SL-mv . ci ill. Library 61 7 1 / 4 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/lecturesonhistor2186stan THE JEWISH CHURCH. FKOM SAMUEL TO THE CAPTIVITY. LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH CHUllCH PART IL FROM SAMUEL TO THE CAPTIVITY BY ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. DEAN OF WESTMINSTER NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY 124 Grand Street 1866 [^Pvblished by arrangement with the Author^ RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE; STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. PREFACE. This volume, like that which preceded it, contains the substance of Lectures delivered from the Chair of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford. Whilst still disclaiming, as before, any pretensions to critical or linguistic research, I gladly acknowledge my increased debt to the scholars and divines who have traversed this ground, — Ewald, in his great work on the History of the People of Israel,” to which I must here add his no less important work on the Prophets; Dean Milman, in his History of the Jews,” now republished in its completer form ; Dr. Pusey’s Commentary on the Minor Prophets ” ; the numerous writers on the Old Testament, in Dr. Smith’s “ Diction- ary of the Bible,” — Mr. Grove especially, to whom I am once more indebted for his careful revision of the text of this volume, and for frequent suggestions of which I have constantly availed myself^ Many 1 For various illustrations of the Persia, from his own personal ex- manners and customs, I must ex- perience of the East, press my obligations to the kindness The topography of Jerusalem, of Mr. Morier, who has allowed me which occupies so large a space in the use of a Bible, copiously an- this period of the history, demands notated by his brother, the well- further notice than I have given to known minister at the court of it. But the extreme uncertainty in 704 700 VI PRErACE. thoughts have^ doubtless, been confirmed or origi- nated by Mr. Maurice’s Sermons on the Prophets and Kmgs.” The general principles which have guided the selec- tion of topics, and the general sources from which the materials are drawn, are too similar to those which I have set forth in the Preface to my former volume to need any additional remark. A few special observations, however, are suggested by the peculiarities of the portion of the history on which we now enter. 1. Although there still remains the same difficulty, which occurs in the earlier period, of distinguishing between the poetical and the historical portions of the narrative, yet the historical element here so far pre- ponderates, and the mass of unquestionably contem- porary literature is so far larger, that I have ventured much more freely than before to throw the Lectures into the form of a continuous narrative ; believing •that thus best the Sacred History would be enabled to speak for itself There are, doubtless, many pas- sages in which the historical facts and the Oriental figures are too closely interwoven to be at this dis- tance of time easily separated. There are others which bring out more distinctly than in the earlier history the interesting variations between the Hebrew text ■^•hich — till further excavations are the City or Temple, beyond such possible — it is of necessity involved, general indications as can be gath- has -withheld me from offering any ered from the ancient descriptions. detEiiled plan or theory, either of PREFACE. Vll which is the basis of our modern versions, and that which is represented by the Septuagint. Others again, especially where we have the advantage of comparing the parallel narratives of the Books of Kings and of Chronicles, exhibit diversities which cannot be sur- mounted, except by an arbitrary process of excision, which we are hardly justified in adopting, and which would obliterate the value of the separate records. In chronology, even after the reign of Solomon, the same confusions which occur in other ancient histories occur here also. Lord Arthur Hervey, whose praiseworthy devotion to this branch of Biblical study gives peculiar weight to his authority, finds the dates so unmanage- able as to suggest to him the probability that they , are added by another hand. Others, such as Mr. Fynes Clinton, Mr. Greswell, and Dr. Pusey,^ adopt the course of rejecting as spurious the indications of time which, from internal evidence, they cannot recon- cile with what seems to be required by the history. Still on the whole the substantially historical charac- ter of the narrative is admitted by all. Even the chron- ological uncertainties,^ considerable as they are, are compressed within comparatively narrow limits. The constant references of the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles to records which, though lost, were evidently contemporary, furnish a guarantee for the 1 See, for example, 2 Kings 2 nearest approximation, xxiv. 8 ; 2 Chr. xxxvi. 9 ; Dr. I have affixed the most important Pusey’s note on Daniel the Prophet, dates from Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, p. 313. vol. i. Appendix, c. 5. vm PREFACE. general truthfulness of the narrative, such as no other ancient history not itself contemporary can exhibit. The parallel stream of Prophetic literature gives a wholly independent confirmation of the same kind, in some instances extending even to incidents which are preserved to us only in the later Chronicles ^ and Josephus. The allusions to Jewish history in the Assyr- ian and Egyptian monuments, — so far as they can be trusted, — and the undoubted recurrences of the same imagery in the sculptures as that employed by the Prophets, are valuable as illustrations of the Bibli- cal history, even where they cannot be used as con- firmations of it.^ Jewish and Arabian traditions relat- ing to this period, if less striking, are at least more within the bounds of probability, and more likely to contain some grains of historical truth than those which relate to the Patriarchal age. And as before, so now, even when of unquestionably late origin, they seem to be worthy of notice, as filling up the outline of the forms which the personages and events of this history have assumed in large periods, and to large masses, of mankind. 1 E. g. in the earthquake of Uz- ziah’s reign (see Lecture XXX VI L), and the captivity of Manasseh (see Lecture XXXIX.). 2 These monuments cannot prop- erly be said to contain confirma- tions of the Jewish history — be- cause, with very few exceptions, the only events in that history to which they refer are such as have never been doubted by any one, and therefore are much more in a condition to give their weight to the confessedly doubtful interpreta- tion of the cuneiform inscriptions, than to receive any corroboration from it. PREFACE. LX 2. These are the materials from which the following Lectures are drawn. It will be seen that what they profess to give is not a commentary on the sacred text, but a delineation of the essential features of the history of the Jewish Church, during the second period^ of its existence. In so doing, it has been impossible to suppress the horrors consequent on the hardness of heart ” which characterized the Israelite nation, nor the shortcomings^ which disfigured some of its greatest heroes. ^^Let me freely speak unto “you of the Patriarch David such is the spirit in which we should endeavor to handle the story of the founder of the monarchy. “ Elijah was a man of like “passions with ourselves:”^ such is the view with which we ought to approach even the grandest of the ancient Prophets. “ These all, having obtained a good “ report through faith, received not the promise : ” ^ such is the distinction which we ought always to bear in mind between the rough virtues and imperfect knowl- edge of the Old Dispensation, and the higher hopes and graces of the New. But our faith in the transcendent interest of the story, the general nobleness of its characters, and the splendor of the truths proclaimed by it, ought not to 1 For the three divisions of the (comp. Luke ix. 54-56) ; Jer. xviii. History, see Introduction to Vol. 1. 23 (comp. Luke xxiii. 34) ; xx. 7, p. xxxii. 14 ; xxxviii. 27. 2 The use of this -word has been 3 Acts ii. 29. severely condemned. It is sufficient James v. 17. to refer to 2 Sam. xii. 7, 13, 31 ; 5 Heb. xi. 39. 1 Kings xiii. 26; 2 Kings i. 10 PKEFACE allow of any fear lest they should suffer either from the occasional uncertainty of the form in which they have been handed do'wn to us, or from a nearer view of the crust of human passion and error which encloses without obscuring the luminous centre of spiritual truth. The beauty of the narrative, and the charm of its incidents, if not belonging to the highest form of Inspiration, is yet a gift of no ordi- nary value, which perhaps no previous- generation has been so well able to appreciate as our own. The lessons of perennial wisdom which the history imparts, even irrespectively of traditional usage, jus- tify, I humbly trust, the practical apphcations that I have ventured to draw from it, and form the real grounds of distinction between it and other histories, as also between the essential and the subordinate parts of its own contents. In the sublime elevation^ of the moral and spiritual teaching of the Psalmists and Prophets, in the eagerness with which they look out of themselves, and out of their own time and nation, for the ultimate hope of the human race — far more than in their minute predictions of future events — is to be found the best proof of their Prophetic spirit. In the loftiness of the leading characters of the epoch, who hand on the truth, each succeed- 1 I have a peculiar pleasure in St. Paul’s on Hebrew Prophecy — referring for a corroboration of the impressive alike from its contents views which I had ventured to ex- and from the circumstances of its press in my first volume, to the delivery, impressive Sermon of the Dean of PREFACE. XI ing as the other fails, with a mingled grace and strength which penetrate even into the outward form of the poetry or prose of the narrative — rather than in the marvellous displays of power which are found equally in the records of saints in other times and in other religions — is the true sign of the Supernat- ural, which no criticism or fear of criticism can ever eliminate. They rise above the nature” not only of their own times, but of their own peculiar cir- cumstances. They are not so much representative characters as exceptional. Their life and teaching is a struggle and protest against some of the deepest prejudices and passions of their countrymen, such as we find, if at all, only in two or three of the most exalted philosophers and heroes of other ages. The rude ceremonial, the idolatrous tendencies, even some of the worst vices, against which they contended, were almost inseparably intertwined with the popular devotions not only of the surrounding nations, but of their own people. “The religious world” of the Jewish Church is to them, as to a Greater than they, an unfailing cause of grief, of surprise, of in- dignation. In the name of God they attack that which to all around them seems to be religion. Their chnging trust to the One Supreme source of spiritual goodness and truth, with its boundless consequences, is the chief as it is the sufficient cause of their preeminence. Other parts of their history may be preternatural This is in the highest degree super- Xll PREFACE. natural, because this alone brings them into direct communion with that which is Divine and Eternal. 3. Closely connected with this thought is the re- lation of the literature and history of the Jewish Commonwealth to the events of the Christian Dis- pensation. I may be allowed to express by an illustration the true mode of regarding this question. In the gardens of the Carthusian Convent, which the Dukes of Burgundy built near Dijon for the burial- place of their race, is a beautiful monument, which alone of that splendid edifice escaped the ravages of the French Ke volution. It consists of a group of Prophets and Kings from the Old Testament, each holding in his hand a scroll of mourning from his writings — each with his own individual costume, and gesture, and look — each distinguished from each by the most marked peculiarities of age and character, absorbed in the thoughts of his own time and country. But above these figures is a circle of angels, as like each to each as the human figures are unlike. They too, as each overhangs and over- looks the Prophet below him, are saddened with grief But their expression of sorrow is far deeper and more intense than that of the Prophets whose words they read. They see something in the Prophetic sorrow which the Prophets themselves see not; they are lost in the contemplation of the Divine Passion, of which the ancient saints below them are but the unconscious and ' indirect exponents. This exquisite media3val monument, expressing as PREFACE. XUl it does the instinctive feeling at once of the truthful artist and of the devout Christian, represents better than any words the sense of what we call in theo- logical language ^^the Types” of the Old Testament. The heroes and saints of old times, not in Judea only, — though there more frequently than in any other country, — are indeed ^Hypes,” that is, ^^like- nesses,” in their sorrows of the Greatest of all sor- rows, in their joys of the Greatest of all joys, in their goodness of the Greatest of all goodness, in their truth of the Greatest of all truths. This deep inward connection between the events of their own time and the crowning close of the history of their whole nation — this gradual convergence towards the event which, by general acknowledgment, ranks chief in the annals