into halves, he gave it to the last speaker, proving to the satisfaction of all present that she, and she alone, was its mother. Trivial as the above case may appear, the mode in which the king decided it gained for him the applause of all his subjects, nor were his more important acts marked by less of wisdom or discretion. He regulated the affairs of his kingdom with singular judgment; discharged his own duties in public with accuracy, and amused his leisure hours with literary and scientific pursuits; with poetry, music, and the conversation of the learned and the wise. The consequence of all this was, that at no period of its existence as an empire was Israel more powerful or more respected than under him. Foreign potentates courted his alliance; foreign nations opened their trade to him; his armies were numerous, well-equipped, and well-disciplined; and his wealth knew no bounds. To use the hyperbolical phraseology of the east, "in his days silver was as common as stones in the streets of Jerusalem, and gold and jewels were held in no esteem." Nor was it on account of its splendour only that the court of Solomon stood conspicuous above all others. Every person, from all the countries round, who aimed at a character for wisdom repaired thither to listen to his aphorisms, and even crowned heads esteemed it an honour to receive instruction from his lips.

1027.

The distinguishing taste of Solomon appears to have Б. С. been for building; and the first specimen of it was displayed in the erection of the temple which David had designed, but which he was not permitted to accomplish. Having procured from his ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, an ample supply of cedar-wood, and enrolled whole armies of workmen under appointed leaders, Solomon gathered together large quantities of materials of the most costly description; and in the third year of his reign, just six hundred and twenty-one years after the exode, laid the foundation of a pile which he hoped might endure for ever.. But mighty as his resources were, Solomon's plans proved of so gigantic a nature that seven whole years were expended in realizing them; at the close of which term one of the most splendid edifices which the ingenuity of man has ever designed was produced. Edifices more extensive have existed, and B. C. now exist throughout the world: indeed, if size alone be the criterion of magnificence, Solomon's temple

1020.

will not deserve to be classed even in the second rank; but, for beauty of structure, variety of ornament, and the lavish expenditure upon it of the precious metals, we read of nothing in all history to be compared with it. But though thus indulging his own taste, Solomon was not neglectful of the instructions given by God to Moses in the wilderness. In the temple, as in the tabernacle, there was the holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant was destined to rest, and which the priest alone was permitted to enter; while the different altars and utensils necessary for the due celebration of divine worship were carefully provided and judiciously disposed. All, however, was done on a scale of expense of which, till now, the Israelites could have formed no conception; while, to complete his work, Solomon piously consecrated and laid up in the sanctuary the prodigious treasure which his father had amassed, and which he had designed to expend in the prosecution of the very work which Solomon was appointed to perform.

With this account of the building of the temple, brief and imperfect as it is, we should at once close the present chapter, were we not anxious to meet certain difficulties which we are aware, from personal experience, must affect the mind of the reader while perusing some of the foregoing details. The sacrifice of Saul's descendants, for example, to gratify the vindictive feelings of the Gibeonites, as well as the parting admonitions of David to Solomon, respecting Joab, Shimei, and others, have been felt by many reflecting persons to militate, in appearance at least, against the consistency of the sacred chronicles; while the nature of David's sin in numbering the people, with the terrible consequences that followed, are matters well calculated to perplex even the most sober-minded. We frankly acknowledge, that after consulting a host of commentators, we have not been able entirely to elucidate the mystery which attaches to some of these transactions; but of the fruits of our researches, the following may be taken as a compend :

It has been felt as a difficulty attending the transaction first noticed, that Holy Scripture is absolutely silent as to the time and occasion on which Saul's persecution of the Gibeonites occurred. To account for this, therefore, some have imagined that the particular act of cruelty for which the lives of seven of his descendants were demanded was

perpetrated at Nob, when Saul, after murdering the priests, perpetrated an indiscriminate slaughter upon the Gibeonites, whose business it was to hew wood and draw water for the tabernacle. Others again, with greater show of probability, hold that Saul early began to conciliate the good-will of his own countrymen, by oppressing and wantonly destroying the Gibeonites, upon whom, as is well known, the Hebrews looked to the last with an eye of peculiar disfavour; and that he persevered in this course throughout his reign, investing his brethren of Benjamin, in particular, with the possessions thus iniquitously obtained. Between these opinions we are not called upon to decide, partly because whichever be adopted it will serve our purpose, but chiefly because the main obstacle to the reception of the history lies, not in discovering instances of tyrannical behaviour in Saul, but in reconciling the mode in which these are noticed with the attribute of Divine justice. In other words, how came God to afflict the whole nation of the Hebrews with a three years' famine in consequence of Saul's crimes, and how came he to sanction the murder of seven innocent men, as expiating the guilt of one already deceased?

