'Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake,
saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. 2. Also in time past,
when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and
broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed My
people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. 3. So all the
elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a
league with them in Hebron before the Lord: and they anointed David
king over Israel. 4. David was thirty years old when he began to reign;
and he reigned forty years. 5. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven
years and six months; and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three
years over all Israel and Judah, 6. And the king and his men went to
Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land; which spake
unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou
shalt not come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither. 7.
Nevertheless, David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city
of David. 8. And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the
gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are
hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they
said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. 9. So David
dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David. And David built
round about from Millo and inward. 10. And David went on, and grew
great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him. 11. And Hiram king of
Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and
masons: and they built David an house. 12. And David perceived that the
Lord had established him king over Israel, and that He had exalted his
kingdom for His people Israel's sake.'--2 SAMUEL v. 1-12.
The dark day on Gilboa put the Philistines in possession of most of
Saul's kingdom. Only in the south David held his ground, and Abner had
to cross Jordan to find a place of security for the remnants of the
royal house. The completeness of the Philistine conquest is marked, not
only by Abner's flight to Mahanaim, but by the reckoning that David
reigned for seven and a half years and Ishbosheth two; for these
periods must be supposed to have ended very nearly at the same time,
and thus there would be about five years before the invaders were so
far got rid of that Ishbosheth exercised sovereignty over his part of
Israel. It is singular that David should have been left unattacked by
the Philistines, and it is probably to be explained by the friendly
relations which had sprung up between Achish, king of Gath, and him (1
Samuel xxix.). However that may be, his power was continually
increasing during his reign at Hebron over Judah, and at last Abner's
death and the assassination of the poor phantom king, Ishbosheth,
brought about the total collapse of opposition.
I. This passage deals first with the submission of the tribes and the
reunion of the divided kingdom. A comparison of verse I with verse 3
shows that a formal delegation of elders from all the tribes which had
held by Ishbosheth, came to Hebron with their submission. The account
in I Chronicles is a _verbatim_ copy of this one, with the addition of
a glowing picture of the accompanying feasting and joy. It also places
much emphasis on the sincerity of David's new subjects, which needed
some endorsement; for loyalty which has been disloyal as long as it
durst, may be suspected. The elders have their mouths full of excellent
reasons for recognising David's kingship,--he is their brother; he was
their true leader in war, even in Saul's time; he has been appointed by
God to be king and commander. Unfortunately, it had taken the elders
seven and a half years to feel the force of these reasons, and probably
their perceptions would still have remained dull if Abner and
Ishbosheth had lived. But David is both magnanimous and politic, and
neither bloodshed nor reproaches mar the close of the strife. Seldom
has so formidable a civil war been ended with so complete an amnesty.
Observe the expression that David 'made a league with them... before
the Lord.' The Israelitish monarch was no despot, but, in modern
language, a constitutional king, between whom and his subjects there
was a compact, which he as well as they had to observe. In what sense
was it made 'before the Lord'? The ark was not at Hebron, though the
priests were; and the phrase is at once a testimony to the religious
character of the 'league' and to the consciousness of God's presence,
apart from the symbol of His presence. It points to a higher conception
than that which brought the ark to Ebenezer, and dreamed that the ark
had brought God to the army. Modern theories of the religious
development of the Old Testament ask us to recognise these two
conceptions as successive. The fact is that they were contemporaneous,
and that the difference between them is not one of time, but of
spiritual susceptibility. Who anointed David for this third time?
Apparently the elders, for priests are not mentioned. Samuel had
anointed him, as token of the divine choice and symbol of the divine
gifts for his office. The men of Judah had anointed him, and finally
the elders did so, in token of the popular confirmation of God's choice.
So David has reached the throne at last. Schooled by suffering, and in
the full maturity of his powers, enriched by the singularly varied
experiences of his changeful life, tempered by the swift alternations
of heat and cold, polished by friction, consolidated by heavy blows, he
has been welded into a fitting instrument for God's purposes. Thus does
He ever prepare for larger service. Thus does He ever reward patient
trust. Through trials to a throne is the law for all noble lives in
regard to their earthly progress, as well as in regard to the relation
between earth and heaven. But David is not only a pattern instance of
how God trains His servants, but he is a prophetic person; and in his
progress to his kingdom we have dimly, but really, shadowed the path by
which his Son and Lord attains to His,--a path thickly strewn with
thorns, and plunging into 'valleys of the shadow of death' compared
with which David's darkest hour was sunny. The psalms of the persecuted
exile have sounding through them a deeper sorrow; for they 'testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ.' 'No cross, no crown,' is the
lesson of David's earlier life.
