We now enter on another chapter in David's history. The period of his rejection is over, and the new and glorious position which he is to occupy is being prepared for him. That course of education which belonged to him as a fugitive and a sufferer, though rightful heir to the throne, closed at Ziklag, the scene to him of bitter sorrow and retribution, but of wondrous deliverance and restoration; and it is there, after having returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and having sent presents of the spoil of the “enemies of the Lord” to all places where he and his men were wont to haunt, that the momentous tidings of the death of him whose throne he was to fill reaches him! What a remarkable coincidence! The charred ruins of Ziklag testified of the chastening which he had so deeply tasted and needed, while the presents which he was sending hither and thither, proclaimed the compensation and victory which had been vouchsafed to him. The contrast between the two testimonies is striking, the one notifying his own failure; the other still more generally and positively the goodness and favor of the Lord.
Right royally he was acting before he knew that he was actually king, or that the one who had barred his way to the throne had fallen on Mount Gilboa. It is in keeping with God's ways that we should be in the spirit of our position when the time arrives for us to be owned in it, for the condition indicates the position; may, the condition is ever unsatisfied until it reaches the position which suits it. The preparation of his heart is from the Lord, and we may rest assured that unless we are acting in the spirit of any desired position, we are not fit for it, and if we were set in it, we should be found in an element unsuited to us. It is true we do not, and need not know how to act in the promised position until we are actually set therein, for faith's activities are for the present; but we may and should act in the spirit of the better position, and if our tastes for it are not gratified, the divine life is not matured; for it seeks its own region, and the tastes are only the claims of its vitality.
David was two days at Ziklag after his return from conquest before he heard of the death of Saul; for it was on the “third day” that the event, and the manner of it is related to him by an Amalekite, who says, “I stood upon him and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen, and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was upon his arm, and have brought them hither to my lord.” But how does David receive these tidings and trophies? “He took hold of his clothes and rent them, and mourned, and wept, and fasted until even;” and as for the bearer of them, he ordered his immediate execution. When judgment from God falls on His people, however deserved by them and predicted by the faithful, yet to the godly it is always solemn and affecting; and at such a moment no true David could remember the benefit that might accrue to himself from the event. The soul enters rather into the cause of the divine interposition; and the sense that God is acting silences self. How many and great were the revolutions which had exercised David's spirit those three days! He had not only known the Lord's peculiar mercy to himself, but now he is made cognizant of this singular judgment, which occupies him so much in its connection with Israel, that for the moment he overlooks its importance to himself. Moreover, he could not suffer the Amalekite, who had reported the news, to live; for he was proving his title to the throne in his unflinching war with the Amalekites, in contradistinction to Saul, who had morally lost the kingdom by sparing Amalek (1 Sam. 15), and who now, by God's unerring retribution, is slain and stripped of his kingly ornaments by an Amalekite! It was consistent therefore with God's way and will that David should establish his title by relentless vengeance on Amalek, and doubtless the Lord in His mercy exasperated him thus ere he reached the throne against the enemy of. Israel by allowing the Amalekites to wound him where he was most sensitive. Blessed God! this is often thy gracious way!
To the godly soul there is a fresh demand for counsel from God as each difficulty or opposition disappears, because he requires to ascertain how he may use the advantage aright, and there is often much lost for want of judgment. David now “inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord said unto him, go up. And David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron.” (2 Sam. 2:11And it came to pass after this, that David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah? And the Lord said unto him, Go up. And David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron. (2 Samuel 2:1).) What simple, happy, and interesting dependence! In what a different spirit he leaves Ziklag to that in which he entered it! What blessed fruition of God's discipline does he now enjoy going up into Hebron, led and sustained by the plain word of God! What power and simplicity characterize the walk of the man upheld thereby! David goes to Hebron, and “his men that were with him, every man with his household.” When faith in God is undistracted by nature, it embraces all that concerns me. I learn that God's interest in me must embrace my interests, or it would not be perfect consideration for me.