Had the Hebrew people been entirely free from a participation in the guilt of their sovereign, then indeed it were impossible satisfactorily to answer the former of these questions. But were they thus innocent? So far is this from being the case, that from the commencement of their intercourse with the miserable Gibeonites, they appear to have adhered to the treaty of mercy with manifest reluctance, setting it aside not only as often as their rulers gave the example, but whenever the rulers became negligent in seeing that its terms were enforced. It were absurd, therefore, to imagine that the people were more backward than Saul in the persecution of their unhappy slaves; and hence the people, not less than Saul, became amenable to the punishment incurred by the violation of an oath. If it be urged that the famine in question befell so long after the death of Saul that there is slender ground for supposing that any individuals of the guilty generation survived, we see no reason why the objection should not be met by a supposition equally plausible. The habit of acting with harshness to persons absolutely in their power seldom expires with a single generation of men; and as we read of no

steps taken by David to restore the Gibeonites to the place which they originally held by treaty, it is highly probable that the sons of Saul's contemporaries persisted in behaving towards them with the cruelty which their fathers had exercised. If the case be so, then was the famine a just judgment upon the guilty; while the sacrifice required in order to effect its removal could not fail of leaving a lasting impression upon men's minds, that God would not permit covenants entered into und er the sanction of his name to be violated with impunity.

But why, it may be said, sanction a custom so horrible as that of sacrificing human beings to appease the wrath of Heaven; and why, under any circumstances, permit the innocent to die for the guilty? We answer, that of the innocence of the seven men slain no proof whatever exists. On the contrary, as we know that the members of Saul's family held offices of trust under him, we have every reason to believe that they were at least the instruments of his tyranny; while the expression "it is for Saul and his bloody house," which the writer of the Book of Kings puts into the mouth of God, seems to imply that they acted as such instruments not unwillingly. If, therefore, the hands of these seven men were red with the blood of the Gibeonites, their execution was neither superstitious nor impious, since it was nothing more than an act of retributive justice to which a just God gave his sanction. But David's solemn promise both to Saul and Jonathan, how is the keeping of that to be reconciled with the slaughter of these seven men? David's promise was of course binding so long as a power higher than David chose not to abrogate it; but as soon as God commanded the Hebrew monarch to obey the wishes of the Gibeonites, of whatever nature they might be, all liberty of choice was necessarily withdrawn from him. Let it be borne in mind, that when David consulted the divine oracle as to the steps to be taken for appeasing the wrath of Jehovah and restoring fertility to the land, he was expressly enjoined to give to the Gibeonites whatever satisfaction they might demand; and when they demanded the sons of Saul, even though avowedly for the purpose of slaying them, the Hebrew monarch could not refuse to comply, except at the expense of openly rebelling against God. Whatever of seeming barbarity or cruelty therefore

attaches to this transaction is attributable to the Gibeon ites alone: God's part in the drama, if we may so speak, was the administration of justice only; David's a display of pious obedience.

Respecting the precise nature of David's sin in causing the number of his men-of-war to be taken we own our selves incapable of saying any thing satisfactory. From the terms employed recording the event, it will be seen that we are disposed to follow the sentiments of those divines who consider David to have acted in obedience to the whispers of vanity, and in forgetfulness of Him who is the source of all honour. If the case be so, then is David's error sufficiently obvious; but that the people should have suffered can only be accounted for by supposing that they, like their sovereign, had become indifferent to religion. The whole history of this singular nation indeed goes far to produce the persuasion that the case must have been so. We never find them prosperous without falling into vice and idolatry; and it is in the highest degree probable that their successes under David led to the same results which had attended the successes of their ancestors under the judges. Supposing it, therefore, to be true that the nation at large had become corrupt and irreligious, then is the visitation of the pestilence amply vindicated, while David's personal punishment could not fail to be severe in witnessing the afflictions of his servants and subjects.

The conduct of David on his deathbed, and the advice given to his son, though frequently misunderstood, appear to us far more susceptible of explanation than the points just discussed. It is only necessary to bear in mind that, David spoke at that moment not in his private capacity as a man, but in his public character as a sovereign; and that his admonitions to his son imply nothing more than a solemn warning that it behooved the latter to guard well against the machinations of certain seditious and turbulent persons, Of Joab, David confesses that he himself never possessed sufficient power to crush him; but he recommends to Solomon a line of conduct to which both justice and prudence gave their sanction. In like manner his observations touching Shimei amount simply to this, that it were dangerous to permit a man whose hostility to the reigning family had shown itself so openly to walk at large, and that though