Chapter 4.
THAT WHEN DAVID HAD CONQUERED THE PHILISTINES WHO MADE WAR
AGAINST HIM AT JERUSALEM, HE REMOVED THE ARK TO JERUSALEM AND HAD A MIND
TO BUILD A TEMPLE.FJAJ 7.17
1. WHEN the Philistines understood that David was made king of the Hebrews,
they made war against him at Jerusalem; and when they had seized upon that
valley which is called The Valley of the Giants, and is a place
not far from the city, they pitched their camp therein; but the king of
the Jews, who never permitted himself to do any thing without prophecy,
(6) It
deserves here to be remarked, that Saul very rarely, and David very frequently,
consulted God by Urim; and that David aimed always to depend, not on his
own prudence or abilities but on the Divine direction, contrary to Saul's
practice. See sect. 2, and the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8. sect. 9; and
when Saul's daughter, (but David's wife,) Michal, laughed at David's dancing
before the ark, 2 Samuel 6:16, &c., and here, sect. l, 2, 3, it is
probable she did so, because her father Saul did not use to pay such a
regard to the ark, to the Urim there inquired by, or to God's worship before
it, and because she thought it beneath the dignity of a king to be so religious. and the
command of God and without depending on him as a security for the time
to come, bade the high priest to foretell to him what was the will of God,
and what would be the event of this battle
And when he foretold that he
should gain the victory and the dominion, he led out his army against the
Philistines; and when the battle was joined, he came himself behind, and
fell upon the enemy on the sudden, and slew some of them, and put the rest
to flight
And let no one suppose that it was a small army of the Philistines
that came against the Hebrews, as guessing so from the suddenness of their
defeat, and from their having performed no great action, or that was worth
recording, from the slowness of their march, and want of courage; but let
him know that all Syria and Phoenicia, with many other nations besides
them, and those warlike nations also, came to their assistance, and had
a share in this war, which thing was the only cause why, when they had
been so often conquered, and had lost so many ten thousands of their men,
they still came upon the Hebrews with greater armies; nay, indeed, when
they had so often failed of their purpose in these battles, they came upon
David with an army three times as numerous as before, and pitched their
camp on the same spot of ground as before
The king of Israel therefore
inquired of God again concerning the event of the battle; and the high
priest prophesied to him, that he should keep his army in the groves, called
the Groves of Weeping, which were not far from the enemy's camp,
and that he should not move, nor begin to fight, till the trees of the
grove should be in motion without the wind's blowing; but as soon as these
trees moved, and the time foretold to him by God was come, he should, without
delay, go out to gain what was an already prepared and evident victory;
for the several ranks of the enemy's army did not sustain him, but retreated
at the first onset, whom he closely followed, and slew them as he went
along, and pursued them to the city Gaza (which is the limit of their country):
after this he spoiled their camp, in which he found great riches; and he
destroyed their gods.FJAJ 7.18
2. When this had proved the event of the battle, David thought it proper,
upon a consultation with the elders, and rulers, and captains of thousands,
to send for those that were in the flower of their age out of all his countrymen,
and out of the whole land, and withal for the priests and the Levites,
in order to their going to Kirjathjearim, to bring up the ark of God out
of that city, and to carry it to Jerusalem, and there to keep it, and offer
before it those sacrifices and those other honors with which God used to
be well-pleased; for had they done thus in the reign of Saul, they had
not undergone any great misfortunes at all
So when the whole body of the
people were come together, as they had resolved to do, the king came to
the ark, which the priest brought out of the house of Aminadab, and laid
it upon a new cart, and permitted their brethren and their children to
draw it, together with the oxen
Before it went the king, and the whole
multitude of the people with him, singing hymns to God, and making use
of all sorts of songs usual among them, with variety of the sounds of musical
instruments, and with dancing and singing of psalms, as also with the sounds
of trumpets and of cymbals, and so brought the ark to Jerusalem
But as
they were come to the threshing-floor of Chidon, a place so called, Uzzah
was slain by the anger of God; for as the oxen shook the ark, he stretched
out his hand, and would needs take hold of it
Now, because he was not
a priest (7) Josephus
seems to be partly in the right, when he observes here that Uzzah was no
priest, (though perhaps he might be a Levite,) and was therefore struck
dead for touching the ark, contrary to the law, and for which profane rashness
death was the penalty by that law, Numbers 4:15, 20. See the like before,
Antiq. B. VI. ch. 1. sect. 4. It is not improbable that the putting this
ark in a cart, when it ought to have been carried by the priests or Levites,
as it was presently here in Josephus so carried from Obededom's house to
David's, might be also an occasion of the anger of God on that breach of
his law. See Numbers 4:15; 1 Chronicles 15:13.
