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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 297. The Closing Days
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The Closing Days
2. But tidings of this step were brought by Nathan to Bathsheba; and on the prophet's advice she informed the king, and reminded him of his promise that her son should reign. By agreement Nathan came in and confirmed her words. Then the old lion-heart in David was stirred. Though he had reached the extreme point of physical exhaustion, he aroused himself with a flash of his former energy to take measures for the execution of the Divine will communicated to him years before. “And the king sware, and said, As the Lord liveth, who hath redeemed my soul out of all adversity, verily as I sware unto thee, … so will I do.” Not many hours passed before tidings broke in on Adonijah's feast at Enrogel that Solomon had been anointed king in Gihon by the hands of Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, and had ridden through the city on the royal mule, escorted by Benaiah and his men-at-arms. Within an hour the whole of Adonijah's supporters had melted away, and he was clinging, as a fugitive, to the horns of the altar.
Lady Derby told me that she had once, many years ago, walked with Lord Beaconsfield from Hughenden to Bradenham. As they crossed that beautiful common, which we knew so well when we lived at Hampden, he stopped and said: “It was here that I passed my miserable youth.” “Why miserable?” she asked. “Because,” he replied, “I was devoured by ambition which I did not see any means of gratifying.” In the course of our conversation there came back to me a story which was told me by poor Leonard Montefiore, whose brilliant prospects were so sadly closed a few weeks ago while he was travelling in America, and which I have not, I think, elsewhere written down. Meeting the boy at Aston Clinton some years ago, Lord Beaconsfield asked him: “What are your aspirations?” Leonard told him very frankly, whereon he said: “You will fulfil them all; the Hebrew race to which you and I belong has learned to do everything except to fail.”1 [Note: Sir M. E. Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1873-1881, ii. 180.]
3. We do not know how long David lived after he had abdicated in favour of Solomon, but it is probable that the weak and bedridden king did not survive many days. He had held the reins of government for forty years; had tasted the cup of life to the full-its hardships and desperate ventures, as well as its enjoyments and the glory of satisfied ambition. He must now lay down his kingdom at the call of a higher King, who exercises dominion over all. David bravely faced the coming change, and addressed himself finally to dispose of the affairs of his kingdom. In the last charge to his son Solomon-as recorded in 1Ki_2:1-46 -there are many things worthy of a true king. He counselled him to be strong and show himself a man. No timid or irresolute spirit could govern such a kingdom; what had been built up by manliness and courage was to be maintained by the same high qualities. He counselled him, further, to be a man of God; for only by right principle and faith in God could the throne be permanently established. Here spoke a true king, who had himself honoured Jehovah, and executed judgment and justice in the gate.
If the narrative is to be taken as genuine (it is much disputed) in which the dying king counsels Solomon to do good to Barzillai but not to let Joab or Shimei die in peace, it must be remembered that the customs of the time were very different from the present, and that the advice ascribed to David is not to be judged by our own standard. A young and untried ruler like Solomon might be endangered by opponents whom David was strong enough to spare; and the king, who had delivered up to death Saul's seven sons to atone for their father's guilt, may have feared that the curse of Shimei, or the murders of Joab, unless avenged, would bring down punishment on some other man. To us the words put into David's mouth do not appear seemly for a dying man or in accordance with the noblest traits of David's character; yet it cannot be said that they are impossible.
Of David's actual death we know nothing. The sacred historians do not expend their words in describing dying scenes. One record says simply that “David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David”; another, that “he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour.” But perhaps the noblest is that uttered by the Holy Spirit, through the lips of St. Paul: ‘David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption.”
As poet, patriot, warrior, and devout worshipper of Jehovah, David embodied the highest ideals of his age. It is, therefore, not strange that he was idolized by his own and idealized by succeeding generations. His love for Jehovah and his people left little place in his heart for pride and tyranny. He kept always before him the noble Hebrew ideal of the kingship. Except on the one memorable occasion, when he yielded to his own base passion, he ever showed himself the loyal servant of the people. Thus, as a king, he proved, as did no other ruler in early Hebrew history, “a man after God's own heart.” In the perspective of history, Saul figures as the great pioneer; but David built well on the foundations which Saul had laid. Under his leadership united Israel became a fixed reality. By closer organization, by sharing together a common capital, by uniting in successful wars against their common foes, rival tribes were led to forget their jealousies and to recognize the bond of common race, ideals, and religion. By his foreign conquests, David gave to his people peace and prestige, and prepared the way for that development of the resources of the empire and of commerce which quickly followed in the days of Solomon. David also inspired those ideals of kingly justice, as well as of world-wide dominion, which were ever after cherished by the Hebrews, and which find frequent echoes in the Messianic predictions of later prophets. In uniting all Israel under one king he also impressed upon his subjects the conception of Jehovah as the one Supreme Ruler over all the different tribes. In conquering the neighbouring nations and building up a great empire he laid the foundations of that later monotheism which was proclaimed by the great prophets of the Assyrian period.1 [Note: C. F. Kent, Founders and Rulers of United Israel, 181.]