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The Life and Reign of David King of Israel
The Life and Reign of David King of Israel Author:George Smith General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1867 Original Publisher: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer Subjects: Fiction / Classics History / Middle East / Israel History / Jewish History / Middle East / General Religion / Biblical Biography / Old Testament Social Science / Jewish Studies Notes: This is a b... more »lack and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. DAVID'S YOUTHFUL LIFE AND CHARACTER. David was the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem, and great grandson of Boaz who married Ruth, the young Moabitish widow. The family had held a prominent position in the tribe of Judah, being the principal landed proprietors in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. To what extent Jesse maintained this position and possessed this property, cannot be clearly ascertained. By the Hebrew law of inheritance the landed property of a father at his death was divided into equal portions, one in number more than the number of his sons; the eldest sou taking two of these portions, the others one each. The daughters were supposed to be provided for by the father's other property. Boaz was evidently a wealthy man; but as we do not know how many sons he had, nor how many sons were born unto Obed, we have no means of knowing what portion of the property came into the possession of Jesse. Some expressions used by David- in his Psalms have beeu referred to for the purpose of showing that his family was in a very humble and obscure position; but it is doubtful whether these passages justify the conclusions which have been drawn from them. It is also worthy of remark, that although Jesse is described as occupying a position of some respectabilityin Bethlehem, and was able to send three of his sons to the army of Saul, and to support t...« less