David’s Farewell Address to the Assembled Representatives of the Nation. He Urges Obedience to God’s Commandments, and a Hearty Co-operation with Solomon in the Building of the Lord’s House. Solomon is Formally Acknowledged and again Anointed King. 1 Chron. 22:17-19; 28:1-10; 29:1-22.

1. Chron. 23 :** 1 Now David was old and full of days; and he made Solomon his son king over Israel.

1. Chron. 22 :** 2 And David (had) commanded to gather together the strangers that were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. 3 And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the 4 couplings; and brass in abundance without weight; and cedar trees without number: for 5 the Zidonians and they of Tyre brought cedar trees in abundance to David. And David said, Solomon my son is young and tender, and the house that is to be builded for the LORD must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and of glory throughout all countries: I will therefore make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death. 6 Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build an house for the LORD, the 7 God of Israel. And David said to Solomon his son, As for me, it was in my heart to build an 8 house unto the name of the LORD my God. But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house 9 unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight: behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto 10 Israel in his days: he shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will 11 be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever. Now, my son, the LORD be with thee; and prosper thou, and build the house of the LORD thy God, as 12 he hath spoken concerning thee. Only the LORD give thee discretion and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel; that so thou mayest keep the law of the LORD thy God. 13 Then shalt thou prosper, if thou observe to do the statutes and the judgments which the LORD charged Moses with concerning Israel: be strong, and of good courage; fear not, neither be 14 dismayed. Now, behold, in my affliction I have prepared for the house of the LORD an hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver; and of brass and iron without weight; for it is in abundance: timber also and stone have I prepared; and thou 15 mayest add thereto. Moreover there are workmen with thee in abundance, hewers and work- 16 ers of stone and timber, and all men that are cunning in any manner of work; of the gold, the silver, and the brass, and the iron, there is no number; arise and be doing, and the LORD be with thee.

1. Chron. 28 :** 11 Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch of the temple, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper rooms thereof, 12 and of the inner chambers thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat: and the pattern of all that he had by the spirit, for the courts of the house of the LORD, and for all the chambers round about, for the treasuries of the house of God, and for the treasuries of the dedicated

13 things : also for the courses of the priests and the Levites, and for all the work of the service 14 of the house of the LORD, and for all the vessels of service in the house of the LORD : of gold by weight for the vessels of gold, for all vessels of every kind of service ; of silver for all the 15 vessels of silver by weight, for all vessels of every kind of service : by weight also for the candlesticks of gold, and for the lamps thereof, of gold, by weight for every candlestick and for the lamps thereof : and for the candlesticks of silver, silver by weight for every candlestick 16 and for the lamps thereof, according to the use of every candlestick : and the gold by weight 17 for the tables of shewbread, for every table ; and silver for the tables of silver ; and the flesh- hooks, and the basons, and the cups, of pure gold : and for the golden bowls by weight for 18 every bowl ; and for the silver bowls by weight for every bowl : and for the altar of incense refined gold by weight : and gold for the pattern of the chariot, even the cherubim, that spread 19 out their wings, and covered the ark of the covenant of the LORD. All this, said David, have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of the LORD, even all the works of this 20 pattern. And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it : fear not, nor be dismayed : for the LORD God, even my God, is with thee ; he will not fail thee, 21 nor forsake thee, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD be finished. And, behold, there are the courses of the priests and the Levites, for all the service of the house of God : and there shall be with thee in all manner of work every willing man that hath skill, for any manner of service : also the captains and all the people will be wholly at thy commandment.

I K. 2 : 1 Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die ; and he charged Solomon 2 his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth : be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a 3 man ; and keep the charge of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou 4 turnest thyself : that the LORD may establish his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with 5 all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel. Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did unto me, even what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was 6 about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore according to thy wisdom, 7 and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace. But shew kindness unto the sons of Barzilai the Gileadite, and let them be of those that eat at thy table : for so they came to me 8 when I fled from Absalom thy brother. And, behold, there is with thee Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, of Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim : but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, 9 saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless, for thou art a wise man ; and thou wilt know what thou oughtest to do unto him, and thou shalt bring his hoar head down to the grave with blood.

For long years David had been accumulating materials for the temple. From that day—about the fourteenth year of his reign—when he knew that his son would build a temple, he had kept the future building in mind. From Zobah and Syria and Ammon and Moab, from Philistines and Amalekites, had he selected precious stones out of gathered spoils. What Saul himself had dedicated to the throne and kingdom, David had rededicated to the future house. And now, in a vigorous old age, he takes up these accumula- tions, and the whole order of the service also, to put them into a worthy form for the temple and for future ages. Knox.

Since in His Providence, Jehovah pointed out the place where the Sanctuary was to be reared, David, with characteristic energy, began immediate preparations for a work, the greatness of which the king measured by his estimate of Him for whose service it was designed. It al- most seems as if in these arrangements all David’s former vigor had come back, showing where, despite his weaknesses and failings, the king’s heart really was. Besides, the youth of his son and successor Solomon, and the consid- eration that probably no other monarch would wield such influence in the land as he had pos- sessed, determined David not to neglect nor de- fer anything that he might be able to do. A. E.

I Chron. 22 : 1-5. The few years that re- mained of David’s life were spent mainly in pre- paring for building this palace of Jehovah. 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 neighborhood 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 bodies of workmen were required to cut down the trees and convey them to Moriah. Sime.

5. The house must be exceeding magnificent, very stately and sumptuous, strong and beautiful, everything about it the best in its kind; for a good reason, it was intended for the honor of the great God, the Lord of the whole earth, and was to be a type of Christ, in whom all fulness dwells and in whom are hid all treasures. Men were then to be taught by sensible methods; the grandeur of the house would help to affect the worshippers with a holy awe and reverence of God, and would invite strangers to come to see it, as the wonder of the world, who thereby would be brought acquainted with the true God; therefore it is here designed to be of fame and glory throughout all countries. David foretold this good effect of its being magnificent (Ps. 65: 29). Because of thy temple at Jerusalem, shall kings bring presents unto thee. H.

13. That David and Solomon had well-known sacred writings of Moses is affirmed in 1 K. 2: 3; 1 Chron. 22: 13; 16: 40. If these statements are historical, it follows that these writings existed in the times before David. W. J. B. — 14. Although, as has been often explained, clerical errors occur in the numerals in the historical books, it may be well to give the real equivalent of the silver and gold mentioned here. Bearing in mind the distinction between the sacred and the common shekel, it would amount to under four million pounds. Immense as this sum is, Keil has shown that it is by no means out of proportion with the treasures taken as booty in antiquity. A. E.

1. Chron. 28: 11-21. As Jehovah had given to Moses by the Spirit the pattern of the Tabernacle and its furniture, so had He intimated to David “the pattern of the Temple,” in all its details of structure, contents, and service. These details he now furnishes to Solomon, with the statement (verse 19), “All this have I been made to understand in writing from the hand of the Lord, even all the works of this pattern.”

And he adds (verse 20) words of strong encouragement, based upon the sure promise of God’s presence and help until the work of building should be completed. B.

1. K. 2: 1-4. A royal father’s last words. David’s eventful life is drawing to a close. He has proved himself to be “a man after God’s own heart.” Not a perfect man, for he had grievous defects. But, in the main, he recognized the grandeur of his position as “the Lord’s anointed.” He lived by the inspiration of a Divine purpose. He “served his own generation by the will of God” (Acts 13: 36). His very faults bore witness to the native force of his character. The height of the precipice measures the depth that frowns beneath it. Great natures are most capable of great temptations, great sorrows, and great sins. Waite.

He is not afraid to hear or speak of dying: I go the way of all the earth, (Heb.) I am walking in it. Death is a way; not only a period of this life, but a passage to a better. It is the way of all the earth, of all mankind who dwell on earth, are themselves earth and therefore must return to their earth. Even the sons and heirs of heaven must go the way of all the earth; they must needs die; but they walk with pleasure in this way, through the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23: 4). Prophets, and even kings, must go this way to brighter light and honor than prophecy or sovereignty. David is going this way, and therefore gives Solomon directions what to do. He charges him, in general, to keep God’s commandments, and to make conscience of his duty. He prescribes to him a good rule to act by—the Divine will. “Govern thyself by that.” David’s charge to him is, to keep the charge of the Lord his God. The authority of a dying father is much, but nothing to that of a living God. There are great trusts which we are charged with by the Lord our God, let us keep them carefully as those that must give account; and excellent statutes which we must be ruled by, let us also keep them. The written Word is our rule; Solomon must himself do as was written in the law of Moses. Be strong, and show thyself a man, though in years but a child. Those that would keep the charge of the Lord their God, must put on resolution. The keeping of this charge would effectually conduce, First, To the prosperity of his kingdom; it is the way to prosper in all thou doest, and to succeed with honor and satisfaction in every undertaking. Secondly, To the perpetuity of it; that the Lord may continue, and so confirm his word, which he spake concerning me. Those that rightly value the treasure of the promise, cannot but be solicitous to preserve the entail of it, and very desirous that those who come after them may do nothing to cut it off. Let each, in his own age, keep God’s charge, and then God will be sure to continue his word. We never let fall the promise till we let fall the precept. The promise, that there should not fail him a man on the throne of Israel, was conditional; if his seed behave themselves as they should. If Solomon in his day fulfil the condition, he does his part toward the perpetuating of the promise. The condition is that he walk before God in all his institutions, in sincerity, with zeal and resolution; and in order hereunto, that he take heed to his way. H.

2. The necessity of personal resolution. “Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man.” This sounds like an echo of God’s own words to Joshua (1 : 7). The occasions were similar. Joshua was entering on his leadership, and Solomon was on the steps of his throne. David would evoke the manly resolution of his son. In David’s sense, to show yourself a man is to prove yourself wise, valorous, virtuous, and, above all, loyal of heart to God. This exhortation, then, implies the manifestation of moral courage and strength. These are required in order to obedience, for obedience implies struggle. There is conflict with self. We have to check the uprising of passion, to fight against the pride which would make us refuse to submit to the revelation and to the righteousness of God. There is resistance to the evil influences of others. When Solomon was misled by his wives, and began to worship their gods, he was forgetting the command, “Be strong, and show thyself a man.” There is antagonism to popular customs. In school, in business, in national policy, in Church routine, it is easier to float with the stream than to contend against it. He must needs “be strong, and show himself a man,” who would say, “We must obey God rather than man!” Rowland.

3. Take heed to the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes. The best legacy that David bequeaths to his heir is the care of piety. Himself had found the sweetness of a good conscience, and now he commends it to his successor. If there be anything, that in our desires of the prosperous condition of our children, takes place of goodness, our hearts are not upright. Here was the father of a king, charging the king his son to keep the statutes of the King of kings; as one that knew greatness could neither exempt from obedience nor privilege sin; as one that knew the least deviation in the greatest and highest orb is both most sensible and most dangerous. Neither would he have his son to look for any prosperity save only from well-doing; that happiness is built upon sand or ice which is raised upon any foundation besides virtue. If Solomon were wise, David was good; and if old Solomon had well remembered the counsel of old David, he had not so foully miscarried. Bp. H.

