons.
— Records, ix. 19.
- The use of iron for tools at this early period maybe surprising, but is not to
be discarded as unlikely. The ' long iron nail ' found at the south-east angle of
the great wall may not be without value in this respect.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 491
put it on a stone ]>latforni, and gave the oxen witli other
castings of brass to the king of Assyria. The oxen, tlie lavers,
and tlie decorated borders of the temple barrows, disappear in
liis reign. To the splendid inventive power, seen in these
great castings, has to be added the skill displayed in convey-
ing them from the foundry in the Jordan valley, where they
were cast, to the top of a mountain more than three thousand
feet higher. There was no river, like the Nile, down which
they could be floated easily and safely to within a mile or two
of their resting-place, and no canals by whicli they might be
brought still nearer. lioads there were none, save the narrow
tracks used by foot-passengers or beasts of burden.^ And
between the foundry and the temple hill there were many
pieces of difficult ground, which would tax the highest skill
of a modern engineer. But the work was done. These heavy
castings were taken to the mountain-top, secured in their places,
used by priests, and admired by conquerors for nearly four
centuries, till they were wantonly broken by a barbarian rage,
which coveted the materials while it despised the beautiful
work of departed genius.' Solomon's reign, combining material
progress so unusual with a body of laws and a code of morality
so excellent as those of the Mosaic legislation, was distin-
guished by a height of civilization reached by no other
country in the ancient world, and by few nations in modern
^ Even at the present day 'Jerusalem is emphatically a mountain city . . .
only approached by wild mountain roads,' Hecovcry of Jerusalem, p. <6. 'Great
Paul,' the largest bell in Britain, is 9^ feet broad by 9 foet high, and weighs
above 16^ tons. Moscow contains two bells of vast size. One of them is said
to weigh 80 tons, and, though it is chimed, no attempt is made to ring it. The
other, called the 'Monarch,' dates from 1734. It is 21 feet in diameter, the
same in height, and weighs 193 tons. The journey of * Great Paul ' to London
in the middle of May 1882, its sinking on a wretched road, and the danger to
bridges it went across, are detailed in the newspapers.
2 This breaking up of brass or bronze vases has preserved to our day an
inscription which, from its characters, is thought to be as old as the time^ of
Solomon. Apparently it was a vase belonging to a temple on Lebanon, which
had been carried off by plunderers to Cyprus. It contains the name of ' Hiram,
king of the Zidonians,' and the chisel of the destroyer went through the
middle of the m in the king's name.— ^</ienceu7«, 17th April 1880.
492 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael: its History.
times. The development so happily begun was checked by a
debasing idolatry, to which the king lent his countenance.
And with that idolatry came a disregard of the rights of the
people, and of the laws on which his throne rested. Tyranny
and idolatry destroyed the civilization which it seemed to be
Solomon's destiny to found in IsraeL
The number of labourers employed in these w^orks was
very great. Men were drafted for the purpose from different
classes of the people. First a ' levy ' or ' tribute ' is men-
tioned, raised out of All-Israel. It consisted of 30,000 men,
divided into three courses of 10,000 a-piece. During one
month they worked in the Lebanon woods ; for two months
they were at home. Who these men were is easily ascer-
tained. They were not Hebrews, for Solomon made his own
people overseers, not slave-workers. Nor were they of heathen
blood, the cliildren of the races whom Joshua at first and
David in the end reduced to bondage, for the number of them
is set down at 150,000 (1 Kings v. 15). As the levy was
neither of Hebrews nor of heathen, it can only have been of
domestic slaves. If a tithe of them were claimed for the
kings work, this would imply a body of 300,000 men slaves
in the whole kingdom, or about one-fifth of the soldiers who
were enrolled on the army lists. Compared with the number
of slaves in Greece and Eome, it is surprisingly small. But
the burden of the levy would fall severely on the wealthy
and the noble. Continued from year to year, it would stir
up evil passions, from which rebellious thoughts would spring.
If, then, the whole body of slaves in the land was so small,
the work on most of the farms in Israel must have been done
by the men and women of the household themselves. The
Hebrews, as Goethe says of the Netherlanders, were ' a hardy
and a self-reliant race, every one of them a little king,
industrious, able, stedfast to truth and old customs.'
The other workers in Solomon's service were 150,000
strangers, or men of heathen birth, relics of the ancient owners
!
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 493
of the land. They were divided into two bodies, — one of
70,000 for transport; the other, of 80,000, for wood-cutting
and stone-hewing. By a not uncommon irony of fate, the
mother of the man who thus reduced these heathen tribes to
slavery, had been in her youth the wife of a soldier belonging
to one of them — Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
Over the working gangs of 50 and 500, into which they were
arranged, were set officers chosen from Solomon's own people.^
For the 80,000 cutters, a great weight of iron would be
required. Bronze weapons were commonly used in those
times, but most of the brass provided for the temple seems
to have been devoted to the lavers, the oxen, the sea, and
the pillars, and other ornamental work. Iron tools would
therefore be furnished to the workers from the six thousand
tons used in the building (2 Kings vi. 1-6). A hatchet of
ordinary size for each of them would absorb not less than
140 tons, allowing nothing for waste in casting, for losses in
the work, and for theft. The great foundry near Zaretan, in
the Jordan Valley, required an army of workers and an
armoury of tools of which we cannot so much as form a
conjecture. And equally unknown are the numbers of road-
makers, quarrymen, hewers, and builders, the nature of the
lifts used, the outlay on hammers and spades, saws and
chisels.
Among the works undertaken for the temple were also the
drains and water supply, matters of the highest importance
in the elaborate ceremonial of the worship. The depths of
Mount Moriah were pierced by Solomon's men, sometimes by
shafts driven straight down or steeply sloping into the bowels
of the mountain, sometimes by tunnels running from north to
south not much above the level of the brook Kedron. One
^ There were 3000 overseers, having 50 men each under them ; and 300
having command of 500 ; altogether, 3300. But directing tlie whole were
Tyrian craftsmen, who may have numbered 300 more, thus making up the
number of overseers to 3600, unless 3600 be a corrupt reading in 2 Chron. ii. 18.
Perhaps the odd 300 sui^eriutended the levy of 10,000 under Adoram.
494 The Kingdom of All-Israel: its History.
of these tunnels, leading from the Virgin's Fount to the Pool
of Siloam, is 1708 feet long, and presents at its southern end
an inscription in old Hebrew which is thought to be of the
a^e of Solomon. The value of these shafts, and tunnels, and
tanks was very great. By one set the blood of sacrifices, the
refuse, and the filth could be at once hurried out of sight into
the heart of the rock, whence drains conveyed the whole to
the Kedron and the Dead Sea. By another a copious supply
of \vater could be brought from a distance. So honey-
combed is the mountain with cisterns, that one of them,
known as the Great Sea, would contain two million gallons,
while the total storage provided probably exceeded five times
that quantity.^ Perhaps the pools of Solomon, six miles off
on the hill-sides above Bethlehem, as the three great tanks
in Wadi Urtas are called, were built by the king's orders for
supplying the temple-hill.^ Although history is silent on the
point, there is not known to have been any other king who
had either power or wisdom sufficient to build these vast
tanks ; to lay a double set of pipes as far as Jerusalem, at
a high level and a low level ; and to tunnel the rocks, as
they are found to be, even for miles in lengtli. Nor are these
engineering works remarkable for their vastness only. They
imply a knowledge of science in advance of anything with
which that age is usually credited. The pipe that connects
the Wady Urtas pools with Mount Moriah is tile or stone,
jointed with strong cement or mortar. One of the aqueducts
descends into the valley from the pools ; and on approaching
Jerusalem, it is twenty feet below the surface. Hence
Solonjon's engineers, if it was originally their work, knew
that water, conveyed in closed pipes, rises to the level of its
1 Recovery of Jerusalem., 17.
2 The tanks were made by building dams of solid masonry across tlie valley at
different levels. Their dimensions are —
Highest, 380 ft. in length ; 230 ft. in breadth ; 25 ft. in de[.th.
Middle, 423 ft. „ 160 to 250 ft. ,, 39 ft.
Lowest, 582 ft. ,, 148 to 207 ft. „ 50 ft.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 495
source, and tliey knew also that the height of the Bethlehem
tanks was sufficient to send the water as high as the temple
platform on Moriah. Simple as our daily experience makes
this and other scientific principles seem to us now, w^e must
regard their application in those days as indicating an un-
common degree of enlightenment. Other things, which were
once well known to intellisrent men, have been buried for
ages under a load of barbarism, till civilization in modern days
once more recovered them for liumanity.
Everything connected with the building of this great temple
was thus on a scale of exceeding magnificence. With
unstinting hand, labour was bestowed on the costliest stones,
the rarest woods, the most curious designs, the most precious
oils and spices, the boldest engineering. From far and
near came tribute and trade profits to be lavished on the
lordly building. Of one tiling, however, not a word is said.
Egypt and Babylon and Northern Syria had seen grand public
buildings for religious or royal use before Solomon's reign.
But the builders did not scruple to inscribe on them long
stories of their costly outlay, their piety, and their hopes. Or
they erected pillars, on which were engraved boastful
accounts of their greatness in peace and in w\ar. Even on
the great mosque built on the temple hill, and on tliat at
Hebron, which is supposed to cover the Cave of Machpelah,
inscriptions are found in abundance. But nothing of this
boastfulness was allowed in the temple of Jerusalem. There
were carvings of animals and flowers on the wood ; there
was no writinix on tlie OTeat, smooth stones. The silence of
the historian on this head is most expressive. What the
kings of other lands did in writing their names and greatness
on the temples which they built, Solomon seems never to
have thought of. He and his people were a book-writing, not
a stone-writing people. * Memorial stones ' appear at the
beginning of Israel's history as a nation, engraven with the
names of the tribes. They were precious stones, borne on
49 6 The Kmgdoni of A II- Israel : its History.
the high priest's breast and shoulders. * Memorial books '
also appear (Ex. xvii. 14). They were the records of the
nation. But the great stones of the temple were not
' memorial stones,' destined to be written on. No sound of
hammer or chisel was allowed to be heard on the stone
work when the squared blocks were lifted into their place,
and laid one on another. The vast weight not only dispensed
with mortar, but probably drove the evened faces so close
together as almost to conceal the joint. Every arrangement
was thus designed to impress people and workers with a
feeling of peculiar sacredness, attaching to the new palace of
Jehovah. And after ages carried this feeling of reverence
farther than is warranted.
The main building of the temple itself was a one-storey
house, about 90 feet in extreme length, 30 broad, and 45
in height/ or twice the dimensions of the tabernacle. It stood
on the levelled hill-top of Moriah, but on what precise spot
we need not now attempt to ascertain. Apparently the stones
used were got from the quarries near or rather in the mountain
itself. As it is expressly called a ' beautiful house ' by those
who were never within its doors, we may feel certain that the
dazzlinc^ whiteness of the stone, which astonished visitors to
the temple in our Lord's time, was one source of this feeling
of admiration towards the temple of Solomon. Kising from
a paved platform on the highest part of the hill-top, and built
of white limestone, it presented a splendid appearance of vast-
ness and solidity from every point, however distant, which
commanded a view of Jerusalem. The temple was a fortified
castle of immense strength, crowning a hill, which nature and
art combined to make unusually bold of view and capable
of defence. Its length lay east and west : the entrance door,
shaded by a magnificent porch, faced the rising sun. Priests
of high rank, called ' the Keepers of the Threshold,' of whom
^ If the cubit be taken at 16 inches and not at 18 inches, the dimensions
become 80 feet, 27 feet, and 40 feet.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 497
three are specially referred to (Jer. lii. 24), had charge of this
approach, that nothing might venture near which was forbidden
by the law. These keepers were entirely distinct from the
Levites of the gates. In a single line of his history, Tacitus,
writing as if he were well acquainted with this distinction
between threshold and gate, says: 'To the doors only was
access permitted to the Jew ; from the threshold all but priests
were warned off.' Before the porch, thus jealously guarded,
was an open space, ' between the porch and the altar,' appa-
rently regarded as the most sacred part of the ground about
the temple (Joel ii, 17). It terminated at the great altar of
burnt-offering, or at the small brazen altar constructed in the
wilderness, both of wdiich stood near the middle of the inner
court or court of the priests. That court was enclosed by a
wall of three stone courses, perhaps rising to a height of 10
or 1 2 feet. Cedar beams served to carry the roof of a cover-
ing, which furnished shelter in inclement weather. Great
doors sheathed or studded with brass gave entrance to this
court. The enclosing Avail interfered but little with the view
of the loftily situated temple inside. Somewhat lower down
the hill to the east, and beyond the outer court, was the great
gate, which gave tlie chief access to the temple court from
the Kedron side of Moriah. The rampart wall of the en-
closure at that spot may have been more than 150 feet in
height to one looking up from the banks of the brook. This
gate was kept by the Levitical porters or the temple police.
Plight over against it, across the deep cleft, called the Valley
of Jehoshaphat, and possibly regarded as part of the sacred
precincts, was Mount Olivet, the public park of the city, whose
spreading flanks, shaded by trees of many kinds, swept up-
wards to a summit 200 feet higher than the temple platform.
From that top, Levites looking over the hills and houses of
the city, could best discern the first faint crescent of the
young moon as it became disengaged from the setting sun.
Probably, therefore, in Solomon's time, it was the station
2 I
49 S The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
chosen for ascertaining the beginning of the Hebrew month
in the way which that people is known to have observed.
The cry of the discoverers of the crescent, ringing through the
stillness of approaching evening, would warn priests and people
in the court below to sound the sacred trumpets which
announced the festival of New Moon. The position of the
temple thus rendered the approach to it unlike the approaches
to more ancient temples in Egypt. A street several hundred
yards in length, and lined with giant shapes cut out of stone,
led over a sandy plain to the portico of these temples. Some
of the streets remain to this day, not in their original perfec-
tion, but with enough of grandeur remaining to fill a stranger
with awe. Manifestly the Hebrew king did not borrow from
an Egyptian model in building the temple on Moriah.
' The great altar ' stood at a little distance east of the
porch, either built of unhewn stones or a vast piece of live
rock — the highest peak of Moriah — left untouched in levelling
the hill. As the followers of Judas Maccabeus (165 B.C.)
removed the stones of the altar, which had been polluted by
the Syrian tyrant, and built a new altar of unhewn stone, it
is doubtful whether we have good ground for considering the
piece of live rock, which stands about five feet above the floor
of the Mosque of Omar on tlie temple hill, as the altar of
Solomon. Certainly it was part of the threshing-floor of
Araunah. The two chambers, one over the other, which exist
beneath it, may have been for the storage of grain, according
to the custom of the country then, as it is now. The lower
one was afterwards connected with the water system of the
temple. It is \2\ feet high, with a manhole in the roof open-
ing into the one above it, which, though beneath the floor of the
mosque, is 8 feet high.-^ The building of a new altar by the
Maccabees is opposed to the idea, that this piece of rock
could have been * the great altar ' in the first temple any
more than in the second ; while the manifest connection of
1 See Pierotti, Jerusalem Explored, pp. 87, 97, 98. Tristram, Israel, p. 180.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon, 499
its underground chambers with the water system of the
temple renders it equally unlikely, that the rock could have
been the floor on which the ark was placed in the Holy of
Holies. On the south side of the building, and rising to a
height of 13 feet, in the open court stood the great sea, filled
with several thousand gallons of water for the priests in
discharging the duties of their office. It rested on the
haunches of twelve brazen oxen, facing outwards, and enclosed
in a circle about 50 feet round. As their mouths evidently
contained the pipes by which water was drawn off from the
sea, their heads were six feet above the surface of the court,
to enable the smaller lavers to get underneath. A supply
of water must have been led from a great distance into this
tank. Even in this small matter Solomon proceeds by fifth,
not tenth parts. The sea took the place of the one laver, which
stood between the tabernacle and the altar in the wilderness
arrangements. As it was too large for convenient use, Solomon
made ten great lavers, holding between them a fifth part of
the water in the brazen sea, to form smaller baths for the
priests to w^ash in (Ex. xL 30-33). Five of them stood on
the north side of the house, and five of them on the south
side. As each laver held upwards of a ton weight of
water, means had to be provided for moving them easily
to and from the source of supply at the brazen sea. This
was done by putting each on a highly decorated brass base
or barrow, mounted on four small wheels. The manual labour
required to move these weighty barrows may give some idea
of the heavy duties attached to the priests' office, and the
number of men required for their efficient discharge.
A sacrificial system on a most extensive scale is implied
by this furniture of the court in front of and on both sides
of the temple entrance. As the book of Exodus describes
chiefly the material tabernacle and its furniture, so the book
of Kings gives chiefly the material furnishings of Solomon's
temple. But the men required to work it in daily practice
500 The Kingdom of All-Is7'ael : its History.
a,re seldom referred to, and never save in the most general
terms. Their labours cannot have been light, nor their
nnmbers small. Of the cause of this silence in that book
it is difficult for us now to speak. A great gap exists in the
narrative, which the politician, who w^rote the history, lets us
distinctly see, but does not lill up. When he completed the
book, the material glories of the temple were a thing of the
past, but the arrangements of the priestly class lived on in
the memories and writings of men. He may have sought to
rescue the former from utter forgetfulness in the belief that
the latter could not be forgotten, and would be again revived.
But be that as it may, the want of information in the book
of Kings regarding the priestly tribe is in startling contrast
with the full details given of the temple they had charge of,
the doors they guarded, the altars they sacrificed at, the sea
and the lavers and the barrows they used. Had the writer
of Chronicles not handed down an account of the ministers,
by whom the sacrificial system of the temple was carried
out in practice, the story of the building and its arrangements
Avould have been incomplete, and might have seemed incredible.
He does for the living forces of the temple what the books
of Leviticus and N'umbers do for the service of the tabernacle.
But the differences in this respect among the historical books
of Scripture are very surprising. While the book of Samuel
presents a view of priests and priests' assistants at the temple,
and even lifts the veil to show not fewer than eighty-five
priests serving at Nob, the book of Kings, though giving
large details of magnificent appliances for sacrifices and sacri-
ficers, utters not one word about priests' assistants, and no-
where mentions more than five priests as engaged in temple
duty at Jerusalem. There were reasons for this silence.
And behind it was concealed as magnificent an arrangement
of the priestly tribe as the historian presents of appliances
for their help and convenience. These material furnishings
needed living men in well-ordered arrangement to keep them
The Temple and Palace of Solomon, 501
moving from day to day. History makes it cleai' that for
four centuries after the return of the Jews from Babylon^
the magnificence of the second temple was inferior to that
of Solomon. It was with the second temple in its least
palmy days that the writer of Chronicles (42 0 B.C.) was ac-
quainted. When he describes the courses of the priests, the
divisions of the Levites, the singers, and the porters, he is
sometimes thought to be describing not what existed in
Solomon's reign, but what he saw with his own eyes in the
temple he himself frequented. An assumption is here made
which requires proof. Of the temple arrangements in the
days of this writer we know little or nothing. But they
could not have been such as he describes in his book. If
his account of tlie temple's living forces — the priests and
the Levites — be true at all, it can be true only of days long
before or long after he lived, of Solomon's or of Herod's
reign. The latter is out of the question. The former is the
only period to which his account can apply, especially when
we look at it as the necessary tilling up of the great gap in
the book of Kings. If Solomon made ten lavers where Moses
thought one enough, and ten golden candlesticks for the
one of the tabernacle, and other vessels more numerously in
similar proportion, he may well be credited with the arrange-
ments of priests and Levites detailed in the Chronicles.
There is another point on which the historian in the Kings
has preserved unbroken silence. While his description of the
material appliances for worship is frequently full, and some-
times lavish, not a word does he utter on the water supply
of the temple, its source, its cisterns, and the underground
channels which involved a large outlay of money and great
engineering skill. The Eoman historian, Tacitus, gives in few
words a picture wdiich we miss in the Hebrew writer : ' The
very porches by which the temple was surrounded w^ere a
splendid defence : there w^as a spring of water constantly
flowing ; mountains hollowed underneath, and tanks and cis-
502 The Kingdom oj All-Israel : its History.
terns for storing the rain ' {Hist. v. 12). Of spring and tanks
and tunnels the book of Kings says not one word. It is
equally silent on the 50 or GO feet of live rock still seen
under the dome of the great mosque on the temple hill, and
famous all over the world as Es-Sakhrah. These tanks and
tunnels and rocks were as essential to the service as the
jDriests and the sea and the lavers. No conqueror would
destroy them. An earthquake alone could do them injury.
Centuries of misrule by savages have done them little harm.
And probably the sacred writer imagined the works which
were before the eyes of his readers needed no words from
him.
Although the door of the temple was closed against every
one, Hebrew and stranger, save the sons of Aaron, a descrip-
tion of its interior magnificence w^as given in the history of
Solomon's reign. No attempt was made to hide from the
people everything it contained, and every ceremony that
was transacted within. Priests only could handle its sacred
furniture, discharge the duties of the place, and realize by
sight what others could only call up in fancy. Eut there
was nothing within the temple, even in the most sacred spot,
to which something similar could not be found in the court
outside. The cherubims of the most holy place we cannot
sketch or paint, from never having seen them or heard them
described ; ^ but a look at the laver- barrows in the court would
reveal to a Hebrew their shape and nature. Wings and faces
are ascribed to them ; but these are words which do not
necessarily imply either the wings or the faces of living beings.
The 'image' work about them (2 Chron. iii. 10) was only the
goldsmith's work in laying on gold plates. Of hidden mystery
there was none in Hebrew faith and worship. A temple
jealously guarded against the Hebrews themselves was fully
described in their historical books. It was a temple of truth,
1 * Nobod}^ can tell, or even conjecture, what was the shape of these cherubims.'
— Josephus, Ant. viii. 3, 3.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 503
which men speak of and view with awe, but which few of
them are permitted to enter. The entrance to the temple
proper was by a magnificent porch, which could not fail to
rivet the attention of all who drew near. If its foundations
rose from a deep hollow, such as is knoAvn to have existed
elsewhere on the hill, its height from base to pinnacle may
have been 150 or 180 feet (2 Chron. iii. 4). But on this
point there is uncertainty. It was flanked on the south
and north sides of its open or eastern end by the two brass
pillars which Hiram devised, and of which the one on the
south side was called Jachin, while the other, on the north
side, was called Boaz. Resting, apparently, on lofty stone
pedestals, they rose to a great height, and were surmounted
by splendid capitals of brass of the same girth with the
pillars, and one-third of their height. Round the capitals
were hung chains, and lilies in brass worlc, besides two rows
of pomegranates. Within, the bright brass of the entrance
pillars found a contrasted lustre in the gold plates which
lined the walls of the porch. Everywhere was to be seen
raised work of flowers, oxen, and cherubim, carved on the
woodwork of the walls, and covered with gold plate. Passing
through the golden-panelled porch or entrance hall, a visitor
saw the steps of spiral staircases on either hand, leading to the
chambers which were built against the north and south sides
of the temple. Priests, princes, and people seem to have all
had permission to enter thus far into the house of the Lord.
The depth of the hall or portico was about fifteen feet, its
breadth was the same as the breadth of the house, about
thirty. Evidently tliere was no furniture in this space.
Jonadab, the son of Rechab, was taken into this porch by
Jeremiah, and conducted tlience to a chamber apparently on
the second story, occupied by ' the sons of Hanan.' ISText to
it was ' the chamber of the princes,' probably a room reserved
for meetings when business of importance was on hand. It
was not what we might call a court-room ; for the princes, on
504 TJie Kingdom of A I I- Israel : its History.
the only occasion on which we find them sitting in judgment,
' sat down in the entry of tlie new gate ' (Jer. xxvi. 1 0 ;
XXXV. 1-4). On the ground floor below was the chamber of
Maaseiah, the keeper of the tlireshold, whose duties required
him strictly to watcli the inner door, leading from the porch
to the temple proper. How many of these chambers there
were altogether is unknown. They were in three stories.
The thick wall of the house was stepped, becoming a cubit
less in thickness at the floor of the second story of chambers,
and two cubits less at the floor of the third. Cedar beams
were laid on the rests thus provided, and the breadth of the
looms on the upper stories was increased by this thinning of
the great wall.^ To what purposes they were devoted, whether
as private rooms or storehouses, or public offices, and under
whose charge they were, are matters apparently now lost
beyond recall Even the wife of the high priest seems to
have had the right of living in these rooms, or in others built
on the temple area. Jehosheba, the wife of Jehoiada the
priest, saved her infant nephew Joash from the rage of
Athaliah, by hiding ' him and his nurse in the bed-chamber,'
and by keeping him ' hid with her in the house of tlie Lord
for six years.' The sacredness of the main building of the
temple was thus strongly contrasted with the common uses,
to which the rooms built against or around it appear to have
been put. But the idea was a holy centre diffusing its own
holiness throughout all the relations of life.
The door of olive wood leading from the porch into the
temple proper was in two halves, each of them double or
folding. As the breadth of the whole opening w^as only about
seven feet, that of each of the four leaves cannot have much
exceeded a foot and a half. Evidently the design of this
arrau'-^ement was to render entrance difficult to all who mioht,
^ 1 Kings vi. 8, ' The door for the middle ' (or second) ' story was in the soutli
shoulder of the house ' (i.e. the projection or shoulder forming the south siile of
the porch), 'and they went up by winding' (or spiral) 'stairs into the middle
story. ' For the size of the chambers, comp. Recovery of Jer us., 394.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 505
by surprise or inadvertence, attempt to find tlieir way ^vitllin.
Carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and flowers, covered with
gold plate fitted to the inequalities of the wood, adorned the
four leaves. On entering, one was struck with the size and
magnificence of the w^ell-proportioned House, as it was called.
Jtight in front, at a distance of nearly sixty feet, and wdth
nothing between to break the view, was a similar opening of
less breadth and with a door of two leaves. That door was
open, but a magnificent curtain or veil, richly wrought and
hung by chains of gold, guarded the interior from prying
eyes. Nothing more w\as seen at that door save the ends of
two staves, which, thouc^h no lonc^er needed, were allowed to
remain in their place, relics of a state of things long gone
past. The ceiling of the house rose to a height of above forty
feet, and the "svalls were unbroken by windows except near
the top. As the roof of the highest side chambers was ten
or fifteen feet lower, no curious eye could look down from
above into the house below, even if the opening in the walls
had been wide enough to allow the attempt. Dim though
the light must thus have been at its best, the eye would soon
discover that the Avails, the floor, the ceiling were covered
with gold plate. By carving on the walls, ' from end to end,'
figures similar to those on the doors, and fitting gold plate
into the heights and hollows of the cedar wood, which was
used for wainscoting, the sheen of the gold would be caught
by the eye from innumerable points, where it reflected the
light from the windows above, or from a candlestick wdiich
was kept always burning on the soutli side of the house.
The desii^^ner studied effect in this arrangement of the carvings.
Bat, though the purest olive oil was used for the lamps,
though indeed it was specially prepared for the purpose, the
duties of the priests, wdio kept this great surface of gold
always burnished, must have been heavy and incessant. Over
the doorway of the second temple was a golden vine, on which
every one who vowed a berry or a leaf, or a cluster, could
5o6 The Kmgdom of All-Is7'ael: its History,
liang his gift. Xo fewer than three hundred priests — pro-
bably an exaggeration — were numbered off to keep it bright.
But, whatever be tliought of this tradition, the more the
details of Solomon's temple are studied, the larger is seen
to be the army of workers needed to keep them in motion
and in order.
On the right hand of one entering the house were
seen tables placed against the north wall, five on one side
and five on the other, of an eleventh gold-covered table,
on which lay twelve loaves of bread, with salt and incense
beside them. The tables were each about three feet in
length and a little over two feet high ; they must have
occupied more than half of the north side of the house.
Apparently the ten tables on both sides of the central table
were intended for holding the gold basons, the spoons and
the censers abundantly provided for the worship. On the
opposite or south side of the house was a row of golden
candlesticks, five on one side and five on the other of the
ancient candlestick made in the wilderness.^ Apparently
their position at the south wall was chosen to indicate a
relation to the southern sun, the source of light. Whether
all these lamps were fully lit up on great occasions is now
unknown. But seventy-seven lights in all — for there were
seven bowls for olive oil in each lamp — would have filled
the golden house with unmatched brilliance, especially as the
priests would be careful to use the purest oil, and to keep the
^ When the temple was burned by the sohliers of Titus (70 A.D. ), 'one of
the priests, whose name was Joshua, upon his having security given him by the
oath of Caesar that he should be preserved, upon condition that he should
deliver to him certain of the precious things that had been reposited in the
temple, came out of it, and delivered him from the wall of the holy house, two
candlesticks, like to those that lay in the holy house, with tables, and cisterns,
and vials, all made of solid gold, and very heavy.' — Joseplius, B. J. vi. 8, 3.
Du[)licates of many things about the temple were thus common at the close, as
they had been at the beginning, of its existence. But, arguing against the
historical value of the book of Chronicles, Graf says that in the second temple
there were one table of shewbread, and also only one candlestick. Josephus
shows how worthless this arguing is. — G. B. p. 130.