of mankind — is clear not only to the all-searching Eye of Providence, but also to the eye of any who look above the stir and movement of earth. It is part not only of the foreknowledge of God, but of the universal workings of human nature and human history. The angels see though man sees not. The mind flies silently upwards from the earthly career of David, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel, to those vaster and wider thoughts which they imperfectly represented. The rustic murmur ” of Jerusalem was, although they knew it not, part of ^Hhe great wave ^Hhat echoes round the world.” It is a continuity recognized by the Philosophy of History no less than by Theology — by Hegel even more closely than by Augustine. But the sorrow, the joy, the goodness. XIV PREFACE. the truth of those ancient heroes is notwithstanding entirely their own. They are not mere machines or pictures. When they speak of their trials and difficulties they speak of them as from their own experience. By studying them with all the pecu- liarities of their time, we arrive at a profounder view of the truths and events to which their ex- pressions and the story of their deeds may be applied in after ages, than if we regard them as the organs of sounds unintelligible to themselves and with no bearing on their own period. Where there is a sen- timent common to them and to Christian times, a word or act which breaks forth into the distant future, it will be reverently caught up by those who are on the watch for it, to whom it will speak words beyond their words, and thoughts beyond their thoughts. Did not our heart burn within us while He walked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?” But, even in the act of uttering these sentiments, they still remained encompassed with human, Jewish, Oriental pecufiari- ties, which must not be explained away or softened down, for the sake of producing an appearance of uniformity which may be found in the Koran, but wliich it is hopeless to seek in the Bible, and which, if it were found there, would completely destroy the historical character of its contents. To refuse to see the first and direct apphcation of their expressions to themselves, is like an unwillingness — such as gome simple and religious minds have felt — to ac- PREFACE. XV knowledge the existence, or to dwell on the topog- raphy, of the city of Jerusalem and the wilderness of Arabia, because those localities have been so long associated with the higher truths of spiritual religion. There will further result from this mode of approaching the subject the advantage of a juster appreciation of the Divine mission to which the Prophets and righteous men ” of former times bore witness. Resemblance of mere outward circumstances, however exact, throws no light on the essential character of Him whose life they are brought to illustrate ; nor is it any such kind of resemblance which justifies the relation of that Life to the per- sonal needs of mankind. But a real resemblance of moral and mental qualities or situations, which can be universally felt and understood, is a direct help to feel and understand in what consists the Charac- ter and Person of Him whom we are called upon to love and adore, and in what consists the possi- bility of our approach to Him. It is a fruitful illustra- tion of the argument which pervades the Analogy” of Bishop Butler, and which has been well brought out by our best modern divines, — namely, that ^^God gave His Son to the world, in the same way of good- ^^ness as He affords particular persons the friendly “assistance of their fellow-creatures ... in the same “way of goodness, though in a transcendent and in- “ finitely higher degree.”^ It is only from the com- munity of spirit which exists between the Manifes- 1 Butler’s Analogy^ Part II. ch. v. §§ 5, 7. XYl PRErACE. tation of Christ and the likeness of Himself in the good men who preceded or who succeeded, that we can speak of them either as His types or His follow- ers. It is by thus speakmg of them that we shall best conceive the work of Him in whom in the ^•dispensation of the fulness of time all things were ‘^gathered together in one.” Both theirs and ours Thou art. As we and they are Thine ; Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs, all have part Alono; the sacred line. Oh bond of union, dear And strong as is Thy grace ; Saints, parted by a thousand year, 3Iay there in heart embrace.^ The immediate preparation for that Manifestation in the period between the Capti\dty and the final overthrow of Jerusalem and of the Jewish nation may be the subject of another volume, if life and strength are granted, amidst the pressure of other eno:ao:ements, to continue a task be^un in earlier and less disturbed days. May the Students for whom these Lectures were specially intended receive them as the memorial of efforts, however imperfect, (if I may employ the words in which the plan of these Lectures was first indicated,) so to delineate the outward events of ‘•the Sacred History as that they should come home “with new power to those who by familiarity have 1 Christian Year, on “ The Circumcision of Christ,” PREFACE. XYU ^‘almost ceased to regard them as historical truth at ‘^all: so to bring out their inward spirit that the more complete realization of their outward form ‘^should not degrade, but exalt, the Faith of which ^Hhey are the vehicle.” Deanery, W estminster : November 2, 1865 . VOL. II. b TABLE OP CONTENTS. PAGE Preface v THE HOUSE OF SAUL. LECTURE XXL SAUL. The Family of Saul 6 His Call 7 His Personal Appearance . . . . . . . .10 His First Victory 12 The Philistine War 13 Jonathan 15 The Battle of Michmash 17 Character and Position of Saul — The First KinLi]'<»i'41vmip|i 'M;j 1ji* TUi* M.ijdrfi-lCiiaiip Ilii^.Ml 'f.A ‘H!) !Jvn.i(U».ij N \ Lect. XXI. EARLY LIFE OF SAUL. 7 but which have not yet been identified/ — Saul wandered at his father’s bidding, accompanied by a trustworthy servant,^ traditionally befieved to have been Doeg the Edomite, who acted as guide and guardian of the young man. After a three days’ circuit they arrived at the foot of a hill surmounted by a town,® when Saul pro- posed to return home, but was deterred by the advice of the servant, who suggested that before doing so they should consult a man of God,” a seer,” as to the fate of the asses, securing his oracle by a present {bakhshish) of a quarter of a silver shekel. They were instructed by the maidens at the well outside the city to catch the seer as he came out on his way to a sacred eminence, where a sacrificial feast was waiting for his benediction. At the gate they met the seer for the first time. It was Samuel. A Divine intimation had indicated to him the approach and the future destiny of the youthful Ben- jamite. Surprised at his language, but stiU The can of obeying his call, they ascended to the high place, and in the inn or ^ caravanserai at the top found thirty or seventy ® guests assembled, amongst whom they took the chief seats. In anticipation of some dis- tinguished stranger, Samuel had bade the cook reserve a boiled shoulder, from which Saul, as the chief guest, was bidden to tear off the first morsel.® They then descended to the city, and a bed was prepared for Saul on the house-top. At daybreak Samuel roused him. They descended again to the skirts of the town, and 1 See Sinai and Palestine, Ch. IV. whole journey of Saul. See Lecture note 1. XVIII. p. 454. 2 The word is na'ar, “ servant,” not ^ To Karu'Xvfia, LXX., ix. 27. “ slave.” 5 LXX.; and Joseph. Ant. vi. 4, 3 1 Sam. ix. 11-13. The situation § 1. of the town is wrapt in the same geo- 6 LXX., ix. 22-24. graphical obscurity that tracks the 8 EARLY LIRE OF SAUL. Lect. XXI. there (the servant having left them) Samuel poured over Saul’s head the consecrated oil^ and with a kiss of salutation announced to him that he was to be the ruler and deliverer of the nation.^ From that moment, a fresh life dawned upon him. Under the outward garb of his domestic vocation, the new destiny had been thrust upon him. The trivial forms of an antiquated phase of religion had been the means of introducing him to the Prophet of the Future. Each stage of his returning, as of his outgoing route, is marked with the utmost exactness, and at each stage he meets the inci- dents which, according to Samuers prediction, were to mark his coming fortunes.^ By the sepulchre of his mighty ancestress — known then, and kno^vn still as Rachel’s tomb — he met two men,® who announced to him the recovery of the asses. There his lower cares were to cease. By a venerable oak — distinguished by the name not elsewhere given, the oak ^ of Tabor ” — he met three men carrying gifts of kids and bread, and a skin of wine, as an offering to Bethel. There, as if to indicate his new dignity, two of the loaves were offered to him. By the hill of God ” (whatever may be the precise spot indicated, — seemingly close to his own home) he met a chain” of prophets descending with musical instruments. There he caught the inspiration from them, as the sign of a grander, loftier life than he had ever before conceived.^ This is what may be called the private, inner view of his call. There was yet another outer call, which is related independently. An assembly was convened by Samuel at Mizpeh, and lots (so often practised at that 1 LXX., ibid. 25-x. 1. 4 Mistranslated in A. V. “plain.” 2 1 Sam. X. 2-6, 9, 10. 5 See Ewald, iii. 31. 3 At Zelzah, or (LXX.) “ leaping for joy.” Lect. XXL EARLY LIRE OF SAUL. 9 time) were cast to find the tribe and the family which was to produce the king. Saul was named, and found hid in the circle of baggage which surrounded the encampment.^ His stature at once conciliated the pub- hc feeling, and for the first time the shout was raised, afterwards so often repeated down to modern times. Long live the King ! ” ^ The Monarchy, with that con- flict of tendencies, of which the mind of Samuel is the best reflex,^ was established in the person of the young Prophet, whom he had thus called to this perilous emi- nence. Up to this point Saul had been only the shy and retiring youth of the family. He is employed in the common work of the farm. His father, when he delays his return, mourns for him, as having lost his way.^ He hangs on the servant for directions as to what he shall do, which he would not have known himself ^ At every step of Samuel’s revelations he is taken by surprise. Am not I a Benjamite ? of the smallest of the tribes of Israel ? and my family the least of all the families ^^of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me ? ” ® He turns his huge shoulder ^ on Samuel, apparently still unconscious of what awaits him. The last thing which those that knew him in former days can expect is, that Saul should be among the Prophets.® Long afterwards the memorial of this un- aptness for high aspirations remained enshrined in the national proverbs. Even after the change had come upon him, he still shrunk from the destiny which was opening before him. Tell me, I pray thee, what Sam- 1 1 Sam. X. 17-22. 2 Ibid. 23, 24 (Heb.). 3 See Lecture XVIII. 4 1 Sam. ix. 5 ; x. 2. 5 Ibid. ix. 7-10. 6 Ibid. 21. 7 Ibid. X. 9 ; A. V. “ back.’ 8 Ibid. X. 11, 12. 10 CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. Lect. XXI. “ uel said unto thee. And Saul said unto his uncle, He told us plainly that the asses were found. But of the ‘^matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he told him not.” ^ On the day of his election he was nowhere to be found, and he was as though he were deaf.^ Some there were, who even after his appointment still said, ^^How shall this man save us?” ^^and they brought ^^him no presents.”^ And he shrank back into private life, and was in his fields, and with his yoke of oxen.^ But there was one distinction which marked out Saul The appear- for hls futuro offico. The dosiro of all Israol ” was already, unconsciously, ^^on him and on his father’s house.” ^ He had the one gift by which in that primitive time a man seemed to be worthy of rule. He was goodly,” — there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he,” ® from his shoulders and upward he towered above all the peo- ^^ple.” When he stood among the people, Samuel could say of him, See ye him, bok at him whom the Lord hath chosen^ that there is none like him among all the people.”^ It is as in the days of the Judges, as in the Homeric days of Greece. Agamemnon, Hke Saul, is head and shoulders taller than the people.® Like Saul, too, he has that peculiar air and dignity expressed by the Hebrew word which we translate ^^good” or goodly.” This is the ground of the epithet which became fixed as part of his name, — ^^Saul the chosen^* the chosen of the Lord.” ^ In the Mussulman traditions this is the only trait of 1 1 Sara. X. 16. 2 Ibid. 21, 22; 27 (Heb.). 3 Ibid. 27. 4 Ibid. xi. 5, 7. 5 Ibid. ix. 20. 6 Ibid. ix. 2. 7 Ibid. X. 24. 8 Compare the description and re- marks in Gladstone’s Homer, vol. iii. 404. 9 2 Sam. xxi. 6. Lect. XXI. CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. 