14, 15. Abel was an important city in the far north, which Sheba had intended to make his capital. It is called in ver. 19 ‘a city and a mother,' or metropolis, being at the head of a cluster of villages. Siege operations are at once commenced by Joabf.

18, 19. Abel was proverbial for its wisdom. People used to say that to get advice from its inhabitants was the way to ensure success in any undertaking. The 'wise woman reproaches Joab for not first inquiring whether the people are ready to make terms.

20, 21. Joab disclaims any hostility against the people themselves. His attack is against the leader of the rebellion only.

22. 'In a short time the head of the arch-rebel was thrown contemptuously over the wall, and the trumpets thereupon sounded the recall, leaving the city forthwith in peace. One death had extinguished the whole movement, lately so threatening' (Geikie, iii. p. 351).

• The name Beth-maachah perhaps implies some connexion with Maachah, Absalom's mother.

Stood in the trench' should rather be 'stood against the rampart' (R. V.). This casting up banks or mounds in besieging cities was common in ancient warfare. It was foretold that Sennacherib should not 'cast a bank' against Jerusalem (2 Kings xix. 32; Isa. xxxvii. 33).

We may compare the plans of the Peloponnesians in the celebrated siege of Plataea, who worked seventy days and nights at raising a mound, which device the besieged ingeniously defeated, first by raising the height of their wall, and then by undermining the mound and drawing away the earth from beneath (Thucyd. ii. 75).

240

The Famine-Story of Rizpah.

25. HISTORY TO THE NUMBERING OF THE

PEOPLE.

2 SAMUEL XXI. 1-xxiii. 39.

The rest of 2 Samuel contains the account of two other disasters of David's reign, the famine and the pestilence1; the names and exploits of his mighty men; and his psalm of thanksgiving, and ‘last words.'

David, inquiring of the Lord the cause of a three years' famine, is told that 'it is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites 2.' These, when the king wishes to make 'atonement,' refuse to accept any compensation in money3, and demand as satisfaction that 'seven men of the sons of Saul' be given them, whom they may hang up in his town of Gibeah 1.

Mephibosheth is spared for Jonathan's sake. Two sons of Rizpah 5, the daughter of Aiah, and five sons of Merab, Saul's daughter, are given up. These are crucified 'at the beginning of barley harvest,' and the bodies remain impaled till "water drops upon them out of heaven". All this time Rizpah keeps watch by the corpses of her sons, guarding them carefully from the vultures and the jackals; 'an unspeakably touching instance of maternal love.' The descent of the autumn rains is taken as a proof that the ' atonement' is accepted, and the king orders the bodies to be removed for burial. At the same time he recovers the bones of Saul and Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had rescued them from Beth-shan after the battle of Mount Gilboa (1 Sam. xxxi. 11-13). The bodies are all buried together in the sepulchre of Kish at Zelah.

The historian next relates the exploits of David's heroes: how Abishai rescued the king from death at the hands of Ishbi-benob, one of the sons of the giant'; how, after his extreme peril, the people refused to let the king go out

25. HISTORY TO THE NUMBERING OF THE

PEOPLE.

2 SAMUEL XXỈ. 1–xxiii. 39.

1 There is nothing to show the precise date of the famine. 'Then there was a famine,' &c., should rather be 'And there was,' &c. (R. V.). It would seem to have been after David's first meeting with Mephibosheth (ch. ix); and, if Shimei's words (ch. xvii. 7) refer partly to this slaughter of Saul's sons, this would place it before the rebellion of Absalom. Some suppose that the numbering and pestilence also preceded that rebellion (see p. 217).

2 This was a violation of the league made with them by Joshua (Joshua ix. 15). We have no account of this massacre of Saul's. As they had been made servants of the sanctuary, they were perhaps included in the massacre at Nob (see p. 144).

3 Money payments for bloodshed, common among many ancient nations, were forbidden by the law of Moses (Num. xxxv. 31). Such payments, called 'wergyld,' were made in England in the time of the Saxons (Speaker's Commentary).

This may either mean that they may impale or crucify the victims, or expose their bodies as an indignity, after executing them.

5

Rizpah was the concubine of Saul, and afterwards of Abner (ch. iii. 7). 'Michal' is clearly the error of some copyist. We are told in 1 Sam. xviii. 19 that Merab (not Michal) was the wife of Adriel. Michal had no children (2 Sam. vi. 23).

The law required that the bodies should be taken down on the day of execution (Deut. xxi. 22). But this was an exceptional case; and these bodies must remain till the rain came in proof of forgiveness.

242

David's Heroes-His Psalm:

to battle any more, lest he should 'quench the light of Israel'; how Sibbechai slew the giant Saph, and Elhanan slew the brother of Goliath; and how another man of gigantic stature was slain by David's nephew, Jonathan, the son of Shimeah.

The psalm of thanksgiving in ch. xxii is almost the same as Psalm xviii. This is followed by 'the last words of David, in which he compares the blessings of a ruler, who 'ruleth in the fear of God,' to 'a morning without clouds,' and to the 'grass shining after rain.' He tells how 'the sons of Belial' shall be as 'thorns thrust away,' and 'utterly burned with fire.'

A list is added of David's 'mighty men': Adino, Eleazar, and Shammah, who defeated bands of Philistines; and the three 10 who achieved the memorable exploit, when David was in the 'hold' at Adullam, of bursting through the Philistine ranks, and bringing him the water from the well of Beth-lehem, which he refused to drink, because procured at the risk of brave men's lives. Other exploits of Abishai and Benaiah are recorded.

XXIV. 1. And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

2. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people.

The LXX says they were removed by 'Joah, one of the descendants of the giants.'

This psalm is described in the title as composed by David, ' in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.' It appears to have been written after the successful completion of his foreign wars, and before his grievous fall and domestic troubles, since it contains no reference to these. It is the longest of the psalms ascribed by their titles to David. The alterations in it from the version in 2 Samuel were probably made to adapt it for use in the Temple services.

These are not actually David's 'last words,' for we have instructions given later in 1 Kings i and ii. But they are 'his farewell utterances, as a divinely inspired prophet of God' (Wordsworth).

10 Abishai is called the chief among three' (ch. xxiii. 18). The others were probably Benaiah and Asahel.

XXVII.

THE

NUMBERING OF THE

PEOPLE AND

THE PESTILENCE-THE SITE FOR THE TEMPLE
BOUGHT.

2 SAMUEL xxiv.

XXIV. 1, 2. The word 'again' shows that this was after the famine. Probably it was towards the close of David's reign. (But see p. 217.)

In 1 Chron. xxi. I it is said that 'Satan provoked David' to this act. The impulse came, like every sinful desire, from the spirit of evil (see Jas. i. 13, 14). God allowed it, as bringing to a crisis the growing pride of the king and people.

6

Both God and Satan had their hand in this work; God by permission, Satan by suggestion' (Bp. Hall; see Wordsworth), Others however explain the word for 'Satan' in 1 Chron. xxi. 1