If a hair of my head cannot fall to the ground without Him, it is plain to faith that everything which concerns me is now within the circle of His hand. David therefore, acting in this mind, brought up all his men, and every man his household. Nothing less would suit but faith in the word of God which had said to him, “Go up unto Hebron.” When we begin in faith and dependence, every circumstance will establish not only the faith but the wisdom of our course; hence we find, in verse 4, that the “men of Judah came and anointed David king over the house of Judah.” But though now set up in royal dignity, it was a position very far short of that for which he was destined and anointed by Samuel. Seven years and six months must still elapse before the whole nation acknowledge him as king. (Ver. 11.) And there was still to be “long war between the house of Saul and the house of David,” though the latter should wax stronger and stronger. By what slow and measured steps the Lord leads his servants to their appointed place; doubtless, never attained in this world. Even though a Paul can say, “This one thing I do,” yet he must own that he has not attained that distinct place which he will occupy in glory; though the more he presses thereto, the more he fulfills his suited service. How often is God's servant, like David, set in Hebron for a season, i.e., only in partial possession of his appointed service; and how necessary this is in order to develop in him the suitable qualities. We may shrink from antagonism, but if there were none we should never feel the emanations of grace, elicited from us by the Holy Ghost in order to rebut them. Many opportunities are now afforded to David for proving his qualifications for the office he desired, which he never would have had, or probably never availed himself of, if he had been at once enthroned king of all Israel.
His first act is to send a message of approval and encouragement to the men of Jabesh-Gilead, who had owned Saul. This was great grace, and the true dignity of a man of might, capacitated to lead and rule. The throne is established by righteousness, and the one who cannot render impartial justice is not a God-made ruler. A Christian walks in righteousness and charity, rendering to every claim fairly and fully; and supplying to the impotent and suffering what they require. Even to an enemy David is able to render deserved praise, and this establishes his moral weight; and though he has also his disappointments and mistakes, he waxes stronger and stronger, and is all the while learning his true course before God.
Abner, in anger, deserts the house of Saul (chap. 3:9, &c.), and espouses David, who consents to make a league with him on condition that he should deliver to him his wife, Michal, Saul's daughter. It is difficult to understand his motive for this demand. It may have been regard for Michal, for he owed his life to her, or it may have been mixed with policy, as evidencing his alliance with Saul; but whatever it was, the act was not attended with honor to either of them. If the surrender of Michal was gratifying to David's nature, the base assassination of Abner by Joab must have been a bitter reverse. Just as he might have reckoned on this man of valor as the appointed instrument to bring about the desired consummation, he is cut down. Deep discipline was there in this sad occurrence. No wonder he should mourn for Abner. In the mourning he realized his own dependent state, and must have felt what a terrible blot it was on his government that the sword of his own captain should thus frustrate his hopes and gainsay his righteous rule. But he must learn not to build his hopes on any; and even this, the Lord in the end turned to his advantage; for the people took note of his great grief, and it pleased them. What man would pronounce a great misfortune, God can convert into the opposite for His servant. David might justly say, “I am this day weak, though anointed king.” But this humbling is only preparatory to exaltation. We must feel and know our need of God before He can openly help us. This event, which seemed to human vision so great a misfortune, eventually weakened the hands of Saul's son in a remarkable way (chap. iv. 1), for Ishbosheth is slain by two of his captains, and David's rival removed without any reflection on David, which he could not have escaped had it been brought about by the sword of Abner. Oh! if we could but trust the Lord, we should find that what we, in our feeble judgment regard as against us, He has ordered as entirely for us. David humbled before God, and waiting on Him, deals with this treachery as became him; righteously visiting with death the perpetrators of the murder, and accepting the result as from the Lord, for the last obstacle to his acknowledgment as king of Israel was now gone; for we read (chap. v. 1), “Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.” In 1 Chron. 12:3838All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king. (1 Chronicles 12:38), it is detailed to us the character and quality of the multitude of Israel, who gathered to Hebron to acknowledge him as king: “All these men of war that could keep rank came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel; and all the rest of Israel were of one heart to make David king.”
Thus, after an interval of about twenty-one years, has this much-disciplined servant attained his appointed place. Slow had been the steps by which he had reached it; varied and deep the education which had prepared him for it, not the least part of which was the last seven years and a half, during which he was only in partial possession; and now, having attained it, we have to trace how he fills it, always remembering that the instruction still goes on, though in a different line.
