The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

It was the ambition, the intrigues, and the rebellion of a man whom Saul had himself raised from obscurity, which not only robbed the latter of the reward of his deeds and his house of the throne, but also deprived Israel of all the fruits of so many and such great efforts, and once more set the fate of the nation at stake.

David, the son of Jesse of Bethlehem, in the tribe of Judah, belonged “to the valiant men whom Saul had taken to himself”; he had distinguished himself in the struggle against the Philistines, and the king had made him his armour bearer and sent him out frequently against them; with fortune on his side David’s expeditions succeeded better than those of other captains. Thus he was beloved in the eyes of the people and of the king’s servants, and Jonathan, the brave son of Saul, “made a covenant with David, for he loved him as his own soul.” In Saul’s house David was trusted and honoured before the other warriors. Saul made him a captain of a thousand and gave him the command of the bodyguard. After Abner, David was the first of Saul’s followers and ate at his table. Saul even went farther; he gave David his second daughter Michal to wife, because she loved him, though David had himself refused to take her. “What am I,” said David, “and what is my life or my father’s family that I should be the king’s son-in-law? But I am a poor man and lightly esteemed.”

After this, Saul was seized with a suspicion of David, fearing lest this man whom he had raised so high and had made his son-in-law, and who was the bosom friend of his son, should conspire against him and his house in alliance with Samuel and other priests who had not abandoned their unfriendly attitude towards the newly established throne and the man who filled it.

It is related that Saul thrust at David with a spear, but that the latter avoided the blow and fled to his house. Then Saul commanded that the house should be surrounded, that David might be killed the next day. But Michal let David down in the night from a window, and laid the household god in the bed in his place, covered it up with a cloth, and placed the fly-net of goat’s hair over the face of the image. Meantime David fled to Samuel at Ramah and hid with him at Naioth until Saul learned his whereabouts. Then David escaped to Nob, where the priest Ahimelech inquired of Jehovah for him and gave him provisions and a sword, and thence he fled farther to the Philistine prince, Achish, king of Gath.

Saul blamed his daughter for having helped David out of his difficulties, and said to Jonathan: “As long as the son of Jesse liveth, thou shalt not be established nor thy kingdom.” Then he held a strict trial of the priests, under the tamarisk at Gibeah. When the priests of Nob were brought before him, Saul asked Ahimelech: “Why have ye conspired against me, thou and the son of Jesse, that he should rise against me? Thou shalt surely die. Slay the priests,” he cried to his bodyguard; “their hand is with David and because they knew when he fled and did not shew it to me.” But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord. And the king said to Doeg, “Turn thou and fall upon the priests.” And Doeg the Edomite turned and fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod.

“And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.

“And one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. And Abiathar shewed David that Saul had slain the Lord’s priests.”

DAVID IN REVOLT AGAINST SAUL

We do not know exactly how far Saul’s suspicion of David was justified: from the story which has been revised and worked up with a view to prejudicing us in David’s favour, we can only perceive that the son of Jesse actually was in close alliance with the priests, and David’s own actions after he had broken with Saul are evidence of far-reaching and carefully laid schemes, the means of whose execution were not too scrupulous. But whether Saul had perceived David’s ambitious intentions in good time, or had gone too far in his proceedings against him, in either case he had committed an error: David was by no means content with escaping from the king’s anger; if wrong had been done him he far outdid it by his own acts. The Philistines would neither have received in Gath a dangerous enemy like David, who had done them so much injury, nor have spared his life, if he had not agreed to support them for the future in their struggle against Saul. David also entered into relations with other enemies of his country.

His father and mother he took to the king of Moab, to secure them against Saul’s vengeance. He then threw himself into the desolate tracts of eastern Judea about the Dead Sea, and here he attempted to organise a rising; he probably counted on the adhesion of the tribe of Judah, to which he belonged, as he might reckon on their jealousy of the king from the little tribe of Benjamin, although the tribe of Judah should have been especially grateful to Saul, since it had been the one to suffer longest under the Philistine dominion. His father’s house really gathered round him, “and all the oppressed, and whosoever had a creditor and whosoever had a grievance.” They were for the most part people of the tribe of Judah, with some from Benjamin and others from Gad, beyond Jordan—four to six hundred men, who assembled round David in the cave of Adullam. This was no great result, and David found himself compelled to lead a robber existence with this band, and by so doing he ran the danger of rousing the inhabitants of the neighbourhood against him.