a title far inferior to that of the great Shah-in-Shah, or king of kings, ordered the beards of the ambassadors to be shaved off, and sent them home to their master. This ignominious treatment discovers also the propriety and force of the type of hair in the prophecies of Ezekiel; where the inhabitants of Jerusalem are compared to the hair of his head and beard, to intimate that they had been as dear to God as the beard was to the Jews; yet for their wickedness they should be cut off and destroyed.-PAXTON. Ver. 5. When they told it unto David, he sent to meet them, because the men were greatly ashamed and the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return. It is customary to shave the Ottoman princes, as a mark of their subjection to the reigning emperor. In the mountains of Yemen, where strangers are seldom seen, it is a disgrace to appear shaven. The beard is a mark of authority and liberty among the Mohammedans, as well as among the Turks: the Persians, who clip the beard, and shave above the jaw, are reputed heretics. They who serve in the seraglio, have their beards shaven as a sign of servitude they do not suffer it to grow till the sultan has set them at liberty. Among the Arabians it is more infamous for any one to have his beard cut off, than among us to be publicly whipped, or branded with a hot iron. Many in that country would prefer death to such a punishment. (Niebuhr.) At length Ibrahim Bey suffered Ali, his page, to let his beard grow, that is to say, gave him his freedom; for, among the Turks, to want mustaches and a beard is thought only fit for slaves and women; and hence arises the unfavourable impression they receive on the first sight of a European. (Volney.)—BURDER. Ver. 9. When Joab saw that the front of the battle was against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians: 10. And the rest of the people he delivered into the hand of Abishai his brother, that he might put them in array against the children of Ammon. Immediately before the signal was given, and sometimes in the heat of battle, the general of a Grecian army made an oration to his troops, in which he briefly stated the motives that ought to animate their bosoms; and exhorted them to exert their utmost force and vigour against the enemy. The success which sometimes attended these harangues was wonderful; the soldiers, animated with fresh life and courage, returned to the charge, retrieved in an instant their affairs, which were in a declining and almost desperate condition, and repulsed those very enemies by whom they had been often defeated. Several instances of this might be quoted from Roman and Grecian history, but few are more remarkable than that of Tyrtæus, the lame Athenian poet, to whom the command of the Spartan army was given in one of the Messenian wars. The Spartans had at that time suffered great losses in many encounters; and all their stratagems proved ineffectual, so that they began to despair almost of success, when the poet, by his lectures on honour and courage, delivered in moving verse to the army, ravished them to such a degree with the thoughts of dying for their country, that, rushing on with a furious transport to meet their enemies, they gave them an entire overthrow, and by one decisive battle brought the war to a happy conclusion. Such military harangues, especially in very trying circumstances, are perfectly natural, and may be found perhaps in the records of every nation. The history of Joab, the commander-in-chief of David's armies, furnishes a striking instance: "When Joab saw that the front of the battle was against him, before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians; and the rest of the people he delivered into the hand of Abishai his brother, that he might put them in array against the children of Ammon. And he said, If the Syrians be too strong for me, then thou shalt help me; but if the children of Ammon be too strong for thee, then I will come and help thee. Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the Lord do that which | | seemeth good in his sight." In a succeeding age, the king of Judah addressed his troops, before they marched against the confederate armies of Moab and Ammon, in terms be coming the chief magistrate of a holy nation, and calculated to make a deep impression on their minds: "And as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper." To express his own confidence in the protection of Jehovah, and to inspire his army with the same sentiments, after consulting with the people, he "appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever." This pious conduct obtained the approbation of the living and true God, who rewarded the cheerful reliance of his people with a complete victory over their enemies, unattended by loss or danger to them; for "when they began to praise, the Lord turned every man's sword against his fellow," in the camp of the confederates, till not one escaped. Animated with joy and gratitude for so great a deliverance, the pious king returned to Jerusalem at the head of his troops, preceded by a numerous band of music, celebrating the praises of the God of battles. A custom not unlike this, and perhaps derived from some imperfect tradition of it, long prevailed in the states of Greece. Before they joined battle, they sung a hymn to the god of war, called naiav epßarnoios; and when victory declared in their favour, they sung another to Apollo, termed παιαν επινίκιος.