The youngest son of Jesse, and the second king of Israel.  When Saul, the first king, had been rejected by God, Samuel was despatched to Bethlehem, where Jesse lived, to anoint a successor to the unhappy monarch.  The prophet called Jesse and his sons to a sacrifice, and no sooner set eyes on the eldest one, called Eliab, than he exclaimed, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him."  But it was not Eliab or any of the other six stalwart young men present that was chosen.  "Are here all thy children?" Samuel asked; to which the reply was, "There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep."  "Send," the prophet rejoined, "and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither."  By-and-bye there was brought in a youth with beautiful features and a ruddy complexion, on which the Lord said, "Anoint him, for this is he."  Thus directed, Samuel took a horn of oil and anointed David in sight of his brothers, the Spirit of the Lord at once descending on the future king (1 Sam. xvi. 1-13).  The secret of what had been done seems to have been well kept from Saul; for when, deserted by the Spirit of God and troubled by an evil spirit from the Lord, he required a harper to charm away his melancholy madness, he listened to those who recommended David for the office, and appointed him without demur.  The youthful harper soon gained his affections, and was constituted armour-bearer as well (14-23).  Soon afterwards his combat with Goliath (q.v.) showed that he was the greatest hero of whom Israel then could boast (xvii. 1-58).  This great achievement gained him the life-long friendship of Saul's eldest son, Jonathan, a singularly unselfish and lovable character.  But as the hero returned from the scene of his great exploit, Saul unhappily overheard the women, who with others were welcoming him with plaudits, saying, "Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands."  This looked as if they were transferring their allegiance from the monarch to one of his subjects, who might take advantage of it to displace him from the throne.  All his old love for David was transformed into jealousy.  Twice over he hurled a javelin at him as he was playing the harp.  Then becoming nominally friendly, he offered him first one and then another of his daughters as his wife, on condition that he undertook dangerous enterprises against the Philistines, in which he hoped that he would fail.  But he succeeded, and Michal, the younger daughter, became his wife (xviii. 1-30).  The first chapter in David's history had been his quiet keeping of his father's flocks at Bethlehem, and the second was his life at court; a third was now to begin, for after more javelin-throwing he abandoned the court and became a wanderer and an outlaw (xix. 1-17).  He was let down from a window in the rear of his house while assassins sent by Saul were watching it in front, and naturally took the road to Ramah, to Samuel, who had anointed him king (18-24).  Saul pretended reconciliation, and expected him to return to the palace, which he was too prudent to do (xx. 1-42).  He went instead to Nob, to Ahimelech the high-priest, with the ultimate result that the whole friendly colony was massacred by the now sanguinary monarch (xxi. 1-9); xxii. 9-23).  The wanderings are believed to have continued about six years.  Among the places visited were Gath, in the Philistine country (xxi. 10-15); the Cave of Adullam (xxii. 1, 2); the Moabite Mizpeh (3, 4); the "forest" of Hareth (5); Keilah, where he fought the Philistines (xxiii. 1-13); Ziph (14-24); Maon (25-28); En-gedi (xxiii. 29-xxiv. 22); the wilderness of Paran, in the desert south of Judah, then again Maon (xxv. 1-44); Hachilah (xxvi. 2-4); and again Gath (xxvii.-xxix.), whence he made an expedition to recapture Ziklag, which had been taken by the Amalekites (xxx.).  He narrowly missed being present on the Philistine side at the battle of Gilboa, but when on his way thither the jealousy of the Philistine lords led to him and his men being sent back (xxix. 1-11).  