David conquered pretty much everyone around and collected treasures and keepsakes from his victories, including his former friends the Ammonites following a social gaffe that they tried to war their way out of by hiring an army of Aramean mercenaries from across the Euphrates. He didn’t make that same mistake that Gideon did and display them as memorials of his own awesomeness. David dedicated all his trophies to the Lord, and everything was good for everybody under his rule.
His sons became priests somehow. The first Priests were related to Aaron who was a Levite. It sounded like all priests were to be from Aaron’s family, but maybe that line was broken or they lost track of it. It was a long time before this. Samuel seems to represent a break in the line of priests since he was adopted and all the priests he studied under were killed. Still, David was from the tribe of Judah. I would think priest would have to at least be from the tribe of Levi. Maybe that was one of the perks of being the king’s son.
In between conquests, David tracked down that last descendant of Saul’s, a lame grandson named Mephibosheth. He was Jonathan’s son so this gave David a great way to honor his promise to Jonathan that he wouldn’t wipe out the whole line of Saul. He set Mephibosheth up with all of the lands that had belonged to Saul and put some servants to work on the land to keep Mephibosheth rich and fed and invited him to eat at his own table with his family any time.
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