of human respect which
restrained the people of the world from giving themselves up
to it."

David said in reply that he would rather be held in honour by the
handmaids of whom she had spoken than avoid the acts which covered him
with ridicule in her eyes; and the chronicler adds that "Michal the
daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."*

* [David's reply shows (2 Sam. vi. 21, 22) that it was in
gratitude to Jehovah who had exalted him that he thus
humbled himself.--Tr.]

The tent and the ark were assigned at this time to the care of two
priests--Zadok, son of Ahitub, and Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, who was
a descendant of Eli, and had never quitted David throughout his
adventurous career.* It is probable, too, that the ephod had not
disappeared, and that it had its place in the sanctuary; but it may have
gradually fallen into neglect, and may have ceased to be the vehicle
of oracular responses as in earlier years. The king was accustomed on
important occasions to take part in the sacred ceremonies, after the
example of 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
I