—ΡΑXΤΟΝ, CHAPTER XI. Ver. 1. And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. The most usual time of commencing military operations was at the return of spring; the hardships of a winter campaign were then unknown. In the beginning of spring, says Josephus, David sent forth his commander-in-chief Joab, to make war with the Ammonites. In another part of his works, he says, that as soon as spring was begun, Adad levied and led forth his army against the Hebrews. Antiochus also prepared to invade Judea at the first appearance of spring; and Vespasian, earnest to put an end to the war in Judea, marched with his whole army to AntiThe patris, at the commencement of the same season. sacred historian seems to suppose, that there was one particular time of the year to which the operations of war were commonly limited: “And it came to pass, after the year was expired, at the time kings go forth to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants and all Israel, and they destroyed the children of Ammon and besieged Rabbah." The kings and armies of the East, says Chardin, do not march but when there is grass, and when they can encamp, which time is April. But in modern times, this rule is disregarded, and the history of the crusades records expeditions and battles in every month of the year.-PAX TON. Ver. 2. And it came to pass in an evening-tide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. The place of greatest attraction to an oriental taste certainly was the summer bath. It seemed to comprise every thing of seclusion, elegance, and that luxurious enjoyment which has too often been the chief occupation of some Asiatic princes. This bath, saloon, or court, is circular, with a vast basin in its centre, of pure white marble, of the same shape, and about sixty or seventy feet in diameter. This is filled with the clearest water, sparkling in the sun, for its only canopy is the vault of heaven; but rose-trees, with other pendent shrubs, bearing flowers, cluster near it: and at times their waving branches throw a beautifully quivering shade over the excessive brightness of the water. Round the sides of the court are two ranges, one above the other, of little chambers, looking towards the bath, and fur nished with every refinement of the harem. These are for the accommodation of the ladies who accompany the shah during his occasional sojourns at the Negauristan. They undress or repose in these before or after the delight of bathing: for so fond are they of this luxury, they remain in the water for hours; and sometimes, when the heat is very relaxing, come out more dead than alive. But in this delightful recess, the waters flow through the basin by a constant spring; thus renewing the body's vigour by their bracing coolness: and enchantingly refreshing the air, which the sun's influence, and the thousand flowers breathing around, might otherwise render oppressive with their incense. The royal master of this Hortus Adonidis, frequently takes his noonday repose in one of the upper chambers which encircle the saloons of the bath: and, if he be inclined, he has only to turn his eyes to the scene below, to see the loveliest objects of his tenderness, sporting like Naiads amidst the crystal streams, and glowing with all the bloom and brilliancy which belongs to Asiatic youth. In such a bath court it is probable that Bathsheba was seen by the enamoured king of Israel. As he was walking at evening-tide on the roof of his palace, he might undesignedly have strolled far enough to overlook the androon of his women, where the beautiful wife of Uriah, visiting the royal wives, might have joined them, as was often the custom in those countries, in the delights of the bath.—SIR R. K. PORTER. The following history is, in some points, an accurate counterpart to that of David. "Nour Jehan signifies the light of the world; she was also called Nour Mahl, or the light of the seraglio: she was wife to one Sher Afkan Khan, of a Turcoman family, who came from Persia to Hindostan in very indifferent circumstances. As she was exquisitely beautiful, of great wit, and an elegant poetess, Jehanguire, the sultan, was resolved to take her to himself. He sent her husband, who was esteemed the bravest man in his service, with some troops, to command in Bengal, and afterward sent another with a greater force to cut him off. When he was killed, Nour Jehan was soon prevailed upon to become an empress. The coin struck in Jehanguire's reign, with the signs of the zodiac, were not, as is usually thought in Europe, done by his empress's order; nor did she reign one day, as the common opinion is, but she ruled the person who reigned for above twelve years." (Fraser.)-BURDER. : Ver. 4. And David sent messengers and took her and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; (for she was purified from her uncleanness;) and she returned unto her house. The kings of Israel appear to have taken their wives with very great ease. This is quite consistent with the account given in general of the manner in which eastern princes form matrimonial alliances. "The king, in his marriage, uses no other ceremony than this: he sends an azagi to the house where the lady lives, where the officer announces to her, it is the king's pleasure that she should remove instantly to the palace. She then dresses herself in the best manner, and immediately obeys. Thenceforward he assigns her an apartment in the palace, and gives her a house elsewhere in any part she chooses. Then when he makes her iteghe, it seems to be the nearest resemblance to marriage; for whether in the court or the camp, he orders one of the judges to pronounce in his presence, that he, the king, has chosen his handmaid, naming her, for his queen: upon which the crown is put on her head, but she is not anointed."