became weaker and weaker. Indeed, it seems to have required all the great talents of Abner to keep the kingdom of Ishbosheth together.

Meanwhile David reigned prosperously in Hebron.* He increased the number of his wives to six, by all of whom sons were born to him in that place. In this small kingdom his good and prosperous government, together with the knowledge that he had been divinely appointed to reign over all Israel, appears insensibly to have inclined the other tribes toward him, by which, more even than by war, his cause gathered that strength which that of Ishbosheth lost. Abner was fully sensible that without himself the kingdom of his nephew would fall to pieces, or rather pass quietly into the hands of David. He rated his services at their full value; and although we do not ourselves see cause to suspect, as some have done, that he contemplated taking the crown to himself, it is certain that he was not disposed to consider himself responsible to the king for his conduct, or to allow any of his proceedings to be questioned by him. Now Ishbosheth had heard that Abner carried on a criminal intercourse with one of Saul's concubines, named Rizpah: and as, according to the usages of the East, the concubines of a deceased sovereign became the property of the successor in so strong and peculiar a sense, that such an act as that imputed to Abner might be interpreted into a design upon the crown, or at least was an insulting encroachment upon the peculiar rights of royalty, even the timid Ishbosheth was roused to question Abner on the subject. It is not very clear whether the charge was true or false; but it is clear that this overbearing personage was astonished and disgusted that the king should dare to question any part of his conduct. He rose into a towering passion: "Am I, who, against Judah, have to this day shown kindness to the house of Saul, thy father, and to his brethren and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hands of David, such a dog's head that thou chargest me to-day with a fault concerning this woman? God do so to Abner, and more also, if, as Jehovah hath sworn to David, I do not so to him, by transferring the dominion of the house of Saul, and to set up the throne of David over Israel and over Judah, from Dan even to Beersheba." From this it seems that even Abner knew that he had acted against a higher duty, in setting up Ishbosheth in opposition to David; but this can not justify the grounds on which he now declared his intention to act against him.

HEBRON is an ancient cify of Palestine, situated in the heart of the hill-country of Judea, about twentyseven miles southwest from Jerusalem. Originally it was called Kirjath-Arba, or the city of Arba, "which Arba was a great man among the Anakims." (Josh. xiv. 15.) In the vicinity of this place Abraham abode, after he parted with Lot (Gen. xiii. 18), and bought a field with a cave in which to bury his dead. (Gen. xxiii. 3-20.) Besides Abraham and Sarah, his son Isaac, his grandson Jacob, with their wives Rebekah and Leah, and his great grandson Joseph, were severally interred here. (Gen. xxiii. 19, xxv. 10, xlix. 29–33, 1. 12, 13.) When the Hebrews invaded Palestine, Hebron was the residence of a king (Josh. xii. 10) named Hoham, who confederated with four other Canaanitish kings against Israel; but they were all discomfited and destroyed by Joshua. (Josh. x. 3, 4, 22-27.) After which the city, being taken, was assigned to Caleb (Josh. xix. 6-11) agreeably to a promise given him by Moses. (Numb. xiii. 30-33, xix. 5, 24.) Subsequently it was made a city of refuge, and given to the priests. (Josh. xxi. 11, xx. 7.) Afterward, when David succeeded Saul on the throne of Israel, he selected Hebron for his royal residence, and continued there until Jerusalem was captured from the Jebusites. (2 Sam. ii. 1, v. 4-9.; 1 Chron. xii. xiii.) On the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam, Hebron fell to the share of the king of Judah. (2 Chron. xi. 10.)