TJie Temple and Palace of Solomon. 507
golden walls and ceiling always burnished to their brightest
splendour, free from smoke and dust. A few years, however,
witnessed the end of much of this glory. Abijah, the
grandson of Solomon, seems to have known of only one
candlestick, as if the Egyptian king, Shishak, had, a little
before, carried the others off with him amoug the plunder of
Jerusalem. At the far end of the house, and beside or
before the curtained door opening into the innermost shrine,
was the golden altar, made in the wilderness, and newly
covered with gold. Sometimes also it is called the altar of
incense, from the offerings made there by the priests. Allow-
ing ample room for the golden tongs, the snuffers, the bowls,
and other furniture of the place, the centre of the house must
have been a great area, well adapted to accommodate many
priests, all discharging their duties at the same time. But
if we may judge from the story of Zechariah in the New
Testament, it was not the custom for many of them to be
emi^afTed there at once ; for he was alone in the OTeat room,
burning incense before the golden altar, when the vision of
Gabriel appeared to him.
Westward, beyond the house, was the Oracle, or Holy of
Holies, a darkened chamber, twenty cubits (30 feet) in length,
breadth, and height. Evidently nothing was built over it ;
though chambers were built against it. By the door only
could a little light enter the golden, almost empty room.
But the cedar wainscoting of the walls, covered with gold
plate, was as richly carved as the lighted house in front.
In the centre of the chamber were two golden-plated cherubim
— figures of unknown form — reaching half-way to the ceiling,
with outspread wings meeting in the centre of the room, and
touching either wall at a distance of nearly fifteen feet.
Below the meeting-place of the wings was placed the ark,
made in the wilderness, with smaller cherubim on the lid or
mercy-seat. Its carrying staves were left in the pair of gold
rimrs attached to each of its two narrow ends. Although
5oS The Kingdom of All- Israel : its Histo}'y.
nothing was in the ark, that is, although nothing was con-
cealed from sight but the two tables of stone graven with the
ten commandments, there may have been things which could
be seen 'in the side' (Deut. xxxi. 26 ; 1 Sam. vi. 8, x. 25).
If manuscripts of great national value were kept there, copies
of them must have been specially taken before the originals
were shut up in a room, which was never to be entered save
by one man on one day in the year.
The extent of open space around this gorgeous house can
now be only guessed. At present the area of the enclosure
on which the temple was built is about thirty-five acres,
buttressed by rampart walls, which vary in height from thirty
to one hundred and seventy feet. The lower portions of
these walls, where they were exposed to view by deep shafts
and long galleries driven through the accumulated rubbish of
ages, are probably in some places the work of Solomon's
Tyrian masons. But more recent hands had a large share in
the work ; for on tlie north-east upwards of seven acres appear
to have been added to the original area a thousand years
later. Joseplms also ascribes to Herod the honour of having
doubled the extent of the original enclosure when he rebuilt
the temple (20 B.C.). Probably, therefore, the platform con-
structed by Solomon's engineers was an area of about twelve
acres, or a quadrangle of nine hundred feet by six hundred.
It appears to have been divided into two courts,^ the inner
and the outer. ' Three rows of hewed stone and a row of
cedar beams ' marked the boundary of the inner court. As
thousands of people would frequently crowd into these courts,
arrangements required to be made for an efficient body of
temple police, acquainted with the laws of the place, and
empowered to see them respected. Four thousand Levites,
called gatemen or porters, were told off for this duty. To
^2 Chron. xxxiii. 5, 'two oourts of the house of the Lord.' These words
apply to Solomon's temple. Do they apply to the temple in which the writer
of Chronicles worshipped ?
The Temple and Palaee of Solouwn, 509
them was committed the charge of the gates and courts.
The list of stations for these police guards does not appear to
be complete ; hut it throws some light on the approaches to
the temple hill. Westward, that is, fronting Mount Zion,
was a gate called SJiallccheth, or cutting doum (1 Chron. xxvi.
IG), 'by the causeway of the going up.' By 'causeway' was
meant an embanked way, leading, partly by sloping rise,
partly by steps, from the valley between Zion and Moriah
to the level of the platform. This valley is compared to that
which separates the Old Town of Edinburgh from the New.
In both cases a bridge, an earthen causeway, and a flight of
steps connected the divided portions of the city. In Jeru-
salem the connecting links lay east and west ; in Edinburgh
they lie north and south. But the rock of Moriah is higher
on the western than on the eastern side. Probably, therefore,
the gate Shallecheth got its name, cutting cloum, from the
levelling of the rock made at the head of this embanked
approach to the temple. Parbar, wdiich seems to be a
word of foreign, perhaps of Persian, origin, meaning a suburb
(2 Kings xxiii. 11), was in the immediate neighbourhood of
this gate and the causeway. It became famous in later days
as the seat of sun-worship ; for there had some kings of
Judah given horses for the sun. Nathan-Melech, a chamber-
lain of King Josiah, occupied a chamber in the place, ' at the
entering in of the house of the Lord.' These horses were not
statues dedicated to the sun. Looking to tlie foreign origin
of the word Parbar, and to the fact of Josiah having ' burned
the chariots of the sun in the fire,' we may rather regard them
as the living horses kept in honour of the Deity, if not at
times sacrificed to him, as was cistomary in Persia. At any
rate, Josiah is said to have made these horses to cease : he
' removed ' them, the rendering in our version, is not neces-
sarily the meaning.^ Another gate went by the name Sur.
^ The use of the word Parbar, it is sometimes saiiJ, could not have been
known in Solomon's time ; it was a second temple term. But it was known
510 The Kingdom of All- Israel: its History.
Tliere was also an ascent by steps from the king's palace, on
the south, to the temple court. At the principal entrance,
eastward, were six Levites on guard ; at each of the north,
south, and west entrances were four. But on the south side,
at a place called Asuppim, or storehouses, were two sentries at
each of two points ; and at Parbar other two, besides the
four at the gate. At these principal spots four-and-twenty
guards are enumerated, evidently not the whole number on a
circuit of a thousand yards, and for an area intersected by
dividing walls. As there were six watches from sunset to
sunset, 144 men would be required for duty at these spots
alone. But if each regiment of porters numbered only about
350 men, and did service for a month at a time; mani-
festly, therefore, the 4000 Levite guards, formed from the
twelve regiments, were not too many for watch and ward,
by day and by night, in the temple.^
Besides the 4000 Levites set apart to act as temple police,
other 4000 were chosen as singers at the various services.
Perhaps we should rather regard these singers as having been
mostly picked out from the tribe of Levi a considerable time
before. At least, when David brought up the ark to Zion, it
was accompanied by a body of musicians, representatives of
in Josiah's reign, and during the first temple. Whether it was known in
Solomon's day is of no consequence. The Chronicler, in describing a notorious
spot, applied to it a name which it passed under during the existence of the
first temple. Even though it was known by that name only in his own day,
he did nothing wrong and nothing unusual in using it. The place was the
same as of old : the name fixed the place in the view of his readers.
Of Herod's temple Josephus says : ' In the western quarters of the enclosure
there were four gates ; tlie first led to the king's palace, and went to a passage
over the intermediate valley ; two more led to the suburbs of the city ; and the
last led to the other city, where the road descended down into the valley by a
gi-eat number of steps, and thence up again by the ascent.' — Ant. xv. 11, 5.
'^ The Chronicles state that ' David and Samuel the seer did ordain them to
their set office,' and that * Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, was ruler over them in
time past' (1 Chron. ix. 20, 22). Here is a distinct statement that at three
epochs of unusual change in the worship of the Hebrews, — in the wilderness, at
Nob, and at Jerusalem, — the Levitical porters were arranged by the chief men
of the nation. ThiDgs were always going wrong, and as constantly some one
always appeared to put them right.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 5 1 1
liim and all his people, playing on instruments made of ' fir
wood, even on harps and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and
on cornets and on cymbals.' And in the only passage of the
book of Kings in which the verb to sing occurs, Solomon is
said to have made out of the almug trees brought from Ophir
* pillars for the house of the Lord and for the king's house,
harps also, and psalteries for the singers.'^ A phrase so
definite as ' the singers ' leaves no doubt on the writer's mean-
ing. * Siuging men and singing women ' in the king's palace
cannot be referred to, for ' the singers ' (men) only are men-
tioned. And it would indeed be surprising if, on instruments
for a class of men and women so liumble, the much-valued
wood, which was reserved for adorning the noblest palaces,
should have been spent. This service of song was ordained
by ' David and Gad the king's seer, and ISTathan the prophet '
(2 Chron. xxix. 25).
The rest of the Levites, including the priests, were appointed
' to set forward the work of the house of the Lord.' Like the
singers and porters, they were divided into courses. Each Levi-
tical course consisted of about one thousand men, and served
for a week at a time. The two families of the priests were
divided into the same number of divisions, twenty-four. In
the one family, tracing its lineage to Aaron's third son, Eleazar,
there were sixteen courses ; in the other, descended from his
youngest son, Ithamar, there were only eight ; a proof, it may
be, of the cruelty exercised by Saul on that family when he
massacred the priests of Nob. A reason for this arrangement
of the priests and Levites into twenty-four courses each, is
manifestly found in the intention to give to each a week's
duty in the temple every half-year, besides the duties they
had to discharge in their own districts. Provision was thus
made for maintaining a central authority in faith and worship,
while local influence was fostered without being unduly
1 For the definite article and the peculiar use of the word, see LXX. 1 Kings
X. 12 : 2 Chron. ix. 11, xxxv. 25 ; 1 Chron. xv. 16. See also Jos. Ant. viii. 3.
512 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
encouraged. But a farther reason existed for this arranc^e-
nient of the courses. ISTo priest or Levite was allowed to
remain so long at the temple as to learn, from familiarity, to
treat any of its sacred duties with levity. A week at one
time, and another week six months after, did not allow the
feelings of solemnity and reverence, which they brought with
them to the sanctuary, to grow dull. A constant rehearsal of
the same duties by the same men would, in many cases, have
turned the daily worship into a wearisome routine. But new
men every week found the routine new, and helped to give
freshness to its details. The wisdom of the arrangement is
manifest.
On the permanence of these arrangements for the temple
service the history may be said to be silent. At long intervals a
high priest is now and again mentioned — Azariah (1012 B.C.),
Jehoiada (852 B.C.), Urijah (730 B.C.), and Hilkiah (625 B.C.).
Sometimes other priests appear in the history, either filling
high offices or discharging the ordinary routine of the temple
service. But only once does the historian in the Kings speak
of the Levites as distinguished from the priests. On no other
ground can this one reference to them be explained than on the
idea of a class of men, otherwise well known to his readers,
requiring neither comment nor historical setting from his pen.
In the same way, and for the same reason, he speaks once of
' the singers,' once of 'the altar of gold,' twice of 'the altar of
brass/ once of ' the great altar,' and once of ' unleavened
bread.' The silence of the historian is therefore no proof of
the arrangements of priestly and Levite courses never having
been made, or of these arrangements having broken down in
practical working. That they were neglected at times, that
they even fell into abeyance for considerable periods, is matter
of history. But there is nothing in the silence of the writer
of the Kings to discredit the institution of these courses by
David and his son, their continuance throughout the monarchy,
and their revival on the return of the captives from Babylon.
I
The Temple a /id Palace of Solomon. 5 1 3
Even the Hebrew word used to express the courses carries a
reader back to a great turning-point in David's life, an escape
which neither he nor his men could ever forget (I Sam. xxiii.
28). It was used previously by Joshua, and afterwards by
Ezekiel, of the divisions of the land among the twelve tribes.
David used it of the division of temple duties among the men
of Levi, the only division in which they can be said to have
had a part. As there had been divisions among eleven tribes,
from which one was excluded at the conquest, so, at this
greater conquest, there were divisions among the one tribe
from which the other eleven were excluded.
The dedication of the temple was celebrated with imposing
ceremonies and magnificent sacrifices. The time chosen was
the feast on the fifteenth day of Ethanim, the seventh month,
the Feast of Tabernacles. It fell about the end of September.
All the labours of the year were then over. Barley harvest
and wheat harvest had long been gathered, and the grain
threshed. Olive and vine had also yielded their oil, their
wine, and their raisin cake. Firstlings, first-fruits, and tithes
had been paid. Peace prevailed everywhere, even in Edom,
where the first fires of dangerous war were destined to scare
Solomon in later years. Hebrew farmers were free to sur-
render themselves to the joy of an unusually festive season ;
* they were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multi-
tude, eating and drinking and making merry.' Special
invitations were given to ' the elders of Israel,' as ' the
heads of the tribes' and 'the cliief of the fathers' were
called ; for it was their duty to attend at the bringing ' up
of the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of
David, which is Zion.' Not one of them dared to touch that
sacred footstool of the Great King ; not one of them dared
even to put forth a hand in assisting the bearers of the ark
to remove it from the city of David to its new home. But
they were expressly summoned to Jerusalem ' to bring up tho
aik.' It was their duty to see that others — priests and
2 K
514 ^/^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
Levites, specially chosen for tlie work — discharged this
service of the faith. And because of this obligation, the
elders, by a common figure of speech, are said to have done
themselves what others did while they looked on. A thing
so plain and so small as this has been perverted into an
engine of attack against the credibility of the history. The
way in which a Feast of Tabernacles was observed, after the
people returned from captivity, has also given rise to miscon-
ception. In the book of Nehemiah (viii. 16) there is a
description of Jerusalem decked at that season with green
booths on the house-tops, in the streets, in the gates, and in
the temple courts ; the words are added, ' Since the days of
Joshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of
Israel done so.' At first sight they read as if the feast had
not been thus observed during the ages intervening between
Joshua and Ezra. But the real meaning is different. ISTever
in all that time had house-top, and street, and gate, and
temple court been so decked with greenery. Enemies without
compelled the people to keep the greenery wholly within the
city. It was an unwonted sight. And it was a way of
keeping the feast till then unknown. It was a new applica-
tion of an old law, and the singularity of the sight took tlie
fancy of all beholders.
Besides the nobles of the land, the people generally flocked
to Jerusalem to witness the dedication, and to partake of the
royal feast which, they were aware, would follow. On the
eighth day of the month the ceremonies began with the con-
secration of the new altar, which, in later times, was called
* the great altar' (2 Kings xvi. 15). For a week this con-
secration went on with sprinkled blood, and with sin-offerings.
The Chronicler has distinctly mentioned these seven days of
atonement or cleansing (2 Chron. vii. 9) ; his object clearly
was to throw liglit on a somewhat obscure passage in the
book of Kings, by showing the reference it contains to the
book of the law (Ex. xxix. 37; Ezek. xliii. 18-27). For the
TJic TcDiplc and Palace of Solomon. 5 1 5
author of the Kings liad a way of writing wliich may cause
trouble to a careless reader. He frequently lets fall a pro-
fessional word or idea, which, instead of fully working out,
he assumes his readers to be acquainted with, or to have
means at hand for ascertaining the import of. Again and
again a word occurs only once or twice in his history, without
explanation given of its meaning. Its sudden and transitory
appearance may surprise us, but did not surprise his first
readers. * Levites ' is one of these words; 'unleavened bread'
is another ; ' pure oil ' is a third ; * the destroyer ' is a fourth ;
' fats ^ of the peace-offerings ' is a fifth ; and each of these has
a history which gives force to its presence and peculiar use in
the book. This way of hinting at or presupposing other
writings explains the reference to the seven days of altar
dedication in the words, ' Solomon held a feast . . . seven
days and seven days, fourteen days,' without resorting to
such resources of the destitute as marginal comments, various
readings, and corruptions of the text. On the tenth day of
the month w^as held the only Hebrew fast of those times —
the Day of Atonement. Although the history of Israel
preserves unbroken silence regarding that fast for a thousand
years after its appointment in the wilderness (Lev. xvi.), it
would be rash to infer that either it or other things, about
which even a longer silence is kept, were unobserved or
unknown.
For several days before the beginning of the feast, people
were crowding into Jerusalem. In later times (150 B.C.) it
was proposed to legalize three days before and three after the
feast as days of ' immunity and freedom for all the Jews ' in
Syria. And Solomon could not have kept the feast of the
dedication unless a similar arrangement had prevailed through-
out his dominions. As nearl}^ a million of people seem to have
assembled in Jerusalem, Mount Olivet, the public park of the
^ Found nowhere but in Lev. vi. 12, the parent passage ; and in 1 Kings
viii. 64 : 2 Chron. vii. 7.
5i6 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
city, furnished multitudes of pilgrims, as in our Lord's time,
with a camping ground. On the lower slopes of the hill, for
a stretch of more than a mile, were booths of green branches,
whicli suggested to the king one of his finest parables, ' The
tabernacle of righteous men shall flourish.' In his palace
across tlie valley of the Kedron he must often have heard the
joyful hum of that green city on the hill-side. The feast
began with a solemn convocation, at which only a fraction of
the people can have been present, though all may have
looked on from a distance. Apparently this day of a solemn
meeting was also the great day of dedication for the temple.
But the crowning ceremony was the bringing up of the ark
from the house of David to its final resting-place. The
temple courts could not have contained a tithe of the crowds
who claimed admittance. Then, as in previous ages, repre-
sentatives of the people stood for the whole nation. But the
liigher slopes of Olivet, only five or eight hundred yards off,
furnished room for many myriads to see and almost to hear
the grand proceedings as distinctly as the spectators in the
courts.'^ The whole congregation, crowning the hill -top in
dense masses, looked down on king, priests, nobles, and
Levites. Moriah thus became a stage, and Olivet a most
magnificent amphitheatre for one of the grandest displays
known in the history of mankind. However crowded the
temple courts may have seemed to the spectators on the hill,
room was left for the procession to pass, which should con-
duct the ark to its home in the Holy of Holies. Priests and
Levites were the bearers of the ark, the tabernacle of the
congregation, and its sacred furniture. The tabernacle and
the furniture had been previously brought from Gibeon to
Zion. The tent also, which David had pitched for the ark a
^ Olivet was distant, at most, a Sabbath day's journey from the city, 888
yards (Acts i. 12), and less from the temple. 'At the immense distance of 600
yards,' says Tristram, Land of Moab, 33, ' we not only carried on a conversa-
tion with him, but, as he proved on joining us, he could hear several of our
remarks to each other.' See also Lynch, Expedition, etc., p. 428.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 5 i 7
generation before, was probably included among the holy-
things borne in procession. Although the long array of
white-robed priests and Levites, bearing the tabernacle and
its sacred vessels in advance (Num. x. 17, 21), presented an
imposing spectacle to people who had never seen the like
before, the interest of the assembly was centred on the ark,
which, covered with the vail made in the wilderness, and
hiding within the sacred laws of a pure conscience, was borne
in the rear. When it set forward, the king, as head of the
nation (Num. x. 35), prayed, ' Eise up, Lord, and let Thine
enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee flee before
Thee.' A long interval separated it from the rest of the
procession, if things were managed then as they had been in
the wilderness. When the bearers reached the entrance gates,
the singers in attendance seem to have heralded its coming
with the song, * Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye
lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall
come in.' Behind the closed gates another band of singers
answered the demand with, ' Who is this King of Glory ? '
' Jehovali, strong and mighty ; Jehovah mighty in battle,' was
the answering song as the gates opened to admit the Lord of
the palace.^
If the Levites bore the ark into and through the crowded
court, they handed their sacred burden to the priests at the
porch of the temple, for they were the only ark-bearers who
might enter the holy house. And the king and elders, if they
formed part of the procession, corresponding to the tribes in
the wilderness who came between the tabernacle and the ark
on the line of march, stood aside at some distance from the
entrance. A platform of brass-work, about four feet high,
and a little over six feet square, had been prepared for
Solomon * in the midst of the court,' on the east side of the
altar. The small size of this royal dais shows how closely
^ Ps. xxiv. does not seem so suitable a hymn for bringing up the ark from
Kirjath to Zion as for its solemn entry into the temple, ver. 3, cf. Ps. xv. 1.
5iS The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
packed the temple court must have been that day. An
hundred and twenty priests with sacred trumpets, and the
full prophesying or singing choir of the temple, were present
to swell the praise to a volume worthy of the place and the
time. Singers of Asaph's band ; the harpers of Jeduthun, —
similar, it may be, to the body of harpers seen on the stone-
cut monuments of Assyria — the horns, the psalteries, and the
cymbals of Heman, the grandson of Samuel, numbering two
hundred and eighty-eight in all (1 Chron. xxv. 1-7), united
with the hundred and twenty priests in this magnificent burst
of praise. Music from four hundred and eight singers and
players, in an open-air amphitheatre a mile in length and
half a mile in breadth, may have deserved a more favourable
criticism than that sometimes given : ' Grand, but to our ears
painfully loud.' ^ All of them were arrayed in white linen.
Placed on the high ground near ' the great altar,' they would
be well seen and heard both in the crowded court and on
the hill slopes beyond. When tlie bearers entered the house
with the ark, and when the golden bells of the high priest's
magnificent mantle ceased to be heard, the time had come for
saying, as Moses said in like circumstances, ' Eeturn, 0 Lord,
unto the ten thousands of Israel' Then, also, the trumpeters
aud singers expressed the joy of the nation at the fulfilment
of their hopes. The hymn of praise was a simple strain
suited to the time : ' Praise the Lord because He is good ;
becanse for ever is His mercy.' Meanwhile, if we may judge
from tlie ^ thick darkness ' of Solomon's prayer," the waiting
crowds observed a clond settle on the temple. "Within, the
priests felt an nnseen presence as they walked through the
holy place to set the ark in the innermost shrine (1 Kings
viii. 10):' The glory of the Lord filled the house.' They
could not remain within. Wliile the court and the surround-
^ Engel, Music of the Most Ancient Nations, p. 313.
^' 1 Kings viii. 12. The same word is used previously in four passages of the
history, Ex. xx. 21 ; Deut. iv. 11, v. 22 ; 2 Sara. xxii. 10.
The Temple and Palace of Solojnon. 5 1 9
ing liills were ringing with the anthem, tlie priestly ark-
bearers were seen leaving the temple. The high priest, who
accompanied them within, seems to have conveyed to the king
an idea of the cloud and the presence which filled the Oracle
and the house ; for Solomon, looking towards the temple-
porch, repeated aloud the idea thus conveyed : * Jehovah said
that He would dwell in the thick darkness : I have surely
built Thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for Thee to
abide in for ever.'
On the great altar lay ' the burnt-offering,' specially chosen
to inaugurate the sacrifices of the temple. Portions of other
sacrifices seem to have been placed beside it by the priests,
who stood near dressed in their linen robes of office. Turning
round, the king then faced the people. Conspicuous on the
brazen platform, and easily heard in the stillness, he gave the
sign for prayer by kneeling down and spreading forth his
hands. * All the congregation of Israel were standing.' The
long prayer which Solomon then offered, if not read from a
paper, was uttered after careful preparation. Nor would a
king so wise and so magnificent be indifferent to preserving
a record of the part which he himself took in the greatest
event of his reign. Other kings w^ere most careful to hand
down, in books or on stone, the campaigns they engaged in
and the victories they won. But Solomon's prayer was a
grander achievement than any battle ever fought, and the
dedication of Jehovah's temple a more marvellous work than
any conquest ever achieved. Most justly, therefore, may the
king be considered to have carefully provided for the pre-
servation of this prayer among the treasured archives of his
kingdom. There are two versions of it — one in the book of
Kings, another in the Chronicles. Differences exist between
them in the Hebrew original, such as exist between two
ancient manuscripts of the same book in other tongues. But
the writer of Chronicles does not seem to have thought it
necessary to report the prayer with the same veibal accuracy
520 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
as the ^vnter of Kings. AVliile the latter retains an old
phrase in * to make wicked the wicked and to make righteous
the righteous/ the former thinks it necessary to translate it
into, ' to requite the wicked and to make righteous the
righteous.'^ 'Hear the heavens' are words used seven times
by the older writer ; six times the writer of Chronicles adds
the word from : ' Hear from the heavens/ and once he leaves
the phrase unchanged. But the writer of Chronicles has
preserved what the written copy may not have contained, the
ending spoken by the king from the fulness of his heart :
' Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into Thy resting-place,
Thou and the ark of Thy strength : let Thy priests, 0 Lord
God, be clothed with salvation, and let Thy saints rejoice in
goodness.' (See Ps. cxxxii. 8-10.)
From the thick darkness which seems to have settled on
the temple, as on another Sinai, an answer came to the prayer
in sight of all the people. A lightning-flash struck the lofty
altar, lighted the wood, and ' ate up ' the burnt- offering, as the
same heavenly fire ' ate up ' the flesh, the wood, and the water
of Elijah's great sacrifice a century afterwards. The crowded
court and the myriads on Mount Olivet beheld the marvellous
sight. At once ' the people bowed themselves with their
faces to the ground upon the pavement and w^orshipped.' No
doubt of the miracle rested on their minds. They did not
trouble themselves with inquiring what the fire was, and how
it came so opportunely. A flash from the cloud was seen to
strike the altar. They asked no more : it was the answer
given to their king's prayer. A sceptical age may push
inquiry farther, with the result of making the miracle appear
more lifelike. The feast was held at the end of the hot
season in Palestine. Clouds, lightning, thunder, and rain
w^ere all looked for at that season. The temple itself was on
the summit of a lofty hill, the place round which thunder-
clouds naturally gather. And the great altar, raised high up
1 1 Kings viii. 32 ; 2 Chron. vi. 23 ; 1 Sam, xiv. 47.
The Temple and Palace of Solomon. 521
with projecting knobs and victim-covered top, was another
spot on which a storm-cloud might be expected to discharge
its hidden fires. While all these things ai-e true, tliey slied
no liorht on the marvellous coincidence between the end of
the prayer and the lighting of the sacrifice. They only prove
tliat God made ' the winds His messengers and flaming fire
His servant' tlien, as He does still. Natural laws are the
ministers whom He appoints to work His will. What science
calls the forces of nature, Scripture, with more propriety in
the nse of words, calls the servants of God. A miracle was
wrought that day on Moriah, while every law of nature may
have been most strictly observed.
The sacrifices, which were offered immediately after the
prayer and on the following days, may seem a display and a
waste, if it be forgotten that they were a royal coronation
feast. The law prescribed the sacrifices for each day of the
tabernacles. But since excess is quite as offensive to the
lawgiver as defect, Solomon's magnificent offerings of sheep
and oxen may seem to have been misplaced, an hundred and
twenty thousand of the former, and twenty-two thousand of
the latter. However, the law assigned no limit to peace-
offerings. A royal offerer could present any number of them,
if he had guests sufficient to consume the pieces not burned
on the altar, or given to the priests. And at this feast,
the guests were present in vast crowds. By offering the
sheep and oxen as sacrifices instead of allowing them to be
slaughtered for a feast, Solomon also secured to the priests
the choicest portions as a right and not as a favour. But
there was enough left for all who came to partake. Twenty
thousand sheep and nearly four thousand oxen w^ere slain every
week-day. Provision was thus made for about a million of
guests. It was a truly royal feast, suited to the ideas of Eastern
magnificence which were prevalent at the time. For a whole
week the festivities continued. On the eighth day another
solemn meeting was held in the great court of the temple.
52 2 The Kingdom of All-Israel : lis Hlslory.
Solomon again addressed his subjects, and with loudly-uttered
blessings from the people to the king, the ceremonies of the
dedication came to an end.
No one can read the prayer of Solomon without feeling
that the man who wrote it, had an intimate acquaintance with
the book of Deuteronomy. From beginning to end it breathes
the words and sentiments of that speech of Moses. On this
point all investigators are agreed. But a distinction is here
drawn, which, however it may be veiled under high-sounding
language, really casts a slur on the truthfulness of the his-
torian. The words wdiich he wrote, it is said, may not have
been the words which the king spoke. Four centuries inter-
vened between the speaking and the publishing. A compiler
of annals in ancient times frequently thought it no harm to
his hero and none to truth to become a romancer, while he
professed to be a narrator of facts. Words and sentiments
quite in keeping with his own time he reckoned it justifiable
to attribute to some hero of his book, who lived in days to
which these words and sentiments were wholly foreign. The
historian in the book of Kings, it is said, handled Solomon's
prayer in this customary manner. Perhaps the prayer was
not recorded at the time of its delivery, except in part. The
historian then wrote such a prayer as Solomon might have
been expected to write, had he lived in the historian's days,
and enjoyed access to the historian's library. It was a mis-
take in him thus to confound things that differ. He meant
no harm ; he intended no fraud. He followed a custom which
writers generally followed, or are thought to have followed,
but which has been long discarded. Those who adopt this
view regard Deuteronomy as a book which did not come into
existence till two or three centuries after Solomon. But the
historian thought that the kincj ouc^lit to have made lar^ze use
of Deuteronomy. He made him therefore do as he would
have done himself. Clearly, then, the prayer can be called
nothing better than, wholly or largely, a manufacture by the
TJic Temple and Palace of Solomon. 523
liistorian. His honesty is thus sacrificed, or his trustworthi-
ness as a writer. If lie thougiit himself able to compose a
long piece of eloquent prose, which would serve as a specimen
of such writiuLT as came from the wisest of men in the best
of his days, he w^as more than dishonest. He was singularly
conceited. But of conceit so outrageous the prayer displays
not the slightest trace. For soberness of idea, and for weight
of language, it stands high among the finest examples of Old
Testament writins^.^ Ignorance is, therefore, the least fault
which is chargeable on the historian, if the twin theories of
critics be accepted — the late origin of Deuteronomy, and a
manufactured prayer for Solomon. A gigantic fraud by a
conceited writer is the only explanation possible. But it
would require to be supported by proof immensely stronger
than the strom^est which the advocates of the two theories
have yet produced. Solomon was as familiar wdth the
Pentateuch, and especially with its fifth book, as the his-
torian, or any of his critics.
