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329 none "neither in dreams or visions nor through prophets" (he ended up speaking to the ghost of Samuel through a medium). David, we read in I Samuel 30:7, "inquired of Yahweh" by putting on the priestly garment of the High Priest with its oracular breastplate. But thereafter he was given the "word of Yahweh" through prophets—first one named Gad and then another named Nathan. The Bible (II Samuel 24:11) calls the former "Gad the Nabih, the Seer of David," through whom the "word of Yahweh" was made known to the king. Nathan was the prophet through whom Yahweh had told David that not he, but his son, would build the Temple in Jerusalem (II Samuel 7:2-17)—"all the words in accordance with the vision did Nathan say unto David." The function of the Nabih as teacher and upholder of moral laws and social justice, and not only as a conduit for divine messages, emerges from the deeds of even such an early Prophet as the enigmatic "Nathan" ("He who was granted"). It happened when David, having seen Bathsheba naked as she washed herself on her home's roof, ordered his general to expose Bathsheba's husband to the most dangerous battlefield spot, so that the king could take Bathsheba as a wife once she was widowed. It was then that Nathan the prophet came to the king and told him a fable of a rich man who had many sheep but nevertheless coveted the only sheep that a poor man had. And when David exclaimed, "such a man must be punished by death!" the prophet told him: "Thou art the man!" Recognizing his sin and going out of his way to atone for it, David spent ever more time in pious meditation and _ soli- tary prayer; many of the king's reflections on God and Man found expression in the Psalms of David; in them the celestial aspects of Yahweh echo, and expand upon, the words in the Song of Deborah. "These are the words of the song David sang to Yahweh" (II Samuel 22 and Psalm 18): Yahweh is my rock and my fortress; He is my deliverer ... In my distress I call Yahweh, to my God I call out; Prophets of an Unseen God