He died B.C. 1018, at the age of »eventv(?*» V, 4), and " was buried in the city of David" (1 Kio? ii, 10). After the return tnnn the captivity/** sepulchres of David" were still pointed out "brt»»® Siloah and the house of the * mighty men,'" **'** guard-house" (Neh. iii, 16). His tomb, which be*** the general sepulchre of the kings of Judah, vis pots''
DAVID
699
DAVID, CITY OF
Dt in the Utest times of the Jewish people. ** His Ichre is with ua unto this day," says Peter at Pen- it (Acts ii, 29) ; and Josephus {Ant, vii, 15, 8 ; xiii, ; XTi, 7, 1) states that Solomon, liaving bnried a treasure in the tomb, one of Hs chambers was en open by Hyrcanns, and another by Herod the it. It is Mid to liave fidlen into rain in the time adrian (Dio Cassias, Ixix, 14). In Jerome's time rnb, so called, was the object of pilgrimage {Ep. Mctrcell. 17, 46), but apparently in the neighbor- i of Bethlehem. The edifice shown as such firom >a8ade8 to the present day is on the southern hill lodern Jerusalem, conmumly called Mount Zion, vt the so-called '^Ccenaculum." For the descrip- of it, see Barclay's City oftht Grtai Kwff, p. 209. the traditions concerning it, see Williams's Holjf , ii, 50d>518. The so-called *' tombs of the kings" ) of late been claimed as the royal sepulchre by De cy (ii, 162-215), who brought to the Louvre (where ay be seen) what he believed to be the lid of Da-
I sarcophagus. But these tombs are outside the s, and therefore cannot be identified with the tomb )avid, which was emphatically toithiH the walls
Robinson, iii, p. 252, note). tie eharaeter of David has been so naturally brought in the incidents of hb life that it need not be here ribed In detafl (see Niemeyer, Charakt, iv, 125 . In the complexity of its elements, passion, ten- less, generosity, fierceness — the soldier, the shep- 1, the poet, the statesman, the priest, the prophet, king — ^the romantic fHend, the chivalrous leader, devoted fiither — ^there is no character of the O. T.
II to be compared to it. Jacob comes nearest in variety of elements included within it. But Da- 8 character stands at a higher point of the sacred ory, and represents the Jewish people just at the nent of their transition from the lofty virtues of older system to the fuller civilization and cultiva- I of the later. In this manner he becomes natu- y, if one may say so, the likeness or portrait of the
and grandest development of the nation and of monarchy in the person and the period of the Mes- I. In a sense more than figurative, he is the type I prophecy of Jesus Christ Christ is not called son of Abn^m, or of Jacob, or of Moses, but he t truly " the son of David.'* ^'o his ovm people, his was the name most dearly rished after their first ancestor Abraham. " The of David," "the house of David," " the throne of rid," "the seed of David," "the oath sworn unto rid" (the pledge of the continuance of his dynasty), expressions which pervade the whole of the Old (tament and all the figurative language of the New, 1 they serve to marii the lasting significance of his earance in history.
lis Psalms (whether those actnailly written by him- r be many or few) have been the source of consola- 1 and instruction beyond any other part of the He- w Scriptures. In them appear qualities of mind I religious perceptions not before expressed in the red writings, but eminentiy characteristic of David he love of nature, the sense of sin, and the tender, ent trust in, and communion with, God. No other t of the Old Testament comes so near to the spirit the New. The Psalms are the only expressions of ^tkm which have been equally used through the ole Christian Church— Abyssinian, Greek, Latin, ritan, Anglican.
the difficulties that attend his character are valua- as prooft of the impartiality of Scripture in record- : tiiem, and as indications of the union of natural ver and weakness which his character included, e Rabbis in former times, and critics QWa Bayle) later times, have seised on its dark features and kggerated them to the utmost It has often been :ed, both by scofl^ and the serious, how tiie man er God's own heart could have murdered Uriah,
and seduced Bathsheba, and tortured the Ammonites to death ? An extract from one who is not a too-in- dulgent critic of sacred characters expresses at once the common sense and the religious lesson of the whole matter. "Who is called *the man after God's own heart ?' David, the Hebrew king, had fidlen into sins enough — blackest crimes — there was no want of sin. And therefore the unbelievers sneer, and ask, *■ Is this your man according to God's heart ?' The sneer, I must say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often baffled, never ended struggle of it be forgotten ? . . . David's life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled— sore baffled — driven as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended, ever with tears, repentance, true uncon- querable purpose begun anew" (Carlyle's Heroet and Hero 'Worship^ p. 72).