The seventh chapter of II Samuel contains a description of David's new covenant (new life) and his song of thanksgiving (the victorious chant of the high Initiate): "Therefore Jehovah will subdue thine enemies lower nature and build thee a house." Saul's house, symbolizing the feminine or water principle, fell because Agag was left alive. David's house, which symbolizes the blended principles, flourished in the glory of Solomon and flowered in the greater glory of Jesus. Solomon's Temple was an impressive symbol of this inner glory and hence its important place in the symbolism of Masonry.

   "I will establish thy son's kingdoms. He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne forever." Solomon in building this house was preparing the way for Jesus Christ whose throne is established "forever". The theme of David's hymn of thanksgiving was drawn from the memory of nature in which the "sweet singer of Israel" was able to read of these great impending events. David's keynote is humility in contrast to Saul's which was pride and egotism. After the illumination that came to him when realizing these great truths, he sings, "Who am I, Oh Lord God, and my house, that thou hast brought me thus far?" David's second keynote is praise, "Oh Jehovah, there is none like Thee." The life closest to God is one of praise; all truly devout aspirants are humbled rather than elated through and by the attainment of spiritual things.

   From voicing the spirit of humility and praise David passes inevitably into that of thanksgiving. He is outlining for the neophyte the spiritually scientific way of progression.

   Humility is a requisite to attainment, but equally so are praise and thanksgiving. They are magnets of power and attract more and greater good to the one who cherishes and uses them. True prayers should be largely praise and thanksgiving, not petitions. "Our Father knoweth that we have need of these things."

   Such is the attainment of one who is worthy to know the union with Bath-sheba, a covenant with the daughter of Seven. From the sevenfold purification is born Solomon, the gift of the Sun, or spiritual wisdom, Uriah, that "true light which lighteth every man," is ever extinguished in the. front ranks of battle so long as the son of lust, or impure love, is still alive. With its death (for all evil is relatively impermanent and transitory), Solomon, the light of true wisdom, is born. The Psalms, songs of the soul's growth and victory, can only be sting by one who knows this, the birth of wisdom within.

II Samuel 11:2-3
And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house; and from the roof he. saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

   Bath-sheba was beautiful of countenance. She represents the exaltation of the feminine principle in man. The greatest work of the occultist is the awakening of this, the love or wisdom power. (Bath means daughter, and Sheba, seven.) Uriah, whose name means light, was David's chief warrior. His is the "light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world." This light, before it can be comprehended by the darkness of the material mind, must be wedded to the feminine or heart principle. It is through the misuse of this love power that the light (Uriah) is killed. Through man's hist there is separation and the death of light so long as he lives the life of the senses.

   After Uriah's death David was wedded to Bath-sheba and she bore him a son. But David's sin in killing Uriah (he had not eradicated all the lower human elements which interfere with the clear vision of spiritual light) had displeased the Lord (cosmic Law), as we discover in II Samuel 11:27: "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord," and therefore (II Samuel 12:1), the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to rebuke David and bring to him a consciousness of what he had done. The child born of this illegitimate union signifies the fruit of evil causation, and consequently the illness and death of the child by reason of which David suffered great agony.

II Samuel 12: 16-20, 21
David therefore besought God for the child: and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth.
And the elders of his arose, and went to him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them.
And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him the child is dead?
But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.
Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him.
And David comforted Bath-sheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him.

   The first child died when the evil of the life was transmuted through suffering; the second child born was the essence of crystallized pain, the fruitage of the soul's sorrow, wisdom. Wisdom is the fruitage of lessons learned through sorrow.

   Sheba is seven, the number of earthly attainment or completion. Sheba crowned the life of David with fulfillment gained through painful experience. This is an expression of the same soul wisdom which later crowned the life of Solomon, in another guise. Through pain the eyes are opened, by its beneficent ministrations wisdom is achieved, and as the kabbalists say, the high feminine is liberated. This is the pinnacle of human evolution which at the present time is attained only through the very definite work of Initiation. David reached this point at the time of the birth of Solomon.

 — Corinne Heline