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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 292. David's Military Achievements
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David's Military Achievements
i. The Philistines
For some years the Philistines had remained inactive. So long as their sovereignty was recognized and the annual tribute paid (probably by both parties), they were quite content to see the Israelites consume one another in a fratricidal conflict. But the present movement for union they regarded in a different light. It was evidently a first step to independence; and they could scarcely doubt that, when David had established his authority over a united kingdom, he would turn his arms against them, and endeavour to put an end to their domination. Saul's crown having passed to David, the relations of the latter to the Philistines, as regards the rights of Israel, were precisely the same as those of Saul had been. Nevertheless David appears to have suffered an attack from the enemy even earlier than he could have expected it. Immediately on learning the news of the anointing of David at Hebron, the Philistines broke into Judah. David was to be surprised, and Israel's attempt to become, through him, once more independent, was to be nipped in the bud. Bethlehem, David's home, was quickly taken possession of, and Hebron threatened. David was promptly informed; but he had not time to call together his forces. He was compelled to withdraw in all haste to the stronghold of Adullam, once so familar to him. Here he seems to have tarried some time, till his forces were assembled. Gradually the people rallied about him, until he was able to meet the Philistines in open battle. In the valley of Rephaim, which led up from the Philistine plain to the west or south-west of Jerusalem, two decisive engagements were fought, and in each case the Hebrews won a sweeping victory. After the final battle they drove the Philistines out upon the western plain, as far as the Canaanite city of Gezer. Following up his victories, David destroyed the Philistine supremacy, taking from them, as is said, “the bridle of the mother city.”
2. The importance of these victories must have been far greater than the scanty notices of them would at first suggest. The story lies before us only in fragmentary narratives. This lack of information is the more disappointing as the war with Philistia was the most important as well as the most decisive of those waged by David. For several generations the Philistines had been the most dangerous of Israel's foes. In vain had Samson, Samuel, and Saul striven to deliver their countrymen from the oppressive yoke of the uncircumcised. It weighed on the nation till David became king; nor was the severity of the Philistine tyranny ever forgotten. But after David's reign the hated oppressors are hardly mentioned, and were never really formidable. It is possible that when David became assured of his position as king of Israel he not only conquered, but conciliated, the Philistines. It must be remembered that he had been their ally, had fought in their army, and had long lived in intimate alliance with them; and as in later days Philistines are found holding high positions in his court and army, the nation may have felt but little shame in becoming his allies, or even in partially acknowledging his suzerainty.
3. It is possible that some of the stories told of David's mighty men should be referred to a later period: but one story that has been inserted in the appended chapters of 2 Sam. is clearly referable to this time. On one occasion David was reconnoitring near Bethlehem, where the Philistine garrison was posted; some of the enemy's troops were standing on the alert outside the gate. He felt parched with thirst. It was the time of harvest and of the summer heats, when the torrents were dried up and water was scarce. David remembered the time when, as a shepherd lad tending his father's flocks, he had refreshed himself in the hot summer days by taking long deep draughts at the well by the gate of Bethlehem. The memory of those early days led him to thirst and sigh after the Bethlehem waters, even to audible soliloquy. An almost incredible self-sacrificing love crept over David's three captains, called “the three mightiest.” They started off without his knowledge, forced a passage through the Philistine lines, and brought him the water. David, however, refused to allow men to hazard their lives merely for his personal gratification, and poured out the water “before Jehovah.”
(1) This gift of water was associated with memories of early days. As David sat there and looked upon Bethlehem's plains in the distance, a flood of memories came back to him of bygone days when he had been happy and light of heart as a shepherd boy. It is wonderful how little sometimes will bring back old times to those who have wandered far, in time or place, from the scenes of childhood's years. One writer quotes the following as favourite lines of his:-
Four ducks on a pond,
A grass bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing.
What a little thing
To remember for years,
To remember with tears!
