Amalekites and Edomites on the south, and the Philistines on the west. In the time of David all these nations were completely subdued, their cities garrisoned, and the power of the Israelites submitted to from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean. Most great men are contented to be distinguished in one thing, and to lead a single life; but David led three lives, each distinct from the other, the life of a soldier and statesman, the life of a poet and artist, the life of deep religious experience. We will look at his character in each of these three directions. We have already said that David found the Israelites divided and half conquered, and left them united and conquerors. By means of his personal qualities he had made himself popular among the tribes. He was known as a brave and cautious guerilla chief. His native generosity and open-heartedness won him the love of the people. His religious tendencies gained for him the friendship of the priests, and the great influence of Samuel was always exerted in his favor. He was thus enabled to unite the people, and gain their confidence till he could make use of them in larger enterprises. The Jews were not naturally a military nation, and were never meant to be such. Yet when their strength was united they were capable, by their determination and tenacity of purpose, of extraordinary military exploits. Everything depended on their morale. Demoralized and weakened by doubts and scruples, or when conscious that they were disobeying the laws of Moses, they were easily defeated by any invader. The first duty of their general was to bring them back from their idolatries and backslidings to the service of God. Under Joshua it only needed two great battles to conquer the whole land of Palestine. So, reunited under David, a few campaigns made them victorious over the surrounding nations. The early part of David's life was a perpetual discipline in prudence. He was continually beset with dangers. He had to fly from the presence and ferocious jealousy of Saul again and again, and even to take refuge with the Philistines, who had reason enough to be his enemies. He fled from Saul to Samuel, and took shelter under his protection. Pursued to this retreat by the king, he had no resource but to throw himself on the mercy of the Philistines, and he went to Gath. When he saw himself in danger there, he pretended to be insane; insanity being throughout the East a protection from injury. His next step was to go to the cave Adullam, and to collect around him a body of partisans, with whom to protect himself. Saul watched his opportunity, and when David had left the fastnesses of the mountain, and came into the city Keilah to defend it from the Philistines, Saul went down with a detachment of troops to besiege him, so that he had to fly again to the mountains. Betrayed by the Ziphites, as he had been before betrayed by the men of Keilah, he went to another wilderness and escaped. The king continued to pursue him whenever he could get any tidings of his position, and again David was obliged to take refuge among the Philistines. But throughout this whole period he never permitted himself any hostile measures against Saul, his implacable enemy. In this he showed great wisdom, for the result of such a course would have been a civil war, in which part of the nation would have taken sides with one and part with the other, and David never could have ascended the throne with the consent of the whole people. But the consequence of his forbearance was, that when by the death of Saul the throne became vacant, David succeeded to it with scarcely any opposition. His subsequent course showed always the same prudence. He disarmed his enemies by kindness and clemency. He understood the policy of making a bridge of gold for a flying enemy. When Abner, the most influential man of his opponents, offered to submit to him, David received him with kindness and made him a friend. And when Abner was treacherously killed by Joab, David publicly mourned for him, following the bier, and weeping at the grave. The historian says concerning this: "And all the people took notice of it and it pleased them as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people. For all the people understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner the son of Ner." His policy was to conciliate and unite. When Saul's son was slain by his own servants, who thought to please David by that act, he immediately put them to death. Equally cautious and judicious was his course in transferring the Ark and its worship to Jerusalem. He did this only gradually, and as he saw that the people were prepared for it. We next will look at David in his character as man of genius, musician, artist, poet. It is not often that an eminent statesman and soldier is, at the same time, à distinguished poet and writer. Sometimes they can write history or annals, like Cæsar and Frederick the Great; but the imaginative and poetic element is rarely found connected with the determined will and practical intellect of a great commander. Alexander the Great had a taste for good poetry, for he carried Homer with him through