Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Vers. 11-19. Removal of the ark of God to the city of David (cf. 1 Chron. xv.). — Vers. 11, 12. When the ark had been in the house of Obed-edom for three months, and David heard that the Lord had blessed his house for the sake of the ark of God, he went thither and brought it up to the city of David with gladness, i.e. with festal rejoicing, or a solemn procession. (For nnp'^ in the sense of festal rejoicing, or a joyous fete, see Gen. xxxi. 27, Neh. xii. 43, etc.) On this occasion, however, David adhered strictly to the instructions of the law, as the more elaborate account given in the Chronicles clearly shows. He not only gathered together all Israel at Jerusalem to join in this solemn act, but summoned the priests and Levites, and commanded them to sanctify themselves, and carry the ark " according to the rijdit," i.e. as the Lord had commanded in the law of Moses, and to offer sacrifices during the procession, and sing songs, i.e. psalms, with musical accompaniment. In the very condensed account before us, all that is mentioned is the carrying of the ark, the sacrificing during the march, and the festivities of the king and people. But even from these few facts we see that David had discovered his former mistake, and had given up the idea of removing the ark upon a carriage as a transgression of the law. — Ver. 13. The bearers of the ark are not particularly mentioned in this account; but it is very evident that they were Levites, as the Chronicles affirm, from the fact that the ark was carried this time, and not driven, as before. " And it came to pass, when the bearers of the ark of Jehovah had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatted calf" (i.e. had them sacrificed). These words are generally understood as meaning, that sacrifices of this kind were offered along the whole way, at the distance of six paces apart. This would certainly have been a possible thing, and there would be no necessity to assume that the procession halted every six paces, until the sacrificial ceremony was completed, but the ark might have continued in progress, whilst sacrifices were being offered at the distances mentioned. And even the immense number of sacrificial animals that would have been required is no valid objection to such an assumption. We do not know what the distance really was: all that we know is, that it was not so much as ten miles, as Kirjath-jearim was only about twelve miles from Jerusalem, so that a few thousand oxen, and the same number of fatted calves, would have been quite sufficient. But the words of the text do not distinctly affirm that sacrifices were offered whenever the bearers advanced six paces, but only that this was done as soon as the bearers had taken the first six steps. So that, strictly speaking, all that is stated is, that when the procession had started and gone six paces, the sacrifice was offered, namely, for the purpose of inaugurating or consecrating the solemn procession. In 1 Chron. xv. this fact is omitted; and it is stated instead (ver. 26), that " when God helped the Levites that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, they offered seven bullocks and seven rams," i.e. at the close of the procession, when the journey was ended, to praise God for the fact that the Levites had been enabled to carry the ark of God to the place appointed for it, without suffering the slightest harm.1 — Ver. 14. " And David danced with all his might before

1 There is no discrepancy, therefore, between the two different accounts; but the one supplements the other in a manner perfectly in harmony with the whole affair, — at the outset, a sacrifice consisting of one ox and one fatted calf; and at the close, one of seven oxen and seven rams. Consequently there is no reason for altering the text of the verse before us, as Thenius proposes, according to the senseless rendering of the LXX., kou the Lord (i.e. before the ark), and ivas girded with a white ephod (shoulder-dress)." Dancing, as an expression of holy enthusiasm, was a customary thing from time immemorial: we meet with it as early as at the festival of thanksgiving at the Red Sea (Ex. xv. 20); but there, and also at subsequent celebrations of the different victories gained by the Israelites, none but women are described as taking part in it (Judg. xi. 34, xxi. 19; 1 Sam. xviii. 6). The white ephod was, strictly speaking, a priestly costume, although in the law it is not prescribed as the dress to be worn by them when performing their official duties, but rather as the dress which denoted the priestly character of the wearer (see at 1 Sam. xxii. 18); and for this reason it was worn by David in connection with these festivities in honour of the Lord, as the head of the priestly nation of Israel (see at 1 Sam. ii. 18). In ver. 15 it is still further related, that David and all the house (nation) of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with jubilee and trumpet-blast, nynn is used here to signify the song of jubilee and the joyous shouting of the people. In the Chronicles (ver. 28) the musical instruments played on the occasion are also severally mentioned. — Ver. 16. When the ark came (i.e. was carried) into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and there she saw king David leaping and dancing before Jehovah, and despised him in her heart. ^\}\ " and it came to pass," for TO, because there is no progress made, but only another element introduced. Nil is a perfect: " the ark had come,... and Michal looked through the window,... there she saw," etc. Michal is intentionally designated the daughter of Saul here, instead of the wife of David, because on this occasion she manifested her father's disposition rather than her husband's. In Saul's time people did not trouble themselves about the ark of the covenant (1 Chron. xiii. 3); public worship was neglected, and the soul for vital religion had died out in the family of the king. Michal possessed teraphim, and in

Ytoot,v jWiT oevrov otipovTig ryu Kifiarov £7rrcc xopoi, xeti Ovftoc. (ago^; xcel oLpvtc ('* with David there were bearers of the ark, seven choirs, and sacrifices of a calf and lambs"), which has also found its way into the Vulgate, though Jerome has rendered our Hebrew text faithfully afterwards (i.e. after the gloss, which was probably taken from the Itala, and inserted in his translation).

David she only loved the brave hero and exalted king: she therefore took offence at the humility with which the king, in his pious enthusiasm, placed himself on an equality with all the rest of the nation before the Lord. — Ver. 17. When the ark was brought to the place appointed for it upon Mount Zion, and was deposited in the tent which David had prepared for it, he offered burnt-offerings and thank-offerings before the Lord. " In its place" is still further defined as " in the midst of the tent which David," etc., i.e. in the Most Holy Place; for the tent would certainly be constructed according to the type of the Mosaic tabernacle. The burnt-offerings and peace-offerings were offered to consecrate the newly erected house of God. — Vers. 18, 19. When the offering of sacrifice was over, David blessed the people in the name of the Lord, as Solomon did afterwards at the dedication of the temple (1 Kings viii. 55), and gave to all the (assembled) people, both men and women, to every one a slice of bread, a measure (of wine), and a cake for a festal meal, i.e. for the sacrificial meal, which was celebrated with the shelamim after the offering of the sacrifices, and after the king had concluded the liturgical festival with a benediction. Brp npn is a round cake of bread, baked for sacrificial meals, and synonymous with Dnpnsa (1 Chron. xvi. 3), as wre may see from a comparison of Ex. xxix. 23 with Lev. viii. 26 (see the commentary on Lev. viii. 2). But the meaning of the air \ey. ^3B>K is uncertain, and has been much disputed. Most of the Rabbins understand it as signifying a piece of flesh or roast meat, deriving the word from BW and "is; but this is certainly false. There is more to be said in favour of the derivation proposed by L. de Dieu, viz. from the Ethiopic "ifit?, netiriy from which Gesenius and Roediger (Ges. Thes. p. 1470) have drawn their explanation of the word as signifying a measure of wine or other beverage. For •WfrPK, the meaning grape-cake or raisin-cake is established by Song of Sol. ii. 5 and Hos. iii. 1 (yid. Hengstenberg, Christol. on Hos. iii. 1). The people returned home after the festal meal.

Vers. 20-23. When David returned home to bless his house, as he had previously blessed the people, Michal came to meet him with scornful words, saying, " How has the king of Israel glorified himself to-day, when he stripped himself before the eyes of the maids of his servants, as only one of the loose people strips him- self!" The unusual combination HTOJ nipana is explained by Ewald (§ 240, e, p. 607) in this manner, that whilst, so far as the sense of the clause is concerned, the second verb ought to be in the infinitive absolute, they were both written with a very slight change of form in the infinitive construct; whereas others regard nfa} as an unusual form of the infinitive absolute (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 430), or a copyist's error for n^jp (Thenius, Olsh. Gr. p. 600). The proud daughter of Saul was offended at the fact, that the king had let himself down on this occasion to the level of the people. She availed herself of the shortness of the priests' shoulder-dress, to make a contemptuous remark concerning David's dancing, as an impropriety that was unbecoming in a king. " Who knows whether the proud woman did not intend to sneer at the rank of the Levites, as one that was contemptible in her eyes, since their humble service may have looked very trivial to her?" (Berleb. Bible.) — Vers. 21, 22. David replied, " Before Jehovah, who chose me before thy father and all his house, to appoint me prince over the people of Jehovah, over Israel, before Jehovah have I played (lit. joked, given utterance to my joy). And I will be still more despised, and become base in. my eyes: and with the maidens of whom thou hast spoken, with them will I be honoured." The copula vav before ^i?nt^ serves to introduce the apodosis, and may be explained in this way, that the relative clause appended to " before Jehovah" acquired the power of a protasis on account of its length j so that, strictly speaking, there is an anakolouthon, as if the protasis read thus: " Before Jehovah, as He hath chosen me over Israel, I have humbled myself before Jehovah" (for " before him"). With the words "who chose me before thy father and all his Itouse" David humbles the pride of the king's daughter. His playing and dancing referred to the Lord, who had chosen him, and had rejected Saul on account of his pride. He would therefore let himself be still further despised before the Lord, we. would bear still greater contempt from men than that which he had just received, and be humbled in his own eyes (irid. Ps. cxxxi. 1): then would he also with the maidens attain to honour before the Lord. For whoso humbleth himself, him will God exalt (Matt, xxiii. 12). *?ga is not to be altered into $??& as in the Septuagint. This alteration has arisen from a total miscon- ception of the nature of true humility, which is of no worth in its own eyes. The rendering given by De Wette is at variance with both the grammar and the sense (" with the maidens,... with them will I magnify myself"); and so also is that of Thenius (" with them will I be honoured, i.e. indemnify myself for thy foolish contempt!"). — Ver. 23. Michal was humbled by God for her pride, and remained childless to the time of her death.

david's resolution to build a temple, the promised perpetuity of his throne. — chap. vii.

