purpose had been interrupted :-" Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel," he said, "who sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, who hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand."

Abigail returned to her husband, and the next day acquainted him with the steps she had taken, and the imminent danger into which his churlishness had brought him and his. The view which was presented to his mind of the evil which had hung over his head, struck him with such intense dread and horror, that in a few days he died of a broken heart. When this came to the ears of David, who had been much charmed by the good sense and beauty of Abigail, he sent to her, and she consented to become his wife. He had previously married Ahinoam of Jezreel, after Saul had given Michal to another. Polygamy was not expressly forbidden by the law; neither did it receive any sanction therefrom. It was a matter of existing usage with which the law did not interfere; although it discouraged the formation, by the kings, of such extensive harems as the kings of the East have been wont to possess: and both David and his son Solomon had ample occasion to lament those besotting passions which led them to neglect this injunction, as

[Presents to a Bedouin Chief.]

well as to learn that there is in this matter an obvious social law which cannot with impunity be transgressed. This there will be other occasions to show.

Soon after this David removed to his former place of shelter, in the wilderness of Ziph. While he remained there, Saul justified the doubts which the son of Jesse, who well knew his character, entertained of the continuance of his good resolutions; for he again came to seek him at the head of 3000 men. But this only gave David another opportunity of evincing the true and generous loyalty of his own character. For one night, while the king lay asleep, in the midst of his men, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head, to mark the station of the chief, David entered his camp, attended by Abishai (brother to the subsequently celebrated Joab), and, without being noticed, penetrated to the very spot where the king lay. Abishai thought this a fine opportunity of ending all their troubles with the life of their persecutor; and begged David to permit him to transfix the sleeping king with his spear. But to the pious hero, "a divinely appointed king, although his enemy, was a sacred person. To lay violent hands on him, and to open a way to the throne by regicide was a crime which he justly abhorred. What God had promised him he was willing to wait for, till He who had promised should deliver it to him in the ordinary course of his providence.”* He therefore checked the misdirected zeal of Abishai, and withdrew with him, taking away the spear which was planted at Saul's head, and the vessel of water which stood there for his David then went and stationed himself at the edge of an opposite cliff, overlooking the camp of Saul, and calling by name to Abner, the cousin and chief commander of the king, told him he was worthy of death for the careless manner in which he guarded the royal person. As he went on reproaching Abner, Saul, as he expected, recognised his voice, and guessing that he had again been spared when in his power, called out, "Is that thy voice, my son David?" and was answered, "It is my voice, my lord, O king!" David then proceeded with much energy, but in the most respectful language, to remonstrate against the treatment he received, and produced the evidence of the spear and water-jug, as evincing the value of the king's life in his eyes. The result was the same as it had been on a similar occasion before: Saul's heart was touched. He acknowledged that he had "acted foolishly, and erred exceedingly;" and after blessing David, returned to Gibeah.

use.

David had before this formed the intention of again withdrawing to the Philistines; for in his remonstrance with Saul he had laid the responsibility of this measure upon his persecutors,—" If Jehovah hath stirred thee up against me, let him accept an offering; but if they be the children of men, accursed be they before Jehovah, for they now drive me out from abiding in the inheritance of Jehovah." He must not be allowed, however, thus easily to rid himself of the responsibility of so ill-advised and desperate an expedient, in which he neglected to ask counsel of God, but followed the impulse of his own apprehensions; and from the natural and obvious consequences of which he could only escape by acts of equivocation, hypocrisy, and ingratitude which do no honour to his name. However, we are to regard David, in all this portion of his life, as a learner, as one who was in the course of being trained to rule wisely, by various disciplines, distresses, and errors ;-for even the errors of conduct into which men fall, by having placed themselves in a false position through too confident a reliance on their own judgment, are not among the least profitable experiences which they obtain, and which go towards the ripening of their minds. But, undoubtedly, it had been better for David, and more becoming, had he remained in his own country, relying upon the protection of that good providence by which he had hitherto been preserved.

On reaching Gath, with his 600 men, David was well received by the king, who appears, to have been the same Achish in whose presence he had formerly played the madman. The Hebrew chief soon took occasion to request the Philistine king to assign him some town in which he might reside apart with his people; and the king, with generous and unsuspecting confidence, made over to him, to his full and exclusive possession, the small border town of Ziklag, which was situated not far from the brook Besor. Here he resided one year and four months, or until the death of Saul. From this place he undertook excursions against the

Jahn, i. 103.

ancient predatory enemies of Israel, the Amalekites, the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, who roved about in Arabia Petræa, on the sea-coast as far as Pelusium, and on the southern frontier of the tribe of Judah. In all these excursions he utterly destroyed man, woman, and child, and took possession of the cattle and apparel, of which their wealth consisted. The exterminating character which he gave to this warfare, was to prevent the Philistines from learning that he had been acting against their allies and friends; and he always pretended to Achish that his expedition had been against the Israelites and their allies, by which he established himself firmly in the confidence of that king. For the cool manner in which the son of Jesse poured out innocent blood to cover a deliberate and designing falsehood, we have no excuse to offer. He must bear the blame for ever.