When the king had finished building the temple, he began
the other great w^ork of his reign, his own palace. Seven
years' labour were spent on the former ; thirteen years' labour
on the latter. All the resources of a rich empire were
lavished on the temple as the nobler work of the two.
The king's palace could be leisurely added to or embellished
according to circumstances. It consisted of several quarters —
the king's house, the house of Pharaoh's daughter, the house
of the Forest of Lebanon, the Porch of Pillars, and the Porch
of the Throne or of Judgment. Since Solomon's great buildings
are said to have been only two in number — the temple and
the palace (1 Kings ix. 1) — these different houses and porches
must all have formed one group called the palace. As the
account given of them in the book of Kings came from the
pen of an eye-witness of their grandeur, his description of the
^ 'An address,' says EwalJ, ' wLich is of extreme beauty, iu spite of its
lengtli. '
524 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History,
two porches is brief and general. They were well known.
The Porch of the Throne was free to all suitors, from what-
ever part of the kingdom they came. Saul and David dis-
pensed justice in the gate, from a turf seat or a throne such
as Eli sat on. But Solomon's mas^nificent ideas lifted his
thoughts far above his brethren, even in the place he used
for judgment. Leading up to the Porch of Pillars, evidently
from the east or Kedron side of Ophel, was a broad flight of
steps, which is rendered ' thick beam ' in our version (1 Kings
vii. 6). Apparently it opened on to the house of the Forest
of Lebanon, which seems to have been the royal audience
chamber ; and was perhaps also the great banqueting halh
Of the king's house and the queen's house no description
whatever is given. They were sealed against the world : but
there is one thing related regarding them. Behind the Porch
of the Throne w^as an inner court of similar work, which fjave
entrance to tlie rooms occupied by Solomon, by Pharaoh's
daughter and the other inmates of the palace. All these
magnificent porches and houses were built of costly stones,
soft when quarried, which were * sawed with saws,' and were
in the same style of architecture as the temple.
The palace is generally thought to have stood close to the
temple on Ophel, part of the southern tongue of Mount
Moriah. The south wall of the temple court, which seemed
of inconsiderable height when viewed from the temple grounds,
looked far higher when seen from the lower level at which
tlie palace stood. An ascent by a broad flight of steps led
up from the grounds of the palace to those of the temple. It
w^as of imposing grandeur and solidity, for the Queen of Sheba
regarded it as one of the king's most w^onderful works. This
private approach may have been by a double tunnel similar
to the one still existing, which rises by steps to the level of the
platform, near the site of the great altar. As the courses of
stone in the south rampart w^all of the temple enclosure are
slightly curved to give them the appearance of straightness,
The Temple and Palace of SolouioJi. 525
where the ridge of Ophel by its sharp rise and fall would
deceive the eye, there was probably a space between the
temple wall and the palace, if the rampart there is older than
Herod's reign. A builder's device, so singular as this curve
in the joints, seems to imply the possibility of a clear view
along the whole face of the rampart, unless the royal ascent
partly broke the prospect. The porch of the palace was built
after the pattern of the great court and the inner court of the
temple, a proof, perhaps, of the neighbourhood of the buildings
having compelled similarity in design and workmanship. The
eastern front of the palace was apparently the magnificent
hall, called the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It stretched
for an hundred and fifty feet, evidently along the slope of
the hill, and was half as much in breadth. A forest of sixty
cedar pillars, forty-five feet high, sustained the roof and the
beams which carried the cedar ceiling. They were arranged
in four rows of fifteen pillars each, the innermost being sunk
in the wall. The three avenues of columns, thus formed, had
a window or opening at the one end, and another at the end
opposite. ' Light was against light ' three times. The area of
the magnificent hall was thus divided into eight-and -forty rect-
angular spaces, each of twenty-two feet by eight. The appear-
ance of this grand hall and of the Porch of the Throne, when
the king dispensed justice or received ambassadors from his gold
and ivory chair of state, must have been imposing. His 500
guards, standing round with their golden shields, inspired
respect and awe, if litigants brought their suits before him, or
tributary states presented their tokens of homage. Between
two and three centuries after Solomon, Isaiah the prophet
refers to the House of tlie Forest of Lebanon as the arsenal of
the kingdom of Judah (Isa. xxii. 8).^ The Porch of Pillars
may have formed a vestibule on the east to this grand hall.
^ The word for ' armour ' is not common. Its earliest occurrences are Ps. cxl. ;
Isa. xxii. 8 ; 1 Kings x. 25 ; 2 Kings x. 2 ; nor does it occur clsewlK-re in these
books.
526 TJie Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
Solomon's two great buildings occupied one-lialf of his
reif^n, and reflected his glory during the continuance of the
monarchy, or, more correctly, throughout all future time.
Peace had won for him brighter triumphs than war had won
for Saul or David. But the defence of his kingdom demanded
attention as well as the regulation of its worship. Without
the former, experience had show^n the danger certain to befall
the latter. Apparently he turned his thoughts to the fortresses
of the empire, after all the work about his own palace had
been finished ; the first of them was Millo or Beth-Millo, at
Jerusalem. Our knowledge of this fortress is limited to the
name. Because it means ' filling up ' or ' the place of filling
up,' some writers regard it as the filled-up enclosure, on part
of wdiich the temple w^as built. But the names seem too
o-eneral and too ancient to be interpreted so narrowly. Any
place, filled up with earth and stone, might be called Millo
(Jud^. ix. 6, 20). Probably, therefore, the Millo of Jeru-
salem was the citadel distinct from the temple. It was
certainly not the same as the wall of the city ; for in the list
of Solomon's public works the two are distinguished; 'He
built Millo and the wall of Jerusalem.' To identify it with
Acra, as the Macedonians called the higher height on the
north-\vest of the temple, seems more in accordance with the
nature of things than any of the other suppositions which
have been made ; for a castle on that height rendered Jeru-
salem almost proof against attack by the engineers of those
days. Acra w\as perhaps a little low^er than Zion farther
south ; it was certainly higher than the temple on the east.
It was so admirably fitted to be the site of a citadel, that
(about 140 B.C.) the Jews lowered the top of the hill by a
laborious chipping away of the rock, to prevent its garrison
from ever again annoying worshippers in the temple courts.
Probablv the Towner of David w\as another castle in the
line of defences round Jerusalem. A large garrison held
the place ; it was ' builded for an armoury, whereon there
The Temple and Palaee of Solomon. 527
hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men '
(Can tic. iv. 4).
The other fortresses, strengthened or rebuilt by Solomon,
lay on tlie line of march, which invading armies had previously
taken ; or on the trade routes, which connected the rich lands
of Eastern Asia with the seaports on its Mediterranean coast
and with the fertile Nile Valley. Hazor, Gezer, Baalath,
Bethlioron the upper, and Bethhoron the nether, appear to have
commanded the pass, which led from the coast plains to the high-
lands of Benjamin, and by which, in Saul's reign, the Philistines
had pierced the ver}^ heart of Israel. Megiddo lay fartlier north,
in the fertile plain of Jezreel. But it also commanded the trade
route and the military road between Egypt and the East.
By fortifying the pass into Benjamin, Solomon seemed still
to regard the Philistines as dangerous neighbours ; or the
movements of armies between Assyria and Egypt, which are
known to have taken place in those days, may have caused
him uneasiness and led him to apprehend danger. In other
quarters also he provided against trouble or invasion. '■ He
built in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion.'
Solomon was well acquainted with the Lebanon district. He
delighted in the views which its lofty heights gave him over
the greenery of Damascus, and the brown sands of the wilder-
ness, half-way to his ow^n Tadmor, on the road to the distant
east. ' The smell of Lebanon ' and the streams which leaped
down the mountain's sides were figures in his poetry, which
showed how deeply the highland scenery had touched his
heart. But his survey of the country told him also of the
turbulent nature of its inhabitants. Unless they were held
down with a firm hand, the through trade from the east, which
he wished to encourage, could not flourish. Accordingly * the
tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus,' was fitted
both to protect the merchant and to overawe the people. A
Hebrew garrison was in the city ; another garrison watched
the road among the hills of Lebanon.
528 The Kingdom of All-Israel : Us History.
The trade route from Babylon and the most distant east to
the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean was, for centuries
before and after our era, a source of wealth to tlie people, who
could guarantee the safety of caravans across the intervening
desert. The direct road lay from Babylon to Jerusalem and
Joppa. But as the way was almost impassable, travellers
were compelled to seek a safer, though a longer road. By
keeping up the west bank of the Euphrates for about two
hundred miles above Babylon, they reached Zobah, where the
bending of the river v/estward greatl}^ narrov/s the desert. In
later ages, if not also in Solomon's time, a bridge spanned tlie
river in that neighbourhood. At its western end was the
town of Tiphsah, or Tliapsacus (crossing), on the north-eastern
edge of the Hebrew empire. ' From Tiphsah even to Gaza '
Solomon reigned over his own people and over tributary kings.
Between Babylon and Jerusalem the breadth of desert is
about six hundred miles. From Tiphsah to Damascus it is
not above half that distance. And about midway was Tadmor
or Palmyra, a rich oasis, where springs of water converted a
barren waste into a paradise of beauty ; and where the pure
air of the desert was laden with healthy life for men. Nature
designed the place for the site of a populous city. Perceiving
the advantage it presented as a link in the communication
between east and west, Solomon fortified the oasis, and secured
it from robbers by a garrison, which also served as a police
force for the desert. Tiphsah at one end of the trade route,
Damascus at the other, and Tadmor in the middle, were thus
guarded by Hebrew soldiers, who assured merchants of safety
in their journeys to and fro. Gold, ivory, spices, and all sorts
of productions from the farthest regions of the East were
carried to Babylon, from Babylon to Tadmor, and from Tadmor
to Tyre, whose seamen distributed them over the coasts and
islands of the Great Sea, if not as far as Britain itself. The
traders took back with them from Tyre the white iron or tin
of Britain, the amber of the north, salt from the Dead Sea,
The Temple and Palace of Solomon, 529
olive oil and honey from Israel, and the manufactured goods
of Phoenicia or neighbouring countries. Solomon was not
the discoverer of this channel for trade. He found it existimx
in his day. He only took steps to make it safer than it had
ever been. And in taking these steps he was strengthening
his own kingdom, and might have greatly enriched it as well
as himself.
There was another class of public works, which Solomon
found it necessary to undertake. * Cities of store, cities for
his chariots, and cities for his horsemen.' The phrase, ' store
cities ' or ' temple cities,' is borrowed from the book of Exodus.
"What Pithom and Eaamses were to Pharaoh, these store cities
were to Solomon — at once magazines for the garrisons which
held the fortresses of the empire ; and warehouses, in which
goods were stored, when they were purchased by the king's
merchants, or received in consignment from abroad. Both
ideas are involved in the words. And both meanings may be
specially applicable to ' all the store cities which he built in
Hamath.' Magazines for war indicate a conquered people,
ready to rise at any moment against their masters.^ Ware-
houses for goods and for profit bring vividly before a reader
the traffic carried on by the king, and the hopes he enter-
tained of broadening and deepening the stream of wealth
which flowed into his coffers. A body of merchants purchased
horses for the king in Egypt and other markets. The average
price of each horse in a drove was 150 shekels, or about £20
in our money. Chariots were also imported from Egypt for
600 shekels, or between £70 and £100 a-piece. Both
chariots and horses were sold by the merchants to the petty
princes and nol)les of Syria and Palestine, a traffic in the
king's name which shows the use made of his store cities.
In all these arrangements Solomon was thinking of his own
^ Assur-nasir-pal, king of Assyria, about a century alter Soloniou's reign,
says : ' That city to myself I took ; the wheats and barleys of Kirlti I accumu-
lated in it.' ' The chariots and warlike engines of the land of the Khatti 1 laid
up in my magaziues ' {Records, iii. 51, 59, 73).
2 L
530 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
profit and of his own magnificence. His commerce was a
one-sided monopoly. He took no count of the price in the
blood of their kindred, and in the produce of their industry,
which * his brethren ' had to pay for his selfish indulgence in
vain show. A whole nation was toiling and suffering for one
man.
' The cities for chariots and the cities for horsemen ' con-
tained provision for 1400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen.
In the Chronicles, Solomon is said to have had ' four thousand
stalls for horses and chariots,' which are strictly in agreement
with the one thousand four hundred chariots in the book of
Kings. Every chariot had two horses for service. A stall
for each chariot w^ould make up the total number required to
a little over four thousand. But probably the additional
number represented, not the chariots, but the horses kept to
supply vacancies in the force, unavoidably caused by accident,
illness, and duty. The total number of chariots and horse-
men in Solomon's army is so small as to suggest the idea,
that Hebrew soldiers disliked the cavalry service. For ages
they had been accustomed to fight on foot. Their great
generals had won the splendid victories of many wars by
armies of infantry, without a horse or a chariot. The new
fashion was not popular ; and in this the traditions or instincts
of the soldiers were truer to science, than the parade of their
king. Jerusalem, as might have been expected in these cir-
cumstances, was the chief chariot city. It is the only one
mentioned in the history. But even tradition retains the
fact to this day. The arched vaults underneath the south-
east end of the temple enclosure, and on which earth and
stones were heaped to increase the area of the hill-top, are
supposed to have been the stables in which Solomon kept his
horses.
CHAP TEE XVI.
GKEATNESS OF SOLOMON.
(1 Kings iv., ix. 26-28, x. 11-29 ; 2 Chron. viii. 17, 18, ix. 10-28.)
Solomon was esteemed great for liis wisdom, for Iiis breadth
of view in trade, and for his magnificence as a king. Under
these three heads enough has been handed down in the tract
of thirty pages, which contains the history of his reign, to
justify his claims to greatness. By wisdom is frequently
understood ability to manage the ordinary affairs of life. So
many by-paths leading to danger or to wasted effort lie in
our way, that a clear view of the right road to take is a
blessing not often bestowed in a high degree on any man.
Still more seldom is this blessing combined with theoretical
wisdom, as we may call learning and scientific knowledge.
As far as can now be ascertained from the scanty details
which have come down to posterity, Solomon was endowed
with both kinds of wisdom in an uncommon measure. But
the gift did not continue with him throughout life in tlie
great development, which it seems at one time to have
reached. A blight passed over it, due evidently to vanity
and selfishness diverting it from its proper channels.
Of Solomon's scientific pursuits the record is brief : — ' He
spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand
and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is
in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the
wall; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping
things, and of fishes.' By regarding the proverbs and the
songs here as a preface to the words which follow, a reader
may conclude that Solomon used trees and beasts and birds
532 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
as illustrations to give point to the proverbs and enrichment
to the songs. * He spake a parable upon every sort of tree,
from the hyssop to the cedar ; and in like manner also about
beasts, about all sorts of living creatures.' Such was the
judgment of Josephus on the nature of the king's wisdom.
His view is accepted by some modern scholars. Figures and
similes for poems and wise sayings would thus be drawn
from the world of nature around. When Agur, in the course
of seven verses in the book of Proverbs, enforces his teaching
by illustrations from the ants, the feeble conies, the kingless
locusts, the spider, the strong lion, a greyhound, and a
he-goat, he might be thought to be writing natural history
on Solomon's supposed plan. But this is a harsh construc-
tion of the words. On the one hand, it served no purpose
for the historian to give the information. Every poet and
every coiner of proverbs must be largely indebted for materials
to the world around, him. He who goes through that world
with his eyes shut can never hope to be either poet or
philosopher. But this construction of the words is unwar-
rantable as well as harsh. Eange of knowledge is implied in
the phrase, ' from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon to the
hyssop that springeth out of the wall,' not a mere discovery
of resemblances in the coining of figures and proverbs.
While Solomon uttered three thousand proverbs, he is said
to have spoken ahoid or uyon trees and birds and beasts. He
may therefore be assumed to have studied botany and natural
history, at a time when the study was surrounded by no halo
of glory such as surrounds it to-day. What Pliny, in the
dedication of his great work to the Emperor Vespasian, said
of the study a thousand years after Solomon, applied more
truly to it in his reign : ' The path is not one trodden by
writers, nor is it such as the mind desires to go abroad on.
It requires us to treat with respect common country words,
and sometimes barbarous or foreign words, by which alone
many things are known.'
Gi'eatness of Solomon.
jj
111 his pursuit of knowledge Solomon instructed his shi[)
captains to bring from beyond seas rare woods and strange
animals. Almug trees/ apes, and peacocks or parrots are
specially mentioned. Whether by trees we are to under-
stand merely the wood sawn into logs and boards, or the
trunk with its roots and branches also, is a question whicli
the brevity of the narrative renders us unable to answer.
But the transplanting of shrubs and plants was practised in
very early ages with as much skill and with the same
precautions, as gardeners exercise to-day. In the family
burying - place of the Thothmes kings, at a period two
centuries before the birth of Moses, are paintings \vhich
illustrate tliis subject. * On one wall is sculptured a whole
fleet of ships ; they are taking on board the spoils of the
country they have invaded ; vessels of gold, bales of various
kinds of produce. Amongst other things, they are importing
trees, the roots of wdiich, with balls of earth and matting
wrapped round them, are carried on poles between two men.
The same trees appear afterwards in great tubs. In the water
beneath the ships are seen the fishes peculiar to the Eed Sea,
including the sea crayfish.' ^ What Thothmes the First was
able to do, perhaps in 1700 B.C., Solomon was not likely to
fail in doing about 1000 B.C. Of careful study of plants and
trees, of birds and beasts, by the Hebrew king we can enter-
tain no doubt. A branch of science, which remained a poorly-
cultivated and a little-esteemed field till comparatively recent
times, was regarded by him as worthy of a king's researches
in the leisure he could snatch from business of state. Evi-
dently Solomon was in advance of his day. The garden
described in the Song of Songs (iv. 12-14) is a proof of
^ Almug trees seem to have been grown on Lebanon (2 Chron. ii. 8). But
this inference from the passage may be unfounded. Cedar and cypress were
rut down there and forwarded to Jerusalem. Almug may have come from the
same Tyrian source, and by the same Tyrian carriers, and nothing more may
be intended. Or the word may be used generally for any fragrant or resinous
tree besides the tropical sandal wood, which is commonly thought to be meant,
^ Villiers Stuart, Isile Gleanings, 294.
534 The Kingdom of All- 1 S7'ael : its Hisloiy,
Solomon's devotion to the study of natural science. A site
was chosen suitable for growing the rarest plants w^iicb could
be found at home or gathered abroad. In some places the
heat of Solomon's country sufficed to ripen the cinnamon of
Ceylon and the calamus or sugar-cane of India. ' A spring
shut lip, a fountain sealed ' by skilful tunnelling or the
enclosing wall of a garden, furnished the plants with the
living water required. Persian and Indian names, imported
into the Hebrew, described the botanical treasures of the
king : ' An orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits ;
cypress flowers, with nards ; nard and saffron ; calamus and
cinnamon, with all kinds of incense trees ; myrrh and aloes,
with aU the chief spices.' Probably the king had gardens
in various places, according to the nature of the plants grown ;
the tropical climate of Engedi sufficing for some, while the
sheltered valleys near Bethlehem and Siloam (2 Kings xxv. 4)
were more suitable for others. But a more curious example
of Solomon's love of odoriferous herbs is found in the names
of two of his daughters, which have been preserved by the
historian. One was called Taphath, a shortened form of the
word for a dropping of wine, or honey, or fragrant juice ; the
other was called Basemath, or sweet-smelling. Even into
these details of family life the wise king carried his love of
nature. ,
Connected with Solomon's study of natural history are the
voyages which he undertook to distant parts. His own
people were not sailors. But his friend and ally, Hiram of
Tyre, supplied him with shipbuilders, pilots, and officers. Of
the nature of the partnership which, in some cases, existed
between them, we have no information. However, while the
building and navigation of the ships fell to the Tyrians,
j)robably the mercantile part of the business was managed by
Hebrews. Beside Elath, in the land of Edom, at the head of
the eastern horn of the Eed Sea, was the port from which
the ships sailed. A reef of rocks, known as Ezion Geber, or
Greatness of Solomon. 535
the Hero's Backbone, lay outside tlie harbour. But here we
are in a region of conjecture. Akaba, or the waterless island,
eight miles south of it, which still shows traces of ancient
buildings and fortifications, may have been the port of
departure for Solomon's fleets. We can only say it was in
that neighbourhood. Solomon is known to have visited the
place, apparently to witness the departure of the ships to
unknown or distant lands. If kings and queens in recent
times honoured with their presence the setting out of trading
or discovery fleets, Solomon may be supposed to have shown
the same laudable enthusiasm in the cause of geographical
research. Elath, beside Ezion Geber on the Eed Sea, was
thus the chief seaport of the Hebrew empire. No other
capable of receiving large merchantmen is known to have
existed. Joppa, which is commonly spoken of as a harbour
on the Great Sea, was as dangerous for ships then as it is
now. Phoenician traders called off the place when the
weather was favourable, but they were as suspicious of the
coast as the steamers between Alexandria and Beyroot are
still. The harbourage was unsafe.^ Joppa plays a large
part on paper in the literature which has gathered round
Solomon's voyages. It can have had little to do with the
reality. There w^ere two fleets of trading ships, both of
which appear to have sailed from Elath. One of them ' went
to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and
twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon.' In the
Chronicles the gold brought from Ophir is set down as four
hundred and fifty talents.^ Of tlie position of Ophir we are
entirely ignorant. Wli ether it was in India, perhaps the
district round Goa ; or Yemen, on the Red Sea coast of Arabia;
1 For these harbours, see 1 Mace. xiv. 5 : Strabo, p. 759, 777 ; Joseph. B. /.,
iii. 9, 3 ; Conder, Tent Work, i. 1, 2 ; Robinson, Palestine, i. 250.
^ * Whereof thirty went in expense for the charge of the fleet and wages of
men, and four hundred and twenty came clear. ' — Sir Walter Raleigh, History
of the World, II. ch. xviii. sec. iii. The profits of the Greek merchant who
first found the road to Spain (630 B.C.) were considered enormous for one ship —
60 talents, £16,000.
53^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
or somewhere on the eastern seaboard of Africa, about Sofala,
or Zanzibar, or Madagascar, it was clearly a great trading
centre at which merchants bartered their goods. Ophir is
not said to have been the place which produced gold, precious
stones, and almug trees, all of which were brought from it in
the 'navy of Hiram' (1 Kings x. 11). Nor did this com-
l)ined Tyrian and Hebrew fleet discover Ophir, or begin the
trade ; the two kings only took advantage of an opening,
which David's conquest of Edom presented to them, for
exchanging their w^ares with those of a well-known mart.
An acquaintance with the place and the way to it, and a
previous voyage by Hiram's shipmen, seem involved in the
brief record of the venture. On this view the theories which
look for Ophir in India, Arabia, and Africa may all be
reconciled. The cargoes taken by the navies of Hiram and
Solomon on the outward voyage to Ophir are not described.
Salt and naphtha from the Dead Sea shores, the products of
Tyrian looms, the fine linen spun by Hebrew housewives, the
girdles, tapestry, and scarlet which they manufactured (Prov.
xxxi. 21-24); possibly also tin from Cornwall, silver from
Spain, balm from Gilead, and wheat from Minnith, wdth olive
oil for use as butter or ointment or lighting, and honey or
sugar, may have been the staples wdiich they exchanged for
gold, precious stones, ivory, and almug or sandal wood. But
the ships were more probably ' laden deep with toys,' -^ like
the one which Homer describes as havin^j come * from
Phoenicia, famed for skill in arts marine.'
Another fleet, called the navy of Tarshish, receives fuller
mention. Evidently it w^as more important, and was regarded
with feelings of greater pride. It is not the same as the
' Ezek. xxvii, 12, 17 ; Odrjs. xv. 416. The Phoenicians in their first
voyages to Tarshish exchanged olive oil and other sea-borne articles of little
worth for such masses of silver that the ships could not hold what they got,
and they had even to make all their anchors of it (see Bochart, Works, ii.
165-170). The Greek word for a toy, athurma, has a singular resemblance to
the Hebrew word for ahundance or riches, athereth. The toys of one people
may well be called the riches of another.
Greatness of Solomon, 537
Opliir fleet ; for a writer, so sparing of words as the historian
in the book of Kings, cannot be supposed to refer to the
same fleet and the same enterprise in terms so unlike, with
an interval of only twenty lines between the two records :
* The king had on the sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy
of Hiram ; once in three years came the navy of Tarshish,
bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks'
(1 Kings X. 22). This fleet is often affirmed to have been
the same with the other. The writer of Chronicles did not
entertain that idea. * The king's ships w^ent to Tarshish,' he
says ; nor is any other interpretation possible of the words in
the book of Kings. The names of the two fleets are different
— a navy going to Ophir, and a navy of Tarsliish. The
cargoes are not the same, for almug trees came in the Ophir
ships only ; but ivory, silver, apes, and peacocks are not
mentioned. The Ophir venture also is described as a partner-
ship between the two kings ; while Hiram is said to have had
a ' navy of Tarshish ' distinct from Solomon's. In all these
respects the two fleets were unlike. They differed in another
respect. While only one voyage to Ophir is mentioned, the
Tarshish fleet ' came once in three years.' If Ophir were on
the road ultimately taken by the Tarshish ships, it may have
been the farthest point reached at first, and the profits may
have encouraged the two kings to extend subsequent voyages
to a greater distance. But those who regard 'ships of
Tarshish ' in this passage as a common phrase for large
merchant vessels, like our last century word Indiamen, over-
look one fact. It is the first time the phrase is used by the
historian. He was speaking also of a place well known in
his day. And in the book of Jonah, with which he was
acquainted, thej^hrase used is ' a ship going to Tarshish.'^
Tarshish is known to have been a country in the south-
west of Spain. Other places nearer Syria had a similar name;
' As Ophir came to mean fjold, so Tarshish came to mean the chnjsolite or
topaz of Spain.
53S The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
but that region of Spain is generally regarded as the trade
mart frequented by the Tyrians. To this day the district
retains traces of its Phcenician visitors. Cadiz or Gadara,
one of its ancient cities, is a thinly-disguised form of Kedesh,
the holy place, or Gederah (fortified). Hispalis, the Latin
or Tyrian for Seville, is the well-known Hebrew name of the
Philistine seaboard — Ha-shephelah, the rolling plain of undu-
lating ground applied to the country through which the
Guadalquiver there flows. The country was under the rule
of several princes ; for, in a psalm attributed to Solomon, he
speaks ' of the kings of Tarshish and of the islands ' of the
Mediterranean (Ps. Ixxii. 10). If, then, the second navy of
Solomon sailed to Tarshish, we are confronted with several
curious problems, which have exercised the ingenuity of
scholars for centuries. On the one hand, this navy clearly
sailed from Elath, whatever its destination may have been.
Not a hint is dropped of Joppa being the port of departure or
arrival, or indeed a port at all, except for rafts of w^ood. If,
then, Hiram's fleet sailed from Tyre on the Mediterranean,
and Solomon's from Elath on the Eed Sea, there must have
been some point at which they met to prosecute the voyage
together, as they are said to have done. But the time allowed
for the voyage — once in three years — is also recognised as a
serious difficulty. Supposing this fleet to have sailed to India,
a distance as great as to Spain, or indeed to Cape Colony,
Lindsay, in his History of Merchant Shippiiig (i. 31), regards
' once in three years ' as ' a length of time which at first sight
seems scarcely credible, yet is accounted for by the habits of
those early mariners.' While he thus recognises tlie knot,
his attempt to untie it is a failure. Spain was not so distant
as to require that time for the journey out ^nd home ; nor
was India or Mada^ijascar.^ A sin^de season is known to have
been sufficient even for the slow movements of those early
^ The cinnamon mentioned twice in Solomon's WTitings (Prov. vii. 17 ; Cant.