To the erection of a sanctuary for the ark upon Mount Zion there is appended an account of David's desire to build a temple for the Lord. We find this not only in the text before us, but also in the parallel history in 1 Chron. xvii. When David had acquired rest from his enemies round about, he formed the resolution to build a house for the Lord, and this resolution wras sanctioned by the prophet Nathan (vers. 1-3). But the Lord revealed to the prophet, and through him to David, that He had not required the building of a temple from any of the tribes of Israel, and that He would first of all build a house himself for His servant David, and confirm the throne to his seed for ever, and then he should build Him a temple (vers. 4-17). David then gave utterance to his thanksgiving for this glorious promise in a prayer, in which he praised the unmeasurable grace of God, and prayed for the fulfilment of this renewed promise of divine grace (vers. 18-29).1

1 With regard to the historical authenticity of this promise, Tholuck observes, in his Prophets and their Prophecies (pp. 165-6), that " it can be

proved, with all the evidence which is ever to be obtained in support of historical testimony, that David actually received a prophetic promise that his family should sit upon the throne for ever, and consequently an intimation of a royal descendant whose government should be eternal. Anything like a merely subjective promise arising from human combinations is precluded here by the fact that Nathan, acting according to the best of his knowledge, gave his consent to David's plan of building a temple; and that it was not till afterwards, when he had been instructed by a divine vision, that he did the very opposite, and assured him on the contrary that God would build him a house." Thenius also affirms that " there is no reason

for assuming, as De Wette has done, that Nathan's prophecies were not composed till after the time of Solomon;" that " their historical credibility

Vers. 1-3. When David was dwelling in his house, i.e. the palace of cedar (ch. v. 11), and Jehovah had given him rest from all his enemies round about, lie said to Nathan the prophet: " See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God dwelleth within the curtains." nXH!i? in the singular is used, in Ex. xxvi. 2 sqq., to denote the inner covering, com- is attested by Ps. lxxxix. (vers. 4, 5, 20-38, and especially ver. 20), Ps. cxxxii. 11, 12, and Isa. lv. 3; and that, properly interpreted, they are also Messianic." The principal evidence of this is to be found in the prophetic utterance of David in ch. xxiii., where, as is generally admitted, he takes a retrospective glance at the promise, and thereby attests the historical credibility of Nathan's prophecy (Thenius, p. 245). Nevertheless, Gust. Baur maintains that u a closer comparison of this more elaborate and simple description (ch. vii.) with the brief and altogether unexampled last words of David, more especially with 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, can hardly leave the slightest doubt, that the relation in which the chapter before us stands to these words, is that of a later expansion to an authentic prophetic utterance of the king himself." For example, the distinct allusion to the birth of Solomon, and the building of the temple, which was to be completed by him, is said to have evidently sprung from a later development of the original promise after the time of Solomon, on account of the incongruity apparent in Nathan's prediction between the ideal picture of the Israelitish monarchy and the definite allusion to Solomon's building of the temple. But there is no such '* incongruity" in Nathan's prediction; it is' only to be found in the naturalistic assumptions of Baur himself, that the utterances of the prophets contained nothing more than subjective and ideal hopes of the future, and not supernatural predictions. This also applies to Diestel's opinion, that the section vers. 4-16 does not harmonize with the substance of David's glorious prayer in vers. 18—29, nor the latter again with itself, because the advice given him to relinquish the idea of building the temple is not supported by any reasons that answer either to the character of David or to his peculiar circumstances, with which the allusion to his son would have been in perfect keeping; but the prophet's dissuasion merely alludes to the fact that Jehovah did not stand in need of a stately house at all, and had never given utterance to any such desire. On account of this ''obvious" fact, Diestel regards it as credible that the original dissuasion came from God, because it was founded upon an earlier view, but that the promise of the son of David which followed proceeded from Nathan, who no doubt looked with more favourable eyes upon the building of the temple. This discrepancy is also arbitrarily foisted upon the text. There is not a syllable about any u original dissuasion " in all that Nathan says; for he simply tells the king that Jehovah had hitherto dwelt in a tent, and had not asked any of the tribes of Israel to build a stately temple, but not that Jehovah did not need a stately house at all.

posed of a number of lengths of tapestry sewn together, which was spread over the planks of the tabernacle, and made it into a dwelling, whereas the separate pieces of tapestry are called D'y^T. in the plural; and hence, in the later writers, nfaFl* alternates sometimes with?nfc (Isa. liv. 2), and at other times with D^nfc (Song of Sol. i. 5; Jer. iv. 20, xlix. 29). Consequently ny»Tn refers here to the tent-cloth or tent formed of pieces of tapestry. " Within (i.e. surrounded by) the tent-cloth:" in the Chronicles we find " under curtains." From the words " when the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies round about," it is evident that David did not form the resolution to build the temple in the first years of his reign upon Zion, nor immediately after the completion of his palace, but at a later period (see the remarks on ch. v. 11, note). It is true that the giving of rest from all his enemies round about does not definitely presuppose the termination of all the greater wars of David, since it is not affirmed that this rest was a definitive one; but the words cannot possibly be restricted to the two victories over the Philistines (ch. v. 17-25), as Hengstenberg supposes, inasmuch as, however important the second may have been, their foes were not even permanently quieted by them, to say nothing of their being entirely subdued. Moreover, in the promise mentioned in ver. 9, God distinctly says, " I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies before thee." These words also show that at that time David had already fought against all the enemies round about, and humbled them. Now, as all David's principal wars are grouped together for the first time in ch. viii. and x., there can be no doubt that the history is not arranged in a strictly chronological order. And the expression " after this " in ch. viii. 1 is by no means at variance with this, since this formula does not at all express a strictly chronological sequence. From the words of the prophet, " Go, do all that is in thy heart, for the Lord is with thee," it is very evident that David had expressed the intention to build a splendid palatial temple. The word?j?, go (equivalent to u quite right "), is omitted in the Chronicles as superfluous. Nathan sanctioned the king's resolution " from his own feelings, and not by divine revelation " (J. H. Michaelis); but he did not "afterwards perceive that the time for carrying out this intention had not yet come," as Thenius and Bertheau maintain; on the contrary, the Lord God revealed to the prophet that David was not to carry out his intention at all.

Vers. 4-17. The revelation and promise of God. — Ver. 4. u That night" i.e. the night succeeding the day on which Nathan had talked with the king concerning the building of the temple, the Lord made known His decree to the prophet, with instructions to communicate it to the king. 'W ™?X<1, u Shouldest thou build me a house for me to dwell in?" The question involves a negative reply, and consequently in the Chronicles we find " thou shalt not." — Vers. 6, 7. The reason assigned for this answer: " I have not dwelt in a house from the day of the bringing up of Israel out of Egypt even to this dav, but I was wandering about in a tent and in a dwelling." " And in a dwelling" (inishcan) is to be taken as explanatory, viz. in a tent which was my dwelling. As a tent is a traveller's dwelling, so, as long as God's dwelling was a tent, He himself appeared as if travelling or going from place to place. " In the whole of the time that I walked among all the children of Israel,... have I spoken a word to one of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Wherefore have ye not built me a cedar house?" A " cedar house" is equivalent to a palace built of costly materials. The expression J>K-IB» *mv nn« (" one of the tribes of Israel") is a striking one, as the feeding of the nation does not appear to be a duty belonging to the " tribes," and in the Chronicles we have *t?DB> (judges) instead of *B3P (tribes). But if 'OBI? had been the original expression used in the text, it would be impossible to explain the origin and general acceptance of the word ^3^. For this very reason, therefore, we must regard *B31? as the original word, and understand it as referring to the tribes, which had supplied the nation with judges and leaders before the time of David, since the feeding, i.e. the government of Israel, which was in the hands of the judges, was transferred to the tribes to which the judges belonged. This view is confirmed by Ps. lxxviii. 67, 68, where the election of David as prince, and of Zion as the site of the sanctuary, is described as the election of the tribe of Judah and the rejection of the tribe of Ephraim. On the other hand, the assumption of Thenius, that ^tr, "shepherd-staffs," is used poetically for shepherds, cannot be established on the ground of Lev. xxvii. 32 and Micah vii. 14.

Jehovah gave two reasons why David's proposal to build Him a temple should not be carried out: (1) He had hitherto lived in a tent in the midst of His people; (2) He had not commanded any former prince or tribe to build a temple. This did not involve any blame, as though there had been something presumptuous in David's proposal, or in the fact that he had thought of undertaking such a work without an express command from God. but simply showed that it was not because of any negligence on the part of the former leaders of the people that they had not thought of erecting a temple, and that even now the time for carrying out such a work as that had not yet come. — Yer. 8. After thus declining his proposal, the Lord made known His gracious purpose to David: " Thus saith Jehovah of hosts" (not only Jehovah, as in ver. 5, but Jehovah Sebaoth, hecause He manifests himself in the following revelation as the God of the universe): " I have taken thee from the pasturage (grass-plat), behind the flock, to be prince over my people Israel; and was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and exterminated all thine enemies before thee, and so made thee, WtyP) (perfect with vav consec), a great name,... and created a place for my people Israel, and planted them, so that they dwell in their place, and do not tremble any more (before their oppressors); and the sons of wickedness do not oppress them any further, as at the beginning, and from the day when I appointed judges over my people Israel: and I create thee rest from all thine enemies. And Jehovah proclaims to thee, that Jehovah will make thee a house." The words rW\ ^V... &isn \o? are to be joined to n:i£>N"Q? « as in the beginning," i.e. in Egypt, and from the time of the judges; that is to say, during the rule of the judges, when the surrounding nations constantly oppressed and subjugated Israel. The plan usually adopted, of connecting the words with WTOrTjj does not yield any suitable thought at all, as God had not given David rest from the very beginning of the times of the judges; but the period of the judges was long antecedent to the time of David, and was not a period of rest for the Israelites. Again, *flrWQ] does not resume what is stated in ver. 9, and is not to be rendered as a preterite in the sense of " I have procured thee rest," but as a perfect with vav consec., u and I procure thee rest" from what is now about to come to pass. And T|ni is to be taken in the same way: the Lord shows thee, first of all through His promise (which follows), and then through the fact itself, the realization of His word. ^^3ni refers to the future, as well as the building of David's house, and therefore not to the rest from all his enemies, which God had already secured for David, but to that which He would still further secure for him, that is to say, to the maintenance and establishment of that rest. The commentary upon this is to be found in Ps. lxxxix. 22-24. In the Chronicles (ver. 10) there is a somewhat different turn given to the last clauses: " and I bend down all thine enemies, and make it (the bending-down) known to thee (by the fact), and a house will Jehovah build for thee." The thought is not essentially changed by this; consequently there is no ground for any emendation of the text, which is not even apparently necessary, unless, like Bertheau, we misinterpret the words, and connect ^i^ni erroneously with the previous clause.

