[302] 2 Sam. xxiv. 9. The number of the levy here, as in almost all accounts of the assembling of the people, must be grossly exaggerated: 800,000 are given in Israel, 500,000 in Judah only. Chronicles raises the first number to 1,100,000, and reduces the second to 30,000, 1 xxii. 5. The statement given in Chronicles about the division of the levy into 12 troops, and the strength of these troops (1 xxviii. 1-15), contradicts these numbers. As this arrangement of the army is mentioned in Chronicles only, which books show a great tendency to systematise, the division into 12 remains uncertain. That there was a numbering of the people is not to be doubted. It is counted as one of David's errors, and Jehovah strikes the people with pestilence. This narrative is connected with the command to redeem the firstborn, the boys (vol. i. 499), the ordinance given in Exod. xxx. 12, which is connected with the same conception: "When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul to Jehovah that there be no plague among them."
[303] 2 Sam. viii. 15.
[304] 2 Sam. xx. 23-26; 1 Chron. xxvii. 16-22.
[305] Psalm xviii.; cf. De Wette-Schrader, "Einleitung," S. 345.
[306] 2 Sam. vi. 1-8, 12-15; Psalm xxiv. On the date see above, p, 125, n. 2. M. Niebuhr ("Assur und Babel," s. 350) explains the number of 466½ years given by Josephus ("Ant." 20, 10) by assuming that it contains the interval of 430½ years which the Hebrews give for the interval between the building of the temple and its destruction. To this amount is added eight years for the captive high priest Jozadak, down to the time when his son Joshua became high priest, and 28 years for Zadok's priesthood before the commencement of the building of the temple. If we reckon the 28 years of Zadok backwards for the time that we have assumed for the beginning of the temple, 990 B.C., we arrive at the year 1018 B.C. for the erection of the new tabernacle.
[307] 1 Chron. xvi. 39.
[308] 2 Sam. xv. 24, 27; 1 Chron. vii. 4-15, 50-53; xxiii.-xxvi.
[309] If Josephus is right, that the fourth year of Solomon was the twelfth year of Hiram of Tyre.
[310] 2 Sam. xix. 35.
[311] Absalom's rebellion cannot have taken place till the latter years of David. Absalom was born in Hebron, and therefore, at the least, after David's thirtieth year, 2 Sam. v. 4. He must at the least have been towards 20 years old when he caused Amnon to be murdered. Five years passed before David would allow him to enter his presence, 2 Sam. xiii. 38, and xiv. 28. Lastly, his efforts to gain popularity, and the preparations for rebellion, must have occupied two years. If it is stated in 2 Sam. xv. 7 that after Absalom's return from Geshur 40 years elapsed till his rebellion, Absalom must have been 63 years old at the time of his rebellion, and David at the least 93 years old. Hence in the passage quoted four years must be read instead of 40.