The assurance of resulting blessedness. “That thou mayest prosper.” As an historical fact, this promise was fulfilled. The kingdom of Solomon prospered as long as he was faithful to the God of his father. His apostasy sowed the seeds of its decay. God’s promises are contingent, not absolute. They have attached to them implied conditions. This, which was shown in material blessings under the covenant of the old economy, is abidingly true. It is not that man merits the blessings of God by his obedience, but that he unfit himself to receive them by disobedience. This is yet more clearly seen under the light of the new dispensation. God gives a man that which he is fit for on earth and in heaven. In and through Jesus Christ He has broadened our views of recompense. Beyond death the fulfilment of this promise extends, and he who is faithful with the few things shall be at last a ruler over many. In a spirit of humble obedience and prayerful dependence, let us seek to keep the charge and win the blessedness revealed in these dying words of the sweet singer of Israel. Rowland.

5. The bloodiness of Joab had lain long upon David’s heart. The hideous noise of those treacherous murders, as it had pierced heaven, so it still filled the ears of David. He could abhor the villainy, though he could not revenge it. What he cannot pay, he will owe; and approve himself at last a faithful debtor: now he will defray it by the hand of Solomon. The slaughter was of Abner and Amasa. David appropriates it; “Thou knowest what Joab did to me.” Bp. H.

Put the blood of war upon his girdle. The plain meaning is, that he stained his clothes and armor with the blood of Abner and Amasa, his own countrymen and fellow-soldiers. Pyle.—It aggravated Joab’s crime, that he was neither ashamed of the sin, nor afraid of the punishment, but daringly wore the girdle and shoes, that were stained with innocent blood, in defiance of the justice both of God and the king H.

Joab had most deeply offended David by the twofold act of assassination perpetrated on Abner and Amasa, when he put to death the rebellious Absalom in defiance of the express command of David before the whole host, and, finally, by the conspiracy with Adonijah, so that duty enjoined the king to warn his son and successor against a man who was dangerous on account of the great consideration he enjoyed with the army. Even after the murder of Abner, David prayed for the Divine vengeance on Joab, but was himself unable to punish the crime, because the sons of Zeruiah (Joab and Abishai) were too mighty for him. But that he had only deferred the punishment and intended to remove Joab on the first opportunity from the office of commander-in-chief, is evident from the promise he gave to Amasa, the fulfilment of which Joab had frustrated by his murder. Now, as the king felt himself unable to punish this crime, he commits its punishment to his successor. This commission, therefore, for which scoffers, such as Bayle and Tindal, not merely abused David, but attacked the Bible itself, is completely justified at the bar of the strictest morals. Keil.

David has been censured for betraying a vindictive spirit in his dying advice to Solomon respecting Joab and Shimei, but his conduct appears to be perfectly justifiable. In regard to Joab, he does not advise Solomon absolutely and unconditionally to put him to death, but tells him to “do according to his wisdom;” he says to him, “Though you have now pardoned Joab through policy, as I was compelled to do myself by the exigency of the times, and the predominant influence of the sons of Zeruiah; yet, should he offend again, act according to your discretion, and then punish him, as a hoary-headed murderer and a confirmed traitor, with death.” Hales.

The advice now given by David cannot be deemed inconsistent with true piety, or unworthy of a just and religious prince on his death-bed. It is true that forgiveness of enemies is a duty; but no man is obliged, by any law that we know of, so to forgive an enemy, continuing such, as not to take the proper methods to guard against the effects of his enmity, and to bring him to justice, if no other method will prove effectual. Much less is a prince obliged so to forgive an implacable enemy to his crown and government, and one who is likely to disturb the settlement of the crown in his successor, as not to advise his successor to be on his guard against him, and to punish him, when guilty, according to his demerits. Such precaution as this he owes to his people; and he may die, as a private person, in charity with all mankind, and forgive every private injury against himself; and yet, as a prince he may advise what is necessary for the public good, and even the execution of particular persons, in case they should, by abusing the lenity of government, and the respite they once obtained, become guilty of new and capital offences. Chandler.

The sentiment continually set forth in the Old Testament is, that innocent blood cries to God from the ground for vengeance; and that, if suffered to go unpunished, it brings down a curse and judgment upon the land. Let us look at some texts enforcing the view which both David and Solomon were bound to take of this matter. “If a man come presumptuously on his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die” (Ex. 21:14). This exactly met the case of both murders by Joab; and the neglect of a rule so plain, and so stringently stated, might well appear as a perilous neglect of public duty. Again: “Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death: but he shall surely be put to death” (Nu. 35:31). After a similar injunction in De. 19:13, it is added, “Thine eye shall not pity him: but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee.” Look, also, to the case of Manasseh, whose punishment and captivity is mainly ascribed to “the innocent blood which he shed (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood), which the Lord would not pardon” (2 K. 24:4). That this point of view was present to the mind of David, and influenced his conduct, is very clear; for, at the very time of Abner’s murder, he publicly implored that the judgment of this innocent blood might be averted from his house and kingdom, and that it might rest upon Joab and upon his house. This, in fact, was formally reserving Joab for the future judgment which he then felt powerless to execute. Besides this, it must not be overlooked that the recent terrible judgment upon the land, on account of the long-past destruction of the Gibeonites by Saul, was well calculated to enforce these views, and give great intensity to David’s apprehensions of the consequences to the realm of these crimson sins of Joab being much longer suffered to pass unpunished. If this state of the case be correct, and we are persuaded that it is, no excuse for David’s conduct in this matter is required; but he was rather—under the views he was bound to entertain—not only blameless, but laudable, and entirely in accordance with his duty as a king and a father. Kit.

How would David have been acquitted of the charge of injustice if he had suffered such public and crying offences to pass wholly unpunished? He discharges his conscience by the advice which he gives to Solomon. Not having been able in his lifetime to complete all that justice required of him, he charged his son to execute what remained. He spoke as a king and as a judge, whose duty it was to punish crime, not as a private individual following the dictates of revenge. Joab had been so powerful a man with the army, that David, during his lifetime, durst not call him to account; but, when Solomon began to reign, the continuance of profound peace had impaired Joab’s power, by rendering his services useless. Solomon, therefore, had no reason to dread his influence, and was enabled to bring him to that punishment which justice demanded. Calmet.

In regard to matters Divine and spiritual, only one plain advice need he give to Solomon. Spiritual decidedness, faithfulness, and obedience to God: such simply were the means by which the promises given to David and his house would be inherited. But all the greater were the political dangers which beset the path of the youthful kin: an unscrupulous military party, headed by Joab; a dissatisfied priestly faction, ready to plot and join any rebellious movement; and ill-suppressed tribal jealousies, of whose existence Shimei had, at a critical period, given such painful evidence. The leaders of two of these parties had long forfeited their lives; indeed, only the necessities of the time could have excused either the impunity with which Joab’s treachery and his murder of Abner and Amasa had been passed over, or the indulgence extended to such conduct as that of Shimei. It was not, as some would have us believe, that on his death-bed David gave utterance to those feelings of revenge which he was unable to gratify in his lifetime, but that, in his most intimate converse with his son and successor, he looked at the dangers to a young and inexperienced monarch from such powerful and unscrupulous partisans. In these circumstances it was only natural that, before dying, he should have given to his son and successor such advice for his future guidance as his long experience would suggest; and similarly that, in so doing, he should have reviewed the chief dangers and difficulties which had beset his own path, and have referred to the great public crimes which, during his reign, had necessarily been left unpunished. The fact that, even before his death, an attempt had been made to elevate Adonijah to the throne, contrary alike to the known will of God and the appointment of David, and that the chief actors in this had been Joab and Abiathar, must have recalled the past to his mind, and shown him that the fire had been smouldering these many years, and might at any time burst into flame. A. E.

Adonijah alone was harmless, and might be left to Solomon in his youth. Only when supported by designing and wily men would he be strong. Abiathar was already removed from his position of power. Joab only was a strong, bold man, confirmed through a long life in a vindictive habit of mind, whose very defeat now would provoke resentment against the new king. He that slew Abner in treachery, he that slew Absalom in defiance of the king’s command, he that slew Amasa in malicious jealousy, deserved before to die for his crimes, but he had now added to all these the direct treason of stimulating and supporting Adonijah. If he had done this in revenge upon David for displacing him from the army, he certainly would attempt some traitorous counter-check to Solomon’s succession. Had not his impious will driven often headlong over his kind-hearted king, at times when Joab could plausibly justify his deeds by political necessity, long since would he have been brought to justice. It was right that he should die. It was not only right, it was necessary. Holiness and truth demanded it. Such riot over right government, such examples of rash and murderous impatience, by a bold will, set the example of lawlessness everywhere, to bold, unscrupulous men, on the accession of a new king. Knox.

David knew Joab’s ability and determination to accomplish any purpose on which his heart was set; and that foul means came to his hand as readily as fair. 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 galling 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 good right-hand man to parade before the army and the nation. Adonijah 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. Were these enemies of Solomon to join in united action, or were any slip in policy to put the young king in the wrong before the nation, he might have to maintain his position by arms; perhaps he might suddenly meet the fate of Amnon or Absalom. It is no injustice to Joab, and it is but fair to David, to consider 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 appearance of cruelty toward Joab and Shimei may rather have been truest kindness toward 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. Sime.

7. Charge respecting the sons of Barzillai. Generous natures cannot be unthankful: Barzillai had showed David great kindness in his extremity; and now the good man will have posterity to inherit the thanks. How much more bountiful is the Father of Mercies, in the remuneration of our poor unworthy services! Even successions of generations shall fare the better for one good parent. Bp. II. —Remembering the injuries that had been done, he could not forget the kindnesses that had been shown, but leaves it as a charge upon his son to return them. The kindnesses we have received from our friends must not be buried either in their graves or ours, but our children must return them to theirs. Hence, perhaps, Solomon fetched that rule (Prov. 27: 10), Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not. H.

Charge Respecting Shimei.

Verses 8, 9.

The mention of Absalom, and those terrible days of revolt and anarchy when he was constrained to flee for his life, seems to have reminded the dying king of one of the bitterest ingredients of that bitter cup of shame and suffering—the cruel curses of Shimei. He remembers that the sin of Shimei, which was nothing else than treason and blasphemy, has so far escaped punishment. In a moment of generous enthusiasm he had included Shimei in the general amnesty which he proclaimed on his return. He had thought, no doubt, at the time, only of the offence against himself; he had forgotten his sacred and representative character as “the Lord’s anointed;” or, if he had remembered it, the emotions of that memorable day had obscured or perverted his sense of justice and duty. But he has since realized—and the thought weighs upon his conscience in the chamber of death—that he then pardoned what he had no power to pardon—viz., a sin to which the Mosaic law attached the penalty of death. For blasphemy, as for murder, there was no expiation short of the death of the blasphemer (Lev. 24: 14–16; cf. 1 K. 21: 10, 13); and blasphemy, like murder, though not perhaps to the same extent, involved those who heard it in its guilt, until they had discharged themselves of their sin upon the head of the guilty (Lev. 14: 14; cf. Lev. 5: 1). But Shimei, so far from having suffered the penalty of the law, had been twice protected against it; twice preserved alive, in defiance of law, by the supreme magistrate, the executor of law. And David, who has been charging his son to keep the law, now realizes that he himself has been a law-breaker. He has kept his oath, sworn to his own or his people’s hurt, and he will keep it to the end. But Solomon is under no such obligation. He can demand the long arrears of justice, none the less due because of the time that has elapsed, and this David charges him to do. Hammond.