Hebrew, Habroun, or, according to the Arabic orthography followed by the moderns, El Khalil, is a flourishing town, the flat-roofed houses of which are closely jammed together. It contains about four hundred families of Arabs. The hill above it is composed of limestone rock, partially covered with vines; and its end is clothed with a wood of olives. The hill beyond the mosque (which edifice forms a prominent object in our view) is more barren; and in the fore-ground there are masses of buildings thrown down and scattered in every direction, this portion of the town having been destroyed a few years since. The inhabitants are engaged in perpetual hostilities with those of Bethlehem, on which account it is less frequently visited by pilgrims. A splendid church was erected over the graves of the patriarchs by the emperess Helena: it has long been converted into a Turkish mosque. According to Ali Bey, who visited it in 1807, the ascent to it is by a large and fine staircase leading to a long gallery, the entrance to which is by a small court. Toward the left is a portico, resting upon square pillars. The vestibule of the temple contains two rooms, one of which is called the tomb of Abraham, the other that of Sarah. In the body of the church, hetween two large pillars on the right, is seen a small recess, in which is the sepulchre of Isaac, and in a similar one upon the left is that of his wife. On the opposite side of the court is another vestibule, which has also two rooms, respectively called the tombs of Jacob and his wife. At the extremity of the portico, on the right hand, is a door leading to a sort of long gallery, which still serves for a mosque; and passing thence, is observed another room, said to contain the ashes of Joseph. All the sepulchres of the patriarchs are covered with rich carpets of green silk, magnificently embroidered with gold; those of their wives are red, embroidered in like manner. The sultans of Constantinople furnish these carpets, which are renewed from time to time. Ali Bey counted nine, one over the other, upon the sepulchre of Abraham. The rooms also which contain the tombs are covered with rich carpets: the entrance to them is guarded by iron gates, and wooden doors plated with silver, having bolts and padlocks of the same metal. More than a hundred persons are employed in the service of this Mohammedan temple. The population of Hebron is considerable: the inhabitants manufacture glass lamps, which are exported to Egypt. Provisions are abundant, and there is a considerable number of shops.

+ See instances of this in the case of Absalom (2 Sam. xx. 23) and Adonijah, 1 Kings, ii. 13-25

What he had said was no vain threat, although he was probably willing afterward that the son of Saul should take it for an unmeaning outbreak of passion. He sent messengers to David to enter into a treaty with him, under which he would engage to use his great influence in bringing all Israel to acknowledge him as king; and after this he found a pretence for going himself unsuspectedly to Hebron to complete the agreement and arrange the steps to be taken. David had sent to Ishbosheth to desire him to restore to him his wife Michal, whom Saul had given to another. He had a perfect right to make this demand, if so inclined, the rather as she had thus been disposed of against her own wish; but we may suppose that he was particularly induced to reclaim her at this juncture, in consideration of the satisfaction the measure was likely to give to those attached to the family of Saul. As this claim was doubtless supported by Abner, it was granted; and having obtained an order to demand her from her present husband, that personage himself undertook to escort her to David. From this transaction it would seem that the war had latterly been allowed to die away, although without any concession or treaty having been made on either side. That he was escorting the daughter of Saul to David, proved to Abner a favorable opportunity, on his way, of explaining his present sentiments to the elders of the tribes through which he passed; especially to those of Benjamin, which was naturally the most attached to the house of Saul, while his own influence in it was the greatest. He dwelt strongly on the public benefits which might be expected from the government of one who had been expressly nominated by Jehovah to the kingdom; and such a presentation, coming from such a quarter, coupled with the favorable dispositions toward David which had grown up during his reign in Hebron, was attended with such effect, that Abner was authorized to make overtures to him in behalf of the tribes which had hitherto adhered to the house of Saul.

Abner was received with great distinction and royally feasted by David; and after the business on which he really came had been settled to his satisfaction, he departed with the intention of inducing the tribes to concur in giving David a public invitation to take the crown of Israel.

