This is the ideal of a just reign-whether, as looking back upon his own, or forwards to that of Solomon.1 The ruler just to men, and reverent towards God, suggests immediately the brilliant sunrise of the East: the cloudless sky above the grass, so exquisitely green in those dry countries, immediately after rain, and glistening in the sunbeams.

But he has hardly caught this vision before, whether in prospect or retrospect, it is instantly overclouded.

For not so is my house with God

For an everlasting covenant He made with me, ordered in all things and sure.

For this is all my salvation and all my desire

Assuredly He will not cause it to grow (or will He not cause it to grow?').

It is hard to unravel these entangled sentences; yet they doubtless present in a short compass the contrast between his hopes of what his dynasty might be, and his fears of what it would be; and underneath both hopes and fears his confidence in the Divine promise which pledged to his race an eternal future. It is a prediction, but a prediction wrapt up in that undefined suspense, and that dependence on moral conditions, which so well distinguish the predictions of sacred Prophets from the predictions of Pagan soothsayers.

But the men of ill-like scattered thorns are they all, for not with the hand does one grasp them.

And the man that shall touch them

Must be fenced with iron and the wood of spears.

And with fire they shall be burnt and burnt on the hearth.

He turns from the apprehension for his house to the recollection of those who had troubled his own reign from first to last. "The sons of Zeruiah' have been the constant

See the comparison of the moral 2 Comp. Psalm lxxxix. and the natural world in Psalm xix,

vexation of his life.' He contrasts the soft delicate green of the kingdom in its prosperity with the thorny thickets which can only be approached with axes and long pruning-hooks. These are the evil growth of the court even of a righteous king; to root and burn them out is his duty as much as the encouragement of the good.

It is a melancholy strain full of brightness and joy.

to close a song which begins so
But it is a true picture of the

chequered life of David, and of the chequered fortunes of the ruler amongst men. It is a true picture of the broken 'lights' of the human heart, whether in Judæa or in England, whether of king or peasant. If there be any part of Scripture which betrays the movements of the human individual soul, it is this precious fragment of David's life. If there be any part which claims for itself, and which gives evidence of the breathing of the Spirit of God, it is this also. Such a rugged, two-edged monument is the fitting memorial of the man who was at once the King and the Prophet, the Penitent and the Saint, of the ancient Church.

David died, according to Josephus, at the age of seventy. His death. The general sentiment which forbade interment within the habitations of men, gave way in his case, as in that of Samuel. He was buried in the city of David'— in the city which he had made his own, and which could only be honoured, not polluted, by containing his grave. It was, no doubt, hewn in the rocky sides of the hill, and became the centre of the catacomb in which his descendants, the kings of Judah, were interred after him. It remained one of the landmarks of the ruined city, after the return from the Captivity, between Siloah and the guardhouse of the mighty men,' of his own faithful body-guard, and it was pointed out down to the latest times of the Jewish people. His

His tomb.

2

sepulchre is with us unto this day,' says St. Peter1 at Pentecost; and Josephus states that Solomon having buried a vast treasure in the tomb, one of its chambers was broken open by Hyrcanus, and another by Herod the Great. It is said to have fallen into ruin in the time of Hadrian.3 The vast cavern, with its many tombs, no doubt exists under the ruins of Jerusalem, and its discovery will close many a controversy on the topography of the Holy City. But down to this time its situation is unknown. Jerome speaks of a tomb of David, as the object of pilgrimage, but apparently in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem. A large catacomb at some distance to the north-west of the city has in modern days borne the title of the Tombs of the Kings,' and has been of late years by an ingenious French traveller claimed as the royal sepulchre.5 The only site which is actually consecrated by traditional sentiment as the Tomb of David is the vault underneath the Mussulman Mosque of David on the southern side of modern Jerusalem. The vault professes to be built above the cavern, and contains only the cenotaph, usual in the tombs of Mussulman saints, with the inscription in Arabic, 'O David, whom God has made vicar, 'rule mankind in truth.

141

LECTURE XXV.

THE PSALTER OF DAVID.

of

are

We have seen how the position of David is virtually that
the Founder of the Jewish Monarchy. In this sense his
name is repeated in every possible form. 'The city of
'David''The seed of David'—The house of David ‘-
'The key of David '-'The oath sworn unto David'
expressions which pervade the whole subsequent history and
poetry of the Old Testament, and much of the figurative
language of the New. The cruelty, the self-indulgence, the
too ready falsehood, have appeared sufficiently in the events
of his history. But there was a grace, a charm about him
which entwined the affections of the nation round his
person
and his memory, and made him, in spite of the savage
manners of the time and the wildness of his own life, at once
the centre of something like a court, the head of a new
civilisation. He was a born king of Israel by his natural
gifts. His immense activity and martial spirit united him
by a natural succession to the earlier chiefs of Israel, whilst
his accomplishments and genius fitted him especially to
exercise a vast control over the whole future greatness of
the Church and commonwealth.

The force and passion of the ruder age was blended with a depth of emotion which broke out in every relation of life. Never before had there been such a faithful friend,

1 See Ewald, iii. 154.

The cha-
David.

racter of

such an affectionate father. Never before had king or chief inspired such passionate loyalty, or given it back in equal degree. The tenderness of his personal affection penetrated his public life. He loved his people with a pathetic compassion, beyond even that of Moses. Even from the history we gather that the ancient fear of God was, for the first time, passing into the love of God. In the vision of David in Paradise, as related by Mohammed, he is well represented as offering up the prayer, O Lord, grant 'to me the love of Thee; grant that I may love those that love Thee; grant that I may do the deeds that may win thy love. Make thy love of Thee to be dearer to me 'than myself, my family, than wealth, and even than cool ' water.' 1

No other Jewish hero has compassed that extreme versatility of character which is so forcibly described in the striking Song to David' written by the half-crazed English poet with coal on the walls of his madhouse

'Pleasant and various as the year'—
'Priest, champion, sage, and boy.'

Jacob was the nearest approach to this complexity of character. But David, standing at a higher point of the sacred history, of necessity embraces a greater fullness of materials. He is the man after God's own heart,' not in the sense of a faultless saint-far from it, even according to the defective standard of Jewish morality; still further from it, if we compare him with the Christianity of a civilised age; but in the sense of the man who was chosen for his own special work the work of pushing forward his

Jelaladdin, p. 288. 2 Christopher Smart.

3

This is well put in Dean Milman's History of the Jews, i. 306.

This limited sense is evidently that of the only passage where the

phrase occurs, 1 Sam. xiii. 14. The far stronger expression in 1 Kings, xv. 5 (comp. Joseph. Ant. vii. 7, §3), can only be taken as an indication of the inferior morality of the Old Testament to that of the New.