-BURDER. Ver. 25. Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it; and encourage thou him. It has been asserted, of the portion of scripture before us, that it tells a tale of little else besides cruelties and crimes, many of them perpetrated by David himself; and it has been triumphantly demanded how a man stained with so many vices, can, without impiety, be styled a "man after God's own heart." We will endeavour to meet the objection, because under it is comprehended all that the infidel is justified in urging against the credibility of the narrative. The peculiar term, of which a use so unworthy is made, was applied, it will be recollected, to David, while that personage yet lived the life of a private man, and kept his father's sheep. It was employed, moreover, by God himself, as distinguishing the future from the present king of Israel, not in their individual characters, as members of the great family of mankind, but as the chief rulers of God's chosen people. To understand its real import, therefore, all that seems necessary is, to ascertain the particular duties of the kings of Israel; and no man who is aware that these monarchs filled, in the strictest sense of the phrase, the station of Jehovah's vicegerents, can for a moment be at a loss in effecting that discovery. The kings of Israel were placed upon the throne, for the purpose of administering the Divine law, as that had been given through Moses. In an especial degree, it was their duty to preserve the people pure from the guilt of idolatry; idolatry being, among the Hebrews, a crime equivalent to high-treason among us; while, on all occasions, whether of foreign war or domestic arrangements, they were bound to act in strict obedience to the will of God, as that might be from time to time revealed to them. Whether this should be done by Urim, by the voice of a prophet, or some palpable and immediate vision, the king of Israel was equally bound to obey; and as long as he did obey, literally, fully, and cheerfully, he was, in his public capacity, a man after God's own heart. An ordinary attentive perusal of the preceding pages will show, that David, as compared with Saul, (and it is only with reference to such comparison, that the phrase under review ought to be regarded,) was strictly worthy of the honourable title bestowed upon him. Whatever his private vices might be, in all public matters his obedience to God's laws was complete; indeed, he never speaks of himself in any other language than as the servant or minister of Jehovah. No individual among all that reigned in Jerusalem ever exhibited greater zeal against idolatry; of the Mosaic code he was, in his official capacity, uniformly observant; and to every command of God, by whomsoever conveyed, he paid strict attention. Such was by no means the case with Saul, as his assumption of the priestly office, and his conduct towards the Amalekites, demonstrate; and it was simply to distinguish him from his predecessor, as one on whose steady devotion to Divine wishes reliance could be placed, that God spoke of him to Samuel, in the terms so frequently misinterpreted. If it be further urged that David's moral conduct was far from being perfect; that his treatment of Joab, after the murder of Abner, was weak; his behaviour to the captive Ammonites barbarous; his conduct in the case of Uriah, the Hittite, infamous; and his general treatment of his children without excuse; we have no wish, as we profess not to have the power, absolutely to deny the assertions. His receiving Joab into favour, while his hands were red with the blood of Abner, may be pronounced as an act of weakness; yet it was such an act as any other person, in his circumstances, would have been apt to perform. Joab was a distinguished soldier, highly esteemed by the troops, and possessed of great influence in the nation; it would have been the height of imprudence, had David, situated as he was, made such a man his enemy; but that he wholly disapproved of the treacherous deed which Joab had done, he took every conceivable means to demonstrate. He conferred a species of public funeral upon the murdered man, and attended it in person, as chief mourner. The treatment of the captive Ammonites was doubtless exceedingly cruel; yet its cruelty may admit of some extenuation, provided we take one or two matters, as they deserve to be taken, into consideration. In the first place, the age was a barbarous one, and from the influence of the times in which he lived, it would be folly to expect that David could be free. In the next place, the tortures inflicted upon the Ammonites are not to be understood as heaped indiscriminately upon the whole body of the people. The magistrates and principal men were alone 'put under saws and harrows of iron, and made to pass through the brick-kiln." And these suffered a fate so horrible, only in retaliation for similar excesses committed by their