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Patriarchs and Prophets
They appeared before David with the gory witness to their crime,
saying, “Behold the head of Ishbosheth the son of Saul thine enemy,
which sought thy life; and the Lord hath avenged my lord the king this
day of Saul, and of his seed.” But David, whose throne God Himself
had established, and whom God had delivered from his adversaries,
did not desire the aid of treachery to establish his power. He told
these murderers of the doom visited upon him who boasted of slaying
Saul. “How much more,” he added, “when wicked men have slain a
righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore
now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?
And David commanded his young men, and they slew them.... But they
took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in
Hebron.”
After the death of Ishbosheth there was a general desire among the
leading men of Israel that David should become king of all the tribes.
“Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake,
saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh.” They declared, “Thou
wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord said to
thee, Thou shalt feed My people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain
over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron;
and King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord.”
Thus through the providence of God the way had been opened for him
to come to the throne. He had no personal ambition to gratify, for he
had not sought the honor to which he had been brought.
More than eight thousand of the descendants of Aaron and of
the Levites waited upon David. The change in the sentiments of
the people was marked and decisive. The revolution was quiet and
dignified, befitting the great work they were doing. Nearly half a
million souls, the former subjects of Saul, thronged Hebron and its
environs. The very hills and valleys were alive with the multitudes.
The hour for the coronation was appointed; the man who had been
expelled from the court of Saul, who had fled to the mountains and
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hills and to the caves of the earth to preserve his life, was about to
receive the highest honor that can be conferred upon man by his fellow
man. Priests and elders, clothed in the garments of their sacred office,
officers and soldiers with glittering spear and helmet, and strangers
from long distances, stood to witness the coronation of the chosen
king. David was arrayed in the royal robe. The sacred oil was put