David

David (beloved) (I Цар. 1Цар XVI, 13) — was the youngest son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, great-grandson of the devout Boaz and Ruth. He was born, according to the majority of historians, in 1085 b.c. in the city of Bethlehem. the Lord rejected Saul for his disobedience and resistance to the word of God, and in his place chose as king over Israel one of the sons of Jesse, commanding Samuel to go to Bethlehem to anoint the chosen one for the royal throne of Israel. The seven eldest sons of Jesse, presented to Samuel, were not God's chosen. The chosen one proved to be the youngest son — this was David, who was anointed by Samuel for the kingship in the midst of his brothers. He was then only nineteen years of age, and was pasturing his father's flocks in the fields. He was of very handsome appearance, had fair hair, and like his nephew Asahel was distinguished by swiftness of foot and strength of muscle (Пс. Пс XVI, 33–35). His account to Saul of how he would kill a lion or a bear that sometimes attacked the sheep (I Цар. 1Цар XVI, 34–36), the shepherd's staff in his hand and the bag on his neck from which he never parted in the performance of his pastoral duties (v. 40), and especially the numerous references to the pastoral life that we find in the book of Psalms (Psalm 23:1–6; Psalm 78:70, 72) — all this speaks directly in favour of the fact that David spent most of his youthful life amid the majestic scenery of Palestine, in circumstances most conducive to devout reflection and reverent contemplation of the works of God, where he everywhere saw indelible marks of His wisdom, omnipotence, and goodness. David did not straightway ascend the throne, but first became armor-bearer to Saul (I Цар. 1Цар XVI, 21). He then withdrew to Bethlehem, but soon returned for the single combat with the Philistine giant Goliath, whom he killed (I Цар. 1Цар XVII), striking him in the forehead with a stone from a sling, and then cutting off his head with his own sword. This victory brought great renown to David. When he was returning with Saul from the field of single combat, the women who came out to meet them, with singing and dancing, with festive timbrels and cymbals, cried out: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands (I Цар. 1Цар XVIII, 7). It also gained him a high position at the court and in the army of Saul. In these favourable circumstances David entered into the closest and most sincere relations with Jonathan, Saul's son. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul, the sacred historian remarks (I Цар. 1Цар XVIII, 1). Shortly afterward Saul began to envy the fame of the young man of Bethlehem; he feared that David might take his own glory from him, and therefore sought an occasion to destroy him; and although David, after further victories over the Philistines, had become Saul's son-in-law by marrying his daughter Michal, this did not make him safe (I Цар. 1Цар XVIII, 10–29). After numerous military exploits and successes that manifested David's courage and wisdom, and after several cases of almost miraculous deliverance from the malice and hatred of the king who sought to destroy him — all described in detail by the sacred historian and celebrated by David himself in his Psalms — he finally received help from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, enough at least for the time being to provide him with protection and assistance in his exile and wandering (I Пар. 1Пар XII). This further inflamed Saul, who saw in it the beginning of open rebellion and therefore pursued David with greater force and hatred. Two or three times, during Saul's pursuit of David in the wilderness, Saul was entirely in David's power, but David spared his life as the Lord's anointed (I Цар. 1Цар XXIV, 1Цар XXVI). Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless? he said to Abishai on the last occasion (I Цар. 1Цар XXVI, 9), and forbade the killing of Saul. In the last disastrous war of Saul against the Philistines, Jonathan and his two brothers were killed in battle on Mount Gilboa (I Цар. 1Цар XXXI, II Цар. 2Цар I), and Saul himself, seeing his army defeated and wounded, fell upon his own sword and ended his life in suicide. David then, at God's direction, withdrew to Hebron, and the men of Judah came, says the sacred narrator, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah (II Цар. 2Цар II, 4). He reigned over the tribe of Judah for seven and a half years, but at the end of this period, when the prolonged dispute between the house of David and the house of Saul had ended, he was solemnly anointed king over all the tribes of Israel (II Цар. 2Цар V, 1–5) — to which, as we saw above, he had been destined by God through the prophet Samuel long before this solemn day. David was thirty years old when he became king, and his reign lasted over forty years in all (v. 4). At the beginning of his reign David took Jerusalem, captured the stronghold of Zion from the Jebusites who held it, and made the city his capital, which received the name City of David (II Цар. 2Цар V, 6–11). Under his wise and mild rule the city expanded rapidly and considerably. Magnificent buildings arose everywhere in it, strong fortifications were erected, and the Ark of the Covenant, which had hitherto had no fixed abode, was transferred with special religious celebration and rejoicing to the new city, to a new Tabernacle. From that time Jerusalem became the royal capital, the residence of the royal family, and — most importantly of all — the city of God, the city of the Great King (Psalm 49:2; Matthew 5:35). Hundreds of thousands of Israelites streamed to it from every part of the land for their annual festivals, and the city's population, wealth, and glory spread rapidly. David now conceived the desire to erect a magnificent temple for the worship of the Lord, in place of the Tabernacle, which had been constructed only as a temporary structure and was moved from place to place. But God revealed to him through the prophet Nathan that this temple would be built in the peaceful reign of his son Solomon (II Цар. 2Цар VII). After