It appears from this that the Hebrew population had increased nearly threefold during the 576 years which had elapsed since it entered the land of Canaan. This increase is not extraordinary ; but is as great as we have any reason to expect, con sidering the oppressions to which the Israelites had been subjected, and the bloody wars they had waged. Indeed, it has been objected by some that it is scarcely possible that, all circumstances con sidered, the people could have been so numerous ; but, as we must necessarily be ignorant of many causes which may have operated to increase or lessen the population, the statement of the sacred historian may, even on ordinary grounds, be safely taken, in the absence of any reason to suspect the integrity of the text. This leads us, in conclusion, to a remark which will apply to the whole life of David, and, indeed, to the Holy Scriptures at large, that the difficulties found in the narrative are only such as arise from its remote antiquity, and the impossibility of our acquiring all the know ledge necessary for their complete solution. Scep ticism is often more credulous than the faith it despises for that alleged quality, and its proposed methods of unravelling the intricacies of the Bible records, freqUently make confusion still more con fused. The way In which recent discoveries in archxology have confirmed statements, both in sacred and profane history, which before were thought to he erroneous, will make thoughtful per sons hesitate before they doubt, and dispose them to believe, that if some fact, now withheld, were hut supplied, there would be harmony where there is now the appearance of discord.' David reigned in Hebron seven years and a-half, and in Jerusalem thirty-three years (a Sam. ii. I I ; v. 5). Josephus says he died at the age of 7o (Antiq. viii. 15. 2). His 'last words' were a song in which he embodied his conception of the just ruler—the ruler fearing God—and expressed his joyful anticipation, amid all the disappointments which had cast their shadow over his own paternal anticipations, of the fulfilment of God's promise to him in the advent of that Great King in whom the ideal of a perfectly just ruler should be fully realised (2 Sam. xxiii. 1-5 ; comp. the Targum Jonath. on the passage). Before his departure, he also charged his son Solomon, whom he had destined to be his successor, how to conduct him self in the kingdom, and especially towards cer tain parties to whom the king owed a debt of retaliation or of gratitude (I Kings ii. 1-9). We
cannot but notice how, in this last utterance, the circumstances in which he was placed, and the maxims of rule to which he was habituated, in fused elements into his counsels which illustrate the still lingering imperfection of the man, while the former utterance is full of what belongs to the faith and hope of the saint This chequered character belongs to David all through his public history. That he was a man of ardent passions, and that he gratified these some times with the arbitrary license of an Oriental prince, lies on the surface of the record of his life. But men do ill to measure that heroic and many-stringed nature by the average standard of common-place humanity ; and it is foolish and wicked to dwell upon his obvious faults while no regard is paid to the nobler features of his soul, to the sublime piety in which his habitual life dwelt, to the intense agony with which he struggled for the mastery over these fiery passions, and the mournful remorse with which he bewailed their occasional triumph over his better nature. Some have even taken occasion from the sins into which David fell to sneer at the religion of which he appears as one of the most distinguished profes sors ; forgetting how unfair and disingenuous it is to impute to a man's religion what his religion had nothing to do with, except as it caused him fre quently and constantly to deplore it. It behoves us, also, to consider of how much good to the church David's varied experiences, even in their least excusable forms, have been made the vehicle. Though we neither excuse his acts of wicked ness nor impute them to the temptation of God, who cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth any man, we will add that by his loss the church bath gained ; and that if he had not passed through every valley of humiliation, and stumbled upon the dark mountains, we should not have had a language for the souls of the penitent, or an ex pression for the dark troubles which compass the soul that feareth to be deserted by its God' (Irving, Introd. Essay to Horne on the Psalms, p. 57). For illustrations of the history of David, see Delany, Historical Account of the Lift and Reign of David, etc., 3 vols. Lond. 1741-42 ; Chandler, Critical History of the Life of David, etc., 2 vols. Loud. 1766 ; Kitto, Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. iii.; Ewald, Gesch. a'. Volkes Israel, iii. 71, ff. W. L. A.*