A graphic picture of the haughty security of the Jebusites and of their consequent weakness is given in Stanley’s Sinai and Palestine. The late Dean wrote: “When David appeared under the walls of Jebus the ‘old inhabitants of the land,’ the last remnant of their race that clung to that mountain home, exulting in the strength of these ancient ‘everlasting gates” looked proudly down on the army below and said, ‘Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in thither; thinking David cannot come in thither.’ The blind and the lame they thought were sufficient to defend what nature had so strongly defended. It was the often-repeated story of the capture of fortresses through what seemed their strongest and therefore became their weakest point. ‘Precipitous, and therefore neglected.’ Such was the fate of Sardis, and of Rome, and such was the fate of Jebus. (Sunday School Times.)
Jeering as a war-weapon
Long before the origin of the comic-caricature as a political war-weapon, scoffs and jeers were a favourite projectile in Oriental warfare--as they are, in the East, at the present time. The jeer of Tobiah, against the Jews who were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem Under Nehemiah, was: “Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.” This was, in spirit, much like the Jebusite jeer at David, Our blind and lame can keep your host at bay. “Come on, thou rider of a kadesh!” (a hack-horse) was the cry of one shaykh to another in a combat in Palestine, as reported by Mrs. Finn. And the response of the other was: “At least I am not the son of a gypsy!” Arab warfare is so far notunlike Chinese warfare; and so far the present is much like the days of David, in the East. (Sunday School Times.)
