And the king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land: which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither.
The king and his men went to Jerusalem unto the Jebusites. The first expedition of David, as king of the whole country, was directed against this place, which had hitherto remained in the hands of the natives. The circumjacent country was barren and uninviting, so that the Hebrews had hitherto made no exertions to dislodge the inhabitants of the land." But now that the divided tribes of Israel were to be united under one monarchy into a compacted nation, it was necessary to fix the seat of government at a place more northerly than Hebron, as central a could be attained, and withal not too far removed from Judah. Jerusalem, with the sight of which, as visible from the ridge fronting Beth-lehem, he must have been familiar from his earliest years, appeared to the discerning eye of David to combine the military advantage of a strong position with that of convenient communications with all parts of the kingdom, not only for political, but for religious objects. God had distinctly intimated His will that there should be a central place for national worship; and therefore we may reasonably believe that he who had consulted the divine oracle with reference to his repairing to Hebron, would not neglect to make similar inquiry in this more important case of choosing Jerusalem as the future metropolis. Accordingly, having obtained, as we may presume, the Lord's approval of the site chosen, David made it the first act of his policy, after he became king of Israel, to acquire possession of that fortress. Jerusalem was thought to be so much in the midst of the countries and nations around (Ezekiel 5:5), that it was called literally, 'the navel of the earth' (Josephus, 'Jewish Wars,' b. 3:, ch. 2: sec. 5; Reland's 'Palaestina,' cap. 10:, p. 51). (See the notes at 2 Samuel 5:9.)
Except thou take away the blind and the lame. Of the five heights on which the future city of Jerusalem was built (namely, Akra, Bezetha, Moriah, and Ophel), one only was at that time inhabited (Numbers 13:29; Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21) - namely, the hill of Zion, the loftiest and largest-and was all that the new king aimed at possessing. It was strongly fortified, and deemed so impregnable that blind and lame persons were sent to man the battlements, in derisive mockery of the Hebrew king's attack, and to shout, 'David cannot come hither.' To understand the full meaning and force of this insulting taunt, it is necessary to bear in mind the depth and steepness of the valley of Gihon, and the lofty walls of the ancient Canaanite fortress. Looking down from the summit of the rock to the bottom, it appeared a dizzy height which no assailants, however adventurous, would suceed in scaling; and the inhabitants, therefore feeling themselves secure in their inaccessible position, sneered at what they considered the vain attempts of David and his army to besiege their fort.
This we take to be the true import of the passage. Some learned men, indeed, among whom is Selden ('De Diis Syris, Syntag.,' 1:, cap. 2:), followed by Delaney ('Life of David'), think that there is a reference to the custom of ancient pagan people, in laying the foundations of a city, to deposit in some sequestered spot brass images as the palladium, the tutelary protection, of the place; that "the blind and the lame" spoken of here were the idols which, with a view to its defense, the Jebusites had set up in a recess of the fort; and that they were buoyed up with the conviction of perfect security, so long as those lares of their stronghold were not discovered and abstracted. There is one objection to this interpretation. It is this, that "the blind and the lame" were specified by the Jebusites themselves, who would not be very likely to characterize their own idols, in contemptuous terms, as defective and impotent. It is true, that these 'blind and lame' are called the 'hatred of David's soul,' a strong expression of disgust and horror, which, while it could scarcely be called forth by the bodily distresses even of human antagonists, appears very pertinent and applicable on the part of David to pagan idols. Notwithstanding, the former interpretation is preferable for various reasons, which are stated at large by Kennicott in his 'Dissertation.'