her, weeping and lamenting, until he was compelled to desist by those who bore her from him. But this was the fruit of his own wrong, which a man always reaps in the long-run. He had coveted another man's wife, and had wrongfully possessed himself of her, knowing well that she belonged to another; and Phaltiel was not the first man, nor the last, who has lamented to be deprived of that which did not belong to him. Michal was David's wife-she was his purchased possession. Scarcely a month passes in which our own law does not in the like case take the woman from the second husband, and assign her to the first-declare her living with the second to have been a state of adultery-and even subject her to punishment for having married a second husband while the first lived. In the present case, there is every reason to suppose that Michal had been reluctantly coerced into this marriage; and although Phaltiel lamented her departure, there is no indication that she felt any sorrow in going. It is more probable that she rejoiced to be called to the side of her true husband, saying: 'I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now.' Hos. ii. 7.

Thirty-sixth Week-Fourth Day.

BLOOD REVENGE.-2 SAMUEL III. 17-39.

It may be easily conceived that the passage through the country of so great a man as Abner, on such a business as that of conducting Saul's daughter to the king of Judah, attracted very general attention, and necessarily excited much speculation. Abner, on his part, regarded it as affording him a suitable opportunity of opening his views to the tribe of Benjamin, in which the strength of Saul's family lay, aware that few would be found to stand up for the cause which was abandoned by those most nearly interested in its support. To the elders of that tribe, and of such other tribes as came in his way, he plainly said that the Lord had chosen David to be king, and

that David was the man whom the exigencies of the time demanded. There appears to have been some movement of the neighbouring enemies of Israel at this time, which might impart a freshness and a present interest to his tardy admission, that it was through David the Lord had promised to deliver Israel from their adversaries. He confesses his knowledge that they had wished to have David for their king; he chiefly had interposed to prevent it, but he now graciously consents that they should have the king they desired. Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you-now, then, do it.'

Abner had no reason to complain of his reception by David, who entertained him and his guard of twenty men in a most princely style. The result of the conference was highly satisfactory to Abner, who took his departure with the promise of gathering deputies from Israel, who should publicly acknowledge David for their king. This was certainly no more than he was able to perform. He had only to permit what he had hitherto striven to prevent, but what, he knew well, it would not be in his power much longer to hinder.

Joab had at this time been absent on a military expedition; and as neither David nor Abner would desire his presence, it is likely that this visit of Abner had been timed accordingly. But Joab returned immediately after Abner had left. He was greatly moved when he heard of this visit. He feared for himself. He bore testimony to the influence which his abilities, age, and long experience had secured for Abner, by the dread he entertained of him. There can indeed be little doubt that Abner would have become the second man in David's enlarged kingdom, and commander of the armies of Israel. There is no reason to question that Joab really felt the apprehensions he expressed that Abner was, after all, deceiving David, and only sought an opportunity of effecting his ruin. He hurried to the king, and with the roughness and freedom which their near relationship and their old companionship in trouble seemed in his eyes to warrant, he sharply rated him for his easiness, and affirmed that Abner could have no other object than to betray him. That such was his real belief, goes some

what to relieve his next step of some portion of the blackness which belongs to it, when regarded merely as the effect of individual jealousy and apprehension. He sent to call Abner back, under the pretence that some important communication had been forgotten. Abner accordingly returned, and was met without the gate by Joab, who saluted him in a friendly manner, and taking him aside as if to speak privately with him, smote him suddenly with his sword under the fifth rib, so that he died.

This, he chose to allege,-and his brother Abishai upheld him in that view,-was done in his right of blood revenge for his brother Asahel, whom Abner had slain. The question is not whether this was the true reason, but whether the excuse was so sound and valid as to justify him in the eye of the law, so as to protect him from the legal consequences of this assassination; in short, whether public opinion would or would not bear him out in this excuse.

