(1074-1001 B.C.)
[Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: David Rex. [TN]]
More than a thousand years before the beginning of the Christian era, in
a little farmstead in Palestine, there was rejoicing at the birth of a
son. Not the first-born, whose coming was a fit occasion for gifts and
feasting, not the second, the third, nor even the seventh. David was the
eighth son of Jesse the Bethlehemite. Jesse would seem to have been a
landholder, as his fathers had been before him, a man of substance, with
fields and flocks and herds. We first meet David, a ruddy, fair-haired
lad, tough of sinew and keen of eye and aim, keeping the sheep among the
mountains.
Two hundred years before David's day, a fair woman of Moab had brought a
new infusion of strength, a new type, into the princely line of Judah.
The blood of the daring children of the wilderness flowed in the veins
of those who descended from Boaz. Just as in modern times and in royal
houses a single feature, as a set of the jaw, a curve of the lips, a
fulness of the brow or the eye, is stamped upon a race by some marriage
of its heir with a strong woman of another race, so, it has always
seemed to me, that the poetry, the romance, the fire and the passion,
came with Ruth of Moab into the household of Boaz. For they were strong
and beautiful, these sons of Jesse, who had Ruth as their not remote
ancestress, and the mother-qualities live long and tell through many
generations.
Of Jesse's many sons, David was the youngest. His early life was spent
as was that of other boys belonging to his class and period. He must
have added to his natural abilities and quickness, rare talents for
attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and
of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms.
Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert,
he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity,
one of the greatest men of his own or any age. Unique in some
capacities, versatile and varied in arts and accomplishments, at once
vindictive and forgiving, impetuous and politic, shrewd and impulsive,
heroic and mean, of long memory for wrongs committed, of decisive act
and incisive speech, relentless and magnanimous, strong and weak. A man
whose influence has never died out among men, and who is to-day a vital
force in the world of religion, of philanthropy, and of letters.
The short and ill-starred reign of Saul, the first king of the Jews,
chosen when the people had wearied of the theocratic style of
government, came to a speedy end. While yet the crown was on his head,
the favor of the Lord departed from Saul, and Samuel, the Lord's
prophet, was sent, 1064 B.C., to anoint his successor. The monarch was
virtually deposed, though still in power. Saul was like a man under
sentence of death who is still ignorant of his coming fate, and Samuel,
who entertained a strong regard for him, evidently cared little to carry
out the command received from God to discover the new king. Almost under
protest, the old prophet sought Jesse the Bethlehemite, great-grandson
of Boaz and the beautiful Ruth, and father of the sturdy set of stalwart
sons who passed in review before him.
The youngest of these, a lad herding sheep in the fields, ruddy and
goodly to look upon, bearing in his eyes the fearlessness of her who
left her father's house to follow Naomi's desolate fortunes, came from
the fields when he was sent for. Peaceful as was his shepherd's life in
general, it was not without its occasional spice of danger, as when a
lion and a bear, famished and furious and ravening for their prey, came
out of the wintry woods to devour the sheep. Then, as the sacred
chronicler tersely and with Homeric brevity tells us, the shepherd "slew
both the lion and the bear."
That strange possession, the Spirit of the Lord, came upon David from
the day of his anointing by Samuel, though it is improbable that he
understood then, or for long afterward, precisely what was the function
to which he had been consecrated. David was far older, and had dipped
deep into many cups, before he spoke or thought of himself as "The
Lord's Anointed."
The steps toward the throne were not smoothed for the boy's feet, though
his upward path was in a comparatively straight line. First, quite
naturally, it came about that he was sent for by King Saul, who was
afflicted with periods of melancholia which were charmed away only by
the sweetness of melody. David's harp, on which he played skilfully, was
the instrument of relief to Saul, and Saul looking on the young man
loved him, desired to attach him to his person, and speedily made him
his armor-bearer. Jonathan, Saul's son, grew so deeply attached to
David, that their souls were knit together in that strong friendship
which strikes its fibres into the soil underlying passion, and godlike
in its endurance. The friendship of the two young men passed into a
proverb, a proverb which is the crystallization of history. As David and
Jonathan, is friendship's strongest simile.
Of the episodes of this portion of David's life, the conflict with
Goliath is familiar to every reader. The youth, armed with a pebble and
a sling, slays the boastful champion, storming about in helmet and
greaves and brazen target, and the victorious hosts of Israel pursue the
defeated and flying Philistines hour after hour, till the sun goes down.
Saul, apparently forgetful of his former favorite and armor-bearer,
inquires whose son the stripling is, led proudly into his presence by
Abner, the captain of the host.
"I am the son of thy servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite," is the modest
answer.
Again, this time aroused by jealousy, Saul's moody fit returns and his
insanity is once more dispelled by David's harp. David becomes the
king's son-in-law, and Michal, the king's daughter, loves her husband so
dearly that she sets her woman's wits at work to save him when her
father's hot displeasure, in the summary fashion known to Eastern kings,
sends messengers to seek his life. Poor Michal, whose love was never
half returned!
