Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Moreover he was king by a threefold right: first, as God: “King of kings and Lord of lords;” second, as man, son and successor of King David, whence Nathanael, John 1:49; and the multitudes were about to come, John chap. 6, verse 15: “That they would take him by force and make him king;” who did not know his divinity: and the same cried out to him as he entered Jerusalem, John chap. 12, verse 13: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel;” third, as God-Man, wherefore Matthew said, chap. 28: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.” So our author, Salianus in his Annals, in the second year of Solomon,
4. DAVID WAS THIRTY YEARS OLD WHEN HE BEGAN TO REIGN.—“Son of thirty years,” that is, a man of thirty years. It is a Hebraism, which I explained in book I, chap. 13, verse 1. Hence it is clear that David was younger than Jonathan, who was forty years old and more, as I showed in chap. 2, verse 10. It is strange therefore that some think David was older than Jonathan, whom St. Ambrose favours, book I On Duties, chap. 32, saying: “David, though more prudent, nevertheless yielded to the counsels of the younger Jonathan.”
Allegorically, David here, as in all other things, was a type of Christ; hear Angelomus: “That David began to reign at thirty years prefigured that our Lord at thirty years came to baptism, and began to preach the Gospel of the kingdom; whose kingdom is everlasting, and his power shall not be given to another. For the number forty, which consists of four tens, signifies the fulness of times and the perfection of things.” This the kingdom of David represented, which lasted forty years.
AND HE REIGNED FORTY YEARS,—with seven months added; for he reigned seven years and six months over Juda, then thirty-three years over all Israel; unless thou say that these thirty-three years were not complete, and six months were lacking to them; for so he reigned precisely forty years, and died in the seventieth year of his age. The Hebrews in St. Jerome’s Traditions say that David reigned forty years and six months; but that these months are not reckoned because David for six months fled from Absalom, or laboured under sickness. More plainly say that Scripture often records whole numbers and omits fractions or small parts of numbers.
6. AND THE KING AND ALL THE MEN THAT WERE WITH HIM WENT ... to transfer to Jerusalem, and make it the seat of the kingdom and lame men fashioned on the walls, by which the Jebusites meant to signify that the citadel of Sion was so lofty and fortified that, even with themselves doing nothing, it could be defended by those statues. Second, Aben-Ezra, R. Solomon and the other Rabbis think they were two images of two Patriarchs, one of the blind Isaac, the other of the lame Jacob, by which the Israelites were to be reminded of the covenant which Abimelech, their ancestor, had made with Isaac and Jacob, Genesis 26, and therefore were to refrain from war and from attacking his citadel in Sion. Third, Burgensis thinks they were idols, which the Jebusites had placed on the walls as tutelary gods. Fourth, the Chaldee takes the blind and lame not as bodily but as spiritual: namely those who were blind in mind and halting; hence he renders, sinners and guilty. Fifth, and genuinely, the blind and lame properly so called are understood here; for such soldiers, whose eyes had been put out in battle and whose legs were broken, the Jebusites placed on the walls and the loftiest towers of the citadel of Sion, trusting in the strength of the place, in sarcasm and hostile mockery of David, as if to say: In vain, O David, dost thou try to assault our citadel, which is so fortified by the nature of the place that it can be defended by the blind and lame alone whom thou seest in it. Go then, if thou hast the heart to assault the citadel, fly to its walls and take from them the blind and lame, and so enter and occupy the citadel; but know that after the blind and lame, we, sighted and strong in feet and hands, shall meet thee, and cast thee and thine down from the walls: so Josephus, book VII of the Antiquities, chap. 3. Procopius, Theodoret, Angelomus, Abulensis, Serarius and others. So the Tyrians, says Lyranus, set pygmies on the strongly fortified walls of Tyre, as if they alone were enough to defend them. Ezechiel 27:11. See what is said there. The Hebrews in St. Jerome’s Traditions and the Gloss add that the Jebusites had been called by David “blind and lame,” that is, weak and unarmed, and that they therefore turned this insult back upon David in sarcasm and set their blind and lame against him, as if to say: We have placed blind and lame defenders on our walls, because thou callest us blind and lame; go then, try whether we are such, and fight with these blind and lame, and thou shalt see not us but thy soldiers become lame and blind; it is a military taunt. Others add that the Jebusites called the Hebrews blind and lame. For so Manetho, Lysimachus and others in Josephus, book I Against Apion, revile Moses and the Hebrews, saying that they were expelled by the king on account of leprosy, scab and other diseases. Wherefore Moses led out of Egypt eighty thousand lepers, maimed and mutilated, for instance blind and lame. The Jebusites therefore turned this taunt against the Hebrews, as if to say: You Hebrews, with your Moses, are lepers, maimed, blind and lame, and for this reason were cast out by the Egyptians; do you wish then to occupy our citadel of Sion? You shall find us stronger than the Egyptians, and we shall easily drive you hence as blind and lame. They therefore insulted David, as if to say: Thou with thy blind and lame Hebrews shalt not come in hither: begone therefore from here, and go back to thy Egyptians.
7. BUT DAVID TOOK THE CASTLE OF SION—Note: David was not cast down in spirit by the Jebusites’ insults, but was lifted up, and by proposing great rewards he stirred up his soldiers to assault the citadel of Sion, who, enticed by the promises, climbed boldly into the citadel and occupied it, and cast down the blind and lame set there by the Jebusites. Moreover David in the first year of his reign over all Israel, which was the thirty-eighth of his life, took Sion and Jerusalem, and transferred the seat of the kingdom from Hebron to it, and reigned in it thirty-three years, as was said in verse 5.
8. FOR DAVID HAD PROPOSED THAT DAY A REWARD TO HIM THAT SHOULD STRIKE THE JEBUSITES, AND GET UP TO THE TOPS OF THE GUTTERS OF THE HOUSES—that is, the tiles of the roofs or the channels through which water ran down from the roofs to the ground, as if to say: David proposed a reward to him who should first lay hold of the tops of the walls and channels of Sion, and leaping over them enter the citadel. The reward was that he should become leader and chief of David’s army. Joab did this, who, although for the murder of Abner he deserved to be deprived of this command, nevertheless, for having overcome the citadel of Sion, namely because he first climbed into it, not by a cedar cut down by the Hebrews for this purpose, as the Hebrews idly fable, but by ladders set against the citadel, deserved to be confirmed by David in this his command, as is clear from 1 Paralipomenon 11:6. For when ladders were set up by the Hebrews against the citadel on every side, and many strove to reach the walls by them, Joab surpassed all, and was the first to climb the walls, that by this generosity and victory he might blot out the stain of the crime of killing Abner; and he slew the Jebusites, guardians of the citadel, every one, except one Areuna, who was a very great friend of the Jews, says Josephus. For he sold to David the threshing-floor on mount Sion, to build the temple on it, of which in chap. 24.