(3) Slight Inclination for Commerce. A warrior from his youth, he seems to have had little perception of the advantages of commerce ; and although the land of Edom was long under his power, he made no effort to use its ports of Eziongeber and Elath for maritime traffic. Much less was he likely to value the trade of the Eu phrates, from which river he was separated by a tedious distance of desert land, over which, with out the possession of superior cavalry, he could not maintain a permanent sovereignty. No at tempt se, ms to have been made in David's reign to maintain horses or chariots for military pur poses. Even chieftains in battle, as Absalom on his fatal day, appear mounted only on mules. Yet horses were already used in state equipages, ap parently as a symbol of royalty (2 Sam. xv:i).
(4) Archers and Slingers. That in the open ing of Saul's reign the Philistines had deprived the Israelites of all the most formidable arms is well known. It is probable that this may have led to a more careful practice of the sling and of the bow, especially among the southern tribes. who were more immediately pressed by the power of the Philistines. Such weapons cannot be kept out of the hands of rustics, and must have been essential against wild beasts. But from causes unknown the Benjamites were peculiarly cele brated as archers and stingers (Judg. xx :16; Chron. viii :4o ; xii :2 ; 2 Chron. NiV :8 ; :17). while the pastoral tribes beyond the Jordan were naturally able to escape all attempts of the Phil istines to deprive them of shield, spear, and sword. Hence the Gadites, who came to David at Ziklag, are described as formidable and full armed warriors, 'with faces like lions, and swift as mountain roes' (1 Chron. xii :8).
(5) Bodyguard of the King. The bodyguard of David was an important appendage to his state and a formidable exhibition of the actual despotism under which, in fulfillment of the warn ing of Samuel, Israel had now fallen. (See CHER ETHITES AND PELETHITES.) (6) Cabinet of David. The cabinet of David. (if we may use a modern name) is thus given (1 Chron. xxvii:32-34) with reference to a time which preceded Absalom's revolt : (1) Jonathan, David's uncle, a counsellor, wise man, and scribe; (2) Jehiel, son of Hachmoni, tutor ( ?) to the king's sons: (3) Ahithophel, the king's counsel lor (4) Hushai. the king's companion: (5) after Ahithophel, Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah; (6) Abiathar, the priest. It is added, 'and the general of the king's army was Joab.' (7) Royal Bailiffs. Twelve royal bailiffs are recited as a part of David's establishment (1 Chron. xxvii:25, 31), having the following de partments tinder their charge: (1) The treas ures of gold, silver, etc.: (2) the magazines; (3) the tillage (wheat, etc.?) : (4) the vineyards: (5) the wine cellars; (6) the olive and sycamore trees: (7) the oil cellars: (8) the herds in Sharon ; (9) the herds in the valtevs; (so) the camels; (is) the asses; (12) the flocks. Con
cerning the closing scenes of David's life no more need here be said; the celebrated enumeration of the people by Joab will be noticed under the ar ticle STATISTICS. F. W. N.
7. Character. The eminently prosperous state in which David left his kingdom to Solomon appears to prove that he was, on the whole, faithfully served, and that his own excellent in tentions, patriotic spirit and devout piety (meas ured, as it must be measured, by the standard of those ages), really made his reign beneficial to his subjects. If it reduced them under despotism, yet it freed them from a foreign yoke and from intestine anarchy; if it involved them in severe wars, if it failed of uniting them permanently as a single people, in neither of these points did it make their state worse than it found them. We must not exact of David either to reign like a constitutional monarch, to uphold civil liberty, or by any personal piety to extract from despotism its sting. Even his most reprobate offense has no small palliation in the far worse excesses of other Oriental sovereigns; and his great superior ity to his successors justifies the high esteem in which his memory was held.
Dean Stanley, Smith's Bib. Dict., says: "The difficulties which attend on his character are val uable as proofs of the impartiality of Scripture in recording them and as indications of the union of natural power and weakness which his char acter included. The Rabbis in former times, and critics (like Baylej in later times. have seized on its dark features and exaggerated them to the utmost. And it has been often asked, both by the scoffers and the serious, how the man after God's own heart could have murdered Uriah, and seduced Bathsheba, and tortured the Ammonites to death? An extract from one who is not a too indulgent critic of sacred characters expresses at once the common sense and the religious lesson of the whole matter : "Who is called 'the man after God's own heart ?' David, the Hebrew king. had fallen into sins enough—blackest crimes— there was no want of sin. And therefore the un believers sneer, and ask: 'Is this your man ac cording to God's heart ?' The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often bathed, never-ended struggle of it be gotten? . . . David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled—sore baf fled—driven as if into entire wreck; yet a strug gle never ended, ever with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose begun anew" (Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship, p. 72).