U. 14), and once in Ex. xxx. 23, though it has been dragged into this debate,
Greatness of Solomon. 539
sailors in going to and coming from Spain or India. So far
as the voyage to Spain is concerned, it has to be borne in
mind that ivory, apes, and peacocks are not now, and never
were, productions of Tartessus. Sir Walter Ealeigh, himself
a sailor and discoverer, is equally puzzled with the words :
' Whereas it may seem strange that it should be three years
ere they that took ship in the Led Sea should return to
Jerusalem ; the intelligent may conceive of sundry letts in
the digging and refining of the metal, and in their other
traffick, and in their land carriages between Jerusalem and
the Eed Sea, and perhaps also elsewhere.' Practical men,
like Sir Walter and Lindsay, speak with an authority on this
point which few scholars can be expected to have. However,
Eitter, in his learned and most laboured dissertation on the
subject, acknowledges the difficulty.-^
Without entering on speculations regarding the course of
the ships, we see no practical difficulty in finding a meeting-
place for a fleet from Tyre and another from Elath. Egypt
was, and had long been, famous for its canals. One of them
in the remote past stretched from the river Nile below Cairo
to Suez on the Eed Sea. After being used for a time, it was
neglected amid the troubles of the country, and became partly
filled up, probably by the falling in of the banks and by the
mud of the inundation. Three centuries after Solomon it was
cleared out, and it was used by Tyrian traders, who sailed up
the Nile, down the Eed Sea, and round Africa. This ancient
canal enabled the fleets of Solomon and Hiram to meet ; for
commercial rivalry between nations was no bar to the free
use of an Egyptian water-way. Solomon was a kinsman of
has really no bearing on the point. Greece got the word from Phoenicia
(Herod, iii. Ill) ; but where Moses or Solomon got either word or thing is
unknown. The cinnamon, in our use of the word, is a product of Ceylon. It
may have been the same in Solomon's time.
^ How differently Newman {Ileb. Monarchy, p. 120) speaks: 'The three
years allowed for the voyage was long enough to enable the navigators to wait
quietly for the month in which they could safely commit their frail vessels to
the Indian Ocean.'
540 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
Pharaoh ; and from the earliest times Phoenicians were
welcomed in Egypt as traders and sailors.
Among the uses to which Solomon applied the gold ^ and
iA^ory of his commercial ventures was the making of a throne,
which surpassed in grandeur and in workmanship every other
royal seat then known. While the body of the throne was
wood and ivory, plates of gold covered most of it. So various
were the kinds of <:,^old used at Solomon's court, that his
workers had three different words to express the quality.
Only the finest was employed in making the throne. Although
the word is of rare occurrence {miiphaz), a corresponding
term {iilia^, occurring in Canticles and Proverbs, shows a
relationship between the history and Solomon's writings. A
display of magnificence, which seems barbarous in its profuse
squandering, may have produced a different effect on men's
minds in those days from what would be produced now. Six
steps conducted to the rounded dais, on which was placed
the chair of state. A golden footstool lay in front of the
chair, forming a seventh step, and making up a perfect
number. On either side of the royal seat were arms, or,
upright pillars guarding the king ; a lion stood beside each of
them. Eight and left on every step were lions, forming an
avenue of golden lions between which the king moved to his
seat of honour. The blessing of Jacob, many centuries before,
and probably also the emblazonment on ' the standard of the
camp of the children of Judah ' in the wilderness, w^ere mirrored
in these adornments of Solomon's throne — ' Judah, a lion's
whelp ; ... he couched as a lion, and as an old lion. . . .
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall the
submission of the people be.' ^ Other arrangements of the
^ Solomon's income, from all sources, hi money, was %Q& talents of gold. The
little island of Thasos had sometimes a revenue of 300 talents from gold mines
and trade — gold mines which had been first worked by the Phoenicians (Herod,
vi. 46). The figures Q&& are more surprising than the amount (Kev. xiii. 18).
^Gen.xlix. 9,10. The word for submission is only found elsewhere in Prov.xxx. 17.
Greatness of Solonioii. 541
palace were on the same scale of magnificent display. ' Ivory
palaces,' as the rooms which may have been wainscoted with
ivory were called, appear to have been common in Solomon's
time and afterwards (Ps. xl\^ 8). Myrrli, frankincense, and
every fragrant odour known to the merchant were cultivated
in the country or imported from abroad to please, perhaps to
dull, the senses of those who were admitted to the king's
presence. Fragrant odours perfumed the table set before him
for meals (Song i. 12). Even when he appeared in public,
' pillars of smoke' from burning incense seem to have heralded
his approach, a long step towards a claim of almost equal
honours with the great King of the temple, which the priests
could not enter except with downcast eyes, and clouds of
fragrant smoke. The night watch of the palace also became
a piece of display : ' Threescore valiant men are about his
bed, of the valiant of Israel : they all hold swords, being
expert in war : every man hath his sword upon his thigh,
because of fear in the night,' What a difference between
Saul and Solomon in their thrones and in their night watch !
' Saul abode in Gibeah, under a tree in Eamah, having his
spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing about
him.' Such were Saul's throne and court. ' Saul lay within
the rampart, and the people pitched round about him. . . .
Wherefore hast thou not kept thy lord the king ? for there
came one of the people in to destroy the king thy lord.'
Such was the nature of Saul's night watch. Monarchy had
made vast strides towards grandeur and absolutism in two
generations.
The appointments of Solomon's life-guards were also a
wonder to the crowd. Five hundred of them paraded, when
he appeared in state. Of these two hundred carried long
shields of gold — apparently alloyed — which covered the whole
body, and weighed almost twenty-eight pounds each — about
the weight carried by a British volunteer on the march. Other
three hundred were armed with a smaller shield, also made of
542 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
gold, but weighing only half as much as the larger. Their
parade ground, and the armour}^ for their costly shields, seem
to have been in the court and outer buildings of the palace.
But the splendour of their appointments was rivalled by the
gorgeous palanquin of the king. Its pillars were of silver ;
its props of gold. The woodwork was cedar; the seat and
ban flings were of purple ; and the centre was * tesselated with
love from the daughters of Jerusalem,' referring to the pre-
cious stones given in token of loving homage by places whicli
owned subjection to Jerusalem, or by the women of Zion.
Borne in state into the city, or guarded into the temple by
his five hundred, all of them appointed with costly shields
and swords upon their thighs, Solomon must have seemed to
other princes as well as to his own people a magnificent king.
But the Hebrew monarchy was losing its truest glory amid
this outward show. It sprang at the outset from the goodwill
of the people, ratified by the choice of Jehovah. But the
price paid for the splendours of Solomon's throne was the
alienation of his subjects and the displeasure of heaven.
His heart was lifted * above his brethren,' in defiance of the
divine law.
Solomon's great officers of state were nine in number —
the high priest, two secretaries, a reminder or recorder, the
commander-in-chief, a master of the purveyors or officers of
supply, the king's friend, the chamberlain of the palace, and
the chief of the tribute. For the last time in history the
word colicn, friesi, appears on this list as a title of office given
to one who does not seem to have belonged to the tribe of
Levi, ' Zabnd, the son of Nathan, was a colunl or principal
officer. Along with the king as president, these nine princes,
for by that name they were called, formed a cabinet council
of ten, a number which bears too manifest a reference to the
divisions of a Hebrew army to be accidental. Of the nine
princes, Jehoshaphat, who reminded the king of rights and
duties while he recorded things done, and Benaiah, the com-
Gi'catness of Solomon. 543
mander-in-cliief, serve the son, as they served his father
David. Adovam, who was over the tribute at the end of
David's reign, may have been the same man as Adoniram,
one of Solomon's council ; but, since an officer called Adorani
filled this post in the reign of Solomon's successor, the affairs
of the department seem to have been managed for two or
three generations by members of the same family. Zadok
the high priest did not long survive the death of David : he
was succeeded by his son Azariah. One secretary sufficed
for the business of state in David's reign ; Solomon required
two, Elihoreph and Ahiah, the sons of Shisha. The captain
of the king's guards, who had been a great man in the previous
reign, makes no figure after the first year or two of Solomon's.
On the other hand, Solomon raised to high rank Azariah,
Nathan's son, chief of the purveyors, and Ahishar, mayor of
the palace. Zabud, another son of Nathan, held the dignity
of king's friend. Of the nine members of Solomon's cabinet,
two, perhaps three, served his father, and three others are
known to have been the sons of Zadok and Nathan, the men
who were the means of placing him on the throne. Want of
gratitude cannot be charged against Solomon any more than
aojainst his father.
The purveyors, whose chief Azariah resided at court, were
twelve governors of provinces, to whom was assigned the duty
of providing supplies for the palace. Each had to attend to
this business for a month at a time. They were stationed
in different parts of the kingdom, and their districts seem to
have been quite distinct from those of the princes of tribes.
We cannot be mistaken in regarding their distribution over
the country as, in some measure, a necessity arising from the
duty imposed on them of lifting the king's tithe from the
farmers and landowners, and of forwarding it either to the
palace or to the king's private estates. But they were of
higher rank, and had more exalted duties to discharge, than
the twelve chiefs of his stores, his flocks, and his produce,
544 ^^^^ Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
whom David appointed as ' rulers of his substance ' (1 Chron.
xxvii. 25-31). The home province round Bethlehem and
Hebron — the birthplace of the dynasty, the scene of David's
wanderings, and the original seat of empire — is the only part
of the kingdom that is not named in the divisions for purvey-
ance ; could it have been left tax free ? But the position and
rank of the princes put in charge of these provinces do not
allow us to limit their duties to providing for Solomon's
kitchen. Their number, their names, their rank, rather point
toward a design to use them for supplanting the ancient
princes of tribes, and for breaking up the recognised division
of the land. Had time worked with Solomon, tliis breaking
up would inevitably have taken place. A new division of
the kingdom was introduced. It only required time to get
root. But events moved too fast for its roots to take firm
hold. The free municipal institutions of the Hebrews, in
wdiich justice was administered by the town and village
elders subject to appeal to the king, cherished a healthy
political life in the country. But they would have been
displaced by the centralizing shadowed out in these new
arrangements. Whoever had the money power in a district,
and was in regular correspondence with the palace, would
soon cease to regard humbler authorities. Solomon's clear
object was to make the palace the centre of all national life.
The numerous springs, from which it had hitherto flowed,
were destined to be dried up. But the attempt failed, as it
deserved to fail.
Purveyance and tribute were two different departments of
supply, each with a staff of officials for itself. Azariah was
over the former ; Adoniram over the latter. Purveyance
was supply in kind ; tribute was not paid in money, but
mostly in slaves or their service. The former was exacted
from all the Hebrew farmers ; tribute was rendered by wealthy
landowners of Hebrew blood, by those who were sprung froui
the ancient inhabitants of the land, and by many petty
Greatness of Solomon. 545
princes within the empire. Gold to a large amount came
every year from some, if not from all of these farmers, land-
owners, and princes. Part of the supplies for the palace may
have come from the king's private estates, for, however these
were acquired, they are known to have been of great extent
even in David's time. But the court and its dependants
were a heavy tax on the industry of the Hebrews. ]S"ot
fewer than fifteen or twenty thousand people were supported
in wasteful idleness on revenues WTung from the nation for
the king's use. Barley also and straw had to be provided for
several thousand horses of different breeds,^ kept at various
places for Solomon's chariots and cavalry. The drain on the
resources of the nation for these purposes alone was enormous
and largely unnecessary. Horses were not employed by the
Hebrews for fetching and carrying, for the labours of the
field, for posting, or for hunting. They were used by Solomon
for show only ; their services were seldom or never required
in war. If, then, the king claimed a tenth of the increase of
fields and fiocks and herds, besides the tenth granted to the
Levites, the yearly supplies of the palace, if we may assume
them to correspond to this tithe, furnish a means of approxi-
mating to the wealth and the annual produce of Palestine in
Solomon's reign.
Between the reigns of Saul and Solomon a great develop-
ment took place in the literature of the Hebrew people. It
is seen in the arrangements of the king's court, in the writing
of national records, in the proverbs which circulated among
the people, and in the numerous hymns of the national wor-
ship. Of Saul's chief officers only one is mentioned in the
history — Abner, the commander-in-chief. David, on the other
hand, appears surrounded by a body of able men, to whom
1 'Horses and dromedaries' in our version, 1 Kings iv. 28. Tlie ^vo^d
translated dromedaries occurs in only three other places, Mic. i. 13, Esth. viii.
10, 14, and seems to mean a horse of superior breed.
2 M
54^ The Kingdom of All-Isi^ael : its Litcraiitre.
the various branches of the public service were entrusted.
Of these one was book writer, or, as we should call him,
secretary of state, while another was recorder or historian.
But in Solomon's reign, the writing of public books or state
papers had largely increased. Instead of one secretary, he
had two, and also a recorder. Besides them, others were
engaged in writing the history of the king. Nathan the
prophet, Iddo the seer, and Ahijah the Shilonite were of the
number. To these six writers must be added the king
himself. Seven writers of history, poetry, and philosophy
are thus mentioned during the life of Solomon. It is a large
list to be found in a record so brief. But it indicates an
increasing familiarity in the nation with all sorts of literature.
And the short review given of the king's own works discovers
to us at a glance a book-selling and a book-reading people :
^ He spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a
thousand and five.' ^ About a fifth part of his proverbs, after
being brought together in a handbook, were probably circulated
in writing among the people (Prov. x.-xxiv. 22), wdth a preface
of songs and a concluding ode in praise of w^isdom (Prov.
i.-ix., xxiv. 23-34)." More than two centuries later this hand-
book received additions from the learned men of Hezekiah's
court, who ' transferred ' to it, from a fuller book of pro-
verbs, about one hundred more (Prov. xxv.-xxix.). In other
countries, as well as in Israel, books of proverbs have shown
a tendency to grow in size and number with the lapse of
time. We do not require to ascribe all the proverbs in these
^ Spain has long been famous for its books of proverbs. The earliest collec-
tion, consisting of a hundred in rhyme, besides six hundred more, ' such as the
old women were wont to repeat in their chimney-corners,' dates from 1508 A.i).
In 1675 another collection was published of 6000, and a century later, another-
still of 24,000.
^ The conflicting dates given to the various parts of the book of Proverbs
only show the impossibility of guessing truth in tlie matter. Solomon's hand
is seen in most of this manual by writers on the subject ; it is frequently denied
that he ^vrote either preface or conclusion. But if the songs at the beginning
and the end are denied to be his, equally good reasons may be urged for refusing
to him the proverbs also.
Gixatiiess of Solomon, 547
writings to Solomon as their first autlior. He was collector
as well as inventor. Sententious sayings w^ere common lono-
before his day, as we see even from the proverb quoted by his
father, David, 'From the wicked goeth wickedness' (1 Sam.
xxiv. 13). Amid the darkness which covered those distant
ages, and in their brief memorials of men's lives and works,
we can thus see clearly a large body of thinkers and writers,
a people who enjoyed literature, and took means for dif-
fusing knowledge. ' To write ' had even come to be used with
a figurative meaning in the ordinary language of Hebrews, an
indication of great advances made by them in acquaintance
with the art : ' Write them upon the table of thine heart '
(Prov. iii. 3, vii. 3), where the reference to the two tables of
stone is unmistakeable.^ Familiarity with writing and with
books is implied in this proverbial use of the word far more
than in the Greek poet's ' mindful tablets of the soul,' coined
for the Athenian theatre by ^schylus five centuries afterwards.
A book of proverbs is less intended for private reading than
as a means of verifying what is said, or of refreshing a learner's
memory. Proverbs — ' the wit of one man and the wisdom of
many ' — are the ready money of thought, passing rapidly from
man to man in the interchanges of life. Books may be used
for handin'j^ them down to future afres, but movement and fire
can be given to them only in spoken application to the actings
of men. Proverbs are not for lonely reading by the learned ;
tliey are rather for use in the homeliest as well as in the
weightiest business of the world. To find a book of this
kind in circulation among any people implies, therefore, great
advances in literature. Gathering wisdom from the sayings
of others, coining of it into words from observing their doings
or the results, and committing the whole to writing, are three
stages of progress all brought together in the book, but of
^ This word occurs in tliirty-nine passaf^es of the Old Testament, usually
applied to the tables of stone. Exodus and Deuteronomy contain it in twenty-
nine ; the reign or books of Solomon six times, and all the rest of Scripture
four times.
54^ TJic Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Liter ahire,
which tlie last could never have suggested itself to a man who
had no reading public to appeal to, and no broad basis of
literature to rest on. Although, then, a book of proverbs is
not a source from which much knowledge of the autlior's
literary or scientific attainments can be gleaned, still some-
thing may be learned from it of the ways and thinking
prevalent in his time. A word or a line here and there
may suggest older books which he read, and from which he
borrowed, thus opening up to us a view of the writings with
which both he and his age were familiar. "VVe have seen one
example of this already in the word ' table.' There is another,
perhaps more striking, in the phrase, occurring four times, ' a
tree of life : ' ' Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold
on her.' The want of the definite article in these four cases,
and the presence of it in the story of the Fall, ' the tree of
life,' show conclusively the writer of the book's acquaintance
with the first chapters of Genesis (Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30, xiii. 12,
XV. 4; Gen. iii. 22). And to the same result tends his
peculiar phrase, three times repeated, ' way of life : ' ' He is in
the way of life that keepeth instruction,' for it is but a short-
ened form of the closing words in the passage (Gen. iii. 24),
* A flaming sword, whicli turned every way to keep the way
of the tree of life.' A third phrase, drawn from the same
source, but having its immediate origin in the book of Psalms,
is ' a fountain of life ' (Ps. xxxvi. 9). It is found four tiuies
in the Proverbs, and only once elsewhere in the Old Testa-
ment. Nor is the story of the Fall the only section of Genesis
with which the writer of Proverbs shows his acquaintance.
A line or two after his first mention of a tree of life, he adds,
' By his knowledge the depths are [were] broken up,' words
which it is hard to ascribe to any other source than those in
the story of the Deluge, ' The same day were all the fountains
of the great deep broken up.' But other books are quoted or
clearly referred to. * An house full of sacrifices,' meaning an
house full of animals slauditered for a feast, indicates a use
Greatness of Solomon, 549
of tlie word 'sacrifice' which derived its origin from tlie book
of Deuteronomy. ' The lamp of the wicked shall be put out/
and ' tlie commandment is a lamp/ recall a figure which we
have already traced to the ever-burning lamps of the golden
candlestick, * the lamp of Israel.' Although this most expres-
sive figure is unknown to tlie book of Deuteronomy, although
even the word for lamp does not occur in it, the passage from
Proverbs is clearly a later echo of a passage from Deuteronomy,
tlie concrete preceding in the order of time, the refining on it
following, thus : —
Deut. vi. 7-9 (xi. 18, 20). Piiov. vi. 20-23,
These avorIs . . . tliou shalt teach My son, keep thy father's conimaiul-
theni diligently unto thy sons, and ment, and forsake not the law of thy
shalt talk of them in thy sitting in thy mother. Bind them continually upon
house, and in thy walking by the way, thine heart : tie them about thy neck,
and in thy lying down, and in thy In thy walking it shall lead thee: in
rising up. And thou shalt bind them thy lying down it shall keep thee ; and
for a sign upon thine hand, and they when thou awakest, it shall talk with
shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. thee. For the commandment is a lamp,
And thon shalt write them upon the and the law light,
posts of thy house, and on thy gates.
The originality of the passage from Deuteronomy is clear.
While it is concrete, popular, and detailed, the ideas in Pro-
verbs are a philosopher's reflections on something concrete
which preceded. They are scientific and terse, the result of
study. Whether the latter were Solomon's writing, or two
centuries later, they carry the antiquity of Deuteronomy far
higher than the reign of Hezekiah. If that antiquity be once
admitted, there is no stopping-place short of the conquest
under Joshua.
It is specially worthy of remark that the book of Proverbs
contains no reference to priests or Levites or to the temple.
Nor are the words for liavp, lyre, timhrel, immpet, cymbal, pipe,
and other musical instruments found in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
or Canticles. Even to sing and song occur only in five pas-
sages. A place so prominent and of such world-wide fame as
the temple would have found a niche in some corner of the
550 The Kingdom of All-Israel : lis Lilcraliwe.
Proverbs, had it been built at the time. But neither that
glorious house nor its ministers, the priests and Levites, seem
to have occurred to the writer as fitted to poiut even one of his
many morals. How different from later times 1 A century after
Solomon, ' Like people like priest ' (Hos. iv. 9 ; Isa. xxiv. 2)
had become a proverb ; and Jeremiah evidently quotes another
in ' The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these '
(vii. 4). Some of the ancient translators felt this want, for
Wisdom, ' standing in the top of high places,' is represented
in the Syriac version as standing on the pinnacles of the
temple, a rendering which the passage cannot bear. Three
times does the word ' high places ' occur, in two of them
under the form * liigh places of the city.' Schools of the
prophets or colleges of learning may be hinted at in the
phrase ; but neither the word nor the idea has the remotest
reference to forbidden high places of heathen or debased
worshij). Wherever the word is found in the Old Testament,
it is used with a meaning of highest honour. Probably also
* high places of the city ' may be but an echo of words found
in an earlier book, for they closely resemble ' the high places
of the field' in Deborah's song (Judg. v. 18).^ Neither, then,
to priest nor to temple or forbidden liigh places is there a
reference in the book of Proverbs. But prominence is given
to sacrifices in both meanings of the word, to a body of
national teachers whom we found merely hinted at half a
century earlier, to pupils, and to the law which they all
studied. While there is nothing to keep us from regarding
the teachers as members of a recognised guild, the pupils
certainly belonged to all classes of the community. A written
law book seems an unavoidable conclusion from this view^ of
the case.
The frequent use of the w^ord seven in the book of Proverbs,
especially in one passage which, if literally taken, becomes
^ Prov. ix. 3. The word for top occurs only here and in the ancient law
book, Ex. xxi. 3, 4.
Greatness of Solouion. 5 5 r
liistorically incorrect, is not witliout value : ' Seven tilings are
an abomination nnto him ; ' ' the thief shall restore sevenfold ; '
' Wisdom hath hewn out her seven pillars;' ' a just man falleth
seven times;' ' the sluggard is wiser than seven men that can
render a reason;' 'there are seven abominations in his heart;'
and the seven examples from the lower animals (Prov. xxx.
25-31). When taken along with a similar use of the same
number in earlier books, this figurative meaning in Proverbs
leaves on a reader's mind the conviction of a division by
sevens playing a leading part in the daily life of Hebrews.
It w\as also a connnon feature of Solomon's writings. We see
it in the seven petitions which stand prominently out in his
prayer at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings viii. 31-50),
a proof at once of its genuineness and its antiquity. Evi-
dently this division by sevens was not in military affairs, for
there the reckoning was by fives, tens, hundreds, and thou-
sands. Clearly, too, it had come to mean perfection, for a
restoration sevenfold by the thief is opposed to the oldest
Hebrew law — twofold, fourfold, or fivefold — wliich was un-
questionably known to the writer of the Proverbs. The
historical examples of the use of seven in earlier books prove
the division to have had reference to time. But the figura-
tive application is more common in the Proverbs than in other
books. Manifestly it indicated a division which touched the
deepest feelings of the common people. But the Sabbath, or
the week — * a seven days ' is the phrase in Samuel — is the
only Hebrew^ institution which can account for this use of the
number seven. And from no other root can so many different
branches be imagined to have sprung. In Solomon's days,
and for ages previous, therefore, the Sabbath must have been
a recognised institution among the Hebrews.
The utter absence of coarseness in Solomon's Proverbs, and
the traces everywhere of a refining influence at work on the
homeliest themes, indicate a lofty conception of the work he
had undertaken. When ' short sentences drawn from long
552 The Kingdom of All-hracl : its Literature.
experience,' to use Cervantes' definition of a proverb, express
the sentiments of the vulgar, they are apt to take a colour
from the minds by which they were first coined. Nor is
there any reason for regarding Solomon as the originator of all
the sayings in his book. Unquestionably not a few of them
were of the humblest parentage, though ultimately adopted by
the great king. But every trace of their lowly birth is lost
in the purity with which they have been presented to the
world. Nor can it be denied that to most proverbs an origin
in history could be assigned. ' Spanish proverbs,' it is said,
* can be traced back to the earliest times. One of the best
known, " Laws go where kings please they should," is con-
nected with an event of importance in the reign of Alphonso
the Sixth, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century,
when the language of Castile had hardly a distinct existence.'
Our own ' Evil be to him w^ho evil thinks ' is two centnries
later. But we can ascertain the historical origin of very few
of Solomon's sayings. That, in several cases at least, they
were rooted in the "history and institutions of the land, we
have alread}" endeavoured to show. To regard them as
hansjini' loose from the national records, or as havincj a life of
their own apart from the life of the people, is unreasonable.
They draw the sap of their existence from the history. And
the more we discover the channels through which that sap
flows, the better shall w^e understand a proverb and its
interpretation.
The book of Ecclesiastes, more than the book of Proverbs,
has been a battlefield for scholarly criticism and doubt.
Many eminent writers lean to or adopt the idea that it was
not written by Solomon or in his age. They regard it as a
parable composed five or six centuries later by an 'author
whose name has perished. Nor are reasons w^anting for this
view. But it does not furnish a complete solution of all the
difficulties connected with the book. And several of the
reasons by which it is supported are now found to be un-
Greatness of Solomon. 553
tenable. The book is not written in tlie style of Moses, or of
Samuel, or of David. Much of it resembles the oldest part
of the book of Proverbs, wliicli there is every reason for
assigning to Solomon, It does not represent the ancient
Hebrew faith. It is the reproduction, by one imbued with
that faith, of a philosophy current, perhaps, among his eastern
and southern neighbours. An Israelite, thoroughly devoted to
the religion of his forefathers, and struck at the same time
with the peculiar wisdom which he found in the writings of
heathen moralists, could have written Ecclesiastes by viewing
the world of men from both these sides. While the book is
allowed to be a blend between Hebrew faith and heathen
philosophy, it is an extremely narrow view^ to regard that
philosophy as the philosophy of Greece ; for it may have been
the philosophy of Babylon, or of Egypt, or of both. If, then,
Solomon w^as the writer, we do not require to assign the bool^
to the end of his reign, or to consider it the repentant fruit
of liis personal experience. Wise men, discovering in old age
their mistakes in life, adopt a more sober and less defiant
tone than it displays. By regarding the book as a specula-
tion, we may be nearer the truth than if we regard it as an
experience. In the one case it may be the w^ork of a man
comparatively young ; in the other, it must be the work of an
old man, of wdiich it contains no proof. While there are in
it vivid descriptions of a round of pleasure, and perhaps of
vice, its pages show scarcely any traces of the sobriety of age,
repenting of the misdeeds of youth. The book bears the
stamp of a philosopher's work, not of a repentant sinner's, or
a returning prodigal's. And many a thinker in Chaldea and
Egypt had before him the history of princes, from which
every line of the descriptions might have been borrowed as
readily as from Solomon's. The book may thus have been
written in Solomon s early manhood, as a fruit of his conver-
sation with learned foreigners, and of his studies in their
philosophy. The parable theory takes far too narrow a view
554 ^^^^ Kijigdom of A II- Israel : its L itc ra here.
of the circumstances. It cannot look beyond Palestine. Or,
if it does, it looks no farther than to a few incidents related
\)j Greek writers, whom it reads only to suit its own purpose,
and sometimes contrary to fact. But the book is not so
limited in its scope. It surveys the world of civilised men as
a whole, not the small province of it bounded by the circum-
ference of Palestine, and acted on by faint echoes from
Greece. And nothing is advanced by the authors of the
parable theory which lifts them or it above this narrowness
of view.
The number of Aramaic or Syriac words and forms in the
book of Ecclesiastes is the chief, perhaps the only, argument
for its late origin and parable form. According to the view
often taken, the language in which it is written could not
have been in use when Solomon was kinf:^. It had no
o
existence till five or six centuries afterwards. If this is
correct, there is no room for further argument : the parable
theory must be accepted. But the antiquity of the dialect in
which the author wrote is unknown, notwithstanding- the
assertion of Delitzsch that, if the book be of the age of
Solomon, there can be no history of the Hebrew language.
