Saint David, King and Prophet

Some time later, in one of those inextinguishable wars that came, like salutary crises, to assail and strengthen, through exercise, the constitution of the Jewish nationality, a Philistine soldier proposed to the brave men of Israel to end the quarrel that was tearing the two nations apart through single combat. The two camps were posted on heights overlooking the Valley of Elah. It is a narrow and deep valley that runs, beyond the village of Jeremiah, to the right of the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The Philistine warrior was of immeasurable height, exceeding double the ordinary size. His head, his limbs, his whole body were clad in iron and bronze. Of prodigious strength, he wore a breastplate of enormous weight; a large and powerful shield and a formidable spear served him for attack and defense. This giant was named Goliath. In his pride, he was seen, for severa Goliath Philistine giant defeated by David. l days in a row, presenting himself between the two armies and throwing a challenge full of boasting to all Israel: "Why wage battle?" he said. "Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the subjects of Saul? Choose a man from among you, and let him accept a fight with me. If he dares to attack me and kills me, we will be your slaves; but, if I prevail over him and kill him, you will be our tributaries and our slaves." Saul and his entire army remained mute with stupor at the sight of this colossus: fear had frozen their courage. For his part, Goliath drew an increase of insolence from the pusillanimity of his enemies, in the manner of barbarians inclined to bolster the superiority of their physical strength with childish braggadocio.

The Israelites were preparing to respond to the provocations of the terrible Philistine with a general battle when David arrived at the camp. His three older brothers were part of the expedition. His father said to him: "Take an ephah of parched grain and these ten loaves, and go find your brothers. Also take these ten cheeses for their captain." At that time, there was no standing army; in the perils of the fatherland, it was proclaimed among the twelve tribes that every man disposed to fight should report to a designated place. The citizens came there with their weapons and their provisions; for the war was waged at their own expense, there were no resources regularly allocated to the maintenance of the troops. David, having risen early in the morning, entrusted the care of his flocks to a hired man, and left to carry out his father's orders. Upon arriving at the Valley of Elah, he left his burden among the army's baggage and ran to the scene of the struggle; for an immense clamor seemed to announce that the action was soon to begin.

At this moment, Goliath, having emerged from the Philistine ranks, was indulging one last time in his bravado, and dread was entering the hearts of the Israelites. "Do you see," said one of them, "this man who provokes us? He comes to insult Israel. Whoever kills him will be showered with riches by the king, who will give him his daughter in marriage and exempt him from taxes, him and his father's house." These promises, the instinct for great things, and, above all, the desire to avenge God, whose cause, closely linked to that of the Jews, suffered from all the insults addressed to them, so many motives filled the young hero with the fire of religious courage. He verified the truth of the rumors that struck his ear. "What will be given to the brave man who kills this Philistine," he said, "and who wipes away the reproach of Israel? For who is this profane man who insults the army of the living God?" The rewards reserved for the victor were recalled once again. Then David offered himself to fight the giant, and, despite the jealous reprimands of his older brother and the advice even of the king, who at first dissuaded him from a struggle that was too unequal, he persisted in his generous design. "When a bear or a lion," he said to Saul, "came to snatch a ram from my flock, I knew how to pursue them, fight them, tear the prey from their teeth, and, when they threw themselves at me, I knew how to seize them by the throat, stifle them, and kill them. That is how I destroyed a lion and a bear, and I will do the same to this profane man. I will go, therefore, and I will wipe away the reproach of the people... The Lord, who delivered me from the claw of the lion and the mouth of the bear, will deliver me from the arm of this Philistine," added the young shepherd with a quiet and religious confidence; for he knew that there is in heaven a supreme council where victory is decided and where sincere faith speaks louder than the best-wielded sword.

It is from such a source, indeed, that David drew his boldness and his hope. He had first been clothed in Saul's armor, but he soon took it off as an apparatus more cumbersome than useful. He took only his shepherd's staff; he chose five smooth stones from the bed of the torrent which he threw into his shepherd's bag, and, holding his sling in his hand, he marched against the enemy. Goliath advanced on his side; but, perceiving only a fair and handsome young man, he felt extreme contempt for him: "Am I a dog," he said, "that you come to me with a staff?" And he swore by his gods to give him as prey to the birds and the beasts. David replied: "You come to me with sword, spear, and shield; I, I present myself in the name of the Lord of hosts whom you have insulted today. He will deliver you into my hands, I will kill you and cut off your head, and I will make the corpses of the Philistines the food of the birds and the beasts, so that the whole earth may know that there is a God in Israel, so that all this crowd may recognize that, if the Lord saves, it is neither by sword nor by spear; for the battles are his, and he will put you into our hands." The two armies awaited the outcome of this memorable duel. The Philistine moved to begin his march; the shepherd ran, took a pebble from his bag, and, with his sling, threw it so accurately and so strongly that it struck the forehead and penetrated the giant's head. Goliath fell face to the ground; David rushed upon his antagonist, took his sword, and decapitated him.

It is impossible to describe the terror and disorder this unexpected ruin brought upon the Philistines: seeing that the most formidable among them was dead, they fled in panic. The Israelites, shouting cries of victory, began their pursuit; they killed a great number of them and came to plunder their abandoned camp. Saul wished to see the young hero, who indeed appeared before him, holding the head of Goliath in his hand. Th e king Le roi First king of Israel and persecutor of David. inquired about the birth and family of his future son-in-law and kept him at the palace. David conducted himself with extreme prudence; his fine qualities and the memory of his first feat of arms earned him universal esteem and admiration. He especially won the affection of Jonathan, Saul's Jonathas Son of Saul and intimate friend of David. eldest son: equally generous, and closely bound together, these two souls became as one. Jonathan gave the newcomer his tunic, his bow, his sword, and his belt, and they swore an eternal friendship to each other. To this testimony, already so sweet to David, the nation added its gratitude and applause. In a sort of triumphal march that followed the rout of the Philistines, women came out of the cities to meet the procession, expressing their joy with songs and dances. They repeated in chorus these words: "Saul has struck his thousand enemies, and David his ten thousand," not thinking that throwing flowers on the heads of subordinates is to devote them to the vindictive jealousy of their leaders. The king took a dislike to the glorious young man, far from granting him the reward due to his courage. In truth, he said to him: "There is Merab, my eldest daughter, I will give her to you as a wife; only be brave and fight the battles of the Lord"; but at the same time he thought in his heart: I will not kill him with my own hand, I will make him perish by the sword of the enemy. Then he added insult to his designs, and his eldest daughter, whom he had promised to the victor of Goliath, he cowardly gave to another.

David undoubtedly felt this bitter ingratitude keenly; nevertheless, it does not appear that complaints escaped his lips, nor that he ceased to quietly leave the care of his fortune to heaven. What is certain is that Saul saw the difficulties he created turn instantly against himself. His second daughter, named Michal, was charmed by David's fine qualities; perhaps also her gentle and generous soul, seeing t he inj Michol Daughter of Saul and first wife of David. ustices the young courtier suffered, was touched by a pity that soon turned into an even more vivid and intimate feeling. At first, Saul's policy was well-suited to this incident; he did not doubt that David, to obtain Michal, would consent to brave all perils and would eventually meet his death. "I will promise him my daughter," he thought, "so that she may be an occasion of ruin for him and that he may fall into the hands of the Philistines." Following this tragic calculation, he said openly to David: "I will give you Michal, but not without condition." And he said in secret to his confidants: "Speak to David, as if from yourselves, in these terms: You know that the prince's good graces are yours and that his officers cherish you; think then of becoming his son-in-law." The world has long known and practiced, as we see, this strategy of speech that takes the place of courage and virtue in the lives of certain statesmen.

David's soul was without suspicion because it was without malice. He replied ingenuously to the communication of the palace officers: "Is it not too great an honor to be the king's son-in-law? I am poor and have no resources." Among the Israelites, a woman brought to marriage only her finery and the objects necessary for her personal needs; the dowry was provided by the husband. This order of things troubled the shepherd of Bethlehem much more at that moment than the daughter of Saul; that is why he had only given a reply marked by timidity and discouragement. The officers hastened to report it to their master. It was in accordance with the expectations and especially the desires of the prince. Saul sent word to David that he asked for his daughter's dowry, not gold and silver, but the death of one hundred Philistines. For, since the battle of the Terebinth, the two nations remained in expectation of new hostilities. By stipulating the marriage of his daughter under such a condition, Saul had the advantage of exposing David to an almost certain death and hiding his homicidal game under the mask of patriotism and national glory.

