"Let God arise, and scattered
Let all His enemies be;
And let all those that do Him hate,
Before His presence flee."
The sixtieth psalm is assigned to David after Joab's signal victory over the Edomites (2 Sam. viii.). It agrees very well with that date, though the earlier verses have a wailing tone so deep over recent disasters, so great that one is almost inclined to suppose that they come from a later hand than his. But after the first verses all is warlike energy and triumph. How the glad thought of ruling over a united people dances in the swift words, "I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth;" he has, as it were, repeated Joshua's conquest and division of the land, and the ancient historical sites that fill a conspicuous place in the history of his great ancestor are in his power. "Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine, Ephraim also is the defence of my head, Judah my staff of command." He looks eastward to the woods and pastoral uplands across the Jordan, whose inhabitants had been but loosely attached to the western portion of the nation, and triumphs in knowing that Gilead and Manasseh own his sway. The foremost tribes on this side the river are to him like the armour and equipments of a conqueror; he wears the might of Ephraim, the natural head of the northern region, as his helmet, and he grasps the power of Judah as his baton of command or sceptre of kingly rule (Gen. xlix. 10).
Thus, strong in the possession of a united kingdom, his flashing eye turns to his enemies, and a stern joy, mingled with contempt, blazes up as he sees them reduced to menial offices and trembling before him. "Moab (is) my washing-basin; to Edom will I fling my shoe; because of me, Philistia, cry out" (in fear). The three ancestral foes that hung on Israel's southern border from east to west are subdued. He will make of one "a vessel of dishonour" to wash his feet, soiled with battle; he will throw his shoes to another the while, as one would to a slave to take care of; and the third, expecting a like fate, shrieks out in fear of the impending vengeance. He pants for new victories, "Who will bring me into (the) strong city?" probably the yet unsubdued Petra, hidden away in its tortuous ravine, with but one perilous path through the gorge. And at last all the triumph of victory rises to a higher region of thought in the closing words, which lay bare the secret of his strength, and breathe the true spirit of the soldier of Jehovah. "In God we shall do valiantly; and He, even He, shall tread down our enemies."
The twentieth psalm, another of these stirring war-songs, is in that choral manner which we have already seen in psalm xxiv., and the adoption of which was probably connected with David's careful organization of "the service of song." It is all ablaze with the light of battle and the glow of loyal love.
The army, ready drawn up for action, as we may fancy, prays for the king, who, according to custom, brings sacrifices and offerings before the fight. "Jehovah hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion, remember all thine offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice." Then, as they wave their standards in the sunshine, or plant before the ranks of each tribe its cognizance, to be defended to the death, the hoarse shout rises from the files, "In the name of our God we will set up (or wave) our banners." Then the single voice of the king speaks, rejoicing in his soldiers' devotion, which he accepts as an omen that his sacrifice has not been in vain: "Now know I that Jehovah saveth His anointed. He will hear him from the heaven of His holiness with the strength of the salvation of His right hand;" not merely from a God dwelling in Zion, according to language of the previous prayer, but from the Lord in the heavens, will the strength come. Then again the chorus of the host exclaims, as they look across the field to the chariots and cavalry of the foe—forces which Israel seldom used—"These (boast[V]) of chariots, and those of horses, and we, of the name of Jehovah, our God, do we boast." Ere a sword has been drawn, they see the enemy scattered. "They are brought down and fallen; and we, we are risen and stand upright." Then one earnest cry to God, one more thought of the true monarch of Israel, whom David would teach them to feel he only shadowed; and with the prayer, "Jehovah! save! Let the King hear us in the day when we cry," ringing like the long trumpet blast that sounds for the charge, they dash forth to victory![Contents]
[V] Lit. "make mention of" or "commemorate."
XIII.—THE TEARS OF THE PENITENT.
Adversity had taught David self-restraint, had braced his soul, had driven him to grasp firmly the hand of God. And prosperity had seemed for nearly twenty years but to perfect the lessons. Gratitude had followed deliverance, and the sunshine after the rain had brought out the fragrance of devotion and the blossoms of glad songs. A good man, and still more a man of David's age at the date of his great crime, seldom falls so low, unless there has been previous, perhaps unconscious, relaxation of the girded loins, and negligence of the untrimmed lamp. The sensitive nature of the psalmist was indeed not unlikely to yield to the sudden force of such a temptation as conquered him, but we can scarcely conceive of its having done so without a previous decay of his religious life, hidden most likely from himself. And the source of that decay may probably be found in self-indulgence, fostered by ease, and by long years of command. The actual fall into sin seems to have been begun by slothful abdication of his functions as captain of Israel. It is perhaps not without bitter emphasis that the narrative introduces it by telling us that, "at the time when kings go forth to battle," David contented himself with sending his troops against Ammon, and "tarried still at Jerusalem." At all events, the story brings into sharp contrast the levy en masse, encamped round Rabbath, and their natural head, who had once been so ready to take his share of blows and privations, loitering behind, taking his quiet siesta in the hot hours after noon, as if there had been no soldiers of his sweltering in their armour, and rising from his bed to stroll on his palace roof, and peer into the household privacies below, as if his heart had no interest in the grim tussle going on behind the hills that he could almost see from his height, as they grew purple in the evening twilight. He has fallen to the level of an Eastern despot, and has lost his sense of the responsibilities of his office. Such loosening of the tension of his moral nature as is indicated in his absence from the field, during what was evidently a very severe as well as a long struggle, prepared the way for the dismal headlong plunge into sin.