His pious wish was made known to the prophet Natha_n, who at first applauded the design, but was afterwards instructed by special revelation to forbid its present accomplishment, while he fore told the perpetual establishment of the house of David, and the birth of a son who would carry out his father's purpose in more peaceful times.
There are many passages in the life of David which one cannot read without feeling how deeply we are indebted to the teaching of our Lord and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on his church for the purity of Christian morals. For while David has left on record in his Psalms the fullest evidence of that fervour of devotion and confidence in God, and that deep humility and penitence which made him the man after God's own heaft, we find him living in the unrestrained practice of such habits as are now universally felt to weaken the moral sense and deteriorate the character. Already while he reigned at Hebron, the number of his wives and concubines was considerable, and we read that he took hirn more concubines and wives out of Jeru salem after he was come front Hebron. This was in direct disobedience to the law of Moses (Deut. xvii. 17), and with it was connected much of the sin and sorrow of his subsequent history. \ Ve need only refer to his evening* walk on the roof of the king's hom.e,' followed by the crimes of adultery and murder, to the incest committed by Amnon, and the murder committed by Absalom—too faithful imitators of their father's errors—and to the revolt of Absalom, and his incestuous intercourse with his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel, on the same spot which had been the scene of David's temptation and sin. These melancholy transac tions, interspersed with victories over the Philis tines and other heathen nations, and terminated by his sorrowful triumph over his own misguided son, occupied about twelve years, and brought David to the sixty-third year of his age.
Our next scene in the history of Jerusalem is one of affecting interest. About six years after the last event, David was moved, contrary to the advice of Joab, to make a census of the people of Israel and Judah, either for the purpose of taxation or to as certain the number of fighting men he could com mand. By so doing he incurred the displeasure of God, who, to punish him for his fault, destroyed 7o,000 of his subjects by a pestilence of three days' duration. The destroying angel was standing over Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, his hand was uplifted and ready to fall upon the city, when the Lord said, It is enough, stay now thine hand.' This occurred near the threshing-floor of Ornan or Araunah, a Jebusite, and probably of the blood royal of that race ; at the same place, according to Jewish tradition, where Abraham had his knife un sheathed to slay his son. David himself saw the angel standing between earth and heaven with the drawn sword in his hand, and by his command, conveyed through the prophet Gad, he set up an altar on the threshing-floor of Araunah, the site of which he purchased for 600 shekels of gold (having given so shekels of silver for the threshing-floor itself with the oxen and materials for sacrifice). This spot thus distinguished by these two instances of God's sparing mercy, and about to be still further honoured by its near proximity to the place of the great sacrifice for the sin of the world, was selected by the Lord as the site of his future temple.
David recognised the divine purpose in the fire which came down from heaven to consume his burnt-offering, and he devoted the short remainder of his life to the collection of materials for a fabric of exceeding magnificence to be reared on the spot after his death by his son Solomon.
Solomon was very young when he succeeded his father (n.c. fol5). Josephus, followed by Light foot, says twelve, but he was probably a few years older. No prince could display greater wisdom and magnificence than he did in the works which occu pied him during the first twenty years of his reign. The Temple, for which he made preparations, with the help of Hiram, king of Tyre, during three years, and of which another Hiram, born in Tyre, but of Hebrew descent, was architect, occupied seven years and a half in building, and was com pleted and dedicated B. C. 1004. The ark of the covenant was brought with imposing ceremonies, and placed in the Holy of Holies beneath the wings of the cherubim. The tabernacle also, and all its sacred vessels, were conveyed thither from Gibeon, and probably deposited as sacred memo rials within its walls (t Kings \U. 4 ; 2 Chron. v. 5 ; Lightfoot, vol. i. p. 21)63). The name of the high-priest at this time was Azariah ; he was a de scendant, perhaps grandson (cf. I Kings vi. 2 ; I Chron. vi. 8-to), of Zadok, who was high-priest at Gibeon when David brought the ark from Kirjath jearim, and vvas of the house of Eleazar, the eldest 6On of Aaron—the high-priesthood of the house of Ithamar, Aaron's younger son, having been for feited through the sins of Hophni and Phineas, and having terminated in Abiathar, from whom it was taken by Solomon for his share in the revolt of Adonijah (i Kings ii. 35). After the completion of the Temple, Solomon surrounded Jerusalem with strong walls and towers, and filled it with magnifi cent structures—his own palace, the vast etab lishment for his chariots and horses, the palace which he built for Pharaoh's daughter, and the place of the forest of Lebanon. In the mean time other cities were built in different parts of his dominions ; he formed alliances with powerful princes, and carried on a lucrative commerce with Egypt by land, with Eastern Africa and India by the Red Sea, and with Spain and \Vestern Africa by the Mediterranean. By his wealth and influence, and the prestige of his power, 1m extended the range of his dominion from the Euphrates to the Nile (I Kings iv. 21 ; 2 Chron. ix. 26). At the beginning of his reign he organised a government, at the head of which was Azariah, the son (or grandson) Zadok, who was afterwards high-priest. Light foot says that his office was that of chief of the Sanheclrim. This ancient and venerable council is supposed to have originated in the seventy elders appointed by Moses to help him to govern the people in the wilderness, and is believed by some to have continued throughout the whole period of the Jewish history, while others contend that it existed as a national council only from the time of the Maccabees.