THANKSGIVING PSALMS.

He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him,
Even length of days for ever and ever.

His glory is great in Thy salvation :

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Honour and majesty hast Thou laid upon him.
For Thou hast made him most blessed for ever;
Thou hast made him exceeding glad with Thy
countenance.

For the king trusteth in the Lord,

And through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved.

Thy hand shall find out all Thine enemies,

Thy right hand shall find out those that hate Thee.
Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of
Thine anger:

The Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath,
And the fire shall devour them."

PSALM XXXIII.

Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous!

For praise is comely for the upright.

Praise the Lord with harp:

Sing unto Him with the psaltery and an instrument

of ten strings.

Sing unto Him a new song;

Play skilfully with a loud noise.

For the word of the Lord is right;

And all His works are done in truth.

He loveth righteousness and judgment;

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;

And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

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He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap :

He layeth up the depth in storehouses.

Let all the earth fear the Lord:

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of

Him.

For He spake, and it was done;

He commanded, and it stood fast.

The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought:

He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever,

The thoughts of His heart to all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord;

And the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.

The Lord looketh from heaven,

He beholdeth all the sons of men.

From the place of His habitation

He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
He fashioneth their hearts alike;

He considereth all their works.

There is no king saved by the multitude of a host: A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety,

Neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him,

Upon them that hope in His mercy;

To deliver their soul from death,
And to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waiteth for the Lord:

ACCORDANCE OF THE PSALMS WITH HISTORY. 255

He is our help and our shield.

For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
Because we trusted in His holy Name.
Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us,
According as our help is in Thee."

There are none of the Psalms of David that more clearly allude to the circumstances that called them forth, than these; none that more strikingly exhibit the grateful recognition of the Divine goodness, and more fully express his sense of the unspeakable importance of unwavering faith in God, than these sacred songs. In the twenty-first Psalm, the inspired author praises God for giving him "his heart's desire," the entire conquest of all the territory promised to the seed of Abraham, and this thanksgiving culminates in praise for the possession of "the crown of pure gold," studded with precious stones, which was taken from the head of the vanquished king of Ammon, and now adorned the conqueror's brow. Then, his desires being satiated with present blessings, he throws his thoughts into the future, and realizes the joys of a present and everlasting salvation. In the thirty-third Psalm the author extols the power and goodness of God, and expatiates on the manifestation of these attributes in creation and providence. With his mind filled with these sublime thoughts, he calls on the righteous to rejoice in the Lord, and to exercise all their powers and ingenuity in proclaiming His praise. He then shows the vanity of every other refuge for man, or for nations; and closes a brilliant declaration of his confidence with the bold request that the measure and degree of the Lord's mercy to him might be in accordance with the certainty and

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extent of his hope in God. We cannot end this important section of David's history without directing attention to the evidence afforded by these Psalms of his perfect restoration to a life of elevated piety, and to happy intercourse with heaven.

CHAPTER XII.

TO THE REBELLION OF ABSALOM.

DURING the two years which passed after the conquest of the Ammonites, the Hebrew nation appears to have had peace and prosperity. Solomon was born, and favoured with Divine blessing from his infancy. The earliest account of this child, as it stands in our authorized version of the Scriptures, is not very intelligible. "And she bare a son, and called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him. And He sent by the hand of Nathan, and He called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord." (2 Sam. xii. 24, 25.) That is, the Lord loved him, and the Lord sent by the hand of Nathan, and the Lord called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord. It is not probable that this is the sense of the passage; and, as the original terms can reasonably be rendered, "The Lord sent him under the hand, or into the hand, or care, of Nathan the prophet," * it seems that the text

was intended to inform us that the Lord loved Solomon, and directed him to be placed, for religious instruction and training, under the care and guidance of the prophet Nathan. On account of this Divine attention, he called him "Jedidiah, the beloved of the Lord." But the name given by God to him

* This rendering is adopted by Bishop Patrick from Victorinus Strigelius, and is approved by Dr. Chandler; who says the original word employed, T', is used to denote "care, instruction, guidance."