When he heard the result of the battle, he mourned in beautiful elegiac verse the cruel fate not merely of Jonathan, but of Saul, whom he had twice spared when he had been in his power, and who, if he had sinned deeply, had still been in his day the "anointed of the Lord" (1 Sam. xxxi.-2 Sam. i.).  With the death of Saul commences the fourth period of David's life, for the tribe of Judah, to which he belonged, elected him king, and he began to reign in Hebron (ii. 1-10), being then about thirty years old (v. 4).  The rest of the tribes, under the leadership of Abner, set up Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, at Mahanaim, and for the next two years civil war went on between his partisans and those of David.  It ended by the assassination, sorely against David's will, both of Abner and of Ish-bosheth (ii. 12-iv. 12).  David's reign at Hebron continued for seven years and six months.  He had already several wives, and among the sons born to him at Hebron were Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah (ii. 11; iii. 1-5; v. 5).  On the death of Ish-bosheth, David was elected king over all the tribes, and the fifth and last period of his eventful life began (v. 1-5).  Hebron, high above the sea, and in a central part of Judah, was admirably adapted to be David's capital as long as he ruled over one tribe, but it was too far south when he became king over twelve.  He therefore took the strongly fortified Jebus, or Jerusalem, from the Jebusites, and converted it into his metropolis.  He fixed his residence in the castle on the hill of Zion, and called it the City of David (6-10) [¶].  On hearing that the champion who slew Goliath was now king over all Israel, the Philistines twice invaded the land, and twice suffered defeat (v. 17-25; 1 Chron. xiv. 8-17).  Then the king brought the Ark with ceremony, sacrifices, and rejoicing from Baale, or Kirjath-jearim (Josh. xv. 9; 2 Chron. i. 4), and placed it within a tabernacle which he had pitched for it in the City of David (2 Sam. vi. 1-23; 1 Chron. xiii. 1-14; xv. 1-3).  Next he organised a body of Levites to minister before the Ark (1 Chron. xv. 4-29), and delivered to Asaph and his fellow-singers a psalm, now cv. 1-15; xcvi. 2-13; cvi. 1 = cvii. 1 = cxviii. 1 = cxxxvi. 1, and cvi. 47, 48; 1 Chron. xvi. 7-43).  But he was not satisfied that, while he dwelt in a house of cedar, the Ark of God should be within mere curtains.  He therefore intimated to Nathan the prophet his intention of building a splendid temple.  Nathan's first impulse was to encourage the project; but he was Divinely instructed to declare that the work should be accomplished not by David, a man of war, but by his more peaceful son and successor.  yet the will being taken for the deed, promise was made him that his throne should be established for ever (2 Sam. vii. 1-29; 1 Chron. xvii. 1-27; xxii. 7-10).  Through the Divine favour he now became very prosperous.  He subdued the Philistines, the Moabites, the Syrians of Zobah, those of Damascus, etc., the Amalekites, the Edomites, and the Ammonites (2 Sam. viii. 1-18; x. 1-19; xii. 26-31), thus extending his kingdom to the limits long before promised to Abraham (Gen. xv. 18).  It was during the Ammonite war that David committed his great sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, for which God rebuked him through Nathan the prophet, and imposed the penalty that the sword should never depart from his house (2 Sam. xi. 1-xii. 23).  [Bath-sheba, Nathan, Uriah.]  This judgment soon began to be executed.  His eldest son, Amnon (2 Sam. iii. 2), who had perpetrated a gross outrage on his half-sister, was killed for it by Absalom, her full brother (2 Sam. xiii. 1-39).  Then Absalom rebelled against his too indulgent father, compelling him to flee from Jerusalem to Mahanaim, beyond Jordan, and there await the result of a battle, in which the unnatural son met his well-merited doom (xiv. l-xix. 43).  Then the revolt of a Benjamite called Sheba required to be crushed (xx. 1-22); there was a very painful event in connection with the house of Saul (xxi. 1-14); more fighting with the Philistines; and David, in deep thankfulness for the Divine goodness in delivering him from his enemies, composed Psalm xviii. (2 Sam. xxii. 1-51).  