And the days that David reigned over Israel were forty years: seven years reigned he in Hebron, and thirty and three years reigned he in Jerusalem.
The days that David reigned over Israel were forty years ... His was a noble, a wondrous, and an humbling history. He was a good man, yet his life was deformed by various crimes of a very gross character. But there were many bright and noble traits in his character. He was an earnest lover of the divine law, his reign was signalized by many important services that contributed to the glory of God and the exaltation of his kingdom, and his name, as the sweet psalmist of Israel, will be held in honour to the latest age of the Church. But as a king of Israel, he, with all his great qualities, fell short of raising his kingdom to the influential position assigned to it in the moral and religious education of the world. 'It had been appointed that in and through the Hebrew nation all the families of the earth should be blessed; and when David had subdued his territory up to the covenanted limits, he should with this view, and in fulfillment of what he knew to be the divine intention respecting Israel's national calling, have applied himself to consolidate his conquests.
These various races, instead of being formed into one compacted people, were merely tied and joined together by a common allegiance, like the widely scattered tribes of the great kingdom-empires on the east. And instead of being rallied at some central point, where they might have all been convened in the name of their common Lord, the subjects of his vast dominion were compelled to look away to Jerusalem, which was far remote from many of them, as the metropolitan center of their government and worship. For David still adhered to his purpose, that this should be the chief city of his territory. It was central and well fitted for its purpose when the kingdom was comprised within its former limits; but now there were many sites further north that were far more eligible for the building of his capital, whither the tribes might have "gone up" from all sides of the consecrated land, "unto the testimony of Israel," and the selection of which might have averted the jealous enmities by which the kingdom was afterward rent in twain' (Drew's 'Scripture Lands,' p. 146).