The connection between vers. 5-7 and 8-16 has been correctly indicated by Thenius as follows: Thou shalt not build a house for Me; but I, who have from the very beginning glorified myself in thee and my people (vers. 8-11), will build a house for thee; and thy son shall erect a house for me (ver. 13). This thought is not merely "a play upon words entirely in the spirit of prophecy," but contains the deep general truth that God must first of all build a man's house, before the man can build God's house, and applies it especially to the kingdom of God in Israel. As long as the quiet and full possession of the land of Canaan, which had been promised by the Lord to the people of God for their inheritance, was disputed by their enemies round about, even the dwellingplace of their God could not assume any other form than that of a wanderer's tent. The kingdom of God in Israel first acquired its rest and consolation through the efforts of David, when God had made all his foes subject to him and established his throne firmly, i.e. had assured to his descendants the possession of the kingdom for all future time. And it was this which ushered in the time for the building of a stationary house as a dwelling for the name of the Lord, i.e. for the visible manifestation of the presence of God in the midst of His people. The conquest of the citadel of Zion and the elevation of this fortress into the palace of the king, whom the Lord had given to His people, formed the commencement of the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this commencement received its first pledge of perpetuity from the divine assurance that the throne of David should be established for all future time. And this the Lord was about to accomplish: He would build David a house, and then his seed should build the house of the Lord. No definite reason is assigned why David himself was not to build the temple. We learn this first of all from David's last words (1 Chron. xxviii. 3), in which he says to the assembled heads of the nation, " God said to me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou art a man of wars, and hast shed blood." Compare with this the similar words of David to Solomon in 1 Chron. xxii. 8, and Solomon's statement in his message to Hiram, that David had been prevented from building the temple in consequence of his many wars. It was probably not till afterwards that David was informed by Nathan what the true reason was. As Hengstenberg has correctly observed, the fact that David was not permitted to build the temple on account of his own personal unworthiness, did not involve any blame for what he had done; for David stood in a closer relation to the Lord than Solomon did, and the wars which he waced were wars of the Lord (1 Sam. xxv. 28) for the maintenance and defence of the kingdom of God. But inasmuch as these wars were necessary and inevitable, they were practical proofs that David's kingdom and government were not yet established, and therefore that the time for the building of the temple had not yet come, and the rest of peace was not yet secured. The temple, as the symbolical representation of the kingdom of God, was also to correspond to the nature of that kingdom, and shadow forth the peace of the kingdom of God. For this reason, David, the man of war, was not to build the temple; but that was to be reserved for Solomon, the man of peace, the type of the Prince of Peace (Isa. ix. 5).

In vers. 12-16 there follows a more precise definition of the way in which the Lord would build a house for His servant David: " When thy days shall become full, and thou shalt lie with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, who shall come from thy body, and establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I shall establish the throne of his kingdom for ever." ^?^, to set up, i.e. to promote to royal dignity. NV "^N is not to be altered into 6W "KPK, as Thenius and.others maintain. The assumption that Solomon had already been born, is an unfounded one (see the note to ch. v. 11, p. 319); and it by no means follows from the statement in ver. 1, to the effect that God had given David rest from all his enemies, that his resolution to build a temple was not formed till the closing years of his reign. — Vers. 14 sqq. " I icill be a father to him, and lie icill be a son to me; so that if he go astray, I shall chastise him with rods of men, and with strokes of the children of men {i.e. not 'with moderate punishment, such as parents are accustomed to inflict,' as Clericus explains it, but with such punishments as are inflicted upon all men who go astray, and from which even the seed of David is not to be excepted). But my mercy shall not depart from him, as I caused it to depart from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee; thy throne shall be established for ever? It is very obvious, from all the separate details of this promise, that it related primarily to Solomon, and had a certain fulfilment in him and his reign. ()n the death of David, his son Solomon ascended the throne, and God defended his kingdom against the machinations of Adonijah (1 Kings ii. 12); so that Solomon was able to say, " The Lord hath fulfilled His word that He spoke; for I have risen up in the stead of my father David," etc. (1 Kings viii. 20). Solomon built the temple, as the Lord said to David (1 Kings v. 19, viii. 15 sqq.). But in his old age Solomon sinned against the Lord by falling into idolatry; and as a punishment for this, after Lis death his kingdom was rent from his son, not indeed entirely, as one portion was still preserved to the family for David's sake (1 Kings xi. 9 sqq.). Thus the Lord punished him with rods of men, but did not withdraw from him Ilis grace. At the same time, however unmistakeable the allusions to Solomon are, the substance of the promise is not fully exhausted in him. The threefold repetition of the expression " for ever," the establishment of the kingdom and throne of David for ever, points incontrovertible beyond the time of Solomon, and to the eternal continuance of the seed of David. The word seed denotes the posterity of a person, which mav consist cither in one son or in several children, or in a long line of successive generations. The idea of a number of persons living at the same time, is here precluded by the context of the promise, as only one of David's successors could sit upon the throne at a time. On the other hand, the idea of a number of descendants following one another, is evidently contained in the promise, that God would not withdraw His favour from the seed, even if it went astray, as lie had done from Saul, since this implies that even in that case the throne should be transmitted from father to son. There is still more, however, involved in the expression " for ever." When the promise was ffiven that the throne of the kingdom of David should continue " to eternity," an eternal duration was also promised to the seed that should occupy this throne, just as in ver. 16 the house and kingdom of David are spoken of as existing for ever, side by side. We must not reduce the idea of eternity to the popular notion of a long incalculable period, but must take it in an absolute sense, as the promise is evidently understood in Ps. Ixxxix. 30: "I set his seed for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven." No earthly kingdom, and no posterity of any single man, has eternal duration like the heaven and the earth; but the different families of men become extinct, as the different earthly kingdoms perish, and other families and kingdoms take their place. The posterity of David, therefore, could only last for ever by running out in a person who lives for ever, i.e. by culminating in the Messiah, who lives for ever, and of whose kingdom there is no end. The promise consequently refers to the posterity of David, commencing with Solomon and closing with Christ: so that by the "seed" we are not to understand Solomon alone, with the kings who succeeded him, nor Christ alone, to the exclusion of Solomon and the earthly kings of the family of David; nor is the allusion to Solomon and Christ to be regarded as a double allusion to two different objects.

But if this is established, — namely, that the promise given to the seed of David that his kingdom should endure for ever only attained its ultimate fulfilment in Christ, — we must not restrict the building of the house of God to the erection of Solomon's temple. " The building of the house of the Lord goes hand in hand with the eternity of the kingdom" (Hengstenberg). As the kingdom endures for ever, so the house built for the dwelling-place of the Lord must also endure for ever, as Solomon said at tlie dedication of the temple (1 Kings viii. 13): "I have surely built Thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for Thee to abide in for ever." The everlasting continuance of Solomon's temple must not be reduced, however, to the simple fact, that even if the temple of Solomon should be destroyed, a new building would be erected in its place by the earthly descendants of Solomon, although this is also implied in the words, and the temple of Zerubbabel is included as the restoration of that of Solomon. For it is not merely in its earthly form, as a building of wood and stone, that the temple is referred to, but also and chiefly in its essential characteristic, as the place for the manifestation and presence of God in the midst of His people. The earthly form is perishable, the essence eternal. This essence was the dwelling of God in the midst of His people, which did not cease with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, but culminated in the appearance of Jesus Christ, in whom Jehovah came to His people, and, as God the Word, made human nature His dwelling-place (ecna)v(i)<jev ev rj/xtv, John i. 14) in the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father; so that Christ could say to the Jews, " Destroy this temple (i.e. the temple of His body), and in three days I will build it up again"' (John ii. 19). It is with this building up of the temple destroyed by the Jews, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that the complete and essential fulfilment of our promise begins. It is perpetuated within the Christian church in the indwelling of the Father and Son through the Holy Ghost in the hearts of believers (John xiv. 2o; 1 Cor. vi. 19), by which the church of Jesus Christ is built up a spiritual house of God, composed of living stones (1 Tim. iii. 15, 1 Pet. ii. 5; compare 2 Cor. vi. 16, Ileb. iii. G); and it will be perfected in the completion of the kingdom of God at the end of time in the new Jerusalem, which shall come down upon the new earth out of heaven from God, as the true tabernacle of God with men (Rev. xxi. 1-3).

As the building of the house of God receives its fulfilment first of all through Christ, so the promise, " I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son," is first fully realized in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the heavenly Father ( vid. Ileb. i. 5). In the Old Testament the relation between father and son denotes the deepest intimacy of love; and love is perfected in unity of nature, in the communication to the son of all that the father hath. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand (John iii. 35). Sonship therefore includes the government of the world. This not only applied to Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, but also to the seed of David generally, so far as they truly attained to the relation of children of God. So long as Solomon walked in the ways of the Lord, he ruled over all the kingdoms from the river (Euphrates) to the border of Egypt (1 Kings v. 1); but when his heart turned away from the Lord in his old age, adversaries rose up against him (1 Kings xi. 14 sqq., 23 sqq.), and after his death the greater part of the kingdom was rent from his son. The seed of David was chastised for its sins; and as its apostasy continued, it was humbled yet more and more, until the earthly throne of David became extinct. Nevertheless the Lord did not cause His mercy to depart from him. When the house of David had fallen into decay, Jesus Christ was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, to raise up the throne of His father David again, and to reign for ever as King over the house of Jacob (Luke i. 32, 33), and to establish the house and kingdom of David for ever. — In ver. 16, where the promise returns to David again with the words, " thy house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever," the expression T«!?? (before thee), which the LXX. and Syriac have arbitrarily changed into ^B? (before me), should be particularly observed. David, as the tribe-father and founder of the line of kings, is regarded either " as seeing all his descendants pass before him in a vision," as O. v. Gerlach supposes, or as continuing to exist in his descendants. — Yer. 17. u According to all these words... did Nathan speak unto David" i.e. he related the whole to David, just as God had addressed it to him in the night. The clause in apposition, u according to all this vision," merely introduces a more minute definition of the peculiar form of the revelation. God spoke to Nathan in a vision which he had in the night, i.e. not in a dream, but in a waking condition, and during the night; for j^jn = ptn is constantly distinguished from Dfrn, a revelation in a dream.