11 Saul which is preserved. His name has there been almost lost, — he is known only as Thaliit, ^Hhe tall one.” ^ In the Hebrew songs of his own time he was known by a more endearing but not less expressive indication of the same grace. His stately, towering form, standing under the pomegranate tree above the precipice of Migron,^ or on the pointed crags of Mich- mash, or the rocks of En-gedi, claimed for him the title of the wild roe, the gazelle,” perched aloft, the pride and glory of Israel.” ^ Against the giant Philis- tines a giant king was needed. The time for the little stripling of the house of Jesse was close at hand, but was not yet come. Saul and Jonathan, swifter than eagles and stronger than lions,” ^ still seemed the fittest champions of Israel. ^AYhen Saul saw any strong man or any valiant man, he took him unto him.” ^ He, in his gigantic panoply, that would fit none but himself,® with the spear that he had in his hand, of the same form and fashion as the spear of Goliath, was a host in himself And when we look at the state of Israel at the time, we find that we are still in the condition which would most justify such a choice. His residence, like that of the ancient Judges, is still at the seat of the family. That beacon-like cone, conspicuous amongst the uplands of Benjamin, then and still known by the name of "the "Hill” {giheah\ had been selected apparently by his ancestor JehieV for the foundation of one of the chief 1 D’Herbelot, Thalout hen Kissai. ^ i Sam. xiv. 52. 2 1 Sam. xiv. 2. 6 Ibid. xvii. 39. 3 2 Sam. i. 19, the word translated 7 When Abiel, or Jehiel (1 Chr. “beauty,” but the same term (tsehi) viii. 29, ix. 35), is called the “ father in 2 Sam. ii. 18, and elsewhere, is of Gibeon,” it probably means founder translated “ roe.” of Gibeah, 4 2 Sam. i. 23. 12 CONXECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. Lect. XXL cities in Benjamin. There Saul had ^^his house,” and his name superseded the more ancient title of the city as derived from the tribe.^ And there, king as he was, we might fancy ourselves still in the days of Shamgar or of Gideon, when we see him following his herd of oxen in the field, and dri\dng them home at the close of day up the steep ascent of the city. It was on one of these evening returns that his ca- reer received the next sharp stimulus which drove him Relief of on to his destined work. A loud wail, such as Gibeah. goes up in an Eastern city at the tidings of some great calamity, strikes his ear. He said, ^^lYhat aileth the people that they weep ? ” They told him the news that had reached them from their kmsmen beyond the Jordan. The work which Jephthah^ had wrought in that ^vild region had to be done over again. Ammon was advancing, and the first -vdctims were the inhabitants of Jabesh, connected by the romantic ad- venture of the pre\fious generation with the tribe ® of Benjamin. This one spark of outraged family feehng was needed to awaken the dormant spirit of the slug- gish giant. He was a true Benjamite from first to last. The Spirit of God ^ came upon him,” as on Samson. His shy retiring nature vanished. His anger flamed out, and he took two oxen from the herd that he was drmng, and (here again, in accordance with the like expedient in that earlier time, only in a somewhat gentler form) he hewed them in pieces, and sent their bones through the country with the significant warn- ing, Whosoever cometh not after Saul, and after 1 Formerly “ Gibeah of Benjamin,” 2 See Lecture XVI. henceforth “ Gibeah of Saul,” down ^ Judg. xx. See Lecture XHI. to the time of Josephus {B. J. v. 2, ^ The same word in 1 Sam. x. 10, § 1). xi. 6, and in Judg. xiv. 6, 19 ; xv. 14. Lect. XXL CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. 13 Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.” An awe fell upon the people : they rose as one man. In one day they crossed the Jordan. Jabesh was res- The first cued. It was the deliverance of his own tribe which thus at once seated him on the throne securely. The East of the Jordan was regarded as specially the conquest of Saul. The people of Jabesh never forgot their debt of gratitude. The house of Saul were safe there when their cause was ruined everywhere else. This was his first great victory. The monarchy was inaugurated afresh.^ But he still so far resembles the earlier Judges as to be virtually king only within his own tribe. Almost all his exploits are confined to this immediate neighborhood. In that neighborhood the Philistines are still in the ascendant, as in the days of Samson and Eli. Sanctuaries of Dagon are found, far away from the sea-coast, up to the very verge The PhiUs- of the Jordan valley.^ It had become a Phil- istine country, almost as much as Spain had in the ninth century become a Mussulman country. As there, the Arabic names and Arabic architecture reveal the existence of the intruding race up to the very frontier of Biscay and the Asturias, so in the very heart of Palestine, we stumble on the traces of the Philistine. At Gibeah or at Kamah, close by one of the Prophetic schools, is a garrison or exacting officer of the Philis- tines. At Michmash is another ; at Geba is another. At any harvest, an incursion of the Philistines,^ with their animals to carry off the ripe corn, was a regular event, to be constantly expected. The people are de- pressed to the same point as before the time of Debo- 1 1 Sam. XI. 1-15. Bui in xii. 12, 2 gee the map, Palestine after the this is described as preceding the elec- Conquest. tion of Saul. 3 i Sam. xxiii. 11. 14 CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. Lect. XXL rah, when there was not a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel.” There was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel : for the Philistines said, Lest the Israelites make themselves swords and spears. But aU the Israelites went down to the Philis- tines, to sharpen every one his share, and his coulter, ^^and his ax, and his mattock.”^ Saul and Jonathan alone had arms. The complete panoply^ of the Philis- tine giant was a marvel to the unarmed Israelites. As in the days of the Midianite invasion, the Israel- ites vanished from before their enemies into the caves and pits in which the limestone rocks abound.^ Behold the Hebrews come out of the holes where they have ^^hid themselves,” is the exclamation of the Philistines, as they saw any adventurous warriors creeping out of their lurking-places.^ The whole nation was pushed eastward. The monarchy was hke a wind-driven tree. The sharp blast from Philistia blew it awry. The He- brews” (so they are usually^ called by their Philistine conquerors) are said, as if in allusion to their repassing their ancient boundary, to have passed^ over Jordan to ^Hhe land of Gad and Gilead.” The sanctuaries long frequented in the centre of the country. Bethel, and Mizpeh, and Shiloh, were deserted, and the King had to be inaugurated, and the thanksgivings after the victories had to be celebrated, in the first ground that had been won by Joshua in the very outskirts of Palestine — at GilgaH in the valley of the Jordan. In the midst of such a renewal of the disturbed days of old, Saul was 1 1 Sam. xiii. 20 ; Judges v. 8. 6 Ibid. xiii. 3, 7. See Lecture I. 2 1 Sam. xvii. 4. p. 10. 3 Ibid. xiii. 6. See Lecture XV. See 1 Sam. x. 8, xi. 14, xiii. 4, 7, 4 Ibid. xiv. 11. XV. 4 (LXX.), 12. 5 Ibid. iv. 6, 9, xiii. 19, xiv. 11, xxix. 3. Lect. XXL CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. 15 exactly what an ancient Judge would have been. As in each instance they were called up from the tribes especially in danger — as Barak was raised up to defend the tribe of Naphthali from Jabin, and Gideon to defend the tribe of Manasseh against Midian, so Saul of the tribe of Benjamin was the natural champion of his country, now that the heights of his own tribe — Gibeah, and Geba, and Ramah — and the passes of his- own tribe — Beth-horon and Michmash — were occupied by the hos- tile garrisons. We see him leaning on his gigantic spear, whether it be on the summit of the rock Rimmon, to which the remnant of his tribe had once fled before, or under the tamarisk of Ramah,^ as Deborah had of old judged Israel under the palm-tree in Bethel, or on the heights of Gibeah. There he stood with his small band, his faithful six hundred, and as he wept aloud ^ over the misfortunes of his country and of his tribe, another voice swelled the wild indignant lament — the voice of Jonathan his son. At this point we turn aside to the noble figure which henceforth appears by the side of Saul. Like O 1 T 11*^ 1 T Jonathan. Saul, J onathan belongs to the earlier age ; but is one of its finest specimens. He had, in a sudden act of youthful daring, as when Gideon’s brothers had risen against the Midianites on Tabor, given the signal for a general revolt, by attacking and slaying ^ the Philistine officer stationed close to the point where his own posi- tion was fixed. The invasion which followed was more crushing than ever; and from this, as Jonathan had been the first to provoke it, so he was the first to deliver his people. He determined to undertake the whole risk 1 1 Sam. xxii. 6. 3 Ibid. xiii. 3, 4 (LXX. Ewald, iii. 2 Ibid. xiii. 16 (LXX. and Jos.). 41). 16 CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. Lect. XXL himself. ^^The day”^ — the day fixed by him for his enterprise approached. He had communicated it to none except the youth, whom, like all the chiefs of that time, — Gideon, Saul, David, Joab, — he retained as his armor-bearer. The PhiUstine garrison was intrenched above the precipitous pass of Michmash, that forms so marked a feature in the hills of Benjamin, between the two steep crags, whose sharpness has been long since worn away, but which then presented the appearance of two huge teeth ^ projecting from the jaws of the ravine. The words of Jonathan are few, but they breathe the pecuhar spirit of the ancient Israelite war- rior, Come and let us go over,” that is, cross the deep chasm, to the garrison of the Philistines. It may be that Jehovah will work for us : for there is no restraint ^^for Jehovah to work by many or by few.” It was that undaunted faith which caused one to chase a thousand, and two to put ten thousand to flight,” ® the true secret of the slightness of the losses, implied if not stated, in the accounts of the early wars of Israel against Canaan. The answer of the armor-bearer marks the close friend- ship between the two young men ; already similar to that which afterwards grew up between Jonathan and David. “Do all that is in thine heart: ^ look back at me,’ “ behold I am with thee : ^ as thy heart is my heart.” Like Gideon, he determined to draw an omen from the conduct of the enemy, the more because he had no time to consult Priest or Prophet before his departure. K the garrison threatened to descend, he would remain below; if, on the other hand, they raised a challenge, he would accept it. It was the first dawn of day^ when 1 1 Sam. xiv. 1 (LXX.). 3 Deut. xxxii. 30. 2 Ibid. xiv. 4 (Hebrew) ; see Mich- ^ 1 Sam. xiv. 7 (Heb.). MASH in Diet, of Bible, 5 Josephus, Ant. vi. 6, § 2. Lect. XXI. CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. 17 the two warriors emerged from behind the rocks. Their appearance was taken by the Philistines as a furtive apparition of the Hebrews coming forth out of their holes ” like wild creatures from a warren, — and they were welcomed with a scoffing invitation, Come up, and ^^we will show you a thing.” Jonathan took them at their word. It was an enterprise that exactly suited his peculiar turn. He was ^‘swifter than an eagle,” — he could, as it were, soar up into the eagles’ nests. He was stronger than a lion ; ” ^ he could plant his claws in the crags, and force his way into the heart of the enemy’s lair. His chief weapon was his bow. His whole tribe was a tribe of archers,^ and he was the chief archer^ of them all. Accordingly he, with his armor- The^bauie bearer behind him, climbed on his hands and mash, feet up the face of the cliff, and when he came full in view of the enemy, they both discharged such a flight of arrows, stones, and pebbles from their bows, cross- bows, and slings, that twenty men fell at the first onset, and the garrison fled in a panic.^ The panic spread to the camp, and the surrounding hordes of marauders. An earthquake blended with the terror of the moment. It was, as the sacred writer expresses it, a universal trembling,” a trembling of God.” ^ The shaking of the earth, and the shaking of the enemies’ host, and the shaking of the Israelite hearts with the thrill of victory, all leaped together. On all sides the Philistines felt themselves surrounded. The Israelites whom they had taken as slaves during the last three days® rose in mutiny in the camp. Those who lay hid in the caverns 1 1 Chr. xii. 2. 4 i Sam. xlv. 13, 14 (LXX.). 2 2 Sam. i. 23. 5 Ibid. 15 (Hebrew). 3 Ibid. i. 22; 1 Sam. xvlii. 4 xx. ® Ibid. 21 (LXX.). 36, &c. VOL. II. 2 18 CONNECTION WITH THE AGE OF THE JUDGES. Lect. XXL and deep clefts with which the neighborhood abounds, sprang out of their subterraneous dwellings. From the distant height of Gibeah, Saul, who had watched the confusion in astonishment, descended headlong and joined in the pursuit. It was a battle that was remem- bered as reacliuig clean over the country, from the extreme eastern to the extreme western pass — down the rocky defile of Beth-horon, down into the valley of Aijalon. The victory was so decisive as to give its name, the war of Michmash,” ^ to the whole campaign. The Phihstines were driven back not to reappear till the close of the reign. The memory of the event was long preserved in the altar, the first raised under the mon- archy, on the spot where they had first halted. That altar is also a sign that we are still within the confines of the former generation. It was the last refic of the age of vows. Saul had invoked a solemn curse on any one who should eat before the evening. When Jonathan, after his desperate exertions, found himself in the forest, which, not yet cleared, ran up into the hills from the plain of Sharon,^ he was overcome by the darkness^ and dizziness of long fatigue. The father and the son had not met all that day. Jonathan was ignorant of his father’s imprecation, and putting forth the staff which (with his sling and bow) had been his only weapon, tasted the honey which overflowed from the vfild hives as they dashed through the forest. The people in general were restrained by fear of the Royal Curse ; but the moment that the day with its enforced fast was over, they flew, like Mussulmans at sunset during the fast of Ramazan, upon the captured cattle, and devoured them even to the brutal neglect of the 1 1 Sam. xiii. 22 (LXX.). 