sworn not to slay; let him not go unpunished, and bring his grey hairs to the grave with blood. What Joab did to Abner and Amasa thou knowest; let not his grey hairs go down to the grave in peace."[325] David was buried in the grave which he had caused to be made on Zion, where the heights of the citadel meet the western height, on which the city lay. Thus David had succeeded in healing the wounds which his ambition had inflicted in past days on Israel; he understood how to establish firmly the monarchy, and along with it the power and security of the state. He had given such an important impulse to the worship, to the religious poetry, and consequently to the religious life, of the Hebrews, that his reign has remained of decisive importance for the entire development of Israel. But beside these great successes and high merits lie very dark shadows. If we cannot but admire the activity and bravery, the wisdom and circumspection, which distinguish his reign, there stands beside these qualities not only the weakness of his later years, which caused him to make a capricious alteration in the succession, thereby endangering the work of his life; other actions, both of his earlier and later years, show plainly that in spite of religious feeling and sentiment he did not hesitate to set aside very fundamental rules of morality when it came to winning the object he had in view. If even in his last moments he causes Joab to be put to death by the hand of his son, it may be that this old servant, when he had taken the side of the other son in the succession, appeared very dangerous for the rule of the younger son. But Joab had rendered the greatest services to David, he had won for him the most brilliant victories; and if our account makes David give the murder of Abner and Amasa as the reason for that command, David had made no attempt to punish one deed or the other; on the contrary, he had gladly availed himself of at least the results and fruits of them. We must not indeed measure those days of unrestrained force and violent passion in hatred and love, in devotion and ambition, by the standard of our own tamer impulses; the manner of the ancient East, above all of the Semites, was too much inclined to the most bloody revenge. Yet David's instructions to destroy a man of no importance, whom he had once in a difficult position sworn to spare, out of the grave, by the hand of his son, goes beyond the limit of all that we can elsewhere find in those times and feelings. FOOTNOTES: [283] Joshua xv. 63; Judges i. 21. [284] 2 Sam. v. 5-8; xxiv. 18; 1 Kings ix. 20. [285] 2 Sam. v. 17. [286] 2 Sam. v. 22-25. [287] Above, p. 131, note 4; 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22; 1 Chron. xxi. 4-8; xix. 1. [288] 2 Sam. viii. 1. Jesus, son of Sirach, xlvii. 8. [289] Nöldeke, "Amalekiter," s. 17-25. [290] 2 Sam. viii. 2. [291] 2 Sam. x. 6-14. [292] 2 Sam. viii. 3, 4; x. 15-19. [293] Psalms lx. 2; 2 Sam. viii. 13.