In those days the Philistine states joined their forces for war against Israel; and David, having, by his pretences, impressed upon Achish the conviction that he now detested his own people and was detested by them, was driven to the dreadful alternative of either taking the field with the Philistines and fighting against his brethren, or else of appearing ungrateful to Achish, and perhaps of occasioning the destruction of his family and himself. But from this difficulty he was extricated by the not unreasonable jealousy of the other Philistine princes, who expected he might turn against them in the battle in order to reconcile himself to his master. Achish was much hurt at such suspicions against one on whom he so perfectly relied, but was reluctantly obliged to dismiss him from the expedition.

On returning to Ziklag, David found the city pillaged and reduced to ashes. The Amalekites, Geshurites, and Gezrites, had taken the opportunity of his absence in another direction thus to avenge themselves for his former inroads upon them. They did not, however, retaliate to the full extent; for although "they took the men and women who were in it captive, they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away." David's two wives were among the captives. His men were frantic at the loss of their families and substance, and at first talked of stoning their leader, whom they regarded as at least the remote cause of this calamity. But they were at last appeased, and set out in pursuit of the spoilers, notwithstanding the fatigue occasioned by their previous march. Two hundred of the men were unable to proceed farther than the brook Besor; and David, leaving them there, continued the pursuit with the remaining four hundred. On their way they fell in with a man half dead with illness, hunger, and thirst. Having refreshed him with food and drink, they learned that he was an Egyptian, a slave to one of the party they pursued; but that having fallen ill three days before, his master had left him-to live or die, as might happen-and that since then no bread or water had passed his lips. He gave an account of the operations of the horde; and, when pressed, agreed to conduct the Hebrew party to the spot at which he knew that they intended to repose. When that spot was reached, the nomades were enjoying themselves in full security, as they supposed themselves beyond the reach of pursuit, and could not know that David would have returned to Ziklag so soon. They were thus easily overthrown; and not only did the Hebrews re-capture all that they had taken, but gained besides so considerable a booty, that David was enabled to send presents to all the rulers in Judah who were favourable to his cause.

The 400 men who had continued the pursuit were unwilling to share the additional spoil with the 200 who had tarried by the brook Besor, although willing to restore their own property to them. But David took the opportunity of establishing the useful principle that all the persons engaged in an expedition should share equally, whatever part they took in it; or, in other words, that those whose presence protected the baggage should be equally benefited by a victory with those who went to the fight.

The present campaign of the Philistines against the Israelites was one of those large operations which nations can in general only undertake after long intervals of rest. There seems, indeed, during the reign of Saul, to have been always a sort of desultory and partial warfare between the two nations; but it had produced no measure comparable to this, which was intended to be decisive, and was calculated to tax to the utmost the resources of the belligerents. When Saul surveyed, from the heights of Gilboa, the formidable army which the Philistine had brought into the plain of Esdraelon-that great battle-field of nations-his

known to the Israelites during his long administration,-or whether she expected a demoniacal spirit to give him an answer; it appears from a close examination of the text, that, to the great astonishment of the woman herself, and before she had time to utter any of her incantations, the spirit of Samuel was permitted to appear, in a glorified form, and ominously clad in that mantle in which was the rent that signified the rending of the kingdom from the family of Saul. When the figure appeared, the king knew that it was Samuel, and bowed himself to the ground before him. From that awful and passionless form he heard that the doom declared long since was now to be accomplished ;-to-morrow Israel should be given up to the sword of the Philistines-to-morrow Saul and his sons should be numbered with the dead. At these heavy tidings, the king fell down as one dead, for he had touched no food that night or the preceding day, and was with difficulty restored to his senses and refreshed by the woman and his attendants.

The next day all that had been foretold was accomplished. Israel fled before the Philistine

[Body of Archers.]

archers; and Saul and his sons, unable to stem the retreating torrent, fled also. The three sons of the king, JONATHAN, Abinadab, and Melchi-shua, were slain. Saul himself was grievously wounded by the archers; and that he might not fall alive into the hands of the Philistines and be subjected to their insults, he desired his armour-bearer to strike him through with his sword; and when that faithful follower refused, he fell upon his own sword: and the example was followed by the armour-bearer, when he beheld his lord lying dead before him. "So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armour-bearer, and all his men, that same day together."

The next day, when the Philistines came to collect the spoils of the slain, they found the bodies of Saul and his three sons. The indignity with which they treated the remains of these brave men has no previous example. They cut off their heads, and hung their bodies to the wall of the town of Bethshan, near the Jordan. Their heads and armour they sent into Philistia, as trophies of their triumph, by the hand of the messengers who were despatched to publish it in their temples and their towns. The bodies of Saul and his sons were soon stolen away by night from the wall of Bethshan, by some valiant men of Jabesh, on the opposite side of the river, where a grateful remembrance was cherished of the king's first military exploit, whereby the people of that town were delivered from the loss of their liberty and their eyes. To preclude any attempt at the recovery and continued insult of the bodies, the people burnt them, and buried the collected bones and ashes under a tamarisk-tree.