3 i Sam. xiv. 27 (LXX.). 2 See Sinai and Palestine^ Chap. VL Lect. XXI. SAUL. 19 law forbidding the eating of flesh which contained blood.^ This violation of the sacred usage Saul en- deavored to control by erecting a large stone which served the purpose at once of a rude altar and a rude table. In the dead of night, after this wild revel was over, he proposed that the pursuit should be continued, and then, when the silence of the oracle of the High Priest disclosed to him that his vow had been broken, he at once, like Jephthah, prepared himself for the dreadful sacrifice of his child. But there was sacrifice of now a freer and more understanding spirit in the nation at large. What was tolerated in the time of Jephthah, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, and when the obligation of such vows over- rode all other considerations, — was no longer tolerated. The people interposed in Jonathan’s behalf They rec- ognized the religious aspect of his great exploit. They rallied round him with a zeal that overbore even the royal vow, and rescued Jonathan, that he died not.^ It was the dawn of a better day. It was the national spirit, now in advance of their chief, — animated by the same Prophetic teaching, which through the voice of Samuel had now made itself felt, — the conviction that there was a higher duty even than outward sacrifice or exact fulfilment of literal vows. This leads us to the consideration of the other side of the character of Saul himself He was, as we have seen, in outward form and in the special mission to which he was called, but as one of the class of the old heroic age, which was passing away. But he was some- 1 Lev. xvii. 10, 11; Deut. xii. 23. ner of a Greek or Roman. Ewald 2 Josephus (^Ant vi. 6, § 5) puts supposes that a substitute was killed into Jonathan’s mouth a speech of in his place. patriotic self-devotion, after the man- 20 SAUL. Lect. XXI. thing more than these had been. His call was after a different manner from that of the older Judges. He had shared in the Prophetic inspiration of the time. He had shared in an inward as well as an outward change. God/' we are told, gave him another heart/' and ^‘he became another man." The three tokens which Samuel foretold to him well expressed the significance of the change, which, in modern language, would be The first called his “ conversion." ^ He was the first of the long succession of Jewish Kings. He was the first recorded instance of inauguration, by that sin- gular ceremonial which, in imitation of the Hebrew rite, has descended to the coronation of our own sovereisrns. The sacred oiH was used for his ordination as for a Priest. He was the Lord’s Anointed” in a pecuHar sense, that invested^ his person with a special sanctity. And from him the name of “ the Anointed One ” was handed on till it received in the latest days of the Jew- ish Church its very highest application, — in Hebrew, or Aramaic, the Memali ; in Greek, the Christ. Eegal state gradually gathered round him. Ahijah, the surviving representative of the doomed house of Ithamar, was always at hand, in the dress of the sacred Ephod, to answer his questions. The Ephod was the substitute for the exiled Ark."^ A new sanctuary arose not far from Gibeah, at Nob, on the northern shoulder of Oli- vet, where the Tabernacle was again set up, — where the shewbread was still kept, and where the trophies of the Philistine war were suspended within the sacred tent.® 1 See pp. 8, 9. xiv. 18, where the LXX. by reading 2 Comp. 1 Sam. x. 1; xiv. 13. “ephod” for “ark,” corrects an ob- 3 2 Sam. i. 14, 21 ; 1 Sam. xxiv. 0, vious mistake. 10 ; xxvi. 9, 16. 5 i Sam. xxi. 9. * Comp. 1 Chr. xiii. 3 ; 1 Sam. Lect. XXI. THE FIRST KING. 21 The beginnings of a ‘^host”^ are now first indicated. The office of captain of the host ” is filled by court. his kinsman, the generous and princely Ab- ner.^ Now also is established the body-guard, always round the King’s ® person, selected from his own tribe,^ for their stature ^ and beauty, and at their head the sec- ond officer® of the kingdom, one who united with the arts of war the noblest gifts of peace, one whom we shall recognize elsewhere than in the court of Saul, — David, the son of Jesse. And, closely bound with this high officer is the heir of the throne, the great archer of the tribe of Benjamin, the heroic Jonathan. These three sat ^ at the King’s table. Another inferior officer appears incidentally : the keeper of the royal mules ” ® and chief of the household slaves® — the comes stabulV^ — the constable ” of the King, such as appears in the later monarchy.^® He is the first instance of a foreigner employed in a high function in Israel, being an Edom- ite or Syrian,^^ of the name of Doeg, — according to Jewish tradition the steward who accompanied Saul in his pursuit after the asses, who counselled him to send for David, and whose son ultimately slew him ; — accord- ing to the sacred narrative, a person of vast and sinis- ter influence in his master’s counsels. 1 The “ host ” appears immediately 1 Sam. xx. 25. after his accession, in the word (lia- ® Ibid. xxi. 7 (LXX.) ; Joseph. chail) mistranslated “ band” in 1 Ant. vi. 12, §§ 1, 4. Sam. X. 26. Comp. xiii. 2. 9 Ibid. xxii. 9. . 2 1 Sam. xiv. 50. 1 Chr. xxvii. 30. 3 “ The servants before his face,” 1 n 1 Sam. xxi. 7 ; xxii. 9. The Sam. xvi. 15: “Young men,” xvi. 17. Hebrew here, as in other cases, has 4 1 Sam. xxii. 7; Joseph. Ant. vii. “Edomite,” the LXX. and Josephus 1, § 4. “Syrian.” 5 1 Sam. xiv. 52 ; Joseph! Ant. vi. ^2 Jerome, Qu. Heb. on 1 Sam. xxi. 6, § G. 7 ; xxii. 9 ; 2 Sam. i. 6 1 Sam. xxii. 14. (Ewald, iii. 98.) 22 SAUL. Lect. XXI. ' The King himself was distinguished by marks of royalty not before observed in the nation. His tall spear, already noticed, was always by his side, in re- pose,^ at his meals,^ when sleeping,^ when in battle.^ He wore a diadem round his brazen helmet and a brace- let on his arm.^ His victories soon fulfilled the hopes for which his office was created. Moab, Edom, Ammon, Amalek, and even the distant Zobah,® felt his power. The Israelite women met him on his return from his wars with songs of greeting; and eagerly looked out for the scarlet robes and golden ornaments which he brought back as their prey.^ From these signs of hope and life in the house of Saul, we turn to the causes of its downfall. If Samuel is the great example of an ancient saint His imper- growing up from childhood to old age without feet conver- . T Sion. a sudden conversion, Saul is the first direct ex- ample of the mixed character often produced by such a conversion, a call coming in the midway of life to rouse the man to higher thoughts than the lost asses of his father’s household, or than the tumults of war and victory. He became another man,” yet not en- tirely. He was, as is so often the case, half-converted, half-roused. His mind moved unequally and dispropor- tionately in its new sphere. Backwards and forwards in the names of his children, we see alternately the signs of the old heathenish superstition, and of the new purified religion of Jehovah. Jonathan, his first-born, is the gift of Jehovah ; ” Melchi-shua is the help of Moloch;” his grandson Merib-baal is ‘Hhe soldier of 1 1 Sam. xviii. 10 ; xix. 9. 2 Ibid. XX. 23 ; in A. V. mistrans- lated “javelin,” and the article omit- ted. 3 1 Sam. xxvi. 11. 4 2 Sam. i. 6. 5 Ibid. i. 10 ; 1 Sam. xvii. 38. 6 1 Sam. xiv. 47. 7 Ibid, xviii. C ; 2 Sam. i. 24. Lect. XXI. HIS FALL. 23 Baal and his fourth son, Ish-baa], the man of Baal and here again Baal ” is swept out, and appears only as Bosheth,” the shame or reproach,” — Mephibo- sheth, Ish-bosheth.^ He caught the Prophetic inspira- tion, not continuously, but only in fitful gusts. Passion- ately he would enter into it for the time, as he came within the range of his better associations, tear off his clothes, and lie stretched on the ground under its in- fluence for a night and a day together. But then he would be again the slave of his common pursuits. His religion was never blended with his moral nature. It broke out in wild, ungovernable acts of zeal and super- stition, and then left him more a prey than ever to his own savage disposition. With the prospects and the position of a David, he remained to the end a Jephthah or a Samson, with this difference, — that, having out- lived the age of Jephthah and of Samson, he could not be as they ; and the struggle, therefore, between what he was and what he might have been, grew fiercer as years went on ; and the knowledge of Samuel, and the companionship of David, become to him a curse mstead of a blessing. Of all the checks on the dangers incident to the growth of an Oriental monarchy in the Jewish nisoppo- ^ . . 1 • 1 sition to the nation, the most prominent was that which Prophets. Providence supplied in the contemporaneous growth of the Prophetical ofiice. But it was just this far-reaching vision of the past and future, which Saul was unable to understand. At the very outset of his career, Samuel, the great representative of the Prophetical order, had warned him not to enter on his kingly duties till he should appear to inaugurate them and to instruct him in them. It would seem to have been almost immedi- 1 1 Sam. xiv. 4, 9 ; xxxi. 2 ; 1 Chr. viii. 33. 24 SAUL. Lect. XXI. ately after his first call, that the occasion arose. The war with the Philistines was impending. He could not restrain the vehemence of his religions emotions. As King, he had the right to sacrifice. Without a sacrifice it seemed to him impossible to advance to battle. He sacrificed, and by that ritual zeal defied the warning of the Prophetic monitor. It was the crisis of his trial.^ He had shovm that he could not understand the dis- tinction between moral and ceremonial duty, on which the greatness of his people depended. It was not be- cause he sacrificed, but because he thought sacrifice greater than obedience, that the curse descended upon him. Again, in the sacred war against Amalek, there is no reason to suppose that Saul spared the king for any other reason than that for which he retained the spoil, — namely, to make a more splendid show at the sacrificial thanksghdng.^ Such was the Jewish tradition preserved by Josephus,^ who expressly says that Agag was saved for his stature and beauty ; and such is the general im- pression left by the description of the celebration of the victory. Saul rides to the southern Carmel in a char- iot,^ never mentioned elsewhere, and sets up a monu- ment there, which, according to the Jewish traditions,^ was a triumphal arch of olives, myrtles, and palms. The name given to God on the occasion is taken from this crowning triumph. The Victory of Israel.” ® This second act of disobedience calls down the second curse, in the form of that Prophetic truth which stands out 1 1 Sam. xiii. 8, compared with 4 i Sam. xv. 12 (LXX.). 1 Sam. X. 8, with which it must be 5 Jerome, Qu. Heb. ad loc. taken in close connection. See The- 6 1 Sam. xv. 29 (Heb.); Vulg. nius ad loc. and Ewald. “ triumphans ; ” and comp. 1 Chr. 2 1 Sam. XV. 21. xxix. 11. 3 Ant. vi. 7, § 2. Lect. XXL HIS SUPERSTITION. 25 all the ' more impressively from the savage scene with which it is connected. ^^Hath Jehovah as great delight ^^in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the word of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is more than good sacrifice, to hearken than the fat of rams.” ^ The struggle between Samuel and Saul in their final parting is indicated by the rent of Samuel’s robe of state, as he tears himself away from Saul’s grasp,^ and by the long anguish of Samuel for the separation. Samuel mourned for Saul.” How long wilt thou mourn for Saul ? ” ^ The terrible vengeance exacted on the fallen King by Samuel is the measure of Saul’s delinquency. The mighty chief whose sword was so dreaded amongst the mothers^ of Israel was now himself crouching^ awe- struck at the feet of the Prophet, who hewed him limb from limb — a victim (so the narrative seems to imply) more fitted for the justice of God than the helpless oxen and sheep, whose fat carcasses and whose senseless bleating and lowing filled the Prophet’s soul with such supreme disdain. The ferocious form of the offering of Agag belongs happily to an extinct dispensation. But its spirit reminds us of the famous saying of Peter the Great, when entreated in a mortal illness to secure the Divine mercy by the pardon of some criminals con- demned to death : Carry out the sentence. Heaven ^Gvill be propitiated by this act of justice.”® To receive benefits from the society of those whom we condemn, and yet to exclaim against the pollution of it, — to set at naught obvious duties for the sake of the religious as- 1 1 Sam. XV. 22 (Hebrew). rendered “ delicately ” (1 Sam. xv.) 2 For the gesture, see Joseph. Ant in the A. V. should be translated “in vi. 7, § 5. joy ” or “ in terror.” See Thenius ad 3 1 Sam. XV. 35 ; xvi. 1. loc. The Vulgate gives hoih. pinguis~ 4 Ibid. XV. 33. simus and tremens. 5 It is doubtful whether the word 6 Stahlin’s Peter the Great, § 2. 26 SAUL, Lect. XXL cendency of our own peculiar views, is, as has been well said, the modern likeness of the piety of Saul when he spared the best of the oxen and the sheep to sacrifice to the Lord in Gilgald What Saul did then, he was doing always. His re- ligious zeal was always breaking out in wrong channels, on irregular occasions, in his own way. The Gibeonites he destroyed, probabl}^ as a remnant of the ancient Ca- naanites, heedless of the covenant which their ancestors His super- made with Joshua.