Joab had been absent from Hebron during this visit of Abner; but he returned immediately after Abner had departed, and was deeply displeased when he learned what had occurred. Through the energy of his character, his abilities and experience in the affairs of peace and war, his influence and popularity with the army which was under his command, and his unquestioned devotion to the interests of David, this man had great authority with the king. His standing, indeed, in the kingdom of Judah, had much resemblance to that of Abner in the other kingdom; nor were their characters altogether unlike. In the points of difference, the advantage was on the side of Abner; for his experience in military and public affairs was larger, from which, together with his near relationship to Saul and his son, and the high stations he had occupied under them, his influence with the people was far greater than that which Joab or any other man in Israel could pretend to; and hence his greater power at this time of rendering essential services to the king of Judah. Abner and Joab also served very different masters; and thus it happened that while Abner was, in the public eye, the greatest man in the kingdom of Israel, Joab was in that of Judah only the greatest man next to David. Upon the whole, Abner was the only man in the country of whom Joab had cause to be afraid, and by whom it was likely that his own influence would be superseded in case the two kingdoms were united through his instrumentality. It was probably more from such considerations than any other that his displeasure at the intercourse between David and Abner arose. He went instantly to the king, and reproached him for allowing himself to be imposed upon by the able uncle of Ishbosheth, declaring his belief that the true object of his visit was to obtain such information concerning his state and resources as he might afterward employ against him. He then went out and sent a messenger after Abner to call him back in the name of the king. As he returned, Joab took care to meet him near the gate, and drew him aside as if to speak to him privately, and while he was entirely unguarded and unsuspicious, gave him a treacherous stab, of which he instantly died. The history describes this as an act of blood-revenge for the death of his brother Asahel by the hand of Abner; and while allowing him the full benefit of this motive, it is hard to believe that envy and jealousy sharpened not the dagger of the avenger. It must be conceded, nevertheless, that the existence of a blood-feud between them extenuated if it did not justify the act of Joab in the eyes of all Israel.

It was, in fact, according to the strict ideas of that barbarous institution, the imperative duty of Joab to shed the blood of Abner, who had slain his brother; and that Abner himself knew that the death of Asahel would be attended with this result, is evinced by his anxiety to avoid the fatal necessity of slaying his pursuer; for if the man-slayer is known, the avenger is not bound to make any distinction as to the circumstances under which his relative is slain: and at the present day, the one who slays another in battle is pursued by the avenger equally with the murderer. The extent to which the law of Moses had interfered with this custom only provided for the safety of the man-slayer while in a city of refuge. Hebron was a city of refuge; and if Joab had slain Abner within that city, the law would have allowed David to treat him as a murderer. This Joab knew; and hence his meeting Abner at the gate, and drawing him aside before he entered the city. These details we judge necessary, to show that those who most suffered from the death of Abner, and abhorred the manner in which it was inflicted, knew that his offence was not punishable by the king or by the law; and hence that it was not merely the rank and influence of Joab which prevented David from calling him to account for this barbarous deed. Perhaps he could not have punished Joab in any case; but it is important to know, that in the present case the law, custom, and public opinion, did not require or permit him to do so.

The resentment of David was nevertheless very great. Like other eastern sovereigns, he must have been impressed with the evils of this custom of blood-revenge, and the extent to which it interfered with good government; nor was he insensible to the insult offered to himself, in the present and other instances, by "the sons of Zeruiah," Joab and Abishai, and the high hand with which they wrought their own will. "I am this day weak," he said, "though an anointed king; and these men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too stubborn for me. Jehovah will reward the evil-doer according to his evil deeds." As it was of the highest importance to him that he should be clear of any suspicion of having had any part in the death of Abner, he publicly, "before Jehovah," declared himself guiltless of the blood which had been shed, and invoked the full burden of that blood on Joab and on his house. He ordered a public act of solemn mourning, in which he himself took a prominent part: and at the funeral he followed the body, as chief mourner, to the grave, where he stood weeping, and where he lamented, in elegiac verse, over the prince and great man who had that day fallen in Israel.

This conduct of David tended still further to satisfy and conciliate the tribes attached to the house of Saul; and by them the murder of Abner was never imputed to him. Indeed, the event must, at the time, have seemed to himself and others anything but advantageous for his cause. But we, who have his whole history before us, can see that the manner in which he ultimately became king over all Israel, by the free and unsolicited choice of the tribes, was more honorable and safe to him, and more becoming his divine appointment, than the same result brought about through the exertions of Abner, whose conduct, as between David and Ishbosheth, must have seemed very equivocal, and could, at the best, have been but “traitorously honest."*

