When David at length ventured to descend from his mountain fortress, the Philistines were encamped in the plain of Rephaim, or the ‘Giants,’ which stretched to the south-east of Jerusalem.[[468]] He was thus cut off from the north, the road being further barred by the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem, which appears to have peacefully submitted to the Philistine domination. For a while the two hostile forces watched one another, neither daring to attack the other. Heroes and champions on either side performed individual deeds of valour like that which had first won recognition for David on the part of Saul, but no general engagement took place.[[469]] The Philistines were too numerous, the Israelites too securely posted to be assailed.
At last, however, David judged that his opportunity had come. The oracle of Yahveh was consulted; the answer was favourable; and the Israelites descended suddenly on their enemies at a place called Baal-perazim. The Philistines fled precipitately, leaving behind them the images of their gods, which fell into the hands of the conquering army. The defeat at Gilboa was in part avenged.
But the strength of the Philistines was by no means broken, and they still held possession of the country north of Judah. Once more they poured through the valley of Rephaim, and once more they were driven back towards the coast. David had fallen upon them in the rear, the sound of the approaching footsteps of the Israelites being drowned in the rustling made by the wind in a grove of mulberry-trees. This time the invaders were utterly shattered; they retreated from the territory of Benjamin, and fled to Gezer, which was still in Canaanite hands. The war was now carried into the country of the enemy. Gath, the most inland of the Philistine cities, was the primary object of attack; but a long and desultory war was needed before either it or its sister cities could be forced to yield. Again opportunities occurred for the display of individual deeds of prowess, and for winning the rewards of valour from the Israelitish king. The three brothers of Goliath were slain by three of the champions of Israel, Jonathan the nephew of David being the victor in one combat, Abishai the brother of Joab in another. Abishai’s victory was gained at Gob, where David narrowly escaped death at the hands of the giant Ishbi-benob.[[470]] The narrowness of the escape terrified his subjects, and they determined that he should not again expose his life in the field. The memory of Saul’s death and its disastrous results was too recent to be forgotten. Henceforward, except on rare occasions, David governed his people from the city or the palace; his armies were led by Joab, and the king became to them a name rather than an inspiring presence. The personal affection he had once excited was confined to his bodyguard, and when the evil days of rebellion came upon him, it was the bodyguard alone which remained faithful to their king.
Before the war with the Philistines was finished, an event occurred which had a momentous influence on the future history of Judah. This was the capture of Jerusalem. The Jebusite city had severed Judah from the northern tribes, and the struggle with the Philistines had shown what advantage that gave to an enemy. A united Israel was impossible so long as the Israelitish territory was thus cut in two by a belt of hostile country. While Jerusalem remained in the hands of the foreigner, Israel could never be secure from Philistine attacks, or its king be able to hurl against the enemy the full force of his dominions. If the Philistine war was to be brought to a decisive and satisfactory end, if the king of Judah was also to be king of Israel, it was needful that Jerusalem should be his. We have learned from the tablets of Tel el-Amarna how important Jerusalem already was in the days when the Israelites had not as yet quitted Egypt, and when Canaan formed part of the Egyptian empire. Its position made it one of the strongest of Canaanitish fortresses. It was the capital of a larger territory than usually belonged to the cities of Canaan, and it was already venerable for its antiquity. Its ruler was also a priest, ‘without father and without mother,’ and appointed to his office by ‘the Mighty King,’ ‘the Most High God’ of the book of Genesis. Its name testified to the worship of a god of peace: Urusalim, as it is written in the cuneiform characters, signified ‘the City of Salim,’ the god of peace.
The city stood on a hill to which in after days was given the name of Moriah. A low depression, first recognised in our own days by Dr. Guthe, separated it from another hill, which sloped southward till it ended in a point. On one side was the deep limestone valley through which the torrent of the Kidron had forced its way; on the other side, to the west, was another valley known in later times as that of the sons of Hinnom. On the southern hill was a fort which protected the approach to the upper town to the north.[[471]]
Its Jebusite defenders believed it to be impregnable. Even the lame and the blind, they said, could repel the assault of an enemy. But they were soon undeceived. The Israelites climbed up the cliff through a drain or aqueduct that had been cut in the rock, and the Jebusite fortress was taken. It may be that its capture was due to treachery, and that the way had been shown to the besiegers by one of the garrison; at all events the inhabitants of the city were spared, and henceforward shared it with settlers from Judah and Benjamin. The latter would seem to have been chiefly planted in the new city which David built on the southern hill of Zion where the Jebusite fortress had stood. In contradistinction to Jerusalem it came to be known as the City of David; a strong wall of fortification was built around it, a Millo or citadel was erected on the site of the Jebusite fort, and the king’s palace was founded in its midst. The palace seems to have stood on the western side of the hill, with a flight of steps cut in the rock leading down from it to the valley below, traces of which have apparently been discovered by Dr. Bliss in his recent excavations.[[472]]
It was built by Phœnician artificers from Tyre. War and foreign oppression had destroyed most of the culture the Israelites had once possessed, and they no longer had among them skilled artisans like Bezaleel, who could undertake the construction or adornment of buildings which might vie with the palaces of the Philistine or Canaanite cities. Carpenters and stone-masons had to be fetched from Tyre like the beams of cedar that were cut on the slopes of the Lebanon. Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem, must already have fallen by war or treaty into David’s hand.
We are told that the cedar and the workmen were sent by Hiram, the Tyrian king. But if the Israelitish palace had been built in the early part of David’s reign, this can hardly have been the case. Josephus, quoting from the Phœnician historian Menander, tells us that Hiram I., the son of Abibal, reigned thirty-four years (B.C. 969-936),[[473]] and since he was still alive in the twentieth year of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings ix. 10), it would have been Abibal rather than Hiram who first entered into commercial alliance with David.[[474]] Abibal seems, like David, to have been the founder of a dynasty, and his son and successor was the Solomon of Tyre. He constructed the two harbours of the city, restored the temples, and built for himself a sumptuous palace, while his ships traded to the Straits of Gibraltar in the west and to the Persian Gulf in the east.
Jerusalem became the capital of the Israelitish king, and the choice was a sign of his usual sagacity. It was an ideal centre for a kingdom such as his. It lay midway between Judah and the northern tribes, and thus, as it were, bound them together. At the same time it belonged to neither; its associations were Canaanite, not Hebrew, and its choice as a royal residence could excite no jealousies. Moreover, this absence of past associations with the history of Israel enabled David to do with it as he liked; it contained nothing the destruction or alteration of which would offend the prejudices of his countrymen. Situated as it was on the borders of both Judah and Benjamin, it served to unite the houses of Saul and Jesse, and the mixed population which soon filled it—partly Jebusite, partly Jewish, and partly Benjaminite—was a symbol and visible token of that unification of races and interests in Palestine which it was the work of David’s reign to effect. In addition to all this, Jerusalem was a natural fortress, difficult to capture, easy to defend; it had behind it the traditions of a venerable past, and had once been the seat of a priest-king.
The spoils of foreign conquest allowed David to fortify and embellish it. Israel as yet had no trade of its own. The struggle with the Philistines had effectually prevented it from engaging in the commerce which had made the name of ‘Canaanite’ synonymous with that of ‘merchant.’ The Philistines had held possession of the highroads that ran through Palestine as well as of the southern line of coast; the coasts and harbours to the north were occupied by the Phœnicians. The capture of Joppa from the Zakkal first opened to Israel and Judah a way to the sea.