of David. His military genius, as shown by the organization of his army, and by his wide conquests, presents him, in one aspect, as pre-eminently a soldier. His prudence in his early years; his dexterous management of men during the troublous period of his exile, and his able government of a great empire in after years, show all the qualities of a statesman. His Psalms and musical gifts reveal a born poet, of high sensibility and refinement of nature. But he was, above all, the open and avowed servant of God. Prophets, as we have seen, were his constant and intimate advisers; the organization of public worship on a scale of grandeur before unknown in Israel, occupied for a time his whole heart; the building of a great temple to Jehovah was his lifelong ambition. As the expression of his inmost being, his Psalms point to the tone of his habitual life. and thought. He counted it his glory to join, like a common man, in the religious dances before the Ark, and played with his own hand, as he sang, in the crowd, while the sacred relic advanced to Mount Zion. Nor did he hesitate to take public part in the most demonstrative act of the Tabernacle worship. Singing aloud and praising God, he joined in the religious processions which " 'compassed the altar," while the priests ministered, and the great crowd of worshippers stood around. 1 Besides all, though not even a Levite, so completely did he identify himself with religion, that we see him bearing himself frequently as a priest; wearing the priestly dress, offering sacrifice, and giving the priestly benediction. The title of priests indeed was given to his sons, and even his military officers were in various

1 See Ps. xxvi. 5, ff. The above is the sense assumed by Ewald and Lengerke-religious dances round the altar.

* 2 Sam. viii. 18; Heb.

ways associated in this unusual alliance. Benaiah, the captain of his body guard was at once a priest and one of the leaders of the choirs, and the captains of the host were associated in the arrangement of the musical service.1 Such an identification of Church and State may have been often imagined, but it perhaps was never realized before or since, in ancient or modern times.

1 1 Chron. xxv. 1. It is to be noticed that the chief singers and musicians are said to "prophesy on the harp," etc., that is, their singing and playing was similar to those of the sons of the prophets. Mere public worship is thus called prophesying by Elizabethan authors.

THE

CHAPTER X.

THE resolutions with which David had entered on his reign were fitted to endear him to all. An Oriental king, whose ideal was "to walk before God with a perfect heart; to surround himself with the best of the land and make Jerusalem, what after generations pictured it as really becoming under his sceptre, "the faithful city, full of justice, a city in which righteousness bad its abode," could not fail to attract to himself an unequalled enthusiasm. He was clearly no despot like neighbouring kings. A sense of responsibility to God as his representative marked his conduct. To carry out the high principles of the sacred law in public and private, and make them in all respects the code of the nation, was his great aim; though failures or misconceptions, in some cases, were no doubt inevitable.

His treatment of the surviving members of the house of Saul would assuredly have illustrated this lofty tone, but for an incident over which he appears to have had no control. For three years rain had not fallen in sufficient quantity to secure a good harvest, and famine was pressing Bore on the people. In this extremity David consulted the oracle, and was told that the drought was sent

1 Isa. i. 21.

1

because blood rested on Saul and his house for his

massacre of the Gibeonites. How this answer was given we do not know, and are left to doubt whether those who announced it had not attributed their own conceptions, erroneously, to God. Nothing however remained to the king but to summon the Gibeonites, and ask them what ransom in money they would accept to satisfy their feud, and remove the guilt from the nation. But, true to the Arab law of blood revenge, nothing save blood would content them. As, however, they dared not kill any of Saul's house, their demand could only be satisfied by David's inflicting the death penalty. The feeling of the ancient Hebrews on this point may be best gathered from that of the Bedouins of the present day, among whom primitive Semitic customs have continued unweakened by time. The right of the avenger extends among them to the most distant relations of the murdered person, and may be carried out on the remotest connections of the murderer. A whole tribe indeed regards itself as bound to retaliate on the slayer of any one of its members. Atonement is often made by money, but is regarded as discreditable. So inexorable was the custom among the Israelites, that even the only son of a widow could not hope to be spared, if he chanced to be the next relative to a homicide. In the law of Moses, blood revenge was sanctioned, with fixed limitations. Fathers were not to be put to death for the sins of their children, nor children for those of their fathers; every man was to be put to death for his own sin. But this humane limitation in the Law, had failed to suppress the terrible customs which they inherited from their Bedouin ancestry. With them,

12 Sam. xxi. 1.

Exod. xxi. 12. Num. xxxv. xxiv. 16; see 2 Kings xiv. 6.

22 Sam. xiv. 7.

19, 21. Lev. xxiv. 17. Deut

as in the East generally, the clan feeling regarded all connections of the murderer, however distant, as forming one family, on any member of which revenge could be taken. This, rather than the merciful restraints of the Law, had become their practice. Saul had not only shed the blood of the Gibeonites, but had broken the solemn oath sworn to them by Joshua, and such an offence, in the public opinion of the times, could only be atoned by blood; even that of the children being demanded for the sin of the father, if no other could be had. By the letter of the Law David was not bound to give up Saul's descendants; but inexorable custom had on this point become paramount, and in reality left him no choice. When, therefore, seven victims were demanded from Saul's house, he could only, with the deepest regret, comply. Two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine-whom Abner, perhaps, had married-and five sons of Merab, Saul's eldest daughter, were given up as the sacrifice, and after being put to death, were impaled beside the altar on the hill top of Gibeah, Saul's own village. The catastrophe happened in April, at the beginning of the barley harvest, but the bodies—" hung up before the Lord," as if to show that an atonement had been offered for the blood shed at Gibeon-were wetted by no shower till the end of October or the beginning of November, when the early rains always fall. All these months, however, they had served to draw forth an unspeakably touching instance of maternal love. Through the fierce days of summer and early autuinn, when no cloud tempers the overpowering heat, Rizpah, having spread sackcloth on the bare hill top, beneath the corpses of her sons, watched them as they hung, braving the sun by day and the cold by night, to guard them from jackals and vultures, and to bury the bleached bones when