When Ishbosheth heard of Abner's death (without being aware of the plot in which he was engaged), he felt that the right arm of his kingdom's strength was broken. Others felt this also: and the conviction that the son of Saul could not govern the troubled kingdom without Abner, grew stronger every day among the tribes, and directed their eyes to David as the only person under whom they could expect to realize the benefits the nation had expected to enjoy under a regal government. This feeling, this tendency of the nation toward David, was perceived, even in the court of Ishbosheth; and two of his officers, brothers, determined to anticipate the course which events were taking, by the assassination of their master, expecting by this act to deserve high rewards and honors from the king of Judah. Accordingly, they stole into his chamber, while, according to the universal custom of the East, he slept there during the mid-day heat. They pierced him as he slept, and then took off his head, with which they escaped unperceived, as at that time of the day most of the people were asleep. The murderers sped to Hebron, and laid the head of Saul's son at the feet of David, with the words, "Behold the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul thine enemy, who sought thy life. Jehovah hath this day avenged my * Bishop Hall

lord the king of Saul and of his seed." Astounding to them was the answer-" As Jehovah liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of every distress! if, when one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking that he brought good tidings, I took hold of him and slew him at Ziklag, when he expected that I should have given him a reward for his tidings;-how much more when wicked men have slain a just person in his own house, upon his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hand, and destroy you from the earth?" And with these words he commanded his attendants to remove them to an ignominious death. The head of Ishbosheth he ordered to be deposited in the sepulchre of Abner.

The kingdom of Israel was now without even the appearance of a head, nor was there any remaining member of the family of Saul whom the most zealous adherents of that fallen house could dream of supporting in opposition to David. Saul had indeed left some sons by concubines, but they were living in obscurity, and even their existence was scarcely known to the people. Jonathan also had left one son, but he was a mere boy and lame. He was five years old when Saul and his sons perished in the battle of Gilboa, and he became lame from a fall which he received when his nurse fled with him, as soon as the tidings of that overthrow were brought to the house of Saul and Jonathan. His name was Mephibosheth.

David had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron, when, after the deaths of Abner and Ishbosheth, the crown of all Israel seemed to devolve upon him, as naturally as by an act of succession. It was probably the result of a unanimous decision in a great council of the eleven tribes, that those tribes sent an embassy to David in Hebron to invite him to assume the general government of the nation. This they did on the grounds of, 1, his military claim, as one who had often led them to victory in the days of Saul; and, 2, of his theocratical claim, as one who had been expressly nominated by God to govern Israel. By this we see that the people were on this occasion careful to recognise the theocracy, since they rested their preference of him on his having been nominated to the kingdom by Jehovah, and having proved himself worthy of it during the reign of Saul. The studious avoidance of all notice of the seven years in which the tribes had been separately ruled seems to intimate a desire that this measure should be formally regarded as following the death of Saul. David intimated his readiness to receive the honor designed for him, and to accede to the conditions on which the crown was to be held. The rulers of the eleven tribes, therefore, at the head of large bodies of the best trained men in the several tribes, described as "men that could keep rank," who were chosen to represent the whole of their several tribes in the great national act of inauguration, repaired to Hebron to make David king. The number amounted to not less than three hundred and forty thousand, and the enumeration in the book of Chronicles (1 Chron. xii. 23, ad fin.) is accompanied with several remarks, which the scantiness of our information concerning the distinctive character of the tribes makes interesting. It appears that many members of the tribe of Judah had adhered to the house of Saul, and abode within its dominions; for, on the present occasion, six thousand eight hundred men of that tribe, armed with shield and spear, came with the others to submit to David. There were seven thousand one hundred Simeonites of valor. The Levites sent four thousand six hundred; and there were three thousand seven hundred priests, headed by Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah; besides whom came Zadok at the head of twenty-two chiefs of his father's house. This Zadok, of the old pontifical line of Eleazer, is the same who was long after made sole high-priest by Solomon, to the final exclusion of the house of Eli; but, on the present occasion, he is particularly noticed as “a young man, mighty in valor," which shows-as indeed appears in the history-that the pursuits of the Levites, and even of the Aaronites, were not exclusively of an ecclesiastical and civil nature. From Benjamin came three thousand men ; but the greater part of this tribe held back, still cherishing a lingering and futile attachment to the house of Saul, the rule of which had given to the tribe a flattering pre-eminence, which it was unwilling to relinquish. The half-tribe of Manasseh on this side the Jordan sent eighteen thousand men; and the proud tribe of Ephraim testified its concurrence by sending twenty-eight thousand. From Issachar came only two hundred men; but these were the chief persons in the tribe, the whole of which was at their beck, and would have been in attendance if required. To them is given the marked character of being men of political prudence and sagacity, who knew better than most men how Israel ought to act under the present and other circumstances,