If you have never been home-sick you cannot understand this story. If in your strong manhood you have not felt that for five minutes you would like to be a child again, and wander, free from manhood's cares, where once your childish footsteps strayed, this Hebrew story will remain Hebrew to you. It has been my happy fortune to look upon some of the fairest scenes on earth, in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Alleghanies, the Rockies, by Rhine, Danube, Meuse, and Mississippi, in the great Cañons of Colorado, and on the placid lakes which sleep eternally beneath the fathomless blue of Italian skies. And sometimes, amid the boundless prodigality of Nature's loveliness, I have found myself hungering for the fields and lanes of childhood and the days of long ago. On the Gorner Grat, in the Cirque de Gavarnie, on Lake Como, I could close my eyes and see the castle on the Rock which Lucy Hutchinson held for Cromwell against Charles, the Forest where Robin Hood and Little John sported with Maid Marian in the shade, the grove and churchyard where Kirke White aspired and dreamed, the hills, bleak and barren, where Byron's storm-tossed youth was passed-and I have wanted to gather crocuses again by the banks of the peaceful Trent! I have little doubt that if I went I should find the Forest destitute of trees, cut up into neat plots described as “this elegible building land,” the bleak hills slightly more barren because dotted with coal-pits and loaded with slag, and the meadows where the crocus grew a wilderness of bricks and mortar. There is no well of water beside what once were the gates and walls of my native town, from which I long to drink. The farm-house where I used to buy-or generally beg-a drink of milk, is now a goods station or a railway siding. But all the same, oh, just the same! I know exactly how David felt when he longed for a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem. I know-but I cannot tell you. And if I could, you would not be any wiser, for all of you who have once been home-sick know perfectly already.1 [Note: C. F. Aked, Old Events and Modern Meanings, 45.]
(2) This gift of water would always be associated in David's mind with the love that brought it. Dear as were the thoughts of early days, David prized very highly, too, the affection that led these three men to run such risks to gratify the wish of their beloved leader. What a splendid gift it was! Only a drink of water, but it was turned, as it were, into sacramental wine by the love that brought it.
When David took the water from the well of Bethlehem, which three of his finest soldiers had risked their lives to obtain, and, without even tasting it, poured it out unto the Lord, he performed one of those sublimely sacramental deeds that the world has never been able to understand, and that even the Church itself has too often misinterpreted. Viewed superficially, the act was open to so much adverse criticism. Some would say it was the act of a sentimental man-something unworthy a soldier and a man of affairs in the thick of a strenuous campaign. Some might even suggest that it was ungrateful-a poor use to which to put so costly an offering. Some might find a savour of paganism in that votive libation. David looked at the water, and lo! it was blood-red in his eyes. “This is not water. This is the life's blood of three of my bravest. This is the chalice of that love that can look with a smile into the face of death. This is the sacrifice of three brave souls. I am not worthy to drink of this cup. I, who have been selfish and unfaithful, have no right to touch this offering-this sacrament of unselfishness and fidelity. I can but offer it to the God of all beautiful and deathless things.”
As David saw, in that simple drink of water, the sacrament of a love of which he dared not count himself worthy, so must we come to see that all the best things in life, simple though many of them be, are too good for us. We are not fit to hold them in our hands, saving as an offering unto the Lord. The tender love and ungrudging devotion of our parents, the loyal, unselfish service of our friends, our share in the loveliness and wisdom of the years, the draughts of joy and hope and fulfilment that are held out to us, how do we receive these things? As commonplaces, as obvious rights. Oh, that we could see the red, red stains of the heart's sacrifice on all these things! Would that we could find the sacramental meaning of all that has ever been done for us for love's sake-the daring and the drudgery alike!1 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, A Thornless World, 213.]
(3) David felt that he must associate this gift in a special way with God. It was one of the finest things he had ever had done to him in his life. Men's lives had been in jeopardy to get it. It was too rich an offering to make use of only for his own gratification, and he poured it out unto the Lord. David wanted to associate God in a special way with the best things in his life. He did not give God merely what was worthless to himself.