As it stands, the sense appears to be this: David intends to warn Solomon against Shimei, as a dangerous subject prone to break out into disaffection, and whose power of doing harm required that he should be carefully watched. He himself had, for reasons of policy, and in consideration of his meeting him, with a large body of Benjamites, at the Jordan, pardoned him for his gross and treasonable insults at Bahurim. Solomon, however, was not bound to regard him as altogether expurgated from that crime; and, should he be detected in any new offence against himself, he was advised not to excuse and pardon him, as his father had done. And we think that a prudential regard for the safety of that son’s reign, in warning him against dangerous persons, was the predominant motive of his counsel, and the only motive of which he was himself conscious. Kit.

When David here says (verse 8), “I swore to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword,” he means by the sword of Abishai, who wanted immediately to kill him. The oath, in strictness, was nothing more than a respite from death that day, and did not preclude his future punishment if he should deserve it by a fresh offence, as he probably did in Adonijah’s rebellion; for it was not till after the execution of Adonijah and Joab, that Solomon sent for Shimei, and ordered him to reside in Jerusalem, and not to quit the city under pain of death on the day that he should pass over the brook Kidron. A condition which Shimei thankfully accepted: “The saying is good: as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do.” And this measure was evidently dictated by David’s advice; on the meaning of which, therefore, it forms the best comment: “Anā, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei, now therefore hold him not guiltless;” but guard him as a disaffected and dangerous Benjamite, and confine him to Jerusalem, lest he kindle rebellion among the tribes, by stirring up their minds, like Sheba: “for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him,” in order to prevent his cabals; and if he offend again, “bring down his hoar head to the grave with blood,” for your own security, and the peace of your kingdom; for his crimes deserve death. Hales.—His case is left with Solomon, as one that knew what was fit to be done, and would do as he found occasion. David intimates to him, that his pardon was not designed to be perpetual, but only a reprieve for David’s life; “Hold him not guiltless: do not think him any true friend to thee or thy government, or fit to be trusted; he has no less malice than he had then, though he has more wit to conceal it. He is still a debtor to the public justice for what he did then; and though I promised him that I would not put him to death, I never promised that my successor should not. His turbulent spirit will soon give thee an occasion, which thou shouldst not fail to take, for bringing of his hoary head to the grave with blood.” This proceeded not from personal revenge, but a prudent zeal for the honor of the government, and the covenant God had made with his family, the contempt of which ought not to go unpunished. Even a hoary head, if a guilty and forfeited head, ought not to be any man’s protection from justice. The sinner being

an hundred years old shall be accursed (Is. 65 : 20). H.

Although David had forgiven Shimei the personal wrong, yet as king and representative of the Divine right in the theocracy, he had not forgiven the crime of high treason of which Shimei had become guilty by reviling the Lord’s anointed, and according to theocratic right could not forgive it, because the Lord himself was insulted in his anointed. But the following words, “for thou art a wise man,” as well as Solomon’s treatment of Shimei, indicate very emphatically that David and Solomon had no confidence in the disposition of Shimei. Accordingly, in this charge David is to be acquitted, not only of personal vindictiveness, but of every injustice. The punishment of Shimei was the duty of the theocratic ruler, for “Shimei was a blasphemer against the chosen of God, and his repentance was not genuine.” Keil.—Shimei is and remains a proof rather of David’s magnanimity than of his vindictiveness. To endure the miscreant all his life in his neighborhood (there was nothing even said of banishment) was no small thing. To suffer him to close his days unmolested under another reign also (which was never promised him) would have been a boon which would have given a very injurious example of unpunished transgression. Hess.

That the man who, in his opening words (verse 3), enjoined upon his son, in the most emphatic manner, a strict and literal obedience to the law of Heaven, should in these subsequent words, delivered almost in the same breath, require him to satiate a long-cherished and cruel revenge upon Joab and Shimei (the latter of whom he had twice delivered from death), is an instance of self-contradiction which is almost, if not quite, without parallel. But it is a superficial and entirely erroneous view of David’s last words, which supposes them to have been inspired by malice or cruelty. His absorbing idea was clearly this, that he had not “kept the charge of the Lord;” that he, the chief magistrate, the “revenge to execute wrath,” by sparing Joab and Shimei, the murderer and the blasphemer, both of whose lives were forfeited to justice, had failed in his duty, had weakened the sanctions of law, and compromised the honor of the Most High. He is too old and too weak to execute the sentence of the law now, but for the safety of his people, for the security of his throne, it must be done, and therefore Solomon, who was under no obligation to spare the criminals his father had spared, must be required to do it. Of the Jewish king it might be said with a special propriety, “Rex est lex loquens,” and seldom has the voice of law spoken with greater dignity and fidelity than by David in this dying charge. Hammond.

DAVID’S FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE ASSEMBLED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NATION. HE URGES OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S COMMANDMENTS, AND A HEARTY COOPERATION WITH SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE LORD’S HOUSE. AFTER WORSHIP AND SACRIFICE SOLOMON IS FORMALLY ACKNOWLEDGED, AND AGAIN ANOINTED KING.

1. K. 2 : 10** AND David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.

1. Chron. 29 : 26, 27** Now David the son of Jesse reigned over all Israel. And the time that he reigned over Israel was forty years : seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem. And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor : and Solomon his son reigned in his stead. Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the history of Samuel the seer, and in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the history of Gad the seer ; with all his reign and his might, and the times that went over him, and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries.

David now passed away. After seventy years of intensely active life, “he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor.” Born in a rude age, when the tribes of Israel had in a measure degenerated toward the old Egyptian barbarism, God had gifted him with a fine spiritual fibre, and by the severe processes of Providence, even to the passing through the fires of a long-anguished conscience, had strengthened and refined his soul. By this training it was that the Spirit of God enabled him to achieve a work so vast, so permanent and grand in its effects, such as none has ever done, before or since. Not in his conquests only, though these well-nigh covered the breadth of the promise to Abraham, “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates ;” nor in his systematic organization and ordering of the nation’s internal affairs, though this helped to give it strength, stability, and pre-eminence among the nations of the world. But the grand achievement of David was wrought upon the souls of the people through the moral and spiritual forces bestowed upon him, and Divinely nurtured and guided. By this Divine indwelling and inworking, partly as the result of the double discipline of adversity and sore transgression, David impressively commended the law and illustrated the truth and grace of Jehovah. In his life he effectually preached righteousness and exemplified faith and obedience toward God. In his broken strains and triumphant songs he magnified the Fatherhood and the compassionate, forgiving love of Jehovah ; and, like Abraham, rejoicingly looked forward to Messiah’s day, nay more, beheld the coming Christ in the line of royal succession, and “in spirit called him Lord.” Thus, through the distinguishing grace of God vouchsafed to him in these respects above all other men, David left upon the mind and heart of the Jewish people an indelible impress, which was deepened by the transfer to the Messiah, as His peculiar title, of the name, THE SON OF DAVID. Let us bear these facts in mind, as we advance to study the outwardly brilliant and seemingly successful career of Solomon—a career whose bright promise was shaded at the last to sadness and gloom, and whose early successes and later indulgences terminated at length almost in wreck of life and hope. No Bible history carries with it so much and such needed practical teaching for youth, and middle life, and old age. None exhibits so plainly and forcibly the great moral of right living. None treats so fully the uses and the misuses or wastes of life. And none meets and answers so accurately every problem, question, and longing pertaining to the every-day experience of all. B.

In the varied elements of his life and character there is no one in the whole of the Bible like David. A life teeming with vicissitudes, with romance, with pathos, and those startling changes of fortune which make history so much stranger than fiction. What drama is equal to it for tragic and romantic interest alone, to say nothing of instruction? His character is as varied as his life. It reminds to no small extent of him whose writings in the New Testament hold somewhat the same place as the Psalms in the Old, the Apostle John. In both there is all the strength of man with all the tenderness of woman. In both there is the same intensity—intensity of action, intensity of thought and word, intensity of love and hate. With the exception of his dastardly conduct to Uriah there is no meanness about him. There is nobility even in his faults ; and certainly his repentance is noble. Is there any one in the whole of the

Old Testament of whom we know so much, and yet find so much to admire, and praise, and love? With his chivalry and generosity, with his passionate love for his friend and for his son, with his sweetness and delicacy, his energy and courage, do we not feel him to be a man after man’s own heart as well as after God’s? Whether we take the world’s rough measure and judge him by what he did, or look deeper and judge him by what he was, we must admit that in him we have a king who was at once a true hero and a true saint. Whether we regard the influence of David himself upon the people he ruled, or the growth and development of the people under his guidance, or the instruction which his life supplies for each individual soul, or the deep analogies which lie between the history of Israel at this its most glorious period and the history of the Christian Church, the age and reign of David stand alone in Israel’s history. Plummer.

1. K. 2 : 10.** Now, when he has finished his great work in the organization and establishment of the kingdom, and when he has closed all with a zealous blessing of his Solomon and his people, David sleeps with his fathers. O blessed soul, how quiet a possession hast thou now taken, after so many tumults, of a better crown! Thou, that hast prepared all things for the house of thy God, how happily art thou now welcomed to that house of his, “not made with hands, eternal in the heavens!” Bp. H.

He was buried in the city of David; not in the burying-place of his father, as Saul was, but in his own city, which he was the founder of. There were set the thrones and there the tombs, of the house of David. His epitaph may be taken from 2 S. 23 : 1. Here lies David the son of Jesse, the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel; adding his own words (Ps. 16 : 9). My flesh also shall rest in hope. H. — After the return from the Captivity, “the sepulchres of David” were still pointed out between Siloah and “the house of the mighty men,” or “the guard-house” (Neh. 3 : 16). “His sepulchre is with us unto this day,” said Peter at Pentecost. P. S.

1. Chron. 29 : 29, 30.** For a fuller account of David’s life and reign, the reader is referred to the histories or records of those times, which were written by Samuel while he lived, and continued, after his death, by Nathan and Gad (verse 29). *There was related what was observable in his government at home, and his wars abroad, the times—that is, the events of the times, that went over him (verses 29, 30). These registers were then in being, but are now lost. Good use may be made of those histories of the church, which are authentic, though not sacred, or of Divine inspiration. H. — The canon of Scripture seems at or after the close of David’s reign to be added to by the prophets Nathan and Gad. It appears probable by the Scriptures that they carried on the history of the two Books of Samuel from the place where Samuel left it, and finished it. These two Books of Samuel seem to be the book that is here called the Book of Samuel the seer, and Nathan the prophet, and Gad the seer. Edwards.

