XIII. DAVID AND ABIATHAR THE PRIEST

I proceed with the history of David, in which we can scarcely advance a step without having our attention drawn to some new, though perhaps subtle, incident, which marks at once the reality of the facts, and the fidelity of the record. No doubt the surface of the narrative is perfectly satisfactory; but beneath the surface, there is a certain substratum now appearing, and presently losing itself again, which is the proper field of my inquiry. Here I find the true material of which I am in search; coincidences shy and unobtrusive, not courting notice—as far from it as possible—but having chanced to attract it, sustaining not only notice, but scrutiny; such matters as might be overlooked on a cursory perusal of the text a hundred times, and which indeed would stand very little chance of any other fate than neglect, unless the mind of the reader had been previously put upon challenging them as they pass. Therefore it is that I feel often incapable of doing justice to my subject with my readers, however familiar they may be with Holy Writ. The full force of the argument can only be felt by him who pursues it for himself, when he is in his chamber and is still; his assent taken captive before he is aware of it; his doubts, if any he had, melting away under the continual dropping of minute particles of evidence upon his mind, as it proceeds in its investigation. It is difficult, it is scarcely possible, to impart this sympathy to the reader. And even when I can grasp an incident sufficiently substantial to detach and present to his consideration, I still am conscious that it is not launched to advantage; that a thousand little preparations are lacking in order that it may leave the slips (if I may venture upon the expression) with a motion that shall make it win its way; that the plunge with which I am compelled to let it fall, provokes a resistance to which it does not deserve to be exposed. I proceed, however, with the history of David, and to a passage in it which has partly suggested these remarks. When Saul in his fury had slain, by the hand of Doeg, Ahimelech the high-priest, and all the priests of the Lord, “one of the sons of Ahimelech,” we read, “named Abiathar, escaped, and fled after David.” [1 Sam. 22:20.] David received him kindly, saying unto him, “Abide thou with me, fear not; for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life; but with me thou shalt be in safeguard.” Abiathar had brought with him the ephod, the high-priest’s mysterious scarf; and his father being dead, he appears to have been made high-priest in his stead, so far as David had it then in his power to give him that office, and to have attended upon him and his followers [1 Sam. 30:7.] . These particulars we gather from several passages of the first Book of Samuel.

We hear now nothing more of Abiathar (except that he was confirmed in his office, together with a colleague, when David was established in his kingdom) for nearly thirty years. Then he re-appears, having to play not an inconspicuous part in David’s councils, on occasion of the rebellion of Absalom. Now here we find, that though he is still in his office of priest, Zadok (the colleague to whom I alluded) appears to have obtained the first place in the confidence and consideration of David. When David sends the Ark back, which he probably thought it irreverent to make the partner of his flight, and delivers his commands to this effect, it may be remarked that he does not address himself to Abiathar, though Abiathar was there, but to Zadok—Zadok takes the lead in everything. The king says to Zadok, “Carry back the Ark of God into the city:” [2 Sam 15:25.] —and again, “The king said also unto Zadok the priest, Art not thou a seer? return into the city in peace;” and when Zadok and Abiathar are mentioned together at this period, Zadok is placed foremost. No doubt Abiathar was honoured by David; there is evidence enough of this (v. 35); but many trifles lead us to conclude that herein he attained not unto his companion.

Now, unquestionably, it cannot be asserted with confidence, where there is no positive document to substantiate the assertion, that Abiathar felt his associate in the priesthood to be his rival in the state, his more than successful rival; yet that such a feeling should find a place in the breast of Abiathar seems most natural, seems almost inevitable, when we take into account that these two priests were the representatives of two rival houses, over one of which, a prophecy affecting its honour, and well nigh its existence, was hanging unfulfilled. For Zadok, be it observed, was descended from Eleazar, the eldest of the sons of Aaron; Abiathar from Ithamar, the youngest [1 Chron. 24:3.] , and so from the family of Eli, a family of which it had been foretold, some hundred and fifty years before, that the priesthood should pass from it, Could Abiathar read the signs of his time without alarm? or fail to suspect (what did prove the fact) that the curse which had tarried so long, was now again in motion, and that the ancient office of his fathers was in jeopardy; a curse, too, comprising circumstances of signal humiliation, calculated beyond measure to exasperate the sufferer; even that the house of Eli, which God had once said should walk before Him for ever, should be far from Him; even that He would raise up (that is from another house) a faithful priest that should do according to that which was in his heart and his mind: and that the house of that man should be sure built; and that they of the house of Eli which were left, “should come and crouch to him for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a piece of bread?” [1 Sam. 2:36.] Abiathar must have had a tamer spirit than he gave subsequent proof of, if he could have witnessed the elevation of one in whom this bitter threat seemed advancing to its accomplishment, and in whom it was in fact accomplished, with complacency; if he could see him seated by his side in the dignity of the high-priesthood, and favoured at his expense by the more frequent smiles of his sovereign, without a wounded spirit.

