Part 56 (2/2)
[22] This section contains an admirable reflection of Josephus concerning the general wickedness of men in great authority, and the danger they are in of rejecting that regard to justice and humanity, to Divine Providence and the fear of G.o.d, which they either really had, or pretended to have, while they were in a lower condition. It can never be too often perused by kings and great men, nor by those who expect to obtain such elevated dignities among mankind. See the like reflections of our Josephus, Antiq. B. VII. ch. 1. sect. 5, at the end; and B. VIII.
ch. 10. sect. 2, at the beginning. They are to the like purport with one branch of Agur's prayer: ”One thing have I required of thee, deny it me not before I die: Give me not riches, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?” Proverbs 30:7-9.
[23] The phrase in David's speech to Saul, as set down in Josephus, that he had abstained from just revenge, puts me in mind of the like words in the Apostolical Const.i.tutions, B. VII. ch. 2., ”That revenge is not evil, but that patience is more honorable.”
[24] The number of men that came first to David, are distinctly in Josephus, and in our common copies, but four hundred. When he was at Keilah still but four hundred, both in Josephus and in the Lx.x.x.; but six hundred in our Hebrew copies, 1 Samuel 23:3; see 30:9, 10. Now the six hundred there mentioned are here estimated by Josephus to have been so many, only by an augmentation of two hundred afterward, which I suppose is the true solution of this seeming disagreement.
[25] In this and the two next sections, we may perceive how Josephus, nay, how Abigail herself, would understand, the ”not avenging ourselves, but heaping coals of fire on the head of the injurious,” Proverbs 25:22; Romans 12:20, not as we do now, of them into but of leaving them to the judgment of G.o.d, ”to whom vengeance belongeth,” Deuteronomy 32:35; Psalms 94:1; Hebrews 10:30, and who will take vengeance on the wicked.
And since all G.o.d's judgments are just, and all fit to be executed, and all at length for the good of the persons punished, I incline to think that to be the meaning of this phrase of ”heaping coals of fire on their heads.”
[26] We may note here, that how sacred soever an oath was esteemed among the people of G.o.d in old times, they did not think it obligatory where the action was plainly unlawful. For so we see it was in this case of David, who, although he had sworn to destroy Nabal and his family, yet does he here, and 1 Samuel 25:32-41, bless G.o.d for preventing his keeping his oath, and shedding of blood, which he had swore to do.
[27] This history of Saul's consultation, not with a witch, as we render the Hebrew word here, but with a necromancer, as the whole history shows, is easily understood, especially if we consult the Recognitions of Clement, B. I. ch. 5. at large, and more briefly, and nearer the days of Samuel Ecclus. 46:20, ”Samuel prophesied after his death, and showed the king his end, and lift up his voice from the earth in prophecy,” to blot out ”the wickedness of the people.” Nor does the exactness of the accomplishment of this prediction, the very next day, permit us to suppose any imposition upon Saul in the present history; for as to all modern hypotheses against the natural sense of such ancient and authentic histories, I take them to be of very small value or consideration.
[28] These great commendations of this necromantic woman of Endor, and of Saul's martial courage, when yet he knew he should die in the battle, are somewhat unusual digressions in Josephus. They seem to me extracted from some speeches or declamations of his composed formerly, in the way of oratory, that lay by him, and which he thought fit to insert upon this occasion. See before on Antiq. B. I. ch. 6 sect. 8.
[29] This way of speaking in Josephus, of fasting ”seven days without meat or drink,” is almost like that of St. Paul, Acts 27:33, ”This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried, and continued fasting, having taken nothing:” and as the nature of the thing, and the impossibility of strictly fasting so long, require us here to understand both Josephus and the sacred author of this history, 1 Samuel 30:13, from whom he took it, of only fasting fill the evening; so must we understand St. Paul, either that this was really the fourteenth day that they had taken nothing till the evening, or else that this was the fourteenth day of their tempestuous weather in the Adriatic Sea, as ver.
27, and that on this fourteenth day alone they had continued fasting, and had taken nothing before that evening. The mention of their long abstinence, ver. 21, inclines me to believe the former explication to be the truth, and that the case was then for a fortnight what it was here for a week, that they kept all those days entirely as lasts till the evening, but not longer. See Judges 20:26; 21:2; 1 Samuel 14:24; 2 Samuel 1:12; Antiq. B. VII. ch. 7. sect. 4.
BOOK 7 Footnotes
[1] It ought to be here noted, that Joab, Abishai, and Asahel were all three David's nephews, the sons of his sister Zeraiah, as 1 Chronicles 2:16; and that Amasa was also his nephew by his other sister Abigail, ver. 17.
[2] This may be a true observation of Josephus's, that Samuel by command from G.o.d entailed the crown on David and his posterity; for no further did that entail ever reach, Solomon himself having never had any promise made him that his posterity should always have the right to it.
[3] These words of Josephus concerning the tribe of Issachar, who foreknew what was to come hereafter,” are best paraphrased by the parallel text. 1 Chronicles 12:32, ”Who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do;” that is, who had so much knowledge in astronomy as to make calendars for the Israelites, that they might keep their festivals, and plough and sow, and gather in their harvests and vintage, in due season.