order upon certain Hebrew prisoners. Besides, the gross and unprovoked indignities heaped upon David's am " bassadors might well inflame his fury to the highest pitch; since then, even more conspicuously than now, the persons of envoys were considered sacred, especially in the East. Without, therefore, attempting to excuse such actions, as no enlightened person would now, under any provocation, perpetrate, we must nevertheless repeat, that David's treatment of the Ammonites was not absolutely devoid of extenuating circumstances; an assertion which cannot, we feel, be hazarded in reference to that monarch's behaviour towards Uriah the Hittite. Perhaps there is not recorded in any volume a series of crimes more gross or inexcusable than those of which we are now bound to take notice. Adultery and murder are terms too mild for them, inasmuch as the particular acts of adultery and murder implied other offences scarcely less heinous than themselves. The woman abused by David was the wife of a proselyte from a heathen nation, whom it was to the interest and honour of the true religion for the chosen head of God's nation to treat with marked delicacy. He was, moreover, a brave and faithful soldier; so brave and zealous in his master's service, that even when summoned by the king himself to the capital, he refused to indulge in its luxuries, while his comrades were exposed to the hardships of war. This man David would have vitally wronged, by introducing into his family a child of which the king himself was the father; and failing in the accomplishment of a design so iniquitous, he coolly devised his death. Again, that the deed might be done without bringing disgrace upon himself, he ordered his general to place this gallant soldier in a post of danger, and, deserting him there, to leave him to his fate; and when all had befallen as he wished, his observation was, that "the sword devoured one as well as another." These several occurrences, summed up, as they were, by the abrupt and shameless marriage of Bathsheba, combine to complete a concatenation of crimes, of which it is impossible to speak or think without horror; yet is there nothing connected with them, in the slightest degree, mischievous to the credibility or consistency of scripture. It cannot, with any truth, be asserted, that God either was, or is represented to have been, a party to these black deeds. So far is this from being the case, that we find a prophet sent expressly to the sinful monarch, to point out to him the enormity of his offences, and to assure him of a punishment, grievous in proportion to the degree of defilement which he had contracted. But as David's crimes had been committed in his private capacity, so his punishment was made to affect his private fortunes. His own children became the instruments of God's anger, and heavier domestic calamities than fell upon him, no man, perhaps has ever endured. His only daughter (and, as such, doubtless his favourite child) is ravished by her brother Amnon; the ravisher is murdered by his brother Absalom; Absalom revolts against his father, drives him from his capital, and is finally slain in battle fighting against him. If there be not in this enough to vindicate the honour of God, we know not where marks of Divine displeasure are to be looked for; and as to the credibility of the scriptural narrative, that appears to be strengthened, rather than weakened, by the detail of David's fall. No fictitious writer would have represented one whom he had already designated as a man after God's own heart," and whom he evidently desires his readers to regard with peculiar reverence, as a murderer and adulterer. It is the province of a narrator of facts alone to speak of men as they were, by exposing the vices and follies even of his principal heroes; nor is the history without its effect as a great moral warning. It teaches the important lesson, that the commission of one crime seldom, if ever, fails to lead to the commission of others; while it furnishes a memorable example of the clemency which forbids any sinner to despair, or regard himself as beyond the pale of mercy. Of David's conduct towards his children, it seems to us little better than a waste of time to set up either an explanation or a defence. Extravagantly partial to them he doubtless was; so partial as to pass over in their behaviour crimes which, we can hardly believe, would have been passed by, had others besides the members of his own family committed them. It is indeed true, that the law of Moses, by which alone David professed to be guided, is not very explicit as to the punishment which ought to have been awarded to Amnon; but the truth we suspect to be, as Josephus has given it, that David abstained from bringing him to a public trial after his outrage to Tamar, because the feelings of the father prevailed over those of the magistrate. In like manner, his pardoning Absalom's crime, in defiance of the law, which expressly enjoins blood to be shed for blood, without redemption, is open to a similar charge; yet even here, there is more to be urged in the king's defence, than the mere operation of natural affection. Absalom took shelter at a foreign court immediately on the perpetration of the murder; it might not be in David's power to force his surrender, and hence the only alternative was, to leave him in exile, among heathen, at the manifest