But if God lets us trace our path, He reserves the right to make it reach its end. Saul deceived both his confidants and David; above all, he deceived himself: his fraud reassured him but could not save him. Always full of uprightness and intrepidity, David accepted the king's proposal without difficulty. A delay of a few days was granted to him; but he left immediately at the head of his faithful troop, attacked the Philistines, and killed two hundred of them. This rapid and victorious expedition devastated Saul; his jealousy increased; but finally, he felt that the hand of God was against him and that he had to yield to time. He therefore gave his daughter in marriage to the young and brilliant victor of Goliath.

Michal's affection was measured by the dangers David had undergone and the courageous fidelity he had displayed. He himself rejoiced in the beauty of such a sweet alliance with that vivid and profound feeling that accompanies the triumph of honorable and severely tested inclinations. Everything embittered Saul's ulcerated soul; the good understanding of the new spouses was an extreme bitterness to him. Two things especially fueled his aversion: he was forced to esteem his son-in-law, and he saw him illustrious and happy. Perhaps he had counted on Michal to sadden and compromise David's destiny; but he was disappointed in his hope. Then, understanding that he could not defeat him by secret measures, he feared him; his hatred, along with his fear, became stronger day by day. On the other hand, military operations still directed against the Philistines increased David's celebrity; he acquired a great reputation for prudence and valor, and the people became accustomed to hearing the young captain spoken of gloriously. This last blow overturned Saul's shaken virtue and threw him into the party of violence. Sometimes he seemed disarmed by the gentleness of his victim; then he resumed the persecution with more bitterness. Finally, obsessed with jealousy, he took the resolution to put David to death; he spoke in this sense to his officers and to Jonathan. But the heart of this young prince could not open to such a cowardly counsel; furthermore, the voice of sworn friendship was added to the cry of honor. He went to find his friend in secret: "Saul, my father, seeks to kill you," he said; "I pray you, be on your guard; tomorrow morning, flee into the countryside, and keep yourself hidden in some retreat. For my part, I will bring my father to that place; I will speak to him of you, and what I learn, you will know immediately." Jonathan flattered himself that he could appease Saul, spare him a crime, and save his friend. Indeed, he led the king to the countryside and spoke to him of David in terms full of generosity: "Prince, do not be cruel toward David, for he has done you no harm, and he renders you, on the contrary, the most important services. He has put his life in peril, he has killed Goliath, and it is by his hands that the Lord has wonderfully wrought the salvation of Israel. You saw it and triumphed with joy. Why then shed such pure blood and kill the innocent David?" There is in the accents of devoted friendship a secret warmth that is true eloquence. Saul's soul softened under the persuasive sincerity of Jonathan's words; he swore to spare his son-in-law's life. Jonathan brought David and then presented him to Saul. One could believe in a lasting reconciliation.

But the king's envy was appeased and not extinguished: it resembled, if one judges by subsequent events, a sleeping fire that a breath can rekindle, a lively germ that strengthens underground when one tries to repress it from the outside. David had resumed his rank and duties among the palace officers. He made more than one successful raid on the lands of the Philistines, who were always restless and unsubdued. This new success quickly tired the prince's weak heart and resurrected poorly stifled angers. Prey to his dark feelings, Saul fell into a sort of furious mania that made him formidable. One day, his son-in-law, unsuspecting, was playing the harp before him to calm him; Saul tried to pierce him with his spear; David noticed the danger soon enough to dodge the iron, which struck violently against the wall. He fled in haste. The king, pushing his bloodthirsty project to the end, gave the order to his guards to surround David's house during the night and to kill him the next morning. Fortunately, Michal was informed in time of these homicidal measures; she ran to David: "Flee this very night," she said; "for tomorrow you are dead." There was only one difficulty: the guards were at the door of the house and their vigilance had to be deceived. They took advantage of the darkness of the night. Michal let David down through a window, and he was thus able to escape. Then, to give him time to withdraw to a safe place, she used a stratagem. Foreseeing that they would come to search, she put a kind of statue in the fugitive's bed, threw a goat skin over the head, and spread the blanket over this likeness of a human body.

However, surprised that they delayed so long in informing him of the execution of his orders, Saul sent archers to seize David's person. They were told that he was sick. Furious at this delay and unable to bear it any longer, the prince demanded that the sick man come, even if carried in his bed, so that he could see him slaughtered in his presence. Michal had thought she had provided for everything with her artifice. The people of the palace, upon their arrival, wanted to penetrate to David; but they found only a statue hidden under a goat skin. It is easy to imagine Saul's indignation; he summoned his daughter: "Why have you deceived me in this way? And why have you let my enemy flee?" Michal feared that her tenderness for David would not be enough to excuse her before a father blinded by hatred, and, resorting to dissimulation, she replied that David had frightened her with this threat: "Let me flee, or I will kill you." Whether by persuasion or a return of affection for his daughter, Saul did not carry his search any further. Thus did God permit that violence does not succeed in breaking everything it attacks, and it is not the least of its punishments, this solemn impotence in which it sometimes ends in its most stubborn efforts.

David had taken the road to Ramah, where old Samuel had retired upon leaving public life; his last years were spent in the midst of a college of prophets to whom he taught the science of the Eternal. He welcomed with interest this fugitive, whose future greatness he had greeted in advance. But soon, pursued by Saul, David was forced to seek a more secure refuge. He wanted to see Jonathan once more; the two friends had a secret interview, where their souls poured out in mutual and sweet protestations of attachment. David no longer wanted to trust Saul's words, and that was prudence. Nevertheless, Jonathan hoped to arrange a new reconciliation; he did not succeed, and he even nearly perished in his unsuccessful attempt, so violently did the king's anger turn upon him. He left the palace with indignation; he was afflicted by David's sad destiny and his imminent departure; for he loved him as his own life. The next morning, he went to join him in the countryside, in the retreat where he knew he was hidden. They embraced with effusion and began to weep; David especially shed abundant tears: he had to leave, before an implacable hatred, what he held most dear in the world, both Michal and Jonathan. Finally, they separated, swearing to each other again a fidelity to any test. Jonathan returned to the city, and David began that wandering and always threatened life that was to end in such a great reign, an illustrious symbol of those painful struggles which, freeing man from the tyranny of the senses and showing him superior to difficulties, raise him to virtue and glory.

Finding no safety in the places where the power of his persecutor extended, David first fled to the lands of the Philistines; but he soon had to leave this asylum, where his former exploits made him particularly odious and awakened fatal suspicions against him. He returned to live in a cave near Adullam, a small town of his tribe. He could only defend himself by making himself feared; he therefore took the attitude of a party leader. His whole family, involved in his disgrace, shared his perils and helped him in his resistance. Furthermore, he gathered under his command a crowd of malcontents, vagabonds, and people burdened with debt. He disciplined this troop, which, growing every day, numbered no less than six hundred men of resolute character, hardened by rapid marches and adventurous raids. The men of the tribe of Gad especially were strong and valiant, experts in battle, wielding shield and spear, bold as lions and light in running as the deer of the mountains. With these resources, David could move at will to the various frontiers of the kingdom to live at the expense of the enemies of his nation. But, much too weak to fight in open field against an entire army, he fled from retreat to retreat before Saul. For some time, he had settled in the solitude of Ziph, to the south of the tribe of Judah, on the road that would lead from Jerusalem to Sinai. This desert was surrounded by posts that their situation made very strong; David lodged his men there. He himself stayed in the center of this war post, on a height covered with trees and bushes and defended by a forest on the western side. It is there that the anxious friendship of Jonathan finally discovered him. They went together into the forest, and they had a conversation full of sweetness and sadness. Jonathan, with a truly manly affection, strengthened David's courage and expressed to him the desire and hope of seeing him one day on the throne. "Fear nothing," he said; "the hand of Saul will not reach you; one day you will reign over Israel; I will stand in the second rank. My father himself knows your destiny." This was their supreme farewell; they never met again on earth.

