Issachar, Naphtali, Asher, Dan, and Zebulun were, perhaps, a little too far from the seat of government; but they were secondary tribes, incapable of any independent action, who obeyed without repugnance, but also without enthusiasm, the soldier-king able to protect them from external foes.  The future master of Israel would be he who maintained his hold on the posterity of Judah and of Joseph, and David could not hope to find a more suitable place than Jerusalem from which to watch over the two ruling houses at one and the same time.

The lower part of the town he gave up to the original inhabitants,* the upper he filled with Benjamites and men of Judah;** he built or restored a royal palace on Mount Sion, in which he lived surrounded by his warriors and his family.*** One thing only was lacking—­a temple for his God.  Jerubbaal had had a sanctuary at Ophrah, and Saul had secured the services of Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh:  David was no longer satisfied with the ephod which had been the channel of many wise counsels during his years of adversity and his struggles against the Philistines.  He longed for some still more sacred object with which to identify the fortunes of his people, and by which he might raise the newly gained prestige of his capital.  It so happened that the ark of the Lord, the ancient safeguard of Ephraim, had been lying since the battle of Eben-ezer not far away, without a fixed abode or regular worshippers.****

     * Judges i. 21; cf.  Zech. xi. 7, where Ekron in its
     decadence is likened to the Jebusite vassal of Judah.

     ** Jerusalem is sometimes assigned to Benjamin (Judges i.
     21), sometimes to Judah (Josh. xv. 63).  Judah alone is
     right.

     *** 2 Sam. v. 9, and the parallel passage in 1 Chron. xi. 7,
     8.

**** The account of the events which followed the battle of Eben-ezer up to its arrival in the house of Abinadab, is taken from the history of the ark, referred to on pp. 306, 307, supra.  It is given in 1 Sam. v., vi., vii. 1, where it forms an exceedingly characteristic whole, composed, it may be, of two separate versions thrown into one; the passage in 1 Sam. vi. 15, where the Levites receive the ark, is supposed by some to be interpolated.

The reason why it had not brought victory on that occasion, was that God’s anger had been stirred at the misdeeds committed in His name by the sons of Eli, and desired to punish His people; true, it had been preserved from profanation, and the miracles which took place in its neighbourhood proved that it was still the seat of a supernatural power.

[Illustration:  340.jpg MOUSE OF METAL]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch published by Schick
     and Oldfield Thomas.