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.

In attacking Jerusalem, David’s first idea was probably to rid himself of one of the more troublesome obstacles which served to separate one-half of his people from the other; but once he had set foot in the place, he was not slow to perceive its advantages, and determined to make it his residence.  Hebron had sufficed so long as his power extended over Caleb and Judah only.  Situated as it was in the heart of the mountains, and in the wealthiest part of the province in which it stood, it seemed the natural centre to which the Kenites and men of Judah must gravitate, and the point at which they might most readily be moulded into a nation; it was, however, too far to the south to offer a convenient rallying-point for a ruler who wished to bring the Hebrew communities scattered about on both banks of the Jordan under the sway of a common sceptre.  Jerusalem, on the other hand, was close to the crossing point of the roads which lead from the Sinaitic desert into Syria, and from the Shephelah to the land of Gilead; it commanded nearly the whole domain of Israel and the ring of hostile races by which it was encircled.  From this lofty eyrie, David, with Judah behind him, could either swoop down upon Moab, whose mountains shut him out from a view of the Dead Sea, or make a sudden descent on the seaboard, by way of Bethhoron, at the least sign of disturbance among the Philistines, or could push straight on across Mount Ephraim into Galilee.