Saul, informed in his turn of David's retreat, thought it easy to tighten his grip on him in his mountains and force him to surrender. At the head of his troops, he came himself to besiege him, and he would have taken him indeed without the sudden news of an invasion by the Philistines, which recalled him to the center of his kingdom. This unexpected diversion saved David, who fled toward the Dead Sea and hid in difficult-to-access rocks near Engedi. But he was no less troubled there by the implacable Saul, and he retreated as far as Arabia Petraea, to the desert of Paran. Twice, in the midst of the vicissitudes of this troubled life, he had the easy opportunity to kill Saul with his own hand; he preferred to spare this head that the interpreter of Jehovah had marked with the royal anointing, and to wait for heaven itself to choose its hour. At the same time, he surrounded his enemy with testimonies of his submission and respect, and contented himself with making reproaches to him marked by the greatest meekness. Saul was moved by such high generosity, and, heaving a sigh with tears: "You are more just than I," he said; "for you have done me only good, and I have returned you only evil."

It was still amidst the bitterness of his exile that David learned of Michal's fate. He had given neither consent nor a letter of divorce that she could invoke. Nevertheless, Saul had her married to Palti, a man of his tribe, either to take revenge on his enemy by afflicting him, or to rescue his daughter from the sort of widowhood into which David's absence had plunged her. It was an outrage against the institutions of the country and natural law, where only the man, and not the woman, could find a certain tolerance in matters of polygamy. Thus David, who in his flight had, for his part, taken as his wife Abigail, widow of Nabal, did not consider himself obliged to hold Michal's new engagement as legitimate and binding, and as soon as his change in fortune allowed him to dictate terms, his first word was for the daughter of Saul, the dear object of a tenderness so cruelly tested.

Saul had just perished with Jonathan and two other young princes in a battle fought against the Philistines near Gilboa. There remained one son of Saul who undertook to reign under the tutelage and protection of Abner, his kinsman, an experienced but ambitious general. Indeed, almost the entire nation submitted to the authority of the young king. David was at first recognized only by the men of Judah; he made his residence in Hebron, which this stay Hébron First capital of David as king of Judah. has rendered famous. It was there that the warriors of his tribe came to find him. They gave him the royal anointing again, no doubt to mark their consent to the choice made by Samuel, and to solemnly proclaim a right that had been contested until then. The party of Saul's son lasted more than seven whole years. Nothing indicated that the weak kingship of Hebron would soon extend over the whole country, when Abner, offended by a reprimand from his master, or rather his ward, threatened him to his face to abandon his cause and make the people desert it. And, indeed, he immediately sent confidants who said on his behalf to the king of Judah: "Is not the whole country yours? Let us make an alliance; my service remains yours, I will bring all Israel back to you." David had rights from that moment on: finding a way to defend them without bloodshed, he gladly seized it by welcoming the advances of the vindictive soldier. "Yes," he replied through the deputies, "I will make an alliance with you; but I demand one thing above all; I will not receive you until you return to me Michal, daughter of Saul; on this condition, we shall treat together." Well assured that, from then on, a desire supported by Abner would not meet with refusal, David demanded Michal back from the young prince, his rival. The latter, intimidated, gave the order to Palti to send the princess back to him.

Meanwhile, the imperious Abner was disposing the spirit of all the people in favor of the king of Hebron, and in particular the tribe of Benjamin, to which Saul's family belonged. "It has been a long time," he said, "that you have wished to have David as king. The hour has come; Jehovah himself designated him when he said: 'It is by the hand of my servant David that I will snatch my people from the arm of the Philistines and all their enemies.'" It was thus that, under the inspirations of vengeance, Abner recognized rights that only ambition had made him fight. After having shaken and destroyed the cause of his first master, he went to join the new one with twenty devoted friends. He also brought back Michal, a sad and innocent victim of the political rivalries of her father and her husband. But Palti could not resolve to leave her; he followed her for a long way, shedding tears. The old and rough Abner had to send him away before arriving at Hebron.

Michal seemed to be David's good fortune: with her, a glimmer of serenity had once illuminated his life; far from her, worries and perils had constantly besieged him; in finding her again, he saw his happiness, so long vanished, reappear. Events seemed to bend under his destiny to obey him. Abner died assassinated for the sake of vengeance; the king of Israel fell under the blows of two traitors. The people knew in an indubitable manner that David's hands were pure of this blood criminally shed. All the tribes, represented by their elders and by the principal warriors, therefore came to greet him at Hebron and proclaim him king. A three-day feast united them in sentiments of concord, and the nation, restored to peace, thrilled with joy.

Scarcely on the throne, David turned his arms against the Jebusites, the remnant of the indigenous population that had maintained itself for four hundred years in the midst of the Israelites, and which occupied one of the three mountains e nclosed w Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. ithin the walls of Jerusalem. The fortress of Zion, where this remnant of a people was quartered, was considered impregnable. David made himself master of it; he rebuilt it and gave it his name. He added to it a considerable extent of land, and, enlarging the city, he pushed its walls back as far as a ravine that served as a moat. Hiram, King of Tyre, admiring the great qualities of David and informed of his projects, sent ambassadors to congratulate him on his definitive accession to the throne of Israel, to offer him, along with his friendship, considerable gifts, and to place at his disposal the beautiful cedars of Lebanon and a host of workmen skilled in working wood and stone. It was with these resources that David completed his magnificent palace, a dwelling full of charms, from which the view, to the east, plunges into the Valley of Judgment, and extends as far as the Jordan across the jagged peaks of the hills; a dwelling of holy inspiration, which overlooks the course of Siloam with its poetic waters, and which listened so many times to chords so sweet and so sublime, that no echo on earth ever trembled at the sound of greater things! Under the hand of David, Jerusalem soon became the most beautiful and the largest city in the country, the center of government and the rallying point for the principal ceremonies of religi ous worship. T l'arche sainte Sacred chest containing the Tablets of the Law. he prince had the holy ark transported there, which had remained for nearly fifty years under the guard of the Levites, in a small town of the tribe of Judah.

The feast of this translation was pompous. An immense crowd had gathered; all the tribes had sent their deputies. Harps, trumpets, and numerous musical instruments resounded from afar. The Levites carried the ark. The procession stopped frequently to immolate victims, and resumed its triumphant march to the singing of canticles. "Praise Jehovah and invoke his name, publish his works before the nations. The Lord is great and worthy of infinite praise; he is more formidable than foreign gods; for the gods of the nations are nothing; but the Lord made the heavens... Tell the nations that Jehovah has founded his reign... Let the heavens enter into transports, let the earth triumph with joy, let the sea be moved in its immensity, let the fields rejoice from afar, let the trees of the forests tremble, at the presence of Jehovah who comes to govern the earth; he will govern the earth with justice and the peoples in all truth." It was to the singing of this hymn, composed by himself and repeated by thousands of voices, that David, carried away by the vehemence of his pious sentiments, danced before the ark. Michal, who was watching the march of the procession from a window, perceived with spite the naive transports to which the king was abandoning himself, and despised in her heart what she regarded as a forgetting and a lowering of royal majesty.

Thus, when the ceremony was over and David returned to his palace, Michal, going to meet him, expressed her sorrow in terms full of vivacity and irony: "How beautiful it was," she said, "to see the king of Israel frolicking today in the presence of the women of Jerusalem and stripping himself of his dignity like a buffoon!" David had that sincerity of religion which gives believers something simple, but proud, and which, covering them with all the inviolability of a convinced conscience, makes them look down upon all insults and all disdain; he replied: "Certainly, before Jehovah, who preferred me to your father and to all his family and who appointed me as leader over all his people in Israel, I will dance and I will lower myself even more, I will become despicable in your eyes, but greater in the eyes of those women of Jerusalem of whom you speak." Indeed, far from suppressing or weakening the public expression of his religious sentiments, the king conceived the project of erecting a temple worthy of the Eternal, and, if he abandoned this care to his successor, it was only after having received the order from the mouth of a Prophet.