The first recorded act of David after his elevation to the throne, is his attempt to bring back the ark of God; a true and godly desire—for to render unto the Lord the first fruits. of our increase is the natural action of the soul which is consciously receiving from Him; but how often we mar in execution our best intentions, on account of the influence of our associations, for associations are always in keeping with our practical state. David, in his spirit, desires to see the ark of God restored, “for it had not been inquired at in the days of Saul.” But he, doubtless, much engrossed at this time with the heads of the army, as the means by which he had reached the throne, consults with them about bringing back the ark, instead of with the Lord; the consequence of which is, as is ever the case, a human devised plan is decided on; a cart drawn by kine is appointed to carry it, instead of the hands of the Levites, which was the divine way. What could result from such an arrangement but chastening in the display of God's holiness? Uzzah is slain; a great check to David, and reminding him that the Lord was near, and that if he would do the works of God he must do them to the mind of God. But he does not seem to have apprehended this at once. We read he was displeased and was afraid of the Lord, and said, “How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?” And, moreover, he kept it in the house of Obededom, the Gittite, for three months.
Now, in 1 Chron. 13-14, we read of two conflicts with the Philistines engaged in by David, between his first essay as to bringing up the ark and the final accomplishment of it. Whether they actually took place at that period, or as related in Samuel, may be a question; but the Spirit of God always gives us the moral order of events in Chronicles, and I fully believe that it is thus related in the latter, with the intent to show us that the lesson which David needed to be taught then, and for the need of which he failed the first time, was that so far from borrowing any of the devices of the Philistines, he was to have nothing to do with them, except to overcome them. If he had truly and deeply apprehended the nature and extent of the power of God, as at Baal-perazim (the master of breaches), where God “broke in upon his enemies like the breaking forth of waters,” in answer to the simple and blessed dependence with which he inquired of God, and waited on Him, step by step, he would have been saved from the sorrow and humiliation of Perez-uzzah. We obtain signal victories over the world in dealing with itself; but how often, alas! do we introduce some worldly element into our worship, and thus neutralize the leadings of an honest purpose. Be I a Martha with the Lord at the tomb of Lazarus, or a Mary Magdalene at the sepulcher of Christ, or a Peter in the holy mount, if I do not realize the entire setting aside of the world and my affinities with it, I am sure to introduce, in the most unseemly way, some idea borrowed from it, which contravenes the truth and grace of God. In the first of these conflicts David is taught what personal victory the Lord vouchsafes to His servant when he trusts Him; for here he had inquired of the Lord in as full dependence as when a refugee in the wilderness of Maon; and dependence yields all the more savor when our position is such that might seem, humanly speaking, to place us above it. God had promised that He would deliver the Philistines into his hand; and so great was their defeat that he burst forth, “God hath broken in upon mine enemies by mine hand like the breaking forth of waters: therefore he called the name of the place Baal-perazim.”
Now it is one thing for me to feel and know that I am personally victorious over the world (I can have no rest until I do); but quite another thing to know that it is God that setteth me on my high places; i.e., that He is subduing my enemies for me; and still further, that it is when the sound of God is heard that I bestir myself and go forth to conflict (1 Chron. 14:1515And it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle: for God is gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines. (1 Chronicles 14:15)); for then I know that He has “gone forth before me, to smite the host of the Philistines.”
These were the blessed experiences through which the Lord was leading His servant, enough surely to prevent him from stooping to adopt the modes and plans of the Philistines, without consulting the Lord and His word!