The law was, that when a man slew another by what we should call manslaughter or justifiable homicide, the nearest relative had a right to exact vengeance-to put him to death wherever he could find him. This was an old custom of the pastoral tribes, too deeply rooted to be abolished by the Mosaic law, but the manifest evils of which that law sought to neutralize, by providing certain cities throughout the country, within whose walls the manslayer was safe from the sword of the avenger, who was dealt with as a murderer if he slew him there, but was not called to account if he met with him and slew him anywhere beyond the verge of the asylum. The real question therefore is, whether Abner was responsible to Joab for the blood of Asahel, shed in self-defence, under the circumstances lately described, and sorely against the wish of Abner himself. It is urged, that it was most unreasonable that Abner should be held accountable for this. The unreasonableness may be granted. The question is not, what was reasonable, but what was the custom. The custom was, in its very essence, unreasonable; and the law had striven, as much as possible, to mitigate what it could not do away with altogether. The act

of Abner was justifiable homicide; but it was precisely to such cases that the rule applied, not to those of murder, against the penalties of which no sanctuary afforded protection. Besides, unless the right of avengement for blood did apply to such cases as this, whence the deep anxiety of Abner to avoid slaying Asahel? Those expressions used by him on that occasion have no meaning, unless they show his knowledge of the fact, that the death of his pursuer would establish a blood-feud between him and Joab. In further confirmation of this view of the case, it may be noted that the other brother, Abishai, who had no direct hand in this bloody and barbarous deed, yet adopted and maintained it on the same grounds, as an act of avengement for a brother's blood. It may be admitted that a case of this nature may have involved some doubt as to the application of the rule to it, and very likely it was not, in such cases, often enforced. But where any room for doubt existed, Joab and Abishai might interpret it in their own favour, as their justification for an act, the true motives of which durst not be alleged, and as a ground on which they might claim exemption from the punishment due to murder. That the case stood on this doubtful ground, which did not render it an imperative duty of the next of kin to exact retribution, when in his power to do so-which did not, as among the Arab tribes at this day, leave him disgraced if he neglected to avenge a brother's blood, seems probable from the fact, that Abner went so readily aside with Joab, which he would hardly have done, had he not supposed that his offence was one which might be, and had been, forgiven. It was in the assurance that public opinion, however shocked, would, upon the whole, sanction the deed when placed on this ground, that this reason was produced; and as it was highly important, even for the king, that it should appear as an act of private revenge, rather than of political jealousy (in which he might have seemed to be implicated), there was abundant reason why David should not, by subjecting Joab to punishment for murder, give to the act a different complexion. It is usually said that Joab was too powerful to be brought to justice. We do not know that his

power had already become so great as this implies; and we cannot but think that David would have found means of subjecting him to disgrace or punishment, but for the considerations we have stated that public opinion would allow the deed to stand on the ground upon which the brothers placed it; and that, in the existing state of affairs, it was as well that it should rest upon that footing, the reason alleged being well calculated to relieve the king from any suspicion of having connived at this mode of ridding himself of a powerful and dangerous rival.

In corroboration of this view-which is the one advanced by the sacred historian, and which, on that ground alone, we ought to prefer—we may look back to Gideon's slaying the captive kings, Zebah and Zalmunna, on the express ground that they had slain his brothers at Tabor, in the course of the recent engagement. He said, "They were my brethren, the sons of my mother. As the Lord liveth, if ye had saved them alive, I would not slay you.' And as it had thus become a case of blood-revenge, he slew them with his own hand, after his eldest son, Jether, had shrunk from the task. If more confirmation be needed, we may refer to the existing practice of the Arab tribes, in the frequent engagements between whom, blood-revenge is exacted for every life taken, if the person who inflicted the mortal stroke is known. It is this which renders the combats between the tribes so protracted and so comparatively bloodless, as every one dreads to subject himself to the pursuing sword of the avenger. These considerations do not, of course, operate in engagements with foreigners; and in Israel, contests between the tribes had hitherto been too infrequent to bring the results of the common law of blood-revenge into the usages of general warfare. When the tribes became permanently divided into two realms, after Solomon, the right of private blood-revenge could not exist as between the subjects of the two kingdoms, though it doubtless still subsisted between the tribes of which these kingdoms were severally composed.

David, who did not share Joab's suspicions of Abner's