he organised his forces; the Philistines were defeated in battle after
battle, and David not only succeeded in driving them out of Judah and
Israel, but in carrying the war into their own country. The Philistine
cities were conquered, and soldiers from Gath, where David had himself
once served as a mercenary, were drafted into the body-guard of the
Hebrew sovereign.

Before the Philistine war was over, Jerusalem had fallen into David's
hands. The stronghold of the Jebusites was one of the last of the
Canaanitish cities to surrender to the Israelites. Its older inhabitants
were allowed to live in it side by side with colonists from Judah and
Benjamin. The city itself was made the capital of the kingdom. Its
central position, its natural strength, and its independence of the
history of any special tribe, all combined to justify the choice. Here
David built his palace, and planned the erection of a temple to Yahveh.

Meanwhile the kingdom of Israel was passing into an empire. Joab and his
veterans gained victory after victory, and the Hebrew army became what
the Assyrian army was in later days, the most highly disciplined and
irresistible force in western Asia. Moab and Ammon were subdued; the
Aramaic kinglets to the north-east were made tributaries, and the
kingdom of Zobah, which had risen on the ruins of the Hittite power, was
overthrown. The limits of David's rule were extended to the banks of the
Euphrates, and the Syrians on either side of the river were utterly
crushed. Even Edom, which had successfully defied the Pharaohs in the
days of Egyptian greatness, was compelled to submit to the Jewish
conqueror; its male population was mercilessly massacred, and its ports
on the Gulf of Suez fell into Israelitish hands. In the north Hamath
made alliance with the new power that had arisen in the Oriental world,
while Hiram of Tyre was glad to call himself the friend of the