Only one thing is certain about the language. It was a cross
between the Hebrew tongue and that of the Syrians on the
north and east of Palestine. But wherever those who used
the former came in friendly contact with those who used the
latter, the dialect of which we are speaking might suddenly
originate. This or something similar took place in Nehemiah's
time, when the children of Jews, who had married women of
Ashdod, ' spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not
speak in the Jews' language.' AVhat happened at that late
period in the history may have happened five or six or seven
centuries before under similar circumstances. As friendly
intercourse between men who spoke Hebrew and others who
spoke Syriac did not begin during the Babylonian captivity, a
theory which rests on the idea that it did then begin has no
Grealncss of Solomon. 555
foundation in fact. Their intercourse dated almost from the
settlement of Israel in Talestine. The dialect ^vhich tlnis
arose may have been spoken for ages along the borders of
Amnion and Damascus. Solomon's first and favourite wife,
a princess of Annnon, may have used its words and forms in
bis own palace. So also may the wise men of the east,
referred to in tlie history. To assign the rise of the dialect
Tised in Ecclesiastes to the Babylonian Captivity, is to shut
one's eyes to the facts of history, or to confine them to an
area unduly limited by an illiberal prejudice. To this day in
l*alestine ' tlie peasant dialect proves to be much nearer
to Aramaic (which Jerome says was the native language in
his time) than to modern literary Arabic.'^ History, so far as
it is known, thus shows no respect to a theory which pro-
nounces it impossible for Solomon to have ^vritten in any
language but the pure Hebrew of his own age. At that very
time ' a memorial tablet in the language of Babylon ' was set
up in the Nile Valley by a king of Assyria, who may have
been Solomon's father-in-law. A foreimi tongue was thus
written in the land of Egypt by its king. And in those very
days ' a multitude of Aramaic ' '{i.e. Hebrew or Syriac) ' words
were introduced into Egypt, and it even became the fashion
to give an Aramaic form to native w^ords.' Besides, the
language in which the scribes of Nineveh recorded the events
of history was altogether different from that spoken by the
people around them. A fact so well ascertained needs no
proof. Solomon, speaking pure Hebrew in his own court, and
writing a dialect of it in a philosopliical treatise, which was
modelled on the conversation or writings of thinkers who may
have used the same or a kindred form of speech, is not a
singular feature in the world's liistory of that age. It was a
common thing. The fashion had been set by the wisest men
of other lands. And, since then, the fashion Avas followed lor
ages by the scholars of modern Europe, who preferred Latin
1 P. E. F. Quart. Stat., Jany. 1878, p. 2.
55^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Litei^atiire,
or French to their mother tongues. Solomon ma}^ thus
merely have adopted a practice sanctioned by ancient custom
or philosophic caprice. To deny this is to permit our igno-
rance arbitrarily to limit his rights or his power.
The language of the book of Ecclesiastes cannot, tlierefore,
be held to disprove Solomon's authorship. Otlier arguments
of less weight have been advanced. One of them is an in-
ference drawn from the words, ' Of making many books there
is no end' (Eccles. xii. 12). Books were therefore very
common when this treatise was written. Can they be said to
have been common in the age of Solomon ? The answer
expected to this question is, No. Were books manufactured
in abundance under the Persian kings, five centuries later ?
The answer returned is, Yes. On these assumptions, for they
are not proofs, the complaint about the making of many books
is accepted as evidence of the late origin of Ecclesiastes.
But no one, whose attention is called to the subject, would
think of comparing the literary activity of the Eastern world
under the Persian kings with the same activity before and
during the lifetime of Solomon. The latter was especially
a season of bookmaking in Egypt, in Israel, in Phoenicia, and
in Mesopotamia. Compared with it, the era of the Persian
kings was an age of barbarism and darkness, of libraries
destroyed, and of literature extinguished. A point so well
known stands in no need of illustration.
Equally unsatisfactory is the attempt of Ewald to find a
reference to the times of the prophet ^lalachi in the words,
* Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy fiesh to sin ; neither say
thou before the Angel that it was an error ' (Eccles. v. 6), com-
pared with, * The priest's lips should keep knowdedge, for he is
an angel of the Lord of hosts ' (Mai. ii. 7). The only possible
comparison in these two passages is between tlu Angel and
an angel, phrases so unlike in their definiteness as to render
comparison impossible. But there is a passage in the Penta-
teuch, of which the verse in Ecclesiastes may justly be called
Greatness of Soloino7i, 557
a copy : ' The priest shall make an atonement for all the
congi'egation, and it shall be forgiven them, for that it was
an error : and they shall bring their sin-offering before tlie
Lord for their error' (Num. xv. 25). ' That it was an error'
is exactly the same in both passages ; ' before the Angel ' of
the one is represented in the otlier by ' before the Lord ; '
but tlie previous chapter in Numbers suggests the Angel of
the covenant, who was to lead the people into Canaan (Ex.
xxxii. 34). The passage relied on to prove the late origin
of Ecclesiastes thus becomes a by no means obscure proof of
the antiquity of Numbers.
The historical references in Ecclesiastes are also believed
to prove its late origin. According to the view frequently
taken, Israel was then under foreign kings, who gave much
occasion for complaint, and to whom the people paid an
unwilling obedience. But all this is matter of suspicion or
imagination. Not a word is said in the book itself which
can fairly be held to justify these views. Kings are spoken
of, and princes, and provinces, and people. But the writer is
thinking of kings and people generally, as a philosopher
would ; and not of foreign kings ruling over his countrymen,
or of Jews bowed beneath a hateful tyranny. The narrow-
ness of vision, wiiicli sees nothing but Palestine or a part of
Palestine in the book, cannot do justice to the work or its
autlior. If Solomon wrote it, his acquaintance with the
nations of the civilised world enabled him to take a breadtli
of view, and to support his conclusions by a range of his-
torical examples, which are far above the narrowness of his
most distinguished critics. Even Delitzsch has recourse to
the Greek fables regarding Astyages and Cyrus to explain
tlie passage, * Better is a poor and a w^ise cliild than an old
and foolish king ; for out of prison he cometh to reign '
(Eccles. iv. 13). The parallel which he attempts to draw can
satisfy no one acquainted with the story. He also thinks
Themistocles analogous to ' the poor wise man/ who delivered
558 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
*a little city, and few men within it' from 'a great king'
(Eccles. ix. 14, 15); but he forbears to remark the unsuit-
ableness of the rest of the description. If he be correct, the
writer of Ecclesiastes was grossly in error when he added,
* There came a great king against it, and besieged it, and
built great bulwarks against it.' Xerxes, the great king
supposed to be referred to, did not besiege Athens, and did
not build bulwarks, great or small, against either the city or
its Acropolis. If Delitzsch's view be correct, the writer
of Ecclesiastes was a blunderer in commonplace matters
of almost contemporary history. Croesus also, and other
creatures of the imagination, are seen in the book. One may
well wonder how so carefnl a writer as Delitzsch could have
been led away by these fanciful analogies. Whoever, then,
was the author of Ecclesiastes, and whatever was his object,
Solomon is not excluded by any of the arguments which
have been urL?ed ao^ainst liis claims. It mav not be easv to
prove an affirmative in the matter. Meanwhile, the often
attempted negative, instead of being a success, has only re-
sulted in convicting the critics, wlio attempt it, of narrowness
of vievv'. What Ecclesiastes makes of human life, the author-
ship of the book remains to its readers — a puzzle.
C HATTER XVI I.
THE FALL OF SOLO.MOX.
(1 Kings X. 1-10, xi. 1-43 ; 2 Chroii. ix. 1-9, 29-31.)
After the building of the templa and of his own house,
Solomon continued for a time faithful to the worship and
legislation of his people. For tlie lirst twenty-four years of
his reign there was no change in the principles with wliich he
set out in public life. He was then about ibrty-five years
of age ; ^ his experience of the world had been nearly as varied
as his father's ; and his opportunities of gathering wisdom
from all quarters had been perhaps greater. Fifteen or sixteen
years before the end of his life, he is found displaying a
zealous regard for the honour of Jehovnli. The incident
referred to is usually quoted, though most unfairly, to his
discredit. His palace was hnislied ; the house or quarter
prepared within it for the queen, Pharaoh's daughter, was
finished also. But a reason is given in the Chronicles for
building this queen's house. * My wife,' he said, * shall not
dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the
places are holy, whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come.'
The step which Solomon thus took, in removing his wife from
the house of David to her own house, lias been harshly judged
as a pedantic display of bigotry. But there is nothing in
the words to warrant this conclusion. The removal of the
queen may have happened tliirteen years after the ark had
• This is based on Rehoboam's age, 41, at his accession, as given in 1 Kings
xiv. 21. No trust can be placed in the statements of the Vatican Septuagint
(1 Kings xii. 24) that lie was then sixteen years of age, and that he reigned
twelve years ; for at 1 Kings xiv. 21 the numbers given in that version are the
same as those in the Hebrew, 41 and 17.
560 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History.
been consigned to its resting-place in the temple. If not, there
must have been an interval of several years between the two
events. Not a word is said in the passage about defilement
from an Egyptian's presence in the house of David. On the
contrary, Solomon is expressly said to have lodged her in the
city of David only till his own palace was finished (1 Kings
iii. 1) : he entertained scruples of conscience on an entirely
different ground. Even after this removal to her own house,
the queen was still in the city of David. But although her
palace was there, slie ceased to live in that part of it formerly
known as the house of David. Solomon's scruples then were
about the house of David, not about the queen's apartments,
or about tlie whole city. The ark had come to his father's
house. It had been kept for many years in the palace
grounds. Sacrifice liad been offered, and national prayer had
been presented there ; * the places were holy.' Solomon
evidently did not regard the place as suitable for the dwell-
ings of men. It belonged to the King of the ark, whose
presence had made it holy. Solomon may therefore have
given back to the ark tliat portion of the palace grounds,
which it sanctified in his father's time and for ten years of
his own reign. The site was holy to Jehovah ; it belonged
to His temple, and was probably therefore added to its courts
or buildings.
Another incident which sheds a clearer light on the
beginning of the king's apostasy, took place within fifteen
years of tlie end of his life. A vision of the night had
appeared to him at Gibeon, early in his reign, which pro-
mised blessings to himself and to his kingdom, if he w^alked
in the ways of David his father. It did not call for re-
pentance for past misdeeds ; it was a bright vision of exceeding
gladness. To quote David's last words, it was ' as tlie light
of the morninGj when tlie sun riseth, a morninGf without
clouds ; from the clear shining after rain was coming fresh
green out of the ground.' There was not a word of threaten-
TJie Fall of Solomon. 56 1
ing, and it ended with the promise, ' Then T will lenotheii
thy days.' It was such a vision as would he given to
Jedidiah, tlie Beloved, or the David of Jehovali, as Solomon
was named by Nathan (2 Sam. xii. 25); and it was a vision
which lie who saw it would be likely to endjalm in the song
he seems to have written, * So he giveth his Beloved sleep '
(Ps. cxxvii. 2). While the temple was in progress a message
came to him from the Lord, evidently by tlie hand of a
prophet, renewing the bright promises for king and people
if the law^ w^ere kept by them both. But when wealth had
poured into the country for four-and-twenty years, and when
magnificence in everything liad borne witness to the fulfilment
of the promises then made, another vision appeared in dreams
of the night. There is far less of sunshine the second time ; a
dark shadow, much unlike what formerly appeared in Gibeon,
stretches over the king's path. Its words of threatening were
twice as many as its words of promise. The first vision in
( libeon w^as clearly Promise ; the second in Jerusalem was
as clearly Warning. As time had seen the Promise fulfilled,
so a more distant time might find the Warning come true.
Solomon stood at the dividing of the ways when he saw the
second vision. He was still an honoured servant of Jehovah
(1 Kings xi. 9). But his conscience was becoming uneasy;
the beginning of apostasy w^as at hand. One of the greatest
penalties paid by a man for the possession of unusual mental
power is the thick crowding in on his mind of doubts, from
w^hicli other men are free. Solomon paid that penalty.
Great attainments, great resources, and great wisdom had
lifted him above the common rank, more than his royal seat
lifted him above his people. But they were not accompanied
in the latter part of his reign by the calmness of judgment
which distinguished its beginning' and its middle. Doubt
had entered ; and in the battle with doubt the wisest of men
was signally worsted. The lifting of his heart 'above his
brethren/ pride of rank and of high attainment, had made a
2 N
562 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History.
rent in liis armour by which doubt and apostasy found an
entrance to his heart. He had warning of his danger from
the vision. He seems also to have had warning from facts,
while it was still possible to withdraw his steps from the
brink to which they were leading him. Warning from
principles, which he was disposed to violate, was strengthened
by the warning from facts, which were occurring before his
eyes. And yet the magnificent psalm on the King of Peace,
which served as a mirror to reflect a greater coming glory,
appears to have been written in the latter years of his life
(Ps. Ixxii.). Often there seems to be but a step from the
clearest spiritual light to deep spiritual darkness.
Troubles arose on the north-eastern border of his empire,
apparently amid the once powerful Hittites, small at first, but
gradually growing till they blackened the political outlook.
A captain or soldier of Hadadezer, whose confederated armies
David effectually smote thirty or forty years before, had
escaped from the overthrow, and found refuge in the Syrian
desert. Eezon, as he was named, gathered around him a
troop of marauders or patriots, who plundered stray travellers
or levied black-mail on the regular merchants. In course of
time, the number of the band increased, and the captain
became more aspiring. Hamath-Zobah, or the citadel of
Zobah, seems then to have become their headquarters. A
stronghold, thus occupied by insurgents, threatened to
become in the north what Ziklag in David's hands had
formerly been in the south, a rallying -point for disaffection.
Solomon saw the danger of leaving incipient rebellion to
spread. Ordinary police arrangements were sufficient to
check a band of desert robbers ; but a city with bolts and
bars, held by rebels, was a defiance demanding sharper
handling. Solomon himself led the expedition against the
l)lace. If Eezon was the commander whom it was thus
necessary to dislodge, his force could have made little stand
against the might of the Hebrews. Perhaps it would melt
The Fall of Solomoji, 563
away to reappear again in tlie desert. The result of the
expedition to Hamath-Zobah is told in few words : * Solomon
prevailed against it.' There was little or no glory in success,
but the distant mutterini2; of thunder had broken his kinir-
dom's peace ; the first drops of rain had fallen.
While the lustre of his reign was still undimmed by
apostas}^ Solomon received a visit from a princess called
' Tlie Queen of Sheba.' Her name is not given ; but several
queens from Arabia are mentioned on the monuments of
Assyria, as if the rule of princesses were common in that
country: — Saamsi, queen of Aribu (^Arabici) ; Yapaa, queen of
Dihutani; and Bailu, queen of Ikhilu.^ She had heard of
the fame of Solomon ' concerning the name of the Lord.'
Merchants and traders had clearly brought to her court the
story of his magnificent buildings and his extraordinary
wisdom. Grand though his buildings were, we cannot regard
them as superior in solidity or vastness of workmanship to
those of Egypt; while they were inferior in number. If, as
is probable, she were acquainted by report with the temples
and pyramids of the Nile Valley, the buildings of Solomon
could not have induced her to undertake a journey to
Jerusalem. A nobler motive animated this woman. She
came ' to commune with him of all that was in her heart.' ^
In the ancient world as well as in the modern, nobility of
nature and the pursuit of knowledge have sometimes guided
kings and queens in their movements and their policy.
Statecraft has then played a secondary part to love of learn-
ing. The Queen of Sheba was one of this gifted band. She
came from Arabia, as even the baggage camels of her ' very
great train ' clearly imply. She brought spices with her, and
very much gold, and precious stones, things found in that
' Records, v. 52, iii. 106. Strabo, p. 768, gives an account of the petty states-
of Arabia, and the n)any days' journeyings of its merchants.
- An English writer says of Solomon, 'The noysing of him to be the Messias
was the cause (as some imagine) the Queeue of Sheba tooke so long a joruey to
visite him.'
564 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its His lory.
peninsula itself, or imported into it from abroad. She was a
cliild in knowledge, as may be gathered from the sights of
Jerusalem, which gave her the highest delight. The dark
sayings ^ with wliich she came to try the king, were not likely
to prove difficulties to him, however puzzling they might
seem to her. At least, he solved them to her satisfaction.
No specimen of them has been preserved by either historian ;
but both of them record her astonishment at ' the house that
he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his
servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their
apparel, and his cup-bearers, and his ascent by which he went
up into the house of the Lord.' The admiration, excited by
these lesser details of household arrangements, reveals the
womanly bent of her mind, and conveys a measure of her
intelligence. Probably also to her admiration we are
indebted for the record, which has been preserved, of the
daily provision made for the royal table. Whether the
document was drawn up to satisfy the Queen of Sheba's
curiosity, or was merely extracted from a clerk of the
kitchen's book, regulating the supplies sent by the royal
purveyors, it is worthy of a closer inspection.
' Solomon'? provision for one day was thirty measures of
fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, ten fat oxen and
twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an Imndred sheep,
beside harts and roebucks and fallow deer and fatted fowl.'
There were thus ninety quarters of wdieat provided for each
day.^ But, according to the measure of a man's eating given
in the book of Exodus, an omer of manna was sufficient
supply for a day. There were one hundred of these in the
Hebrew Cor, which was about the same as an English quarter.
Ninety quarters of wheat thus contained a day's food for nine
^ Prov. i. 6 : 'The words of the wise and their daik sayings.' The word for
' dark sayings ' occurs only once in the Kings and in the Proverbs.
2 'The hart and the roebuck and the fallow deer (1 Kings iv. 23) are
mentioned in the same order in Deut. xiv. 5, and the latter word occurs
nowhere else in the Bible.'— Colcnso, Part vii. 21.
The Fall of Solomon. 565
tlioiisancl people. The oxen, slieep, fowl, and game would
supply at least as many more. If, tlien, the inmates of
Solomon's palace be set down at twenty thousand, the number
cannot be thonght too high. If men, women, and children
be counted, it was probably higher. But the arrangement of
the table excited admiration as much as the food provided.
The great Hall, as the house of the forest of Lebanon seems to
have been, may have also served as a dining-room for state
festivities. ' All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of
gold ; and all the vessels of the house of the forest of
Lebanon were of pure gold.' By placing the two sets
of vessels together, the historian may have wished to convey
an idea of similarity of use. The magnificent hall also was
well adapted to touch tlie fancy of the stranger queen, if she
were there entertained to state banquets. But wdien she saw
royal princes and ministers of state each taking his proper
)>lace in the banqueting-room, while the gorgeous banner of
the kingdom floated over her own head (Song ii. 4) ; when
she saw pages attired in cupbearers' dresses waiting on the
king, and guards with the golden shields, which were kept in
the Hall, standing in the background, and a host of servants
attending to the wants of the guests, the effect was such as
the king may have intended to produce, ' There was no more
spirit in her.' At one of these grand banquets she appears to
have made a little speech, eulogizing the wisdom of her
entertainer, extolling the happiness of his people, and blessing
Jehovah for the gift of so glorious a king. Before returning
to her own land, she gave Solomon one hundred and twenty
talents of gold, spices in greater store than he ever kne\v
afterwards, and precious stones. The Queen of Sheba's visit
presented the same features for a historian's pen to record as
royal visits have always done since her time. Perhaps the
prominence given to her love of knowledge redeems the story
from the vulgarity of grand dressing and costly eating and
drinking, with which the records of royal progresses usually
566 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
abound. Tlie relations which subsisted among crowned heads
in the ancient world before and after Solomon's reii^n, were
similar to the relations which exist among them in modern
times. Pharaoh visited Jerusalem as Solomon's friend and
father-in-law, perhaps twenty or thirty years before. A queen
of Arabia, and Khita-Sir, the prince of the Hittite land, paid
visits of friendship to Rameses the Great, about the time of
Moses. Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, went to meet the
Emperor of Assyria at Damascus, while his grandson
Manasseh, witli other kings, met the successor of that emperor
in Syria, or paid homage to him in Nineveh. Zedekiah also
visited his conqueror in Babylon, seven years before the
rebellion which brought ruin on his kingdom. Ancient
records, only recovered in our own day, abound with these
royal visits of friendship or homage. Thus, the wider the
view we take, the more lifelike becomes the sacred history.
The visit of the Queen of Sheba probably took place late
in Solomon's reign ; for a slight indication of time seems to
be conveyed in the words, ' There came no more [not again]
such abundance of spices as those which the Queen of Sheba
gave to King Solomon.' Her country was not so inaccessible
as to be beyond the reach of his merchants and seamen. Nor
would a gift once given by her be refused as an article of
commerce, when asked from her by his own servants, in the
king's name and for the king's use. Other matters were
engaging Solomon's thoughts. Troubles were rising around
him ; the shadow was deepening across his faith and his
greatness.
Although the daughter of Pharaoh was the queen or chief
wife of Solomon, she was neither his first nor his favourite
wife. Two years before he became king, he had been married
to an Ammonitess called Naamah {Pleasant), whom the Greek
translators, by an easy guess, imagine to have been Hanun's
daughter. There was nothing in the Hebrew law to bar
the marriage ; and experience gave David no cause to
The Fall of Solomon, 567
apprehend danger from an alliance of the same kind as
Kehemiah, five centuries later, had good cause to condemn.
And was not David himself sprung from Ihith, a Moabitess,
and one of the most honoured women in liis country's annals?
But Naamali was not destined to be another Ruth, grafted on
the famil}^ tree of Jesse. Her son, IJehoboam, was born
before David's death. Nor were Naamah and Pharaoh's
daughter the onl}^ wives of Solomon. They were two out of
an army of women, through whom the king was lured on to
ruin. Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines
crowded the palace. Apparently, however, most of them
occupied an inferior position ; for in the inner circle there
were only * threescore queens and fourscore concubines,' while
the rest are described as ' virgins without number ' (Song
vi. 8).
The change from wisdom to folly in Solomon's life may
have been so gradual as to have at first escaped the notice of
the old men who surrounded his throne. When it was too
manifest to be longer hid, it had probably attained a strength
which bore down opposition. One thing seems clear. His
son and successor, Rehoboam, rejected the counsel of these
advisers. He made a show of asking their advice, as his
father may have done in his presence. Rehoboam received
it, only to treat their opinions as he may have seen Solomon
do when their words were unpleasant. From the action of
the son in the gravest crisis of a kingdom's history, we may
infer the action of the father when wise counsellors crossed
his imperious wishes. These men had lost the power to
control their master. Princesses from all quarters were
gradually received into his palace as wives of the king.
* Solomon loved many strange women,' it is said, a description
of his wives borrowed perhaps from his own book of Proverbs
and from Deuteronomy. Some of this host of women he was
forbidden to marry by the law of the land. But a man who
wishes to explain a law away wdien a breach of it suits his*
568 The Kiiigdoiii of A II- Israel : its Hisiory.
purpose, Las no difficulty in finding reasons, especially if he
be a king with whom all things have gone well. Such was
Solomon's case. He had prospered and been magnificent in
everything hitherto ; he was resolved to be magnificent also
in the army of princesses whom he maintained in his palace.
Purposes of state may have led to this resolution. When an
Assyrian king conquered a city or a nation, he sometimes
related, in his story of the war, tlie taking of its king's
daughters to his own palace as wives or concubines. Solomon
may have regarded the daughters of tributary kings or cliieis
in a similar light : ties of union, it may be, between their
fathers' thrones and his ; pledges of loyalty and goodwill.
A policy so short-sighted ought not to have deceived one who
passed for the wisest of men. But it explains the enormous
number of women in his palace from ' the Moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites.' No palace,
however large, could keep the tale of women, gathered
together by Solomon, from quarrelling with each other, from
fanning the embers of their neighbours' quarrels into flame,
from planning crime, and from executing terrible deeds of
villany or vengeance. But the king, whose song on the
power of genuine love is surpassed by no human composition,
could not have been deceived into a belief of the worthiness
or sincerity of the homage paid to him by these female slaves
(Song viii. 6, 7) :
* Set me as a signet ring upon thine heart,
As a signet ring upon thine arm :
For strong as death is love ;
Inexorable as the grave is jealousy ;
The flames thereof are flames of fire ;
A most vehement flame.
Mighty waters cannot quench love.
And floods cannot drown it.
If a man would give
All the wealth of his house for love —
lie would utterly be contemned.'
David's palace was the scene of frequent misery from the
passions which vexed its inmates. Much more would
The Fall of Solomon. 569
Solomon's be found a home of wickedness, of envious rivalry,
and of sorrow ; for no hand, however strong, and no man,
however wise, could preserve law and order among a thousand
women, all striving for the only object of their existence,
the favour of one master to whom they were all slaves. By
breaking the laws of nature and of common sense, the king
laid himself open to the whips and scorpions wliich outraged
humanity keeps in store for its defiers. Amid a babel of
discordant voices, and conflicting or dangerous passions, not
even Solomon could retain a reputation for wisdom. The
means which have since been invented by savages for main-
taining order in a palace full of female slaves liad not then
been invented. Every woman among them would fight for her
own hand, without dreadiuc: the bowstrino- of her master, or
the sack into which she might be thrust and hurried off to
end her battles in the neighbourinc^ Dead Sea.^ Nor is there
reason to ascribe even to Solomon the employment in his
court of eunuch guards, such as existed in later times. The
only passage which casts a shadow of doubt on this view is
1 Sam. viii. 15, where a word occurs which is sometimes
found afterwards with this meanini^'.
The consequences of this parade and sensuality were soon
apparent. The worship which these women were accustomed
to in their father's houses, they adhered to in their master's
palace. An enforced seclusion made superstition strike
deeper roots into their hearts. Far from beiug lifted higher
by their wise lord, these ignorant slaves dragged him down to
their own level. Ashtoreth, Milcom, and Chemosh were
honoured in Solomon's house. He knew it ; he ceased to figlit
against it ; he yielded to his wives, and fell away from the
truth. But he did more than wink at their forbidden wor-
^ ' There are said to be a very large number of inmates in tlie Im])orial liarem
[of Morocco], many of them female relations of the late Sultan Sidi Mohammed ;
but without including these, there are about live hundred ladies at the Sultan's
disposal, and the number is being constantly added to,' — Do\bj N(u:s, 'The
British Mission to Morocco,' May 11, 1882.
570 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its History,
sliip. On the range of hills known in later times as the
Mount of Olives, but called in his day ' tlie hill that is east
of Jerusalem,' he built a high place, which may mean chapels
or temples as uell as altars, for Chemosh, the abomination of
Moab, and for Moloch, the king, the abomination ^ of Amnion.
Ashtoreth, the Venus of Tyre, was equally honoured. He
does not appear to have sacrificed to these vanities himself,
but he gratified his women by allowing them to burn incense
and to sacrifice to their gods. Nor were these the only idols
adored in the palace and countenanced by the king. He did
the same * for all his strange wives.' Jerusalem was overrun
Avith idolatry. From the slopes of Olivet idolaters could look
down on the altar and courts of Jehovah. Solomon had given
false gods a place in ' front of Jerusalem ; ' he had flouted his
folly in the very sight of Jehovah. The ground disgraced
by these heathen altars w^as afterwards called ' the Mount of
■J'he Destroyer [Corruption].' Thrice only is the word pre-
viously found in history ; once when it expresses the Destroyer,
^vho passed tVirough Egypt on the passover night ; again
when it denotes the Destroyer, who went out from the
Philistine camp to spoil the homesteads of Israel in the war
of independence ;^ and next when it denotes the Destroyer,
who smote seventy thousand men in the end of David's reign.
Solomon is described in that one word as introducing among
his people a destroyer, causing more terrible ruin than the
Passover angel or the Philistine plunderers, or the Destroyer's
sword over Mount Moriah. Seldom is one word found to
describe so truly the consequences of a king's policy. As
the high places were on the right hand or south of the
Destroyer's hill, they were probably at a lower level than the
temple enclosure, or out of sight of it altogether. Charity
^ This word is unusual ; it is taken from Dcut. xxix. 17.
- It occurs only other four times, thrice in Jeremiah, and once in Ezekiel.
The Septuagint Greek misses the whole force of the word by an unintelligible
rendering. Evidently the Hebrew manuscript used for it was worthless: ''the
hill Mosthath' it says, 2 Kings xxiii. 13. Mashchith is the word.
The Fall of Solomon, 571
towards fallen greatness would induce every reader of the
story to entertain this hope. But * the Lord was angry with ' ^
Solomon. The old men, who had been Solomon's advisers in
his days of greatness — tlie sons of Nathan and Zadok and
others — cannot have regarded these proceedings without
alarm. Some of them nuist have remonstrated with the king
on his folly. But their remonstrances were uttered in vain.
One man, however, did not remonstrate : he threatened
judgment on madness so incredible. David's sins had been
personal, and had been punished in his own house and family.
Solomon's sins were regal, and were avenged in his regal
power. A prophet brought him the sentence passed l)y
Jehovah. Ahijah, the Shilonite, was probably the messengsr :
* I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it
to thy servant.' What Samuel said to King Saul nearly a
century before, this successor of Samuel says, in almost the
same words, to the successor of Saul : * The Lord hath rent
the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and given it to a
neighbour of thine.' The prophets and historians of Israel
repeated the words of their predecessors, just as the events
of Israel's history are seen repeating themselves in warning,
in threatening^, and in fact.
The position of women among the Hebrews seems to have
undergone a change after the days of Solomon. It could
scarcely have been otherwise. ISTo king can familiarize his
people with the siglit of a thousand slave wives in his palace,
without striking a fatal blow^ at woman's influence in every
home throughout his dominions. Previous to Solomon's reign,
the names of women renowned for greatness were common
among the Hebrews. For four centuries the nation's annals
had been full of them — Miriam, Deborah, Jeplithah's daughter,
Hannah, Manoah's wife, jSTaonii, Paith, INIichal, Abigail, the
wise women of Tekoa and Abel. But for four centuries after
Solomon's death only two w^omen are renowned for any good
^ The words are a quotation from Dent. ix. 8.
