When David appeared with his troops, the inhabitants ridiculed his presumption, and were good enough to warn him of the hopelessness of his enterprise: a garrison composed of the halt and the blind, without an able-bodied man amongst them, would, they declared, be able successfully to resist him. The king, stung by their mockery, made a promise to his “mighty men” that the first of them to scale the walls should be made chief and captain of his host. We often find that impregnable cities owe their downfall to negligence on the part of their defenders: these concentrate their whole attention on the few vulnerable points, and give but scanty care to those which are regarded as inaccessible.* Jerusalem proved to be no exception to this rule; Joab carried it by a sudden assault, and received as his reward the best part of the territory which he had won by his valour.** * Cf. the capture of Sardis by Cyrus (Herodotus) and by Antiochus III. (Polybius), as also the taking of the Capitol by the Gauls. ** The account of the capture of Jerusalem is given in 2 Sam. v. 6-9, where the text is possibly corrupt, with interpolated glosses, especially in ver. 8; David’s reply to the mockery of the Jebusites is difficult to understand. 1 Citron, xi. 4-8 gives a more correct text, but one less complete in so far as the portions parallel with 2 Sam. v. 6-9 are concerned; the details in regard to Joab are undoubtedly historical, but we do not find them in the Book of Samuel.