Having provided for the security of the succession, the maintenance of the law, and the lasting dignity of the national religion, David breathed his last, having reigned forty years over the flourishing and powerful monarchy of which he may be considered the founder. He had succeeded to a kingdom distracted with civil dissension, environed on every side by powerful and victorious enemies, without a capital, almost without an army, without any bond of union between the tribes. He left a compact and united State, stretching from the frontier of Egypt to the foot of Lebanon, from the Euphrates to the sea. He had crushed the power of the Philistines, subdued or curbed all the adjacent kingdoms: he had formed a lasting and important alliance with the great city of Tyre. He had organized an immense disposable force: every month twenty-four thousand men, furnished in rotation by the tribes, appeared in arms, and were trained as the standing militia of the country. At the head of his army were officers of consummate experience, and, what was more highly esteemed in the warfare of the time, extraordinary personal activity, strength, and valor. His heroes remind us of those of Arthur or Charlemagne, excepting that the armor of the feudal chieftains constituted the superiority; here main strength of body and dauntless fortitude of mind. The Hebrew nation owed the long peace of the son’s reign to the bravery and wisdom of the father. If the rapidity with which a kingdom rises to unexampled prosperity, and the permanence, as far as human wisdom can provide, of that prosperity, be a fair criterion of the abilities and character of a sovereign, few kings in history can compete with David. His one great crime violated the immutable and universal laws of morality, and therefore admits of no excuse. On the other hand, his consummate personal bravery and military talent—his generosity to his enemies— his fidelity to his friends—his knowledge of, and steadfast attention to, the true interests of his country—his exalted piety and gratitude toward his God, justify the zealous and fervent attachment of the Jewish people to the memory of their great monarch. Milman.

At David’s death, the people were victorious, their kingdom enlarged, dreaded by all their neighbors, the ablest men conduct the wisely-organized administration, and a genuine son of the illustrious father is upon the firmly-established throne. The ark and places of sacrifice now await their immediate union in a gorgeous temple already decided upon, the Divine service is organized, and heart and spirit stirring prophets and priests reveal God’s will, and watch over the doctrine and the instruction of the people; and Israel possesses the legacy of the very noble songs of a talented king, which not only celebrate the joys of the altar and house of the Lord, the favor of Jehovah to his people, but for men of spiritual discernment the hope of Him who should come, whose throne endures forever and ever, whom God, his own God, has anointed with the oil of gladness. Yea, the genuine Israelite might, with adoration, and the most joyful hope, say, at the grave of this king, “Happy is the people that is in such a case; yea, happy the people whose God is the Lord” (Ps. 144 : 15). C. G. B.

Mutual Relations of the Hebrews to other known Historic Nations.

Before we take our leave of David, let our attention be turned a moment to the connection of the Hebrew people with other nations known to history. With their Exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews severed themselves for a long time from all historic connection with Egypt. Amalek, Midian, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and the Amorites of great Arabia; the Canaanites, Hittites, and Philistines of Palestine; have none of them sent down to our time any historic records of date anterior to Solomon? Whatever records (if any) they may have had have long since perished. Egypt, during most or all of this period—from the Exodus to Solomon—was comparatively inactive; Assyria was yet undeveloped. That the Hebrew people came into no collision of arms with either Egypt or Egypt’s old enemies of Western Asia, peopling the valleys of the Orontes and the Euphrates, may perhaps be due to the fact that they did not hold the coast line of the Mediterranean—the well-known thoroughfare of armies, Egyptian or Asiatic—in their hostile demonstrations. May it not have been of God’s wise providence to leave this coast line through so many centuries in the hands of the Philistines, and thus exempt the Hebrews from all contact with the movements of hostile armies threading that great route of travel from Egypt to Western Asia? Remembering how it befell King Josiah (2 Chron. 35 : 20-24) when he came into collision with Pharaoh Necho, hurling his chariots and horsemen upon the rising empire of Chaldea, we may readily apprehend the possibilities of this danger. Until the reign of David they did not practically occupy that coast line—the western margin belt of Palestine. Thus it came to pass that during the entire period from Moses to David, including the administrations of Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, and Saul, all the foreign powers with whom the Hebrews came into contact have passed into oblivion, leaving no historic records behind them.

With David a new era in this respect opened. When he pushed his victorious armies into the valley of the Euphrates and smote the king of Zobah (2 S. 8 : 3-8) and also the Syrians of Damascus who were called in to their help, he came politically into contact with nations of whose history some fragments have survived to our times. Are those fragments in harmony with the history which appears in our sacred books? This war is mentioned by Eupolemus in a fragment preserved to us by Eusebius, thus: “David discomfited the Syrians who dwelt by the river Euphrates, and subdued Commagene, and the Assyrians and Phœnicians of Gadalene. He also made expeditions against the Idumeans, and Ammonites, and Moabites, and Itureans, and Nabateans, and Nabdeans.” Nicolas of Damascus (of the age of Augustus Cæsar) is believed to have drawn his information from the records or traditions of his own country. He wrote: “After this there was a certain Hadad, a native Syrian, who had great power. He ruled over Damascus and all Syria except Phœnicia. He likewise undertook a war with David, the king of Judea, and contended with him in many battles. In the last of them all, which was by the river Euphrates, and in which he suffered defeat, he yet showed himself a prince of the greatest courage and prowess.” That Nicolas speaks of David as “king of Judea” is due to the date of his writing (within the century before the Christian era) when that country was known under no other name. That he eulogizes Hadad, though recording his signal defeat before David, may be ascribed to merit or to national feeling. The salient points in this fragment indicate its authenticity.

According to the sacred narrative, David came into special relations with Tyre and her King

Hiram. (See 2 S. 5 : 11, and 1 K. 5 : 1, and 1 Chron. 14 : 1.) These points are made historically probable by the following considerations : That Tyre, Sidon, and Phœnicia, in general, led the civilized world in the line of commerce and architecture ; that after David obtained control of the great commercial thoroughfare from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, it became vital to their commerce to be on friendly terms with him ; that the natural trade with David’s country was of priceless value to those cities—they giving cedars and skilled mechanical labor, and getting bread-stuffs in exchange. Hence, most naturally, “Hiram became ever a lover of David” (1 K. 5 : 1). Direct confirmation of the sacred history appears in the fact that the name of Hiram as the king of Tyre at this period comes to us certified upon an Assyrian inscription ; also in the testimony of Menander preserved by Josephus, of Herodotus, and also of Dius. Dius and Menander were Phœnician historians. Special confirmation appears also in the nicely accurate references in Scripture to Sidon and to Tyre—the former in most ancient times the leading city ; but the latter taking the lead in the time of David and ever after. Testimonies from the oldest profane records are remarkably in accord with this change in the relative importance of these cities. While Sidon occurs in Scripture even before Abraham (Gen. 10 : 15, 19) ; in the benedictions of Jacob (Gen. 49 : 13) ; and as “great Zidon” (Josh. 11 : 8 and 19 : 28), Tyre comes first to view (Josh. 19 : 29). So, in profane authorities, Homer speaks of Sidon often ; but of Tyre never. Thus our scriptural history of David receives all the confirmation from profane sources which the present state of those records allows us to expect. As we come down to later periods and as profane records multiply, the points of confirmation will be correspondingly more numerous. H. C.

Every man’s life, it has been remarked, is a plan of God ; in the obscurest history there is some Divine purpose ; what God said of Cyrus, He may say of the most commonplace man that ever passed unnoticed through life—“I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me.” But in the case of such a life as that of David, God’s plan, from its conspicuous and commanding grandeur, is fitted to arrest the attention of all. Exalted though he was in station, the lessons of his life are in the main applicable to all. W. G. B.—Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, and Paul stand out in lonely and individual grandeur amid the story of their time. The histories of those men are pictures, on a grand scale, of the common sorrows and battles of the human soul. The whole tendency of God’s record is to bring them near to us. It never omits their weaknesses and failures ; it never depicts them as powerful saints, but as men subject to the temptations and liable to the passions that beset ourselves ; and could we realize this brotherhood, we should gain from them new light on life’s story ; new power for its battles ; new life amid the defects and failures of this perplexed and careless world. E. L. Hal.

The history of his time is crowded with characters. But the great lessons come to us from David himself, around whom, as a centre, all these characters revolved,—David, one of the rarest men in history, prophet, poet, warrior, ruler, saint and sinner, a man of sorrows, and yet a man of the brightest qualities, and of the most devout joy in God. D. F.—His life begins amid the peaceful scenes of a shepherd’s life. The calmness of its morning time is suddenly broken by the din of arms, though there is heard amid the pauses of battle the sweet strains of a poet’s harp. Men and women are seen uniting in their homage to the 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. When the throne was at length reached, and the kingdom consolidated, luxury and ease began to undermine a heart that had withstood danger in the field, danger in the house, and danger in the wilderness. But underneath the baser part of his nature lay a greatness of soul that earned for him the honor 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 them 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 of David’s character given by the sacred writer. While knowing much better than we do what was 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 recognized. 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. 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 in their thoughts.

Or can any one read the lament over Saul and Jonathan, and not recognize in the words the overflowing 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? 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. 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. Perhaps the best proof of David’s worth, apart from the direct statements of history, is the regard in which he was held by those who came much in contact with him. To have knit together the band of six hundred men amid 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, notwithstanding many inducements to betray him to his enemies, is a more singular testimony to this controlling 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 kindness, but repaid his care with insult and treachery. None of the six hundred were traitors.

They were devoted friends, held by an attachment that may well be called romantic. Sime.

