musical melodies, which drove the fatal demon of melancholy from the royal palace; of his jealous expulsion by the King, his hairbreadth escapes, his trials and difficulties as a wanderer and exile, as a fugitive retreating to solitudes and caves of the earth, parched with heat and thirst, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, surrounded with increasing dangers,—­yet all the while forgiving and magnanimous, sparing the life of his deadly enemy, unstained by a single vice or weakness, and soothing his stricken soul with bursts of pious song unequalled for pathos and loftiness in the whole realm of lyric poetry.  He is never so interesting as amid caverns and blasted desolations and serrated rocks and dried-up rivulets, when his life is in constant danger.  But he knows that he is the anointed of the Lord, and has faith that in due time he will be called to the throne.

It was not until the bloody battle with the Philistines, which terminated the lives of both Saul and Jonathan, that David’s reign began in about his thirtieth year,[3]—­first at Hebron, where he reigned seven and one half years over his own tribe of Judah,—­but not without the deepest lamentations for the disaster which had caused his own elevation.  To the grief of David for the death of Saul and Jonathan we owe one of the finest odes in Hebrew poetry.  At this crisis in national affairs, David had sought shelter with Achish, King of Gath, in whose territory he, with the famous band of six hundred warriors whom he had collected in his wanderings, dwelt in safety and peace.  This apparent alliance with the deadly enemy of the Israelites had displeased the people.  Notwithstanding all his victories and exploits, his anointment at the hand of Samuel, his noble lyrics, his marriage with the daughter of Saul, and the death of both Saul and Jonathan, there had been at first no popular movement in David’s behalf.  The taking of decisive action, however, was one of his striking peculiarities from youth to old age, and he promptly decided, after consulting the Urim and Thummim, to go at once to Hebron, the ancient sacred city of the tribe of Judah, and there await the course of events.  His faithful band of six hundred devoted men formed the nucleus of an army; and a reaction in his favor having set in, he was chosen king.  But he was king only of the tribe to which he belonged.  Northern and central Palestine were in the hands of the Philistines,—­ten of the tribes still adhering to the house of Saul, under the leadership of Abner, the cousin of Saul, who proclaimed Ishbosheth king.  This prince, the youngest of Saul’s four sons, chose for his capital Mahanaim, on the east of the Jordan.

[Footnote 3:  Authorities differ as to the precise date of David’s accession.]