The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 36

that wisdom and justice, not malice or execute the sentence of the law now, but passion, should be Solomon's guide], and for the safety of his people, for the security knowest what thou oughtest to [lit., shalt of his throne, it must be done, and there- or shou/d,,.•t] do to him; but [Heh. a.nd] his fore Solomon, who was under no obligation boar head [mentioned, not maliciously, but to spare the criminals his father had spa.red, with the idea that punishment, which had must be required to do it. Of tho Jewish been long delayed, must overtake him king it might be said with a special pro- nevertheless. The age of Joab and Shimei priety, "Re.2: est lex loquens," and seldom would ma.ke the Divine Nemesis the more ha.s the voice of law spoken with greater conspict1011s. Men would "see that there dignity aud fidelity the.n by David in this was a God that judgeth in the ea.rth "] dying charge. To sa.y, as He.rwood does, bring tho~ down to the grave with blood. (Lange, American Tra.ns., p. 32) the.t "no- The Auth. Yersion here needlessly alters thing but sophistry ca.n justify his [David's] the order of the original, which should be che.rge to Solomon, not to let the unfortu- followed wherever it can be (and it generally nate man [Shimei] die in peace," merely ran) without sacrifice of idiom and elegance. shows how imperfectly the writer has en- In this case the alteration, by the slight tered into the spirit of the theocre.tic le,w, prominence it gives to " hoar head" and to tha.t la.w under which David lived, and by "blood," gives a factitious harshness to the which alone he could be governed and sentence. The Hebrew stands thus : " And govern others. thou shalt bring down his hoar head with Ver. 10.-So [Heb. and] David slept blood to Sheol." This order of the words [Heh. lay down]. The idea. of .::I~~ is not also exhibits somewhat more clearly the the,t of sleep so much as of the recumbent sequence of thought, which is this: "Thou posture of the dead. It points to the grave art wise, therefore thou knowest what by rather than to Sheol (Gesen.), though the law thou shouldest do. What thou she.It latter idea. is not excluded. Wordsworth do is, thou sha.lt bring down," &c. It is (after a La.pide) finds here "an e,ssertion clear from these words that if David was of the doctrine of the existence of the soul actuated by malice, by a " passionate desire after death, and of the resurrection of the to punish those who had wronged him" body," but it is not in the text] with hill (Plumptre, Diet. Bib., a.rt." Solomon"), or by fathers (cf. the Latin expression abiit ad "fierce and profound vindictiveness" (Stan- plures, and the Greek I!; 1rXeovwv i,cea0a,], ley," Jewish Uhnrch,"voL ii p.135), he was and was buried in the city of David [i.e. profoundly unconscious of it. If it was "a. the hill of Zion, which he had fortified, dark legacy of hate" (ibid.) he was be- His citadel bece.me his sepulchre, and queathing to Solomon, then he stands before thenceforward bore his name. Intramural us in these last hours either as an unctuous interment was permitted only to prophets hypocrite, or as infatuated and inconsistent and kings. J eruse.lem is completely under. to the last degree. That the man who, in mined by caves and cuverns, and Zion is his opening words (ver. 3), enjoined upon no exception to the rule. One of these, his son, in the most ·emphatic manner, a possibly enlarged, probably became the strict and literal obedience to the law of burying-ple,ce of the kings. It was known, Heaven, shonld in these subsequent words, not only in Nehemiah's day (Nehem. iii. delivered almost in the same breath, re- 15, 16), but down to the age ?f the apost~es quire him to satiate a long-cherished and (Acts ii. 29). Probably owmg to a rms- cruel revenge upon Joa.b and Shimei (the underRtanding of St. Peter's words, " his latter of whom he had twice delivered from sepulchre is with us," &c., the Coenaculum death), is an instance of self-contra.diction is now shown as David's tomb. Josephus which is almost, if not quite, without suys Solomon placed a vast quantity of parallel. But as I have showed elsewhere, treasure with the body, three thousand at some length, it is a superficial and entirely talents of which were taken out by Hyrcanus erroneous view of David's last words, which (Aut. xiii. 8. 4). He he,s also a. curious supposes them to have been inspired by story of an attempted plunder of the tomb malice or cruelty. His absorbing idea was by Herod (Ant. xvi. 7. 1) clearly this, that he ha.d not " kept the Ver. 11,.,.....And the days that David reigned che.rge of the Lord;" that he, the chief over Israel were forty years : seven years magistrate, the" revenger to execute wrath,'' reigned he 1n Hebron, and thirty o.nd three by spuring Joab and Shimei, the murderer years reigned he 1n Jerusalem [as elsewhere and the blasphemer, both of whose lives (1 Chron. xxix. 27), the historian has dis- were forfeited to justice, had failed in his regarded the fraction of a year in giving duty, had weakened the sanctions of law, the length of David's reign. He reigned and compromised the honour of the Most at Hebron, according to 2 Bo.m. v. 6, "seven High. He is too old and too weak to years and six mo1ith1," CH, II, 1-11.] THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. 29