II. We have, next, the first victory of the reunited nation. Hebron was
too far south for the capital of the whole kingdom. Jerusalem was more
central, and, from its position, surrounded on three sides with steep
ravines, was a strong military post. David's soldier's eye saw its
advantages; and he, no doubt, desired to weld the monarchy together by
participation in danger and triumph. The new glow of national unity
would seek some great exploit, and would resent as an insult the
presence of the Jebusites in their stronghold. The attack on it
immediately follows the recognition of David's kingship. It is not
necessary here to discuss the difficulties in verses 6-8; but we note
that they give, first, the insolent boast of the besieged, then the
twofold answer to it in fact and in word, and last, the memorial of the
victory in a proverb. Apparently the Jebusites' taunt is best
understood as in the margin of the Revised Version,' Thou shalt not
come in hither, but the blind and the lame shall turn thee away,' They
were so sure that their ravines made them safe, that they either
actually manned their walls with blind men and cripples, or jeeringly
shouted to the enemy across the valley that these would do for a
garrison. The other possible meaning of the words as they stand in the
Authorised Version would make 'the blind and lame' refer to David's
men, and the taunt would mean, 'You will have to weed out your men. It
will take sharper eyes and more agile limbs than theirs to clamber up
here'; but the former explanation is the more probable. Such braggart
speeches were quite in the manner of ancient warfare.
Verse 7 tells what the answer to this mocking shout from the ramparts
was, David did the impossible, and took the city. Courage built on
faith has a way of making the world's predictions of what it cannot do
look rather ridiculous. David wastes no words in answering the taunt;
but it stirs him to fierce anger, and nerves him and his men for their
desperate charge. The obscure words in verse 8, which he speaks to his
soldiers, do not need the supplement given in the Authorised Version.
The king's quick eye had seen a practical path for scaling the cliffs
up some watercourse, where there might be projections or vegetation to
pull oneself up by, or shelter which would hide the assailants from the
defenders; and he bids any one who would smite the Jebusites take that
road up, and, when he is up, 'smite.' He heartens his men for the
assault by his description of the enemy. They had talked about 'blind
and lame'; that is what they really are, or as unable to stand against
the Israelites' fierce and sudden burst as if they were: and
furthermore, they are' hated of David's soul.' It is a flash of the
rage of battle which shows us David in a new light. He was a born
captain as well as king; and here he exhibits the general's power to
see, as by instinct, the weak point and to hurl his men on it. His
swift decision and fiery eloquence stir his men's blood like the sound
of a trumpet. The proverb that rose from the capture is best read as in
the Revised Version: 'There are the blind and the lame; he cannot come
into the house.' The point of it seems to be that, notwithstanding the
bragging Jebusites, he did 'come into the house'; and so its use would
be to ridicule boasting confidence that was falsified by events, as the
Jebusites' had been. It was worth while to record the boast and its
end; for they teach the always seasonable lesson of the folly of
over-confidence in apparently impregnable defences. It is a lesson of
worldly prudence, but still more of religion. There is always some
'watercourse' overlooked by us, up which the enemy may make his way.
Overestimate of our own strength and its companion folly, flippant
underestimate of the enemy's power, are, in all worldly affairs, the
sure precursors of disaster; and in the Christian life the only safe
temper is that of the man who 'feareth always,' as knowing his own
weakness and the strength of his foe, and thereby is driven to that
trust which casts out fear.
On the other hand, David's exploit reads us anew the lesson that to the
Christian soldier there is nothing impossible, with Jesus Christ for
our Captain. There are many unconquered fortresses of evil still to be
carried by assault, and they look steep and inaccessible enough; but
there is some way up, and He will show it us. For our own personal
struggle with sin, and for the Church's conflict with social evils,
this story is an encouragement and a prophecy.
Jerusalem was captured by a reunited nation with its king at its head.
As long as our miserable divisions weaken and disgrace us, the Church
fights at a disadvantage; and the hoary fortresses of the foe will not
be won till Judah ceases to vex Ephraim, and Ephraim no more envies
Judah, but all Christ's servants in one host, with the King known by
each to be with them, make the assault.
III. We have, lastly, the growth of the kingdom. I pass over
topographical questions, which need not concern us here. The points
recorded are David's establishment in the stronghold, his additions to
the city, his increasing greatness and its reason in the presence and
favour of 'the God of hosts,' the special instance of this in the
friendly intercourse with Hiram of Tyre and the employment of Tyrian
workmen, and the recognition of the source and the purpose of his
prosperity by the devout king. We see here the conditions of true
success,--'The Lord, the God of hosts, was with him.' We see also the
right use of it,--'David perceived that the Lord had established him
king.' He was not puffed up into self-importance by his elevation, but
devoutly and clearly saw who had set him in his lofty place. And, as he
traced his royalty to God, so he recognised that he had received it,
not for himself, but as a trust to be used, not in self-indulgence, but
for the national good,--'and that He had exalted his kingdom for His
people Israel's sake.' Whosoever holds firmly by these two thoughts,
and lives them, will adorn his position, whatever it may be, and will
be one of God's crowned kings, however obscure his lot and small his
duties. He who lacks them will misuse his gifts and mar his life, and
the more splendid his endowments and the higher his position, the more
conspicuous will be his ruin and the heavier his guilt.