David is, next to Moses, the most heroic figure of the Old Testament. In the case of Moses, however, the legislative activity overshadows the biographical description. The personal incidents of his long life are few and scattered. The biography of David, on the other hand, is minute, and its threads are everywhere interwoven with his public activity. Even his recreation has had a world wide meaning. The harp was his solace in the solitude of his early life; and by that harp he has conquered more hearts than by his sword. We have a better knowledge of him than we have of any other man who lived three thousand years ago. The account not only covers the entire Second Book of Samuel, but the latter and larger half of the First Book, and the whole of the First Book of the Chronicles, to say nothing of the lost histories written by the prophets Nathan and Gad. To this should be added the charming Book of Ruth. The combined accounts contain not far from sixty thousand words. Nearly one-half of the compact history, describing the fortunes of the Jewish monarchy from the election of Saul to the captivity of Babylon, a period of over five hundred years, is devoted to the checkered life and work of this one man. This simple statement discloses a marvelous literary activity by known and unknown writers; for while the authorship of the historical books is unknown, there can be no question that they are based upon a critical sifting of contemporaneous accounts, and a careful examination of State papers. It brings to light also a most impartial and elevated historical judgment; for the earliest estimate of David has been confirmed by all subsequent criticism. With all his faults and grievous sins, he was the greatest and the best of all the kings of Israel, a man of large and generous mould, rightly named the Beloved, the man after God’s own heart. His preparation for the monarchy from the day when Samuel anointed him at Bethlehem, until the death of Saul made him the ruler of Judah, is the first chapter in his recorded life. Here he appears at his best, in the freshness of his youth, the fearless bravery of his spirit, the modesty of his behavior, the magnanimity and self-restraint developed during his long and hard exile, the unstained loyalty of his conduct. Again and again is it said that David behaved himself wisely. He was every inch a warrior. The people met him with shouts that filled Saul’s heart with envy, an envy that grew at last into settled hatred. Was ever faithful servant treated as was this young man by his king, driven from the palace to Samuel’s retreat, and thence to the enemy’s country, only to be driven again into the wilderness, to live as an outlaw, with a price upon his head? Twice was Saul in his power, but he would not harm a hair of his head. The king of Philistia hoped to win him as an ally, but he never smote an Israelite. Through all these years he knew that the prophetic authority of Samuel had declared him to be the divinely chosen successor of Saul; but he raised no standard of revolt. He waited for the providence of God, and for the voice of the people. In all this he was a true disciple of Samuel. And when at last Saul’s life went out in tragedy, the lying reporter, who claimed to have been the hero of the hour, was summarily and severely punished, while David broke out in words of lamentation that have become proverbial: “Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon! Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you! Ye daughters of Israel weep! How are the mighty fallen!” Noble and patriotic words from the lips of an noble soldier and patriot as ever lived. And now, as we follow him into a larger arena, for twenty years we have little reason to blush for him. The tragedy of his life comes in the middle of his reign. He had waited long and patiently for the crown. Judah promptly recognized his authority, and he was anointed at Hebron. One of his first public acts was to thank the men of Jabesh-Gilead, whom Saul had delivered from their Ammonite oppressors, for their bravery and kindness in rescuing the bodies of the fallen king and his sons and giving them decent burial. The war between his own house and the house of Saul was purely defensive on David’s part. He permitted no reprisals and frowned upon all treachery. The State was divided for seven years and a half, when the ripe prize fell into David’s hands without a blow on his part and by the request of all the tribes. At last all opposition disappeared, not by smiting of the sword, not by the Oriental policy of dagger and poison, but by patient waiting and magnanimous forbearance. The character of David brought the tribes to his feet; and at their request he was for the third and last time anointed king. He was now thirty-seven years old; and the vigor with which he entered upon his aggressive and organizing work shows that he had laid his plans long before. His retirement had not been spent in idleness. He saw that the new State needed a capital, centrally located and easily defended. He pitched upon Jerusalem, lem, then a Jebusite fortress, which the occupants regarded as impregnable. Its capture was a masterly stroke, and was succeeded by the removal of the ark to the new capital, making the city the political and the religious headquarters of the nation. Then he gave his attention to the enemies of Israel. He never seems to have provoked a war, but when he entered upon a campaign he pushed his advantage to the utmost. There is but one shadow upon this period of twenty years—the polygamy which was introduced as a feature of the royal household after the public coronation at Hebron. And now, after thirteen years of undisputed sovereignty, with the last great war drawing to an end, there comes a startling lapse, and the next twenty years are keyed to a moan. David’s double sin was followed by a succession of awful domestic tragedies, by the rebellion and death of Absalom, and by the revolt of Sheba. These things indicate breaking energy. He was growing old by the pressure of his grief, and the Fifty-first Psalm shows us that his spirit was more bowed down than his body. The man’s magnanimous tenderness holds out to the last. He is crushed with grief over Absalom’s death. He liberally commends and rewards Barzillai. He restores Amasa to a command in the army. He refuses to retaliate upon Shimei, who greeted him with curses upon his flight. He feels that he has more than deserved it all; and so he shows us in his second exile the same noble qualities that marked his early outlaw life. Behrends.

David’s character throughout his history is remarkably transparent. The attentive reader sees the real David everywhere in his full and distinct proportions. Nobody can doubt his sincerity, his great simplicity of character, his affectionate disposition, his proclivity toward strong and ardent friendships, his magnanimity as we see it continually evinced toward Saul, and, indeed, toward Absalom—his two sorest enemies. That he had personal courage, who can fail to see? So also he had rare power as a leader of men, whether in war or in peace—a large measure of that cool, independent, self-reliant judgment, which made his intuitions so safe, and his success so nearly universal. This class of qualities alone would suffice to place him among the world’s greatest men. In respect to gifts of mind in the special sense he was thoroughly a musician and a poet. Through native endowment he took in readily these great arts—poetry and song. By means of these gifts, and their early and never neglected culture, he was prepared of God to inaugurate that wonderful institution of sacred song in Israel which ministered so richly during his reign to the attractions and to the moral power of the sanctuary worship, and which has sent down through all future ages its legacy of blessings. But the best thing to be said of David is that from early age to his death, he was a servant, a worshipper, and a friend of God. There have been other men of equal native endowments who yet have failed to fill any worthy sphere of service for God or for man, through lack of this steadfast relationship to God. David was a great success in life, because he lived and walked with God. The one great sin of his life was a mournful exception to the otherwise pure and steadfast current of his history. Yet while this great sin and the manifold evils in his family are before our mind, let it be said, not by any means as an apology morally, but somewhat as an explanation philosophically—that it was David’s misfortune to live in an age of polygamy, and, moreover, an age when current sentiment and usage made polygamy specially incumbent upon kings, and accorded them a certain license for violation of their marriage vows. David was human, and not above the influence of these pernicious sentiments and usages of his time. To these as occasions and temptations we trace his great sin, and more than a few of the saddest calamities and sorrows of his life. Passing these sins, everything else testifies that he walked with God. If we read his Psalms in connection with the leading events of his historic life, we see the evidence that his prayer and communion with God kept the Holy One of Israel ever before him; that he sought and found help under all the changes and extremest exigencies of a most eventful life; that during those years of perpetual trial from Saul, his soul was evermore steadied and stayed on the Lord his God; that under the glory of a prosperous throne he did not become giddy and vain, but bore his honors meekly and sought to acquit himself rather to God than to men. It is wonderful how such fear and love of God give to the great men of earth the ballast they so much need. How safely they outride the storms of life with God at the helm! A sense of his presence impresses just views of responsibility, brings conscious help in every need, and precious consolation, though every other source thereof should fail. We may, therefore, think of David as setting before all men holding positions of responsibility an illustrious example of the priceless value of true piety, showing how it comes in to make a noble character and to insure the best success in human endeavor; how it shields from peril and guides in wisdom; how it ministers consolation where every human heart needs it, and glorifies man by keeping him evermore beneath the shadow of the Almighty. H. C.

There was in David a rare combination of all that was gentle, tender, and mild—with the most exalted enthusiasm, the most noble aspirations, the most generous sentiments, the most manly deportment, the most heroic daring, and the most invincible prowess. Joined to this was an invariable consideration for others, an open-heartedness, a humbleness, and an entire absence of all pretension.

To these personal qualities, David added all the accomplishments of his age and country. His age was not one of scholarship or books. Yet such scholarship as was valued among his countrymen, he possessed—and the books that were found among them, he well knew. Above all, he had deeply studied such parts of the sacred Scripture as then existed. His writings continually evince his close acquaintance with it—his admiration of it—his intense appreciation of its value—his love for it. This shows that he had attained the same state of grace, had been subject to the same teachings of the Divine Spirit, by which all true—that is, all vital, spiritual knowledge must be imparted—as we are bound to realize under a more perfect system, and with more ample materials, and broader revelations. There has been but one Spirit from the beginning; and David was taught of Him. We know this because he loved God’s law and rejoiced in it. It is easy to know that law, as it existed in his time and as it exists in ours, externally, as a body of words—easy to admire it and value it. But for love to it, the Spirit’s teachings were necessary; and David loved the law of God with an ardency of affection which puts to shame the cooler appreciation, often seen among us, of the more ample and demonstrated treasures of wisdom and knowledge which we possess. Now, love is a sign of grace; and undoubtedly David possessed in the highest degree that grace of which love is a sign. His psalms abound in such declarations as these: “O how I love thy law; it is my meditation all the day. Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Thy testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the rejoicing of my heart. Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it.” Mark, that to love the law of God for that reason—to love it because it is pure—to love its purity—is an undoubted sign of the highest degree of grace. Kit.

The position of David is virtually that of the Founder of the Jewish Monarchy. In this sense his name is repeated in every possible form. “The city of David,” “The seed of David,” “The house of David,” “The key of David,” “The oath sworn unto David,” are expressions which pervade the whole subsequent history and poetry of the Old Testament, and much of the figurative language of the New. The self-indulgence, the too ready falsehood have appeared sufficiently in the events of his history. But there was a grace, a charm about him which entwined the affections of the nation round his person and his memory, and made him the head of a new civilization. He was a born king of Israel by his natural gifts. His immense activity and martial spirit united him by a natural succession to the earlier chiefs of Israel, while his accomplishments and genius fitted him especially to exercise a vast control over the whole future greatness of the Church and commonwealth. The force and passion of the ruder age was blended with a depth of emotion which broke out in every relation of life. Never before had there been such a faithful friend, such an affectionate father. Never before had king or chief inspired such passionate loyalty, or given it back in equal degree. The tenderness of his personal affection penetrated his public life. He loved his people with a pathetic compassion, beyond even that of Moses. Even from the history we gather that the ancient fear of God was, for the first time, passing into the love of God. But the hold which David has fixed on the memory of the Church and the world is of a deeper kind than any which he derives even from the romance of his life or the attractiveness of his character. He was not only the Founder of the Monarchy, but the Founder of the Psalter. He is the first great Poet of Israel. Although before his time there had been occasional bursts of Hebrew poetry, yet David is the first who gave it its fixed place in the Israelite worship. There is no room for it in the Mosaic ritual. Its absence there may be counted as a proof of the antiquity of that ritual in all its substantial features. For so mighty an innovation no less than a David was needed. That strange musical world of the East, with its gongs, and horns, and pipes, and harps, with its songs of question and answer, of strophe and antistrophe, awakening or soothing, to a degree inconceivable in our tamer West, the emotions of the hearer, were seized by the shepherd minstrel when he mounted the throne, and were formed as his own peculiar province into a great ecclesiastical institution. The exquisite richness of verse and music so dear to him “the calves of the lips,” took the place of the costly offerings of animals. And in his writings he was a prophet, a revealer of a new world of religious truth scarcely inferior to Moses himself. Stanley.