hazard of the corruption of his religious principles, or to permit his return to Jerusalem, and ultimately to receive him into favour. With respect, again, to his subsequent indulgence of that prince-an indulgence to which, in some degree, his insurrection deserves to be traced back-we see in it only one more proof of that amiable weakness which characterized all the monarch's dealings towards his family, his fondness for every member of which unquestionably led him into errors, if not of the heart, at all events of the head. Such errors, however, leave but trivial blots upon the general reputation of any man. They proceed from a good principle, even when carried to weakness, and will be sought for in vain among the utterly heartless, profligate, or selfish; and as David is not represented in scripture as either a perfect saint or a perfect hero, we see no reason why his strength of mind, more than his moral character, should be vindicated from all the charges which may be brought against it.—GLEIG. Ver. 25. Then David said unto the messenger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee, for the sword devoureth one as well as another: make thy battle more strong against the city, and overthrow it; and encourage thou him. 26. And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. 27. And when the mourning was passed, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD. This is the account of David's fall, as related in scripture; a fall attended with numerous circumstances of heinous aggravation, and the attempt to vindicate his conduct, in any of the principal parts of this transaction, would be injurious to the laws of truth and virtue. But if there are any circumstances of alleviation, that can be fairly alleged, justice and candour require that they should be mentioned; as well as to own and admit others, that heighten his fault, and render him inexcusable. And I think there cannot be a greater pleasure, than what arises to a good mind, from being able, in some measure, to apologize for actions, in some particulars of them, which upon the whole are bad, and extenuate that guilt, where it can be fairly done, which, as far as real, ought neither to be concealed nor defended. There are some crimes peculiarly aggravated by previous deliberate steps that men take to commit them; when they lay schemes to gratify bad passions, and accomplish purposes they know to be injurious and dishonourable. David, in the beginning of this transaction, seems to be entirely free from every charge of this kind. He did not so much as know who she was, much less that she was a married woman, when he first casually saw her; and the passion he conceived for her, might, for any thing he then knew, be lawful, and such as he might, without any offence, allow himself in the gratification of. And this would have been the case, under the dispensation in which he lived, had she been a single person. David therefore, though very imprudently, and I think in some degree criminally, did not deliberate upon an affair, which he saw no immediate reason to prohibit him from pursuing; and thereby heightened that inclination, which he ought to have checked, as a good man, till he was sure he had a right to indulge it. By not doing this, it became too strong for his management; and when he had been informed who she was, yet fired with the imagination, that the beautiful object he beheld had raised in his mind, all other considerations at last gave way, and he immediately resolved to gratify his desires, at the expense of his conscience, honour, and duty. He instantly sends for Bathsheba, she immediately complied with him, and the whole affair seems to have been completed the very evening it was begun. Every one must see, that as David had but little time for deliberation, it was not very likely, that in the small interval, between the rise of his passion, and the gratifying it, one in his circumstances should be cool enough to use that deliberation, which was necessary to bring him to himself, and restrain him from the crime he was hurried on to commit; and that therefore his sin, thus far, had not that aggravation which it would have had, if there had been more time and leisure for him to reflect, and had he pursued his criminal inclinations, after having seriously and calmly weighed the nature and consequences of what he was about to do, and used, as too many others in like cases have done, fraud, perfidy, and force, to gratify them. To say there was no time for any deliberation, may be saying too much; for there is scarce any sin so suddenly committed, but there are some moments for reflection; but, in some circumstances, men may be so hurried away by a sudden gust of passion, as that they may be wholly incapacitated by it, rightly to improve those moments. David had no time to prevent the first rise of his passion. It was as instantaneous as the sight, and he might not think himself obliged to suppress it, till after he knew Bathsheba was Uriah's wife; so that all the interval he could have for reflection was only that between his knowing who she was, and his actually possessing her; an interval too entirely engrossed by imagination and desire, to leave room sufficient for the exercise of reason, or the influence of any good principles to restrain him. If David and Bathsheba had been casually together, a more sudden and violent gust of passion