He “was afraid of the Lord that day,” and “would not remove the ark” to Jerusalem, but left it for three months in the house of a Philistine, Obed-Edom of Gath; but finding that its host, instead of experiencing any evil, was blessed by the Lord, he carried out his original intention, and brought the ark to Jerusalem. “David, girded with a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the Lord,” and “all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.” When the ark had been placed in the tent that David had prepared for it, he offered up burnt offerings and peace offerings, and at the end of the festival there were dealt out to the people gifts of bread, cakes, and wine (or flesh). There is inserted in the narrative* an account of the conduct of Michal his wife, who looking out of the window and seeing the king dancing and playing, despised him in her heart, and when David returned to his house, congratulated him ironically—“How glorious was the King of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants!”

* Renan would consider this to have been inserted in the
time of Hezekiah. It appeared to him to answer “to the
antipathy of Hamutal and the ladies of the court to the
worship of Jahveh, and to that form of human respect which
restrained the people of the world from giving themselves up
to it.”

David said in reply that he would rather be held in honour by the handmaids of whom she had spoken than avoid the acts which covered him with ridicule in her eyes; and the chronicler adds that “Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.” *

* [David’s reply shows (2 Sam. vi. 21, 22) that it was in
gratitude to Jehovah who had exalted him that he thus
humbled himself.—Tr.]

The tent and the ark were assigned at this time to the care of two priests—Zadok, son of Ahitub, and Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, who was a descendant of Eli, and had never quitted David throughout his adventurous career.* It is probable, too, that the ephod had not disappeared, and that it had its place in the sanctuary; but it may have gradually fallen into neglect, and may have ceased to be the vehicle of oracular responses as in earlier years. The king was accustomed on important occasions to take part in the sacred ceremonies, after the example of contemporary monarchs, and he had beside him at this time a priest of standing to guide him in the religious rites, and to fulfil for him duties similar to those which the chief reader rendered to Pharaoh. The only one of these priests of David whose name has come down to us was Ira the Jethrite, who accompanied his master in his campaigns, and would seem to have been a soldier also, and one of “the thirty.” These priestly officials seem, however, to have played but a subordinate part, as history is almost silent about their acts.** While David owed everything to the sword and trusted in it, he recognised at the same time that he had obtained his crown from Jahveh; just as the sovereigns of Thebes and Nineveh saw in Amon and Assur the source of their own royal authority.

* 2 Sam. viii. 17, xx. 25; cf. 1 Sam. xxi. 1, xxii. 20; 1
Chron. xv. 11.
** 2 Sam. xx. 26, where he is called the Jairite, and not
the Ithrite, owing to an easily understood confusion of the
Hebrew letters. He figures in the list of the Gibborim,
“mighty men,” 2 Sam. xxiii. 38.

He consulted the Lord directly when he wished for counsel, and accepted the issue as a test whether his interpretation of the Divine will was correct or erroneous. When once he had realised, at the time of the capture of Jerusalem, that God had chosen him to be the champion of Israel, he spared no labour to accomplish the task which the Divine favour had assigned to him. He attacked one after the other the peoples who had encroached upon his domain, Moab being the first to feel the force of his arm. He extended his possessions at the expense of Gilead, and the fertile provinces opposite Jericho fell to his sword. These territories were in dangerous proximity to Jerusalem, and David doubtless realised the peril of their independence. The struggle for their possession must have continued for some time, but the details are not given, and we have only the record of a few incidental exploits: we know, for instance, that the captain of David’s guard, Benaiah, slew two Moabite notables in a battle.* Moabite captives were treated with all the severity sanctioned by the laws of war. They were laid on the ground in a line, and two-thirds of the length of the row being measured off, all within it were pitilessly massacred, the rest having their lives spared. Moab acknowledged its defeat, and agreed to pay tribute: it had suffered so much that it required several generations to recover.**

* 2 Sam. xxiii. 20-23: cf. 1 Chron. xi. 22-25. “Ariel,” who
is made the father of the two slain by Benaiah, may possibly
be the term in 11. 12, 17, 18 of the Inscription of Mesha
(Moabite Stone); but its meaning is obscure, and has
hitherto baffled all attempts to explain it.
** 2 Sam. viii. 2.

Gilead had become detached from David’s domain on the south, while the Ammonites were pressing it on the east, and the Ararnæans making encroachments upon its pasture-lands on the north. Nahash, King of the Ammonites, being dead, David, who had received help from him in his struggle with Saul, sent messengers to offer congratulations to his son Hanun on his accession. Hanun, supposing the messengers to be spies sent to examine the defences of the city, “shaved off one-half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.” This was the signal for war. The Ammonites, foreseeing that David would endeavour to take a terrible vengeance for this insult to his people, came to an understanding with their neighbours. The overthrow of the Amorite chiefs had favoured the expansion of the Aramæans towards the south. They had invaded all that region hitherto unconquered by Israel in the valley of the Litany to the east of Jordan, and some half-dozen of their petty states had appropriated among them the greater part of the territories which were described in the sacred record as having belonged previously to Jabin of Hazor and the kings of Bashan. The strongest of these principalities—that which occupied the position of Qodshû in the Bekâa, and had Zoba as its capital—was at this time under the rule of Hadadezer, son of Behob. This warrior had conquered Damascus, Maacah, and Geshur, was threatening the Canaanite town of Hamath, and was preparing to set out to the Euphrates when the Ammonites sought his help and protection. He came immediately to their succour. Joab, who was in command of David’s army, left a portion of his troops at Babbath under his brother Abishaî, and with the rest set out against the Syrians. He overthrew them, and returned immediately afterwards. The Ammonites, hearing of his victory, disbanded their army; but Joab had suffered such serious losses, that he judged it wise to defer his attack upon them until Zoba should be captured. David then took the field himself, crossed the Jordan with all his reserves, attacked the Syrians at Helam, put them to flight, killing Shobach, their general, and captured Damascus. Hadadezer [Hadarezer] “made peace with Israel,” and Tou or Toi, the King of Hamath, whom this victory had delivered, sent presents to David. This was the work of a single campaign. The next year Joab invested Kabbath, and when it was about to surrender he called the king to his camp, and conceded to him the honour of receiving the submission of the city in person. The Ammonites were treated with as much severity as their kinsmen of Moab. David “put them under saws and harrows of iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln.” *

* The war with the Aramaeans, described in 2 Sam. viii. 3-
12, is similar to the account of the conflict with the
Ammonites in 2 Sam. x.-xii., but with more details. Both
documents are reproduced in 1 Chron. xviii. 3-11, and xix.,
xx. 1-3.