Vers. 18-29. David's prayer and thanksgiving. — Ver. 18. King David came, i.e. went into the sanctuary erected upon Zion, and remained before Jehovah. DK^|, remained, tarried (as

3o0 mi: second book of samuel in Gen. xxiv. 55, xxix. 19, etc.), not " sat;" for the custom of sitting before the Lord in die sanctuary, as the posture assumed in prayer, cannot be deduced from Ex. xvii. 12, where Moses is compelled to sit from simple exhaustion. David's prayer consists of two parts, — thanksgiving for the promise (vers. 186-24), and supplication for its fulfilment (vers. 25-29). The thanksgiving consists of a confession of unworthiness of all the great things that the Lord had hitherto done for him, and which He had still further increased by this glorious promise (vers. 18-21), and praise to the Lord that all this had been done in proof of His true Deity, and to glorify His name upon His chosen people Israel. — Ver. 186. " Who am i, 0 Lord Jehovah? and who my house (i.e. my family), that Thou Itast brought me hitherto?" These words recal Jacob's prayer in Gen. xxxii. 10, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies," etc. David acknowledged himself to be unworthy of the great mercy which the Lord had displayed towards him, that he might give the glory to God alone (vid. Vs. viii. 5 and cxliv. 3). — Ver. 19. " And this is still too little in Thine eyes, 0 Lord Jehovah, and Thou still speakest with regard to the house of Thy servant for a great while to come." pirnpPj lit, that which points to a remote period, i.e. that of the eternal establishment of my house and throne. u And this is the law of man, 0 Lord Jehovah.'" "The law of man" is the law which determines or regulates the conduct of man. Hence the meaning of these words, which have been very differently interpreted, cannot, with the context immediately preceding it, be any other than the following: This — namely, the love and condescension manifested in Thy treatment of Thy servant — is the law which applies to man, or is conformed to the law which men are to observe towards men, i.e. to the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev. xix. 18, compare Micah vi. 8). With this interpretation, which is confirmed by the parallel text of the Chronicles (in ver. 17), "Thou sawest (i.e. visitedst me, or didst deal with me) according to the manner of man," the words are expressive of praise of the condescending grace of the Lord. " When God the Lord, in His treatment of poor mortals, follows the rule which lie has laid down for the conduct of men one towards another, when He shows himself kind and affectionate, this must fill with adoring amazement those who know themselves and God ' (Ilengstenberg). Luther is wrong in the rendering which he has adopted: "This is the manner of a man, who is God the Lord;" for " Lord Jehovah " is not an explanatory apposition to " man," but an address to God, as in the preceding and following clause. — Ver. 20. u And what more shall David speak to Thee? Thou hwwest Thy servant, Lord Jehovah." Instead of expressing his gratitude still further in many words, David appeals to the omniscience of God, before whom his thankful heart lies open, just as in Ps. xl. 10 (compare also Ps. xvii. 3). — Ver. 21. "For Thy ivorrfs sake, and according to Thy heart (and therefore not because I am worthy of such grace), hast Thou done all this greatness, to make it known to Thy servaid." The word, for the sake of which God had done such great things for David, must be some former promise on the part of God. Hengstenberg supposes it to refer to the word of the Lord to Samuel, "Pise up and anoint him" (1 Sam. xvi. 12), which is apparently favoured indeed by the parallel in the corresponding text of 1 Chron. xvii. 19, "for Thy servant's sake," i.e. because Thou hast chosen Thy servant. But even this variation must contain some special allusion which does not exclude a general interpretation of the expression " for Thy word's sake," viz. an allusion to the earlier promises of God, or the Messianic prophecies generally, particularly the one concerning Judah in Jacob's blessing (Gen. xlix. 10), and the one relating to the ruler out of Jacob in Balaam's sayings (Num. xxiv. 17 sqq.), which contain the germs of the promise of the everlasting continuance of David's government. For the fact that David recognised the connection between the promise of God communicated to him by Nathan and Jacob's prophecy in Gen. xlix. 10, is evident from 1 Chron. xxviii. 4, where he refers to his election as king as being the consequence of the election of Judah as ruler. " According to Thine own heart " is equivalent to " according to Thy love and grace; for God is gracious, merciful, and of great kindness and truth" (Ex. xxxiv. 6, compare Ps. ciii. 8). n?Vl3 does not mean great things, but greatness.

The praise of God commences in ver. 22: " Wherefore Thou art great, Jehovah God; and there is not (one) like Thee, and no God beside Thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears." By the word "wherefore," i.e. because Thou hast done this, the praise of the singleness of God is set forth as the result of David's own experience. God is great when He manifests the greatness of His grace to men, and brings them to acknowledge it. And in these great deeds lie proves the incomparable nature of His Deity, or that He alone is the true God. (For the fact itself, compare Ex. xv. 11; Deut. iii. 24, iv. 35.) — Ver. 23. u And where is (any) like Thy people, like Israel, a nation upon earth, which God went to redeem as a people for himself that lie might make Him a name, and do great things for yon, and terrible things for Thy land before 'Thy people, which Thou hast redeemed for Thee out of Egypt, (out of the) nations and their gods?" *0 does not really mean where, but who, and is to be connected with the words immediately following, viz. ins *Sl (one nation); but the only way in which the words can be rendered into good English (German in the original: Tr.) is, "where is there any people," etc. The relative "1EW does not belong to wH, which follows immediately afterwards; but, so far as the sense is concerned, it is to be taken as the object to ™i??, " which Elohim went to redeem." The construing of Elohim with a plural arises from the fact, that in this clause it not only refers to the true God, but also includes the idea of the gods of other nations. The idea, therefore, is not, " Is there any nation upon earth to which the only true God went?" but, "Is there any nation to which the deity worshipped by it went, as the true God went to Israel to redeem it for His own people?" The rendering given in the Septuagint to w»J, viz. wh'f/rjaev, merely arose from a misapprehension of the true sense of the words; and the emendation T^n, which some propose in consequence, would only distort the sense. The stress laid upon the incomparable character of the things which God had done for Israel, is merely introduced to praise and celebrate1 the (Jod who did this as the only true (Jod. (For the thought itself, compare the original passage in Deut. iv. 7, 34.) In the clause D3^ frffe^l, "and to do for you," David addresses the people of Israel with oratorical vivacity. Instead of saying " to do great things to (for) Israel," he says "to do great things to (for) you," For you forms an antithesis to him, "to make Him a name, and to.do great things for you (Israel)." The suggestion made by some, that D3J is to be taken as a dativ. comm., and referred to Elohim, no more needs a serious refutation than the alteration into DHJ. There have been different opinions, however, as to the object referred to in the suffix attached to ^I^P, and it is difficult to decide between them; for whilst the fact that ^ViN? riixn: (terrible things to Thy land) is governed by JWJJ? (to do) favours the allusion to Israel, and the sudden transition from the plural to the singular might be accounted for from the deep emotion of the person speaking, the words which follow ("before Thy people") rather favour the allusion to God, as it does not seem natural to take the suffix in two different senses in the two objects which follow so closely the one upon the other, viz. u for Thy land" and " before Thy people;" whilst the way is prepared for a transition from speaking of God to speaking to God by the word DIP (to you). The words of Deut. x. 21 floated before the mind of David at the time, although he has given them a different turn. (On the " terrible things," see the commentary on Deut. x. 21 and Ex. xv. 11.) The connection of riiNlj (terrible things) with IVI^P (to Thy land) shows that David had in mind, when speaking of the acts of divine omnipotence which had inspired fear and dread of the majesty of God, not only the miracles of God in Egypt, but also the marvellous extermination of the Canaanites, whereby Israel had been established in the possession of the promised land, and the people of God placed in a condition to found a kingdom. These acts were performed before Israel, before the nation, whom the Lord redeemed to himself out of Egypt. This view is confirmed by the last words, " nations and their gods," which are in apposition to " from Egypt," so that the preposition \0 should be repeated before D^a (nations). The suffix to lwKJ (literally "and its gods") is to be regarded as distributive: "the gods of each of these heathen nations." In the Chronicles (ver. 21) the expression is simplified, and explained more clearly by the omission of " to Thy land," and the insertion of &nj?, " to drive out nations from before Thy people." It has been erroneously inferred from this, that the text of our book is corrupt, and ought to be emended, or at any rate interpreted according to the Chronicles. But whilst 1>*"!^? is certainly not to be altered into EH}?, it is just as wrong to do as Hengstenberg proposes, — namely, to take the thought expressed in KHJ?

from the preceding JWjfr by assuming a zeugma; for HKty, to do or make, has nothing in common with driving or clearing away. — Ver. 24. " And Thou hast established to thyself Thy people Israel to be a people unto Thee for ever: and Thou, Jehovah, hast become a God to them" The first clause does not refer merely to the liberation of Israel out of Egypt, or to the conquest of Canaan alone, but to all that the Lord had done for the establishment of Israel as the people of His possession, from the time of Moses till His promise of the eternal continuance of the throne of David. Jehovah had thereby become God to the nation of Israel, i.e. had thereby attested and proved himself to be its God.

To this praise of the acts of the Lord there is attached in vers. 25 sqq. the prayer for the fulfilment of His glorious promise. Would Jehovah set up (i.e. carry out) the word which He had spoken to His servant that His name might be great, i.e. be glorified, through its being said, " The Lord of Sabaoth is God over Israel," and "the house of Thy servant will be firm before Thee." The prayer is expressed in the form of confident assurance. — Ver. 27. David felt himself encouraged to offer this prayer through the revelation which he had received. Because God had promised to build him a house, " therefore Thy servant hath found in his heart to pray this prayer," i.e. hath found joy in doing so. — Vers. 28, 29. David then briefly sums up the two parts of his prayer of thanksgiving in the two clauses commencing with nnyi} " and now." — In ver. 28 he sums up the contents of vers. 186-24 by celebrating the greatness of the Lord and His promise; and in ver. 29 the substance of the prayer in vers. 25-27. T}J? *?nj may it please Thee to bless (^Nin; see at Deut. i. 5). " And from (out of) Thy blessing may the house of Thy servant be blessed for ever."

To the promise of the establishment of his throne there is appended a general enumeration of the wars by which David secured the supremacy of [srael over all his enemies round about. In this survey all the nations are included with which war had ever been waged by David, and which he had conquered and rendered tributary: the Philistines and Moabites, the Syrians of Zobah and Damascus, Toi of Hamath, the Ammonites, Amalekites, and Edomites. It is very evident from this, that the chapter before us not only treats of the wars which David carried on after receiving the divine promise mentioned in ch. vii., but of all the wars of his entire reign. The only one of which we have afterwards a fuller account is the war with the Ammonites and their allies the Syrians (ch. x. and xi.), and this is given on account of its connection with David's adulterv. In the survey before us, the war with the Ammonites is only mentioned quite cursorily in ver. 12, in the account of the booty taken from the different nations, which David dedicated to the Lord. With regard to the other wars, so far as the principal purpose was concerned, — namely, to record the history of the kingdom of God, — it was quite sufficient to give a general statement of the fact that these nations were smitten by David and subjected to his sceptre. But if this chapter contains a survey of all the wars of David with the nations that were hostile to Israel, there can be no doubt that the arrangement of the several events is not strictly regulated by their chronological order, but that homogeneous events are grouped together according to a material point of view. There is a parallel to this chapter in 1 Chron. xviii.