The next chapter in David's history is a curious one. Anointed king over
Israel, he wanders an outlaw captain, hiding in crannies of the
mountains, gathering to himself a band of young and daring spirits,
reckless of peril, and willing to accept service under a leader who
fears nothing, and whose incursions into the adjacent countries dispose
people to hold him in wholesome terror. Again and again, in this
precarious Robin Hood life of his, David has the opportunity to revenge
himself upon Saul, but with splendid generosity puts the temptation
aside.
"The Lord judge between me and thee," he exclaims; "the Lord avenge me
of thee, but mine hand shall not be upon thee."
An interesting side-light is thrown upon this portion of David's career,
by the incident of his meeting with Abigail, a woman fair and discreet,
married to a sordid churl named Nabal. David and his band had protected
Nabal's fields from other rovers, and had been, so to speak, a wall of
fire between the churl's estate and the hand of depredation. But at the
time of the sheep-shearing the surly ingrate refuses food and drink to
the band of David, though the favor is most courteously asked. When the
rough answer is brought back, one sees the quick temper of the soldier,
in the flashing repartee, and the hand flying to the sword. Little had
been left to Nabal of barn or byre, if sweet-voiced and stately Abigail,
wiser than her lord, had not herself brought a present in her hand, and
with a gentle tongue soothed the angry warrior.
In days to come, Abigail was to be wife to David, after the custom of
the period, which attached a numerous harem to the entourage of a
chieftain or a king.
[Illustration: David calming the wrath of Saul.]
In judging of David, of his relations with women, and of his dealings
with his enemies, it is not fair to measure him by the standards of our
own time. His was a day of the high hand, and of lax morality. The kings
of neighboring countries knew no gentleness, no law but of
self-interest and of self-pleasing in their marriages, and in their
quarrels. Many of the alliances made by David were distinctly in the
line of political arrangements, bargains by which he strengthened his
boundary lines, and attracted to his own purposes the resources or the
kindly interest of other nations.
Reading of David's dashing forays, when he and his valiant two hundred
fought the Amalekites, chased the Philistines, took prisoners and spoil,
yet with rare wisdom ordained that, in the division of the spoils, those
who tarried at home by the stuff, the guard of wives and children,
should share equally with those who took upon them the pleasanter, if
more perilous, tasks of the battle, we are transported into the morning
of the world. These were days when the trumpets blew and the flags
fluttered, days of riotous health and the joy of life.
After the death of Saul and of Jonathan his son, David succeeded to the
throne. This story is very dramatic. The conquering Philistines affixed
the bodies of the dead heroes to their temple walls, and hung their
armor as a trophy in the house of Ashtaroth. But the valiant men of
Jabesh-Gilead came by night, took down the bodies and burned them, then
buried the bones, and wept over them for seven days. David himself
ordered to execution the messenger who brought him Saul's crown and
bracelet, confessing that his own hand had given the king the _coup de
grace_. His lamentation over Saul and Jonathan rises to the height of
the sublime. Never laureate sang in strains more solemn and tender.
But from this moment on the tenor of David's life was boisterous and
broken. He was constantly at war, now war that was defensive only, again
war that was fiercely aggressive. He had to face internal dissensions.
As his sons grew up, children of different mothers and of different
trainings, there came to the heart of the father, always most
passionately loving, such bitterness as none but great souls know.
Between David's house and that of Saul there was long and fierce
dispute, and never any real peace. Treachery, assassination, jealousy,
marked the course of these two houses, though David, to his lasting
honor, be it said, showed only kindness and rendered only protection to
the kindred of Saul. He could not control the cupidity or fierceness of
his retainers, but he gave the crippled Mephibosheth the household and
the income befitting a prince.
David was thirty years old when he began his reign. His first capital
was Hebron, where he was publicly anointed, after the custom of the
period. His reign lasted forty years, seven years and six months of
which he spent in Hebron. Observing the natural advantages of Jerusalem
as a stronghold, he took it after a sharp contest, and set up the throne
there, remaining there for thirty-three years.
In nothing did David display great abilities in a more marked manner
than in the choice of his generals and counsellors. Joab, Abishai, and
Zeruiah, Hushai and Ahithophel were all men of great administrative or
executive powers. They were not invariably faithful to David's
interests, but in the main they served him well, and to his "mighty men
of valor" he owed the debt for success that all great captains owe to
those who surround their persons, further their plans, and aid their
enterprises.
In the Second Book of Chronicles the honor-roll of David's heroes is
starred with undying lustre. Thirty captains are mentioned, among them
three mightiest, and the record of these valiant men is like the record
written of Thor and his followers in the legendry of the stormy
Norsemen. There was one who slew an Egyptian, a giant five cubits high,
with a spear like a weaver's beam, and the champion went down to the
combat armed with a staff only, disarmed the Egyptian, and slew him with
his own spear. Another slew "a lion in a pit in a snowy day." One sees
the picture, the yellow-maned, fierce-eyed lion, the white drift of the
blinding flakes, the hole of the pit, deep-walled and narrow, a fit lair
for the wild beast. The incident of the well of Bethlehem belongs here.