The character of David has been naturally brought out in the incidents of his life. In the complexity of its elements, passion, tenderness, generosity, fierceness—the soldier, the shepherd, the poet, the statesman, the priest, the prophet, the king—the romantic friend, the chivalrous leader, the devoted father—there is no character of the Old Testament at all to be compared to it. Jacob comes nearest in the variety of elements included within it. But David’s character stands at a higher point of the sacred history, and represents the Jewish people just at the moment of their transition from the lofty virtues of the older system to the fuller civilization and cultivation of the later. In this manner he becomes naturally, if one may so say, the likeness or portrait of the last and grandest development of the nation and of the monarchy in the person and the period of the Messiah. In a sense more than figurative, he is the type and prophecy of Jesus Christ. Christ is not called the son of Abraham, or of Jacob, or of Moses, but he was truly “the son of David.” P. 8.

Called in youth from the quietude of the sheep-folds to be king over Israel; elevating the kingdom to a state of power and splendor which is seldom equalled, and perhaps never surpassed; and guiding it amid a crowd of perils with a wisdom and courage which made his name proverbial among his countrymen;—this man seems to stand far off from us in an atmosphere of wonder and glory; yet none of the Old Testament heroes comes nearer to our personal sympathies. E. Hall.—There never was a specimen of manhood so rich and ennobled as David, the son of Jesse, whom other saints haply may have equalled in single features of his character, but such a combination of manly, heroic qualities, such a flush of generous, Godlike excellences have never yet been seen embodied in a single man. E. Irving.

As a shepherd, keeping his father’s sheep, the sense of responsibility to another was powerfully called into exercise. The flock was not his own. In keeping it, he was acting merely as his father’s servant. To the people of Israel he felt that he stood in the same relation as he had occupied to his father’s sheep, and to God in the same place in which he had stood to his father. Israel was the flock of God, David the shepherd whom God employed to feed them. It was thus that David earned the title by which God distinguished him, “My servant David,” and became the man “after God’s own heart.” And this formed one of the most striking resemblances between David and Christ. And this was David’s pre-eminent distinction, to be called “a man after God’s own heart.” In his public conduct, he amply verified this designation. He was the father of his people; he loved them very tenderly; he used his authority for their good; he exerted himself to the utmost to advance the temporal and spiritual welfare of the kingdom. His high reverence for God, his intense thirsting after him, his trust, his gratitude, his delight in him, have never been surpassed, except by David’s great Son. The very sins of David served to bring out some of his most remarkable qualities. He was never so great as in humiliation: his confessions were the deepest and most earnest that were ever poured out by human heart to God; and his penitential psalms have proved at once a guide and a solace to the penitent in every age and country of the world. Of all the Old Testament types of Christ, David was the most eminent. His oneness with his people; his uniting, in his kingly office, the gentleness of a shepherd with the might of a warrior—the lion and the lamb; his covenant relation to God as king of Israel; the incidents of his life,—first, the man of sorrows, then crowned with glory and honor; the intense glow of his loving heart; and last, not least, his singular trust, love, and reverence for God made him a more complete type of Christ than any other Old Testament worthy. W. G. B.

Under the Old Testament, the types of Christ were of three sorts: types of institution, providential, and personal types. The ordinance of sacrificing was the greatest of the instituted types; the redemption out of Egypt was the greatest of the providential types; and David the greatest of the personal types. Hence Christ is often called David in the prophecies of Scripture; as Ezek. 34: 23, 24, “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David;—my servant David a prince among them;” and so in many other places: and he is very often spoken of as the seed of David, and the son of David. Edwards.

David was a man perfectly gifted, exquisitely organized. He has personal beauty, daring, prowess, and skill in war. He has generosity, nobleness, faithfulness, chivalry as of a mediæval and Christian knight. He is a musician, poet, seemingly an architect likewise. He is, moreover, a born king. He has a marvellous and most successful power of attracting, disciplining, ruling his fellow-men. So thoroughly human a personage is he, that God speaks of him as the man after His own heart; that our blessed Lord condescends to call himself especially the Son of David. For there is in this man a feminine, as well as a masculine vein; a passionate tenderness; a keen sensibility; a vast capacity of sympathy, sadness, and suffering, which makes him truly the type of Christ, the man of sorrows; which makes his Psalms to this day the text-book of the afflicted, of tens of thousands who have not a particle of his beauty, courage, genius; but yet can feel, in mean hovels and workhouse sick-beds, that the warrior poet speaks to their human hearts, and for their human hearts, as none other can speak, save Christ himself, the Son of David and the Son of man, Kingsley.

The hymns of David excel no less in sublimity and tenderness of expression than in loftiness and purity of religious sentiment. In comparison with them the sacred poetry of all other nations sinks into mediæcity. They have embodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion, that they have entered with unquestioned propriety into the ritual of the holier and more perfect religion of Christ. The songs which cheered the solitude of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the Hebrew people as they wound along the glens or the hill-sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world, in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America or the sands of Africa. How many human hearts have they softened, purified, exalted!—of how many wretched beings have they been the secret consolation!—on how many communities have they drawn down the blessings of Divine Providence, by bringing the affections into unison with their deep devotional fervor. Milman.—Who can number the souls who for almost three thousand years have been comforted, strengthened, and raised up in their conflicts and their heart-anxieties, by contemplating the life and the words of David? Whoever seeks a God with whom there is “plenteous redemption,” who hears prayer, who numbers the very hairs on the heads of His people, has an unchangeable love for them, and, as a Protector who neither slumbers nor sleeps, is by their side at every step—will meet with such a God in the experiences of

David, the king of Israel. No word of consolation is found in Scripture which was not confirmed in the actual experience of David. The golden chain of Divine condescensions and of gracious manifestations, by which his whole life was penetrated, marks it out as an introductory gospel, written in the characters of the actual life. How did David verify that word of the Eighty-fourth Psalm, “They who pass through the valley of weeping make it rich in springs!” Krummacher.

No one of all the eminent saints of the Old Testament so humbled himself in a sublime humility and grief for the Divine honor’s sake. No one of them made the language of feeling bear on its free flow the grandeur and variety of God’s holy law—in wealth of song and prayer and praise. Moses, the greatest of all before him, gave the law. David, like his Great Son, gave grace and truth to the law, by making patriotic occasions and personal attractions, and wealth of sensibility and royal affluence and every event great and small, exalt the worship and character of Jehovah, God of Israel. Abraham rejoiced to see the Messiah’s day and was glad, but David seized upon God’s gift to his own house of his Great Son, and looking down the coming line, bade himself and his successors call the Messiah, Lord. His great faults and great crimes were accompanied with such a great penitence and sublime submission to punishment, that God was not ashamed to select Bathsheba’s son as the ancestor of Christ. Even with all his faults, David was a type of Christ. And therefore Christ, when he came in Bethlehem of Judah, was called THE SON OF DAVID. Knox.

Comprehensive Summary.

None of the great men of Scriptures pass through a course of so many changes; none of them touched human life at so many points; none of them were so tempered and polished by swift alternation of heat and cold, by such heavy blows and the friction of such rapid revolutions. Like his great Son and Lord, though in a lower sense, he, too, must be “in all points tempted like as we are,” that his words may be fitted for the solace and strength of the whole world. Poets “learn in suffering what they teach in song.” These quick transitions of fortune and this wide experience are the many-colored threads from which the rich web of his psalms is woven.

And while the life is singularly varied, the character is also singularly full and versatile. In this respect, too, he is most unlike the other leading figures of Old Testament history. Contrast him, for example, with the stern majesty of Moses, austere and simple as the tables of stone; or with the unvarying tone in the gaunt strength of Elijah. These and the other mighty men in Israel are like the ruder instruments of music—the trumpet of Sinai, with its one prolonged note. David is like his own harp of many chords, through which the breath of God murmured, drawing forth wailing and rejoicing, the clear ring of triumphant trust, the low plaint of penitence, the blended harmonies of all devout emotions.

The man had his faults—grave enough. Let it be remembered that no one has judged them more rigorously than himself. The critics who have delighted to point at them have been anticipated by the penitent; and their indictment has been little more than the quotation of his own confession. His tremulously susceptible nature, especially assailable by the delights of sense, led him astray. There are traces in his life of occasional craft and untruthfulness which even the exigencies of exile and war do not wholly palliate. Flashes of fierce vengeance at times break from the clear sky of his generous nature. His strong affection became, in at least one case, weak and foolish fondness for an unworthy son. But when all this is admitted, there remains a wonderfully rich, lovable character. He is the very ideal of a minstrel hero, such as the legends of the East especially love to paint. The shepherd’s staff or sling, the sword, the sceptre, and the lyre are equally familiar to his hands. That union of the soldier and the poet gives the life a peculiar charm.

Thus, on the one side, we see the true poetic temperament, with all its capacities for keenest delight and sharpest agony, with its tremulous mobility, its openness to every impression, its gaze of child-like wonder, and eager welcome to whatsoever things are lovely, its simplicity and self-forgetfulness, its yearnings “after worlds half-realized,” its hunger for love, its pity, and its tears. He was made to be the inspired poet of the religious affections. And, on the other side, we see the greatest qualities of a military leader of the antique type, in which personal daring and a strong arm count for more than strategic skill. He dashes at Goliath with an enthusiasm of youthful courage and faith. While still in the earliest bloom of his manhood, at the head of his wild band of outlaws, he shows himself sagacious, full of resource, prudent in counsel, and swift as lightning in act; frank and generous, bold and gentle, cheery in defeat, calm in peril, patient in privations and ready to share them with his men, modest and self-restrained in victory, chivalrous to his foes, ever watchful, ever hopeful—a born leader and king of men.

The basis of all was a profound, joyous trust in his Shepherd God, an ardor of personal love to Him, such as had never before been expressed, if it had ever found place, in Israel. That trust “opened his mouth to show forth” God’s praise, and strengthened his “fingers to fight.” He has told us himself what was his habitual temper, and how it was sustained: “I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved” (Ps. 16). Thus endowed, he moved among men with that irresistible fascination which only the greatest exercise. From the day when he stole like a sunbeam into the darkened chamber where Saul wrestled with the evil spirit, he bows all hearts that come under his spell. The women of Israel chant his name with song and timbrel, the daughter of Saul confesses her love unasked, the noble soul of Jonathan cleaves to him, the rude outlaws in his little army peril their lives to gratify his longing for a draught from the well where he had watered his father’s flocks; the priests let him take the consecrated bread, and trust him with Goliath’s sword, from behind the altar; his lofty courtesy wins the heart of Abigail; the very king of the Philistines tells him that he is “good in his sight as an angel of God;” the unhappy Saul’s last word to him is a blessing; six hundred men of Gath forsake home and country to follow his fortunes when he returns from exile; and even in the dark close of his reign, though sin and self-indulgence and neglect of his kingly duties had weakened his subjects’ loyalty, his flight before Absalom is brightened by instances of passionate devotion which no common character could have evoked; and even then his people are ready to die for him, and in their affectionate pride call him “the light of Israel.” It was a prophetic instinct which made Jesse call his youngest boy by a name apparently before unused—David, “Beloved.”

