one of them, the house of Joseph, which called itself by the name of Israel, took up its position in the north, on the banks of the Jordan; the other, which is described as the house of Judah, in the south, between the Dead Sea and the Shephelah.  Abner endeavoured to suppress the rival kingdom in its infancy:  he brought Ishbaal to Gibeah and proposed to Joab, who was in command of David’s army, that the conflict should be decided by the somewhat novel expedient of pitting twelve of the house of Judah against an equal number of the house of Benjamin.  The champions of Judah are said to have won the day, but the opposing forces did not abide by the result, and the struggle still continued.**

* 2 Sam. ii. 1—­11.  Very probably Abner recognised the Philistine suzerainty as David had done, for the sake of peace; at any rate, we find no mention in Holy Writ of a war between Ishbaal and the Philistines.

     ** 2 Sam. ii. 12-32, iii. 1.

An intrigue in the harem furnished a solution of the difficulty.  Saul had raised one of his wives of the second rank, named Eizpah, to the post of favourite.  Abner became enamoured of her and took her.  This was an insult to the royal house, and amounted to an act of open usurpation:  the wives of a sovereign could not legally belong to any but his successor, and for any one to treat them as Abner had treated Rizpah, was equivalent to his declaring himself the equal, and in a sense the rival, of his master.  Ishbaal keenly resented his minister’s conduct, and openly insulted him.  Abner made terms with David, won the northern tribes, including that of Benjamin, over to his side, and when what seemed a propitious moment had arrived, made his way to Hebron with an escort of twenty men.  He was favourably received, and all kinds of promises were made him; but when he was about to depart again in order to complete the negotiations with the disaffected elders, Joab, returning from an expedition, led him aside into a gateway and slew him.  David gave him solemn burial, and composed a lament on the occasion, of which four verses have come down to us:  having thus paid tribute to the virtues of the deceased general, he lost no time in taking further precautions to secure his power.  The unfortunate king Ishbaal, deserted by every one, was assassinated by two of his officers as he slept in the heat of the day, and his head was carried to Hebron:  David again poured forth lamentations, and ordered the traitors to be killed.  There was now no obstacle between him and the throne:  the elders of the people met him at Hebron, poured oil upon his head, and anointed him king over all the provinces which had obeyed the rule of Saul in Gilead—­Ephraim and Benjamin as well as Judah.*