At the end of three months, however, David having been warned, chastened, and most graciously instructed, and hearing of the blessing vouchsafed to the house of Obededom from the presence of Him whose holiness had so lately broken forth to wither up the presumption of nature, prepares to bring up the ark of God to the city of David with gladness, and now makes an announcement which virtually is a confession of his own mistake, even that “None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites, for them hath God chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister unto him forever.” The details of this interesting event are given to us in 1 Chron. 15; 16, and we shall do well to note the spirit of David on the occasion. The priest is merged in the king, who orders and appoints everything, and is, moreover, himself clothed with an ephod and robe of fine linen, and dances before the Lord with all his might. In fact, his whole course and way is a practical expression of Psa. 132, which was the utterance of his heart at the moment. How different to his first essay as to the ark was this, in power, testimony, and joy of heart! How imposingly expressive is the gladness of the heart when engaged with the Lord, and how indifferent to all carnal judgment! This must have been the happiest moment in David's life, as also the most honored one, when he said, “Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength.” And then it was that he “first delivered a psalm to thank the Lord,” &c. (Chap. xvi. 7-36.) What a bright and blessed moment, after all his sorrows and discipline! What fullness of joy does his engagement with the Lord give him, and with what divine skill does he direct all the details of the Levitical service? There is no jar in the scene, save that of the daughter of Saul, whose spirit, antipathetic to the whole scene, can have no sympathy with him, nor can she understand it, but despises David in her heart. Thus in this bright hour, he suffers from unsuited association. And how often is this the case! Many a one who passes acceptably in the muddy light of profession soon betrays himself, if placed in the bright light produced by God's nearness. But if this was a cloud in the fair sky which now favored David, it bore a blessing and deliverance for him too; for this unequal association was to fetter him no more. The line of separation is from henceforth drawn between them forever. In the wilderness God had given him an Abigail, a kindred spirit to share his rejection; and now, as he conducts the ark of God to its rest in Mount Zion, in the boundless joy of a soul rejoicing in the Lord's exaltation, he breaks the last link of his alliance with the world. His holy joy alienates the heart of her whose deadly worldliness of spirit is hereby discovered, so that morally they can no more be united.
It seems likely that it was when David returned to bless his house (1 Chron. 16:4343And all the people departed every man to his house: and David returned to bless his house. (1 Chronicles 16:43)) that he uttered Psa. 30 He could then say, “Thou host turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness.” He had now risen to the height of prosperity and could say, “I shall never be moved.” His soul was simply enjoying all at the hands of the Lord; and here he exclaims, “I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou host lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.”
In this spirit it was that David sat in his house (1 Chron. 17) and said to Nathan the prophet, “Lo I dwell in a house of cedars, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord remaineth under curtains.” This was a very natural and godly feeling, while enjoying a vivid sense of the Lord's loving-kindness, and as such, Nathan commends it. Nevertheless, it was not the Lord's mind, and we are thus taught that the truest and most apparently spiritual desire and intention is not to be trusted or acted on without seeking direct counsel of the Lord.
“That same night the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go tell David my servant, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in,” &c.; and he goes on to say how the Lord will build him a house! When our cup is filled, we are liable, in the elation which the sense of God's favor has secured for us, to propose services and assume with an honest purpose a place and a power of devotedness for which we may be unqualified. The word of God will always define our proper place to us, as it here does to David so blessedly accompanied by an enlarged and wonderful unfolding of the Lord's interest in Him personally. It is well to have great ambition for His glory, but the word which corrects us in our inopportune designs is sure to unfold to us the measureless nature of His own interest in us. This David learns here, and he can now go and sit before the Lord in full communion with His mind, and in that self-abasement which His presence alone ever produces. However we may praise Him for His gifts and receive them from Him, yet shall we sit in the “house of cedars.” We may mistake our due calling and place; but when we “sit before the Lord,” listening to the unfoldings of His mind and interest for us, all things fall into their right place, and we exclaim, “Who am I that thou host brought me hitherto?”
After this (chap. 18.) David subdued the Philistines, smites Moab, and the king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates. The Lord preserves him wherever he goes: he puts garrisons into Edom, and the Edomites become his servants; the Syrians flee before Israel, neither would they help the children of Ammon any more. In short, the Lord vouchsafes David in an unexampled way the full tide of prosperity. How does he bear it? It was a double prosperity that he had been blessed with—spiritual and temporal; spiritual when he was led into communion with the mind and purposes of God, when, entering into God's infinite interest in himself; his imperfect ideas were lost in the boundlessness of God's promises and purpose, and temporal in the magnitude of God's ways and gifts to him. Is he able to stand all this? Adversity tests the character, being a demand on the resources in ourselves. Prosperity tests the nature and our power of self-control. In adversity we ply all our strength, and prove it, too, in order to emerge from the difficulty. In prosperity there is opportunity for the action and rule of our natural propensities, and, if not controlled, it is sure to show itself.