^ The wizards ® and nec- stition. romancers he cut off, unmindful, till reminded by the Prophet, that his own wilfulness was as the sin of witchcraft, and his own stubbornness as the sin of idolatry. The priesthood of Nob he swept away, per- haps in the mere rage of disappointment, or under the overweening influence of Hoeg, but also, it may be, as an instrument of Divine vengeance on the accursed house of Ithamar.^ Out of these conflicting elements, — out of a charac- ter unequal to his high position, — out of the zeal of a partial conversion degenerating into a fanciful and gloomy superstition, arose the first example of what has Hjg been called in after-times religious madness, madness. Unhingement of his mind, which is per- haps first apparent in the wild vow or fixed idea which doomed his son to death, gradually becomes more and more evident. He is not wholly insane. The lucid in- tervals are long, the dark hours are few, but we trace step by step the gradual advance of the fatal malady. ^^The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul; and an 1 Arnold, On the Christian Duty of ^ “ Thou and all thy father's housef conceding the Roman Catholic Claims 1 Sam. xxii. 16. Josephus {Ant. vi. {Miscell. Works., p. 76). 12, § 7) regards it as the climax of 2 2 Sam. xxi. 2. See Lecture XI. guilt, brought on by despotic power. 3 1 Sam. xxviii. 9 (Ewald, iii. 67). Lect. XXL HIS MADNESS. 27 ^^evil spirit from the Lord troubled him — terrified, choked^ him.” It was an evil spirit; and yet it seemed — it is expressly called — ^^a spirit of God;” and in the midst of his ravings, the old Prophetic in- spiration of his better days ^ could return — he proph- esied.” How touching is the entrance on the scene of the one man who could charm away the demon of madness, the one bright spirit in the gloomy court, the one wdio finds favor in his sight ; and yet the one who ministers, in spite of himself, to the waywardness of the diseased mind, which he was called in to cure, himself the victim of the love which a distempered imagination turned into jealousy and hatred. And Saul’s servants said unto him. Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our lord noAV command thy servants, which are be- fore thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player ^^on a harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto ^^his servants. Provide me now a man that can play ^^well, and bring him to me. Then answered one of^ the young men and said. Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, ^^and a mighty vahant man, and a man of war, and prudent in speech, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him.” From this time forth the history of the two is indissolubly united. In his better moments Saul 1 errviyev, 1 Sam. xvi. 14. 'Kviyfiovg 3 According to the Jewish tradition avTG) Kal GTpayyaka^ k'KLcpEpovTa (Joseph, this was Doeg, who did it with mali- Aid. vi. 8, § 2). clous foresight of the result (Jerome, 2 Compare also the double mean- Qucest. Heb. in, loc.). ing of “ prophesying,” 1 Sam. xvlii. 10, 11. (See Joseph. Ant. vi. 11, § 5.) 28 SAUL. Lect. XXI. never lost the strong affection which he had contracted for Da^vid. He ^Hoved him greatly.”^ ^^Saul would ‘Het him go no more home to his father’s house.” ^ Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat?”® They sit side by side, the likenesses of the old system passing away, of the new system coming into exist- ence. Saul, the warlike chief, his great spear always by his side, reluctant, moody, melancholy and David, the youthful minstrel, his harp in his hand, fresh from the schools where the spirit of the better times was fos- tered, pouring forth to soothe the troubled spirit of the King the earliest of those strains which have soothed the troubled spirit of the whole world. Saul is re- freshed and is well, and the evil spirit departs from him. And then, again, the paroxysm of rage and jeal- ousy returns. Wherever he goes he is alternately cheered and maddened by the same rival figure. By David he is delivered from the giant Philistine, and by the songs of triumph over David’s success he is turned against him. He dismisses him from his court, he throws him into dangers; but David’s disgrace and danger increase his popularity. He makes the mar- riage with his daughter a trap for David, and com- mands his son to kill him ; and his design ends in Michal’s passionate love, and in Jonathan’s faithful friendship. He pursues him over the hills of Judah, and he finds that he has been unconsciously in his enemy’s power and spared by his enemy’s generosity ; and with that ebb and flow of sentiment so natural, so true, so difficult to square with any precise theories of predestination or reprobation, yet so important as in- dications of a living human character — the old fatherly feeling towards David revives. Is this thy voice, my 1 1 Sam. xvi. 21. 2 Ibid, xviii. 2. 3 Ibid. xx. 27. Lect. XXI. HIS LAST DAYS. 29 son David ? And he lifted up his voice and wept. I have sinned. Return, my son David : behold, I have “played the fool, and erred exceedingly. Blessed be “ thou, my son David : thou shalt both do great things, “ and also shalt still prevail. David went on his way, “ and Saul returned to his place.” ^ So they part on the hills of Judah. One support was still left to the house of Saul. David we shall track elsewhere, and The love of Jonathan for David we shall have occasion to follow in David’s history. But we do not, perhaps, sufficiently appreciate the devotion of Jona- than for his unfortunate father. From the time that he first appears he is Saul’s constant companion. He is always present at the royal table. He holds the office afterwards known as that of “ the king’s friend.” ^ The deep attachment of the father and the son is every- where implied. J onathan can only go on his dangerous expedition by concealing it from Saul.^ Saul’s vow is confirmed, and its tragic effect deepened by his feeling for Jonathan — “though it be Jonathan my son.”^ Jonathan cannot bear to believe his father’s enmity to David. “ My father will do nothing, great or small, but “ that he will show it me : and why should my father “ hide this thing from me ? it is not ^ so.” To him, if to any one, the frenzy of the king was amenable. “ Saul “hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan.”® Once only was there a decided break ^ — a disclosure, as it would seem, of some dark passage in the previous history of Ahinoam or of Rizpah, — “ Son of a perverse, rebellious “ woman ! Shame on thy mother’s nakedness ! ” “ In 1 1 Sam. xxiv. 16; xxvi. 17-25. 2 Ibid. XX. 25; 2 Sam. xv. 37. 3 1 Sam. xiv. 1. 4 Ibid. xiv. 39. 5 Ibid. XX. 2. 6 Ibid. XIX. 6. ^ Ibid. XX. 30, 81. 30 SAUL. Lect. XXI. fierce anger ” ^ Jonathan left the royal presence. But now that the final parting was come, he took his lot ■with his father’s decline, not with his friend’s rise — and in death they were not divided.” The darkness, indeed, gathered fast and deep over the fated house. The Phihstines, so long kept at bay, once more broke The battle into the Israelite territory. From the five of Mount , 1 1 Gilboa. cities they advanced far into the land. They had been driven from the hills of Judah. They now summoned all their strength for a last struggle in the plain of Esdraelon, where their chariots^ and horses could move freely. On the central branch of the plain, on the southern slope of the range called the Hill of Moreh, by the town of Shunem, they pitched their' camp. On the opposite side, on the rise of Mount Gil- boa, was the Israelite army, keeping as usual to the heights which were their security. It was as nearly as possible where Gideon’s camp had been pitched against the Midianites, hard by the spring ^ which from the fear and trembling ” of Gideon’s companions had been called the spring of Harod, or ^HrembHng.” We know not what may have been the feehng of the army at this second like conjuncture. But there was no Gideon to lead them. Saul, (we are told, with a direct allusion to the incident which had given its name to the place,) when he saw the camp of the Philistines, was afraid, and his heart trembled exceedingly T ^ The Sj)irit of the Lord,” which had roused him in his former years, had now departed from him. There was now no harp of the shepherd Psalmist to drive away the evil spirit; and ^Svhen he inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered 1 1 Sam. XX. 34. 2 2 Sam. i. 6. 3 1 Sam. xxix. 1 ; Judg. vii. 1 , 3. 4 1 Sam. xxviii. 5. Tin: PLAIX OF KSOHAELOX. ' (} Shvihh . ih '"il.wV- ^ezreol She; O Si D A X Lect. XXL THE WITCH OF ENDOR. 31 him mot ; ’’ no vision was vouchsafed to him in trance or dream^ as before, when he lay under the Prophetic influence all night at Ramah; no intimation of the Divine will by the Urim and Thummim of the High- Priest’s breastplate, for the house of Ithamar had been exterminated by the sword of Doeg, and its sole sur- vivor, Abiathar, was following the fortunes of his fugi- tive rival ; no consoling voice of the Prophets of God, for Samuel, his ancient counsellor, had long since parted from him, and had descended in mourning to his grave. He was left alone to himself; and now the last spark of life, — the religious zeal which he had followed even to excess, — this also vanished ; or rather, as must always be the case when it has thus swerved from the moral principle which alone can guide it, was turned into a wild and desperate superstition. The wizards and fa- miliar spirits, whom in a fit perhaps of righteous indig- nation he had put out of the land, now become his only resource. Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. On the other side of the ridge, on which the Philis- tines were encamped, was Endor, the spring of Dor,” marked in Hebrew poetry as the scene of the slaughter of the fugitive host of Sisera.^ On that rocky mountain-side dwelt a solitary woman — ac- cording to Jewish^ tradition, the mother of Abner — 1 Ps. Ixxxiii. 10. See Lecture XI V. De Engas^trimyfho, in Critici Sacri, 2 Jerome,QM. ad loc. Volumes vol. ii.) The LXX. of 1 Sam. xxviii. have been written on the question, 7 (kyyacrplfivdoc) and the A. V. (by whether in the scene that follows we its omission of “ himself” in xxviii. 14, are to understand an imposture or a and insertion of “ when ” in xxviii. real apparition of Samuel. Eustathius 12) lean to the former. Josephus and most of the F athers take the (who pronounces a glowing eulogy on former view ; Origen, the latter view, the woman, Ant. vi. 14, §§ 2, 3), and Augustine wavers. (See Leo Allatius, the LXX. of 1 Chr. x. 13, to the lat- 32 SAUL. Lect. XXI. who had escaped the King’s persecution. To her, as to one who still held converse with the other world, came by dead of night three unknown guests, of whom the chief called upon her to wake the dead Samuel from the world of shades, which at that time formed the ut- most limit of the Hebrew conceptions of the state be- yond the grave. They were Saul, and, according to Jew- ish tradition, Abner and Amasa.^ The sacred narrative does not pretend to give us the distinct details of the scene.^ But we hear the shriek of double surprise, with which ^^when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a “ loud voice ; ” we see with her the venerable figure, rismg from the earth, like a God,® his head veiled in his reo:aH or sacred mantle, with the threatening and disquieted countenance which could only be, as she sur- mised, assumed against his ancient enemy. How differ- ent from that joyous meeting at the feast at Ramah, when the Prophet told him that on him was all the de- sire of Israel, on him and on his father’s house. How different from that ^•chosen” and goodly” youth, to whom there was none like among the people,” was the unhappy king, v ho, when he heard the ProjDhet’s judg- ment, fell and lay ‘Hhe whole length^ of his gigantic ter. At this distance of time it is impossible to determine the exact in- tention of the narrative, though its obvious meaning tends to the hypoth- esis of some kind of apparition. 1 Meyer, notes to the Seder Olam^ p. 492. 2 The witch is called in the Hebrew a woman of “ Ob,” i. e. of a skin or bladder, or murmuring voice, which the LXX. have rendered eyyacrrp'iuvdog {ventriloquist), and the Vulirate Py- thoness, It is a curious instance of the dangers of relying on the trans- lation, even of the most highly au- thorized version, that Voltaire {Phil, of Hist. 35) argues from the expres- sion Pythoness the Grecian origin of the whole story. 3 1 Sam. xxviii. 13 (Hebrew). See Lecture XVIH. pp. 392, 404. 4 ieparLKTiv dL-holda, Joseph. Ant. vi. 14, § 2. See Lecture XVIII., ibid. 3 1 Sam. x.xviii. 20. So (as in 1 Sam. xvi. 7, the height of his stature) should be translated the words which are rendered — “ all along.” As in Homer, fjdyag aeya7uJcrL, Lect. XXL THE FLIGHT OF THE HOUSE OF SAUL. 33 ; " stature upon the earth, and was sore afraid, and there was no strength left in him.” It was on the following day that the Philistines charged the Israelite army, and drove them up the heights of Gilboa ! On the high places of Gilboa,” on their own familiar and friendly high places, the pride of Israel was slain.” ^ On the green strip which breaks the slope of the mountain upland as it rises from the fertile plain, the final encounter took place. Filled as it seemed to be with the pledge of future harvests and offerings, henceforth a curse might well be called to rest upon it, and the bareness of the bald mountain, without dew or rain, to spread itself over the fertile soil. The details of the battle are but seen in broken snatches, as in the short scenes of a battle acted on the stage, or beheld at remote glimpses by an accidental spectator. But amidst the shower of arrows from the Philistine archers — or pressed hard even on the mountain side by their char- ioteers^ — the figure of the King emerges from the darkness. His three sons ® have fallen before him. His armor-bearer lies dead beside him. But on his own head is the royal crown — on his arm the royal brace- let. The shield or light buckler which he always wore has been cast away in his flight,^ stained with blood, be- grimed with filth ; the polish of the consecrated oil was gone — it was a defiled polluted thing.