Ver. 1. Subjugation of the Philistines. — In the introductory formula, " And it came to pass afterwards" the expression " afterwards " cannot refer specially to the contents of ch. vii., for reasons also given, but simply serves as a general formula of transition to attach what follows to the account just completed, as a thing that happened afterwards. This is incontestably evident from a comparison of ch. x. 1, where the war with the Ammonites and Syrians, the termination and result of which are given in the present chapter, is attached to what precedes by the same formula, " It came to pass afterwards " (cf. eh. xiii. 1). " David smote the Philistines and subdued them, and took the bridle of the mother out of the hand cf the Philistines" i.e. wrested the government from them and made them tributary. The figurative expression Metheg-ammah, u bridle of the mother," i.e. the capital, has been explained by Alb. Schultens

(on Job xxx. 11) from an Arabic idiom, in which giving up one's bridle to another is equivalent to submitting to him. Gesenius also gives several proofs of this (Thes. p. 113). Others, for example Ewald, render it arm-bridle; but there is not a single passage to support the rendering u arm " for ammah. The word is a feminine form of DK, mother, and only used in a tropical sense. u Mother " is a term applied to the chief city or capital, both in Arabic and Phoenician (vid. Ges. Thes. p. 112). The same figure is also adopted in Hebrew, where the towns dependent upon the capital are called its daughters (vid. Josh. xv. 45, 47). In 1 Chron. xviii. 1 the figurative expression is dropped for the more literal one: " David took Gath and its daughters out of the hand of the Philistines," i.e. he wrested Gath and the other towns from the Philistines. The Philistines had really five cities, every one with a prince of its own (Josh. xiii. 3). This was the case even in the time of Samuel (1 Sam. vi. 16, 17). But in the closing years of Samuel, Gath had a king who stood at the head of all the princes of the Philistines (1 Sam. xxix. 2 sqq., cf. xxvii. 2). Thus Gath became the capital of the land of the Philistines, which held the bridle (or reins) of Philistia in its own hand. The author of the Chronicles has therefore given the correct explanation of the figure. The one suggested by Ewald, Bertheau, and others, cannot be correct, — namely, that David wrested from the Philistines the power which they had hitherto exercised over the Israelites. The simple meaning of the passage is, that David wrested from the Philistines the power which the capital had possessed over the towns dependent upon it, i.e. over the whole of the land of Philistia; in other words, he brought the capital (Gath) and the other towns of Philistia into his own power. The reference afterwards made to a kino; of Gath in the time of Solomon in 1 Kings ii. 39 is by no means at variance with this; for the king alluded to was one of the tributary sovereigns, as we may infer from the fact that Solomon ruled over all the kings on this side of the Euphrates as far as to Gaza (1 Kings v. 1, 4).

Ver. 2. Subjugation of Moan. — uHe smot Moah (i.e. the Moabites), and measured (hem with the line, making them lie down upon the ground, and measured two lines (i.e. two pan-)

to put to death, and one line full to keep alive." Nothing further is known about either the occasion or the history of this war, with the exception of the cursory notice in 1 Chron. xi. 22, that Benaiah, one of David's heroes, smote two sons of the king of Moab, which no doubt took place in the same war. In the earliest period of his flight from Saul, David had met with a hospitable reception from the king of Moab, and had even taken his parents to him for safety (1 Sam. xxii. 3, 4). But the Moabites must have very grievously oppressed the Israelites afterwards, that David should have inflicted a severer punishment upon them after their defeat, than upon any other of the nations that he conquered, with the exception of the Ammonites (ch. xii. 31), upon whom he took vengeance for having most shamefully insulted his ambassadors (ch. x. 2 sqq.). The punishment inflicted, however, was of course restricted to the fighting men who had been taken prisoners by the Israelites. They were ordered to lie down in a row upon the earth; and then the row was measured for the purpose of putting two-thirds to death, and leaving one-third alive. The Moabites were then made " servants " to David {i.e. they became his subjects), "bringing gifts" {i.e. paying tribute).

situation of Zobah cannot be determined. The view held by the Syrian church historians, and defended by Michaelis, viz. that Zobah was the ancient Nisibis in northern Mesopotamia, has no more foundation to rest upon than that of certain Jewish writers who suppose it to have been A leppo, the present Haleb. Aleppo is too far north for Zobah, and Nisibis is quite out of the range of the towns and tribes in connection with which the name of Zobah occurs. In 1 Sam. xiv. 47, compared with ver. 12 of this chapter, Zobah, or Aram Zobah as it is called in ch. x. G and Ps. lx. 2, is mentioned along with Ammon, Moab, and Edom, as a neighbouring tribe and kingdom to the Israelites; and, according to vers. 3, 5, and 9 of the present chapter, it is to be sought for in the vicinity of Damascus and Hamath towards the Euphrates. These data point to a situation to the north-east of Damascus and south of Hamath, between the Orontes and Euphrates, and in fact extending as far as the latter according to ver. 3, whilst, according to ch. x. 16, it even reached beyond it with its vassal-chiefs into Mesopotamia itself. Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 195) has therefore combined Zobah, which was no doubt the capital, and gave its name to the kingdom, with the Sale mentioned in Ptol. v. 19, — a town in the same latitude as Damascus, and farther east towards the Euphrates. The king of Zobah at the time referred to is called Hadadezer in the text (i.e. whose help is Iladad); but in ch. x. 1G-19 and throughout the Chronicles he is called Iladarezer. The first is the original form; for Iladad, the name of the sun-god of the Syrians, is met with in several other instances in Syrian names (vid. Movers, Plionizier). David smote this king " as he was going to restore his strength at the river (Euphrates)." IT 2W does not mean to turn his hand, but signifies to return his hand, to stretch it out again over or against any one, in all the passages in which the expression occurs. It is therefore to be taken in a derivative sense in the passage before us, as signifying to restore or re-establish his sway. The expression used in the Chronicles (ver. 3), fa) ^JfHj lias just the same meaning, since establishing or making fast presupposes a previous weakening or dissolution. Hence the subject of the sentence aas he went," etc., must be Hadadezer and not David; for David could not have extended his power to the Euphrates before the defeat of Hadadezer. The Masoretes have interpolated P'rath (Euphrates) after " the river" as in the text of the Chronicles. This is correct enough so far as the sense is concerned, but it is by no means necessary, as the nahar (the river k. ef.) is quite sufficient of itself to indicate the Euphrates. There is also a war between David and Hadadezer and other kings of Svria mentioned in ch. x.; and the commentators all admit that that war, in which David defeated these kin^s when they came to the help of the Ammonites, is connected with the war mentioned in the present chapter. But the connection is generally supposed to be this, that the first of David's Aramaean wars is given in ch. viii., the second in ch. x.; for no other reason, however, than because ch. x. stands after ch. viii. This view is decidedly an erroneous one. According to the chapter before us, the war mentioned there terminated in the complete subjugation of the Aranuean kings and kingdoms. Aram became subject to David, paying tribute (ver. 6). Now, though the revolt of subjugated nations from their conquerors is by no means a rare thing in history, and therefore it is perfectly conceivable in itself that the Aramaeans should have fallen away from David when he was involved in the war with the Ammonites, and should have gone to the help of the Ammonites, such an assumption is precluded by the fact that there is nothing in ch. x. about any falling away or revolt of the Aramaeans from David; but, on the contrary, these tribes appear to be still entirely independent of David, and to be hired by the Ammonites to fight against him. But what is absolutely decisive against this assumption, is the fact that the number of Aramaeans killed in the two wars is precisely the same (compare ver. 4 with ch. x. 18): so that it may safely be inferred, not only that the war mentioned in ch. x., in which the Aramaeans who had come to the help of the Ammonites were smitten by David, was the very same as the Aramaean war mentioned in ch. viii., but of which the result only is given; but also that all the wars which David waged with the Aramaeans, like his war with Edom (vers. 13 sqq.), arose out of the Ammonitish war (ch. x.), and the fact that the Ammonites enlisted the help of the kings of Aram against David (ch. x. 6). We also obtain from ch. x. an explanation of the expression " as he went to restore his power (Eng. Ver. ' recover his border') at the river," since it is stated there that Hadadezer was defeated by Joab the first time, and that, after sustaining this defeat, he called the Aramaeans on the other side of the Euphrates to his assistance, that he might continue the war against Israel with renewed vigour (ch. x. 13, 15 sqq.). The power of Hadadezer had no doubt been crippled by his first defeat; and in order to restore it, he procured auxiliary troops from Mesopotamia with which to attack David, but he was defeated a second time, and obliged to submit to him (ch. x. 17, 18). In this second engagement "David took from him (i.e. captured) seventeen hundred horse-soldiers and, twenty thousand, foot" (ver. 4, compare ch. x. 18). This decisive battle took place, according to 1 Chron. xviii. 3, in the neighbourhood of Hamath, i.e. Epiphania on the Orontes (see at Num. xiii. 21, and Gen. x. 18), or, according to ch. x. 18 of this book, at Helam, — a difference which may easily be reconciled by the simple assumption that the unknown Helam was somewhere near to Hamath. Instead of 1700 horse-soldiers, we find in the Chronicles (1, xviii. 4) 1000 chariots and 7000 horsemen. Consequently the word receb has no doubt dropped out after ^X in the text before us, and the numeral denoting a thousand has been confounded with the one used to denote a hundred; for in the plains of Syria seven thousand horsemen would be a much juster proportion to twenty thousand foot than seventeen hundred. (For further remarks, see at ch. x. 18.) u And David lamed all the cavalry" i.e. he made the war-chariots and cavalry perfectly useless by laming the horses (see at Josh. xi. 6, 9), — " and only left a hundred horses." The word receb in these clauses signifies the war-horses generally, — not merely the carriage-horses, but the riding-horses as well, — as the meaning cavalry is placed beyond all doubt by Isa. xxi. 7, and it can hardlv be imagined that David would have spared the ridinghorses. — Vers. 5, 6. After destroying the main force of Iladadezer, David turned against his ally, against Aram-Damascus, i.e. the Aramaeans, whose capital was Damascus. Dammeseh (for which we have Darmexek in the Chronicles according to its Aramaean form), Damascus, a very ancient and still a very important city of Syria, standing upon the Chrysorrhoas (Pharpar), which flows through the centre of it. It is situated in the midst of paradisaical scenery, on the eastern side of the Antilibanus, on the road which unites Western Asia with the interior. David smote 22,000 Syrians of Damascus, placed garrisons in the kingdom, and made it subject and tributary. B^¥3 are not governors or officers, but military posts, garrisons, as in 1 Sam. x. 5, xiii. 3. — Vcr. 7. Of the booty taken in these wars, David carried the golden shields which he took from the servants, i.e. the governors and vassal princes, of Iladadezer, to Jerusalem.1 Shelet signifies aa shield," according to the Tarjiums

