When all the kings, &c.— Thus the arms of David were blessed, and God accomplished the promises which he had made to Abraham, and renewed to Joshua. Genesis 15:18. Joshua 2:4. Thus, in the space of nineteen or twenty years, David was enabled to finish gloriously eight wars, all righteously undertaken, and all honourably terminated: namely, 1. The civil war with Ish-bosheth; 2. The war against the Jebusites; 3. Against the Philistines and their allies; 4. Against the Philistines alone; 5. Against the Moabites; 6. Against Hadadezer; 7. Against the Idumeans; 8. Against the Ammonites and Syrians. We shall soon see this last entirely completed by the conquest of the kingdom of the Ammonites, abandoned by their allies. What glory for the monarch of Israel, had not the splendor of this illustrious epocha been obscured by a complication of crimes, of which one could never have suspected him to be capable!

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