2. The inriuences to which the childhood of Solomon was thus exposed must have contributed largely to de- termine the character of his after-j'ears. The intjuiry what was the education which ended in such wonderful contrasts — a wisdom then, and perhaps since, unparal- leled, a sensuality like that of Louis XV — cannot but be instructive. The three influences which must have en- tered most largely into that education were those of his father, his mother, and the teacher under whose charge he was placed from his earliest infancy (2 Sam. xii, 25).
(1.) The fact just stated that a prophet -priest was made the special instructor indicates the king's earnest wish that this child at least should be protected against the evils which, then and afterwards, showed them- selves in his elder sons, and be worthy of the name he bore. At first, apparently, there was no distinct pur- pose to make him his heir, Absalom is still the king's favorite son (2 Sam. xiii, 37; xviii, 33) — is looked on by the people as the destined successor (xiv, 13 ; xv, 1- 6). The death of Absalom, when Solomon was about ten years old, left the place vacant, and David, passing over the claims of all his elder sons, those by Hathsheba included, guided by the influence of Nathan, or by his own discernment of the gifts and graces which were tokens of the love of Jehovah, pledged bis word in se- cret to Hathsheba that he, and no other, should be the heir (1 Kings i, 13). The words which were spoken somewhat later express, doubtless, the purpose which guided him tliroughout (1 Chron. xxviii, 9, 20). The son's life should not be as his own had been, one of hardships and wars, dark crimes and passionate repent- ance, but, from first to last, be pure, blameless, peaceful, fiilliliiiig the ideal of glory and of righteousness, after which he himself had vainly striven. The glorious visions of Psa. Ixxii may be looked on as the |)rophetic expansion of those hopes of his old age. So far, all was well. But we in.-iy not ignore the fact that the later years of David's life [ireseiited a change for the worse
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as well as for the better. His sins, though forgiven, left behind it the Nemesis of an enfeebled will and a less generous activity. The liturgical element of relig- ion becomes, after the first passionate outpouring of Psa. li, unduly predominant. He lives to amass treas- ures and materials for the Temple which he may not build (xxii, 5, 14). He plans with his own hands all the details of its architecture (xxviii, 19). He organ- izes on a scale of elaborate magnificence all the attend- ance of the priesthood and the choral services of the Levites (xxiv, xxv). But, meanwhile, his duties as a king are neglected. He no longer sits in the gate to do judgment ('2 Sam. xv, 2, 4). He leaves the sin of Amnon unpunished " because he loved him, for he was his first-born" (Sept. at 2 Sam. xiii, 21). The hearts of the people fall away from him. First Absalom and then Sheba become formidable rivals ( 2 Sam. xv, 6 ; XX, 2). Tlie history of the numbering of the people (xxiv; 1 Chron. xxi) implies the purpose of some act of despotism — a poll-tax or a conscription (2 Sam. xxiv, 9 makes the latter the more probable) — such as startled all his older and more experienced counsellors. If in " the last words of David" belonging to this period there is the old devotion, the old hungering after righteous- ness (xxiii, 2-5), there is also — first generally (ver. 6, 7), and afterwards resting on individual offenders (1 Kings ii, 5-8) — a more passionate desire to punish those who had wronged him, a painful recurrence of vindic- tive thoughts for offences which he had once freely for- given, and which were not greater than his own. We cannot rest in the belief that his influence over his son's character was one exclusively for good.
(2.) In Eastern countries, and under a system of polyg- amy, the son is more dependent, even than elsewhere, on the character of the mother. The history of the Jewish monarchy furnishes many instances of that de- pendence. It recognises it in the care with wliich it records the name of each monarch's mother. Nothing that we know of Bathsheba leads us to think of her as likely to mould her son's mind and heart to the higher forms of goodness. She offers no resistance to the king's passion (Ewald, Gesch. Isi: iii, 211). She makes it a stepping-stone to power. She is a ready accomplice in the scheme by which her shame was to have been con- cealed. Doubtless she, too, was sorrowful and penitent when the rebuke of Nathan was followed by her child's death (2 Sam. xii, 24), but the after-history shows that the grand-daughter of Ahithophel had inherited not a little of his character. A willing adultress, who had be- come devout, but had not ceased to be ambitious, could hardly be more, at the best, than the IMadame de Main- tenon of a king whose contrition and piety were render- ing him, unlike his former self, unduly passive in the hands of others. See Bathsheba.