The king was spent and athirst, and he longed for a drink from the old
well by the gate. But when three mighty men cut their way sword in hand
through the enemy's host, and brought the precious water, the king would
not drink it, but poured it out before the Lord in libation. "God
forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should drink the blood of these men, that
have put their lives in jeopardy!"
If David had always been as noble! But men have the defects of their
qualities. These mighty men of earth have often, on one side or another,
a special liability to temptation. In the seduction of Bathsheba and the
cowardly murder of Uriah, her husband, David committed a sin for which
he was punished not only in the denunciation of Nathan the prophet and
the loss of Bathsheba's first child, but by the stings of a deep
remorse, which expresses itself in a psalm which is a miserere. Yet
Bathsheba became the mother of Solomon, and Solomon was the heir chosen
by the Lord to preserve the kingly line of David, and to maintain the
kingdom in great glory and splendor.
In the quaint language of the sacred scribes, we find David's frequent
battles graphically described. Rapid and pitiless as Attila or Napoleon,
he "smote" the Amalekites, and the Ammonites, and the neighboring
warlike peoples, and compelled them to pay tribute. He was not more
rapacious than France has recently shown herself to Siam, or than
England to India, and he was emphatically the "battle-axe of God." It
was enlightenment against savagery, the true religion against the
idolatries and witchcrafts of a false worship. In every way David
displayed statesmanship, not carrying on war for the mere pleasure of
it, but strengthening his national lines, and laying deep the
foundations on which his successor was to carry forward a kingdom of
peace.
It was not until Hiram, king of Tyre, sent cedar from Lebanon, on floats
down the Mediterranean, that David built him a house. The hardy soldier
had often slept with the sky for his roof, and the grass for his bed,
but as he grew rich and strong he needed a palace. With the pleasure and
security of the palace, the ceiled house, came the wish of the devout
soul to erect a temple to God. Never was sacrifice greater nor pain more
intense than that which the great king experienced when told that not
for him was to be this crowning joy, this felicity which would have made
his cup overflow. His hands had shed too much blood. He had been a man
of war from his youth. The temple on Mount Zion, a glittering mass of
gold and gems, shining like a heap of snowflakes on the pilgrims going
up to the annual passover, was to be the great trophy not of David's,
but of Solomon's time. David acquiesced in the divine ordering, though
with a sore heart. But he occupied himself with the accumulation of rich
materials, so that when Solomon came to the throne he might find much
and valuable preparation made.
The troubles of David's reign, gathering around him thickly, as the
almond blossoms of age grew white upon his head, were chiefly brought
upon him through dissensions in his family. Did so loving a father spoil
his sons in their early youth, or were they, as is probable, influenced
by the spites, the malignities, and the weaknesses of the beautiful
foreign princesses who were their mothers? In the rebellion of Absalom,
the king tasted the deepest draught of sorrow ever pressed to mortal
lips, and the whole tragic tale is as vivid in its depiction, and as
intensely real in its appeal to-day, as when fresh from the pen of the
writer.
The conduct of Absalom, whose beauty and vanity were equalled by his
ambition and his ingratitude, has made him forever infamous. He omitted
no act that could convict him of shameless infidelity to all that was
worthy a prince, and with an armed host he set his battle in array
against his father. One charge, reiterated again and again, showed the
depth of that father's heart--a heart like that of the Father in Heaven
for its yearning over ingrates and rebels:
"Beware that none touch the young man Absalom!"
Joab, of all men in the realm, least afraid of David and most relentless
when any one stood in his way, himself became Absalom's executioner,
when, David's people being victors, Absalom hung caught by his hair in
the boughs of an oak, unable to escape. Then it was a question who
should tell the king these tidings, which dashed the hearts of the
conquerors with a sudden pang. Finally a swift runner reached the
watch-tower, whence the old king looked forth, awaiting news of the day.
"Is the young man Absalom safe?" he asked
And Cushi answered, "The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise
against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is."
"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate,
and wept; and as he went, thus he said 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom my son, my son!'"
Long, long ago, these battles and sieges, these truces and victories,
were over forever on this earth. Egypt and Assyria, contemporary with
Israel in greatness, have perished from the memories of men, save as a
few marbles remain to tell their tale. The vitality of David is
imperishable, but not because he was a shrewd statesman, a doughty
warrior, or a captain of conquering armies. David the shepherd, David
the king, are of the past. David the musician, David the psalmist, is as
alive to-day as he ever was, the music of his harp still vibrating in
temples and cathedrals and in human souls. Those matchless hymns
antedating our modern era by so many shifting centuries, are lisped by
children at their mother's knee, form part of every religious ritual of
which the one God is the centre, and voice the love and prayer and
praise of every heart that seeks the Creator. With the intense adoration
and trust of the Hebrew, we too exclaim, "The Lord is my shepherd, I
shall not want," and "God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in time of trouble."
[Signature of the author.]