One, which no admirer of his heroic character can read without a pang, breathes the union of tender gratitude for past services with the fierce and profound vindictiveness which belongs to the worse nature of his age, his family, and his own character. Chimham and his children were specially commended to Solomon's care; but a dark legacy of long-cherished vengeance, like that which was found in the hands of the dead Constantine, was bequeathed to his successor against the aged Joab, and the aged Shimei. We need not darken the crime by adding to it the explanation of the Jewish traditions: that David, knowing by a vision the future descent of Mordecai1 and Esther from the accursed Benjamite, had withheld the hand of Abishai till the ancestor of the future deliverers was born, and then gave up his enemy to the tender mercies of Solomon. Another aspect of more pleasing color is given to the close of his reign in the later Chronicles, where the dying monarch is represented as starting once more2 to his feet, and laying upon his son the solemn charge of completing the Temple, which he himself had not been allowed to begin. It binds together in close union the reigns of the father and the son, and throws the halo of David's glory over the more secular splendor of Solomon. "Thine is the greatness, and the power, and "the glory, and the victory, and the majesty.... Both "riches and honor come of Thee, and Thou reignest "over all.... But who am I, and what is my people, "that we should be able to offer so willingly after this "sort? for all things come of Thee, and of Thine own "have we given Thee. For we are strangers before "Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days 1 Targum on Esther ii. 5. See MORDECAI in Dictionary of the Bible. 2 1 Chr. xxviii. 2. 66 on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." So speaks the religious munificence of all ages, - so speaks the founder of the Jewish Empire, and of the Jewish Temple. There is yet a third utterance, still more emphatically and authentically stated to be "the last words of "David:" which expresses still more fully at once the light and shade, the strength and weakness, of his whole reign and character. "David the son of Jesse," -so he remains to the end; always with his family affections fresh and bright, his father and his early kinsmen never forgotten amidst his subsequent splendor. "The man who was raised up "on high.” — This feeling, too, never deserted him, the sense of the marvellous change which had placed a shepherd-boy on the throne of a mighty empire. "To "be the anointed - the Messiah-of the God of Jacob." "Anointed" by Samuel in his early youth- anointed by the chiefs of Hebron on his first accession to the throne - but through those human hands and human agencies, he sees the hand and agency of God Himself. "The God of Jacob," - an expression which is important as showing that at that time the story of Jacob his wanderings, his repose on God's care-were familiar to David,1 not without a recollection of the likeness of his life to that of the persecuted patriarch. "The sweet singer of Israel." -"Pleasant in the songs "of Israel." It may be that he thus describes himself as endeared to the nation through his own songs, or that he is the darling of the songs of his people, as when the maidens sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, "and David his tens of thousands." 1 "The generation of them that seek thy face, O Jacob" (Psalm xxiv. 6). "He vowed to the mighty God of Jacob." "He sought a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob" (Ps. cxxxii. 2, 5). And now comes "the prophecy," - the "divine out"pouring" of his soul, "The Spirit of Jehovah speaks in me, And His strains are on my tongue – The Rock of Israel spake." -- It was the "Breath" or "Spirit" of JEHOVAH that passed through his frame, and His poetic "strains" that dwelt on his tongue, — the words of Him who was the ruling Force and the central Rock of the whole nation. "He that ruleth over men justly Ruling in the fear of God — So is it, as the light of the morning, at the rising of the sun A morning, and no clouds After a clear shining, after rain, tender grass springs from the earth." This is the ideal of a just reign, — whether, as looking back upon his own, or forwards to that of Solomon.2 The ruler just to men, and reverent towards God, suggests immediately the brilliant sunrise of the East: the cloudless sky above -the grass, so exquisitely green in those dry countries, immediately after rain, and glistening in the sunbeams. But he has hardly caught this vision before, whether in prospect or retrospect, it is instantly overclouded. "For not so is my house with God For an everlasting covenant He made with me, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my salvation and all my desire— Assuredly He will not cause it to grow (or 'will He not cause it to grow?'")." It is hard to unravel these entangled sentences; yet 1 Such is the force of the word rendered "speaks." 2 See the comparison of the moral and the natural world in Ps. xix. they doubtless present in a short compass the contrast between his hopes of what his dynasty might be,1 and his fears of what it would be; and underneath both hopes and fears his confidence in the Divine promise which pledged to his race an eternal future. It is a prediction, but a prediction wrapt up in that undefined suspense, and that dependence on moral conditions, which so well distinguish the predictions of sacred Prophets from the predictions of Pagan soothsayers. "But the men of ill-like scattered thorns are they all, for not with the hand does one grasp them. And the man that shall touch them Must be fenced with iron and the wood of spears. And with fire they shall be burnt and burnt on the hearth." He turns from the apprehension for his house to the recollection of those who had troubled his own reign from first to last. "The sons of Zeruiah" have been the constant vexation of his life." He contrasts the soft delicate green of the kingdom in its prosperity with the thorny thickets which can only be approached with axes and long pruning-hooks. These are the evil growth of the court even of a righteous king; to root and burn them out is his duty as much as the encouragement of the good. It is a melancholy strain to close a song which begins so full of brightness and joy. But it is a true picture of the checkered life of David, and of the checkered fortunes of the ruler amongst men. It is a true picture of the "broken lights" of the human heart, whether in Judea or in England, whether of king or peasant. If there be any part of Scripture which betrays the movements of the human individual soul, it is this precious 1 Comp. Ps. lxxxix. 2 Comp. Ps. ci. His death. fragment of David's life. If there be any part which claims for itself, and which gives evidence of the breathing of the Spirit of God, it is this also. Such a rugged, two-edged monument is the fitting memorial of the man who was at once the King and the Prophet, the Penitent and the Saint, of the ancient Church. David died, according to Josephus, at the age of seventy. The general sentiment which forbade interment within the habitations of men, gave way in his case, as in that of Samuel. He "was buried "in the city of David," in the city which he had made his own, and which could only be honored, not polluted, by containing his grave. It was, no doubt, hewn in the rocky sides of the hill, and became the centre of the catacomb in which his descendants, the kings of Judah, were interred after him. It remained one of the landmarks of the ruined city, after the return from the Captivity, "between Siloah and the guardhouse of the "mighty men," "-of his own faithful body-guard, and it was pointed out down to the latest times of the Jewish people. "His sepulchre is with us unto this day," says St. Peter at Pentecost; and Josephus states that Solomon having buried a vast treasure in the tomb, one of its chambers was broken open by Hyrcanus, and another by Herod the Great. It is said to have fallen into ruin in the time of Hadrian.5 The vast cavern, with its many tombs, no doubt exists under the ruins of Jerusalem, and its discovery will close many a controversy on the topography of the Holy City. But down to this time its situation is unknown. Jerome speaks of a tomb of David, as the 3 1 Ant. vii. 15, § 2. 2 Neh. iii. 16. 3 Acts ii. 29. 6 His tomb. 4 Ant. vii. 15, § 3; xiii. 8, § 4; xvi. 7, § 1. 5 Dio Cassius, lxix. 14. 6 Ep. ad Marcellam, xlvi. § 12. |
