The rebels had gone north. Joab pursued and drove them to the uttermost borders of the Israelite territory. In Abel-beth-maacha, near Dan and the sources of Jordan, Sheba succeeded in making a stand. Joab prepared to storm the town. Then, in response to his demand, the rebel’s head was thrown to him over the wall. Joab departed, and spared the faithful city.
With this, David’s control over the course of events comes to an end. What followed was scarcely of his doing. For a quiet and undisturbed period David may still have held the reins in Israel; then we find him as a worn-out old man, scarcely master of his own will, and in the hands of a court and harem not too nice in their aims and methods. As far as history is concerned, David had disappeared from the scene.
The Pillar of Absalom
The outline of David’s character stands more clearly in the light of history than that of Saul. Israel’s greatness and Jehovah’s honour are David’s first precepts, and this fact also secured for him the gratitude of Israel and the love and respect of posterity for all time. Nor could they be obscured by the truly gigantic shadow of the man of violence. David towers head and shoulders above the average human ruler. He also stands out prominently beyond both the kings of Israel who followed him and his predecessor Saul, in respect of grandeur, magnanimity, wisdom, tenacity, strength, and skill in victory as in rule. Even in the extravagance of his personal and despotic passions there are few who come up to him.
But even in his weaknesses David’s greatness of soul always reappears in its original beauty. David’s despotic whim seduced Bathsheba and basely murdered Uriah—but bowed, in righteous sense of guilt and unfeigned repentance, to the judgment of the people and the uncompromising sentence of Jehovah’s prophet. David’s paternal weakness was responsible for Amnon’s crime and Absalom’s rebellion—but the father’s heart did not cease to beat warmly for the son who had sinned so deeply. David’s weakness comes home to us in his noble sorrow over Absalom, and is, in our eyes, a striking instance of paternal fidelity. David’s magnanimity may seem to have degenerated into want of firmness in regard to Joab—though we have too little insight into the exact course of events to be able to form a conclusive judgment—but as concerns Saul and his house, as well as Shimei and Amasa, it is indisputable. Poetic endowment and religious zeal are so much the characteristics of his nature, that the possibility of David’s having taken an active share in the beginnings of the religious lyric in Israel will scarcely be called in question.[b]
RENAN’S ESTIMATE OF DAVID
David died at the age of about sixty-six years, after a thirty-years’ reign, and in his palace of Zion. He was buried close by, in a tomb hollowed in the rock, at the foot of the hill on which stood the city of David. All this happened about one thousand years before Christ.
A thousand years before Christ. This fact must not be forgotten in seeking to gain an idea of a character so complex as that of David, in endeavouring to form a picture of the singularly defective and violent world which has just unfolded itself before our eyes. It may be said that religion in the true sense was not yet born. The god, Jehovah, who is daily assuming in Israel an importance without parallel, is of a revolting partiality. He brings success to his servants; this is what is supposed to have been observed, and this makes him very strong. There is as yet no instance of a servant of Jehovah, whom Jehovah has abandoned. David’s profession of faith may be summed up in one word: “Jehovah who preserved my life from all danger.” Jehovah is a sure refuge, a rock whence one may defy one’s enemy, a buckler, a saviour. The servant of Jehovah is in all things a privileged being. Oh, it is a wise thing to be a scrupulous servant of Jehovah!