572 The Ki)iodom of A I I- Israel : its History,
and great work, Iluldali the prophetess, and Jehoslieha, the
wife of the priest Jehoiada. The Shunamite woman was a
shining example of private worth ; while Maachah, Absalom's
granddaughter, and Athaliah, Jehoram's widow, were out-
standing proofs of the degeneracy of women in their day.
Of Solomon's sins this blow at woman's power in the world
was not one of the least. ' He built God a temple,' says an
old writer, ' but I could wish he had not let the temple of his
heart to fall to mine. There were not more workmen about
the building of tlie one, than there were foule sinnes busie in
destroying of the other ; his heart went downe farre faster
than the temple rose, as if God had meant successively in
one patterne to have drawne to the life the best of his graces,
the worst of our sins.'
This apostasy of Solomon, and this disregard of prophetic
warnings, may seem incomprehensible to us. But the world
in his days went on as the world does in our own.
As conscience warns in our time and warns in vain, so
prophets warned in Solomon's time and warned in vain. And
precisely as the voice of conscience is now drowned by the
noise and bustle of life, so was the prophet's voice drowned
then by cares of state and the business of pleasure. We
cannot stop the mouth of conscience ; no more could Solomon
seal the lips of a prophet. But he could act as we act ; he
could turn away his eyes, and become absorbed in things that
were more pleasant, though of infinitely less moment. Amid
the ten thousand distractions of a day, the prophet's voice
was only one. If his message was delivered in presence of
other people, as it would be, the opposition wliich it excited
in the king's breast would steel him into a defiant attitude
towards the messenoer. A sneer or a sarcasm would be the
witty reply to Ahijah, on whom he dared not lay his hand,
as he would have laid it on Jeroboam. And it is notorious
that, in all history, warnings, however wise, have been given in
vain to men whose pride or whose wickedness had forced them
The Fall of Solomon. 573
down from a liigh level of wisdom and good sense to incredible
foolishness and imprudence. The prophet's chief functions
Avere to expound and to enforce the Mosaic law. Sometimes
lie sided with tlie people against the king ; sometimes he
n])held the king's authority against the people. As the safety
of the nation lay in ol)eying the divine law, the j^i'ophet
represented the national conscience, whicli recognised the
right, even wdiile the people followed the wrong. But
Solomon could claim as thorough a knowledge of that law as
any prophet. He could also imagine or say that the mes-
senger who came to him mistook his own ideas for the ideas
of heaven. He could call him a bigot or a fanatic. Men do
this, or something similar, in modern times, when a tender
conscience rpbraids or threatens. But conscience ceases to
upbraid or threaten when it loses its tenderness. In tlie
same way Solomon ceased to regard a prophet's warning,
when he accustomed himself to treat his w^ords and his own
fears with doubts or scoffs. The difference between his day
and ours lies more in the names used than in facts.
The threatening of the prophet speedily began to bear
fruit. A generation before, Joab had so wasted Edom, that
there was no hope of its people ever again asserting their
freedom. The race of Esau seemed to be rooted out. But it
survived to pay back into Israel's bosom the horrors of his
six months' occupation of the land, and to make the conqueror's
descendants say, ' Kemember, 0 Lord, the children of Edom
in the day of Jerusalem ; who said. Ease it, rase it, even to
the foundation thereof.' Among those who escaped from
Joab's impolitic slaughter was a band of men who had been
in immediate attendance upon the king. When their master
fell, and all hope of their country was lost, they fled to ]\Iidian,
carrying with them a child of the king, called Adad or Hadad.
The desert of Midian, though not far from Elath, furnislied a
safe retreat for the fugitives in its inaccessible fastnesses. As
time passed, hope began to dawn on them. Changes took
574 ^^^^ Kingdom of A 11- Israel : its His lory,
place in Egypt, which broke the tie between Solomon and its
kinsc. Pharaoh's dauu;hter in Jerusalem was dead, or was
counted an enemy by the reigning house in Egypt. The
Edomite fugitives, taking advantage of the time, found their way
to Paran, and from that place were guided or recommended
to the court of Egypt. Hadad was received with favour.
Pharaoh assigned to him a house, rights of purveyance and an
estate. He gave him also in marriage the sister of Tahpenes,
his own queen. And Genubath, the son whom she bare to
Hadad, was brought up by Tahpenes herself among the sons of
Pharaoh. The Edomite colony prospered in Egypt. It was
ffatherin<][ strenoth for an effort to recover its own land.
Women of its race were among those who ruled the king in
Jerusalem, and were weakening his hands. More true to
their own people than to their lord, they probably kept their
countrymen in Egypt aware of the discontent that was
abroad, the want of military chiefs like David or Joab, and
the chance that was at hand of regaining the country, which
a former generation of their people had lost. When Hadad,
believing the time ripe, requested leave to return to the rocks
and deserts of Edom, Pharaoh expressed his surprise. ' What
hast thou lacked with me ? ' he asked. The black land of
Egypt, with its countless delights, seemed preferable to the
brown sands and scattered oases of Edom, with their hardships
and danger. But a lover of fatherland sighs for the heath or
the desert amid the plenty of a smiling paradise. ' !N"othing,'
was Hadad's answer, ' howbeit let me go in any wise.' The
hornets of the south were let loose on Solomon.
But disaster was befallinf^ his arms in the north also. The
o
marauding band of Eezon became an army, which despised
the soldiers trained by Solomon. Inured to hardship and
adventure, they repeated in the north of Palestine the policy
pursued by David long before in the south. But they were
more favoured by circumstances than he. Saul had a general
skilled in war, and able to cope with the best soldiers of the
TJie Fall of Solonio7i, 575
time. Solomon had no general worthy of naming in the
history. His father's mighties were all dead, or had become
feeble old men. A reign of peace, of magnificence, and
latterly of women, had raised up no men of ability to take
their place. With as much ease as David shifted his quarters
from the desert of Ziklag to the town of Hebron, did liezon
pass from the Syrian wastes to the greenery of Damascus,
One of the brightest jewels in the Hebrew crown Avas, it may
truly be said, plucked out of it for ever. The Hebrew
garrisons of Damascus and the neighbouring fortresses pro-
bably shared the fate of the six hundred archers, left by the
Emperor Aurelian to hold Tadmor after he conquered its
queen, Zenobia, in 273 A.D. : they were massacred.
Civil discord was the only ingredient wanting to fill the
cup of Solomon's misery to the brim. It came, as it usually
does, in unexpected fashion. When the king was fortifying
Millo, and strengthening the unfinished walls of Jerusalem,
he became suspicious of a young man called Jeroboam, whom
he had made ' ruler over all the charge of the house of
Joseph.' The fortifications were in some way connected
with this office. Nor is it difficult to discover the relation
between the two. Althouc^h the word translated * charcje '
does not occur elsewhere in the Kings, it was clearly a techni-
cal word for ' the burden ' borne by Joseph's family, that is,
apparently, by the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. They
provided men and material for the work. He was no untried
or unknown young man whom the king chose for this office.
He was seen to be industrious ; but otlier qualities recom-
mended him to the king. His mother was a widow called
Zeruah ; he w^as an Ephrathite, and belonged to tlie town or
village of Zereda. Of the site of Zereda there is at present
no certain knowledge, although conjecture places it a few
miles to the west of Bethel. If this conjecture be correct,
Jeroboam, like Saul, was a Benjamite. But he is called an
Ephrathite, which means either a native of Bethlehem or an
57^ The Kingdom of All-Israel : its History,
inhabitant of Mount Epliraim. At the beginning of his reign
Solomon's throne was assailed by Joab, an Ephrathite, the
son of a woman, evidently a widow, called Zeruiah ; at the
close of it, his throne is attacked by Jeroboam an Ephrathite,
the son of a widow, Zeruah. Whatever Jeroboam's lineage or
birthplace may have been, his office put liim in communica-
tion with the nobles and people of Ephraim. He had mucli
in his power if he wished to ligliten the labour or the taxes of
both. And he appears to have gained their esteem, while he con-
tinued also to preserve his master's confidence. About the time
when Solomon received the prophet's message, warning him
of the dismemberment of the kingdom, Jeroboam was met by
Ahijah on a road outside of Jerusalem. The two were alone in
the open country. One of them had dressed himself in a new
garment. Ahijah's mind was full of the new departure before
the nation, if, indeed, he had not come from delivering his
message of judgment to the king. Belonging to the tribe of
Ephraim himself, he was well known to Jeroboam. Seizing
the new garment, Ahijah rent it in twelve pieces. ' Take
thee ten pieces/ he said. Jeroboam obeyed, knowing well
there was a meaning in the prophet's act. ' I will rend the
kingdom out of the hand of Solomon,' he added, speaking in
Jehovah's name, ' and will give ten tribes to thee. . . . I
will take the kinodom out of his son's hand, and will oive it
unto thee, even ten tribes.' Although the two were alone in
the field, the story of the rending of the garment got abroad.
It was carried to Solomon. But Jeroboam, without waiting
for the purposes of Jehovah to ripen, seems to have been
over-eager to gather unripe fruit. He took advantage of his
position to foment discord among the people ; he put himself
forward as a leader of those who were disaffected to the
government. But he showed his willingness to strike before
he had the power. He even appears to have attempted a
rising, for ' he lifted up his hand against the king.' It was
too soon. Compelled to flee for his life, he found refuge in
The Fall of Solomon, ^yy
Egypt. Shisliak, who was then Pharaoh, protected him during
the rest of Solomon's reign, and was probably made aware of
the treasures of Jerusalem, which he afterwards carried away.
Jeroboam's rash attempt was followed by serious conse-
quences. He resided for some years at a court with whose
idols and worship he became familiar. He witnessed also in
the Nile Valley a civilisation which, in some of its material
aspects, was perhaps superior to that of his native country.
And the literature and science of the priests of Egypt were
fitted to impress him with a higher idea of their knowledge
and refinement, than he had formed of Hebrew priests and
Levites. Policy ruled religion in Egypt. Eeligion ought to
have ruled policy in Israel. But this cardinal principle of
Hebrew faith was lost sight of by Jeroboam. He saw policy
triumphant on the banks of tlie Nile. For ages the Egyptian
plan had filled the Nile Valley with men, with wealth of all
things, with the spoils of a conquered world. His own
country's plan told a different story — defeat, disunion, and
dishonour. He resolved to transfer the Egyptian plan to
Israel, if ever he got the chance. Had he not fled to Egypt,
this fatal lesson of short-sighted statecraft might never have
been learned. But his residence in that country was the
turning-point of a career, which Ahijah expected to prove a
page of brightness in Israel's annals. It was tlie first step to
ruin. He accepted the half of the prophet's message which
suited his own ambition ; he forgot the half which seemed
dangerous to his political views. To become king was pleasant;
but to follow in David's footsteps, and to worship in the one
temple at Jerusalem, as he was warned to do, were commands
which it appeared safer and was more agreeable to forget
(1 Kings xi. 32, 38).
Although Solomon's reign lasted forty years, he was only
about sixty at his death. The promise, ' I will lengthen thy
days,' was not fulfilled, because the condition attached to it
was not kept. Never was a brighter morning of life followed
2 0
5/8 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its History.
by a sadder sunset. Generals of tried ability and statesmen
of wide experience maintained tbe dignity of the crown in his
early years. At bis death he had no generals to lean on, or
to recommend his successor to ; while his counsellors were
discredited by the policy which had. brought the kingdom to
ruin, and which, if they did not support, they were powerless
to prevent. Wealth, wisdom, resources of all kinds, had
blessed the commencement of his reign. Utter failure of
every plan and of every hope darkened its close. Solomon
received a mighty empire from his father ; he bequeathed to
his son a tottering throne, a kingdom crumbling away at the
extremities and assailed at tlie heart. The causes of this
complete failure in administration are not difficult of discovery.
One word sums them up in the thoughts of the historian.
That word is apostasy. But beneath it lie hid a number of
other causes, all of which paved the way to Solomon's great
transG,Tession.
The magnificence of the king was purchased by heavy
sacrifices from his subjects. Splendour in the palace was
paid for by squalor in the cottage. Poverty had invaded the
land, while a stream of wealth flowed into the king's coffers,
and spread its influence in his immediate neighbourhood, till
silver was nothing accounted of in Jerusalem, and cedar had
become as common as the sycamores or fig-mulberries, which
grew in numbers on the coast plain,^ and furnished the poorer
classes with a useful fruit. But the richest districts of the
country told a different tale. A province in the fertile region
of Galilee, north-east of Carmel, containing twenty cities, was
given as a fief to Hiram, king of Tyre. When the Tyrian
went to view the gift, he begged his friend to take the cities
back : ' tliey pleased him not.' ' What cities are these, which
thou hast given me, my brother ? ' he asked of Solomon. We
can hardly be wrong in attributing his disappointment to the
meanness of their appearance. And the narrative reads as if
^ 1 Kings X. 27. The She^jhelah is mentioned here only in the book.
The Fall of Solomon, 579
he gave Solomon six score talents of gold to take the cities off
his hands. A pastoral people, devoted to their farms and
their cattle, have always battled fiercely for freedom. But
Avhen the Hebrews won that battle, they had only escaped
from the burdens, which wars of independence and conquest
entailed on them under David, to the heavier, burdens which
the peaceful days of his son brought in their train. A large army
required to be maintained both at home and in the conquered
provinces abroad. The farmers of Israel had to find the men
for this force from their own families. It was work without
pay. Damascus, Tadmor, Zobah, Kabbath-Ammon, and Selah
were fortresses which the nature of the people in their
neighbourhood, or the necessity of protecting trade routes,
compelled Solomon to hold with a firm hand. And the
fortifications of the pass of Beth-horon reveal to us the
danger that was still apprehended from the Philistines, or
along that highway of nations east and west ; the region
required large garrisons. A force of nearly 300,000 men
seems to have been embodied for these purposes. This tax
in men was a grievous burden on the Hebrews. Not only
were the soldiers without pay, while their fiirms were tilled
by others ; but they provided themselves with food, and pro-
bably with arms, out of their own means. Plundering of the
conquered people must, in consequence, have been common ;
a bitter feelintr of hatred between the rulers and the ruled
o
would be the result. But the Hebrew soldiers should liave
been following the plough and tending the flocks at home;
and the want of them was felt on many a farm. A further
tax was laid on the landowners of the nation. By orders
from the court, slaves were exacted to do the king's work.
In the reign of Menahem (760 B.C.), there were 60,000
farmers in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, each wealthy enough
to contribute 50 shekels (about £7) to the tax imposed by
Assyria. If the tribute exacted by Solomon were slave-labour,
about thirty thousand landowners must have contributed one
580 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
slave each, a heavy tax on the land. Plights of purveyance
also were claimed for the court, which farmers might resent,
but to which they w^re compelled to yield. A king's
messemxer was an officer unknown to their fathers, whom
they had learned to know too well. When to these unusual
burdens are added the charges on property exigible by the
ancient laws, tithes for Levites and perhaps for the king,
firstlings, first-fruits, and other dues, the farmers of Israel
Avill be found to have had good cause for complaining of
their heavy burdens.
The trade of the country appears to have been entirely in
the king's hands. Even vineyards were let out by him at
high rents. One of them at Baal-hamon was farmed by
keepers, each of whom paid a thousand shekels for the fruit.
Merchants also were probably authorized by the king, on
payment of a fixed rate, to conduct the business of exchange
throusfhout the land. We cannot, in the absence of more
definite information, fully understand the working of this
system. If it was the same as the selling by the English
kings of a right to do business in certain articles of commerce,
the iniquity of the arrangement would be worse in Israel than
it ever was in England. A Hebrew farmer derived large
profits from selling his grain, his cattle, his wool, his wine,
and his oil to his neighbours in Tyre. But these profits
w^ould be greatly reduced if, instead of selling his wares in
the open market, he was compelled by the king's arbitrary
decree to sell them to certain merchants, who had purchased
rights of trade, or who acted as middlemen between the king
and the farmer. Monopolies are implied in the words which
describe the profits got by the king : ' the gold that he had
of the merchantmen and of the traffick of the spice merchants.'^
The word used for merchantmen was well known to the
' 1 Kings X. 15. The word for 'traffick ' occurs nowhere else in Scrijjture.
In no other passage of the Kings are * merchantmen ' and ' spice merchants '
found; but the Song of Songs sheds some light on the words: 'With myrrh
and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant ' (iii. 6 ; see also i. 10, 11).
The Fall of Solomon, 581
king, and indicates those who -went about the country ou
business, or who conducted the trade with other nations.
Solomon was too needful of money not to keep a firm grasj)
on profits of every kind. Every olive tree, every vine, and
every palm was a source of income in Israel, as every date
palm is in tlie Sahara to this da3^ But when a farmer could
not dispose of the fruit except to tlie king's merchant, his
hopes of trade and profit were ruined. Middlemen, coming
between prince and people, could be trusted to make sure of
even larger profits for themselves than they secured for him.
A fair and a free market was refused to tlie Hebrew people.
A state of things had arisen, unknown to their fatliers.
Millions were toiling for the profit of one man. Millions
were suffering privations to build up that one man's name for
magnificence, and to enrich the few who were gathering for him
the fruits of a nation's industry. Both he and these few,
according to Hebrew law, should have toiled for the millions
of the people. A system so baneful could only result in the
hardening of that one man's heart to every generous feeling;
and in the growth in it of a belief in his right to consult at
all times his own selfish ends. How different he had become
from those better days when, looking on himself as an
emblem of a far greater Kini:^ of Peace, he wrote : ' He shall
deliver the needy when he crieth ; the poor also, and him
that hath no helper ; He shall spare the poor and needy, and
shall save the souls of the needy ; He shall redeem their
soul from deceit and violence ; and precious shall their blood
be in His sight' (Ps. Ixxii. 12-14). All this was changed.
But there was another source of income to the king which
must have been specially galling to the people : ' the gold
from the governors of the land.' As this is joined with ' gold
from all the kings of Arabia,' tliere is no doubt of the
meaning. In the latter case it means tribute ; in the former,
the product of taxes. But Hebrew farmers could not be
expected to raise money for the king without a weight of
582 The Kingdom of All- Israel : its History.
hardship pressing them down, which the men of our age can
scarcely realize. Coined money may have been current in
the country. Many things warrant this belief. But other
hints and references lead to an opposite conclusion. Eings
of gold and silver — the money which ^vas current in Egypt —
probably passed from hand to hand in the interchanges of
trade. But it was certainly scarce, and would be hoarded
then, as certainly as coin is hoarded in that country to-day.
To give it up to the tax-gatherer of Solomon would be as
great an act of self-denial in a Hebrew farmer, as in the
fellahin of Palestine to surrender their coined money at the
bidding of a Turkish pasha. For the farmers recognised no
right in the king to exact money in any shape. All taxes
were imposed in kind, not in silver or gold, except in one or
two instances of rare occurrence. To demand gold from the
farmers, that the governors of each province might forward,
perhaps, only part of the sum demanded to Jerusalem, was a
Jilling up of the cup of their oppression to the brim. A tax
of six or seven pounds sterling was the standard measure of
a wealthy man in Israel three centuries afterw^ards : the same
sum, charged on twice the number of wealthy men \vho were
found in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes at that time, w^ould
only have supplied Solomon with a hundred talents of gold.
The root of bitterness from which nearly all these wrongs
had sprung was the king's disregard of tlie divine law. Had
he acted up to the statutes binding on him as a ruler, his
people never could have been oppressed as they were. He
was commanded to think of himself as one of them. He
was forbidden to let his heart be lifted up ' above his
brethren.' But he broke this law. He allowed his thoughts
and ways to soar far ' above his brethren.' Losing sympathy
with them, he soon lost reverence for the Overlord of all men,
Jehovah Himself, If the outlay on his palace, with its
women, its servants, its delights, and its vanities, w\as no
greater than that on the palace of the Sultan of Turkey not
The Fall of Solomon^ 583
ten years ago, four liundred talents of gold would have been
required annually in money or in kind, l^robably the cost
was nnich ojreater. But as soon as the stream of o-old bec^an to
flow in these channels, there was no hope of diminishing its
volume. A broader and a deeper stream would be demanded
year by year. Disregard of law in the palace led to tyranny
in every province. Cause and effect were closely joined
together in Solomon's fall. Ill-treatment of his brethren
preceded ; disregard of Jehovah followed. Slowly but surely
the end came, apostasy from the faith and the breaking
np of the kingdom. The brightness of poetic genius, with its
keen love of nature's sights and sounds, as evidenced in the
Song of Songs, could not save king or kingdom. Philosophic
reflection on the vanity of all things, and especially of a
ceaseless round of pleasure, was equally unavailing. By
failing to obey the great law of doing good to all men, he
soon failed to do good to himself. But that law of the
Hebrew faith could not be broken without entailing a
departure, which ever grew greater, from the law of God.
And so the end came to Solomon in the sorrow and in the
shame of apostasy from the faith. Three centuries and a half
after his death, wdiile his greatness and his wisdom were still
acknowledged, a memorial of the ruin caused by his apostasy
is seen in the name given to the mount * on the east of
Jerusalem,' which, from his time downward, had been polluted
with the worst forms of heathenism — ' The Destroyer's Hill I *
Whether he repented of the wrong he did is a question which
has greatly exercised the minds of tliose, who are not content
to let the curtain hide what Providence has allowed it to fall
on. ' If this move not,' said an English preacher more than
two centuries ago, ' yet let God's promise be of some credit,
which was made so firme for Solomon, " I will be his Father,
he shall be my Sonne : if he commit iniquitie, I will chasten
liim with the rod of men. But my mercy shall not depart
away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away
584 The Kingdom of A I I- Israel : its History.
before thee." Mark tlie words, " If lie commit iniquity, He
would chasten him ;" but how ? AVitli tlie rod of men. But
where in the Scripture is the rod of men taken for damna-
tion ? " He would take His mercy from liim ;" but how ?
Not as he did from Saul that was a reprobate ; why therefore
Solomon a reprobate ? '
C H A P T E E XVIII.
rrjESTS AND LEVITES.
The strongly-marked distinction, within tlie tribe of Levi,
between the priests, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, the
rest of the sons of Levi, is generally believed to have been
instituted by Moses in tlie wilderness, and maintained amid
all changes down to the overthrow of the Jewish state by
the Eomans, a period of fifteen centuries. When, however,
the distinction was observed to be seldom or never put for-
ward, so as to be beyond reasonable doubt, from the beginning
of Deuteronomy to the end of the book of Kings, while the
propliets generally are equally silent, doubts arose, which soon
took the shape of a theory, and at last claimed to be ascertained
facts. Should they turn out to be well-founded, the whole
complexion of the history from the wilderness wanderings to
the arrival of Ezra in Jerusalem, an interval of one thousand
years, must undergo a change. Brieily stated, the case for the
theory stands thus : ' Everywhere throughout the middle
books of the Pentateuch the distinction between priests and
Levites has the force of law, and Aaron appears as higli priest
(Ezra vii. 5) in the n)eaning of that word after tlie Exile. The
priests are called sons of Aaron, a title which occurs nowliere
in the other Scriptures till the Exile, and whicli is unknown
even to Ezekiel, who calls the priests in the temple of Jeru-
salem, whom he contrasts with the rest of the Levites, sons of
Zadok. ... Of a difference in rank between priests and Levites
Deuteronomy knows nothing : every priest must be a Levite,
belonging to the race of Levi; every Levite may be a priest,
so far as he discharges priestly duties.' On tliis showing, it
5S6 The Kingdoiii of A II- Israel : its Literature,
follows that the book of Deuteronomy, in which for the first
time occurs the peculiar phrase, the, frieds the Levites, belongs
to an earlier period of the history than most parts of the
nnddle books of the Pentateuch — Exodus, Leviticus, and
Numbers. An interval of seven centuries is believed to
separate the former from the days of Moses (700 B.C.), while
the latter make their appearance for the first time two cen-
turies and a half later still (450 B.C.). The reality of the
whole history of the Hebrew monarchy turns on the settle-
ment of this one point. While the temple of Solomon stood,
it is believed to have been under the chars^e of the Levites,
every one of whom was a priest. There was no difference of
orders within the tribe. A difference of rank existed, for
there was a high priest, a second priest, and ancients or elders.
While this is the state of things said to be recorded in the
books of Kings, and discovered in the older prophets, the
Chronicler presents a view of these officials, which, it is said,
existed in his own day, but was unknown before the Baby-
lonian exile. He blundered through ignorance, or he romanced
through simplicity. This is one view of the question in
dispute. An older and more generally-received view regards
the distinction between priests and Levites as having been
obscured, during the monarchy, by the unfaithful conduct of
the Levites. They are known to have forsaken their duties
in the second temple. They forsook them also under the first.
Before the captivity they aspired to be priests, although the law
ordained them only to be priests' assistants. The priests, on
the other hand, remained faithfully at their posts in the first
temple. They thus came to be separated in popular thought
and popular speech from tlieir assistant Levites. Eeading the
history in Kings and the sermons of the prophets, in which
the popular speech was reflected, we see something like a
divorce between their statements and those of the Pentateuch.
The new theory has given expression to this feeling.
We shall therefore examine the theory with more care than
Priests a nd L cvitcs. 587
the evidence, hitherto adduced in its support, may seem to
merit. By detecting weakness or blundering in its statement,
a deeper insight may be got into the history of the nation.
And at the outset, Graf speaks so unadvisedly as to damage
his whole view of the priestly laws. ' Everywhere,' he says,
* throughout the middle books of the Pentateuch, the distinc-
tion between priests and Levites has the force of law.' The
middle books referred to are Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
But the distinction does not exist, and is nowhere referred to
in the first two. Exodus and Leviticus. It is found certainly
in three or four chapters of the book of Numbers. A more
unguarded statement could not, therefore, have been made, or
one showing less acquaintance with the minute points on
which the history in these three books turns. Even the
word ' priests ' in the plural occurs but twice in Numbers
(Num. iii. 3, x. 8); the 2'>Tiests the Levites never at all. But
had these books followed, instead of preceding Deuteronomy,
the 2^^'i<^sfs the Levites is a phrase which would have been
copied by the writer of them, if for no other purpose than to
give the books an air of antiquity. There is a reason for
speaking of Aaron the ijviest in Exodus and Leviticus, and for
calling his sons the priests. There is also a reason for going
farther to draw, in Numbers, a broad distinction between
priests and Levites. And there is a reason, too, for changing
the form of speech in Deuteronomy, when Aaron was dead,
to the j^riest, or the j^riest and his sons, or the i^riests the Levites.
All these reasons can be given and their value weighed. But
if the three middle books were far later in tim.e than Deutero-
nomy, and if, as was obviously the case, their teaching was
intended to support the teaching of Deuteronomy, it is not
according to the analogy of things for the writer or writers of
them to pass over in silence the strangely unusual phrase, the
priests the Levites. No attempt is made by defenders of the
new theory to explain this silence. Until it be explained, it
stands forth as a witness against their view. The phrase w^as
588 The Kingdom of A I I- Israel : its Literature.
known to tlie writer or writers of these middle books ; it was
caught up by some one wlio is believed at a late date to have
written parts of the book of Joshua (Josh. iii. 3, viii. 33) ;
it was also caught up by Jeremiah and Ezekiel ; why was it
not also copied by still later writers, who are thouglit to have
written most of the three books ?
In Xumbers only does the distinction between priests and
Levites make its appearance. There was a good reason for
this. Tliroughout the whole of the book of Leviticus, the chief
figures on the scene, if w^e leave Moses out of account, are
Aaron and his sons and the Levites generally. But not a
Avord is said of the relation between Aaron and his sons on
the one hand, and the Levites on the other. The former were
the priests ; the latter were the priests' assistants. But in
Leviticus, Aaron and his sons are said to ' keep the charge of
the (tabernacle of the) Lord,' the very phrase which expresses
the office of the Levites ; and nowhere in the book is there the
slightest reference to the service, and charge, and duty of the
Levites as the priests' assistants in watching and carrying the
tabernacle, the altars, the ark, the furnishings. Again and
again mention is made of dues and revenues belonging to the
Levites as a tribe, but never of the duties of their service
about the tabernacle. Only in the book of Numbers are these
duties and this charge clearly stated ; for they originate from,
or at least they hang on an event entirely different from the
legislation in Leviticus. They are directly connected with the
numbering of the people, which took place after the tabernacle
was set up, after the priests were appointed to their office,
and after the legislation in the book of Leviticus. Such is the
story given in the Pentateuch itself. It hangs well togetlier,
and it could not have been the work of an editor or of a forger.