“Let that which is lost be for God,” says the proverb. And the story of its origin is to the effect that an old man, when dying, was disposing of his goods. One of his cows had strayed, and his decision was that, if it was found, it should be given to such-an-one of his children, but, if it was not found, then let it be for God. It was not so with David. He did not give his God merely what was lost or worthless, but rather the best he had.2 [Note: J. S. Maver, The Children's Pace, 95.]
4. There are sacrifices which we have no right to accept from others. The three had no right to risk life for such a purpose, and David would have been selfish if he had drunk the water. Do not such thoughts lead us by contrast to Him who has done what none other can do? “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give his life a ransom for him”; but Jesus can and Jesus does. What it would be impossible, and wrong if it were possible, for one man to do for another, Jesus has done for us all; and what it would be base for a man to accept from another if that other could give it, it is blessed and the beginning of all nobleness of character for us to accept from Him. David would not drink because the cup seemed to him to be red with blood. Jesus offers to us a cup, not of cold water only, but of “water and blood,” and bids us drink of it and remember Him.
I have now come to the point where I must go to humanity's purest teacher. We shall take our stand by the Son of Man, the human Christ, as He sits weary on the well of Samaria. Try for one moment to do this in reality. Here is Jesus treading life's dusty pathway, feeling as you and I often feel, knowing, as you and I know, life with its trials, disappointments, sorrows, failures, its beginnings again; living through it all, never defeated by it. Here sits Jesus weary with the greatness of the way, like ourselves, wanting human sympathy, and, as we so often are, refused. “Give me to drink,” pleads the Son of Man; and the answer is dislike, prejudice, ignorance. Then the Divine remonstrance comes, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But it shall be in him a well of water, springing up unto eternal life.”1 [Note: R. J. Campbell, Sermons addressed to Individuals, 200.]
2. The “city of David,” thus refounded, was in every respect the most suitable capital for the united kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The position of Jerusalem, on or even within the borders of both Benjamin and Judah, served to bind together the two royal families and the two most powerful tribes; from its strong situation it derived important military advantages, while its high elevation and its seclusion, alike from the sea and from the great thoroughfares of commerce, fitted the city in a peculiar manner for its future function as the spiritual metropolis of the world. The very mixture of population which was a feature of the new city was a symbol and visible token of that unification of races and interests in Palestine which it was the work of David's reign to effect. The capture of Zion is the turning-point in the national history. With it a new era begins. The days of primitive Israel ended when the last Canaanite stronghold fell into the hands of David.
The topography of ancient Jerusalem has many difficulties. The indications of the Bible favour the view that the citadel of the Jebusites which became Mount Zion, the city of David, was situated on the eastern hill, south of the later temple-area. It remains uncertain whether the western hill was also inhabited by the Jebusites; but we may well believe in any case that the new influx of Israelites would soon render the extension necessary.1 [Note: J. D. Fleming.]
One of the two cardinal questions of the topography of Jerusalem is that of the position of Sion, the Jebusite fortress which David captured, and which was called thereafter The City of David, or (more properly translated) David's-Burgh. To this question there are two possible answers. First, till a few years ago it was the general opinion, received by tradition from the time of Josephus, that the South-west Hill, the most massive and dominant of the heights of Jerusalem, was not only an integral part of the city from before the days of David, but contained also the citadel of political and military power under the kings of Judah. This traditional view is expressed in the present nomenclature of the South-west Hill. The Tomb of David is believed to lie there, and there is placed the site of the Palace of Solomon, from which a bridge or raised causeway across the central valley is supposed to have served for the passage of the king when he went up to the Temple. The southern gate of the present City opening on the Hill is called Bab en-Neby Daûd, “Gate of the Prophet David,” or Bab Sahyun, “Sion-Gate.” The Citadel-tower is known as “David's Tower,” and the Hill, as a whole, is called by Christians “Mount Sion.” Second, the opposite view is that Sion, and by consequence the “City of David,” lay on the East Hill on the part called Ophel, just above the Virgin's Spring; that Mount Sion came to be the equivalent in the Old Testament of the Temple Mount; that the location of the “City of David” by the present Jaffa gate was due to an error by Josephus, and that there is no trace of the name Sion being applied to the South-west Hill till we come some way down the line of Christian tradition. The supporters of this second view are divided as to when the South-west Hill was brought within the City; some think in Jebusite times, some by David, some by Solomon, some by the eighth-century kings, and some not till the Greek or Maccabean period.1 [Note: G. A. Smith, Jerusalem from the Earliest Times to a.d. 70, i. 134.]
