But the cart got into a rut,one of the oxen stumbled,and the Ark was almost upset.Uzzah,quite unconsciously,stretched out his hand to steady the shrine and keep it from falling.
At once he was struck dead.
According to old Jewish law,no layman had the right to touch the Ark.That was the exclusive business of the priests.
The happy procession,with David at its head,came to a sudden halt.
Uzzah was buried,and the Ark was carried into the house of a Gittite by the name of Obed-edom.
There it stood for three months.
Then David returned with all his soldiers.Once more the Ark was hoisted upon a wagon.
This time it safely reached Jerusalem and it was placed in a new Tabernacle which Solomon,the successor of David,was afterwards to change into the well-known Temple.
From that moment on,Jerusalem was not only the capital of the Jewish states but it also became the religious centre for all those who claimed descent from Abraham.There were other holy places in Palestine,but these were all surpassed by the splendours of the house of offering of Jerusalem.
Furthermore,the Levite families,who had a monopoly of the Jewish priest-craft were clever men.They tolerated no rivals and they were staunch supporters of the King.He in turn showed his favour by ordering that all the other shrines in the land be closed and by forcing the worshippers to come to his own capital.
When the religious side of life had been attended to,David turned his mind to affairs of a military nature.
First he rounded out the frontiers of his kingdom.
Next he defeated the Ammonites in such a decisive way that they ceased to trouble the Jews.
In the third place,he made a truce with the Philistines,who thereafter left him in peace.
From a worldly point of view,the kingdom of David was a great success.
But all was not well with the man who stood at the head of the nation.
The unlimited power of his exalted position was beginning to spoil him.
Like Samuel,David was in many respects a very weak man.He was kindly and wise and very good-natured,even to his enemies.He had been very generous to the only living grandson of Saul,who happened to be the son of his bosom friend,Jonathan.
This poor boy,who was lame in both feet,was adopted by David as his own child,and until the day of his death,lived with him in the palace of Jerusalem.
But when his own pleasure was involved,David could be as mean and cruel as the worst of his subjects.
One evening,while taking the air on the roof of his palace (as was the custom of the Jewish people during summer when the weather was hot)David saw in the distance a woman.
He liked her looks,and he said that he wanted her for his wife.
But when he made inquiries about her,he discovered that she was already married to a Hittite by the name of Uriah,who was an officer then serving at the front under Joab,the same general who (as you will remember)had never been punished for the murder of Abner.
Of course,David ought to have forgotten the woman at once,but he did nothing of the sort.
Instead,he invited her husband to his palace.
He treated him most kindly and gave him presents and then he sent him back to the army with a letter to Joab in which he told Joab to place Uriah in the front line and to leave him there,that he might be killed by the enemy.
Joab,who was no better than a common criminal,was just the sort of man to arrange such a cold-blooded murder.He did not warn Uriah of his danger.On the contrary,he flattered the poor fellow and told him that he was to be entrusted with a place in the line of danger in recognition of his bravery.Uriah believed all this and cheerfully assumed command of the vanguard.
When the attack was made,the plan of David was carried out with scrupulous regard to detail.
Uriah rushed forward.
At a word of command by Joab,the other soldiers retreated.
Uriah was left alone and he was killed.
This made his wife,Bathsheba,a widow,and soon afterwards,David married her.
David,however,was mistaken when he thought that his evil deed had not become known to the people of Jerusalem.
The soldiers at the front (who always know a good many things)had told their relatives.News travels fast in a small country and soon all the Jews knew how their King,desiring the wife of another man,had first ordered the husband to be killed and had then married the widow.
But of course the King was the King and even then there were many people who thought that David could do no wrong.
As for the others,they feared to speak their mind lest they be thrown into prison and get hanged for their trouble.
That was one of those great moments in Jewish history which we mentioned in the beginning pages of this Chapter.
When all the Jews were silent,the national conscience spoke up.
Nathan the Prophet went to the palace of David the King.He had just heard a little story which he wanted to repeat to David.
David bade him go ahead.
“Once upon a time,”so Nathan began,“there was a rich man and a poor man and the two were neighbours.The rich man had many sheep but the poor man had but a single little lamb.He was very fond of his pet and treated it as if it had been one of his own children and when he did not have much to eat,he shared his bread and his milk with his beloved lamb and when it was cold,he hid the lamb within the folds of his cloak so that it should not freeze.
“One day the rich man was obliged to entertain a friend.He could easily have killed one of his own sheep.But no,he must go and steal the little lamb from his poor neighbour and have it served at his dinner-table for the amusement of his guest.”
When David heard this,he was terribly angry.He said to Nathan that it was the most dastardly crime he had ever heard.
He promised to inflict a severe punishment.
The poor shepherd whose lamb had been stolen would receive a seven-fold compensation.
As for the wretch who was guilty of the crime,he would be killed at once.
