David is alleged to have written several Psalms. In one of these he addresses God in the phraseology of a member of the P. R. praising Deity that he had smitten all of his enemies on the cheek bone and broken the teeth of the ungodly. In these days, when "muscular Christianity" is not without advocates, the metaphor which presents God as a sort of magnificent Benicia Boy may find many admirers. In the eighteenth Psalm, David describes God as with "smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth," by which "coals were kindled." He represents God as coming down from heaven, and says "he rode upon a cherub." The learned Parkhurst gives a likeness of a one-legged, four-winged, four-faced animal, part lion, part bull, part eagle, part man, and if a cloven foot be any criterion, part devil also. This description, if correct, will give some idea to the faithful of the wonderful character of the equestrian feats of Deity.
In the twenty-sixth Psalm, the writer, if David, exposes his own hypocrisy in addition to his other vices. He has the impudence to tell God that he has been a man of integrity and truth; that he has avoided evildoers, although if we are to believe the thirty-eighth Psalm, the vile hypocrite must have already been subject to a loathsome disease—a penalty consequent on his licentiousness and criminality. In another Psalm, David the liar tells God that "he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight." To understand his malevolent nature we can not do better than quote his prayer to God against an enemy (Psalm cix, 6-14):
"6. Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
"7. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
"8. Let his days be few: and let another take his office.
"9. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
"10. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
"11. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath: and let the strangers spoil his labor.
"12. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
"13. Let his posterity be cut off: and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.