1 The Septuagint has this additional clause: u And Shishak the king of Egypt took them away, when he went up against Jerusalem in the days of Rehoboam the son of Solomon," which is neither to be found in the Chronicles nor in any other ancient version, and is merely an inference drawn by the Greek translator, or by some copyist of the LXX., from 1 Kings xiv. 25-28, taken in connection with the fact that the application of the brass is given in 1 Chron. xviii. <s. But, in the first place, the author of this gloss has overlooked the fact that the golden shields of Kehoboam which Shishak carried away, were not those captured by David, but those and Rabbins, and this meaning is applicable to all the passages in which the word occurs; whilst the meaning " equivalent " cannot be sustained either by the rendering iravoTrkia adopted by Aquila and Symmachns in 2 Kings xi. 10, or by the renderings of the "Vulgate, viz. arma in loc. and armatura in Song of Sol. iv. 4, or by an appeal to the etymology (vid. Gesenius' Thes. and Dietrich's Lexicon). — Ver. 8. And from the cities of Betacli and Berothai David took very much brass, with which, according to 1 Chron. xviii. 8, Solomon made the brazen sea, and the brazen columns and vessels of the temple. The LXX. have also interpolated this notice into the text. The name Betacli is given as Tibhath in the Chronicles; and for Berothai we have Chun. As the towns themselves are unknown, it cannot be decided with certainty which of the forms and names are the correct and original ones. n*??P appears to have been written by mistake for nntsrp. This supposition is favoured by the rendering of the LXX., eV ttj^ Mereftaic; and by that of the Syriac also (viz. Tebach). On the other hand, the occurrence of the name Tebah among the sons of Nalwr the Aramwan in Gen. xxii. 24 proves little or nothing, as it is not known that he founded a family which perpetuated his name; nor can anything be inferred from the fact that, according to the more modern maps, there is a town of Tayibeh to the north of Damascus in 35° north lat., as there is very little in common between the names Tayibeh and Tebah. Ewald connects Berothai with the Barathena of Ptol. v. 19 in the neighbourhood of Saba. The connection is a possible one, but it is not sufficiently certain to warrant us in founding any conclusions upon it with regard to the name Chun which occurs in the Chronicles; so that there is which Solomon had had made, according to 1 Kings x. 16, for the retainers of his palace; and in the second place, he has not observed that, according to ver. 11 of this chapter, and also of the Chronicles, David dedicated to the Lord all the gold and silver that he had taken, i.e. put it in the treasury of the sanctuary to be reserved for the future temple, and that at the end of his reign he handed over to his son and successor Solomon all the gold, silver, iron, and brass that he had collected for the purpose, to be applied to the building of the temple (1 Chron. xxii. 14 sqq., xxix. 2 sqq.). Consequently the clause in question, which Thenius would adopt from the Septuagint into our own text, is nothing more than the production of a presumptuous Alexandrian, whose error lies upon the very surface, so that the question of its genuineness cannot for a moment be entertained.

no ground whatever for the opinion that it is a corruption of Berothai.

Vers. 9-12k After the defeat of the king of Zobali and his allies, Toi king of Hamath sought for David's friendship, sending his son to salute him, and conveying to him at the same time a considerable present of vessels of silver, gold, and brass. The name Toi is written Tou in the Chronicles, according to a different mode of interpretation; and the name of the son is given as Iladoram in the Chronicles, instead of Joram as in the text before us. The former is evidently the true reading, and Joram an error of the pen, as the Israelitish name Joram is not one that we should expect to find among Aramaeans; whilst Hadoram occurs in 1 Chron. i. 21 in the midst of Arabic names, and it cannot be shown that the Iladoram or Adoram mentioned in 2 Chron. x. 18 and 1 Kino\s xii. 18 was a man of Israelitish descent. The primary object of the mission was to salute David ("to ask him of peace;" cf. Gen. xliii. 27, etc.), and to congratulate him upon his victory (" to bless him because he had fought," etc.); for Toi had had wars with Hadadezer. "A man of wars" signifies a man who wages wars (cf. 1 Chron. xxviii. 3; Isa. xlii. 13). According to 1 Chron. xviii. 3, the territory of the king of Hamath bordered upon that of Hadadezer, and the latter had probably tried to make king Toi submit to him. The secret object of the salutation, however, was no doubt to secure the friendship of this new and powerful neighbour.— Vers. 11, 12. David also sanctified Toi's presents to the Lord (handed them over to the treasury of the sanctuary), together with the silver and gold which he had sanctified from all the conquered nations, from Aram, Moab, etc. Instead of Wipn Tj'K the text of the Chronicles has MM TC:X, which he took, i.e. took as booty. Both are equally correct; there is simply a somewhat different turn given to the thought.1 In the enumeration of the conquered nations in ver. 12, the text of the Chronicles differs from that of the book before us. In the

1 Bertheau erroneously maintains that K8M "1"'X, which he took, is at variance with 2 Sam. viii. 7, as, according to this passage, the golden shields <>f Hadadezer did not become the property of the Lord. But there is not, a word to that effect in 2 Sain. viii. 7. On the contrary, his taking the shields to Jerusalem implies, rather than precludes, the intention to devote them to the purposes of the sanctuary.

first place, we find "from Edom" instead of "from Aram;" and secondly, the clause " and of the spoil of Hadadezer, son of Rehob Mug of Zobah" is altogether wanting there. The text of the Chronicles is certainly faulty here, as the name of Aram (Syria) could not possibly be omitted. Edom could much better be left out, not " because the conquest of Edom belonged to a later period," as Movers maintains, but because the conquest of Edom is mentioned for the first time in the subsequent verses. But if we bear in mind that in ver. 12 of both texts not only are those tribes enumerated the conquest of which had been already noticed, but all the tribes that David ever defeated and subjugated, even the Ammonites and Amalekites, to the war with whom no allusion whatever is made in the present chapter, we shall see that Edom could not be omitted. Consequently " from Syria " must have dropped out of the text of the Chronicles, and u from Edom" out of the one before us; so that the text in both instances ran originally thus, " from Syria, and from Edom, and from Moab." For even in the text before us, " from Aram" (Syria) could not well be omitted, notwithstanding the fact that the booty of Hadadezer is specially mentioned at the close of the verse, for the simple reason that David not only made war upon Syria-Zobah (the kingdom of Hadadezer) and subdued it, but also upon Syria- Damascus, which was quite independent of Zobah.

Vers. 13, 14. " And David made (himself) a name, ivhen he returned from smiting (i.e. from the defeat of) Aram, (and smote Eclom) in the valley of Salt, eighteen thousand men." The words enclosed in brackets are wanting in the Masoretic text as it has come down to us, and must have fallen out from a mistake of the copyist, whose eye strayed from D'lNVlK to DHNVIK; for though the text is not " utterly unintelligible " without these words, since the passage might be rendered " after he had smitten Aram in the valley of Salt eighteen thousand men," yet this would be decidedly incorrect, as the Aramaeans were not smitten in the valley of Salt, but partly at Medeba (1 Chron. xix. 7) and Helam (ch. x. 17), and partly in their own land, which was very far away from the Salt valley. Moreover, the difficulty presented by the text cannot be removed, as Movers supposes, by changing Cns~nx (Syria) into DHNTIS (Edom), as the expression i^3 ("when he returned") would still be unexplained. The facts were probably these: Whilst David, or rather Israel, was entangled in the war with the Ammonites and Aramaeans, the Edomites seized upon the opportunity, which appeared to them a very favourable one, to invade the land of Israel, and advanced as far as the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. As soon, therefore, as the Aramaeans were defeated and subjugated, and the Israelitish army had returned from this war, David ordered it to march against the Edomites, and defeated them in the valley of Salt. This valley cannot have been any other than the Ghor adjoining the Salt mountain on the south of the Dead Sea, which really separates the ancient territories of Judah and Edom (Robinson, Pal. ii. 483). There Amaziah also smote the Edomites at a later period (2 Kings xiv. 7). We gather more concerning this war of David from the text of the Chronicles (ver. 12) taken in connection with 1 Kings xi. 15, 16, and Ps. lx. 2. According to the Chronicles, it was Abishai the son of Zeruiah who smote the Edomites. This agrees very well not only with the account in ch. x. 10 sqq., to the effect that Abishai commanded a company in the war with the Syrians and Ammonites under the generalship of his brother Joab, but also with the heading to Ps. lx., in which it is stated that Joab returned after the defeat of Aram, and smote the Edomites in the valley of Salt, twelve thousand men; and with 1 Kings xi. 15, 16, in which we read that when David was in Edom, Joab, the captain of the host, came up to bury the slain, and smote every male in Edom, and remained six months in Edom with all Israel, till he had cut off every male in Edom. From this casual but yet elaborate notice, we learn that the war with the Edomites was a very obstinate one, and was not terminated all at once. The difference as to the number slain, which is stated to have been 18,000 in the text before us and in the Chronicles, and 12,000 in the heading to Ps. lx., may be explained in a very simple manner, on the supposition that the reckonings made were only approximative, and yielded different results;1 and the fact that David is named

1 Michaelis adduces a case in point from the Seven Years' War. After the battle of J.issa, eight or twelve thousand men were reported to have been taken prisoners; but when they were all counted, including those who fell into the hands of the conquerors on the second, third, and fourth days of the flight, the number amounted to 22,000.

as the victor in the verse before us, Joab in Ps. lx., and Abisliai in the Chronicles, admits of a very easy explanation after what has just been observed. The Chronicles contain the most literal account. Abishai smote the Edomites as commander of the men engaged, Joab as commander-in-chief of the whole army, and David as king and supreme governor, of whom the writer of the Chronicles affirms, " The Lord helped David in all his undertakings." After the defeat of the Edomites, David placed garrisons in the land, and made all Edom subject to himself.