David had been reigning for six years over all the tribes of Israel. Wise measures had already marked his government, and, along with his former feats of arms, had spread luster upon his name. It was he who organized the public force among the Hebrews: he divided all the warriors into twelve corps, each formed of twenty-four thousand men, and standing successively under arms for an entire month to perform the usual service of Jerusalem, and, if necessary, to march against the enemy while waiting for the entire people to assemble. Tranquil within, where religion, police, and finances were perfectly ordered, he knew how to impose fear and respect for his arms abroad through the promptness and severity of the repressions deemed necessary. The Ammonites having insulted his ambassadors, he defeated them in a first campaign, despite the support lent to them by the kings of Syria; then he sent, the following year, Joab, the best o f hi Joab General of David's army. s generals, to besiege their capital, then called Rabbath and later Philadelphia, on the torrent of Jabbok, east of the Jordan.

During this second expedition, David had remained in Jerusalem. One day, while walking on the terrace of his palace, he caught sight of a woman of rare beauty who was bathing in a neighboring house. He felt struck by a wound that reached his heart, and he did not defend himself against his affliction. He wanted to know who this woman was; he learned that it was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, su rnamed th Bethsabée Wife of Uriah then of David, mother of Solomon. e Hittite, and daughter of Eliam, the same brave man, it is said, who had as his father Ahithophel, one of the most famous officers of the palace. Bathsheba was therefore not free of engagement; her family, moreover, held a considerable rank; Uriah, at this moment at the siege of Rabbath, was exposing himself to death while serving the prince; these were for David numerous and grave motives to extinguish a guilty desire. But passion reasons little, especially when it knows itself supported by force: it then acts as if power makes right. David, blinded, sent for Bathsheba; the weak woman was undoubtedly dazzled by language coming from higher than herself; her virtue succumbed to it.

The king then thought to conceal his fault and to prevent the legal consequences it was bound to have for Bathsheba; for the regulations protecting the purity of families were very severe among the Jews. He therefore had Uriah the Hittite return from the army. It was, in appearance, to inquire about the state of the troops and the siege of Rabbath. After hearing the warrior's report, David dismissed him, inviting him to rest in the peace and sweetness of the domestic hearth. He even sent him, as a sign of friendship, dishes from his table. But the faithful Uriah stayed at the palace gate with the other officers of the king and did not go to his house. David, who soon learned of it, asked him the cause with kindness. The brave man replied that he would blush to abandon himself to joy, to seek softness and feasts, when Joab, his general, and the whole army of Israel were sleeping on the ground after the fatigues of combat, when the holy ark, which had been carried in the expedition, was itself resting only under tents. "I swear," he said, "by the life of the king, I will never do such a thing." — "Then," replied David, "remain today as well, tomorrow I will send you back." To gain a day was perhaps to save everything; David at least believed so. He had Uriah come to his table and urged him with lively insistence to drink much, hoping to place this rough soldier under the empire of the senses and tear him away from the discipline he had imposed upon himself. But, although he suspected no mystery and acted without premeditation, Uriah thwarted, by his actions, all the ruses imagined regarding him: he was inflexible in his design, despite the royal meal, and spent the second night, like the first, among the prince's guards, without going to his house.

The enticement of passion had caused David to fall; he was still only the victim of a shameful weakness; he was about to yield to pride and descend to tragic calculations to save his name from an opprobrium that justly threatened him; he was about to place homicide like a discreet veil over his first crime, and extinguish an innocent life because it could cast an accusing light upon him. David therefore resolved upon an extreme course; he wrote to Joab a letter thus conceived: "At the first attack, place Uriah at the most perilous post, and let him be abandoned there afterwards, so that he may succumb there." Who could, at this so odious trait, recognize David, the heroic conqueror of Goliath, the noble and valiant brother-in-arms of Jonathan, the exile of Hebron generously sparing Saul his persecutor? But such is the genius of passions: similar to furies that dance around man in an infernal round, as soon as by attaching himself to one of them he has entered their whirlwind, they carry him off with dizzying speed and precipitate him into devouring abysses that pass him from one to the other like a vain toy.

It is thus that, first unjust, then cruel, finally cowardly and perfidious, the king entrusted his letter to the very one whom it so sadly devoted to death. For his part, Uriah, charmed no doubt by the lying kindnesses of his master, left with the fatal message and delivered it faithfully to Joab. Unfortunately, Joab, so harsh and sometimes so haughty towards David, was too ambitious a courtier to recoil before the sacrifice of a human life. His age, his proven bravery, his military talents, the services rendered, ties of close kinship, everything gave him an ascendancy over the prince that he would not have wanted to compromise by sparing himself a crime. Occupied with the siege of Rabbath for some months, he knew the points where the resistance showed itself most intrepid. He drew the enemies out of the walls, exposed the valiant Uriah to the most dangerous blows, and conducted the action in such a way as to let him perish with a few soldiers. Immediately he had a courier sent to the king provided with these instructions: "You will tell the prince everything that happened in the battle. If you see that he becomes angry and if he says: 'Why go so close to the ramparts to make an attack?' you will answer him: 'Uriah the Hittite, your servant, is also among the dead'." The messenger came to find David and said to him: "The besieged have won a victory: they came out to charge us in the plain; we received them with great vigor and pursued them to the gates of the city. But their archers shot arrows at us from the top of the ramparts; the king lost several of his men there, and even Uriah, his servant, is among the dead." David sustained the role he had created for himself, and had words of apparent consolation carried back to his general. "You will say to Joab: Let this setback not cast you down; for war has its vicissitudes, the sword devours now one, now the other. Revive your soldiers and excite their ardor, so that the city may be reduced." Upon learning of the death of Uriah, Bathsheba gave herself over to the usual practices of mourning, and whether commanded or sincere, her tears flowed publicly. David's passion was without restraint: hardly had the thirty days that were ordinarily devoted to grief passed, when he summoned Bathsheba to the palace and gave her rank among his wives. Some time later, she had a son, the deplorable fruit of this crime that motivated the murder of Uriah. It is there that Providence awaited David, to tear away this thick cloud of the senses that he had placed between himself and virtue, to strike his soul with the sword of pain, and to let the rays of defied truth and unrecognized justice enter through the wound.

God therefore placed upon the lips of the prophet Nathan words of reproach and me Nathan Prophet who denounced the crime of David. rcy, as they emerge from the depths of the guilty conscience, when the outraged law and betrayed duty rise up there like restless ghosts and push forth that vengeful groan which is called remorse. Nathan went to find David and said to him: "There were in a city two men, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a considerable number of oxen and sheep. The poor man possessed absolutely nothing, except for one single little ewe that he had bought and fed, which had grown up near him with his children, eating of his bread, drinking from his cup, and sleeping in his bosom; he cherished it like his daughter. Now, a traveler having arrived at the rich man's house, the latter did not want to touch his oxen or his sheep for the feast of his guest, but he seized the poor man's ewe and served it to the stranger." At these words, David, seized by a movement of anger: "God is living," he said; "the man who has done such a thing would deserve death. He will return four sheep for one, he who has committed an indignity by not sparing this poor man." — "You are that man," replied Nathan with devastating conciseness and accuracy. "Here is what Jehovah, God of Israel, says: 'I anointed you king of Israel, and I snatched you from the hands of Saul; I gave you the palace and the wives of your former master, and I submitted the house of Israel and Judah to you. If all that is a small thing, I will add much more to it. Why then have you despised my word and committed evil in my presence? You have caused Uriah the Hittite to fall by the sword; you have taken his wife to make her yours, and you have immolated him by the sword of the children of Ammon. Therefore the sword will be upon your house forever, because you have despised me by taking for yourself the wife of Uriah the Hittite'." Here is what the Lord adds: "I am going to raise up domestic afflictions for you; I will take your wives before your eyes to deliver them to one of your relatives, who will insult them in the face of the sun. You, you have done evil in secret; I, I will let it be done in the sight of all Israel and under the open sky." Thus spoke the Prophet, by the double title of his conscience and his mission, and with that moral authority which naturally arms the defender of right and law, covering him with all the majesty of a principle.