A pestilence, following on the taking of a census, led to the purchase by David of the threshing-floor of Araunah or Ornan, a Jebusite, to be used for the erection of an altar (2 Sam. xxiv. 1-25; 1 Chron. xxi. 1-30).  This spot on the summit of Mount Moriah afterwards became the site of the Temple (2 Chron. iii. 1).  For the erection of this splendid edifice, to be reared for the worship of Jehovah, David had made enormous preparations.  These he transferred to Solomon, giving him a dying injunction to proceed with the work (1 Chron. xxii. 1-16), and when Adonijah, in defiance of David's and the Divine choice, set up as king, David at once had Solomon proclaimed as his successor (1 Kings i. 1-53).  Then, his labours on earth over, he died in his seventy-first year, according to the Hebrew chronology about the year B.C. 1015.  He had reigned forty (or, more precisely, forty and a half) years, seven (or rather seven and a half) at Hebron and thirty-three at Jerusalem (2 Sam. ii. 11; v. 4, 5; 1 Chron. xxix. 27).  Gifts rarely found together in the same individual were combined in David.  A poet and musician, he must have had a fine nervous organisation and the sensibility of genius; notwithstanding which he was a military hero, which few poets ever are.  Though at times committing deep-dyed sins, for which the early and comparatively dark period of the Church's history at which he lived and his own deep penitence are his only defence, yet his general fidelity to Jehovah was such that he was called the man after God's own heart (1 Sam. xiii. 14).  His influence on mankind can scarcely be over-estimated.  He, rather than his predecessor, Saul, was the founder of the Jewish monarchy.  His psalms, sung throughout Christendom century after century, revive his spiritual influence every Lord's day that comes round.  But his highest title to be remembered is that he was a very important link in the chain of ancestry of Him who was at once David's son and David's Lord (Matt. xxii. 41-45).
    ¶ City of David.—(1) A Jebusite fort, "the stronghold of Zion," or "the Castle of Zion," captured by David's men, and called by him "the City of David," because he made it his royal residence (2 Sam. v. 6-9; 1 Chron. xi. 5, 7).  Here it will be observed that it is not the whole hill of Zion, but the stronghold or castle upon some part of it—probably its summit—which was called "the City of David."  The Ark was brought thither by David, and continued there till Solomon's temple was built (2 Sam. vi. 10, 12, 16; 1 Kings viii. 1; 1 Chron. xv. 1-29; cf. xiii. 13 and 2 Chron. v. 2).  David was buried in the "city" called after his name (1 Kings ii. 10).  Solomon brought thither for a time his first queen, Pharaoh's daughter (1 Kings iii. 1), though he afterwards erected a palace for himself and her (vii. 1; ix. 24; 2 Chron. viii. 11).  He was afterwards buried in the City of David (1 Kings xi. 43; 2 Chron. ix. 31), as were Rehoboam (1 Knigs xiv. 31; 2 Chron. xii. 16) and many other kings (1 Kings xv. 8, 24; xxii. 50; 2 Kings viii. 24; ix. 28; xii. 21; xiv. 20; xv. 7, 38; xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xiv. 1; xvi. 14; xxi. 1, 20; xxiv. 16, 25; xxvii. 9).  Jehoiada, the high priest, was also interred there (2 Chron. xxiv. 16).  We read of "the breaches of the City of David," confirming the belief that it was the fort or castle, and not the hill (1 Kings xi. 27; Isa. xxii. 9).  Hezekiah brought the upper watercourse of Gihon to the west side of the City of David (2 Chron. xxxii. 30; cf. xxxiii. 14).  Millo was apparently within its limits (2 Chron. xxxii. 5).  In Nehemiah's time there was a descent from the City of David by means of stairs (Neh. iii. 15, 16; xii. 37).  The City of David was fortified and garrisoned by the Syrians and Greeks during the Maccabee wars (1 Macc. i. 33; ii. 31; vii. 32; xiv. 36, 37).
    (2) Bethlehem (Luke ii. 4). (The Sunday School Teacher's Bible Manual, Hunter, 1894)