and whose support was therefore of great value to David. From Zebulon came not fewer than fifty thousand men, skilled in the use of all warlike weapons, and "not double-hearted," with respect to the object for which they came. Naphtali furnished one thousand captains, and with them thirty-seven thousand men, armed with shield and spear. Dan supplied twenty-eight thousand six hundred able warriors, and Asher forty thousand. The tribes beyond Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, sent, collectively, one hundred and twenty thousand warlike men. One obvious remark, arising from the survey of these numbers, is the comparative largeness of the proportions furnished by the remoter tribes, to the north and beyond Jordan. This is, perhaps, explained by the absence in those tribes of any pretensions for themselves, and of any strong attachment for the house of Saul, which could interfere with the heartiness of their recognition of the claims of David; together with the operation of the principles which gives to a prophet and great man the least degree of honor in and near his own home.*

With this vast body, the flower of the Hebrew nation, and representing the whole of it, "David made a league before the Lord," which can be construed to have no other meaning than that which has already been indicated in the case of Saul, that he bound himself by oath to observe the conditions on which he received the sceptre, which are now unknown. He was then anointed king, and received the homage of his new subjects; and the whole was terminated by a feast to all the multitude assembled at Hebron, supplies for which were liberally sent in by all the neighboring tribes, “on asses, on camels, on mules, and on oxen," and consisted of meat, meal, figs, raisins, wine, oil, oxen, and sheep, in great abundance. "For there was great joy in Israel."

The first act of David's reign was to undertake the reduction of the fortress of Jebus, on Mount Zion, which had remained in the hands of the natives ever since the days of Joshua, and which, as Josephus reports,† had been, from its situation and its fortifications, hitherto deemed impregnable. The Jebusites, therefore, ridiculed the attempt, and appear to have placed the lame and the blind on the walls, in derision, as fully sufficient to keep him out. But from the lower city, which was already in the possession of the Israelites, there was "a gutter," or subterraneous communication, with the fortress, by which David introduced a party of men and took "the stronghold of Zion." In the operations of this seige such ability and conduct were displayed by Joab, that he was appointed to the same chief command of the armies of Israel which he had previously held in the separate kingdom of Judah. The fact that his rule was likely, under all circumstances, to find the most zealous supporters in his own tribe of Judah, probably disinclined him to remove from its borders; and he determined to make his new conquest the metropolis of his empire. A more centrical situation, with respect to all the tribes, would have placed him in the hands of the Ephraimites, whose cordiality toward a Judahite king might well be suspected, and in whom little confidence could be placed in times of danger and difficulty. Similar considerations have dictated the choice of a very inconveniently situated capital to the reigning dynasty of Persia. But although better sites for a metropolitan city might have been found in the largest extent of Palestine, there were not better within the limits to which, for the reasons indicated, the choice of David was confined. That the site is overlooked from the Mount of Olives, although a great disadvantage in the eyes of modern military engineers, was of little consequence under the ancient systems of warfare, and could not countervail the peculiar advantages which it offered in being enclosed on three sides by a natural fosse of ravines and deep valleys, and terminating in an eminence, which, while strong in its defences from without, commanded the town within, and was capable of being strongly fortified. The united influence of all these considerations appears to have determined the preference of David

Of this Fuller seems to have given a satisfactory explanation. "How this comes to pass let others largely dispute. We may, in brief, conclude, it is partly because their cradles can be remembered, and those swaddling-clothes once used about them, to strengthen them while infants, are afterward abused against them, to disgrace them when men, and all the passages of their youth repeated to their disparagement; partly because all the faults of their family (which must be many in a numerous alliance) are charged on the prophet's account. Wherefore that prophet who comes at the first in his full growth from a far foreign place (not improving himself among them from a small spark to a fire, to a flame, but, sun-like, arising in perfect lustre), gains the greatest reputation among the people. Because, in some respects, he is like Melchisedek, without father, without mother, without descent,' while the admiring vulgar, transported with his preaching, and ignorant of his extraction on earth, will charitably presume his pedigree from heaven, and his breeding as well as calling to be divine."

+ Antiq. v. 2. Josh. xv. 63.