A friend has sent me the following extract from the Watchman, the well-known Baptist newspaper of Boston, Mass.:

      In studying the International Sunday-school lesson for this week, "David's Charge to Solomon" (1 Chron. 28:1-10), all diligent students will turn to the parallel passage in 1 Kings. The very last words of David, as recorded in 1 Kings 2:5-9, present a moral difficulty of the gravest import. David is represented as commanding his son not to let the head of Joab, his lifelong comrade and lieutenant, go down to the grave in peace. And in [439] spite of the oath by which he had forgiven Shimei, David is represented as commanding Solomon to slay him. Prof. George Adam Smith, however, has called attention to the fact that these horrible words, clothing a horrible spirit, are probably not the words of David. They are an interpolation by some scribe of the legal school in Israel, which enforced the extermination of the enemies of the pious. This view is borne out by the fact that the king, as pictured in 5-9, is quite incompatible with the picture given of him in the previous chapter, and the author of verses 13-46 could not have known of verses 5-9, for he gives other grounds for the slaughter of Joab. In view of all the evidence, Dr. Smith says of this passage: "We have much reason to let it go, and, letting it go, we remove from the most interesting of Old Testament stories of character, a termination which saddens every charm and blights every promise revealed by its previous progress."

      Prof. George Adam Smith, and critics of his school, are a little too fast in finding "horrible words clothing a horrible spirit" in the lips of Old Testament characters; and he and his colaborers are also too quick in canceling passages in the Old Testament which do not harmonize with their conjectures.

      Joab had committed two foul murders, but such was his position of power and influence in the kingdom that David felt incapable of bringing him to justice. He expressed his feeling on the subject by saying, "Ye are too hard for me, ye sons of Zeruiah;" but he evidently hoped that his son Solomon, with the wisdom which would characterize him, and the peace which would prevail during his reign, would be able to bring this great criminal to justice; and he felt that it would be a permanent injury to the nation to allow such a man to go down to his grave in peace. A criminal act did not lose its criminality nor cease to demand punishment by the lapse of time in that age any more than it does in this. He directed Solomon to deal with Joab "according to his [440] wisdom," and not to let his hoary head go clown in peace to the grave, meaning evidently that Solomon would have wisdom enough as well as power enough to bring about the desired end in a way that would not bring reproach upon the throne; and Solomon showed his wisdom by giving Joab a chance to further develop his criminal character, which he did by supporting Adonijah in his second conspiracy.

      As to Shimei, it is true that David swore to him that he would not put him to death with the sword, but this was not the extension of pardon to Shimei for his crime, in the sense in which criminals are pardoned under our own Government. David had no authority under the law of Moses to pardon a criminal, neither was this authority vested in any other person or persons under that law. He could only refrain from executing the penalty. As respects the law of the land, Shimei was just as deserving of death after David died as he had been before, notwithstanding David's oath that he would not slay him. As in the case of Joab, however, David's idea of sound government policy prohibited the thought of allowing such a criminal to pass altogether unpunished. He left this case also to the wisdom of Solomon, and Solomon exhibited his wisdom by ordering Shimei to build a house inside of Jerusalem where his conduct could be closely watched, and not to go outside of that city as far as the brook Kedron, at the hazard of his life. Shimei had his life in his own hands, and it was only when he violated the condition of being spared that the penalty fell upon him, and it was clearly understood by everybody that Shimei was killed not merely for leaving the city, but for the crime that he had committed against David. Leaving the city was only a violation of the condition on which he had thus far been spared. It is highly [441] probable that if he had remained in the city some other evidence of his wickedness would have been developed, which would have served the immediate occasion of discharging the obligation which David had placed upon Solomon.

      When George Adam Smith pronounces the words of David, in thus charging Solomon, "horrible words, clothing a horrible spirit," he does gross injustice to the man; but this injustice is in keeping with the constant reiteration of destructive critics that David was an outlaw, full of bloodthirstiness, without religion, and therefore incapable of writing the Psalms which are ascribed to him in the Bible. I am afraid that these critics will never be forgiven for their slanderous representations of Old Testament saints.

[SEBC 439-442]