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To conclude:

As rational conjectures are oftentimes useful inlets to knowledge, the candid reader will, I hope, be indulgent to this, in relation to David's distemper; which I am far from obtruding as a truth: for, after all, poffibly all his Pfalms upon this head may be no more than figurative descriptions of the state of his mind, fick with fin: nor is this fuppofition ill grounded upon the 4th verfe of the forty-firft Pfalm, before referred to: Heal my foul; for I have finned against thee. And, agreeably to this way of thinking, we find fin figured out to us, in the prophetic style, under the ideas of bruifes and wounds, and putrifying fores, Ifa. i. 6.

СНАР.

CHAP. VIII.

Abfalom takes the Advantage of his Father's Sickness, to form a Confpiracy against him. The Methods be made ufe of to delude the People in bis Favour.

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BSALOM had not been long restored to his father's favour, before his pride and popularity broke out in an extraordinary

manner.

It is fufficiently evident, from fome paffages in this hiftory, that David, as his fons grew up, gave each of them fome patrimony, which he left to their own management (it was not then deemed beneath the dignity of princes, to be early initiated in all the patriarchal arts of rural industry). Particularly Abfalom, we know, had flocks and fields of corn; and it is probable, that his wealth increased in his exile and confinement: not only as his expences might be leffened on thefe accounts; but also, as his circumstances might be confiderably bettered, by presents

from

from his grandfather, and the royal family at Gefbur, who, doubtless, confidered him as the heir apparent to the crown of Ifrael; and accordingly encouraged and enabled him to support his pretenfions, and to keep up fuitable to his dignity. And hence it was, in all probability, that when he was received into favour, he fet up a magnificent equipage, prepared him chariots and horfes, and a retinue of no less than fifty men, to run before him: poffibly, attendants, in appearance; but, in effect, guards.

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ABOUT this time, I apprehend, it was, that David fell fick and Abfalom taking the advantage of that infirm and diftreffed condition, to which he faw him reduced, laid the foundation of his confpiracy, or rather pursued the plan of his ambition, concerted at Gefbur. Which probably, at first, meant no more than to fecure to himfelf the fucceffion of the crown, in preference to Solomon; for whom David.defigned it. And seeing the king reduced fo low by his diftemper, that his life was despaired of; wicked as he was, he might think it better to wait the iffue of it, than to embrue his hands in his father's blood. And there is

no

no doubt but the king, who (as we have seen in the last chapter) difcovered the confpiracy in his fickness, took immediate measures to defeat it, as foon as he found himself recovering. Nor is it improbable, that he diffembled his recovery as long as he could, to prevent the effects of his son's ambition and impetuofity, who fufficiently appears, from the forty-firft Pfalm, to have been determined upon his father's deftruction, and fully refolved to out-do the malignity of his disease, and cut him off, if that should spare him. For thofe, I am fatisfied, are Abfalom's own words, recorded by David at the 8th verfe of that Pfalm; And now that he lieth, be fhall rise up no

more.

Ir muft doubtlefs have been matter of great furprize, and inexpreffible affliction, to David, to find the two men in the world, whom he seems to have most loved and confided in, combining against him, and compaffing his death; Abfalom, and Abithophel; his fon, and his counfellor. And both of these are, as I apprehend, fufficiently and clearly characterized in the last-cited Pfalm: The vanity and lying spirit of Abfalom in these

words,

words, (ver. 6.) And if he come to fee me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth falfbood within himfelf: when he goeth abroad, be telleth it: And the treachery of Abithophel in thefe, (ver. 9.) Yea mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel * against me.

HERE we see a complaint, not only of trust betrayed, but the rights of hofpitality violated: the man that did this, had eaten of his bread +.

In this exigency David had recourse, as ufual, to the divine mercy and protection; crying out, (ver. 10.) Thou, O Lord, be merciful to me, and raise me up, that I may requite them. And finding their devices fo far defeated, as not to terminate in his immediate deftruction, he gradually gathered hope and confidence from that delay; which he quickly perceived, not to have arisen from any abatement in their malignity, but from

* Query, Whether this expreffion might not have given the firft hint of the fable of the Afs and the Sick Lion?

This fhews the facred regard to the rights of hofpitality among the Jews, prior to any thing we hear upon that head in the accounts of the Heathen world.

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