Vers. 15-18. David's Ministers. — To the account of David's wars and victories there is appended a list of his official attendants, which is introduced with a general remark as to the spirit of his government. As king over all Israel, David continued to execute right and justice. — Ver. 16. The chief ministers were the following: — Joab (see at ch. ii. 18) was " over the army" i.e. commander-in-chief. Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud, of whom nothing further is known, was mazcir, chancellor; not merely the national annalist, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate (eVt rcov vTrofivrj/jLaTcov, vTro/ivy/jiaTo- <ypa(f)o<;; a commentariis), i.e. the recorder of the most important incidents and affairs of the nation, but an officer resembling the magister memories of the later Romans, or the waka nuvis of the Persian court, who keeps a record of everything that takes place around the king, furnishes him with an account of all that occurs in the kingdom, places his vise upon all the king's commands, and keeps a special protocol of all these things (via1. Chardin, Voyages v. p. 258, and Paulsen, Eegierung der MorgenlandeV) pp. 279-80). — Ver. 17. Zadoh the son of Ahitub, of the line of Eleazar (1 Chron. v. 34, vi. 37, 38), and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, were cohanim, i.e. officiating high priests; the former at the tabernacle at Gibeon (1 Chron. xvi. 39), the latter probably at the ark of the covenant upon Mount Zion. Instead of Ahimelech, the Chronicles have Abimelech, evidently through a copyist's error, as the name is written Ahimelech in 1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 6. But the expression " Ahimelech the son of Abiathar" is apparently a very strange one, as Abiathar wTas a son of Ahimelech according to 1 Sam. xxii. 20, and in other passages Zadoh and Abiathar are men- tioned as the two high priests in the time of David (ch. xv. 24, 35, xvii. 15, xix. 12, xx. 25). This difference cannot be set aside, as Movers, Thenius, Ewald, and others suppose, by transposing the names, so as to read Abiathar the son of Ahimelcch; for such a solution is precluded by the fact that, in 1 Chron. xxiv. 3, 6, 31, Ahimelech is mentioned along with Zadok as head of the priests of the line of Ithamar, and according to ver. 6 he was the son of Abiathar. It would therefore be necessary to change the name Ahimelech into Abiathar in this instance also, both in ver. 3 and ver. 6, and in the latter to transpose the two names. But there is not the slightest probability in the supposition that the names have been changed in so many passages. We are therefore disposed to adopt the view held by Bertheau and Oehler, viz. that Abiathar the high priest, the son of Ahimelech, had also a son named Ahimelech, as it is by no means a rare occurrence for grandfather and grandson to have the same names (yid. 1 Chron. v. 30-41), and also that this (the younger) Ahimelech performed the duties of high priest in connection with his father, who was still living at the commencement of Solomon's reign (1 Kings ii. 27), and is mentioned in this capacity, along with Zadok, both here and in the book of Chronicles, possibly because Abiathar was ill, or for some other reason that we cannot discover. As Abiathar was thirty or thirty-five years old at the time when his father was put to death by Saul, according to what has already been observed at 1 Sam. xiv. 3, and forty years old at the death of Saul, he was at least forty-eight years old at the time wdien David removed his residence to Mount Zion, and might have had a son of twenty-five years of age, namely the Ahimelech mentioned here, who could have taken his father's place in the performance of the functions of high priest when he was prevented by illness or other causes. The appearance of a son of Abiathar named Jonathan in ch. xv. 27, xvii. 17, 20, is no valid argument against this solution of the apparent discrepancy; for, according to these passages, he was still very young, and may therefore have been a younger brother of Ahimelech. The omission of any allusion to Ahimelech in connection with Abiathar's conspiracy with Adonijah against Solomon (1 Kings i. 42, 43), and the reference to his son Jonathan alone, might be explained on the supposition that

Ahimelech had already died. But as there is no reference to Jonathan at the time when his father was deposed, no stress is to be laid upon the omission of any reference to Ahimelech. Moreover, when Abiathar was deposed after Solomon had ascended the throne, he must have been about eighty years of age. Seraiah was a scribe. Instead of Seraiah, we have Shavsha in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, and Sheva in the parallel passage ch. xx. 25. Whether the last name is merely a mistake for Shavsha, occasioned by the dropping of C», or an abbreviated form of Shisha and Shavsha, cannot be decided. Shavsha is not a copyist's error, for in 1 Kings iv. 3 the same man is unquestionably mentioned again under the name of Shisha, who is called Shavsha in the Chronicles, Sheva (*W) in the text of ch. xx. 25, and here Seraiah. Seraiah also is hardly a copyist's error, but another form for Shavsha or Shisha. The scribe was a secretary of state; not a military officer, whose duty it was to raise and muster the troops, for the technical expression for mustering the people was not "iSD? but *l|?S (cf. ch. xxiv. 2, 4, 9; 1 Chron. xxi. 5, 6, etc.).

Ver. 18. Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, a very brave hero of Kabzeel (see at ch. xxiii. 20 sqq.), was over the Crethi and Plethi. Instead of Warn, which gives no sense, and must be connected in some way with 1 Kings i. 38, 44, we must read VHSH?V according to the parallel passage ch. xx. 23, and the corresponding text of the Chronicles. The Crethi and Plethi were the king's body-guard, acDfiarotyvXaKes (Josephus, Ant. vii. 5, 4). The words are adjectives in form, but with a substantive meaning and were used to indicate a certain rank, lit. the executioners and runners, like ^'wn (ch. xxiii. 8). T1?/?? from JTO, to cut down or exterminate, signifies confessor, because among the Israelites (see at 1 Kings ii. 25), as in fact throughout the East generally, the royal halberdiers had to execute the sentence of death upon criminals. wS, from nps (to fly, or be swift), is related to BpQ, and signifies runners. It is equivalent to rjj a courier, as one portion of the halberdiers, like the ayyapoc of the Persians, had to convey the king's orders to distant places (via1. 2 Chron. xxx. 6). This explanation is confirmed by the fact that the epithet ^Vjn} *T?- was afterwards applied to the king's body-guard (2 Kings xi. 4, 19), and that nsn for W3£ occurs as early as ch. xx. 23. ^3, from "K3, fodit, perfodit, is used in the same sense.1 And David's sons were D^na (u confidants"); not priests, domestic priests, court chaplains, or spiritual advisers, as Gesenius, De Wette, and others maintain, but, as the title is explained in the corresponding text of the Chronicles, when the title had become obsolete, " the first at the hand (or side) of the king." The correctness

1 Gesenius (T/tcs. s. vv.) and Thenius (on 1 Kings i. 38) both adopt this explanation; but the majority of the modern theologians decide in favour of Lakemacher's opinion, to which Ewald has given currency, viz. that the Crethi or Cari are Cretes or Carians, and the Pelethi Philistines (yid. Ewald, Krit. Gramm. p. 297, and Gesch. des VoiUces Israel, pp. 330 sqq.; Bertheau, zur Geschichte Israel, p. 197; Movers, Phdnizier i. p. 19). This view is chiefly founded upon the fact that the Philistines are called Crethi in 1 Sam. xxx. 14, and Crethim in Zeph. ii. 5 and Ezek. xxv. 1G. But in both the passages from the prophets the name is used with special reference to the meaning of the word rp-on, viz. to exterminate, cut off, as Jerome has shown in the case of Ezekiel by adopting the rendering interficiam interfectores (I will slay the slayers) for D'TIISVIX Tn^n. The same play upon the words takes place in Zephaniah, upon which Strauss has correctly observed: " Zephaniah shows that this violence of theirs had not been forgotten, calling the Philistines Crethi in for that very reason, at sit nomen < t omen" Besides, in both these passages the true name Philistines stands by the side as well, so that the prophets might have used the name Crethim (slayers, exterminators) without thinking at all of 1 Sam. xxx. 14. In this passage it is true the name Crethi is applied to a branch of the Philistine people that had settled on the south-west of Philistia, and not to the Philistines generally. The idea that the name of a portion of the royal body-guard was derived from the Cretans is precluded, first of all, by the fact of its combination with Tl?3n (the Pelet lutes); for it is a totally groundless assumption that this name signifies the Philistines, and is a corruption of DTl^vB- There are no such contractions as these to be found in the Semitic languages, as Gesenius observes in his Thesaurus (I.e.), " Quis hujusrnodi contractionem in Unguis Semiticis ferat? " Secondly, it is also precluded by the strangeness of such a combination of two synonymous names to denote the royal body-guard. "Who could believe it possible that two synonymous epithets should be joined together in this manner, which would be equivalent to saying Englishmen and Britons?" (Ges. This. p. Il<i7.) Thirdly, it is opposed to the title afterwards given to the body-guard, D^'ini nsn {'2 Kings xi. 1, 19), in which the Can correspond to the Crethi, as in eh. xx. 23, and ha-razim to the Pelethi; thai the term jnhtlii can no more signify a particular tribe than the t rm razim can. Moreover, there are other grave objections to this interpretation. In the first place, the hypothesis that the Philistines were emigrants from Crete is merely founded upon tin- very indefinite statements of this explanation is placed beyond the reach of doubt by 1 Kings iv. 5, where the cohen is called, by way of explanation, u the king's friend." The title cohen may be explained from the primary signification of the verb p3, as shown in the corresponding verb and noun in Arabic (" res alicujus gerere" and u administrator alieni negotii"). These cohanim, therefore, were the kino's confidential advisers.

of Tacitus (Hist. v. 3, 2), " Jadueos Creta insula profugos novissima Libyse insedisse memorant" and that of Steph. Byz. ($, v. Vx^m), to the effect that the city of Gaza was once called Minoa, from Mi/ios a king of Crete, — statements which, according to the correct estimate of Strauss (I.e.), u have all so evidently the marks of fables that they hardly merit discussion," at all events when opposed to the historical testimony of the Old Testament (Deut. ii. 23; Amos ix. 7), to the effect that the Philistines sprang from Caphtor. And secondly, k' it is a priori altogether improbable, that a man with so patriotic a heart, and so devoted to the worship of the one God, should have surrounded himself with a foreign and heathen body-guard " (Thenius). This argument cannot be invalidated by the remark " that it is well known that at all times kings and princes have preferred to commit the protection of their persons to foreign mercenaries, having, as they thought, all the surer pledge of their devotedness in the fact that they did not spring from the nation, and were dependent upon the ruler alone" (Ilitzig). For, in the first place, the expression " at all times " is one that must be very greatly modified; and secondly, this was only done by kings who did not feel safe in the presence of their own people, which was not the case with David. And the Philistines, those arch-foes of Israel, would have been the last nation that David would have gone to for the purpose of selecting his own body-guard. It is true that he himself had met with a hospitable reception in the land of the Philistines; but it must be borne in mind that it was not as king of Israel that he found refuge there, but as an outlaw flying from Saul the king of Israel, and even then the chiefs of the Philistines would not trust him (1 Sam. xxix. 3 sqq.). And when Ilitzig appeals still further to the fact, that according to ch. xviii. 2, David handed over the command of a third of his army to a foreigner who had recently entered his service, having emigrated from Gath with a company of his fellow-countrymen (ch. xv. 19, 20, 22), and who had displayed the greatest attachment to the person of David (ver. 21), it is hardly necessary to observe that the fact of David's welcoming a brave soldier into his army, when he had come over to Israel, and placing him over a division of the army, after he had proved his fidelity so decidedly as Ittai had at the time of Absalom's rebellion, is no proof that he chose his body-guard from the Philistines. Nor can ch. xv. 18 be adduced in support of this, as the notion that, according to that passage, David had 600 Gathites in his service as body-guard, is simply founded upon a misinterpretation of the passage mentioned.

