Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/296

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
282
BURIED CITES AND BIBLE COUNTRIES.

haps the discovery would have been made earlier, only that the village of Siloam, owing to the turbulence of its inhabitants, is almost unvisited by Europeans.

Adonijah's feast, then, was being held at the foot of this cliff, about 70 yards across the valley from En Rogel. Solomon's party could not be seen because the rising ground of Ophel came between. But when the anointing had taken place at the Pool of Siloam, and the party were going back up the Tyropœon toward David's house, the people piped their music and shouted their joy till the earth rang again. The attention of Joab was attracted by the sound of the trumpet, and he enquired, "Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar?" The truth was learned, and then Adonijah's guests were afraid, and rose up and went every man his way.

Solomon's Change of Residence.—Solomon would at first live in the house of his father David, which was near the stairs which went down to the valley bed. "And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the City of David, until he had made an end of building his own house," &c. (1 Kings iii. 1). "And Solomon was building his own house thirteen years." "He made also a house for Pharaoh's daughter" (close to his own house) (1 Kings vii. 1. 8). "And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the City of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David, king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come" (2 Chron. viii. 11). This incidental mention that he brought her up accords well with the relative positions of the two palaces—David's lower down the slope of Ophel, the new one higher up. The same remark applies to bringing up the ark from David's house to the Temple.

The Building of Millo.—David having taken the strong-