^ The huge spear is still in his hand. He is leaning heavily upon it; he has received his death wound either from the enemy,® or from his own sword ; the dizziness and dark- 1 2 Sam. i. 5 2 Sam. i. 2 1 Sam. xxxl. 3 ; 2 Sam. i. 6. 6 i Sam. xxxi. 3, 4 (LXX.). The 3 Ibid. 2. accounts vary. 4 2 Sam. i. 21. VOL. II. 3 34 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXI. ness of death ^ is upon him. At that moment a wild His death Amalekite,^ lured probably to the field by the hope of spoil, came up and finished the work which the arrows of the Philistines and the sword of Saul himself had all but accompUshed. The Philistines when the next day dawned found the corpses of the father and of his three sons. The tid- ings were told in the capital of Gath, and proclaimed through the streets of Ashkelon ; the daughters of the Philistines, the daughters of the accursed race of the uncircumcised, rejoiced as they welcomed back their victorious kinsmen. It was the great retribution for the fall of their champion of Gath. As the Israelites had then carried off his head and his sword as trophies to their sanctuary, so the head of Saul was cut off and fastened in the temple of Dagon at Ashdod,^ and his arms — the spear on which he had so often rested — the sword and the famous bow of Jonathan — were sent round in festive processions to the Philistine cities, and finally deposited in the temple of Ashtaroth, in the Canaanitish city of Bethshan, hard by the fatal field. On the walls of the same city, overhanging the public place in front of the gates, were hung the stripped and dismembered corpses. In the general defection, the trans-Jordanic territory remained faithful to the fallen house. One town espe- cially, Jabesh-Gilead, whether from its ancestral connec- tion with the tribe of Benjamin, or from its recollection of Saul’s former ser\dces, immediately roused itself to show its devotion. The whole armed population rose, crossed the Jordan at dead of night, and carried off the 1 2 Scim. i. 9 (LXX.). 3 1 Chr. x. 10; 1 Sam. xxxi. 9, 2 A son of Doeg (Jerome, Qucest. 10. Heb. in loc.). Lect. XXL THE FLIGHT OF THE HOUSE OF SAUL. 35 bodies of the king and princes from Bethshan. There was a conspicuous tree — whether terebinth or tama- risk^ — close beside the town. Underneath it the bones were buried with a strict funeral fast of seven days.^ The court and camp of Saul rallied round the grave of their master beyond the Jordan, under the guidance of Abner, who set up the royal house at the ancient East- ern sanctuary of Mahanaim. Ish-bosheth was . , , , o tt 11 • Ish-bosheth. the nominal head.^ He succeeded not as m the direct descent, but according to the usual law of Oriental succession, as the eldest survivor of the house. Thither also came Rizpah, the Canaanite concubine of Saul, with her two sons.^ There also were the two princesses — Michal with her second husband, Merab with her five sons, and^ her husband Adriel, himself a dweller in those parts, the son, perhaps, of the great Barzillai.^ Thither was brought the only son of Jona- than, Mephibosheth. He was then but a child in his nurse’s arms. She, on the first tidings of the fatal rout of Gilboa, fied with the child on her shoulder. She stumbled and fell, and the child carried the remem- brance of the disaster to his dying day, in the lameness of both his feet. He too was conveyed beyond the Jor- dan, and brought up in the house of a powerful Gile- adite chief, bearing the old trans - Jordanic name of Machir.® On the hills of Gilead, the dynasty thus again struck root, and Abner gradually regained for it all the north of Western Palestine. But this was only for a time. An unworthy suspicion of Ish-bosheth that his mighty 1 The latter is stated in 1 Sam. ^ Ibid. iii. 7 ; xxi. 8. Xxxi. 13, the former in 1 Chr. x. 12. 5 ibid. iii. 13; xxi. 8. 2 1 Sam. xxxi. 13; 1 Chr. x. 12. ® Ibid. ix. 4. 3 2 Sam. ii. 8. 36 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXL kinsman, by attempting to win for himself the widowed Eizpah, was aspiring to the throne, drove that high- spirited chief into the court of David, where he fell by the hand of Joab. The slumbering vengeance of the Gibeonites for Murder of Saul’s Onslaught on them, completed the work ish-bosheth. destruction. In the guard of Ish-bosheth, which, like that of Saul, was drawn from the royal tribe of Benjamin, were two representatives of the old Canaanite league of Gibeon. They were chiefs of the marauding^ troops which went from time to time to attack the territory of Judah. They knew the habits of the court and king. In the stillness of an Eastern noon, they entered the palace as if to carry off the wheat which w^as piled up near the entrance. The female slave by the door who was sifting the wheat had, in the heat of the day,^ fallen asleep at her task. They stole in and passed into the royal bedchamber, where Ish-bosheth lay on his couch. They stabbed him in the stomach, cut off liis head, made their escape all that afternoon, all that night, down the vaUey of the Jordan, and presented the head to David at Hebron as a wel- come present. They met with a hard reception. The new king rebuked them sternly, their hands and feet were cut off, and their mutilated limbs hung up over the pool at Hebron. In the same place, in the sepul- chre of Abner, the head of Ish-bosheth was buried. But the vengeance of the Gibeonites was not yet Crucifixion sated, nor the calamities of Saul’s house fin- sonsof Saul. ished. It was in the course of David’s reign that a three months’ famine fell on the country. A question arose as to the latent national crime which 1 Comp. 2 Sam. iv. 2, ili. 22, where 2 2 Sam. iv. 5-7 (LXX.) ; and Jo- the same word (jgedud) is used. sephus (^Ant. vii. 2, § 1). Lect. XXI. ITS EXTERMINATION. 37 oould have called forth this visitation. This, according to the oracle, was Saul’s massacre of the Gibeonites. The crime consisted in the departure from the solemn duty of keeping faith with idolaters and heretics, — a duty which even in Christian times has often been * repudiated, but which even in those hard times David faithfully acknowledged.’^ This is the better side of this dark event. The Gibeonites saw that their day was come, and they would not be put off with anything short of their full measure of revenge. Seven of the descendants of Saul — the two sons of Rizpah, the five sons of Merab — were dragged from their retreat be- yond the Jordan. Seven crosses were erected on the sacred hill of Gibeah or of Gibeon, and there the unfortu- nate victims were crucified. The sacrifice took place at the beginning of barley harvest, — the sacred and festal time of the Passover, — and remained there in the full blaze of the summer skies till the fall of the periodical rain in October. Underneath the corpses sate for the whole of that time the mother of two of them, Rizpah — the mater dolorosa (if one may use a striking apph- cation^ of that sacred phrase) of the ancient dispensation. She had no tent to shelter her from the scorching sun, nor from the drenching dews, but she spread on the rocky floor her thick mourning-garment of black sack- cloth, and crouched there from month to month to ward off the vultures that flew by day, and the jackals that prowled by night over the dreadful spot. At last the royal order came that the expiation was complete, and from the crosses — such is one version of the event — 1 Ps. XV. 4. See Lecture XI. Dictionary of the Bible. It should 2 The verbal details of this account, be said that there remains the possi- in strict conformity with the Hebrew bility that the bodies were hung up text, are suggested by Mr. Grove’s after death. graphic article on Rizpah in the 38 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXL the bodies were taken down by a descendant of the gigantic aboriginal racesd It would seem as if this tragical scene had moved the whole compassion of the king and nation for the fallen dynasty. From the grave beneath the terebinth of Jabesh-Gilead, the bones of Saul and Jonathan were at last brought back to their own ancestral burial-place at Zelah, on the edge of the tribe of Benjamin. It must have been at this same time that the search was made for any missing descendants of Jonathan. In the entire extinction of the family in Western Pales- tine it was with difficulty that this information could be obtained. It was given by Ziba/ a former slave of the royal house. And Da^dd said, Is there any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him the kind- “ ness of God for Jonathan’s sake ? ” One still remained. Mephibo- Mephibosheth was beyond the Jordan, where sheth. been since his early flight. He must have been still a youth, but' was married and had an only son. He came bearing with him the perpetual marks of the disastrous day of his escape. It would almost seem as if David had heard of him as a child from his beloved Jonathan. Feeble in body, broken in spirit, the exiled prince entered and fell on his face before the occupant of what might have been his father’s throne ; and David said, Mephibosheth.” And he said, Behold thy slave.” At David’s table he was main- tained, and through him and his son were probably pre- served the traditions of the friendship of his father and his benefactor. His loyalty remained unshaken, though much contested both at the time and afterwards ; and we part from him on the banks of the Jordan, where with aU the signs of Eastern grief he met David on his 1 2 Sam. xxi. 11 (LXX.). 2 2 Sam. ix. 2. Lect. XXI. SYMPATHY FOR ITS FALL. 39 return from the defeat of Absalom.^ Two other descend ants of the house of Saul appear in the court of David. A son ^ of Abner was allowed the first place in the tribe of Benjamin. A powerful ^ chief of the family lived to a great old age on the borders of the tribe till the reign of Solomon. It is just possible that in the attempt of the usurper Zimri there is one last effort of the de- scendants of Jonathan to gain the throne of Israel.^ So closed the dynasty of Saul. It will have been observed how tender is the interest cherished sympnthy] towards it throughout all these scattered no- tices in the sacred narrative, — a striking proof of the contrast between our timid anxiety and the fearless human sympathy of the Biblical writers. In later ages, it has often been the custom to be wise and severe above that which is written, and in the desire of exalt- ing David to darken ® the character of Saul and his fam- ily. In this respect we have fallen behind the keener discrimination which appeared in his own countrymen. Even when Abner fell, and by his fall secured the throne to David, this generous feeling expresses itself alike in the narrative and in David himself ^^They buried Abner in Hebron : and the king lifted up his ^Woice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the “ people wept, and the king lamented over Abner. ^ Died ^ Abner as Nabal died ? ’ and all the people wept again over him.” Such, too, is the spirit of the stern rebuke to the slayer of Saul, and to the murderers of Ish-bo- sheth. Such is the deep pathos which runs through 1 See Lecture XXIV. * Even S. Bernard thought that 2 1 Chr. xxvii. 2. Saul and Jonathan were both lost for- 3 2 Sam. xvi. 5, &c. ; 1 Kings ii. ever. See Morrison, Life of S. Ber- 86, &c. See Lecture XXVI. narJ, p. 270. 4 1 Kings xvi. 9-20. Compare 1 Chr. ix. 42. See Lecture XXX. 40 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXI. the dark story of Eizpah, the daughter of Aiah. Such, too, was the Jewish tradition which regarded the mis- fortunes of David’s descendants as a judgment on the somewhat unequal measure with which he requited the gratitude of Mephibosheth and the friendship of Jona- than. At the same moment that David said to Me- phibosheth, Thou and Ziba shall divide the land ; the voice of Divine Providence said, Rehoboam and Jero- ^ boam shall divide the kingdom : ” ^ and even if the sacred writer believed in the treason of Mephibosheth, there is no word to tell us so ; his crime, if there were a crime, is left, shrouded under the shade which sym- pathy for the fallen dynasty has cast over it. This tender sentiment appears in the highest degree towards Saul himself Josephus did not feel that he was failing in reverence to Da\ud, by breaking forth into enthusiastic admiration ^ of the patriotic devotion with which Saul rushed to meet his end. And still more remarkably is this feeling exemplified in David’s lamen- tation after the battle of Gilboa. Its instruction rises beyond the special occasion. Saul had fallen with all his sins upon his head, fallen David’s la- bittemess of despair, and, as it might SaS^^n^ have seemed to mortal eye, under the shadow Jonathan, curso of God. But not only is there in David’s lament no revengeful fueling at the death of his persecutor, such as that in which even Christian saints have indulged from the days of Lactantius down to the days of the Covenanters ; not only is there none of that bitter feeling which in more peaceful times so often turns the heart of a successor against his prede- cessor; but he dwells with unmixed love on the brighter 1 Quoted by Lightfoot, Sermon on 2 vi. 14, § 4. 