[4] What our other copies say of Mount Sion, as alone properly called the city of David, 2 Samuel 5:6-9, and of this its siege and conquest now by David, Josephus applies to the whole city Jerusalem, though including the citadel also; by what authority we do not now know perhaps, after David had united them together, or joined the citadel to the lower city, as sect. 2, Josephus esteemed them as one city. However, this notion seems to be confirmed by what the same Josephus says concerning David's and many other kings of Judah's sepulchers, which as the authors of the books of Kings and Chronicles say were in the city of David, so does Josephus still say they were in Jerusalem. The sepulcher of David seems to have been also a known place in the several days of Hyrca.n.u.s, of Herod, and of St. Peter, Antiq. B. XIII. ch. 8. sect. 4 B.
XVI. ch. 8. sect. 1; Acts 2:29. Now no such royal sepulchers have been found about Mount Sion, but are found close by the north wall of Jerusalem, which I suspect, therefore, to be these very sepulchers. See the note on ch. 15. sect. 3. In the meantime, Josephus's explication of the lame, and the blind, and the maimed, as set to keep this city or citadel, seems to be the truth, and gives the best light to that history in our Bible. Mr. Ottius truly observes, [up. Hayercamp, p. 305,] that Josephus never mentions Mount Sion by that name, as taking it for an appellative, as I suppose, and not for a proper name; he still either styles it The Citadel, or The Upper City; nor do I see any reason for Mr. Ottius's evil suspicions about this procedure of Josephus.
[5] Some copies of Josephus have here Solyma, or Salem; and others Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem. The latter best agree to what Josephus says elsewhere, [Of the War, B. VI. ch. 10.,] that this city was called Solyma, or Salem, before the days of Melchisedec, but was by him called Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem. I rather suppose it to have been so called after Abraham had received that oracle Jehovah Jireh, ”The Lord will see, or provide,” Genesis 22;14. The latter word, Jireh, with a little alteration, prefixed to the old name Salem, Peace, will be Jerusalem; and since that expression, ”G.o.d will see,” or rather, ”G.o.d will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering,” ver. 8, 14, is there said to have been proverbial till the days of Moses, this seems to me the most probable derivation of that name, which will then denote that G.o.d would provide peace by that ”Lamb of G.o.d which was to take away the sins of the world.” However, that which is put into brackets can hardly be supposed the genuine words of Josephus, as Dr. Hudson well judges.
[6] It deserves here to be remarked, that Saul very rarely, and David very frequently, consulted G.o.d 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 G.o.d's wors.h.i.+p before it, and because she thought it beneath the dignity of a king to be so religious.
[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 G.o.d on that breach of his law. See Numbers 4:15; 1 Chronicles 15:13.
[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 G.o.d'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.
[9] Josephus seems, in this place, with our modern interpreters to confound the two distinct predictions which G.o.d 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.
[10] Whether Syria Zobah, 2 Samuel 3:8; 1 Chronicles 18:3-8, be Sophene, as Josephus here supposes; which yet Ptolemy places beyond Euphrates, as Dr. Hudson observes here, whereas Zobah was on this side; or whether Josephus was not here guilty of a mistake in his geography; I cannot certainly determine.
[11] David's reserving only one hundred chariots for himself out of one thousand he had taken from Hadadezer, was most probably in compliance with the law of Moses, which forbade a king of Israel ”to multiply horses to himself,” Deuteronomy 17:16; one of the princ.i.p.al uses of horses in Judea at that time being for drawing their chariots. See Joshua 12:6; and Antiq. B. V. ch. 1. sect. 18. It deserves here to be remarked, that this Hadad, being a very great king, was conquered by David, whose posterity yet for several generations were called Benhadad, or the son of Hadad, till the days of Hazael, whose son Adar or Ader is also in our Hebrew copy [2 Kings 13:24] written Benhadad, but in Josephus Adad or Adar. And strange it is, that the son of Hazael, said to be such in the same text, and in Josephus, Antiq. B. IX. ch. 8. sect.
7, should still be called the son of Hadad. I would, therefore, here correct our Hebrew copy from Josephus's, which seems to have the true reading, nor does the testimony of Nicolaus of Damascus, produced in this place by Josephus, seem to be faultless, when it says that he was the third of the Hadads, or second of the Benhadads, who besieged Samaria in the days of Ahab. He must rather have been the seventh or eighth, if there were ten in all of that name, as we are a.s.sured there were. For this testimony makes all the Hadads or Benhadads of the same line, and to have immediately succeeded one another; whereas Hazael was not of that line, nor is he called Hadad or Benhadad in any copy. And note, that from this Hadad, in the days of David, to the beginning of Hazael, were near two hundred years, according to the exactest chronology of Josephus.
[12] By this great victory over the Idameans or Edomites, the posterity of Esau, and by the consequent tribute paid by that nation to the Jews, were the prophecies delivered to Rebecca before Jacob and Esau were born, and by old Isaac before his death, that the elder, Esau, [or the Edomites,] should serve and the younger, Jacob, [or the Israelites,]
and Jacob [or the Israelites] should be Esau's [or the Edomites'] lord, remarkably fulfilled. See Antiq. B. VIII. ch 7. sect. 6; Genesis 25;9,3; and the notes on Antiq. B. I. ch. 18. sect. 5, 6.
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