having now no dangerous apparent enemy, (against whom he was wont to ask counsel from the Lord,) he began to be advised by his own human affections, and vain desires. For he was not only satisfied to take Uriah's wife from him, and to use her by stealth; but he embroidered his adultery with Uriah's slaughter, giving order to his trusty servant Joab', to marshal him in the front or point of those Israelites, which gave an assault upon the suburbs of Rab bah, when there was not as yet any possibility of prevailing. And that which could no less displease God than the rest, he was content that many others of his best servants and soldiers should perish toge ther with Uriah, hoping thereby to cover his particular ill intent against him. After which he began by degrees to fall from the highest of happiness; and his days then to come were filled with joys and woes interchangeable; his trodden down sorrows began again to spring; and those perils which he had pulled up by the roots, (as he hoped,) gave him an after-harvest of many cares and discontentments. And if it had pleased God to take the witness of David's own mouth against him, as David himself did against the Amalekite, which pretended to have slain Saul, he had then appeared as worthy of reprehension as the other was of the death he suffered. For when Nathan the prophet propounded unto him his own error, in the person of another, viz. of him that took the poor man's sheep that had none else, the bereaver being lord of many; he then vowed it to the living Lord, that such a one should die the death. And hereof, although it pleased God to pardon David for his life, which remission the prophet Nathan pronounced; yet he delivered him God's justice, together with his mercy, in the tenor following: Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house,' &c. because thou hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain Uriah with the

6

1 2 Sam. xi. 15.

the sword of the children of Ammon". Soon after this, David lost the child of adultery which he begot on Bathsheba. Secondly, His own son Amnon being in love with his half-sister Tamar, by the advice of his cousin-german, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, possessed her by force; which, when he had performed, he thrust her from him in a careless and despightful manner. Two years after this foul and incestous act, Absalom caused him to be murdered, at the feast of his sheep-shearing; not perchance in revenge of Tamar's ravishment alone, but having it in his heart to usurp the kingdom; in which, because he could not in any sort be assured of Amnon, he thought his affair greatly advanced by his destruction. So the one brother having ravished his own sister, and then despised her; the other, after a long dissembled malice, first made his own brother drunken, and then slaughtered him; which done, he fled away, and lived under the safeguard of Talmai 3 king of Geshur, near Damascus, who was his grandfather by the mother, but a heathen king. Thirdly, When Absalom, by the invention of Joab, (but chiefly because of the great affection of David towards his son,) was brought again, first, to the king's favour, and then to his presence; he began instantly to practise against David his father, seeking by the pretence of common justice, and by lowly and familiar manner to all men, and by detracting from his father's equity, to win unto himself a popular reputation. Here began the great affliction threatened by the Lord as a punishment of David's şin.

The company which Absalom 5 gathered at the first, were but two hundred men; which he carried with him from Jerusalem to Hebron; pretending, though impiously, the performance of a vow to God. There, when Achitophel repaired unto him, and many troops of people from all places, he proclaimed himself king, and was by the people, (whose

2 2 Sam. xii. 9, 10. $ 2 Sam. xiii. 4 2 Sam. xiv.

5 2 Sam. zv.

6

hearts God had turned from their lawful prince,) accepted so readily, that David, doubting to be set upon on the sudden, durst not trust himself in his own city of Jerusalem, nor in any other walled town, for fear of surprise; but encamped in the fields and deserts, with some six hundred of his guards, and few else. The priests he left in Jerusalem, with the ark of God, from whom he desired to be advertised of those things that chanced, to whom he directed Hushai his trusty friend and servant, praying him to make himself, in all his outward actions and counsels, of Absalom's party and confederacy, thereby the better to discover unto him the purposes of Achitophel, a revolted counsellor, whose practices he greatly doubted. And now when treason was in fashion, Ziba also sought to betray his master Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan; and Shimei of the the house of Saul, (the fire of whose hatred David's prosperity had smothered, but his adversity illightened,) holding himself upon the advantage of a mountain side, cast stones at David, and most despitefully cursed him to his face; but David attending no private revenges, forbade Abishai to pursue him for the present, yet left him among others in the roll of his revenge, to his son Solomon. Absalom being now possessed of Jerusalem, was advised by Achitophel to use his father's concubines in some such public place, as all Israel might assure themselves, that he was irreconcileable to his father; whereof being persuaded, they would then resolvedly adhere to Absalom and his cause, without fear of being given up upon a reconciliation between them. This savage and impious, (though crafty counsel,) Achitophel indeed urged for his own respect, as fearing that this rebellion might take end to his destruction, who most of all others inflamed Absalom against his father. And now was it fulfilled that Nathan had directly foretold David: I will raise

8

8 2 Sam. xvi.

up evil against thee out of thine own house, and will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give ⚫ them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy ⚫ wives in the sight of the sun; for thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun,' 2 Sam. xii. 11. He also gave advice to Absalom, that himself with an army of twelve thousand men might be employed at the instant for the surprising of David, which had willingly been embraced by Absalom, had not Hushai, David's faithful servant, given counter advice, and swayed it; persuading Absalom, that it was fitter and more safe for him, with all the strength of Israel, to pursue his father, than by such a troop, which David's valour, and those of his attendants, might either endanger or resist. This delay of Absalom, and advantage of time gained by David, was indeed, after God, the loss of the one and delivery of the other; whereupon Achitophel rightly fearing, (by the occasion fore-shewed) the success which followed, disposed of his own estate, and then forsook both the party and the care of Absalom, and of his own life.

David being advertised of this enterprise against him, marched away all night, and passed Jordan, possessing himself of Mahanaim in the tribe of Gad; the same wherein Ishbosheth himself, in the war against David, after Saul's death, seated himself. To which place there repaired unto him Shobi, the son of Nahash the Ammonite, whom David loved, the same which Josephus calleth Shiphar. And though it be greatly disputed what this Shobi was, yet the most general and probable opinion makes him a second brother to Hanum, whom David for his father's sake established in the kingdom, after Hanum's overthrow in thankfulness whereof he relieved David in this extremity. There came also to David's assistance Machir of Lodabar, guardian in former times to Mephibosheth; and, among others, Barzillai the

Gileadite, who willingly fed David and all his company.

In the meantime both the king and Absalom prepared to fight; Absalom made Amasa commander of the army of Israel, the same place which Joab held with David; an office next the king himself, like unto that of the mayors of the palace anciently in France. David, persuaded by his company, stayed in Mahanaim, and disposed the forces he had to Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, giving them charge, in the hearing of all that issued out at the port of Mahanaim, that they should spare the life of Absalom. But Joab, besides that he was very cruel by nature, remembered that Absalom had lately disposed of his government to Amasa; and therefore the victory being obtained, and news brought him that Absalom hung by the hair of his head on a tree, when he could not persuade the messenger to return and kill him, he himself with his own servants dispatched him. It appeared also by the sequel, that Joab affected Adonijah, whom he afterwards acknowledged, David yet living; and fearing the disposition of Absalom, he embraced the present advantage offered.

Hereof, together with news of the victory, when knowledge was brought to David, he mourned and sorrowed, not only as a man that had lost a son, but as one that had outlived all his worldly joys, and seen every delight of life interred. For he so hid himself from his people, as those, which hoped for honour and reward after so great a victory, covered themselves also in the city, as if they had committed the greatest offences, and had rather deserved death than recompence. Whereupon Joab presenting himself before David, persuaded him to dissemble his sorrow for the present, and to shew himself to the army. For, first, he told him that he had discountenanced his faithful servants, who had that day preserved his life; inferring, that nothing could be

11 2 Sam. 18.