When David was exalted to be king over all Israel, he sought to show compassion to the house of the fallen king, and to repay the love which his noble-minded friend Jonathan had once sworn to him before the Lord (1 Sam. xx. 13 sqq.; comp. xxiii. 17, 18). The account of this forms the conclusion of, or rather an appendix to, the first section of the history of his reign, and was intended to show how David was mindful of the duty of gratitude and loving fidelity, even when he reached the highest point of his regal authority and glory. The date when this occurred was about the middle of David's reign, as we may see from the fact, that Mephibosheth, who was five years old when Saul died (ch. iv. 4), had a young son at the time (ver. 12).

Vers. 1-8. When David inquired whether there was any one left of the house of Saul to whom he could show favour for Jonathan's sake (*rijn5>J *3n: (s it so that there is any one? = there is certainly some one left), a servant of Saul named Ziba was summoned, who told the king that there was a son of Jonathan living in the house of Machir at Lodebar, and that he was lame in his feet. B*X Ity B^L1, " M there no one at all besides tn The h before H%3 is a roundabout way of expressing the genitive, as in 1 Sam. xvi. 18, etc., and is obviously not to be altered into n*3fc?, as Thenius proposes. " The kindness of God" is love and kindness shown in God, and for God's sake (Luke vi. 36). Machir the son of Ammiel was a rich man, judging from ch. xvii. 27, who, after the death of Saul and Jonathan, had received the lame son of the latter into his house. Lodebar C1?*1^, written ">3"1&0 in ch. xvii. 27, but erroneously divided by the Masoretes into two words in both passages) was a town on the east of Mahanaim, towards Rabbatk Amman, probably the same place as Lidbir (Josh. xiii. 20); but it is not further known. — Vers. 5 sqq. David sent for this son of Jonathan (Mephibosheth: cf. ch. iv. 4), and not only restored his father's possessions in land, but took him to his own royal table for the rest of his life. " Fear not" said David to Mephibosheth, when he came before him with the deepest obeisance, to take away any anxiety lest the king should intend to slay the descendants of the fallen king, according to the custom of eastern usurpers. It is evident from the words, " / will restore thee all the land of Saul thy father" that the landed property belonging to Saul had either fallen to David as crown lands, or had been taken possession of by distant relations after the death of Saul. " Thou shalt eat bread at my table continually" i.e. eat at my table all thy life long, or receive thy food from my table. — Ver. 8. Mephibosheth expressed his thanks for this manifestation of favour with the deepest obeisance, and a confession of his un worthiness of any such favour. On his comparison of himself to a " dead dog" see at 1 Sam. xxiv. 15.

Vers. 9-13. David then summoned Ziba the servant of Saul, told him of the restoration of Saul's possessions to his son Mephibosheth, and ordered him, with his sons and servants, to cultivate the land for the son of his lord. The words, " that thy master s son may have food to eat" are not at variance with the next clause, " Mephibosheth shall eat bread alway at my table" as bread is a general expression, including all the necessaries of life. Although Mephibosheth himself ate daily as a guest at the king's table, he had to make provision as a royal prince for the maintenance of his own family and servants, as he had children according to ver. 12 and 1 Chron. viii. 34 sqq. Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants (ver. 10), with whom he had probably been living in Gibeah, Saul's native place, and may perhaps have hitherto farmed Saul's land. — Yer. 11. Ziba promised to obey the king's command. The last clause of this verse is a circumstantial clause in form, with which the writer passes over to the conclusion of his account. But the words ^n^?y, " at my table" do not tally with this, as they require that the words should be taken as David's own. This is precluded, however, not only by the omission of any intimation that David spoke again after Ziba, and repeated what he had said once already, and that without any occasion whatever, but also by the form of the sentence, more especially the participle?3N. There is no other course left, therefore, than to regard ^Jw (my table) as written by mistake for *W1 jrw: " but Mephibosheth ate at David? s table as one of the king's sons." The further notices in vers. 12 and 13 follow this in a very simple manner. 1V3 atPto 73, " all the dwelling" i.e. all the inhabitants of Ziba's house, namelv his sons and servants, were servants of Mephibosheth, i.e. worked for him and cultivated his land, whilst he himself took up his abode at Jerusalem, to eat daily at the king's table, although he was lamed in both his feet.

In the first half of David's reign he had strengthened and fortified the kingdom of Israel, both within and without, and exalted the covenant nation into a kingdom of God, before which all its enemies were obliged to bow; but in the second half a series of heavy judgments fell upon him and his house, which cast a deep shadow upon the glory of his reign. David had brought these judgments upon himself by his grievous sin with Bathsheba. The success of all his undertakings, and the strength of his government, which increased year by year, had made him feel so secure, that in the excitement of undisturbed prosperity, he allowed himself to be carried away by evil lusts, so as to stain his soul not only with adultery, but also with murder, and fell all the deeper because of the height to which his God had exalted him. This took place during the war with the Ammonites and Syrians, when Joab was besieging the capital of the Ammonites, after the defeat and subjugation of the Syrians (ch. x.), and when David had remained behind in Jerusalem (ch. xi. 1). For this double sin, the adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, the Lord announced as a punishment, that the sword should not depart from David's house, and that his wives should be openly violated; and notwithstanding the sincere sorrow and repentance of the king, when brought to see his sin, He not only caused the fruit of his sin, the child that was born of Bathsheba, to die (ch. xii.), but very soon afterwards allowed the threatened judgments to fall upon his house, inasmuch as Amnon, his first-born son, violated his half-sister Thamar, and was murdered in consequence by her own brother Absalom (ch. xiii.), whereupon Absalom fled to his father-in-law at Geshur; and when at length the king restored him to favour (ch. xiv.), he set on foot a rebellion, which nearly cost David his life and throne (ch. xv.-xvii. 23). And even after Absalom himself was dead (ch. xvii. 24-xix. 1), and David had been reinstated in his kingdom (ch. xix. 2-40), there arose the conspiracy set on foot by the Benjaminite Sheba, which was only stopped by the death of the chief conspirator, in the fortified city of Abel- Beth-Maachah (ch. xix. 41-xx. 26).

The period and duration of these divine visitations are not stated; and all that we are able to determine from the different data as to time, given in ch. xiii. 23, 38, xiv. 28, xv. 7, when taken in connection with the supposed ages of the sons of David, is that Amnon's sin in the case of Thamar did not take place earlier than the twentieth year of David's reign, and that Absalom's rebellion broke out seven or eight years later. Consequently the assumption cannot be far from the truth, that the events described in this section occupied the whole time between the twentieth and thirtieth years of David's reign. We are prevented from placing it earlier, by the fact that Amnon was not born till after David became king over Judah, and therefore was probably about twenty years old when he violated his half-sister Thamar. At the same time it cannot be placed later than this, because Solomon was not born till about two years after David's adultery; and he must have been eighteen or twenty years old when he ascended the throne on the death of his father, after a reign of forty years and a half, since, according to 1 Kings xiv. 21, compared with vers. 11 and 42, 43, he had a son a year old, named Rehoboam, at the time when he began to reign.

This war, the occasion and early success of which are described in the present chapter and the parallel passage in 1 Chron. xix., was the fiercest struggle, and, so far as the Israelitish kingdom of God was concerned, the most dangerous, that it ever had to sustain during the reign of David. The amount of distress which fell upon Israel in consequence of this war, and still more because the first successful battles with the Syrians of the south were no sooner over than the Edomites invaded the land, and went about plundering and devastating, in the hope of destroying the people of God, is shown very clearly in the two psalms which date from this period (the 44th and 60th), in which a pious Korahite and David himself pour out their lamentations before the Lord on account of the distress of their nation, and pray for His assistance; and not less clearly in Ps. lxviii., in which David foretels the victory of the God of Israel over all the hostile powers of the world.

Vers. 1-5. Occasion of the war with the Ammonites. — Ver. 1. On the expression u it came to pass after this" see the remarks on ch. viii. 1. When Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, died, and Hanun his son reigned in his stead, David thought that he would show him the same kindness that Nahash had formerly shown to him. We are not told in what the love shown to David by Nahash consisted. He had most likely rendered him some assistance during the time of his flight from Saul. Nahash was no doubt the king of the Ammonites mentioned in 1 Sam. xi. 1, whom Saul had smitten at Jabesh. David therefore sent an embassy to Hanun, " to comfort him for his father" Le. to show his sympathy with him on the occasion of his father's death, and at the same time to congratulate him upon his ascent of the throne. — Ver. 3. On the arrival of David's ambassadors, however, the chiefs of the Ammonites said to Hanun their lord, u Doth David indeed honour thy father in thine eyes [i.e. dost thou really suppose that David intends to do honour to thy father), because he has sent comforters to thee? Has David not sent his servants to thee with the intention of exploring and spying out the town, and (then) destroying it?" The first question is introduced with n, because a negative answer is expected; the second with Kv$, because it requires an affirmative reply. Tft} is the capital Kabbah, a strongly fortified city (see at ch. xi. 1). The suspicion expressed by the chiefs was founded upon national hatred and enmity, which had probably been increased by David's treatment of Moab, as the subjugation and severe punishment of the Moabites (ch. viii. 2) had certainly taken place a short time before. King Hanun therefore gave credence to the suspicions expressed as to David's honourable intentions, and had his ambassadors treated in the most insulting manner. — Ver. 4. He had the half of their beard shaved off, and their clothes cut off up to the seat, and in this state he sent them away. " The half of the beard" i.e. the beard on one side. With the value universally set upon the beard by the Hebrews and other oriental nations, as being a man's greatest ornament,1 the cutting off of one-half of it was the greatest insult that could have been offered to the ambassadors, and through them to David their king. The insult was still further increased by cutting off the long dress which covered the body; so that as the ancient Israelites wore no trousers, the lower half of the body was quite exposed. B£T!^j from no or "THP> the long robe reaching down to the feet, from the root mo = 110 to stretch,