This success brought others in its train. The Idumæans had taken advantage of the employment of the Israelite army against the Aramæans to make raids into Judah. Joab and Abishaî, despatched in haste to check them, met them in the Valley of Salt to the south of the Dead Sea, and gave them battle: their king perished in the fight, and his son Hadad with some of his followers took flight into Egypt. Joab put to the sword all the able-bodied combatants, and established garrisons at Petra, Elath, and Eziongeber* on the Red Sea. David dedicated the spoils to the Lord, “who gave victory to David wherever he went.”
Neither Elath nor Eziongeber are here mentioned, but 1 Kings
ix. 25-28 and 2 Chron. viii. 17, 18 prove that these places
had been occupied by David. For all that concerns Hadad, see
1 Kings xi. 15-20.
Southern Syria had found its master: were the Hebrews going to pursue their success, and undertake in the central and northern regions a work of conquest which had baffled the efforts of all their predecessors—Canaanites, Amorites, and Hittites? The Assyrians, thrown back on the Tigris, were at this time leading a sort of vegetative existence in obscurity; and, as for Egypt, it would seem to have forgotten that it ever had possessions in Asia. There was, therefore, nothing to be feared from foreign intervention should the Hebrew be inclined to weld into a single state the nations lying between the Euphrates and the Red Sea.
Drawn by Boudier, from photograph No. 377 of the Palestine
Exploration Fund.
Unfortunately, the Israelites had not the necessary characteristics of a conquering people. Their history from the time of their entry into Canaan showed, it is true, that they were by no means incapable of enthusiasm and solidarity: a leader with the needful energy and good fortune to inspire them with confidence could rouse them from their self-satisfied indolence, and band them together for a great effort. But such concentration of purpose was ephemeral in its nature, and disappeared with the chief who had brought it about. In his absence, or when the danger he had pointed out was no longer imminent, they fell back instinctively into their usual state of apathy and disorganisation. Their nomadic temperament, which two centuries of a sedentary existence had not seriously modified, disposed them to give way to tribal quarrels, to keep up hereditary vendettas, to break out into sudden tumults, or to make pillaging expeditions into their neighbours’ territories. Long wars, requiring the maintenance of a permanent army, the continual levying of troops and taxes, and a prolonged effort to keep what they had acquired, were repugnant to them. The kingdom which David had founded owed its permanence to the strong will of its originator, and its increase or even its maintenance depended upon the absence of any internal disturbance or court intrigue, to counteract which might make too serious a drain upon his energy. David had survived his last victory sufficiently long to witness around him the evolution of plots, and the multiplication of the usual miseries which sadden, in the East, the last years of a long reign. It was a matter of custom as well as policy that an exaltation in the position of a ruler should be accompanied by a proportional increase in the number of his retinue and his wives. David was no exception to this custom: to the two wives, Abigail and Ahinoam, which he had while he was in exile at Ziklag, he now added Maacah the Aramaean, daughter of the King of Geshur, Haggith, Abital, Bglah, and several others.* During the siege of Babbath-Ammon he also committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and, placing her husband in the forefront of the battle, brought about his death. Rebuked by the prophet Nathan for this crime, he expressed his penitence, but he continued at the same time to keep Bathsheba, by whom he had several children.** There was considerable rivalry among the progeny of these different unions, as the right of succession would appear not to have been definitely settled. Of the family of Saul, moreover, there were still several members in existence—the son which he had by Eizpah, the children of his daughter Merab, Merib-baal, the lame offspring of Jonathan,*** and Shimei****—all of whom had partisans among the tribes, and whose pretensions might be pressed unexpectedly at a critical moment.
* Ahinoam is mentioned in the following passages: 1 Sam.
xxv. 43, xxvii. 3, xxx. 5; 2 Sam. ii. 2, iii. 2; cf. also 1
Chron. iii. 1; Maacah in 2 Sam. iii. 3; 1 Chron. iii. 2;
Haggith in 2 Sam. iii. 4; 1 Kings i. 5, 11, ii. 13; 1 Chron.
iii. 2; Abital in 2 Sam. iii. 4; 1 Chron. iii. 3; Eglah in 2
Sam. iii. 5; 1 Chron. iii. 3. For the concubines, see 2 Sam.
v. 13, xv. 15, xvi. 21, 22; 1 Chron. iii. 9, xiv. 3.
** 2 Sam. xi., xii. 7-25.
*** 2 Sam. ix., xvi. 1-4, xix. 25-30, where the name is
changed into Mephibosheth; the original name is given in 1
Chron. viii. 34.
**** Sam. xvi. 5-14, xix. 16-23; 1 Kings ii. 8, 9, 36-46.