look this injurious and contumelious treatment; but would make war with the Ammonites, and would avenge this wicked treatment of his ambassadors on their king, So that king's intimate friends and commanders understanding that they had violated their league, and were liable to be punished for the same, made preparations for war; they also sent a thousand talents to the Syrian king of Mesopotamia, and endeavoured to prevail with him and Shobach,* to assist them for that pay.Now these kings had twenty thousand footmen. They also hired the king of the country called Maacah; and a fourth king, by name Ishtob, which last had twelve thousand armed

men.

David was under no consternation at this confederacy; nor at the forces of the Ammonites. But putting his trust in God, because he was going to war in a just cause, on account of the injurious treatment he had met with, he immediately sent Joab,† the captain of his host, against them, with the flower of his army. Joab pitched his camp by Rabbath, the metropolis of the Ammonites; whereupon the enemy came out, and set themselves in array; not all of them together, but in two bodies.For the auxiliaries were set in array in the plain by themselves; but the army of the Ammonites at the gates, over against the Hebrews. When Joab saw this, he opposed one stratagem against another, and chose out the most hardy part of his men, and set them in opposition to the king of Syria, and the kings that were with him; and gave the other part to his brother Abishai, and bade him set them in opposition to the Ammonites; and said to him, in case he should see that the Syrians distressed him, and were too hard for him, he should order his troops to turn about, and assist him: and he said, that he himself would do the same to him, if he saw him in the like distress from the Ammonites. So he sent his brother before, and encouraged him to do every thing courageously and with alacrity, which would teach them to be afraid of disgrace, and to fight manfully. And so he dismissed him to fight with the Ammonites,

*

Josephus took this Shobach, and Ishtob, mentioned presently, to be the names of princes or captains; and not of countries, as they stand in the present Hebrew and Septuagint copies. Which is in the right I cannot determine.

1 2 Sam. x. 7.

while he fell upon the Syrians. And though they made a strong opposition for a while, Joab slew many of them, and compelled the rest to betake themselves to flight; which when the Ammonites saw, and where withal afraid of Abishai, and his army, they staid no longer; but imitated their auxiliaries, and fled to the city. So Joab, when he had thus overcome the enemy, returned with great glory to Jerusalem, to the king.

This defeat did not still induce the Ammonites to be quiet, nor to own those that were superior to them to be so. But they sent to Chalaman, the king of the Syrians, beyond Euphrates, and hired him for an auxiliary. He had Shobach for the captain of his host, with eighty thousand footmen, and ten thousand horsemen. Now when the king of the Hebrews understood that the Ammonites had again gathered so great an army together, he determined to make war with them no longer by his generals, but passed over the river Jordan himself, with all his army; and when he met them he joined battle with them, and slew forty thousand of their footmen, and seven thousand of their horsemen. He also wounded Shobach, the general of Chalaman's forces, who died of that stroke. But the people of Mesopotamia, upon such a conclusion of the battle, delivered themselves up to David, and sent him presents. Who at winter-time returned to Jerusalem; but at the beginning of the springt he sent Joab, the captain of his host, to fight against the Ammonites; who over-ran all their country, and laid it waste, and shut them up in their metropolis, Rabbah, and besieged them therein.

CHAP. VII.

OF DAVID'S ADULTERY WITH BATHSHEBA, AND HIS MURDER of HER HUSBAND URIAH, FOR WHICH HE WAS REPROVED BY NATHAN.

BUT David fell now into a very grievous sin, though he were otherwise naturally a righteous and a religious man, and one

About an. 1077,

+ An. 1076.

that firmly observed the laws of our fathers. For when late in an evening he took a view round him from the roof of his royal palace, where he used to walk at that hour; he saw a woman washing herself in her own house.† She was one of extraordinary beauty, and therein surpassed all other women. Her name was Bathsheba. So he was overcome by that woman's beauty, and was not able to restrain his desires, but sent for her, and lay with her. Hereupon she conceived, and sent to the king, that he should contrive some way for concealing her sin: for according to the laws of their fathers, she who had been guilty of adultery ought to be put to death. So the king sent for Joab's armour-bearer, from the siege; who was the woman's husband, and his name was Uriah.§ And when he was come, the king inquired of him about the army, and about the

The manner of building, in all eastern countries, was to have their houses flat-roofed with a terrace, and parapet wall, for the convenience of walking in the cool air; and as David's palace was built on one of the highest places of Mount Sion, he might easily look down upon the lower parts of the town, and take a view of all the gardens that were within due distance; Le Clerc's Commentary. B + Thus Jupiter is said to have seen Proserpina washing herself, and exposing her whole body to his view, which inflamed his lust after her:

Δεομένης ὅλον εἶδος ἐδέρκετο Περσεφονείης.

But whether it was in her garden, or court-yard, over looked by the palace, or in some apartment in her house, whose windows opened that way, that this woman bathed herself, it is not so certain. Tradition points out the place of a fountain still called after her name, which would make it probable that she bathed in a garden, did not Josephus expressly declare that it was in her own house, as indeed the natural modesty and decency of her sex, as well as the circumstance of the time, (for then it was evening,) make his account more probable; nor can it be doubted, but that the declining rays of the sun, shooting into the inmost recesses of her chamber, and throwing a great lustre around her, might discover her very clearly to very distant eyes, without the least suspicion on her part, of any possi bility of being seen, and consequently with all the reserve of modesty proper to her sex; The History of the Life of King David, vol. iii. B.

2 Sam. xi. 2-5.

Levit. xx. 10.

§ Uriah, though a Hittite by nation, was proselyted to the Jewish religion, and so marrying with a Jewish woman, lived in Jerusalem; or as he was one of the king's life guard, which for reasons above mentioned, seem to have been all na. tives, and of the tribe of Judah, this additional name might perhaps be given him, for some gallant action achieved against the Hittites, in the same manner as a Roman, in after ages, came to be called Africanus, Germanicus, Parthicus, &c upon account of the victories obtained over the Africans, Germans, or Parthians; Calmet's Commentary. B.