It was at a later period, when ‘the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies’ (2 Sam. vii. 1), that he announced to Nathan his purpose of building a temple. Nathan had taken Gad’s place as the seer and confidant of the king, and the palace of David had already been erected. But Yahveh would not allow him to carry out his plan. His hands were stained too deeply with blood; the work was destined for the son whose name signified ‘the peaceful one,’ and in whose birth and training the seer had taken so profound an interest.[[510]] All that David could do was to prepare the way for his successor, to collect the materials for the work, and to determine the place whereon the temple of God should stand.
Two lists have come down to us of David’s chief officers, extracted from the State annals. The first list is given at the end of the annalistic summary of the events of his reign (2 Sam. viii. 16-18), and belongs to the earlier portion of it; the second must have been drawn up not long before his death. From the outset, it is clear, the kingdom was as thoroughly organised as that of the surrounding states. There was the ‘recorder’ or ‘chronicler’ whose duty it was to hand down the memory of all that happened to future generations; the scribe or chief secretary who wrote and answered official letters, and superintended the copying and re-editing of older documents in the record office; the commander-in-chief of the army, who corresponded to the turtannu or tartan of the Assyrians, and the commander of the foreign troops. The administration, in fact, seems to have closely resembled that of Assyria, excepting only that there was no Vizier or Prime Minister who acted as the representative of the king. It presupposes a long-established use of writing and all the machinery of a civilised Oriental state. The scribe and the chronicler make their appearance in Israel simultaneously with the establishment of an organised government. A knowledge of the art of writing could have been no new thing.
Jehoshaphat, the son of Ahilud, we are told, was the recorder, Seraiah was the secretary,[[511]] Benaiah the commander of the Kretan and Philistine bodyguard. By the side of the civil functionaries were the two high priests Zadok and Abiathar, while the office of royal chaplains was filled by the sons of David himself. Their duties were probably to offer such sacrifices as were not public in the absence or in place of their father. That there should have been two high priests is difficult to explain. Zadok was the son of Ahitub, whom the Chronicler makes the son of Amariah, and a descendant of Phinehas the son of Eleazar (1 Chron. vi. 7), while Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech or Ahiah, the grandson of Ahitub, and great-grandson of Phinehas the son of Eli.[[512]] Abiathar appears to have represented the family of Ithamar the younger brother of Eleazar the son of Aaron; at any rate, it was to his family that the safe keeping of the ark had been intrusted as well as the high priesthood at the sanctuary of Shiloh. The destruction of Shiloh dealt a blow at its influence and prestige, the massacre of the priests at Nob almost annihilated it. Room was thus given for another line of priests who claimed descent from the elder branch of Aaron’s family, and who had probably preserved the Mosaic tradition in another part of Israel. Is it possible that Zadok had followed the fortunes of Esh-Baal, while Abiathar attached himself to David? At all events, the unification of the kingdom brought with it the unification of the high-priestly families; throughout the greater part of David’s reign the ark at Jerusalem was served by both Zadok and Abiathar, with numerous Levites under them (2 Sam. xv. 24-29). That Zadok is always named first, though Abiathar had been the early friend and priest of David, implies that his claim to represent the elder branch of the high priest’s family was recognised.
When the second list of David’s officials was compiled certain important changes had taken place. Seraiah, the secretary, had been succeeded by Sheva or Shisha (2 Sam. xx. 25; 1 Kings iv. 3); ‘Ira, the Jairite,’ had become the chaplain of David, and the growth of the empire had necessitated the creation of a new office. This was the imperial treasurership which was held by a certain Hadoram, who seems to have been of Syrian origin, and whose duty it was to collect the tribute of the conquered provinces.[[513]] Possibly he had already gained experience of the office under one of the Syrian kings.