The Spirit of God, acting through these great natural gifts, and using this diversified experience of life, originated in him a new form of inspiration. The Law was the revelation of the mind, and, in some measure, of the heart, of God to man. The Psalm is the echo of the law, the return current set in motion by the outflow of the Divine will, the response of the heart of man to the manifested God. There had, indeed, been traces of hymns before David. There were the burst of triumph which the daughters of Israel sang, with timbrel and dance, over Pharaoh and his host; the prayer of Moses the man of God (Ps. 90), so archaic in its tone, bearing in every line the impress of the weary wilderness and the law of death; the song of the dying lawgiver (De. 32); the passionate pean of Deborah; and some few briefer fragments. But practically the Psalm began with David; and though many hands struck the harp after him, he remains emphatically “the sweet Psalmist of Israel.” A. M.

SOLOMON’S ACCESSION TO THE THRONE. HIS CHOICE OF WISDOM. HIS DISCERNMENT OF THE TRUE MOTHER.

2 12 AND Solomon sat upon the throne of David his father ; and his kingdom was established greatly. Then Adonijah the son of Haggith came to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon. And she said, Comest thou peaceably ? And he said, Peaceably. He said, moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And she said, Say on. And he said, Thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign : howbeit the kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother’s : for it was his from the LORD. And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, Say on. And he said, Speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king (for he will not say thee nay), that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife. And Bathsheba said, Well ; I will speak for thee unto the king. Bathsheba therefore went unto king Solomon, to speak unto him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a throne to be set for the king’s mother ; and she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I ask one small petition of thee ; deny me not. And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother : for I will not deny thee. And she said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to Adonijah thy brother to wife. And king Solomon answered and said unto his mother, And why dost thou ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah ? ask for him the kingdom also ; for he is mine elder brother ; even for him, and for Abiathar the priest, and for Joab the son of Zeruiah. Then king Solomon swore by the LORD, saying, God do so to me, and more also, if Adonijah have not spoken this word against his own life. Now therefore as the LORD liveth, who hath established me, and set me on the throne of David my father, and who hath made me an house, as he promised, surely Adonijah shall be put to death this day. And king Solomon sent by the hand of Benaiah the son of Jehoiada ; and he fell upon him, that he died. And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields ; for thou art worthy of death ; but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David my father, and because thou wast afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the LORD ; that he might fulfil the word of the LORD, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh. And the tidings came to Joab : for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom. And Joab fled unto the Tent of the LORD, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. And it was told king Solomon, Joab is fled unto the Tent of the LORD, and, behold, he is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, fall upon him. And Benaiah came to the Tent of the LORD, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay ; but I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. And the king said unto him, Do as he hath said, and fall upon him, and bury him ; that thou mayest take away the blood, which Joab shed without cause from me and from my father’s house. And the LORD shall return his blood upon his own head, because he fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, and my father David knew it not, to wit, Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah. So shall their blood return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed forever : but unto David, and unto his seed, and unto his house, and unto his throne, shall there be peace forever from the LORD. Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up, and fell upon him, and slew him ; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. And the king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his room over the host : and Zadok the priest did the king put in the room of Abiathar. And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Build thee an house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not forth thence any whither. For on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, know thou for certain that thou shalt surely die : thy blood shall be upon thine own head. And Shimei said unto the king, The saying is good : as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. And Shimei dwelt

39 in Jerusalem many days. And it came to pass at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away unto Achish, son of Maacah, king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, Behold, thy servants be in Gath. And Shimei arose, and saddled his ass, and went to Gath to Achish, to seek his servants: and Shimei went, and brought his servants from Gath. And it was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and was come again. And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD, and protested unto thee, saying, Know for certain, that on the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, thou shalt surely die? and thou saidst unto me, The saying that I have heard is good. Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the LORD, and the commandment that I have charged thee with? The king said moreover to Shimei, Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to, that thou didst to David my father: therefore the LORD shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head. But king Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the LORD forever. So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell upon him, that he died. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Adonijah’s Request of Bathsheba.

Verses 12-18.

15-17. Adonijah 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 honor 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 Shunammite to wife.” There is not a word of love or of beauty in the request preferred to Bathsheba. There is a soreness of feeling at having 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. Sime.

18. The good-natured Bathsheba, anxious to soothe his wounded pride, and to make what seemed to her a harmless atonement for the frustration of his hopes, in which she herself had been an instrument, noticed none of the latent and dangerous meanings involved in these things, but hastened to assure him of her readiness to undertake the mission he proposed. One might suppose that she would have been a little shocked at the grossness involved in the idea of a son espousing his father’s widow,—the rather, as she was unconscious of his real object, which would have rendered the matter more intelligible to her. But the truth obviously is, that, strict as was the law respecting intermarriages—strict beyond the law of any nation, a great practical laxity had grown up in these matters, especially at the royal court. Kit.—Bathsheba does not seem to have suspected Adonijah’s design, and this simplicity of hers he perhaps hoped to trade upon, and thought that his petition, coming to Solomon through her, might appear less dangerous. That she should consent to ask the king was not unnatural. “The damsel was very fair” (1:4) and Adonijah “a very goodly man” (1:6), and such a marriage might appear to her not unfitting. A. F. K.

19. No sooner doth Bathsheba come in place than Solomon her son rises from his chair of state, meets her and bows to her, and sets her on his right hand; as not so remembering himself to be a king, that he should forget he was a son. Yet for all these due compliments Bathsheba goes away with a denial. Reverence she shall have, she shall not have a compliance. In the acts of magistracy all regards of natural relations must give way. That which she propounded as a small request is rejected as unreasonable. Bathsheba makes a petition against herself and knows it not: her safety and life depend upon Solomon’s reign; yet she unwittingly moves for the advancement of Adonijah. Solomon was too dutiful to check his mother and too wise to yield to her; in unfit supplications we are most heard when we are most repelled. Thus doth our God many times answer our prayers with merciful denials; and most blesseth us in crossing our desires. Bp H.

22. Ask for him the kingdom also.** Solomon gently reprehends her ignorance; but his answer means, Do you call this a small petition? You might as well ask the kingdom for him. For the laws and constitution of the government made it illegal for any one, besides the king and his successors, to take to himself any of the royal widows, concubines, servants, or anything else appropriated to the prince. Solomon, therefore, considered this as a new scheme of Adonijah against himself and his throne.

Patrick. — And for Abiathar and Joab. These two having aided Adonijah in his attempt on the throne, would naturally have been his chief ministers and advisers had he succeeded. So Solomon includes them with him, and thus Bathsheba may see whither the design of Adonijah is tending. A. F. K. — By the advice of these two wily friends, probably, Adonijah had asked the concubine of David for himself to wife, in order to make good thereby his claim to the throne. If Solomon had given him Abishag, he would thereby have acknowledged his claims in the eyes of the people. For the Israelites regarded the wives and concubines of the deceased king as the property of his successor. Keil. — The words can mean nothing else than that he discerned in this application the first development of a further design upon the crown, concocted between these men, of which he had already some information, but of which this was the first tangible intimation on which he could act. And he did act—and that with an unhesitating promptitude which justly shocks those who look not beyond the simple fact which appears in the face of the transaction. Kit.

There is no ground of censure upon Solomon for cruelty or precipitation in this instance. He had pardoned Adonijah’s former conspiracy; but this new attempt was rebellion against the viceroy appointed by the Divine King, and called for condign punishment. Jamieson. — He knew that his brother had made one deliberate effort to supplant him, and therefore he could only conclude that this was a second, though veiled, attempt to deprive him of his kingdom. It is to be remembered that on the occasion of Adonijah’s first rebellion the young monarch had displayed the greatest magnanimity toward him. He might then have justly decreed against him the death which no doubt the conspirators had designed against him. Adonijah, by fleeing to the altar, showed that he had good grounds for fearing the avenging sword. He was clearly conscious that he had merited the death of the traitor. But Solomon spared him, during good behavior. He warned him that “if wickedness were found in him” he should die. His first treason, consequently, was not to be lost sight of in case he were guilty of a fresh offence. This renewed attempt, after failure and forgiveness, must have convinced the king that Adonijah’s pretensions would be a standing menace to the peace and prosperity of his empire, and therefore he owed it to himself, to his subjects, and above all to God who had intrusted him with the crown, to put this restless and dangerous plotter out of the way. To pass over a second offence would be a virtual encouragement of sedition, for it would show that the king was weak and might be trifled with. Adonijah therefore must die, not only in expiation of his treason, but as an example to the subjects of Solomon, that the disaffected, including all Adonijah’s partisans, might be awed into obedience. Hammond.

24. He condemns him to die immediately—He shall be put to death this day. God had interposed himself with an oath, that he would establish David’s throne (Ps. 89 : 35), and therefore Solomon pledges the same assurance to secure that establishment, by cutting off the enemies of it. “As God liveth, that establisheth the government, Adonijah shall die, that would unsettle it.” H. — To punish with death so cunning and mean an intrigue can scarcely be called excessive severity on the part of Solomon. It was necessary if tranquillity was to be preserved in the land, all the more that, by his own admission, Adonijah still entertained the opinion that rightfully the kingdom was his, and that “all Israel set their faces on him that he should reign” (verse 15). A. E. — The failure of his first conspiracy, the abject terror which followed, the flight to the sanctuary, the clinging to the horns of the altar, the entreaty for life—these things should have been remembered, should have “changed his hand and checked his pride.” Still more, his brother’s magnanimity, “there shall not an hair of him fall to the earth;” or, if not that, his message, “If wickedness be found in him he shall die.” All are of no avail. The passion for empire, like the passion for play, is almost incurable. Adonijah was playing for a throne: he staked honor, safety, piety—and lost. He played again—and this time a drawn sword was suspended over his head—he staked his life, and lost it. Hammond.

26. The head of the conspiracy was 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 honorable to the king. The priest, who had shared all David’s wanderings and dangers, could not be slain as a traitor by David’s son. He was finally thrust from the office of high-priest; he was banished from court. Sime.—As accomplice in the conspiracy of Adonijah, he had in strict justice deserved death; but Solomon spares his life partly on account of his priestly dignity, partly on account of the sufferings, hardships, and dangers in which he had participated with David in his protracted flight from Saul; removes him from the priesthood which he had forfeited by resisting the anointed of the Lord, and banishes him to his country-seat at Anathoth. Keil.

27. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord, that he might fulfil the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh** (1 S. 2 : 31-35). Abiathar was the last descendant of the house of Ithamar. With his deposition the high priesthood reverted to the house of Eleazar, and so another “word of the Lord” had its fulfilment. No one can justly accuse Solomon of unnecessary severity or of cruelty in his treatment of Abiathar. On the occasion of his first conspiracy, Abiathar seems to have escaped even censure. And yet that conspiracy, had it succeeded, would almost certainly have involved Solomon’s death. He is now found plotting again, for the action of Solomon proves that there had been a second plot. Oriental usages would have justified his death. He is simply warned and banished. Hammond.—It was fourscore years since the sentence of judgment was denounced against the house of Eli: now it comes to execution. This just quarrel against Abiathar, the last of that line, shall make good the threatened judgment. The wickedness of Eli’s house was neither purged by sacrifice nor obliterated by time. If God pay slowly yet he pays surely. Delay of most certain punishment is neither any hindrance to his justice, nor any comfort to our miseries. Bp. H.