The king felt moved and broken by this penetrating and firm word. The barbaric pride that had for a moment clothed his heart abandoned him all at once, and his heart, dilating without restraint, was liquefied in repentance, as one sees the hardest metals soften and flow under the action of a strongly concentrated heat. Then his soul was torn, and he uttered this saving cry, which suffices to repair the ruins of a world and which puts frail humanity back in equilibrium with heaven: "I have sinned against the Lord." It is this powerful cry that breaks the urn of divine mercies over the head of the guilty man and makes streams of pardon, grace, and innocence flow from it. Thus the Prophet added: "The Lord forgives your sin; you will not die. But as you have, by your crime, pushed the enemies of the Lord to blasphemy, the child who is born to you will lose his life."

The threats of the prophet were not in vain. Bathsheba's child fell dangerously ill, and soon he left no more hope. David poured out his sadness and his prayers before God; he refused all food, retired to his palace, giving such signs of grief that his officers, moved, tried to console him. At the end of seven days, the child died. There began for David hard anxieties and a long penance. It is true, some flashes of glory came to shine in this night that was forming around his life. Thus, the fortune of his arms was sustained: Joab had brought Rabbath to the last extremities, and as a skillful courtier, he reserved for his master the honor of striking the final blow and determining the victory. David therefore went to order the assault and take the city. He placed on his head, as a sign of domination, the crown of the king, which was of great richness and all adorned with magnificent precious stones. The carnage and the booty were immense, according to the genius of ancient wars, where the ardor of the combatants was extinguished only in the blood of men and in the destruction of things. On the other hand, in place of the son whose birth and death had torn so many tears from him, David had a new son by Bathsheba, upon whom he transferred all the tenderness of his saddened affections. He heard with joy the prophet Nathan pronounce words of glory over this blessed child, and publish that he was the happy object of the predilection of heaven. It is indeed this prince who, later, raised the land of the Hebrews to its highest period of greatness and prosperity, who held all the Orient attentive for forty years to the luster of his peaceful reign, and who so subjugated the admiration of his contemporaries that he could be led into deplorable errors without his reputation for wisdom disappearing in his faults: the whole world still calls him the wise Solomon.

But David's joys were troubled by bitter sorrows. A source of misfortune opened in his domestic hearth, as the Prophet had announced; everything seemed to turn against him there. Ammon, the eldest of his sons, madly led astray by passion, insulted the paternal blood in his sister Tamar. The nature of this crime deeply moved David, and, by bringing him back to the thought of his own sin, made him feel the equity of divine punishments, which strike and wound our soul in the very places we have chosen to flatter and corrupt it. Something even more painful awaited him: Absalom, Tamar's uterine brother, seein g her i Absalon Rebellious son of David. nconsolable and in mortal anguish, meditated on avenging her in a striking manner. Bold and violent, but dissembling, he nurtured a secret anger for two years, raising no complaint that could betray the wound in his heart and reveal his designs. One day he invited all his brothers to a great feast at a country house, some distance from Jerusalem; he had even desired that the king go there with them, no doubt to make him atone, by saddening him with a tragic scene, for the impunity granted to Ammon's incest. David refrained from going in person to take part in the proposed festivities. Furthermore, he initially showed some reluctance to allow this gathering of all his sons, as if he had feared some mournful event; but finally he consented, overcome by repeated entreaties. Now, Absalom had given orders to his men: "Watch for the moment when Ammon is troubled by wine and I say to you: 'Strike and kill him. Do not fear anything, it is I who command you. Be resolute and act like men of heart." The feast was splendid. When the joy became lively and animated, at the agreed signal, men rushed upon the unfortunate Ammon, who fell pierced with blows. His brothers, terrified, left this mournful place in haste and returned to Jerusalem. David's sadness was immense: he shed bitter tears over this new disaster and filled the palace with the cries of his mourning. Absalom, not believing himself safe, fled to his maternal grandfather, who reigned over a portion of Syria.

The shame of Tamar, the death of Ammon, the lamentable consequences that could soon be attached to such preludes, all spread bitterness in David's soul. However, after three years, his indignation subsided, and he felt paternal tenderness rise like a voice in favor of the exile. Joab, always skillful at penetrating the master's heart, understood that the time had come to serve Absalom, who could one day hold the scepter. He employed, to reach his goal, a clever woman, and outlined her role. This woman, in mourning clothes, and taking on all the appearances of a desperate mother and widow, came to throw herself at David's feet, crying out: "Prince, save me!" — "What is it?" asked the prince. "Alas!" replied the widow, "I have lost my husband. Two sons remained to me; they quarreled in the field, where, no one being there to separate them, one fell dead under the blows of the other. And now the whole family, conspiring against your servant, says to me: Deliver up the homicide, so that we may avenge by his death the blood shed by his brother, and that we may destroy the heir. They want to extinguish the spark that remains to me, so that my husband's name will disappear without a trace on earth." — "Return to your house," said the king, "I will have satisfaction given to you." The widow insisted several times, testifying that she feared the extreme anger of her relatives. David promised his protection as many times, and even confirmed his word with an oath. "Then," resumed the woman, "why refuse to all the people the grace you grant me, and how does the king hold to the mournful resolution not to recall his banished son? We all die, and we flow away on earth like waters that do not return. God himself does not want a soul to perish; he revokes his decrees, for fear that the condemned may be lost entirely." David suspected and then became convinced that Joab was not a stranger to this innocent fraud; but as his father's heart enjoyed the moral of the apologue, he willingly let himself be caught in the trap set. He said to Joab: "I forgive and I listen to you; go then and recall my son Absalom."

Joab went to find Absalom in his retreat and soon brought him back to Jerusalem. The proscribed man had to stay away from the palace, where his father did not want to receive him. But he was of those characters full of restless independence who suffer more from what is refused to them than they enjoy what is granted to them. Moreover, he perhaps lived under the empire of the ambitious preoccupations to which he later obeyed with such criminal and unfortunate rashness. Be that as it may, he became irritated by his long disgrace and undertook to put an end to it. He summoned Joab, with the intention of having him intervene with the king. Joab did not come, fearing no doubt that this step would be misinterpreted and would compromise his own favor; to two pressing invitations he opposed two evasive answers. Then the fiery Absalom had Joab's crops set on fire, in order to tear him from his calculated silence. Indeed, surprised by this whimsical violence, Joab came to address reproaches to the culprit; but he saw himself forced to yield before the outbursts for having resisted the prayers. He reported to the king everything that had happened, and managed the definitive reconciliation of his strange friend. Absalom was then presented to David; he prostrated himself face to the ground in sign of respect. The father's bowels were moved, and he embraced his son with tenderness; for no voice speaks louder and has more eloquence than blood: through the faults of a son, fathers see I know not what sweet and mysterious image that imposes itself upon them and makes the wrath of their lips flee to bring pardon there.

Scarcely had a generous clemency covered his fault, when Absalom took advantage of all the facilities that were returned to him to quickly pave his way to the throne. He had at the service of his ambition seductive qualities: a speech full of charm, open and affectionate manners, and, above all, incomparable beauty. No man was better made in his person, and he carefully maintained his magnificent hair. With such appearances, his twenty-five years spread around him a prestige that one did not try to defend against; for there escapes from everything that is young and beautiful a sort of magical virtue that commands respect and disposes to affectionate obedience. All these advantages could only turn into powerful instruments of disorder if Absalom let himself be led astray by the passionate impetuosity of his character. This is, in fact, what happened. No doubt, at the thought of his stormy antecedents, he feared not obtaining the crown that seemed naturally devolved to him by the death of his elders; perhaps also he was delayed in his burning impatience to seize and exercise the command. He therefore conspired the downfall of his father. He made partisans for himself, he affected to appear surrounded by horsemen and guards; he complained of the negligence of power and the sufferings of the people; he promised to correct abuses if he reigned one day. Every morning he was seen at the city gate where the assembly of justice was held; there, he inquired with a composed solicitude about the subject that brought each citizen to the king. "From what city are you?" — "Your servant is from such a tribe of Israel." — "Your cause is right and good; but no one has authority from the king to hear you. Ah! who will establish me judge of the country, so that all those who have some business come to me and I render them true justice?" Then he would reach out his hand to his interlocutor and embrace him with familiarity. All hearts detached themselves from David and flew to meet Absalom. For the people, often enemies of those who govern them, are always friends of those who flatter them; of the present, they only consent to see the sufferings experienced; of the future, only the promised happiness.