his campaigns; but the taste of Napoleon went no higher than a liking for Ossian. He But David was a poet, in whom the tender, lyrical, personal element rose to the highest point. The daring soldier, when he took his harp, became another man. consoled himself and sought comfort in trial, and sang his thankfulness in his hours of joy. The Book of Psalms, so far as it is the work of David, is the record of his life. As Horace says of Lucilius and his book of Odes, that the whole of the old man's life hangs suspended therein in votive pictures; and as Goethe says that his Lyrics are a book of confessions, in which joy and sorrow turn to song; so the Book of Psalms can only be understood when we consider it as David's poetical autobiography. In this he anticipates the Koran, which was the private journal of Mohammed. "The harp of David," says Herder, "was his comforter and friend. In his youth he sang to its music while tending his flocks as a shepherd on the mountains of Judæa. By its means he had access to Saul, and could sooth with it the dark mood of the king. In his days of exile he confided to it his sorrows. When he triumphed over his enemies the harp became in his royal hands a thank-offering to the deity. Afterward he organized on a magnificent scale music and poetry in the worship of God. Four thousand Levites, distinguished by a peculiar dress, were arranged in classes and choirs under mastersingers, of whom the three most distinguished, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, are known to us by specimens of their art. In his Psalms his whole kingdom lives." We speak of the inspiration of genius, and distinguish it from the inspiration of the religious teacher. But in ancient times the prophet and poet were often the same, and one word (as, in Latin, “vates") was used for both. In the case of David the two inspirations were perfectly at one. His religion was poetry, and his poetry was religion. The genius of his poetry is not grandeur, but beauty. Sometimes it expresses a single thought or sentiment, as that (Psalm cxxxiii.) describing the beauty of brotherly union, or as that (Psalm xxiii.) which paints trust in God like that of a sheep in his shepherd. Of the same sort is the fifteenth Psalm, "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle ?" the twenty-ninth, a description of a thunderstorm; the sixty-seventh, "O God, be merciful to us and bless us"; the eighty-fourth, "How lovely are thy tabernacles"; and the last Psalm, calling on mankind to praise God in all ways. It is a striking fact that these Hebrew lyrics, written long before the foundation of Rome, and before the time of Homer, should be used to-day in Christian worship and for private devotion all over the world. In speaking of the Vedas and the Avesta we said that in such hymns and liturgies the truest belief of a nation can be found. What men say to God in their prayers may be assumed to express their practical convictions. The Jewish religion is not to be found so surely in its Levitical code as in these national lyrics, which were the liturgy of the people.* *Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, EMERSON, The Problem. What then do they say concerning God? They teach his universal dominion. They declare that none in the heaven can be compared to him (Psalm lxxxix.); that he is to be feared above all gods (Psalın xcvi.). They teach his eternity; declaring that he is God from everlasting to everlasting; that a thousand years in his sight are as yesterday; that he laid the foundations of the earth and made the heavens, and that when these perish he will endure; that at some period they shall be changed like a garment, but that God will always be the same (Psalm xc., cii.). They teach in numerous places that God is the Creator of all things. They adore and bless his fatherly love and kindness, which heals all our diseases and redeems our life, crowning us with loving-kindness, pitying us, and forgiving our sins (Psalm ciii.). They teach that he is in all nature (Psalm civ.), that he searches and knows all our thoughts, and that we can go nowhere from his presence (Psalm cxxxix.). They declare that he protects all who trust in him (Psalm xci., cxxi.), and that he purifies the heart and life (Psalm cxix.), creating in us a clean heart, and not asking for sacrifice, but for a broken spirit (Psalm li.). These Psalms express the highest and best moments of Jewish life, and rise in certain points to the level of Christianity. They do not contain the Christian spirit of forgiveness, nor that of love to one's enemy. They are still narrowed to the range of the Jewish land and nation, and do not embrace humanity. They are mountain summits of faith, rising into the pure air and light of day from hidden depths, and appearing as islands in the ocean. They reach, here and there, the level of the vast continent, though not broad enough themselves to become the home of all races and nations. There is nothing in the Vedas, nothing in the Avesta, nothing in the sacred books of Egypt, or the philosophy of Greece and Rome, which so unites the grandeur of omnipotence with the tenderness of a father toward his child. |