' Perceiving that Hebron was no longer a suit able capital, he resolved to fix his residence far ther to the north. On the very border of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin lay the town of Jebus, which with its neighbourhood was occupied by Jebusites, a remnant of the old Canaanitish nation so called. In spite of the great strength of the fort of Zion, it was captured, and the Jebusites were entirely expelled or subdued ; after which David adopted the city as his new capital, greatly en larged the fortifications, and gave or restored the name of Jerusalem [JERUSALEM]. In the account of this siege, some have imagined the Chronicles to contradict the book of Samuel, but there is no real incompatibility in the two narratives. Joab was, it is true, already David's chief captain ; but David was heartily disgusted with him, and may have sought a pretence for superseding him, by offering the post to the man who should first scale the wall. Joab would be animated by the desire to retain his office, at least as keenly as others by the desire to get it ; and it is therefore quite credible that he may actually have been the successful hero of that siege also. This being the case, it will further explain why David, even in the fulness of power, made no further effort to expel him until he had slaughtered Absalom. After becoming master of Jerusalem, David made a league with Hiram, king of Tyre, who supplied him with skilful artificers to build a splendid palace at the new capital. That the mechanical arts should have been in a very law state among the Israelites, was to be expected ; since before the reign of Saul even smith's forges were not allowed among them by the Philistines. Nothing, however, could have been more profitable for the Phoenicians than the security of cultivation enjoyed by the Israelites in the reigns of David and Solomon. The trade between Tyre and Israel be came at once extremely lucrative to both, and the league between the two states was quickly very intimate.
' Once settled in Jerusalem, David proceeded to increase the number of his wives, perhaps in part from the same political motive that actuates other Oriental monarchs, viz., in order to take hostages from the chieftains round in the least offensive mode. This explanation will not apply to the con cubines. We know nothing further concerning David's family relations, than the names of eleven sons born in Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 14, 15), of whom four were children of Bathsheba (i Chron. iii. 5), and therefore much younger than the elder sons.
Jerusalem, now become the civil metropolis of the nation, was next to be made its religious centre ; and the king applied himself to restore the priestly order to its proper place in the com monwealth, to swell the ranks of attending Levites and singers, and to bring the ark to Jerusalem. The priests or Aaronites must, for a long time, have had little occupation in their sacred office ; for the ark was at Kirjath-jearim, under the care of a private family. Indeed, during the reign of Saul, we find shewbread to have been set forth at Nob (I Sam. xxi. 4-6), by Ahimelech the priest ;
and it is possible that many other ceremonies were performed by them, in spite of the absence of the ark. But after the dreadful massacre perpetrated on the priestly order by Saul, few Aaronites are likely to have felt at ease in their vocation. To wear an ephod—the mark of a priest who is asking counsel of Jehovah—had almost become a crime ; and even after the death of Saul, it may seem that the Aaronites, like the other Israelites, remained organized as bands of soldiers. At least Jehoiada (who, according tot Chron. xxvii. 5, was high priest at this time, and joined David at Hebron with 37oo Aaronites) was father of the celebrated warrior Benaiah, afterwards captain of David's body-guard ; a man whose qualities were anything but priest-like : and Zadok, afterwards high-priest, who joined David 'with twenty-two captains of his father's house' at the same time as Jelioiada, is described as 'a young man mighty of valour' (r Chron. xii. 27, 28). How long Jehoiada retained the place of high-priest is uncertain. It is pro bable that no definite conception then existed of the need of having one high-priest ; and it is cer tain that David's affection for Abiathar, because of his father's fate, maintained him in chief place through the greater part of his reign. Not until a later time, it would seem, was Zadok elevated to a co-ordinate position. [ABIATHAR]. Any fur ther remarks concerning the orders and courses of the PRIESTS will be better reserved for the article on that subject. It is enough here to add that the slaughter suffered from Saul by the Aaronites of the line of Ithamar, whom Abiathar now repre sented, naturally gave a great preponderance of numbers and power to the line of Eleazar, to which Zadok belonged. We must also refer to the article LEVITES for further information concerning them. The bringing of the ark from Kirjath-jearim to Jerusalem established the line of high-priests in direct service before it ; and from this time we may presume that the ceremonies of the great day of Atonement began to be observed. Previously, it would appear, the connection between the priest hood and the tabernacle had been very loose. The priests fixed their abode at Nob, when the ark was at Kirjath-jearim, a very short distance ; yet there is nothing to denote that they at all interfered with Abinadab in his exclusive care of the sacred de posit. [To this event Pss. xxix., XXX. are tradition ally referred, and Pss. xv., xxiv., lxviii., ci., and cxxxii., inferentially referred.] When the ark entered Jerusalem in triumph, David put on a priest's ephod and danced before it. This proved the occasion of a rupture between him and his royal spouse, Michal. Accustomed to see in her father's court a haughty pre-eminence of the monarch over the priest, she could not sym pathize with the deeper piety which led the royal Psalmist to forget his dignity in presence of the ark. The words of David to her, 'Jehovah chose me before thy father and before all his house' (2 Sam.