and yet touched the ark, God struck him dead
Hereupon both the king and
the people were displeased at the death of Uzzah; and the place where he
died is still called the Breach of Uzzah unto this day
So David
was afraid; and supposing that if he received the ark to himself into the
city, he might suffer in the like manner as Uzzah had suffered, who, upon
his bare putting out his hand to the ark, died in the manner already mentioned,
he did not receive it to himself into the city, but he took it aside unto
a certain place belonging to a righteous man, whose name was Obededom,
who was by his family a Levite, and deposited the ark with him; and it
remained there three entire months
This augmented the house of Obededom,
and conferred many blessings upon it
And when the king heard what had
befallen Obededom, how he was become, of a poor man in a low estate, exceeding
happy, and the object of envy to all those that saw or inquired after his
house, he took courage, and, hoping that he should meet with no misfortune
thereby, he transferred the ark to his own house; the priests carrying
it, while seven companies of singers, who were set in that order by the
king, went before it, and while he himself played upon the harp, and joined
in the music, insomuch, that when his wife Michel, the daughter of Saul,
who was our first king, saw him so doing, she laughed at him
But when
they had brought in the ark, they placed it under the tabernacle which
David had pitched for it, and he offered costly sacrifices and peace-offerings,
and treated the whole multitude, and dealt both to the women, and the men,
and the infants a loaf of bread and a cake, and another cake baked in a
pan, with the portion of the sacrifice
So when he had thus feasted the
people, he sent them away, and he himself returned to his own house.FJAJ 7.19
3. But when Michal his wife, the daughter of Saul, came and stood by
him, she wished him all other happiness, and entreated that whatsoever
he should further desire, to the utmost possibility, might be given him
by God, and that he might be favorable to him; yet did she blame him, that
so great a king as he was should dance after an unseemly manner, and in
his dancing, uncover himself among the servants and the handmaidens
But
he replied, that he was not ashamed to do what was acceptable to God, who
had preferred him before her father, and before all others; that he would
play frequently, and dance, without any regard to what the handmaidens
and she herself thought of it
So this Michal, who was David's wife, had
no children; however, when she was afterward married to him to whom Saul
her father had given her, (for at this time David had taken her away from
him, and had her himself,) she bare five children
But concerning those
matters I shall discourse in a proper place.FJAJ 7.20
4. Now when the king saw that his affairs grew better almost every day,
by the will of God, he thought he should offend him, if, while he himself
continued in houses made of cedar, such as were of a great height, and
had the most curious works of architecture in them, he should overlook
the ark while it was laid in a tabernacle, and was desirous to build a
temple to God, as Moses had predicted such a temple should be built.FJAJ 7.21
(8) Josephus
here informs us, that, according to his understanding of the sense of his
copy of the Pentateuch, Moses had himself foretold the building of the
temple, which yet is no where, that I know of, in our present copies. And
that this is not a mistake set down by him unwarily, appears by what he
observed before, on Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 46, how Moses foretold that,
upon the Jews' future disobedience, their temple should be burnt and rebuilt,
and that not once only, but several times afterward. See also Josephus's
mention of God's former commands to build such a temple presently, ch.
14. sect. 2, contrary to our other copies, or at least to our translation
of the Hebrew, 2 Samuel 7:6, 7; 1 Chronicles 17:5, 6.
And when he had discoursed with Nathan the prophet about these things,
and had been encouraged by him to do whatsoever he had a mind to do, as
having God with him, and his helper in all things, he was thereupon the
more ready to set about that building
But God appeared to Nathan that
very night, and commanded him to say to David, (9) Josephus
seems, in this place, with our modern interpreters to confound the two
distinct predictions which God made to David and to Nathan, concerning
the building him a temple by one of David's posterity; the one belongeth
to Solomon, the other to the Messiah; the distinction between which is
of the greatest consequence to the Christian religion.
that he took his purpose and his desires kindly, since nobody had before
now taken it into their head to build him a temple, although upon his having
such a notion he would not permit him to build him that temple, because
he had made many wars, and was defiled with the slaughter of his enemies;
that, however, after his death, in his old age, and when he had lived a
long life, there should be a temple built by a son of his, who should take
the kingdom after him, and should be called Solomon, whom he promised to
provide for, as a father provides for his son, by preserving the kingdom
for his son's posterity, and delivering it to them; but that he would still
punish him, if he sinned, with diseases and barrenness of land
When David
understood this from the prophet, and was overjoyful at this knowledge
of the sure continuance of the dominion to his posterity, and that his
house should be splendid, and very famous, he came to the ark, and fell
down on his face, and began to adore God, and to return thanks to him for
all his benefits, as well for those that he had already bestowed upon him
in raising him from a low state, and from the employment of a shepherd,
to so great dignity of dominion and glory; as for those also which he had
promised to his posterity; and besides, for that providence which he had
exercised over the Hebrews in procuring them the liberty they enjoyed.
And when he had said thus, and had sung a hymn of praise to God, he went
his way.FJAJ 7.22