contemporary monarchs, and he had beside him at this time a priest of standing to guide him in the religious rites, and to fulfil for him duties similar to those which the chief reader rendered to Pharaoh.  The only one of these priests of David whose name has come down to us was Ira the Jethrite, who accompanied his master in his campaigns, and would seem to have been a soldier also, and one of “the thirty.”  These priestly officials seem, however, to have played but a subordinate part, as history is almost silent about their acts.** While David owed everything to the sword and trusted in it, he recognised at the same time that he had obtained his crown from Jahveh; just as the sovereigns of Thebes and Nineveh saw in Amon and Assur the source of their own royal authority.

     * 2 Sam. viii. 17, xx. 25; cf. 1 Sam. xxi. 1, xxii. 20; 1
     Chron. xv. 11.

** 2 Sam. xx. 26, where he is called the Jairite, and not the Ithrite, owing to an easily understood confusion of the Hebrew letters.  He figures in the list of the Gibborim, “mighty men,” 2 Sam. xxiii. 38.

He consulted the Lord directly when he wished for counsel, and accepted the issue as a test whether his interpretation of the Divine will was correct or erroneous.  When once he had realised, at the time of the capture of Jerusalem, that God had chosen him to be the champion of Israel, he spared no labour to accomplish the task which the Divine favour had assigned to him.  He attacked one after the other the peoples who had encroached upon his domain, Moab being the first to feel the force of his arm.  He extended his possessions at the expense of Gilead, and the fertile provinces opposite Jericho fell to his sword.  These territories were in dangerous proximity to Jerusalem, and David doubtless realised the peril of their independence.  The struggle for their possession must have continued for some time, but the details are not given, and we have only the record of a few incidental exploits:  we know, for instance, that the captain of David’s guard, Benaiah, slew two Moabite notables in a battle.* Moabite captives were treated with all the severity sanctioned by the laws of war.  They were laid on the ground in a line, and two-thirds of the length of the row being measured off, all within it were pitilessly massacred, the rest having their lives spared.  Moab acknowledged its defeat, and agreed to pay tribute:  it had suffered so much that it required several generations to recover.**

* 2 Sam. xxiii. 20-23:  cf. 1 Chron. xi. 22-25.  “Ariel,” who is made the father of the two slain by Benaiah, may possibly be the term in 11. 12, 17, 18 of the Inscription of Mesha (Moabite Stone); but its meaning is obscure, and has hitherto baffled all attempts to explain it.

     ** 2 Sam. viii. 2.