John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 11

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John Kitto Morning Bible Devotions: September 11

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Commerce and Arts

2Sa_5:11-13

In the measures taken by David to render his new conquest of Jerusalem a metropolis worthy of the importance of his kingdom, he became sensible of the deficiency of his subjects in the arts of construction and design. The position of the Israelites had not been favorable to the progress of such arts. Dwelling-houses ready to their hands, they had acquired by conquest—sufficient to meet the wants of the two or three first generations; and those that were subsequently required, were doubtless built after the same models. This was the case also with fortresses—the Israelites probably gaining possession of more than they found it necessary to maintain, and had certainly no occasion to build new ones. These were the only public buildings of which we read. In fact, there was never any people who had less need of public buildings than the Israelites, down to the time of David. They were precluded from having any temples, like other nations in almost every town—by the regulation which restricted the solemn ritual worship to one place. Palaces there could be none in the absence of any great princes, lords, and sovereigns, having power beyond the narrow limits of the several tribes; the power of the “judges” being merely personal, precluded them from building palaces for themselves, and the office being only occasional, the state would find no inducement to build grand residences for them. Besides, they were men of simple habits; and even the great chiefs of the tribes were eminent rather from their position than for their wealth—large possessions in land being prevented by the manner in which the territory was divided among all the families of Israel. These circumstances, together with the simply agricultural habits of the population west of the Jordan, and the pastoral habits of those to the east, were highly unfavorable to any progress in the constructive arts; and we do not see any indications of advance in them, until some time after the monarchy had been established.

Thus it is that David found himself in danger of being stopped in his intended improvements by the inability of his subjects to carry out his designs. From this difficulty he was relieved by the establishment of a friendly intercourse with the Phoenicians of Tyre, which proved of great advantage to both parties. The Phoenicians excelled in the arts in which the Israelites were deficient; and a good understanding with their neighbors of the interior was very important to them. Their narrow slip of maritime territory, full of cities, and their preference for the more lucrative pursuits of commerce and manufacture, left them but little opportunity or inclination for agricultural pursuits; while the wants of their dense population rendered the corn, wine, and oil which the interior so abundantly afforded, a most important source of supply to them. For this, they could furnish the Hebrews with the various products of their large commerce, and the commodities of their own manufacture. The possession of so valuable a market for their surplus produce was no less important to the Israelites. This kind of intercourse had probably existed almost from the first, and it accounts for the remarkable fact that the Phoenicians are the only neighboring nation with whom the Israelites never had any war. The frequently depressed state of the country, and its repeated subjection to foreign powers, had seemingly prevented the adequate development of this interchange of advantages until the time of David, when the establishment of a powerful general government, and the impulse given to industry by continued peace (after the neighboring nations had been reduced), gave a great impulse to the productive industry of the people, which was much stimulated by the easy access to so excellent a market as that of Tyre—always ready and glad to take, at amply remunerating prices, whatever raw produce their neighbors could raise. This enabled the Israelites to possess themselves in large abundance of the various foreign commodities which abounded in the Phoenician markets, while their diffusion through the land produced a marked change for the better in the attire, the arms and armor, the dwellings, the furniture, the domestic utensils, and probably the agricultural implements, of the Hebrews. Of this we find frequent indications in the later historical books of Scripture, and in the writings of the prophets. We call this a change for the better, for whatever be said in favor of simple and rude habits it will hardly at this day be disputed, that whatever stimulates the industry of the people, urges them to make two stalks of corn grow where but one grew before, and enlarges their social comfort by bringing to them the products of other lands, and furnishing them with the appliances of human ingenuity and art—is a real advantage to them.

What was a convenience to the Hebrews, became in time a vital necessity to the Phoenicians, and always continued to be such. So late as the time of the Acts of the Apostles, we find the Phoenicians of Tyre taking the most earnest and even humiliating means of overcoming some resentment that Herod Agrippa had conceived against them, and why? “Because their country was nourished by the king’s country,” Act_12:20. Their joy indeed was so exuberant at the restoration of a good understanding, so important for this reason to them, that, being heathens, they scarcely stopped short of rendering him divine honors, for accepting which with complacency he was, in the righteous judgment of God, smitten with the terrible disease of which he died.

From this the reader will understand the anxiety which the Phoenician princes always showed to cultivate friendly relations with the Israelitish kings. It is not until David becomes king over all Israel that this is brought into prominent notice. While he was king only of Judah, his power was too limited to the south to offer much advantage to this people; but his authority is no sooner extended northward, than a friendly mission of congratulation is sent to him by Hiram king of Tyre. No doubt there had been previous relations between them and the northern tribes, and we think we can trace the existence of such an intercourse with Saul in the fact that he, greatly to the disgust of the Israelites, gave to a son the name of Eshbaal (man of Baal), and to a grandson the name of Meribaal (strife of Baal), which Baal was the chief god of the Phoenicians. The disgust of the people with these names may be conceived from the fact, that in order to avoid pronouncing the name of this idol, they ordinarily changed the first into Ishbosheth (man of shame), and Mephibosheth (perhaps mouth of shame). These names might indeed open ground for more inquiry into the nature of Saul’s religious sentiments, after his rupture with Samuel, than we can now enter into.

The messengers of king Hiram were well received by David, and when the former understood the nature of the difficulty the king of Israel labored under in the prosecution of his improvements, he agreed to furnish cedar wood from Lebanon, which was highly valued as a timber for building, with an adequate supply of skilled artificers—masons and carpenters—under whose hands soon arose on Mount Zion a royal palace for the habitation of the king, being such as had not hitherto been seen in Israel. A similar arrangement at a later period, in regard to the temple, will enable us to look more closely into the nature of this treaty.