Under the pretext of fulfilling a religious duty, Absalom went to that city of Hebron, where David had begun his reign so agitated and had maintained himself for several years against Saul. The rebel took only two hundred men who were not even in the plot; but he sent confidants into all the tribes who prepared the ways for his advent, and who were to, on the agreed day, make him universally recognized as king. He immediately summoned Ahithophel, grandfather of Bathsheba, and who is said to have never forgiven David the outrage done to his granddaughter; he was a resolute man, and who was worth, by himself, an assembly of sages. Suddenly, in the middle of the religious feast that had attracted a huge crowd, the conspirators proclaimed the royalty of Absalom; the people welcomed this change with rapid favor. From all sides arrived couriers announcing to David the defection of Israel. David, whom the conscience of his faults and the sincerity of his repentance kept humbly placed under the hand of God, remembered the threats of Nathan, and understood that it was the vengeance of heaven that was passing at this moment. Moreover, not ignoring the violent and impetuous genius of Absalom, he refused to precipitate the country into the horrors of a civil war, and to excite the savage anger of a parricide by means of a resistance whose consequences it was difficult to calculate. He left Jerusalem on foot and followed by his faithful servants and six hundred brave men who had been, for twenty years, his companions in arms. He crossed the torrent of Kidron and climbed the Mount of Olives, his eyes full of tears, his feet bare, his head covered in sign of mourning, and all those who fled with him also walked with veiled heads and shedding tears. It is this same path that another prince, son of David, according to the flesh, took later, when, near to delivering his life for the salvation of the world, he was going to undergo in Gethsemane that bitter agony where, seeing the crimes and misfortunes of all the centuries pass under his gaze, he was seized with such penetrating anguish, that a sweat of blood covered all his limbs. Likewise, this path opens everywhere under the steps of man, another monarch of sorrow, who, from the cradle to the grave, crosses the wide river of tribulations while seeking peace, and draws from his great torn soul these cries of distress and these lamentable sobs that make history weep.

Absalom advanced rapidly on Jerusalem, where he entered without resistance. A council was held. Ahithophel belonged to that political school which thinks that success is its own justification, and which is particularly skillful and fertile in resources, because it does not recoil before crimes. He claimed that there were two things to do to affirm the revolution operated: first, to gravely compromise Absalom in the eyes of his father, so that no hope of reconciliation remained for the partisans of the former; then to march immediately against the disconcerted king, disperse his poorly rallied troop and strike him himself. This advice prevailed regarding the first point: by a calculation of hideous politics, Absalom publicly abused David's women, because he could not descend to a more unforgivable outrage, just as, in civil troubles, one sees the leaders throw some crime between the two parties, like a wall of separation. It was, moreover, the punishment of the talion announced to David by the prophet Nathan: "You have sinned in secret; I, I will let you be insulted in the face of the heavens."

If the second measure indicated by Ahithophel had been adopted, David and his party would have fallen without return. But Hushai, an intimate friend of the king, and who, to serve him, had feigned to embrace the cause of the rebels, gave the advice to gather imposing forces before creating the supreme necessity of winning or perishing, either for David, so happy in combat, or for the brave men who had attached themselves to his fortune; according to him, a setback would have lost the still weak affairs of Absalom. This opinion prevailed. David, secretly warned that he was being given time, crossed the Jordan to escape a surprise from the enemy. The old Ahithophel, furious at his failure in the council and foreseeing no doubt an imminent ruin, put an end to his days in a horrible manner. Absalom, having gathered numerous troops, pursued his father beyond the Jordan. The two armies were in presence; a battle was inevitable. David reviewed his men and wanted to share their perils; but they did not want it. "Do not come with us," they said to him; "if we are beaten, the enemy will only consider it a small advantage; it would even be a small thing for him to kill half of us; but you, you are worth ten thousand men. Stay therefore in the place to bring us help." — "I will do what seems good to you," replied the king. He therefore stood between the two gates of the city, and, while the troops, going to line up in battle, filed before his eyes, he said to the captains: "Spare my son Absalom!" And the whole army heard him repeat with emotion the name of his son.

Absalom succumbed: his troops were cut to pieces, or dispersed; he himself, carried away by the fugitives, was crossing the nearby forest, mounted on a mule, when, in the rapidity of the march, his head became entangled between the thick branches of an oak. While he was making vain efforts to free himself, his mount passed on and left him suspended. A soldier of the victorious army, who saw him in this desperate situation, informed Joab of it: "If you saw him," said this general, "why did you not pierce him? I would have given you ten shekels of silver and a belt." The soldier recalled the pressing orders and the recommendations of David: "We all heard him say: 'Keep my son Absalom for me.'" — "I will not do as you did," replied Joab; "I will strike him before your eyes." He took three javelins, and ran to pierce Absalom's heart. However, the king was sitting between the two gates of the city, and he was waiting, with all the anxieties of paternal love, for the result of this fatal day. The sentry, placed above the gate, announced a courier. "If there is only one man," replied the king, "it is good news." A second courier was seen who was still coming alone. "The news is good," added the king. From as far as he could, the messenger shouted victory. "And is my son Absalom saved?" — "Prince, there was a great tumult when Joab, your servant, sent me to you; I know nothing else." The second messenger arrived. "God has judged in your favor and struck those who had their hand raised against you." — "And has my son survived?" The answer was sinister. The unfortunate father let out heart-rending cries. He locked himself in the room that was above the city gates, and there, walking with great strides, he shed tears with sobs and complaints: "My son Absalom! Absalom! why can I not give my life for yours! Absalom my son! O my son!" And he repeated these words to nourish his pain, as one turns the iron in a wound to inflame it. The unfortunate Absalom, pierced with three javelins, was still breathing when Joab's squires came to deal him the final blows. The corpse was thrown into the middle of the forest, into a deep ditch, and covered with piled-up stones, as if to stone the parricide.

The death of Absalom did not stifle all the seeds of dissent, neither among the people nor in the royal family. On one hand, the schism that had occurred in the time of Saul between the tribe of Judah and the rest of the tribes, which had just offered so many opportunities for an attempt at revolt, had left seeds of mutual enmity in every heart. A slight accident could trigger a new conflagration. An alarming example was soon seen. All of Judah and only a part of Israel were gathered around David after the victory; they wanted to bring him back to Jerusalem. But the other warriors of Israel arrived to meet them and complained bitterly that they had not been waited for. "Why have our brothers, the men of Judah, been so hasty in bringing the king and his retinue across the Jordan?" Those of Judah replied: "It is because the king is closer to us. Why are you angry? Have we eaten the king's goods or received any gifts from him?" — "We are ten against one," cried the other side, "and David belongs to us more than to you. Why have you insulted us?" The quarrel was lively, ardent. A Hebrew named Sheba blew the trumpet and persuaded all of Israel to return to their homes to prepare for vengeance. However, Joab quickly extinguished this beginning of a fire.

On the other hand, a new revolt and ambitious intrigues came to agitate the king's final years once more. The heredity of the throne was accepted, either as a rational principle or as a positive precept of God, who had fixed the sovereign power in the house of David; but the order of succession was regulated neither by precedent nor by a formal law. In this state of affairs, Adonijah, to whom the rights of primogeniture seemed to belong by the death of Absalom, tried to put the crown on his head immediately, whether he was tired of waiting for this portion of the paternal inheritance or whether he feared seeing it pass to another. Joab, always ready for enterprises that could increase his credit, and the high priest Abiathar, of a restless character, had a hand in this intrigue. The conspirators gathered outside the city, as if for a feast; they did not invite the palace officers whose dispositions inspired some concern. The prophet Nathan, who was among the excluded figures, resolved to stop the nascent disorder. He therefore invited Bathsheba to assert the rights of Solomon, her son, by reminding David of his most solemn promises. "I will arrive during your audience," he added, "and I will support your words to the king." Indeed, Bathsheba approached the king, reminded him of his words and oaths: "Formerly you said: Solomon, your son, shall reign after me, and he is the one who will sit on my throne. And now, O prince! behold, Adonijah is taking the kingship without your knowledge... Nevertheless, all Israel has its eyes fixed on you, and it awaits that you show it who is to succeed you on the throne. And if you do not do it, my son and I will be treated as criminals when the king, my master, goes to sleep with his fathers." Nathan arrived at that very hour and joined the grave authority of his word to the gentle prayers of Bathsheba: "Have you not made known to me, your servant, who was to sit on the throne after the king, my master?"