2 Sam. xix. 29. Lect. XXI. SYMPATHY FOR ITS FALL. 41 recollections of the departed. He speaks only of the Saul of earlier times, — the mighty conqueror, the de- light of his people, the father of his beloved and faith- ful friend ; like him in life, united with him in death. Such expressions, indeed, cannot be taken as delib- erate judgments on the characters of Saul or of his family. But they may fairly be taken as justifying the irrepressible instinct of humanity which compels us to dwell on the best qualities of those who have but just departed, and which has found its way into all funeral services of the Christian Church, of our own amongst the rest. They represent, and they have, by a fitting application, been themselves made to express, the feel- ings with which in all ages of Christendom the remains of the illustrious dead, whether in peace or war, of characters however far removed from perfection, have been committed to the grave. It is not only a quota- tion, but an unconscious vindication of our own better feelings, when over the portal of the sepulchral chapel ^ of the most famous of mediaeval heroes we find in- scribed the words of David : How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished 1 ” Quomodo eeciderunt rohusti, et perierunt arma hellica ! It was not only an adaptation, but a repetition, of the original feeling of David, when we ourselves heard the dirge of Abner, sung over the grave of the hero of our own age : The king himself followed the bier ; and the king said unto his servants. Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel ? ” Fitly has this special portion of the sacred narrative been made the foundation of those solemn strains of funeral music which will forever associate the Dead March of such celebrations with the name of Saul. ' 1 Tomb of the Cid near Burgos. 42 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXI And the probable mode of the preservation of David’s elegy adds another stroke of pathos to the elegy itself. Jonathan was, as we have seen, distinguished as the mighty Archer of the Archer tribe. To introduce this favorite weapon of his friend into his own less apt tribe of Judah, was David’s tribute to Jonathan’s mem- ory. ^^He bade them teach the children of Judah the bow,” and whilst they were so taught, they sang ( so we must infer from the context ) the song of the bow,” — the bow which never turned back from the slain.” By those young soldiers of Judah this song was handed on from generation to generation, till it landed safe at last in the sacred books, to be enshrined forever as the monument of the friendship of David and Jonathan. Let us listen to it as it was then re- peated by the archers of the Israehte army. The wild roef 0 Israel, on thy high places is slain : How are the mighty fallen ! Tell ye it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, Lest there be rejoicing for the daughters of the Philistines, Lest there be triumph for the daughters of the uncircumcised. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you ! Nor fields of offerings ; ^ For there was the shield of the mighty vilely cast away — The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.^ So David sang of the battle on Gilboa. Then came the lament over the two chiefs, as he knew them of old in their conflicts vdth their huge unwieldy foes : From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,^ The bow ® of Jonathan turned not back. And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Then the stream of sorrow divides, and he speaks of 1 See p. 11. ^ See Lecture XVI. p. 363, and 2 See p. 32. . Lecture XXII. p. 60. 3 Ibid. 5 See p. 17. Lect. XXL LAMENT OVEK SAUL AND JONATHAN. 43 each separately. First, he turns to the Israelite maid- ens, who of old had welcomed the king back from his victories, and bids them mourn over the depth of their loss. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, And in their death they were not divided : Than eagles they were swifter, than lions more strong.^ Ye daughters of Israel weep for Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet, with delights. Who put ornaments of gold on your apparel ; ^ — How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle ! Then, as the climax of the whole, the national sor- row merges itself in the lament of the friend for his friend, of the heart pressed with grief for the death of more than a friend — a brother; for the love that was almost miraculous,^ like a special work of God. 0 Jonathan, on thy high places thou wast slain ! 1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. Pleasant hast thou been to me, exceedingly ! Wonderful was thy love to me, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen ! And perished the weapons of war ! In the greatness and the reverse of the house of Saul is the culmination and catastrophe of the tribe of Benjamin. The Christian Fathers used to dwell on the old prediction which describes the character of that tribe, — Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf : in the morning he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the spoil.” ^ These words well sum up the strange union of fierceness and of gentleness, of sudden resolves for good and evil, which run, as hereditary 3 This is the force of the word translated “wonderful.” 4 Gen. xlix. 27. 1 See p. 1 7. 2 See p. 22. 44 THE HOUSE OF SAUL. Lect. XXI qualities often do run, through the whole history of that frontier clan. Such were its wild adventures in the time of the Judges; such was Saul the first king; such was Shimei, of the house of Saul, in his bitterness and his repentance ; such was the divided allegiance of the tribe to the rival houses of Judah and Ephraim; such was the union of tenderness and vindictiveness in the characters of Mordecai and Esther, — if not actual descendants of Shimei and Kish, as they appear in the history of Saul, at least claiming to be of the same tribe, and reckoning amongst the list of their ancestors the same renowned names.^ And is it a mere fancy to trace with those same Christian writers the last faint likeness of this mixed history, when, after a lapse of many centuries, the tribe once more for a moment rises to our view — in the sec- ond Saul, also of the tribe of Benjamin?^ — Saul of Saul of Tarsus, who, like the first, was at one time Tarsus. moved by a zeal not according to knowledge, vdth a fury bordering almost on frenzy,^ — and who, hke the first, startled all his contemporaries by appearing among the Prophets, the herald of the faith which once he destroyed ; but, unlike the first, persevered in that faith to the end, the likeness in the Christian Church, not of what Saul was, but of what he might have been, — the true David, restorer and enlarger of the true kingdom of God upon earth. 1 Esth. ii. 5 ; viii. 6, 7. 2 Philippians iii. 5. 3 Acts xxvi. 11. DAVID xxn. THE YOUTH OF DAVID. XXHI. THE KEIGN OF DAVID. XXIV. THE FALL OF DAVID. XXV. THE PSALTER OF DAVID. SPECIAL AUTHORITIES FOR THE LIFE OF DAVID. I. The original contemporary authorities : — 1. The Davidic portion of the Psalms, including such fragments as are preserved to us from other sources, viz. 2 Sam. i. 19-27, hi. 33, 34, xxii. 1-51, xxiii. 1-7.1 2. The “Chronicles” or “State-papers” of David (1 Chr. xxvii. 24), and the original works of Samuel, Gad, and Nathan (1 Chr. xxix. 29). These are lost, but portions of them no doubt are preserved in — H. The narrative ^ of 1 Sam. xvi. to 1 Kings ii. 11; with the supplementary notices contained in 1 Chr. xi. 1 to xxix. 30. III. The two slight notices in the heathen historians, Nicolaus of Damascus in his Universal History (Josephus, Ant. vii. 5, § 2), and Eupolemus in his History of the Kings of Judah (Eusebius, Praep. Ev. ix. 30). lY. David’s apocryphal writings, contained in Fabricius, Codex Pseudepig- raphus Vet. Test. 905, 1000-1005: — (1) Ps. cli., on his victory over Goliath. (2) Colloquies with God, (a) on madness, (5) on his tempta- tion, and (c) on the building of the Temple. (3) A charm against fire. V. The Jewish traditions, which may be divided into three classes: — 1. Those embodied by Josephus, Ant. vi. 8 to vii. 15. 2. Those preserved in the Qucestiones Hehraicoe in Libros Regum et Par- alipomenon, attributed to Jerome. 3. The Rabbinical traditions in the Seder Olam, chap, xlii., xiv., and in the comments thereon, collected by Meyer, 452-622; also those in Calmet’s Dictionary, under “ David.” VI. The Mussulman traditions are contained in the Koran, ii. 250-252, xxl. 80, xxii. 15, xxxiv. 10, xxxviil. 16-24, and explained in Lane’s Selec- tions from the Kuran, 226-242; or amplified in Weil’s Biblical Le- gends, Eng. Tr. 152-170. 1 The Davidic titles of the Psalms repre- sent the Jewish tradition respecting them; they are affixed to Psalms iii. — ix., xi. — xxxii., xxxiv. — xli., li. — Ixv., Ixviii. — Ixx., Ixxii., Ixxxvi., ci., ciii., cviii. — cx., cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii., cxxxviii. — cxlv. Those which Ewald (in the Dichter des alien Bundes) pronounces to be unques- tionably David’s, or of David’s time, are Psalms ii., iii., iv., vii., viii., xi., xv.,xviii., xix , XX., xxiv., xxix., xxxii., ci., cx. 2 Whether these are works by those prophets, or respecting them, is doubtful. See Mr. Twisleton’s article on the Books of Samuel, in the Dictionary of the Bible, LECTURE XXII. THE YOUTH OF DAVID. The Psalms which, according to their titles or their contents, Illustrate this period, are : — (1) For the shepherd life. Psalms viii., xlx., xxlii., xxlx., cli. (2) For the escape. Psalms vl., vii., lix., Ivi., xxxiv. (3) For the wanderings. Psalms lil., xl., liv., Ivii., Ixiii , cxlii., xviii. THE FAMILY OF JESSE. 8e« Burringlon’s Oenealogits, Table XI. Tbe LXX. make* Mahalalh (2 Chr. xi. 18) the daughter of Jerimoth and Ablhail DAVID. LECTURE XXII. THE YOUTH OF DAVID. Of all the characters in the Jewish history there is none so well known to us as David. As in the case of Cicero and of Julius Caesar, — perhaps of no one else in ancient history before the Christian era, — we have in his case the rare advantage of being able to compare a detailed historical narrative with the undoubtedly au- thentic writings of the person with whom the narrative is concerned. We have already seen the family circle of Saul. That of David is known to us on a more extended pamiiy of scale, and with a more direct bearing on his subsequent career. His father J esse was probably, like his ancestor Boaz, the chief man of the place — the Sheikh of the village.^ He was of great age when David was still young,^ and was still alive after his final rupt- ure with Saul.^ Through this ancestry David inher- ited several marked peculiarities. There was a mixture of Canaanitish and Moabitish blood in the family, which may not have been without its use in keeping open a wider view in his mind and history than if he had been * Comp. Kuth ii. 1 ; 1 Sam. xx. 6. 3 Ibid. xxii. 3. 2 1 Sam. xvii. 12. VOL. II. 4 50 THE YOUTH OF DAVID. Lect. XXII. of purely Jewish descent.^ His connection with Moab through his great-grandmother Kuth he kept up when he escaped to Moab and intrusted his aged parents to the care of the king.^ He was also, to a degree unusual in the Jewish rec- ords, attached to his birthplace. He never Bethlehem, flavor of the Water of the well of Bethlehem.^ From the territory of Bethlehem, as from his own patrimony, he gave a property as a reward to Chimham, son of Barzillai;^ and it is this connection of David with Bethlehem that brought the place again in later times into universal fame, when Joseph went ^^up to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and “hneage of David.”® Through his birthplace he ac- quired that hold over the tribe of Judah which as- sured his security amongst the hills of Judah during his flight from Saul, and during the early period of his reign at Hebron ; as afterwards at the time of Absalom it provoked the jealousy of the tribe at having lost their exclusive possession of him. The Mussulman tra- ditions represent him as skilled in making hair-cloths .and sack-cloths, which, according to the Targum, was the special occupation of Jesse, which Jesse may in turn have derived from his ancestor Hur, the first founder, as was believed, of the town, — the father of Bethlehem.” ® The origin and name of his mother is wrapt ^ in mys- Mother of f^ry. It would seem almost as if she had been David. concubine® of Nahash, and then 1 Such is probably the design of the express mention of Rahab and Ruth in the genealogy in Matt. i. 5. 2 1 Sam. xxii. 3. 3 1 Chr. xi. 1 7. 4 2 Sam. xix. 37, 38; Jer. xli. 17. 6 Luke ii. 4. 6 See Exod. xxxi. 2 ; 1 Chr. iv. 5 ; and articles on Bethlehem and Jaare-oregim, in Diet of Bible. ’ Zeruiah and Abigail, though called in 1 Chr. ii. 16 sisters of Dcivid, are not expressly called the daughters of Jesse; and Abigail, in 2 Sam. xvii. 25, is called the daughter of Nahash. ® The later rabbis represent David Lect. XXIL HIS FAMILY. 51 married by Jesse. This would agree with the fact, that her daughters, David’s sisters, were older than the rest of the family, and also (if Nahash was the same as the king of Ammon) with the kindnesses which David re- ceived first from Nahash, and then from Shobi his son.^ As the youngest of the family he may possibly have received from his parents the name, which first Hisbroth- appears in him, of Davidf the leloved^ the darling. Nephews. But, perhaps for this same reason, he was never intimate with his brothers. The eldest, whose command was re- garded in the family as law,^ and who was afterwards made by David head of the tribe of Judah,^ treated him scornfully and imperiously ; and the father looked upon the youngest son as hardly one of the family at all, and as a mere attendant on the rest.