various campaigns, always victorious for David, against the peoples dwelling on the borders of the kingdom of Israel, war arose with the Ammonites (see Ammonites), during which David fell into one of his gravest sins — taking Bathsheba as his wife after the violent death of Uriah — which drew upon him the wrath of God and various calamities upon the royal household in the last years of his reign (II Цар. XII, 9). His domestic peace was disturbed by the incest of his son Amnon with his own half-sister Tamar (II Цар. XIII). This was followed by the revolt of Absalom, which forced the king to flee the capital and go into hiding to save his life from the hand of his rebellious son (II Цар. XIV, II Цар. XV). Although Absalom's death put an end to the civil war, it nonetheless left a deep and bleeding wound in the heart of the grieved father (II Цар. XVIII). The revolt of Sheba (II Цар. XX), the three-year famine (II Цар. XXI, 1–14), and the murder of Amasa by Joab followed one upon another in quick succession as the inevitable consequences of sin, though he had repented deeply of it, expressing his contrition in the fiftieth Psalm — to this day the most sincere and deeply moving monument to the feelings of true repentance. Finally there came the fearful divine punishment — the plague that visited David and his kingdom for the pride displayed in his numbering of the people of Israel, which was undoubtedly sinful in the eyes of God. David was now seventy years old. Almost on the eve of his death, his son Adonijah made a bold attempt to seize his father's throne unlawfully, but fortunately did not succeed in his criminal design. In order to safeguard his throne from all unlawful pretensions in the future, David transferred the reins of government and the crown to his son Solomon, gave him the plan and designs of the temple together with the treasures he had gathered for its construction; he then summoned a large assembly from all the ends of his kingdom and bound all of them, as well as his son Solomon, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and peacefully fell asleep and was buried in the City of David. After the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, the tombs of David were pointed out between the pool of Siloah and the house of the mighty (Неем. III, 16). His tomb, which became the burial place of subsequent kings of Judah, is mentioned in later times as well. His (David's) sepulchre is with us unto this day (Деян. II, 29), says the holy Apostle Peter on the day of the miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. Under Emperor Trajan the tomb was in ruins, and in the time of Jerome it served as an especially important destination for the pilgrimage of devout Christian believers. Below the Coenaculum on Zion a building is today pointed out which according to tradition was the tomb of David. The name David in the prophets is sometimes applied to the Messiah (Иез. XXXIV, 23, 24, Ос. III, 5). In those passages where Holy Scripture speaks of David as a man after God's own heart (I Цар. XIII, 14, Деян. XIII, 22), this obviously refers to his exalted character and devout activity in general. Always devoted to God and protected by God, David brought the kingdom entrusted to him to its most flourishing state, established its unity, extended its borders from Egypt to Lebanon and from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea, safeguarded its security against external enemies, elevated its internal order and governance, and so on. The Psalms (the Psalter — the book of praises, 150 psalms) written by David place him in the rank of the greatest sacred writers and prophets. It has been rightly observed that the Psalms, in the sublimity and moving quality of their expressions and the grandeur and purity of the religious feeling that animates them, are almost unparalleled. They are, so to speak, the embodiment of a universal language for expressing the various religious movements of the believing soul. These sacred songs, which once resounded in the wilderness of Engedi and animated the Hebrews amid the valleys and hills of Judea, were repeated afterwards for whole centuries and are repeated to this day in almost all parts of the world — on the most remote islands of Oceania and in the forests of America and in the deserts of Africa. With the deep devout feeling and warmth of heart hidden in them, how many human hearts have these sacred songs softened, purified, consoled, and lifted to heaven! How many people have they led to God through meditation on the divine wisdom, holiness, and love of God, so often preached and proclaimed in this — truly — book of praises! Furthermore, the Psalter may also be called a book of prophecies, in which many features and circumstances of the life of the Savior are clearly portrayed: His eternal pre-existence, His incarnation, His suffering and atoning death, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, His sitting at the right hand of God the Father, the spread of His teaching to the ends of the universe, His eternal kingdom, and more. In conclusion, the memory of David has never died among his posterity, and divine Revelation itself repeatedly points to him as the chosen anointed of God, from whose seed the Savior of the world, Christ the Lord, was to be and was born according to the flesh (III Цар. IX, 4, 5; 4Цар. XIV, 3; Ис. XXVII, 35; Иер. XXIII, 5; Иез. XXXIV, 23, 24; Ос. III, 5; Мф. I, 1; Лк. I, 27; Ин. V, 42; Деян. II, 25–29, and so on). The commemoration of David is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of December.

(1) (in one MS. written Dadub), one of the four luminaries in the Barbeliot system (Irenaeus, i. 29). It is apparently the same name as the Dapes of Epiphanius (Haer. 26, p. 90): just as in the same lists we may probably identify the Eleleth of Irenaeus with the Elilaeus of Epiphanius. : [G. S.J

(2) Bishop of the 5th century. About A.p. 440, he carried a letter from pope Leo the Great to the bishops of Mauritania, and is praised by the pope. (Patrol, Lat. liv. 653, Leon. Mag. Zpist. num, 12, § 666; Ceillier, x. 199.)

[W. M. 8.]