Other officers of David are enumerated by the Chronicler (1 Chron. xxvii. 25-34). They had their analogues in Assyria and Egypt, and show how thoroughly the court of Israel was modelled after those of the neighbouring states. Among them we read of Azmaveth, the son of Adiel, who presided over the exchequer; of Jonathan, the son of Uzziah, who superintended the public granaries, which must therefore have been established in imitation of those of Egypt and Babylonia;[[514]] of Ezri, the superintendent of the peasants who worked on the crown lands; of Shimei and Zabdi, who had charge of the royal vineyards and wine-cellars; of Baal-hanan and Joash, to whom were intrusted the olive plantations and storehouses of oil; of Obil, the Ishmaelite, the chief of the camel-drivers; of Jehdeiah, the head of the ass-drivers; and of Jaziz, the Hagarene, who superintended the shepherds of the king.[[515]]
David sank slowly into the grave, old in mind as well as in years. A young maiden, Abishag the Shunammite, was brought to lie beside the king, and so keep up the warmth of his body. But it was all in vain, and it became clear that he could not last long. The bed of the dying king was surrounded by intrigue. Adonijah, the eldest of his surviving sons, naturally looked upon himself as the rightful heir. He could count upon two powerful supporters. One was the priest Abiathar, who had first given David’s title to the crown a religious sanction; the other was Joab, who had created his empire. But Bath-sheba had long since determined that she should be queen-mother, and that her son Solomon should wear the crown. Behind her stood Nathan, the spiritual director both of herself and of her son. The adhesion of Abiathar and Joab to Adonijah, moreover, drove their rivals Zadok and Benaiah into the opposite camp, and Benaiah took with him the foreign bodyguard of which he was commander, and which, as in other countries, thus showed itself ready from the outset to make and unmake kings. Above all, Bath-sheba still exercised her old influence over the half-conscious monarch, and it did not need the incitements of Nathan to induce her to exert it once more on behalf of Solomon. Backed as she was by the prophet, the issue was not doubtful, and David did as he was bid. Bath-sheba reminded him of his old promise to herself, Nathan craftily represented that Adonijah was already seizing the crown before his father’s life was extinct.
Zadok and Benaiah were accordingly summoned, and ordered to escort the young prince on David’s own mule to the spring of Gihon, and there, just outside the eastern wall of Jerusalem, where the Spring of the Virgin now gushes from the ground, to anoint him with the oil of consecration, and proclaim his accession by the sound of trumpet. The presence of the priests and the bodyguard was a visible sign that the kingship and the power had been transferred from David to Solomon.
Meanwhile Adonijah was holding a feast at the stone of Zoheleth, near En-Rogel, the Fuller’s Spring, the modern Well of Job south of the Pool of Siloam. Abiathar and Joab were with him; so also were his brothers, who seem to have had but little affection for the favourite of Nathan, as well as those representatives of Judah who had been the mainstay of Absalom’s rebellion. Solomon appears to have been regarded as tainted by foreign blood; at all events, Judah followed Adonijah as it had followed Absalom.[[516]] But Nathan and Bath-sheba had taken their measures in time. In the midst of the feast news was brought to the conspirators by Johanan, the son of Abiathar, that Solomon had been proclaimed king, and that his person was already protected by the royal bodyguard. The guests fled in dismay, and Adonijah took refuge at the altar. There the sovereign-elect promised him that he would spare his life.
Solomon next received the last commands of the dying king. David’s last thought was for the maintenance of the kingdom and the dynasty. Solomon was to follow in the footsteps of his father, to obey the law of Yahveh and His priests. More especially he was to seek an early opportunity of ridding himself of possible rivals or antagonists whom the weakness or policy of David himself had hitherto spared. Joab was to be put to death; he was too powerful a subject to be allowed to live, aged though he now was, and his complicity with Adonijah made him dangerous to the new king. Shimei, too, was to be slain; as long as he lived the fallen dynasty had a leader around whom the disaffected might rally. On the other hand, the kindness of Barzillai, the Gileadite, was not to be forgotten; favour to him would win the hearts of the men of Gilead.[[517]]
David died, leaving behind him a name which his countrymen never forgot. He became the ideal of a patriot king. He had founded a dynasty and an empire; and though the empire soon fell to pieces, the dynasty survived and exercised a momentous influence upon the religious history of the world. He had established once for all the principle of monarchy in Israel; never again could the Israelites return to the anarchic days of the Judges, or forget the lessons of unity which they had been taught.