The death of Abner was the signal for the dissolution of the tottering kingdom he had supported. On receiving the tidings of his kinsman’s murder, Ishbosheth’s _hands were feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled_ (2 Sam. iv. 1). His body-guard was composed of men from his own tribe of Benjamin, but two divisions of it were commanded by two men, Baanah and Rechab, who, though descendants of the Canaanitish natives of Beeroth[278], were reckoned among the Benjamites. In revenge, it has been suggested, for some injury they had received from Saul――possibly the slaughter of their Gibeonite kinsmen (Comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 1, 2)――and certainly with the hope of conciliating the new king at Hebron, these two resolved to take the life of Ishbosheth. _About the heat of the day_ (2 Sam. iv. 5), therefore, they entered the palace under pretence of fetching some wheat piled up near the entrance (2 Sam. iv. 6), and finding Ishbosheth lying on his bed they stabbed him to the heart, and cut off his head. Then hurrying all that afternoon and all night (2 Sam. iv. 7) down the valley of the Jordan, they presented themselves before David at Hebron with the bloody head in their hands. But they met with no better reception than the pretended slayer of Saul. David sternly rebuked them for their cold-blooded _murder of a righteous person in his own house upon his bed_, and ordered their instant execution. Their hands and feet were cut off, and their bodies were suspended over the pool at Hebron, while the head of Ishbosheth was buried with all honours in the sepulchre of Abner (2 Sam. iv. 8–12).
_DAVID’S REIGN AT JERUSALEM._ 2 SAM. V.–VII. B.C. 1048–1042.
EVERY obstacle was thus removed that had hitherto prevented David’s assuming the royal power over all the tribes. Ishbosheth was dead, Abner was dead, Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s only surviving son, was barely 12 years of age. The son of Jesse had long waited for his hour, and at length it was come. A deputation from all the tribes of Israel (2 Sam. v. 1) repaired to Hebron, and formally offered him the crown. A solemn league was then entered into, and for the third time David was anointed amidst great rejoicings. At Hebron he had reigned for 7½ years over Judah; he was now king of all Israel. His band of six hundred faithful followers had rapidly swelled into a great host, _like the host of God_ (1 Ch. xii. 22). And now not only Dan and Judah and Simeon, not only Benjamin and Ephraim, not only the tribes beyond the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, flocked around his standard, but Issachar sent _men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do_ (1 Ch. xii. 32), and Zebulun and Naphtali sent not only men, but the peculiar products of their rich territory[279] (1 Ch. xii. 40), while a still more important accession consisted of 4,600 warriors of the Levitical tribe, and 3,700 of the house of Aaron, headed by Jehoiada, and the youthful but valiant Zadok (1 Ch. xii. 25–28). Upwards of 300,000 choice warriors of the flower of Israel were thus gathered together _to turn the kingdom of Saul to David_, and join in celebrating the three days’ festival which greeted his accession to the throne (1 Ch. xii. 39).