Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he got no heat.
Read Chapter 1
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Years; sixty-nine, as he died when he was seventy years old. (Calmet) (2 Kings v. 4.)
Warm. Though David was of a strong constitution, he had been so much exposed to fatigue, and so harassed with domestic broils, that his vigour was nearly decayed. (Calmet)
The Rabbins say, that the sight of the angel had greatly contributed to weaken him. Lyranus, and others, suppose that he was affected with the palsy. (Abulensis; Salien, the year of the world 3019.) Ver. 2. Servants. Physicians. (Josephus, vii. 14.)
People of the faculty still adopt the same sentiments; and when fire and clothes will not procure heat, they advise the application of living creatures. (Bartholin ix.; Galen vii.; Vales. Philos. c. 19.) Ver. 3. Sunamitess. Sunam was not far from Thabor, in the tribe of Issachar. (Calmet)
This history leads us to explain the ambition and death of Adonias. (Haydock) Ver. 4. Her. Which shows the virtue and temperance of David. (Menochius)
She was his wife, at least of a secondary orde...
There are twenty-two letters among the Hebrews, as is also witnessed by the language of the Syrians and Chaldeans, which is for the most part similar to the Hebrew; for these twenty-two elements also have the same sound, but different characters. The Samaritans still write the Pentateuch of Moses in the same number of letters, only they differ in shapes and points (or "endings" apicibus). And Ezra, the scribe and doctor of the Law, after the capture of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel, is certain to have found (or "invented" repperisse) other letters, which we now use, when up to that time the characters of the Samaritans and the Hebrews were the same. In the book of Numbers this same total is also mystically shown by the census of the Levites and the priests. And we find in certain Greek scrolls to this day the four-lettered Name of God written in the ancient letters. But also the thirty-sixth Psalm, and the one hundred tenth, and the one hundred eleventh, a...
This and the following Book are called by the holy fathers the third and fourth book of Kings; but by the Hebrews, the first and second. They contain the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Juda, from the beginning of the reign of Solomon, to the captivity. As to the writer of these books, it seems most probable they were not written by one man; nor at one time; but as there was all along a succession of prophets in Israel, who recorded, by divine inspiration, the most remarkable things that happened in their days, these books seem to have been written by these prophets.