® The familiarity which he lost with his brothers, he gained with his nephews. The three sons of his sister Zeruiah, and the one son of his sister Abigail, seemingly from the fact that their mothers were the eldest of the whole family, must have been nearly of the same age as David himself, and they accordingly were to him throughout life in the relation as born in adultery. This is proba- bly a coarse inference from Ps. li. 5 ; but it may possibly have reference to a tradition of the above. On the other hand, in the earlier rabbis we have an attempt to establish an “ im- maculate conception ” in the ancestry of their favorite King. They make Nahash — “the serpent” — to be an- other name of Jesse, because he had no sin except that contracted from the original serpent ; and thus David inherited none. (Jerome, Qu. Heh. on 2 Sam. xvii. 26, and Targum to Ruth iv. 22.) 1 2 Sam. X. 1 ; 1 Chr. xix. 1 ; 2 Sam. xvii. 27. Nahash in LXX., 2 Sam. xvii. 25, is brother of Zeruiah ; Nahash king of Ammon was grand- father of Rehoboam’s mother, Naamah (LXX. 1 Kings xii. 24, ^. e. xiv. 31 Hebr.). 2 The name is given in its shorter Hebrew form in the earlier books of the Old Testament, in its longer form in the later books, as also in Ilosea, Amos, Canticles, and 1 Kings iii. 14. The same word in another form ajv pears in the Phoenician Dido. 3 1 Sam. xvii. 28 ; xx. 29. 4 1 Chr. xxvii. 18 (LXX.) 5 1 Sam. xvi. 11 ; xvii. 17. ill. iin. 52 THE YOUTH OF DAVID. Lect. XXII. usually occupied by brothers and cousins. The family burial-place of this second branch was at Bethlehem.^ In most of them we see only the rougher quahties of the family, which David shared with them, whilst he was distinguished from them by qualities of his own, peculiar to himself Two of them, the sons of his brother Shimeah, are celebrated for the gift of sagacity in which David excelled. One was Jonadab, the friend and adviser of his eldest son Amnon.^ The other was Jonathan,^ who afterwards became the counsellor of David himself Tlie first time that David appears in history, at once admits us to the whole family circle. There was a practice once a year at Bethlehem, probably at the first new moon, of holding a sacrificial feast,^ at which Jesse, as the chief proprietor of the place, would preside, with the elders of the town, and from which no member of the family ought to be absent. At this or such like feast ^ suddenly appeared the great Prophet Samuel, driving a heifer before him, and having in his hand his long horn filled with the consecrated oil ® preserved in the Tabernacle at Nob. The elders of the Uttle town were terrified at this apparition, but were reassured by the august visitor, and invited by him to the ceremony of sacrificing the heifer. The heifer was killed. The party were waiting to begin the feast. Samuel stood with his horn to pour forth the oil, which seems to have been the usual mode of invitation to begin a feast.^ He was restrained by a Divine control as son after son passed by. EHab, the eldest, by his ^Hieighf and his 1 2 Sam. ii. 32. 5 Ibid. xvi. 1-3. 2 Ibid. xili. 3. 6 “ The oil;” ibid. 13, and so Jo- 3 Ibid. xxi. 21 ; 1 Chr. xxvii. 32. seph. Ant. vi. 8, § 1. ^ 1 Sam. XX. 6. ^ Comp. 1 Sam. ix. 13, 22. Lect. XXII. HIS CALL. 53 ^^countenance/’ seemed the natural counterpart of Saul, whose successor the Prophet came to select. But the day was gone when kings were chosen because they were head and shoulders taller than the rest. Samuel ^^said unto Jesse, Are these all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold he keepeth the sheep.” This is our first introduction to the future king. From the sheepfolds on the hill -side the boy was brought in. He took his place at the village feast, when, with a silent gesture, perhaps with a secret whisper ^ into his ear, the sacred oil was poured by the Prophet over his head. We are enabled to fix his ap- pearance at once in our minds. It is implied that he was of short stature, thus contrasting with his tall brother Eliab, with his rival Saul, and with his gigantic enemy of Gath. He had red ^ or auburn hair, such as is not unfrequently seen in his countrymen of the East at the present day. His bright eyes ^ are especially mentioned, and generally he was remarkable for the grace of his figure and countenance, (^^fair of eyes,” comely,”^ goodly,”) well made, and of immense strength and agility. In swiftness and activity (like his nephew Asahel) he could only be compared to a wild gazelle, with feet like harts’ feet, with arms strong enough to break a bow of steel.^ He was pursuing the occupation usually allotted in Eastern countries to .the 1 Joseph. Ant vi. 8, § 1. makes it his tawny complexion 2 1 Sam. xvi. 12, xvii. 42. “ Rud- ttjv xpoav'), dy ”•= red-haired ; ■nv(}(}aKriq, LXX. ; 3 i Sam. xvi. 12 (Heb.) : yopyog rufus^ Vulg. : the same word as for tuc 6\pet^^ “fierce, quick,” (Jos. Ant Esau, Gen. xxv. 25. The rabbis vi. 8, § 1). (probably from this) say that he was ^ 1 Sam. xvi. 18, same word as for like Esau. Josephus (^Ant vi. 8, § 1) Rachel, Gen. xxix. 17. 5 Ps. xviii. 33, 34. 54 THE YOUTH OF DAVID. Lect. XXII. slaves, the females, or the despised of the family.^ He carried a switch or wand ^ in his hand, such as would be used for his dogs,^ and a scrip or wallet round his neck, to carry anything that was needed for his shepherd’s life, and a sHng to ward off beasts or birds of prey. Such was the outer life of David, when he was ‘Haken from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young, to feed Israel according to the integrity of his heart, and to guide them by the skihulness of his hands.” ^ The recollection of the sudden elevation from this humble station is deeply impressed on his after-life. It is one of those surprises which are capti- vating even in common history, but on which the sacred writers dwell with peculiar zest, and which makes the sacred history a focus of disturbing, even revolutionary, aspirations, in the midst of the commonplace tenor of ordinary life. The man who was raised up on high.” ^^I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” “1 took thee from the sheepcote.” ^ It is the prelude of simple innocence which stands out in such marked contrast to the vast and checkered career which is to follow. Latest born of Jesse’s race, Wonder lights thy bashful face, A\nhile the Prophet’s gifted oil Seals thee for a path of toil . . . Go ! and mid thy flocks awhile. At thy doom of greatness smile ; Bold to bear God’s heaviest load. Dimly guessing at the road — 1 Comp, the cases of Moses, Jacob, 3 Ibid. xvH. 43. Zipporah, and Rachel, and in later 4 Ps. Ixxviii. 71, 72. times Mahomet (Sprenger, X^ye, p. 8). 5 2 Sam. xxili. 1; Ps. Ixxxix. 19; 2 1 Sam. xvii. 40. The same word 2 Sam. vii. 8. as is used in Gen. xxx. 37 ; Jer. i. 11 ; Hos. iv. 12. Legt. XXII. HIS MINSTRELSY. 66 Rocky road, and scarce ascended, Though thy foot be angel-tended. Double praise thou shalt attain In royal court and battle-plain. Then conies heart-ache, care, distress, Blighted hope, and loneliness ; Wounds from friend and gifts from foe, Dizzied faith, and gilt, and woe ; Loftiest aims by earth defiled. Gleams of wisdom, sin-beguiled, Sated power’s tyrannic mood. Counsels shar’d with men of blood. Sad success, parental tears. And a dreary gift of years. Strange that guileless face and form To lavish on the scatliing storm ! . . . Little chary of thy fame, Dust unborn may praise or blame. But we mould thee for the root Of man’s promis’d healing fruit.^ But abrupt as the change seemed, there were qual- ities and experiences nursed even in those pastoral cares that acted unconsciously as an education for David’s future career. The scene of his pastoral life was doubtless that wide undulation of hill and vale round the village of Bethlehem, which reaches to the very edge of the desert of the Dead Sea. There stood the Tower ^^of Shepherds.”^ There dwelt the herdsman Prophet Amos.^ There, in later centuries, shepherds were still watching over their flocks by night.” ^ Amidst those free open uplands his solitary wander- ing life had enabled him to cultivate the gift jjjg of song and music which he had apparently ^ miiistreisy. 4 Luke ii. 8. 5 1 Sam. xvi. 18 ; xix. 18-20. See Lecture XVIU. 1 Lijra Apostolica, Ivii. 2 Gen. XXXV. 21, Edar. 3 Amos i. 1. 56 THE YOUTH OF DAVID. Lect. XXII. learned in the schools of Samuel, where possibly the aged Prophet may have first seen him. And, accord- ingly, when the body-guard of Saul were discussing with their master where the best minstrel could be found to drive away his madness by music, one of them, by tradition the keeper of the royal mules, suggested a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite.” And when Saul, with the absolute control inherent in the idea of an Oriental monarch, demanded his ser^uces, the youth came in all the simplicity of his shepherd hfe, driving before him an ass laden with bread, with a skin of vdne and a kid, the natural produce of the well-known \unes, and cornfields, and pastures of Bethlehem. How far that shepherd life actually produced any of the existing Psalms may be questioned. But it can hardly be doubted that it suggested some of their most pecuHar imagery. The twenty-third. Psalm, the first direct ex- pression of the religious idea of a shepherd, afterwards to take so deep a root in the heart of Christendom, can hardly be parted from this epoch. As afterwards in its well-known paraphrase by Addison ^ — who found in it, throughout life, the best expression of his o^vn devo- tions — we seem to trace the poet’s allusion to his own personal dangers and escapes in his Alpine and Italian journeys, so the imagery in which the Psalmist describes his dependence on the shepherd-like provi- dence of God must be derived from the remembrance of his own crook and staff, from some green oasis or running stream in the wild hills of Judea, from some happy feast spread wuth flowing oil and festive vune beneath the rocks, at the mouth of some deep and gloomy ravine, like those which look dovm through the cliffs 1 Macaulay’s Essay on Addison^ Edinb. Rev. Ixxviii. p. 203, 211, 259. Lect. XXII. HIS MARTIAL EXPLOITS. 57 overhanging the Dead Sea.^ And to this period, too, may best be referred the first burst of delight in natural beauty that sacred literature contains. Many a time the young shepherd must have had the leisure to gaze in wonder on the moonlit ^ and starlit sky, on the splen- dor of the rising sun ^ rushing like a bridegroom out of his canopy of clouds ; on the terrors of the storm, with its long rolling peals of thunder,^ broken only by the dividing flashes of the forks of lightning, as of glowing coals of fire. Well may the Mussulman legends have represented him as understanding the language of birds, as being able to imitate the thunder of Heaven, the roar of the lion, the notes of the nightingale.® With these peaceful pursuits, a harder and sterner training was combined. In those early days, when the forests of southern Palestine had not been cleared, it* was the habit of the wild animals which usually fre- quented the heights of Lebanon or the thickets of the Jordan, to make incursions into the pastures of Judea. From the Lebanon at times descended the bears.® From the Jordan^ ascended the lion, at that time in- festing the whole of Western Asia. These creatures, though formidable to the flocks, could always be kept at bay by the determination of the shepherds. Some- times pits were dug to catch them.® Sometimes the shepherds of the whole neighborhood formed a line on the hills, and joined in loud shouts to keep them off.® Occasionally a single shepherd would pursue the ma- 1 Ps. xxlli. 2, 4, 5. “ The lion and the she-bear,” L e. the 2 Ps. viii. 1, 3 (evidently by night), usual enemies. Comp, “the wolf,” 3 Ps. xix. 1-5. John x. 12. 4 Ps. xxix. 3-9; xviii. 7-15. 7 Jer. xlix. 19; Zech. xi. 3. 5 Koran, xxi. 9, xxii. 16. Weil’s 8 2 Sam. xxiii. 20; Ezek. xix. 4, 8. Legends, p. 151. 9 Is. xxxi. 4. Comp. Herod, vi. 31. 6 Amos V. 19; 1 Sam. xvii. 34, 58 THE YOUTH OF DAVH). Lect. XXII rauder, and tear away from the jaws of the hon morsels of the lost treasure — two legs, or a piece of an ear.^ Such feats as these were those performed by the youth- ful David. It was his pride to pursue these savage beasts, and on one occasion he had a desperate encoun- ter at once with a hon and a she-bear. The lion had car- ried off a lamb ; he pursued the invader, struck him, with the boldness of an Arab shepherd,^ with his staff or switch, and forced the lamb out of his jaws. The lion turned upon the boy, who struck him again, caught him by the mane or the throat,^ or, according to an- other version, by the tail,^ and succeeded in destroying him. The story grew as years rolled on, and it w^as described in the language of Eastern ® poetry how he played with lions as with kids, and with bears as with lambs. These encounters developed that daring courage His martial ''^^hicli already m these early years had dis- expioits. played itself against the enemies of his coun- try. For such exploits as these he was, according to one version of his life, already known to Saul’s guards ; and, according to another, when he suddenly appeared in the camp, his elder brother immediately guessed that he had left the sheep in his ardor to see the battle.® The Philistine garrison ^ fixed in Bethlehem may have naturally fired the boy’s warlike spirit, and his knowledge of the rocks and fastnesses of Judea may have given hhn many an advantage over them.® 1 Amos iii. 12. ^ Ecclus. xlvii. 3. 2 See Thevenot, Voyage de Lei'cinte, ® 1 Sam. xvi. 18, xvii. 28. ii. 13; quoted by Thenius on 1 Sam. 2 Sam. xxiii. 14. xvii. 35. 8 There is no satisfactory method 3 Joseph. Ant. vi. 9, § 3. of reconciling the contradictory ac- * LXX. 1 Sam. xvii. 35 (r^f