1. The cause of the war with Moab is quite unknown, but there must have been a change in its policy since the time when David had placed his parents under the protection of the king of Moab. Neither is anything recorded as to the war, save that it was completely successful, and that the prisoners of war were treated with great severity. Two-thirds of them were put to death, and the remainder became tributary vassals of Israel, and so continued till the reign of Ahaziah, when they again recovered their freedom under Mesha.
2. The fear of David's prowess did not prevent the fierce Ammonites from deliberately provoking a war with him. David sent a peaceful embassy to Hanun, the new king, whose father Nahash had shown David kindness (perhaps during his wanderings). But Hanun, influenced by his princes, who suspected David's intention, rejected the embassy, and sent away the ambassadors with gross insults, mutilating their beards, and cutting short their robes-deadly affronts to an Oriental. David prepared to cross the Jordan, and the Ammonites made a league with the neighbouring kings of Syria. A large army was sent to assist the Ammonites by Hadadezer, the Syrian king of Zobah, and his allies, but it was defeated outside the walls of Rabbah by Joab and Abishai. David then invaded Syria in person and routed the army of Hadadezer so completely that the Ammonites had no more hope of support from Syria. After this Rabbath-Ammon was invested by the Israelites; and, when its fall was inevitable, Joab sent for David that he might take the city himself, “lest,” said Joab, “I take the city, and it be called by my name.” According to the present reading, the Ammonites were treated by David with savage cruelty, but a very slight modification of the text will justify the hope that the prisoners were spared and put to work at the royal buildings. That David put the Ammonites to death with barbarous torture is not historically credible; for even if David was capable of such cruelty (compare his treatment of the Moabites), he was afterwards served loyally by some of the Ammonites.
3. The last of David's foreign conquests was that of Edom, but we have only a few disconnected allusions to the war. It appears that David gained a great victory in the Valley of Salt after his Syrian campaign (2Sa_8:13 f., LXX; 1Ch_18:11 f.; Psa_60:1-12, title). By this conquest he obtained command of the ports on the Red Sea. Prefects were appointed throughout the country, and for six months Joab remained in Edom, to destroy the male population.
Thus David was invariably successful in his wars, and extended his kingdom in every direction. The Philistines in the west were thoroughly subdued; across the Jordan, Ammon and Moab were made tributary; and, while the Syrians in the north acknowledged his power, his kingdom was extended southward as far as the Red Sea and the borders of Egypt. The growing kingdom advanced to the zenith of its power, and a new era of national prosperity began. David had gathered great spoil in these wars, and annual tribute poured into his treasury. Israel increased in numbers and in prosperity, and with the growing resources of the State the authority of the king was not only assured, but greatly enlarged.
An incident of this military period (thrust into an appendix [ch. 24], and possibly a late insertion) came about through the king's desire for a census of the people fit to bear arms. This desire offended the free Hebrews, and even the general himself, Joab, remonstrated. Still he executed his orders-but slowly, occupying nine months over the business, which took him as far north as Tyre. Judah was counted separately, and (according to Chronicles) Levi and Benjamin exempted. The numbers reported are extraordinarily large-800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah; but the interest of the thing lies in the sequel. A pestilence followed, expressive, according to David's conscience, of the displeasure of God at his royal presumption and folly. Seventy thousand innocent persons perished in the country, but before the plague reached Jerusalem, Jehovah “repented him of the evil,” and stayed the hand of the destroying angel. The scene of this deliverance was a threshing-floor belonging to a native proprietor on the highest point of Mount Zion; an altar rose upon the spot as a memorial of mercy; this gradually attracted to itself the tribal devotions formerly paid either at Hebron or at Mizpah, till it became the High Place at Jerusalem, ready for a royal architect to adorn it with buildings.