David was thirty years old when he began his reign. His first capital was Hebron, where he was publicly anointed, after the custom of the period. His reign lasted forty years, seven years and six months of which he spent in Hebron. Observing the natural advantages of Jerusalem as a stronghold, he took it after a sharp contest, and set up the throne there, remaining there for thirty-three years. In nothing did David display great abilities in a more marked manner than in the choice of his generals and counsellors. Joab, Abishai, and Zeruiah, Hushai and Ahithophel were all men of great administrative or executive powers. They were not invariably faithful to David's interests, but in the main they served him well, and to his "mighty men of valor" he owed the debt for success that all great captains owe to those who surround their persons, further their plans, and aid their enterprises. In the Second Book of Chronicles the honor-roll of David's heroes is starred with undying lustre. Thirty captains are mentioned, among them three mightiest, and the record of these valiant men is like the record written of Thor and his followers in the legendry of the stormy Norsemen. There was one who slew an Egyptian, a giant five cubits high, with a spear like a weaver's beam, and the champion went down to the combat armed with a staff only, disarmed the Egyptian, and slew him with his own spear. Another slew "a lion in a pit in a snowy day." One sees the picture, the yellow-maned, fierce-eyed lion, the white drift of the blinding flakes, the hole of the pit, deep-walled and narrow, a fit lair for the wild beast. The incident of the well of Bethlehem belongs here. The king was spent and athirst, and he longed for a drink from the old well by the gate. But when three mighty men cut their way sword in hand through the enemy's host, and brought the precious water, the king would not drink it, but poured it out before the Lord in libation. "God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should drink the blood of these men, that have put their lives in jeopardy!" If David had always been as noble! But men have the defects of their qualities. These mighty men of earth have often, on one side or another, a special liability to temptation. In the seduction of Bathsheba and the cowardly murder of Uriah, her husband, David committed a sin for which he was punished not only in the denunciation of Nathan the prophet and the loss of Bathsheba's first child, but by the stings of a deep remorse, which expresses itself in a psalm which is a miserere. Yet Bathsheba became the mother of Solomon, and Solomon was the heir chosen by the Lord to preserve the kingly line of David, and to maintain the kingdom in great glory and splendor.