Add parallel Print Page Options

Then all the elders of Israel came to the king in Hebron, and at Hebron King David made a covenant with them in the presence of the Lord; and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years: in Hebron he was king over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he was king thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.(A)

Capture of Zion.[a]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 5:6–12 David’s most important military exploit, the taking of Jerusalem, is here presented before his battles with the Philistines, vv. 17–25, which took place earlier. The sense of vv. 6 and 8 is in doubt. Perhaps the Jebusites boasted that Jerusalem was impregnable, using a metaphorical or proverbial expression that claimed the city was defensible even by people not suited for military action. The saying then received a different sense (v. 8), to the effect that “the blind and the lame” were David’s enemies. Mt 21:14 and Lk 14:13 seem to play off, and transform, this saying.