could not have hurried him away, without allowing him some time for deliberation, than what the attitude, in which he first saw her, would have naturally excited, and did actually excite; which swept away all consideration and reflection before it, and drove him down a precipice, that wellnigh proved his absolute destruction. I cannot help adding, that Bathsheba herself seems to have too easily yielded to the king's inclination, and thereby rendered it almost impossible for him to suppress it. For the history informs us, that David sent messengers, and he received her, and she came in unto him, and he lay with her." Her compliance seems voluntary, unforced, immediate. But she went, met his passion, indulged it, without, as appears, any reluctance, without remonstrating against David's attempt upon her honour; and thereby prevented those reflections, that her denial and resistance might have occasioned in him, and that might have made him sensible of the enormity of the crime, and preserved him from the commission of it. And how great soever this sin was, David is not the only instance of men's being unhappily betrayed in an evil hour, by the power of a sudden and unexpected temptation. Too many instances may be produced, even of habitually good and virtuous persons being drawn aside, in some unguarded moment, and by the force of an unthought-of strong temptation, into the commission of those sins, which, in other circumstances, they would have trembled at, and abhorred the very mention and thought of. The first crime thus committed, and the dreaded consequences of it appearing, the unhappy prince found himself involved in difficulties, out of which he knew not how to extricate himself. Conscious guilt, concern for his own character, regard for the honour of the fair partner of his crime, and even fear of his own, and her life; the punishment of their adultery being death; all united, to put him on forming some contrivances how to conceal and prevent the scandal of it from becoming public. Hence, all the little tricks and shifts he made use of to entice the injured husband to his wife's bed, and father the fruit of their adultery upon him. Who can help pitying a great, and I will venture to affirm, a hitherto virtuous prince, reduced to these wretched expedients, to prevent that public infamy, which he now apprehended to be near him, and dreaded the falling under? But even these failed him. What must he do? Where can a man stop, when once he is entangled in the toils of vice, and hath presumptuously ventured into the paths of guilt? Bathsheba must be preserved at any rate. His own honour was at stake to prevent her destruction, and he saw but one way to secure that end, which he thought himself obliged, at any hazard, to obtain. If Uriah lived, she must inevitably die. Uriah could have demanded the punishment, and seems to have been a soldier of that roughness of temper, and firmness of resolution, as that he would have prosecuted his vengeance against her to the utmost. The law was express and peremptory. Which of the two must be the victim? Cruel dilemma! It is at last determined that the husband should be sacrificed, to save the wife, whom David's passion had made a criminal; and had he forsaken her in this dreadful situation, and left her to her punishment, he would not only have pronounced sentence of death against himself, but been censured, I am persuaded, by almost every man, as a monster of perfidy, baseness, and ingratitude. But how was Uriah to be got rid of? Poison, assassination, or a false charge of treason, or some secret way of destruction, were methods which the eastern princes were well acquainted with. David was above them all, and had a kind of generosity in his very crimes. The man he was to destroy was a brave soldier, and he causes him to fall in the bed of honour, gloriously fighting against the enemies of his king and country; and if dying in the field of battle, by the sword of an enemy, and in a glorious action, be a more eligible and honourable death, than the being despatched by the stab of a stiletto, the tortures of poison, or as a criminal on a false accusation of treason; the causing an innocent person to die in the former manner, though this hath its great aggravation, yet is not so base and villanous an action, as destroying him by any one of the latter methods; and had David had recourse to any of them to get rid of a worthy man, whom he had criminally reduced himself to an almost absolute necessity of despatching, the crime would have been of a more horrid die, and justly excited a higher indignation and abhorrence. And though I am far from mentioning these particulars to excuse David's conduct, or palliate his aggravated offences; yet the circumstances I have mentioned excite my compassion, carry in the nature of the thing some alleviation of his crimes, and should ever be remembered to soften the pen that is employed in describing them. Having thus, by accumulated guilt, taken off the man that he dreaded should live, David, after Bathsheba had gone through the usual time of mourning, took her to his palace, and made her his wife, to screen her from a prosecution of adultery, to secure her against the penalty of death, and in some measure to repair the injury he had done her, by his criminal commerce with her, during her former husband's life; which, as a plurality of wives was not