A compiler writing the book of Leviticus would have
arranged matters somewhat differently. Especially would
tins have been the case had he lived and written after the
destruction of Solomon's temple. Knowing that it was his
Priests and Lcvilcs. 589
intention in the novel — for so we must call it — which he was
composing, to assign the Levites as assistants to the priests,
he could not have kept this knowledge to himself throughout
the book of Leviticus. A word would have escaped him here,
and another there, betraying his purpose, and letting future
men see into the deceit he was practising. It is vain to say
he would have guarded against this leakage of thought. No
other novelist in any age of the world has succeeded in thus
safeguarding himself from the critic's keen eye ; and there is
not the slightest o-round for believinc,' that the writer out, or
the deviser of these details of Hebrew worship would have
been able to avoid the many pitfalls, which beset the man who
pretends to speak and write as if he had been alive a thousand
years before he was born. Nothing but the truth of the story
can explain the want of references tln*oughout Leviticus to tlie
service and charge of the Levites about the tabernacle. They
are first recorded as having assisted the priests in the book
of Numbers (see above, p. 114). They did not put the
tabernacle together, when the story of its first setting up is
told in the last chapter of Exodus. Their services were
required only when it had to be taken down, and conveyed
from place to place. The necessity for their help was there-
fore not felt, till the camp was ordered to set forward on tlie
march to Canaan. This stage of the history is reached when
we come to the early chapters of the book of Numbers. The
intervening legislation in Leviticus is thus seen to be in its
proper place. A coincidence at once satisfactory and unmis-
takeable is discovered, which effectually disposes of the many
* probabilities ' figuring in books like Block's Introduction, and
giving a show of discernment to what is really a proof of
unwillingness or inability to follow the guidance of facts.
We have next to examine the evidence which is believed to
prove that the j^ricsts the Levites meant, not the sons of Aaron,
but every member of the tribe of Levi. The challenging of
witnesses is here unprecedented. For the books of Exodus,
590 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
Leviticus, Numbers, Chronicles, Ezra, and Neliemiah are re-
fused a hearing on this great question. They give evidence,
it seems, which is not to be relied on, or, if the truth must
be told, which is absolutely false. Every Levite previous to
the Babylonian captivity was a priest, it is said. But these
books affirm that only the sons of Aaron were priests, and
that the rest of the Levites were their helpers in holy things
from the days of the wiklerness wanderings onward. In other
words, the testimony of 3 5 0 pages out of 1392 in the Hebrew
Bible, or more than one-fourth part, is declared unworthy of
credit. And if the historical books alone be considered, the
meaning of this is, that more than one-half of their pages
gives a representation of the case which is pronounced utterly
untrue. Be this as it may, their evidence is refused. Since,
therefore, they cannot be called as witnesses, we must be con-
tent, in conducting this plea, to cite writers whose testimony
no one rejects. We are not afraid to yield thus much ; for
what remains of the Old Testament furnishes enough to prove
the untenableness of the position maintained by those, who
have thus denied the trustworthiness of one-half of the his-
tory. At the same time, their w^ay of conducting the case is
peculiar. They silence the witnesses, and then say no evidence
is forthcoming.
If, then, we take the recognised evidence, — that is to say,
the evidence which all are willing to accept, — we find that the
word Levite occurs in-*-
Deuteronomy 12 times, of which 8 clearly mean the priests.
Joshua 14 „ „ 2 „ „
Jiuhjes 10 „
^ The word j^^i&^t or pr'iests is of inucli more frequent occurrence. On a rough
estimate, it is found in
Exodus 11 times. Judges 15 times.
Leviticus 190 ,, Samuel 40 ,,
Numbers 69 ,, Kings 74 ,,
Deuteronomy 14 ,, Isaiah 6 ,,
Joshua 36 ,, Jeremiah 46 „
Priests and Lcvitcs. 59 r
Samuel 2 times
Kings 1 time
Isaiah 1 j,
Jeremiah 3 times (xxxiii. 18, 21, 22).
UzeJciel 8 „ (xliii. 19, xliv. 10, 15, xlv. 5, xlviii.
11, 12, 13, 22).
The testimony of Joshua, when the book evidently draws a
distinction between the priests the Levites and the rest of the
tribe, is refused as unworthy of credit. We shall not call
that witness. Of twelve passages in Deuteronomy which are
of uncertain meaning, we shall speak in good time. The ten
passages in which the word occurs in Judges prove nothing in
this debate. There remain, then, the followincj from the Old
Testament, to which, for the sake both of clearness and of
contrast, we shall add those in the iSTew Testament and the
first book of the Maccabees —
1 Sam. vi. 15. Isa. Ixvi. 21. John i. 19.
2 Sam. XV. 24. Ezek. xliv. 10, xlv. 5, xlviii. 13, etc. Acts iv. 36.
1 Kings viii. 4 (xii. 31). Luke x. 32. 1 Mace, (nowhere).
From the evidence furnished by the New Testament and
the Maccabees, it is clear that no doubt should arise regarding
the reality of this distinction, even although it is seldom or
never met with in the history of a period. No one could
infer its nature from the cursory mention of the words, priests
and Levites, in the New Testament. In the book of Macca-
bees, Levite never occurs. AVhen, therefore, we find that it
occurs twice in the book of Samuel, once in the Kings, and
once in Isaiah, we have no right to be surprised. Our duty
is to discover the meaning of the word. But that cannot be
ascertained from the two passages in Samuel. AVhile one man,
with good reason, might hold, as Graf holds, that it denotes a
priest a Levite, another, with equally good reason, might say
that it denotes a Levite an assistant to the priest. All hope
of deciding the matter by an appeal to that evidence must be
given up. But this silence of ancient writers regarding a
592 The Kingdom of All-Is7^ael : its Litei'atiire,
thing which was perfectly well known to them is not unusual.
Take a parallel case from the greatest historian of ancient
Greece, Thucydides. ' On the general state of society in
Greece, on her science, art, and literature, he affords no infor-
mation whatever. Not a word of the splendour of her public
monuments, the brilliancy of her dramatic representations, tlie
marvels of her sculpture and painting. In so far as Thucydides
is concerned, we should never have known that such men as
u^schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or Aristophanes, as Phidias,
Anaxagoras, Gorgias, or Socrates ever existed. Yet w4th all
these the historian was contemporaneous.' ^ Such, then, is the
value of an argument from silence — a value enhanced by the
fact that the history of Thucydides contains more writing and
covers vastly less time than Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings put together.
The witnesses for or against the distinction between priests
and Levites in those early times are now reduced to three.
Of these witnesses, the earliest is the Prophet Isaiah, and his
evidence is most distinct : * I will also take of them for priests
for Levites, saith the Lord' (Isa. Ixvi. 21). The interpretation
of that verse is of no moment here. We are concerned only
with the fact that it places the priests in one class and
the Levites in another, for that is the meaning forced on a
reader by the grammar of the passage. But it is also a little
singular that, instead of writing for priests aiid Levites, the
prophet, leaving out the and, wrote for 'priests for Levites.
Other examples of this omission occur in the same chapter.^
The evidence here seems to be beyond dispute. But it
is refused. The witness, it is said, was not Isaiah, the
prophet who lived in Hezekiah's reign (700 B.C.). He was
another man altogether, who lived after the burning of the
temple by the Chaldeans, and before the return of the exiles
from Babylon. However, it is not allowable to dismiss a
* Mure, History of Grecian Literature^ v. 74.
^ See the Hebrew, Isa. Ixvi. 19, 23 ; also Ixiii. 11.
Priests and L cvitcs, 593
witness in tins fashion, for in the chapter from wliich we have
quoted his evidence, he speaks of sacrifices proceeding, of the
temple as standing, of ' the voice of noise from the city,' and
of idolatrous customs prevailing among the people. Whoever
rejects his testimony, has more to do than merely assert that
he lived long after Isaiah, the prophet of Hezekiah's court.
But the passage is of some value even on their view. It
shows clearly that the distinction between priests and Levites
was well known about or before 540 B.C. It had therefore
been much more ancient. A fact so destructive of the theory,
and so plainly deducible from its defenders' views, must be
resisted. Accordingly, it is denied that for 'priests for Levites
means for priests and for Levites. But this refusal of the and
cannot bear arguing. Its rejection is asserted by Bishop
Colenso, and passed from as speedily as possible. Clearly
the passage tells against the theory.
But the second witness, though later in time, is still more
explicit in point of fact. Ezekiel was a priest as well as a
prophet. If not a minister in the temple built by Solomon,
he was intimately acquainted with all its arrangements ; and
nothing can be clearer than the distinction drawn by him
between the two orders of temple servants : ' The Levites over
against the border of the priests,' for so the words run in the
Hebrew, ' shall have five-and-twenty thousand in length '
(xlviii. 13). And in the preceding context he gives a
historical view of the conduct of the two orders in the main-
tenance of the temple worship : ' The sons of Zadok, which
went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as
the Levites went astray ' (xlviii. 11). The priests remained
faithful ; the Levites did not. While the former remained at
their post, the latter did not, but had to be brought back to
their duties when they were required. Ezekiel, in thus
writing, was speaking of the temple as it had been for ages,
not of the temple which should be after his time. His
evidence is therefore decisive. But it, too, is so cavilled at
2 p
594 ^-^^^ Kingdom of All- Israel : its Liter aitcre.
that we shall return to his statements afterwards. And liere
it has to be remarked that a case in criticism, like a case in
law, commonly turns on the evidence of only one or two
good witnesses. Of direct, unmistakeable proof in debated
matters there is usually a scarcity. Secondary or indirect
evidence brings out the truth more frequently than we might
be disposed to admit. But in this case, from a field of evi-
dence unduly restricted, we have already got two unexception-
able witnesses. We shall now produce a third, so clear that
there is no way of getting rid of him but by denying that he
ever spoke at all :
1 Kings viii. 4. 2 Chron. v. 5.
They brought up the ark of the Lord They brought up the ark, and the
and the tabernacle of the congregation, tabernacle of the congregation, and all
and all the holy vessels that were in the holy vessels that were in the taber-
the tabernacle, and them the priests nacle ; them the priests the Levites
and the Levites brought up. brought up.
The distinction between the priests and the Levites, in
the verse quoted from the book of Kings, is too manifest
for any attempt to be made to deny its existence in the
passage as now read. The writer of Solomon's reign in the
book of Kings repeatedly lets fall a word or a phrase, which
would be unintelligible if the Book of the Law had not been
lying before him. 'Priests and Levites' in his pages is there-
fore not a form of words standing by itself in singularity ; it
is one of several, all equally singular, which, taken together,
form a peculiar feature in the writer's style of thought and
expression. But it is unwarrantable to tear away that phrase
from the rest of the passage in which it occurs. It is em-
bedded in a context full of meaning. Once only in the fifteen
lines of the story does the w^ord Levite occur ; but priest occurs
five times. So long as the writer describes the carrying of
the ark and the going into the temple — purely priestly duties
— he speaks of priests only : ' The priests took up the ark ; '
* the priests brought in the ark unto his place ;' ' the priests
could not stand to minister because of the cloud,' But w^hen
PiHests and Lcvitcs, 595
he associates the ark with ' all the holy vessels that were in
the tahernacle,' he adds, ' even those did the priests and the
Levites bring up.' Levites, as distinguished from priests, had
charge of the holy vessels when conveyed from place to place.
We see, therefore, not only that the narrative is in strictest
agreement w^ith the Mosaic law, but also that the duties
described and the context put it out of a reader's power to
affirm a corruption of the text here.
By many writers it is felt that the testimony of this passage
must at all hazards be put out of the way. Their books
would, in a great measure, be labour lost, if the little word
and, a single letter in the Hebrew, were allowed to hold its
place ; for it speaks with a voice of power which drowns the
loudest talk of learning or criticism. Kuenen and others
regard it as an insertion in accordance with the later law, for-
getful all the while of the writer's peculiar method, and of the
evidence against them from the context of the passage. As a
valid reason for their view, they point to the Chronicles, which
gives the passage without an and. Some have not the bold-
ness to call it an insertion by an unauthorized hand; they only
say ' it appears ' to be such. But weak though this way of
getting out of a difficulty be, it becomes weaker still w^hen the
usage of the Chronicler is looked at. Generally he writes the
iwiests and the Levites ; but he sometimes inverts the words,
the Levites and the priests. Sometimes he leaves the con-
necting and out altogether: 'The priests, the Levites, and
the Nethinim,' 'the priests the Levites' (1 Chron. ix. 2;
2 Chron. xxiii. 18, xxx. 27). Nor is the word and the
only change made by the writer of Chronicles on the
passage from the book of Kings, if we suppose him to have
borrowed from that source. He has left out ' Jehovah ' after
' ark,' and has added the article the before it ; while he has
left out and a second time in this passage before them.
Here are four changes made in the one verse, changes
sufficient to destroy all confidence in the value of the con-
59^ The Kingdom of A I I- Israel : its Literature.
elusion, drawn from tiie omission of and between the, 'pricsis
the, Levites. Nor are these the only slight changes made on the
section in which this verse occurs. So numerous are they,
that no one, at all acquainted with the laws of criticism, will
give heed to the inference drawn from the words of the
Chronicler. And with this conclusion Bishop Colenso agrees.
He cannot see his way to striking out the word and in the
hook of Kings, that the words may run, the j^ricsts the Levites.
All the versions have the connecting particle : ^ therefore he
refuses to remove one word or one letter while he retains the
rest of the verse. He considers it to be ' most probable ' tliat
the readinGj in Chronicles is wron<:f as well as the readinf]^ in
Kings. Both of them he holds to be insertions by some writer,
who had also a hand in drawing up the middle books of the
Pentateuch long after the destruction of Solomon's temple.
If his premises are allowed, this conclusion is in accordance
with sound reasoning. And as if to confirm the view given
above, the Chronicler himself had already shown, as clearly as
words could convey his meaning, what he intended in this
passage ; for, writing of the same thing thirty pages before,
he says : ' The priests and the Levites sanctified themselves
to bring up the ark ' from Kirjath to Zion (1 Chron. xv. 4, 14).
This witness, then, has stood cross-examination. The point
in dispute is certainly small, but the smallest things are often
hinges on which the greatest things turn. The witness has
not broken down, and when the whole of his evidence is
looked at, it will be found, as we have seen above, to go far in
proof of the case.
The evidence from the book of Deuteronomy remains to be
examined. According to Graf, whose views are now followed
by several in this country : ' Of a difference in rank between
priests and Levites, Deuteronomy knows nothing. Every
priest requires to be of the tribe of Levi ; and every Levite
may be a priest, so far as he discharges priestly duties.' To
^ This is incorrect. See the LXX. (Vatican), 1 Kings viii. 3, 4.
Priests and Lcvitcs. 597
support tliis theory of the teaching of that book, direct state-
ments are felt to be wanting. The fvusts the Lccitcs is a
common phrase, which means, what every one allows, that the
priests were Levites ; or which may mean, as it does else-
Avhere, the priests and the Levites. But the book of Deutero-
nomy never inverts the phrase, as is done in the Chronicles,
and once in Jeremiah, tlic Levites the 2^riests. In Graf's view,
the one form is as likely to be found as the other. But the
inverted form is unknown in Deuteronomy, while ' the priests,
the sons of Levi,' is an alternative phrase. Other evidence is
therefore sought for to supply the want of direct statements. It
is found mainly in the difference between the revenue assigned
to the children of Levi in that law-book, and the revenue
assi2;ned to them in the books of Leviticus and Numbers.
These revenues are said to be so unlike in the two cases, that
it is impossible the books can be the work of the same law-
giver, or have been written in the same age. The word Levite,
the duties and the revenues of the tribe, are thus all dragged
into the inquiry. In Deuteronomy there are eight places
about wdiich no doubt is entertained that the word Levite
means priest. We may therefore set them aside. But there
are about a dozen other passages, in which it is not so easy to
say what the meaning of the word is. Among these doubtful
texts, therefore, evidence for or against the distinction must be
sought. In one of them the whole tribe of Levi is seen to be
set apart for three purposes — (1) ' to bear the ark of the
covenant of the Lord ; (2) to stand before the Lord to minister
unto Him; and (3) to bless in His name' (Deut. x. 8). It
is not said, and there is no reason for thinking it is implied
in the passage, that these duties fell indiscriminately to any
members of the tribe who chose to offer their services, or
believed themselves more fit than others for the work.
Evidently arrangements are understood to have been made,
which it did not come within the aim of the book fully to
describe. Of the tliree duties assicrned to the Levites, the
59^ The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its Literature,
second : * To stand before tlie Lord, and to minister nnto
Him/ does not always denote priesthood proper. Hezekiali
applies the phrase to Levites as well as priests : ' He brought
in the priests and the Levites, and said unto them, . . . My
sons, be not now negligent ; for the Lord hath chosen you to
stand before Him, to serve Him, and that ye should minister
unto Him, and burn incense.' The priestly duty of burning
incense is mentioned here, because, by a common use of
language, it was a duty which belonged to the tribe, though
exercised by only a part of its members. But it is small
censure to call the statement we are reviewincj incorrect. As
in other cases, where a little trouble would have prevented
such blundering, so it is here, for the phrase, ' to stand before
Jehovah and to minister unto Him,' is found only four times
altogether, twice when it refers to the priests (Dent. xvii. 12,
xviii. 5), and twice when it refers to the Levites (Deut. x. 8 ;
2 Chron. xxix. 11) as a tribe.
It appears, then, that the phrase, which is thought 'in-
variably to denote the priesthood proper,' is really common to
the whole tribe of Levi. A remarkable omission in the
passage which describes the three duties of the tribe, is the
priests' special duty to burn incense ; priests only could stand
before the golden altar within the holy place. This priestly
duty figures in the earliest parts of the history in the life
of Samuel, and must therefore have been well known at the
time when Deuteronomy is thought to have been written.
But the writer carefully avoids including it among the duties
of the tribe. And he had a reason for his silence, which is
perfectly evident to all who believe in the reality of the
story of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but must be inex-
plicable to those who regard every Levite as a priest. The
tenth chapter of his book describes the duties of the tribe of
Levi ; the beginning of the eleventh gives the doom of those
incense-burners, who usurped this outstanding duty of the
priests proper. And Korah was a Levite.
Priests and Levites. 599
The priests have a title of office given them in the hook
of Deuteronomy which became peculiarly their own : * The
priests the Levites, bearers of the ark of the covenant.' A
title of office so distinct as priests the Levites, implies that
there were others not priests, but possessing claims to the
honour ; and in the same way, Levites bearers of the ark seems
to imply that there were Levites not hearers of the ark. The
phrase, the priests the Levites, may have originated in the
Korah rebellion, and may be in direct opposition to the scheme
of the priests the first-horns, which that rising of the men of
renown in the camp attempted to establish on its ancient
foundation. Apparently the title, hearers of the ark, became
restricted to the priestly family, though the duty does nob
seem to have been so restricted at first. On this latter point,
however, there is room for doubt. From the arrangements
originally made, it seems as if the bearers of the ark were to
be not the priests, sons of Aaron, but the Kohathites, sons of
Levi.-^ However, the following verses indicate feelings of fear
and hesitation among the Kohathites about the service laid on
them. A new rule was therefore given : ' Aaron and his sons
shall go in, and appoint them every one to his service and to
his burden.' Manifestly, the Kohathite Levites shrank from
bearing the ark ' that they might live and not die ; ' if so, the
priests then took the duty on themselves. Those ark-bearers
lived, like a king's guard, at the place which had been chosen
for the central altar. Their office and duties made this
attendance necessary. But they formed only a part of the
population at the central sanctuary — a fact which is matle
clear by the principal passage bearing on the subject in the
book of Deuteronomy. It will repay an attentive study.
According to an ancient division of the Hebrew Bible, the
section referred to falls under three heads — or, properly, it is
divided into a general preface and two special paragraphs — thus :
^ Num. iv. 4-15. Ver. 15 decides nothing. Our translators added it without
authority, when the sense req^uired them, that is, holy tlungs.
6oo The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literahire,
General Preface, Deut. xviii.
1. The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor
inheritance with Israel : they shall eat the ollerings of the Lord made by iire,
and his inheritance (Num. xviii. 10).
2. Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their l)rethren : the Lord
is their inheritance, as He hath said unto them (Josh, xviii. 7).
§ 1. The Priest and his Sons.
3. And this shall be the priest's [priests' Hehreiv] due from the peoj^le, from
them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep ; and they shall give unto
the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw.
4. The first-fruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first
of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him.
5. For the Lord thy God hath chosen him out of all thy tribes, to stand to
minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for ever.
§ 2. The Levite and his Brethren.
6. And if a Levite come from any of thy gates out of all Israel, where he
sojourned, and come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the
Lord shall choose :
7. Then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, as all his brethren
the Levites do, which stand there before the Lord.
8. They shall have like portions to eat, beside that which cometh of the sale
of his patrimony.
This is the great passage bearing on the point in dispute.
At the beginning of the discussion a statement of the view,
which seems most natural and lifelike, may impart clearness to
the following remarks. Evidently, then, the general preface
(vers. 1, 2) contains the revenues common to the whole tribe,
briefly stated — the Lord's fire-offerings and His inheritance.
Of the former it may be said that the book of Leviticus
assigns them to the priests only. Part of them it does so
assign ; but another, perhaps a principal part of them, is shared
between priests proper and assistant Levites — a tenth of the
flock and the herd (Josh. xiii. 14). By 'his inheritance' is
clearly meant a tithe of the produce of the land. But the
first special section shows that the priests had sources of
revenue not shared in by the assistant Levites. These are
called the priest's due and the first-fruits. According to
Leviticus, the latter belonged to the priests only (Lev. xxiii.
9-12 ; Num. xviii. 8-13). But the Levites had no special dues
Pi'icsts and Lcvitcs. 60 1
apart from tlieir share of 'fire-offerings and liis inlicritance.'
Certain arrangements had to be made for their support in
special cases, and for guarding their proprietary rights. All
these points are attended to in the second special paragraph.
There were Levites residing at a distance from the sanc-
tuary. So widely spread should these members of the tribe
be, that, according to the passage already quoted, they might
come from any of the cities out of all Israel. A wanderer,
arriving at the chosen sanctuary, was at once admitted to the
rights and duties of the sacred brotherhood — ' to minister, as
all his brethren, the Levites, those standing there before the
Lord.' Here, then, we meet with a title of office. Literally
rendered, it is : ' Levites, the standers before Jehovah.' This
is a very different title from ' the Levites, bearers of the ark.'
The former could be and was applied to the latter. But
the latter never was applied to all the former. It will be
remarked, also, that while the priests are mentioned in the
beginning of the chapter, the word is changed to priest im-
mediately after, and the whole become the priest and his sons
(xviii. 3, 5). We naturally think of the common phrase,
Aaron and his sons, as the meaning. Aaron could not be
mentioned, for he died some time previous to the writing of
Deuteronomy. But it is plain enough that this Avas the sense
put upon the passage by the Chronicler, when he is doing the
next thing to quoting these words (1 Chron. xxiii. 13). There
is a different way of speaking used as soon as the position of
Levites is described. The Levite wanderer is to be placed on
tlie same footing as ' all his brethren.' Again, therefore, are
we face to face with two titles, which can scarcely be thought
to apply to the same set of men ; the priest and his sons in the
one case, the Levite and all his Irethrcn in the other (xviii.
5,7).
But the closing words of the section bring before us a real
difficulty in the passage, ' beside that which cometh of the
sale of his patrimony.' This is the rendering given by the
6o2 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature.
Greek translators. Probably it is as near the truth as we can
now make it, if it be not the whole truth. Literally, the
words seem to run, Portion as portion shall they eat, besides
his sales on account of {or in respect of) the fathers. A
Levite, leaving his own city with the intention of settling at
the sanctuary, would have a house to sell and its belongings.
Provision was made for that happening (Lev. xxv. 32-34).
But no mention is made of this provision in the regulation
laid down in Deuteronomy. The difficulty is that that book
is in itself avowedly incomplete, a book written to guide the
people to such knowledge of the law as would keep them
within the bounds w^hich it prescribed for the nation, but not
written and never designed for the guidance of professional
classes in the details and niceties of business. Men who
might be disposed to deny to Levi any part in the inherit-
ance beyond the offerings by fire, tithes, and first-fruits, would
find themselves put out of court by this reservation of the
Levites' right of sale. What that meant the book of Deutero-
nomy does not tell. But a reader is so manifestly referred to
a more scientific statement of this right, contained elsewhere,
that he is bound to search for the information withheld from
him here. Of oral tradition in this respect we liave no proof and
no knowdedge. But of written and full details respecting the
Levites' right of sale, we have a record in the book of Leviticus.
The tribe of Levi, then, according to the brief and popular
account of it in Deuteronomy, was thus divided : —
' The priest and his sons ' The Levite and his brethren
appointed settled in
'■ to stand and to minister ' ^ ' any of the gates out of all Israel, '
at or appointed
' the place which the Lord shall * to minister in the place which
choose, ' the Lord shall choose. '
and to be * Levites
bearers of the ark of the Called also
covenant of the Lord.' * The standers before the Lord.'^
^ Of the technical or professional use of this word there are traces elsewhere :
* And the Levites atood witli the instruments of David, and the priests with the
Pricsfs and Lcvilcs. 603
But we are here in a region of technical words, the full and
accurate value of which may have perished with the downfall
of the profession which used them, when it ceased to exist
1800 years a^o. Though their written law-book survived,
there is a want about it which may cause the most cautious
readers many a stumble. It has come down to us shorn of
that mouth-to-mouth exposition, which one race of students
always hands on to the following. AVhen, therefore, we see
the confidence with which holes are picked in the book, con-
tradictions discovered, and errors exposed, we cannot help
wondering, if these readers are not attributing to the dead
and darkened wisdom of the past, what is owing to the blind-
ness of the present. As a specimen of this triumphing
over the stupidity of that extinct profession, we may quote
the view taken by this school of a contradiction between
the Levitical and Deuteronomic laws, which has been put
forward as a strong point in favour of their theory: 'The
priest's share of a sacrifice in Deuteronomy consists of in-
ferior parts, the head and maw, which in Arabia are still the
butcher's fee, and the shoulder, which is not the choicest joint.
But in the Levitical law, the priest's part is the breast and
the leg, which is the best part (1 Sam. ix. 24).'^ This is a
glaring contradiction — so glaring in its clearness as to satisfy
the most sceptical, that it cannot be a contradiction at all.
And something has already been said on the quoted sacrifice
of Samuel (p. 23). It is accepted as a historical fact ; the fact
is also accepted of the leg, as they render the word, being by
law or custom, which comes to the same thing, the priest's
portion of a peace-offering. Xow let Leviticus have preceded
Samuel ; then it is not credible that this glaring contradiction
trumpets ' (2 Chron. xxx. 26). ' And they stood in their place, according to
the law of Moses, the man of God ' (2 Chron. xxx. 16). So also 2 Chron.
XXXV. 5, 10.
1 Graf, G. B. 50, 51. Colenso, part vi. 440. The quotation in the text is
from Smith, 0. T. p. 440.
6 04 The Kingdom of A II- Israel: its Literature,
between law and fact could have continued without attention
being called to the difference by those, whose profession it
was to administer the law and gather their tribe's revenues.
But as a matter of far more importance — suppose it to have
been written after Samuel; then no intelligent forger or
parable-writer could have made the blunder of setting down
in fiction what he must have known did not exist in fact,
especially wdien he was most careful to cull from Samuel all
the odd words and odd ideas he found, which could give
a flavour of antiquity to his legislative novel. This we
remark in passing ; for, so far as truth is concerned, it is a
matter of the smallest importance, though large enough to
overturn the theory we are combating, just as a small flaw in
an axle or a tire may unexpectedly upset a railway train at
its highest speed.
The difficulty here stated is one of two, which are regarded
by this school of critics as insurmountable objections to the
early date of the Levitical law in the middle books of the
Pentateuch. They cannot be called, though they are gene-
rally considered, conclusive proofs of its origin during the
Babylonian exile. With the removal of these clifiiculties, if
they can be removed, comes the downfall of two supporting
pillars of that theory. But these critics are confident of the
impregnable position given them by these difticulties: and
there is ' absolute contradiction in the law^s.' These are bold
words. We shall first examine the laws themselves, and
then fortify our conclusions by the evidence of two Jewish
priests — one of whom saw sacrifices offered and gathered
tithes while the second temple was standing. Seldom can
the same concurrence of evidence now be got on minute
points of ritual, misunderstood by us.
For the first difficulty, then, it is assumed that these two
things are one and the same, the Lord's fire-off'erings, and the
priest's due from the sacrificer of a sacrifice. Thus : —
Priests and Leintcs. 605
Deut. xviii. 1. Dei't. xviii. 3.
All the tribe of Levi shall eat the This shall be the priests' due from
fire-offerings of the Lord, and his the people, from them that offer a
inheritance. sacrifice, whether it be ox or
Lev. vii. 30, 31, 32. 'i-ii^l they [he] shall give unto the priest
The breast shall be Aaron's and his ^^^^ shoulder, and the two cheeks, and
sons' ; and the right leg (shoulder) shall ^^^^ '»^^^'-
ye give unto the priest of the sacrifices
of your peace-offerings.
