2 Samuel 5:5 In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah… It was highly desirable that the capital should be accessible to the whole country, and should possess the necessary features that rendered it fit to become the heart and brain of the national life. It must be capable of being strongly fortified, so as to preserve the sacred treasures of the kingdom inviolate. All these features blended in Jerusalem, and commended it to David's Divinely-guided judgment. In this he greatly differed from Saul, who had made his own city, Gibeah, his capital — an altogether insignificant place, and the scene of an atrocious crime, the infamy of which could not be obliterated. To have made Hebron the capital would have excited the jealousy of the rest of Israel; and Bethlehem, his birthplace, would have struck too low a keynote, None were to be compared with the site of Jerusalem, on the frontier between Judah and Benjamin, surrounded on three sides by valleys, and on the other side, the north, strongly fortified. I. ITS PREVIOUS HISTORY. To the Jew there was no city like Jerusalem. It was the city of his God, situate in His holy mountain: "Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth." The high hills of Bashan were represented as jealous of the lowlier hill of Zion, because God had chosen it for His abode. The mountains that stood around her seemed to symbolize the environing presence of Jehovah. The exile in his banishment opened his windows towards Jerusalem as he knelt in prayer, and wished that his right hand might forget its cunning sooner than his heart fail to prefer Jerusalem above its chief joy. The charm of the yearly pilgrimage to the sacred feasts was that the feet of the pilgrim should stand within her gates; and when at a distance from her walls and palaces, pious hearts were wont to pray that peace and prosperity might be within them for the sake of those brethren and companions who were favoured to live within her precincts. But it had not always been so. Her birth and nativity were of the land of the Canaanite. An Amorite was her father, and her mother a Hittite. In the day that she was born she was cast out as a deserted child on the open field, weltering in her blood. For a brief spell the priest-king Melchizedek reigned over her, and during his life her future glory must have been presaged; the thin spiral columns of smoke that arose from his altars, anticipating the stately worship of the Temple; his priesthood foreshadowing a long succession of priests. Thereafter a long spell of darkness befell her; and for years after the rest of the country was in occupation of Israel, Jerusalem was still held by the Jebusites. Joshua, indeed, nominally subdued the city in his first occupation of the land, and slew its king; but his tenure of it was very brief and slight, and the city speedily relapsed under the sway of its ancient occupants. II. THE CAPTURE. Making a levy of all Israel, David went up to Jerusalem. For the first time after seven years, he took the lead of his army in person. Passive, when he was called to wait for the gift of God, he was intensely active and energetic when he discerned the Divine summons. David's first act was to extend the fortifications; "He built round about from Millo and inward;" whilst Joab seems to have repaired and beautified the buildings in the city itself. This first success laid the foundation of David's greatness. "He waxed greater and greater; for the Lord, the God of Hosts, was with him." Indeed, neighbouring nations appear to have become impressed with the growing strength of his kindom, and hastened to seek his alliance. (1 Chronicles 11:7-9; 2 Samuel 5:11). III. A FAIR DAWN. It has been suggested that we owe Psalm 101 to this hour in David's life. He finds himself suddenly called to conduct the internal administration of a great nation, that had, so to speak, been born in a day, and was beginning to throb with the intensity of a long-suspended animation. The new needs were demanding new expression. Departments of law and justice, of finance, and of military organization, were rapidly being called into existence, and becoming localized at the capital. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah. |
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