This brought him into conflict with his Philistine overlords.  It was equivalent to revolt, and the Philistine army swept the lowlands of Judah.  David fled from Hebron and took refuge in his old retreat.  Here he organised his forces; the Philistines were defeated in battle after battle, and David not only succeeded in driving them out of Judah and Israel, but in carrying the war into their own country.  The Philistine cities were conquered, and soldiers from Gath, where David had himself once served as a mercenary, were drafted into the body-guard of the Hebrew sovereign.

Before the Philistine war was over, Jerusalem had fallen into David’s hands.  The stronghold of the Jebusites was one of the last of the Canaanitish cities to surrender to the Israelites.  Its older inhabitants were allowed to live in it side by side with colonists from Judah and Benjamin.  The city itself was made the capital of the kingdom.  Its central position, its natural strength, and its independence of the history of any special tribe, all combined to justify the choice.  Here David built his palace, and planned the erection of a temple to Yahveh.

Meanwhile the kingdom of Israel was passing into an empire.  Joab and his veterans gained victory after victory, and the Hebrew army became what the Assyrian army was in later days, the most highly disciplined and irresistible force in western Asia.  Moab and Ammon were subdued; the Aramaic kinglets to the north-east were made tributaries, and the kingdom of Zobah, which had risen on the ruins of the Hittite power, was overthrown.  The limits of David’s rule were extended to the banks of the Euphrates, and the Syrians on either side of the river were utterly crushed.  Even Edom, which had successfully defied the Pharaohs in the days of Egyptian greatness, was compelled to submit to the Jewish conqueror; its male population was mercilessly massacred, and its ports on the Gulf of Suez fell into Israelitish hands.  In the north Hamath made alliance with the new power that had arisen in the Oriental world, while Hiram of Tyre was glad to call himself the friend of the Israelitish king, and to furnish him with skilled workmen and articles of luxury.

The latter years of David were troubled by revolts which had their origin partly in the polygamy in which he had indulged, partly in the discontent of a people still imperfectly welded together, and restless under military conscription.  His son Solomon secured his throne by putting to death all possible rivals or opponents, including the grey-haired Joab.  Solomon was cultured and well-educated, but his culture was selfish, and his extravagance knew no bounds.  Palaces were built at Jerusalem in imitation of those of Phoenicia or Egypt, and Phoenician architects and artisans erected there a sumptuous temple in honour of the national God.  Trade was encouraged and developed:  the possession of the Edomite seaports gave Solomon the command of the Arabian trade, while