A portion consisting of the breast and the right leg
cannot be the same as a portion consisting of the shoulder,
and the two cheeks, and the maw. But the passages quoted
neither say nor insinuate that they are the same. Levi's
portion, on the left-hand of the page, is said to be the Lord's
fire-offerings, and his inheritance ; on the right-hand, the "pricsfs
due from the 2')^oplc is the shoulder, and the two clieeks, and
the maw. The whole tribe is spoken of in the former case ;
in the latter, one man — the priest — receives a legal due from
one sacrificer of a sacrifice, whatever the meaning of these
words may be. We are asked to believe these two things the
same. But Jehovah's fire-offerinc^s, whether in the sincjular
or in the plural, are mentioned about sixty times in the
books of Leviticus and Numbers ; while never is there the
slightest approach to calling them * the priest's due from the
people.' In all the rest of Scripture they are mentioned
seven times ; nor are they ever called ' the priest's due from
the people.' With singular indifference to facts, which a
sliglit knowledge of Hebrew is sufficient to bring clearly out,
the ' priest's due from the people/ as given in this passage of
Deuteronomy, is said to be the same as what the priest got
from peace-offerings — the Lord's portion of fire-sacrifices.
The priest's due was one thing ; the Lord's portion was
another. That much is clear.
The fire-offerings, then, are one thing ; the priest's due from
the sacrificer of a sacrifice is another. Whoever holds that
they are the same has but this one passage on his side, and
the custom of more than sixty places warning him not to be
6o6 The Kingdom of All-Is7^acl : its Literature.
so confident. According to Deuteronomy xii., the fire-offerings
could only be made on the central altar in the place which
the Lord should choose. There, and nowhere else, also were
they to be eaten. But in that same law of the central altar
permission is given to sacrifice in a different fashion. Most
express commands are laid down for burnt-offerings and
peace-offerings to be presented on the central altar, and there
only. But then the law proceeds : ' Notwithstanding, thou
niayest sacrifice and eat flesh in all thy gates,' and more fully
afterwards: ' If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen
to put His name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt
sacrifice of thy herd and of thy flock which the Lord thy God
hath given thee.' The priest's due from the sacrificer of a
sacrifice is defined in the same way as this permitted sacrifice;
' whether ox or sheep ' in the one law, and ' of thy herd and thy
flock ' in the other. There were thus two kinds of sacrifice —
the priestly or atoning, allowable only on the central altar or
' before the Lord,' and the popular or festive, which could be
X3resented anywhere. ' The fire-offerings of Jehovah ' were the
priest's portion of tlie former ; ' the priest's due from the
people ' was his portion of the latter. As the sacrifices were
of two kinds, so w^ere the dues of the priests.
The explanation of the matter seems simple enough. By
the word sacrifice, a Hebrew understood two different things,
v/hich we must keep distinct. On the one hand, it meant
the sacred rite of offering victims to God on the altar, sprink-
ling their blood on its projecting knobs, and burning their
flesh wholly or in part. We use the word in this sense.
But when a Hebrew slew a bullock or a sheep for a feast or
for home use, which was probably far from common, except in
w-ealthy households, he used the same word ; he sacrificed the
ox or the sheep. ' Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover
within any of thy gates wdiich the Lord thy God giveth thee ; '
while at the institution of the feast the phrase w^as different :
* Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families,
Priests and L cvitcs. 607
and kill the passover.' ^ Hebrew law took cognisance of the
mode of killin.f^ these animals for food as well as for sacri-
fice proper. ' Ye shall not eat the blood ; ye shall pour
it upon the earth as water,' this central altar law said in one
place ; and in another : ' Be sure that thou eat not the blood ;
for the blood is the life, and thou mayest not eat the life with
the flesh : thou shalt not eat it ; thou slialt pour it upon the
earth as water/ Slaughtering of sheep and oxen for food
thus became lifted up into a holy ordinance, round which
religion threw a sacred shield. It was not a vulgar employ-
ment, lit onl}^ for coarse natures, as it got degraded into in
later times. It w^as a religious duty — a work performed under
the supervision of the most refined and most learned in the
land. It became a solemn reminder of the sanctity of life
even in the lower animals ; for neither sheep nor ox could be
slain without the symbol of its life being, as it were, most
scrupulously rendered to the great Giver of that life.
It comes, then, to be an inquiry whether the altar's share
of fire-offerino-s — such as the wave breast and the rio-ht le^,^ —
were the same as the priest's due from the sacrificer of a
sacrifice, — the two cheeks, the maw, and the shoulder. Both
were not exacted from the same offerer. And the difference
between the two shares is so great, that the man draws
too largely on our powers of faith, who expects us to think
that the members of a learned profession, in the daily habit of
exacting these shares, would not have seen and wondered at
or rectified the blunder. It is simpler to say that we have
blundered, perhaps in eagerness to find fault, than to lay
blame on them. But to explain all the jots and tittles of tliat
and other laws may not be in any one's power at this hour in
the w^orld's history. The marvel is, not that difficulties meet
ns in the way of interpreting these ancient books, but that the
difficulties are so few in number and so inconsiderable in
weight. ' The priest's due from the sacrificer of a sacrifice;
^ Deut. xvi. 5 ; Ex. xii. 21.
6c8 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literahtre.
theu, was a portion exacted, not when a victim was offered on the
central altar, but when an animal was slaughtered anywhere
for food. iSTor did the priests require to be scattered through-
out all the land to exact these dues. We know that they
were not so scattered. But there were ways open to them in
practical life, by which they could both secure their own
rights and see to the observance of the law. On the other
hand, one of Jehovah's fire-offerings consisted of the wave-
breast and the shoulder, wdiich fell to the priest when a peace-
offering was sacrificed at the altar before the ark.
If this simple explanation of ' the priest's due ' leave any
doubt on a reader's mind, even that may be removed by the
words of Josephus and Philo — words which might have warned
critics that they were handling things which learned men,
vastly better placed than we are to discover the truth, had
well considered two thousand years ago. ' If any slay beasts
at home for a private festival,' says Josephus, a Jewish priest,^
' but not for a religious one, they are obliged to bring the maw,
and the cheek, and the right shoulder of the sacrifice to the
priests.' Even in the age of Josephus, a victim slain for food
was called a sacrifice, precisely according to the w^ay of
speaking in David's reign, and for centuries before. But in
a previous book of his writings, the same unquestionable
authority, speaking of thank- or peace-offerings, says : ' Then
giving the breast and right shoulder to the priest, the offerers
feast upon the remainder of the flesh for two days ; and what
remains they burn.' A most learned Jewish priest, living in
the, time of the Apostle Paul, has thus left it in writing that
there is no collision between the law in Deuteronomy regu-
lating ' the priest's due,' and the law in Leviticus regulating
his ' portion ' of a peace-offering. The two refer to different
taxes paid to the same class of men. Going back now to the
table on page 600, and looking at the income of the tribe of
^ See Ant. lY. 4, 4, and compare Ant. III. 9, 2, See also Pbilo (Mangey's
edition), II. p. 235, and note o.
Priests and Levites. 609
Levi ill the light of the knowledge we have got, we shall find
it hard to avoid concluding from the passage there quoted that
the priest was one person and the Levite another, just as the
priest's due from the people was different from the fire-offerings
of Jehovah. The distinction drawn by Josephus shows, that
the mouth-to-mouth teaching of the priests, two thousand years
ago, recognised no difficulty in two parts of the law-book,
which have come to be regarded in our day as an ' absolute
contradiction ' of each other. But it is easier to throw
Josephus overboard, than to convince the world of your ability
to swim better than he in the great ocean of Hebrew ritual law.
And fortunately Josephus of Jerusalem happens to be sup-
ported in his views by another distinguished Jewish priest,
who wrote about the same time, Philo of Alexandria. Neither
of these writers saw contradiction or opposition in the two
parts of the law-book. Both of them are explaining plain things
for strangers generally, not attempting to reconcile incom-
patible things in reply to an opponent. What they write flows
naturally from the pen as the clear meaning of legal provisions,
and show^s no trace of a forced construction in the conscious
presence of a difficulty. With two witnesses like these on the
other side, Graf and his friends may be bowed out of court
as having impugned a law which they failed to understand.
But it seems they have discovered another contradiction
between two sets of laws bearing on the priestly incomes.
* In Deuteronomy,' they say, * the tenth of all produce of the
soil, and the firstlings of sheep and cattle, were consumed by
the owner in a feast at the central altar ; wliile in Leviticus
the tenth includes the herd and the flock, as well as the fruits
of the ground, and belongs to the Levites, who in turn pay
the tenth to the priests.'^ There is a confusion of tliouglit
here, caused by not attending to the manifest difference in the
Hebrew between a tenth or tithe and the tenth. It is also
worth observing that by a tenth of the herd or flock is meant
1 Graf, G. B. 47-51. Colenso, Part vi. 389-390.
2q
6io The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Lit era lure.
only a tenth of the year's calves, lambs, and kids. These are
elementary points on which a good deal will be found to turn.
The Deuteronomic law, then, does not prescribe one thing and
tlie Levitical law another. The two laws speak not of the
tithe as if there were only one, but of a tithe, though not
necessarily of the same tithe. When a writer makes them
speak of the tithe, he can easily convict them of speaking in
contradictory terms of one and the same thing. Both Graf
and Colenso, in the passages quoted above, fall into this
mistake. While Leviticus speaks of what, for the sake of
clearness, may be called a first tithe, Deuteronomy may be
referring to what has been called a second tithe. We admit
that, though this distinction was well known to the Jews, and
was acted on two centuries before our era, some better ground
for it must be got than their traditions. And the only better
ground is the Hebrew text of the laws, to which w^e can appeal
even as they did. Tradition may have preserved the right
interpretation of the text for the three or four centuries, wdiich
elapsed between the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans
and the first appearance in writing of the phrase the second
tithe} There is neither improbability nor impossibility in this.
On the contrary, a guild of priests banished from Jerusalem,
and taught to cherish the hope of a glorious return, would be
likely to keep up the study of their law, and to secure its right
understanding by more effectual means than oral teaching.
Num. xviii. 21, 26. Deut. xiv. 23.
I have given the children of Levi a Thou shalt eat before the Lord thy
tvhole tenth in Israel for an inheritance. God in the place which He shall choose
. . . Speak unto the Levites, and say to put His name there, a tithe of thy
unto them, When ye take of the children corn, of thy Avine, and of thine oil, and
of Israel the tithe (not tithes) which I have firstlings (not necessarily the firstlings)
given you from them for your inherit- of thy herd and thy flocks. And if the
ance, then ye shall offer up of it an heave- way be too long for thee, so that thou
offering for the Lord, a tithe of the tithe, art not able to carry it (1 Sam. x. 3) ;
Lev. xxvii. 30. or if the place be too far from thee ; . . .
A whole tithe of the land, whether of then thou shalt turn (it) into money,
the seed of the land or of the fruit of
the tree, is the Lord's.
1 In the Greek translation of Deut. xxvi. 12. See Tohit i. 6-8.
Priests and Lcvitcs. 6 1 1
As soon as attention is paid to the right ]tlacing of the
article in these cases, nearly all the darkness ^vhich seems to
cover the snbject, or to involve it in extreniest perplexity, is
cleared off. Not all of it, for we must also bear in mind that
while both sets of laws were given to the Hebrews as a nation,
the left-hand set was designed for the benefit of a learned
class in the community, and the right-hand set for the guidance
of tlie people at large. The working of these laws would thus
become simple ; there could be no clashing, and there is not
the slightest ground for thinking there ever had been. By the
law in Numbers, the Levites took a whole tithe of the produce
of the land for their own tribe, and then set apart a tit Jig of
this tithe for the priests in tlie shape of a heave-offering to
Jehovah.^ But while the Levites thus claimed and took their
rightful inheritance, the people were commanded also to take
a tithe of their produce for consumption by themselves, the
Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. As there are
ten tenths in a whole, it was easy enough for a luhole tenth to
be assicjned to the Levite, and another ivhole tenth to be reserved
for private hospitality, either at home or at the central altar.
How any difficulty could be made about a point so clear, and
one so often discussed by scholars, still more how it could be
made an engine of attack on the historical reality of the whole
legislation, may well excite surprise. There is more cause for
wonder at the extraoi:dinary use to which this apparent clash-
ing of laws has been put in these days, than at the apparent
clashing itself. However carefully a law-book may be drawn
up, there always will be points, which cannot be understood
without referring back or forward to fuller or parallel state-
1 It would be easy to pick holes in almost any history by following the method
which finds favour with some critics. Josephus tells us in his Life : ' Nor, indeed,
would I take those tithes, which were due to me as a priest, from those that
brought them' (15). It may be objected that no mention is here made of
Levites, who alone were entitled to estimate and supply the priest's tithe ; and
as little is said of the real value of that tithe— a tenth of the tithe actually
taken by the Levites. We shall be having Josephus in suspicion too before
long.
6i2 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
ments ; it is a small thing to ask that this common courtesy
be extended to ancient Hebrew law.
But there is a last point about the tithing which has still to
be examined. We do not say it has been used for under-
mining the authority of the record, but it forms a substantial
difficulty in the way of rightly understanding the subject.
And here it is allowable to speculate for a little ; no one in
these days can pretend to accurate knowledge. The Deute-
ronomic law has the followinsj : ' When thou hast made an
end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year,
the year of tithing, and hast given unto the Levite, the
stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat
within thy gates, and be filled' . . . (Deut. xxvi. 12 ; xiv. 28).
And, 'At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth a (or the)
whole tithe of thine increase, in that year, and shalt lay it up
within thy gates.' It is not necessary to make this third-year
tithing ' quite distinct ' from the two tithes which we have
already considered. We do not agree with this view, and by
way of speculation, if not to clear the subject, we shall give
reasons plain enough and perhaps convincing. We begin with
objecting to what seems an unhappy rendering of the words
which stand * tithing all the tithes ' in our version. The
rendering ought to be, as the meaning is, ' When thou hast
made an end of estimating ^ a whole tithe of thine increase in
the third year, the year of the tithe! We can now proceed
with our speculations.
The making up of a tithe charge on the produce of the land
has always been a source of disagreement. Probably it was
so likewise with the Hebrew farmers and landholders. As they
had also to make up a tithe of their flocks and herds for the
Levites, the difficulty of doing so year by year would become
greater. Since they gave firstlings and a tithe of tlieir cattle,
^ For estimating some may prefer giving, which makes no difference on the
sense. The sign of the accusative, but not the definite article, stands belore
whole.
Priests and Levi Us. 6 1 3
it is not said tluit they gave of their flocks anil herds as they
gave of their fruits — two tenths. Probably * a whole tenth of
thine increase ' meant cattle as well as produce of the land,^
and the titlie charge for both had to be made up in the third
year. Of the principles on which they went we are wholly
ignorant — how, for example, they reckoned the tithe of a flock
in which the increase was under ten for each of three years
running. But to call the third year * the tithe year ' may well
suggest some of the grounds on which disputes would be likely
to arise. Every seventh year was an unproductive year for
the fields. There were thus only six productive years in seven.
Now, nowhere in Deuteronomy, not even in Dent. xv. 1—6, do
we find mention made of this year of rest for the land and of
no return for the farmer. But the reference to it in this
* tithe year ' seems undeniable. Twice every six or rather
every seven years had the farmers and landholders to estimate
their returns of produce from the land. Apparently, therefore,
this law of ' a tithe year ' presupposes the regulation which
prescribed a year of rest to the land, that is, it presupposes
Lev. XXV. 4. But apart from this altogether, the farmer
would probably find the outlay of one year so running
into another as to put an annual return out of his power.
With corn and fruit the tithing might be comparatively easy.
But if his sheep and cattle were few in number, it might
require three years for the increase to reach to ten or twenty,
so as to enable a tenth to be taken. The law, recognising
these difficulties, said to the farmer, but not to the Levite,
Talce an average of three years. An accurate return of a man's
annual income in Britain is frequently so hard to make, that
the law, recognising the hardship or the unfairness, allows the
average of three years to be taken instead. On the same
principle, Hebrew tithe law divided the six years' period of
' This may seem to depend on the meaning of the Hebrew vrord for increaat.
It seems to refer to cattle as well as farm i)roJuce in Deut. xvi. 15 ; 2 Chron.
6 14 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literahtre.
returns from the land into two periods of three years each.
What a farmer might be unable for any reason to do one year,
he could do or rectify in the tithe year, with its reserve of
right to balance all outstanding accounts of net yield from the
land. Hence the distinctness of the law : ' When thou shalt
completely finish the estimating of a whole tithe of thine
increase in tlie third year.' Our translators have obscured the
meaning on more points than one. By leaving out the word
in before the third year, they seem to give the idea that it
was the third year's tithe only which was spoken of. There
is no reason for taking that meaning out of the passage, as has
usually been done. And there is as little for saying that ' the
tithe of the third year ' is ' quite distinct ' from the two tithes
spoken of in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Indeed, ' the tithe
of the third year ' is a phrase for which there is no ground in
the Hebrew, and which it requires some courage to defend as
a matter of even good sense.
But we now come to a serious difference in our Enoiisli
version between the laws about firstlings, which is strongly
insisted on as a proof of the irreconcilable divergence of the
Deuteronomic law from the so-called Levitical. Unquestion-
ably what the one law orders to be done, the other says or
seems to say not to do. Give an ox's and a sheep's male
firstling to the Levite, says the one code ; but the other code
says to the farmers, 'Eat (apparently) female firstlings your-
selves before the central altar.' And the latter in one passage
adds/ ' The firstling which shall be born in thy herd and in thy
flock, every one, the male, thou shalt sanctify to the Lord thy
God ; thou shalt not do work with a firstling of thine ox, and
thou shalt not shear a firstling of thy sheep.' The opposition
between the laws in these two books is really slight. But
instead of saying, if the one law be true, the other must be
false ; or if the former was given in one age, the latter must
have been given farther down the stream of time, and as a
^ Ex. xiii. 12, 15 ; Num. xviii. 14-18 ; Deut. xv. 19, xii. 6, 17 ; Neh. x. 36.
Pj'icsts and Leviics. 6 £ 5
corrective to the evils incident to the previous law, more
wisdom would have been shown in an endeavour to ascertain
whether both laws may not be true, and have been in operation
together for ages. Nor is this view so unreasonable as might
be thought. For the firstlings regarded by the Levitical law are
males, which the firstlings regarded by the Deuteronomic may
not be. It is perfectly possible too, nay, it may be regarded as
certain, that in many cases there would be a Levite's firstling
and a farmer's also. And on this natural and well-known
experience of cattle-breeders and sheep-masters the question
may largely turn. No provision was made for giving the
Levites the two or three firstlings which might be produced at
a birth ; and no care, however great, could enable a farmer to
decide which of these two or three was to be called first-born,
and which not. The number of these doubles and triplets in
a single year in a temperate country, with the immense
pasture grounds of Palestine, must have been very large ^ —
' a flock of sheep, whereof every one bears twins,' says the Song
of Songs, ' and none is barren among them ' (iv. 2). But the
farmer gave one, and one only, to the Levites. The other or
the others were his, and yet they were not his. And here
the law stepped in with gracious provision for the farmer's
difficulty on the one hand, and for his just share of his own
goods on the other. These extra firstlings, if we may call them
so, were on no account to be bred for farm-work or for their
wool. They must be sanctified to God, but not alienated
from the farmer. To offer them as peace-ofterings, to use
them at the great feasts, and to give the needy a share of
God's bounty, was a way out of the difficulty which satisfied
all requirements. This the Deuteronomic law did, the
Levitical law remaining intact. While the Levites knew their
own sliare and their own duty from the latter, the farmers
^ In Scotland, about sixty per cent, of ewes have doubles. In firstling births
the percentage of doubles is not so great. Two calves to a cow, and two foals
to a mare, are also not unknown in Scotland.
6 1 6 The Kingdom of A II- Israel : its L iierature.
knew their share and their duty from the former. As a
contribution to the poor and needy, this bestowal of part of
the firstlings to satisfy their wants, especially at the three
great feasts, would largely contribute to spread joy throughout
the land.
The witness, chiefly relied on by Graf and his friends to
support their view, is the Prophet Ezekiel, who has already
been cited on the opposite side to prove the existence of
the Levites as the priests' servants in Solomon's temple.
Although he does not deny the distinction between the two
orders, he is said to express sentiments with which it is
incompatible. Because he never mentions the name of Aaron,
nor calls the priests, of whom he was himself one, the sons of
Aaron, he is assumed to have been ignorant of the history
which made Aaron the father of all Hebrew priests. In other
words, he had no knowledge of the law in the three middle
books of the Pentateuch. But the silence of a writer on any
point does not prove his ignorance of that point, or of its
value. In the case before us, it only proves the omission of
Aaron's name from the writings of Ezekiel. By the same
method of reasoning, Moses may be proved to have been
equally unknown to the prophet as the leader and lawgiver
of the nation ; for, though the coming forth from Egypt and
the wilderness wanderings are repeatedly mentioned by him
(ch. XX.), he no more names Moses than he does his brother
Aaron. Silence, then, proves nothing on this point. But a
satisfactory reason can be rendered for omitting Aaron's name.
In the last nine chapters of his book, Ezekiel is describing
'the restoration of the temple. But there were two things about
the restoration on which reasonable doubts might be enter-
tained. Once before, the temple had been destroyed. Shiloh,
the place where it was built, had been laid waste, and sentence
of desolation passed on the site. The temple was a second
time destroyed ; the temple hill of Zion had become a desola-
tion, like Shiloh ; the ark had been removed from \\\^ former.
Priests and Lcvites. 6 1 7
as it had been from the Latter, never again to be returned to
its pLace. Seeing the close resemblance between the two
desolations, a Hebrew would naturally ask, if Zion like Shiloli
had incurred a perpetual curse ? Would another holy house
be built on Moriah, or had a new site to be sought for the
restored temple, a new revelation to be waited for, and new
propliets to arise ? On these points not a doubt was allowed
to rest. Samuel never visited Shiloh after its ruin, so far at
least as is known to history. He is nowhere said to have
predicted its restoration as the temple site. And he does not
appear to have had any idea of the sacred hill which was
destined to take its place. But Ezekiel, who ^vas alive w^hen
the temple on Moriah was destroyed, predicted that the
destruction was only for a season. Again should the temple
be built on the same site ; again should the solemn feasts be
held wdthin its restored courts. On these points the prophet
speaks clearly in the chapters which immediately precede the
concluding nine, and form an introduction to their detailed
description of the new building.
But there was another point to be thought of for the
restored temple on Moriah, as there had been when desolation
befell Shiloh. A change of priesthood was threatened in the
latter case. Eli w^as told that he and his family had forfeited
the high priest's office. His father's house, it was said, had
been chosen ' out of all the tribes of Israel ' to be Jehovah's
priest. But his right to the high priest's office rested on his
house and the house of his father walking before God for
ever. As the condition had not been fulfdled, forfeiture of
the office was the result : it went to a faithful priest, who
was to do ' according to all which is in Jehovah's heart and
mind.' Evidently there was no change to be made in the
priestly irihc. After, as well as before the desolation of
Shiloh, Levi was the tribe from wdiich the priests were
chosen. Only a change oi famihj was predicted to Eli. But
Aaron's eminence was well known in Samuel's time ; the part
6r8 The Kiiigdom of All- Israel : its Literature.
he took in the deliverance from Egypt, and the advancement
he received, are both mentioned (1 Sam. xii. 6). There seems,
then, no reason for refusing the generally-received opinion
that Eli's house was a branch of Aaron's wider family, and
that another branch of the same parent stock would displace
it from the office of the high-priesthood. Zadok's family is
known to have succeeded to the office from which Eli's
children were removed.
The mention of the Zadokites by Ezekiel is now clear. A
change in the family which held the high-priesthood followed
on the desolation of Shiloh. Eli's family lost or forfeited the
office for the high treason of which they were guilty. Zadok's
family succeeded, in consequence of their father's faithfulness.
But desolation had befallen the temple, in which Zadok's
family had long served on Moriah, precisely as desolation
befell the Shiloh temple, in which Eli's family had served.
I^aturally the reasoning of people would be, As it fared with
Eli's children, so will it fare with Zadok's. Forfeiture was the
punishment of the former ; forfeiture will also be the punish-
ment of the other. But this was not to be. The sons of
Zadok had not forfeited their hicrh office in favour of another
and a better branch of Aaron's family. Ezekiel predicts that
the honour they gained in David's time they should continue
to hold in the restored temple. As there was to be no change
on the temple site, so there should be none in the family of
the high priest. The parallel of Shiloh was not to hold in
either case.
In their desire to draw the utmost support they can from
Ezekiel's use of the word Zadokites, Graf and his friends are
unjust towards the writer of Chronicles. ' Certainly,' says
Graf, ' Abiathar is wholly ignored by tlie book of Chronicles,
which, following 2 Sam. viii. 1 7, speaks of an Ahimelech, son
of Abiathar (1 Chron. xviii. 16), and also introduces him next
Zadok (1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 6, 31).' This is altogether wrong;
for the writer of Chronicles not only names Abiathar, but
Priests and Lcvites. 619
introduces him as the colleague of Zadok in the high-priest-
hood : ' David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests '
(1 Chron. xv. 11).
To describe the priests of his day as ' the sons of Zadok '
is therefore no proof that Ezekiel did not recognise, or was
ignorant of, their more ancient designation as ' the sons of
Aaron.' But the prophet makes this clearer by the reason
which he gives for continuing to them the honour bestowed on
their father in David's reign : ' The priests the Levites, the
sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the
children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near
to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to
offer unto me tlie fat and the blood, saith the Lord God '
(Ezek. xliv. 15). For faithfulness to their charge, then, they
were to be retained in the place of high honour they had wtU
guarded for centuries. A higher place they could not attain
to. Nothing more noble was possible for them than to keep,
with Jehovah's approval, the position originally assigned to
them. Not to have forfeited their rights was all that could
be said. But it was different with ' the Levites that are gone
away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray
away from me after their idols ; they shall even bear their
iniquity' (Ezek. xliv. 10). Manifestly these Levites were like
Korah in the wilderness, ' seeking the priesthood also.' But
their usurpation of the priest's office was punished, first, by a
sharp reminder of the lower rank they hold ; and, second, by a
renewal of the wilderness exclusion of them from the priest-
hood. For the prophet proceeds: 'And^ they shall be minis-
ters in my sanctuary, having charge at the gates of tlie house,
and ministering to the house. . . . And they shall not come
near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come
near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place.' Mis-
conduct on the part of the Levites in past ages made necessary
a clear definition of their rank and duties in the new temple
1 This word is translated ' vet' in the English, an evident mistake.
620 The Kingdom of All-Israel : its Literature,
that was to be built. That definition \Yas delivered by
Ezekiel in words and phrases so startlingly the same as those
of the law given in the wilderness, that, if he had not the
Pentateuch before him as we now read it, it will be difficult
to attain to certainty in any historical matter whatever.
There is not a shadow of reason for attributing to Ezekiel the
invention of these words and phrases. If Moses was not the
first utterer of them, we are in hopeless uncertainty about a
matter which otherwise seems clear as noonday. The Levites,
said Ezekiel, * shall not come near imto me to do the office of
a priest unto me,' as they attempted to do for ages ' when
Israel went astray.' But what are these words of the prophet
save a copy, or a singularly clear echo, of those spoken in the
wilderness : * The censers of these sinners against their own
souls ' shall be * a memorial unto the children of Israel, that
no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to
offer incense,' the peculiar duty of the priests in the holy
place (Num. xvi. 38-40; 2 Chron. xxvi. 16).
There remains another historical coincidence to be pointed
out in connection with these statements of Ezekiel. With a
clearness which leaves nothing to be desired, he lets us under-
stand that the priests remained at their post, ' in charge of my
sanctuary,' ' when Israel went astray.' Although he is speak-
ing of * the sons of Zadok ' as those whose relation to the
high-priesthood specially singled them out for mention, it is
clear from his writings that a part of the priestly family is
here standing for the whole. They did not desert the temple,
however much their rights and revenues may have been cur-
tailed. But the same praise is not given to the Levites ;
' they are gone away far from me.' They abandoned their
posts precisely as their successors did in the days of Nehemiah,
a century and more after Ezekiel's time. But there is his-
torical evidence which confirms this forsaking of their duty
by the Levites, * when Israel went astray.' ISTo mention
whatever is made of their desertion in the book of Kings.
Priests and Lcvites, 62 1
The first discovery of it is given by the Chronicler in narrating
the overthrow of Athaliah. JehoiaJa, the high priest, and a
son of Zadok, is seen at his post as chief keeper of the temple
during the dreary six years of her tyranny. But the Levites
had fled : they required to be ' gathered out of all the cities of
Judah ;' and even after the priest had succeeded in his plans,
the same Levites were coldly indifferent to the duty of repair-
ing the neglected temple (2 Chron. xxiii. 2, xxiv. 5, G). Eead
in the light of Ezekiel's prophecies, these statements of the
Chronicler are a valuable and an undesigned proof of the
historical value of his writings.
MORRISON AND CIBD, EDINBUROO,
PRINTRR3 TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFI'ICK.
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