Punishment of Joab.

Verses 23-34.

28. Joab flees to the altar.** Had Joab sought for counsel from the tabernacle, he had not now needed to seek to it for refuge: if his devotions had not been wanting to that altar, he had not needed it for shelter. It is the fashion of our foolish presumption to look for protection where we have not cared to yield obedience. Even a Joab clings to God’s altar in his extremity, which in his prosperity he regarded not. The worst men would be glad to make use of God’s ordinances for their advantage. Necessity will drive the most profane and lawless man to God. Bp. H.

Unless Joab knew himself guilty, and supposed from the execution of Adonijah that all was known to the king, there was nothing in what had happened to lead him to conclude himself in danger. Whatever wrong or treason might be latent in Adonijah’s application for Abishag, there was nothing, taking that matter by itself, to connect Joab with it; but his own act, and the words of the king, show that there was something more, within and beyond this, with which he was connected, and which involved him in the doom of Adonijah. The past offence of this prince had been overlooked. Solomon had pledged his royal word to respect his life so long as he should show himself a worthy man. That he is punished, therefore, shows that there was a new offence of the same nature; and it was Joab’s part in this, not his share in the old offence, for which Adonijah himself had been pardoned, that supplied Solomon with the occasion of executing the injunctions of his father. Kit.

Joab had rendered great services to the State, but he had treacherously murdered Abner and Amasa, and had been guilty of treason in the conspiracy of Adonijah. And the fact here stated, his flight to the place of the altar, clearly intimates his complicity with the evident design of Adonijah to renew his attempt to obtain the throne. These reasons fully justify the judicial act of Solomon in slaying him even at the altar (Ex. 21 : 14). B.—Let us learn from it, that it is not in the power of any of our services to buy off the penalty due to our sins. That penalty remains written in the great book of death against us. The hand is not ours—the power is not on earth that can cancel that page, or blot out the handwriting against us. But there is One that can do it—who for our sakes purchased at no mean price the right to do it. And he will do it if, with true faith in his power and with truly humble hearts, we ask him. Kit.

31. From me.** Solomon evidently believed that the guilt of blood was upon him and his house so long as Abner’s and Amasa’s blood remained unavenged (“The blood that is not required from the murderer will be required from the magistrate.” Henry), and that he and his seed might have to answer for it, as Saul’s seed had done. This is one of the many considerations which show that both David and Solomon were actuated not by “cold-blooded vengeance” or “long-cherished resentment,” but by a sense of duty. In fact, Jewish law imperatively demanded the death of Joab, and to spare him was to violate all law, and to imperil the throne and the people. “Only a superficial observer,” says Ewald, “can here reproach Solomon with needless severity.” Hammond.

34. So Benaiah slew him. In this act Solomon fulfils the will of a father and the charge of God; concluding, upon this just execution, that “upon David, and upon his seed, there shall be peace forever from the Lord” (verse 33), and inferring that without this there could have been no peace. Bp. II.—So persuaded is Solomon that he is fulfilling a religious duty in decreeing the execution of Joab; so little thought has he of malice, revenge, or any baser motive, that he counts on the Divine blessing in perpetuity for the deed. Hammond.

The execution of Joab was clearly a judicial act. He had defiled the land by the blood of his own murders, and from which, in virtue of his own power and formidableness to David, it never had been cleansed during all the life of that monarch. Nothing can be more explicit and authoritative than the law of God on this subject, as laid down in Nu. 35, or more peremptory than the saying of verse 33—that “the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.” And so the cruel and perfidious murders of Abner and Amasa are made to return on the head of the perpetrator. T. C.—There is a lex talionis which governs the dealings of God with transgressors. The cruel murderer shall be cruelly murdered. The assassin shall be executed at the altar. He that “showed no pity” shall receive none. God pays sure, even if he pays slowly. It was thirty-four years—an entire generation—since Abner’s blood first cried from the ground. . . . After David, Joab was by far the greatest man—the ablest general, the bravest soldier, the most capable statesman—of that age. He had fought David’s battles, won his conquests, captured his citadel, and twice preserved for him his crown. It is a sad and tragic ending of such a brilliant career. The idol of the army, the man who was first in the deadly breach, the ever-victorious hero, dies miserably, by the thrust of an old comrade. Hammond.

Buried. Now hath Joab paid all his arrearages by the sword of Benaiah. There is no suit against his corpse; that hath the honor of a burial fit for a peer of Israel, for the near cousin to the king. Death puts an end to all quarrels. Solomon strikes off the score when God is satisfied. The revenge that survives death and will not be shut up in the coffin is barbarous and unbeseeming true Israelites. Bp. II.

Shimei’s Punishment.

Verses 36-46.

36-41. 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 toward Shimei clearly implies good ground for the king’s dealings with Adonijah and Joab. However, Shimei was a dangerous 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 neighborhood. Hence 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. For three years he regarded the condition. But lapse of time then 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 unfavorable impression on our minds. Shimei soon learned that the fugitives were hiding in Gath, which seems to be the meaning 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 enemies 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. Sime.

41-44. Solomon receives information that Shimei had transgressed. The king sends for him, and charges him with the present crime, that he had put a great contempt upon the authority and wrath both of God and the king; that he had broken the oath of the Lord, and disobeyed the commandment of his prince; and by this it appeared that he would not be held by the bonds of gratitude or conscience: had he represented to Solomon the urgency of the occasion, and begged leave to go, Solomon might have given him leave; but to presume either upon his ignorance or his connivance was to affront him in the highest degree. He condemns him for his former crime, cursing David, and throwing stones at him in the day of his affliction: the wickedness which thy heart is privy to. Others knew of Shimei’s cursing David, but Shimei himself knew of the wicked principles of hatred and malice against David which he displayed in cursing him, and that his submission was but feigned and forced. H.—If this act of Shimei’s was small, yet the circumstances were deadly: the commands of sovereign authority make the slightest duties weighty. If his journey was harmless, yet his disobedience was far otherwise. It is not for subjects to poise the prince’s charge in the scale of their weak constructions. But besides the command, here was a mutual adjuration. Shimei swore that he would not go; Solomon swore his death if he went. If Shimei was false in offending, Solomon will be just in punishing. Now, therefore, the tongue that cursed the Lord’s anointed receives its requital. Vengeance against rebels may sleep, but it cannot die. Bp. II.

Shimei cannot be exculpated. If he wished to remain true to his oath, he should have informed the king of the flight of his slaves, petitioned him for leave to bring them back, and awaited his directions; but he ought not to have lightly broken his oath. In his perjury lay his guilt, and he had no excuse, as Solomon showed him; to which was added his high treason committed against David. In the punishment of this crime, Solomon thus only vindicated the Divine right. Keil.—Shimei had been fully warned of this result, and had accepted the condition. Had he refused, he would probably have been kept in close confinement; but since he had accepted, he was allowed full freedom within the assigned limits. The opportunity of leaving the city was allowed him, simply because he had pledged himself not to avail himself to it. The restriction put upon him was meant to guard against, not so much his escape (for if he escaped, how was he to be put to death?) as against occasional absences, during which he might plot and conspire, and then return until matters should be ripe for his final disappearance. And as the king had imposed a simple and clear regulation, he was not bound to burden himself with a particular inquiry into the validity of all the excuses which might from time to time be produced for its infraction. How, for instance, in this very case, was the king to know that the slaves had not been sent away, on purpose to afford their master an excuse for visiting a most suspicious quarter?

Upon the whole, it seems to us that in this case, as in many other circumstances of Scripture history, the apparent “difficulty” disappears, or becomes greatly attenuated, when all the circumstances are closely weighed; and when we contemplate the subject not exclusively from our own point of view, but from that of contemporaries, under influences—religious, political, and social—very different from our own, but which some degree of careful study may enable us to realize. The more this is done, the more “digestible” many of the hardest things of Scripture history will appear. One thing is certain, that there is not a word or hint in the sacred books to show that the conduct of David and Solomon to Joab, Shimei, Adonijah, or Abiathar, was regarded as other than perfectly right and just, if not laudable, by the people of the age and country in which David and Solomon lived. Indeed, we may be sure that Solomon was too sagacious to disfigure the commencement of his reign by acts abhorrent to the public opinion of his time. And if he had that sanction—as we are sure he had—we feel that, in matters not affecting any principle of God’s ancient law, we have no right to stigmatize his conduct as unjust or barbarous, although, with our keener sense—with our Christian and occidental perceptions of human obligations, we turn with relief from the grim severities of this blood-stained page. Kit.

It is not difficult to offer a complete justification of Solomon’s action in this matter. In the first place, it is to be remembered that cruelty had no part in his character. In his long reign of forty years there are absolutely no evidences of a brutal and tyrannical disposition. There is a strong presumption, consequently, that he was not actuated by cruelty on this occasion, a presumption which finds support in the consideration that Solomon was much too sagacious to prejudice himself in popular estimation at the commencement of his reign by proceedings which would have the least suspicion of vindictiveness. And with this probability the facts of the case entirely agree. Shimei’s life, as we have seen, was forfeited to Jewish law. As he had so long been spared, however, the king gave him a gracious respite. The conditions imposed were not onerous. Shimei had but to keep his parole and he would live; to break it and he would assuredly die. He did break it, and broke, too, his solemn oath. The king had protested unto him that if he went any whither, he should most certainly die. When he went, when he despised the royal command and disregarded his sacred oath, how was it possible for Solomon to break his word? To do so would have been inevitably to compromise himself with his subjects, and to forfeit their reverence and trust. Besides, there was a duty he owed to his dead father, and above all, one which he owed to the living God. He had now the opportunity for which his father bade him wait, of putting into force the provisions of the Mosaic law, of requiring the death of the blasphemer, of showing his subjects that the law could not be defied with impunity, that though vengeance was not executed speedily against evil works, still retribution was certain in the long run, and so of teaching them a much-needed lesson of obedience and respect of authority. Every consideration, therefore, of justice, morality, filial piety, and religion warranted him in putting Shimei to death. Every imputation of weakness, irresolution, disregard of his plighted word, compromise of his royal dignity, and indifference to religion might justly have been levelled against him, had he interfered between Shimei and the sword of Justice. Hammond.

In this connection it will be well to read carefully pages 481-485, respecting David’s charge to Solomon with reference to Joab and Shimei. B.

45. Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established.** According to God’s promise (2 S. 7: 13-16). Solomon regards the punishments which he has inflicted and is about to inflict as a fulfilment of the conditions under which the promise was made. His action is the upholding of righteousness in the kingdom. 46. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon. The conspirators who might have been dangerous were all removed, and now, though still but a youth, Solomon had gained complete hold of the reins of government. A. F. K.