Then David renewed his oaths in favor of Solomon; he said to Bathsheba: "As Jehovah lives, who has saved my days from so many perils! I will execute this very day what I promised you in these terms, in the name of the Lord, God of Israel: Your son Solomon shall succeed me, he is the one who will mount the throne after me." Indeed, he immediately had his word and the titles of Solomon invested with a solemn and sacred character; to prevent the struggles that threatened to stain the transition from one reign to another with blood, he ordered the royal anointing to be conferred upon his successor and his accession to be proclaimed without delay and with the greatest publicity. This order was followed; extreme promptness was displayed. The city was filled with movement, and the sound of this extraordinary agitation reached the ears of the conspirators, who were still deliberating while finishing their feast. When they knew in detail what had just been accomplished, they separated in terror, each trembling for his life. Adonijah, in particular, understood that all his salvation was in the clemency of the new monarch; he fled to the foot of the altar, in order to call upon his head those guarantees of inviolability that most ancient peoples had attached to the things of religion, not to protect crime, but to give blind anger time for reflection and to soften even the necessary severities of the law, by casting the thought of heaven between irritated justice and its trembling victim. "Let King Solomon," he said, "swear today not to put me to death by the sword." — "If he acts as a man of good," replied Solomon, "not a hair of his head will fall; but if he commits evil, he will die." Thus was this second riot appeased, before it could trouble the whole face of the country and provoke the shedding of blood. It put an end to the effective reign of David, by adding one more link to that hard chain of afflictions that he dragged all along his laborious life.

However, in the midst of these trials that reached the quick of the private man, David knew how to give the public matter the intelligent care that immortalized his reign. The army, the finances, the general administration, the cult, received and long kept the powerful imprint of his wisdom. If one must measure the genius of a prince, not by the extent of the lands placed under his domination, but by the use he knows how to make of circumstances, David was not inferior to most famous potentates, and the Hebrews were able to legitimately surround his warlike and political memory with that respect full of admiration that falls to superiority. He changed the system of attack and defense adopted under the Judges and even in the time of Saul: instead of acting by tribes, he acted by masses, gathering the forces of the country into a compact bundle, in order to always strike decisive blows. Thus, victory was constantly faithful to him. Since Joshua, the nation had struggled incessantly to extend itself to the limits foreseen by its legislator and to sit there in the peace of an uncontested possession. David quickly finished this work: he widened the hearth of the fatherland and realized the plan of conquest, by tightening the Philistines against the Mediterranean, by carrying his arms to the heart of Syria and to the banks of the Euphrates. Of the enemy peoples, he ruined the power of those who could worry him, he made an alliance with others who could be useful to him, he took a position with regard to all that commanded respect; in a word, he raised the fortune of Israel and ensured it a brilliant preponderance over the neighboring states, whose jealousies had held it until then in a humiliated and fearful attitude. The perils faced, his people triumphant and prosperous, the protection of heaven assured to his enterprises, all these things filled David with ineffable feelings of gratitude that overflowed from his soul in floods of poetry. What human mouth has opened to speak a language more sublime than this lyrical song of the old king?

"Jehovah is my rock, and my citadel, and my deliverer, God is my help, and I will hope in him; my shield and the guarantee of my salvation, my refuge, and I will be in safety; my defender, and he will protect me against injustice. I will invoke the Lord with praise, and he will save me from my enemies.

"The horrors of death have besieged me, the torrents of iniquity have struck me with terror. Death has cast its nets around me, it has held me in its bonds. In the midst of my tribulation, I have invoked the Lord, I have cried out to my God, and from his tabernacle he has heard my voice; my clamor has reached his ears.

"The earth moved and trembled; the foundations of the mountains were agitated and shook under the wrath of Jehovah. Smoke gushed from his nostrils, his mouth vomited a devouring flame, he left burning coals behind him. He lowered the heavens and descended, a dark cloud under his feet. Carried on the cherubim, he took his flight, he walked on the wing of the winds. He placed darkness around him like a tent, veiling himself in the waters that fell from the clouds. Under the brightness of his presence, a burning fire was lit.

"From heaven, Jehovah made his thunder speak; the voice of the Most High resounded. He launched his arrows, and he dispersed the enemy; his lightning, and he devoured him. And the abysses of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare under your threats, O Jehovah! and under the stormy breath of your anger.

"He bowed from on high and took me, and he withdrew me from the overflowing floods. He tore me from powerful enemies and from those who hated me when their strength was prevailing over mine...

"The ways of the Lord are straight and pure; his word is tested by fire; he is the shield of whoever hopes in him. Who is God, besides Jehovah? who is powerful, besides our God? He has girded my loins with strength and smoothed and straightened my path. He has given my feet the speed of hinds, and placed me on inaccessible heights. He has fashioned my hands for combat and made my arms a bow of bronze...

"I will praise you in the midst of the peoples, Lord, and I will sing a hymn in your name, you who have so gloriously saved the prince of your choice and shown mercy to David, your anointed, and to his race, in all the centuries."

By giving the Hebrews strength and security, David prepared the splendors of the following reign. He himself had already amassed great riches, with the design of building in Jerusalem a temple worthy of his piety, and as much as he could, worthy of the Eternal. One can hardly imagine what he possessed in gold and silver, in iron and bronze, in precious wood and rare marbles. The social combinations of the ancient peoples, especially in the East, brought all the treasures, as well as all the powers, into the hands of the heads of state: history has boasted of their unheard-of opulence; the fame of their splendor has passed into all languages in the form of a proverb. Furthermore, the laws of ancient war stripped the vanquished of all his rights and all his goods: his liberty, his very life, were at the mercy of the victor. David therefore found a prodigious booty in the regions where he walked his glorious arms, in Idumea, Phoenicia, Syria, the land of the Ammonites and Moabites. Moreover, even if one were to reduce the enormous figure of the riches attributed to David, under the pretext of possible errors in the comparative appreciation of French and Hebrew currencies, it is still certain that the famous monument whose construction absorbed all his treasures had no equal for magnificence. But David did not have the glory of raising it himself: he had to bequeath this peaceful care to a less warlike prince. "My son," he said to Solomon, "I was thinking of building a temple in honor of Jehovah, my God; but he had this word addressed to me: 'You have shed much blood and fought many battles; because of all this blood shed before me, you will not erect a temple for me.'"

What he had conquered by the sword, David occupied himself with maintaining by wisdom, by passing the spirit of national institutions into regulations applied to all branches of the public service. After having ensured the administration of justice as effectively as he could, he thought above all of increasing the pomp of religious festivals. Poet and musician, he had composed the hymns himself that resounded in solemn ceremonies, and invented some of the musical instruments whose playing mingled with the voice of the choirs.

Such is the origin of most of the poems gathered and known in the Church under the name of psalms of David. Pain, supplication, joy, victory, thanksgiving, resonate there in intimate, pathetic, elevated, and captivating accents. It is by turns the desolation of the elegy, the enthusiasm of the ode, the grave and penetrating sweetness of the hymn and the canticle. What po et better than D psaumes de David Collection of sacred poems and songs attributed to David. avid has known how to ravish thought and descend to the bottom of the heart to make its immortal fibers vibrate? Who has reached higher? who has touched more accurately? What secret emotions, what mysteries of sentiment do not find, in his chords, both all their notes and all their voices! Rome and Greece were moved by the sound of harmonious songs that recounted battles, or only games and pleasures; but the Prophet of Zion has crossed the circle of gross and perishable realities, and made a voice speak that calls and carries the soul into infinite horizons. He has cast his gaze on the centuries passed, he has turned it toward the future centuries; he has interrogated this book so deep that one calls the heart of man, and this sparkling book that, under the name of nature, publishes such great things. Charged with the secrets of heaven and earth, he has repeated them with the power of a language that captures the attention of peoples. Universal pontiff, he has placed on his harp the homage of all creatures, from the drop of dew, which blesses God without knowing it, to the angels, who fly under the feet of the Eternal like the wheels of a rushing chariot: he has described the sun clothed in glory, the sea swaying under the finger of its master, the heavens extending like a pavilion of azure, the stars sown far away like a splendid sand. National bard, he has sung the labors of his ancestors, the birth of the greatness of Israel, Sinai illuminating itself with the face of Jehovah, the Jordan fleeing in terror toward its astonished source, Judea smiling at its sky, adorned with its greenery and its flowers, and trembling under the signs of its fertility. Poet of all humanity, he has unrolled the folds under which the heart retreats in its days of anguish; he has shown the deep source from which all tears and all hopes flow; his groans awaken, in souls touched by the sentiment of eternity, that grave sadness that one notices on the face of the outcasts when, from the bosom of the foreign land, they cast, over the forbidden border, an unspeakable look toward the distant horizons where the native soil hides; there is so much regret and love in the accents of the exiled singer when he speaks of the Jerusalem from above, and the name of the heavenly fatherland is so sweet in falling from his lips, that even the futile and distracted man stops and inclines his ear to hear and taste the melody of this marvelous canticle.