forbidden by that constitution and polity he lived under, was the least compensation that he could make, and which he was obliged in honour and justice to make her. One would have thought, that after such a complication of aggravated crimes, David, upon a review of his conduct, should have been struck with remorse, voluntarily confessed his sins to God, and humbly entreated from him the mercy and forgiveness he so much needed. But nothing of this appears from the history. He rather seems, on the contrary, to have been insensible and callous, and to have enjoyed his new-acquired pleasures, without any uneasiness at the dreadful expense by which he purchased them. The siege of Rabbah went on successfully, he saw no appearing proofs of the divine displeasure that threatened him, the affairs of government employed much of his time and thoughts, he esteemed himself happy in the preservation of Bathsheba, and at full liberty to gratify the ardent passion he had conceived for her; and probably might persuade himself, that as Uriah was a Hittite, the taking away his wife and life greatly lessened the aggravation of his sin; or, that as king of Israel, he was above the laws, and that however criminal such actions might have been in others, yet that the royal prerogative and power might render them lawful in him, or at least so extenuate the evil of them, as that they would pass unobserved by God, who had solemnly promised him the establishment of the throne and kingdom in his person and family. But by whatever means he made himself easy, the history informs us, that "the thing which David had done displeased the Lord," who resolved to show his abhorrence of the crime, to execute on him a vengeance proportionable to the heinousness and guilt of it, and hereby to rouse his conscience, and bring him to those acknowledgments of his sin, as might prepare him for, and render him capable of that forgiveness, which, how much soever he needed it, he was greatly unworthy of. He was pleased to employ Nathan the prophet on this solemn occasion; who, by an artfully composed fable, brought the king to pronounce his own condemnation, even without suspecting or intending it. Bathsheba bad just been delivered of a son, the fruit of her adulterous commerce with David, and who was, in the strictness of the letter, conceived by his mother in sin, and shapen in iniquity. David appears to have been fond of the child, and, in the midst of his joy on this account, Nathan demands an audience, and addresses him with the following complaint. There were two men, who lived in the same city, one of whom was rich, and the other poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great abundance; but the poor man had not any thing, save only one little ewe-lamb, which he had brought, and nourished, so that it grew up together with him, and with his children. It did eat of his morsel, and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, and was to him as a daughter. And there came a certain traveller to the rich man, and he begrudged to take of his own flock and his own herd, to entertain his guest, but took the poor man's lamb, and provided for the traveller that came to him. David was extremely incensed against the man, and said to Nathan: "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this is worthy of death, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, inasmuch as he hath done this thing, and because he had no compassion." "Then Nathan said to David: Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: I have anointed thee to be king over Israel, and delivered thee from the hand of Saul. I gave thee also thy master's house, and the wives of thy master into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this be but a small matter, I have also added to thee this and the other thing, which thou well knowest. Why then hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do this wickedness in his sight? Thou hast smote Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him by the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and will take thy wives before thine eyes, and will give them to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives before the sun. Though thou hast done this secretly, yet I will do what I have now said, before all Israel, and before the sun." This dreadful sentence roused the conscience of David, and from the fullest conviction of the heinousness of his of fence, he immediately made this acknowledgment to Nathan: "I have sinned against the Lord." Upon this ingenuous confession, Nathan immediately replies: "The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Thou shalt not die. However, since by this deed thou hast caused the enemies of the Lord contemptuously to reject him, the son also that is born unto thee shall surely die." When Nathan had thus boldly and faithfully executed his commission, he left the king, and the lecture which he read him was worthy the dignity of a prophet's character and station, and such as became the majesty of him to whom it was given. It was grave, strong, affecting, insinuating, and polite. The parable, in which he conveyed to him his message from God, is dressed up with all the circumstances of art, tenderness, and delicacy, to move compassion, and, at the same time, to force from him that dreadful sentence: "As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die, because he did this thing, and because he had no compassion;" thus drawing from him the sentence of his own condemnation, even before he perceived it. But how home, how bold was the application, when Nathan said to the king: "Thou art the man.... Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife." How dreadful also was the sentence pronounced against him by the order of God! Such as showed the height of his abhorrence of the crime, and his displeasure and indignation against him that committed it. But how did the unhappy offender receive this bold and severe remonstrance? Why, no sooner was the application made, but he falls under conviction, acknowledges his offence against God, and owns himself worthy of death; and the psalms he penned on this occasion show the deep sense he had of the guilt he had contracted, and will be a memorial of the sincerity of his repentance throughout all generations. But was not David's repentance all affectation and hypocrisy, and did he not bear the reproof, and humble himself, because he took care not to disagree with his best friends; or, in other words, to keep fair with the priests and Levites? But if the priests and Levites were such kind of men, as some have represented them; ready to support David in all his measures of iniquity, and when he projected any scheme, were never wanting in their assistance to him; why should any one of them give him any trouble in this affair? In what had he disobliged them, by killing a Hittite, and debauching his wife? Or why should they disagree with him about a transaction that no way related to them? I should rather think, they should have endeavoured to have made him compound with them for a round sum of money, or a good number of sheep and oxen for sacrifices, that they might have feasted themselves on the price of his forgiveness; especially, as we have been told, that this same prophet, "Nathan, was a great lover of this sort of food, and very angry when he was excluded from good cheer." But indeed the insinuation itself is wholly groundless; and let any man read through the reproof that Nathan gave him, and the direct charge of murder and adultery that he urged to his face, and, I think, he cannot but be convinced, that David's acknowledgment, "I have sinned against the Lord," could proceed from nothing but a real and deep sense of the greatness of his crime, and that he deserved to be cut off by the hand of God for that aggravated transgression. What further effectually refutes this suggestion is, that his bearing with the reproof, and humbling himself under it, did not at all reconcile Nathan to him, who left him with a threatening dreadful in its nature, enough to make his ears tingle, and his heart tremble within him. The only favourable thing Nathan said to him was: "Thou shalt not die;" but, at the same time, tells him, that the murder he had been guilty of should be revenged by the sword's never departing from his house, and his adultery retaliated in the most exemplary and public manner, upon his own wives; threatenings that were made him, before he owned his fault, and submitted himself; and therefore his submission could be with no view of reconciling himself to Nathan, because that prophet had already peremptorily pronounced his punishment, which David's after confession did not in the least mitigate or alter; for the punishment threatened was inflicted to the full; and the particular nature and circumstances of it were such, and the events on which it depended were so distant and various, as that no human wisdom and sagacity could foresee them, or secure their futurity; and therefore Nathan, who pronounced his doom, must have been immediately inspired by God, who foresaw and permitted the means, by which his threatenings should be punctually executed, and thus brought upon David all the evils that his prophet had foretold should certainly befall him. The nature of his repentance my reader will be the better enabled to judge of, if he carefully reads over the 51st psalm, which he certainly penned on this occasion.CHANDLER. No one can read this psalm, but must see all the characters of true repentance in the person who wrote it, and the marks of the deepest sorrow and humiliation for the sins of which he had been guilty. The heart appears in every line, and the bitter anguish of a wounded conscience discovers itself by the most natural and affecting symptoms. How earnestly does he plead for mercy, and thereby acknowledge his own unworthiness! How ingenuous are the confessions he makes of his offences, and how heavy was the load of that guilt that oppressed him! The smart of it pierced through his very bones and marrow, and the torture he felt was as though they had been broken, and utterly crushed to pieces. He owns his sins were of too deep a die for sacrifices to expiate the guilt of, and that he had nothing but a broken heart and contrite spirit to of fer to that God, whom he had so grievously offended. How earnest are his prayers, that God would create in him a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within him! How doth he dread the being deserted of God! How earnestly deprecate the being deprived of his favour, the joy of his salvation, and the aids and comforts of his holy spirit! Let but this psalm be read without prejudice, and with a view only to collect the real sentiments expressed in it, and the |