11:1-9 David was brought to possess the throne of Israel after he had reigned seven years in Hebron, over Judah only. God's counsels will be fulfilled at last, whatever difficulties lie in the way. The way to be truly great, is to be really useful, to devote all our talents to the Lord.

Verse 8. - Millo. There is great uncertainty as to the derivation and the meaning of this word. It is probably not really of Hebrew extraction, but of the oldest Canaanitish origin. In the Hebrew it is always used with the article, and would presumably come from the Hebrew root "to fill." Josephus seems to use, as synonymous expression for "David's wall round Millo," this, viz. "buildings round about the lower city" ('Jud. Ant.,' 3:2, compared with 5; 'Wars,' 6:1, where he identifies those "buildings," etc., with Acra). As the name of a family, it is mentioned in connection with Shechem, known specially as a place of the Canaanites (Judges 9:6, 20). The Septuagint represents it by the word ἡ α}κρα. In the remarkable passage, 2 Kings 12:20, the word "Silla" is even a greater enigma, which, however, may designate the "steps from the city of David" (Nehemiah 3:15), or "the causeway of going up" to the west of the temple (1 Chronicles 22:16). The likeliest view of Mille is that it was a very strong point of fortification in the surrounding defences of the hill of Zion (1 Kings 9:24; 1 Kings 11:27). In 2 Chronicles 32:5 the otherwise unvarying translation (ἡ α}κρα) of the Septuagint is superseded by τὸ ἀνάλημμα, a word itself of doubtful signification. For while some would render it by the word "foundation," Schleusner translates it "height." Grove (in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary,' 2:367) puts it in "the neighbourhood of the Tyropaean valley at the foot of Zion." Some clue may lie in the word "inward," applied to the building by David. Does it imply a covering by edifices of the space, or some portion of it, that lay between Zion and the rest of the city? (See also Keil on Kings, vol. 2:163.)

8. Joab repaired the rest of the city—David built a new town to the north of the old one on Mount Zion; but Joab was charged with a commission to restore the part that had been occupied by the ancient Jebus, to repair the breaches made during the siege, to rebuild the houses which had been demolished or burned in the sacking of the town, and to preserve all that had escaped the violence of the soldiery. This work of reconstruction is not noticed elsewhere [Calmet].

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