The last days of David were approaching. He turned his thought back toward the vicissitudes of his long life and the benefits that heaven had spread there; then, seized with a lively gratitude, he pronounced this hymn, testament of his piety:

"Here is what David says, son of Jesse, the man raised by Jehovah, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet singer of Israel: The Spirit of God makes itself heard through me, and his discourse is on my lips. The God of Israel has spoken to me; he has spoken to me, the Strong One of Israel. The equitable ruler of men, he who reigns in the fear of God, is like the brightness of the dawn when, at the dawning day, the sun appears in a cloudless sky, like the grass that comes out of the earth moist with dew. Such was not my house before God that he should make with me a firm, unshakable, eternal alliance. For he has always been my salvation, he has fulfilled all my vows, everything has flourished for me. But the wicked will be like the thorns that one pulls out: one does not touch them with the hand, one attacks them from afar and with iron; then the fire devours them without anything remaining of them."

Then David made known to Solomon his supreme wishes: after having exhorted him to follow faithfully the law of God, as Moses left it written, he recommended that he put Joab and Shimei to death. Joab had caused Absalom to perish in contempt of a father's recommendations, and killed with his own hand, outside of battles and in a perfidious manner, two captains in whom his ambition feared rivals. Shimei had addressed insolent insults to David the day he was fleeing before his rebellious son. The old king resolved no doubt to prescribe these late, but not undeserved, punishments, by that consideration that one calls reason of state, and to ensure for his successor, still young and inexperienced, a peaceful reign without intrigues. Be that as it may, he died shortly after, at the age of seventy.

Certainly one can cite warriors more illustrious than David, princes more versed in the science of government, philosophers treating questions of morality with more method, finally poets of a purer taste; but there is not a single monarch who has shown himself so great under all his aspects united, and whose judgment, imagination, heart, and arm at once have deployed such power. Above all, no man has erased his faults by a more eloquent and fruitful repentance: who could count all the hearts for a moment led astray like him, but by him won to penance? How his accents resound in the soul, exciting fear, pain, hope, and love! The flood of his tears, swollen by those he has gently drawn from the eyes of sinners, has become a great river that flows incessantly in the valley where our earthly life passes, to make repentance germinate there and innocence reflourish.

As a psalmist, and because of the musical talent that first brought him to Saul's court to calm that king's rages with his melodies, David has been painted a thousand times holding his musical instrument or having it near him. As king and prophet, he wears the Byzantine ornaments attributed to sovereign dignity. A gemmed diadem adorns his head, and his royal mantle bears on the front a small square piece, marked with the cross. He appears to have earrings. His cartouche bears, as words addressed to the Church, these words from Psalm 45: "Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear; forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty." Elsewhere, he is seen announcing the eternal generation or the exaltation of his grandson, according to some of the verses of Psalm 110.

In one of the compartments of a beautiful vault painting in the Cemetery of Callixtus, one notices another representation of David. The young hero is dressed only in a short, belted tunic, from which he frees his right arm, which carries the sling where the stone destined to kill Goliath shines. In his left hand, one can distinguish the other four polished stones that he had chosen from the bed of the torrent.

## CULT AND RELICS. — MONUMENTS.

Here is how the historian Josephus expresses himself regarding the honors rendered by Solomon to the memory of his father: "Solomon, son of David, buried his father in Jerusalem, that is to say near that city, with extraordinary pomp; and in addition to all the honors that were usually rendered to kings at their funerals, he buried with him considerable riches. One can conjecture the enormity of these riches by what I am about to relate. After a lapse of thirteen hundred years, the high priest Hyrcanus, besieged by Antiochus, surnamed Euergetes, son of Demetrius, wanted to give him money so that he would lift the siege; but, not knowing how to complete the sum he needed, he had one of the chambers of David's tomb opened, and having taken three thousand talents from it, he gave a portion to Antiochus, and thus freed himself from the besiegers. Later, Herod, who spent enormous sums inside and outside his kingdom, having heard that Hyrcanus, his predecessor, having opened the tomb of David, had removed three thousand talents of silver from it, and that great riches still remained in the monument, riches with which he could meet his largesse, had long formed the project of imitating this example. Having therefore had the sepulcher opened during the night, he entered it with his most faithful friends, taking great precautions so that the matter would not be known in the city. He did not find, like Hyrcanus, coined money, but gold ornaments and a large quantity of precious objects, which he removed without leaving anything. While rummaging with care, he wanted to penetrate further and search even into the sarcophagi of the kings, where the bodies of David and Solomon were deposited; but he lost two of his doryphori (soldiers of the royal guard) who, it is said, perished by the flames that struck them the moment they entered. Herod, terrified, went out to appease God. He had a monument of white stone erected at the door of the sepulcher, the construction of which cost very large sums."

Forty-two years later, the apostle Saint Peter said to the Jews, in the first sermon he gav e since the descent o l'apôtre saint Pierre Apostle and first pope, mentioned as the father of Petronilla. f the Holy Spirit, that the sepulcher of David was still to be seen among them. This monument lasted longer than the temple and the city of Jerusalem, and, whether out of respect or indifference, it was spared when everything was burned or razed under Vespasian (69-79). It subsisted in its entirety until the time of the Emperor Hadrian (117-138). But shortly before the war which, under this prince, finished the Jewish nation in Palestine, the tomb of David was shaken by an unforeseen tremor that overturned a large part of the white stone monument and the other buildings of which it was composed.

Whether Hadrian himself, out of curiosity, had this monument restored when he built the new city of Aelia, near the ancient Jerusalem, or whether its ruin had not been general, as it is easy to persuade oneself, it was still seen in the century of Saint Jerome (331-420), who calls it the "Mausoleum of David" and recounts that Christ saint Jérôme Father of the Church and author of the original biography of Saint Asella. ians went there in his time to offer their prayers. The monument that covered the grotto of the sepulcher could have been converted into a chapel from that time on: it is in this way that it was able to be preserved in the following centuries by the piety of the Christians who took care to maintain a church there, then a convent of religious of Saint Francis. The Turks had this church converted into a mosque: the Muslims have continued to honor the memory of David there, for whom they have a particular veneration and whose psalms they sing in their prayers. It was in 1559 that the Sultan took the convent away from the religious, under the pretext that it was to be feared that the Christians might fortify themselves there to harm the city and make themselves masters of it; for it is only a few miles away. He placed Turkish priests there, who call themselves the guardians of the sepulcher of David: they show it, along with those of Solomon and Jehoshaphat, in a vaulted cellar that joins the wall of the mosque.

The Greeks commemorate David on December 19, the day they collectively celebrate all the ancestors of Jesus Christ. The Latins have adopted December 29.

The background of this biography is drawn from *Les Femmes de la Bible*, by the late Mgr Darboy; we have completed his account with *La Bible sans la Bible*, by the Abbé Gainet; *Caractéristiques des Saints*, by the R. P. Cahier; *Dictionnaire des Antiquités chrétiennes*, by the Abbé Hartzigny; *Les Saints Lieux*, by Mgr Martin; *Les Saints de l'Ancien Testament*, by Balliet.