Now having possessed ourselves of this secret key, namely jealousy of his rival, a key not delivered into our hands directly by the historian, but accidentally found by ourselves (and here is its value), let us apply it to the incidents of Abiathar’s subsequent conduct, and observe whether they will not answer to it. We have seen Abiathar flying from the vengeance of Saul to David; protected by David in the wilderness; made by David his priest, virtually before Saul’s death [1 Sam. 23:2–6.] , and formally, when he succeeded to Saul’s throne [2 Sam. 8:17.] . We have seen, too, Zadok united with him in his office, and David giving signs of preferring Zadok before him; a preference the more marked, and the more galling, because Abiathar was undoubtedly the high-priest (as the sequel will prove), and Zadok his vicar only, or sagan [See Lightfoot’s Works, Vol. i. 911, 912, fol.] .

This being the state of things, let us now observe the issue. When David was forced to withdraw for a season from Jerusalem, by the conspiracy of Absalom, Zadok and Abiathar were left behind in the capital, charged with the office of forwarding to the King any intelligence which his friends within the walls might communicate to them, that it was for his advantage to know. Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, and Jonathan, the son of Abiathar (the sons are named after the same order as their fathers), are the secret messengers by whom it is to be conveyed; and on one occasion, the only one in which their services are recorded, we find them acting together [2 Sam. 17:21.] . But I observe that after the battle in which Absalom was slain, a battle which seems to have served as a test of the real loyalty of many of David’s nominal friends, Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, and not Jonathan, the son of Abiathar, is at hand to carry the tidings of the victory to David, who had tarried behind at Mahanaim; and this office he solicits from Joab, who had intended it for another, with the utmost importunity, and the most lively zeal for the King’s cause [2 Sam. 18:19–22.] . This, it will be said, proves but little; more especially as there is reason to belive that David was, at least, upon terms with Abiathar at a later period than this [2 Sam. 19:11.] . Still there may be thought something suspicious in the absence of the one messenger, at a moment so critical, as compared with the alacrity of the other, their office having been hitherto a joint one; it is not enough to prove that the loyalty of Abiathar and his house was waxing cool, though it accords with such a supposition. Let us, however, proceed. Within a few years of this time, probably about eight, another rebellion against David is set on foot by another of his sons. Adonijah is now the offender. He, too, prepares him chariots and horsemen, after the example of his brother. Moreover, he feels his way before he openly appears in arms. And to whom does he make his first overtures? “He confers,” we read, “with Abiathar the priest,” [1 Kings 1:7.] having good reason, no doubt, for knowing that such an application might be made in that quarter with safety, if not with success. The event proved that he had not mistaken his man. “Abiathar,” we learn, “following Adonijah, helped him:” not so Zadok; he, we are told, “was not with Adonijah;” on the contrary, he was one of the first persons for whom David sent, that he might communicate with him in this emergency; his staunch and steadfast friend; and him he commissioned, together with Nathan the prophet, to set the crown upon the head of Solomon, and thereby to confound the councils of the rebels [1 Kings 1:32. 34.] . Nor should we leave unnoticed, for they are facts which coincide with the view I have taken of Abiathar’s loyalty, and the cause of it, that one of the first acts of Solomon’s reign was to banish the traitor “to his own fields,” and to thrust him out of the priesthood, “that he might fulfil” (so it is expressly said in the twenty-seventh verse of the second chapter of the first Book of Kings) “the word of the Lord, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh,”—fulfil it, not by that act only, but by the other also, which followed and crowned the prophecy; for “Zadok the priest,” it is added, “did Solomon put in the room of Abiathar;” [1 Kings 2:35, ] or, as the Septuagint translates it still more to our purpose, Zadok the priest did the King make first priest in the room of Abiathar; so that Abiathar, as I said, had been hitherto Zadok’s superior; his superior in office, and his inferior in honour; a position of all others calculated to excite in him the heart-burnings we have discovered, long smothered, but at last bursting forth—beginning in lukewarmness, and ending in rebellion.

This is all extremely natural; nothing can drop into its place better than the several parts of this history; not at all a prominent history, but rather a subordinate one. Yet manifest as the relation which they bear to one another, is, when they are once brought together, they are themselves dispersed through the Books of Samuel, of Kings, and of Chronicles, without the smallest arrangement or reference one to another; their succession not continuous; suspended by many and long intervals; intervals occupied by matters altogether foreign from this subject; and after all, the integral portions of the narrative themselves defective: there are gaps even here, which I think, indeed, may be filled up, as I have shown, with very little chance of error; but still, that there should be any necessity even for this, argues the absence of all design, collusion, and contrivance in the historians.