God having shown to David in a remarkable way how full and unsparingly He could open His hand to bless him, his prosperity was boundless; and in it an opportunity is offered to his nature, and he falls! (1 Sam. 11)
How eagerly the poor heart runs after prosperity and mercies, never remembering that, to such as we are, there is no new mercy without a new order of trial to our flesh; and the more we are at case in natural things, the greater the opportunity for our nature to expose itself. The Lord knows that the spring of the evil is there; and though we are so much more humbled when the evil is exposed, yet the exposure being needed, in order to lay bare the spring to ourselves, we are really no worse in God's judgment, because He already knew what we were capable of.
David truly convicted of his sin, is now, as we learn from Psa. 51, bowed unto a “humble and contrite spirit,” in the sense of his own corruption. He had before shown the humble and contrite spirit, resulting from the exposure of the weakness of his nature: now he feels it in the depth of degradation, through the wickedness of his nature; and in this utterance he gives expression to the heart of Israel in the latter day, when they shall look on Him whom they have pierced, and be humbled before Him in the sense of their “blood-guiltiness.” Painful as is the moment both to David and to Israel, yet it is that in which God's salvation is most fully revealed to both. For the lower I am sunk, the better I can appreciate what it is to be delivered.
David, through God's wondrous grace, enters from this on a deeper knowledge of salvation. He learns what God is for the sinner, while also learning that sin against our neighbor must meet with temporal judgment. God is just, ruling among men; and the man who sins against others must be judged openly. Many sin only against God, and then their flesh is judged, as between themselves and God; but when the sin affects other men, then the judgment must be public.
David's child dies. (2 Sam. 12:1818And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead? (2 Samuel 12:18).) But soon the blessed fruits of discipline reappear in his soul; he is again the dependent and subject one. While the child lived, he besought the Lord for it; and so far from despising the chastening of the Lord, he evidently felt it most intensely; but when it is dead, he accepts God's will in perfect submission. “He arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself.” It had been a moment of thickest darkness to him, for there had been no communication from the Lord to alleviate the sorrow of his heart. And I believe this is generally the case when we are suffering judicially; it is necessary that we should feel the righteous government of God. And while passing under it for our sin, we are not conscious of either light or converse; but nevertheless, we may emerge from it with renewed strength and power, as did David; for we next find him warring against Rabbah (ver. 29) in the full fide of victory. He resumes the right path, and honor and blessing are again vouchsafed to him; and God shows him that, however inflexible He be in righteousness, His love and interest in him are unchanged.
But, nevertheless, the word of the Lord spoken by Nathan (chap. 12:10, 11) had passed: “The sword shall never depart from thy house.” And though David's soul had been so far chastened in the proximate fruit of his sin, because he had not judged himself, and also so far restored, he must further suffer judicially from God's righteous government to humble him among men.
This brings us to that period in his history when he was afflicted and humbled by the evil of his own children. In whatsoever way could a man be made to feel the evil of his nature and publicly humbled? David as king ought to have been the example of righteousness, for by righteousness was the throne to have been established; and if the head fail, the leaven must spread, and increase throughout the system. Defects in a parent's self-government will be extravagantly betrayed in his children; and from their infancy he is taught in a painful way what needs repression and crucifixion in his own nature, though he may never have committed sins actually similar to those of his children; but children are his continuation on earth, and portray his nature to him.
According to the law, I judge that Amnon ought to have suffered death for his sin. (Chap. 13:4.) David fails to be “just, ruling in the fear of God.” And judgment overtakes Amnon by the hand of his brother Absalom; who thus guilty of murder, flies the kingdom; but David, yielding to the stratagem of Joab, is weak enough, not only to allow him to return, but after a time to reinstate him in favor. (Chap. xiv.) This weakness and injustice before very long bears the bitterest fruits; for, when we unrighteously spare another in order to indulge our own feelings, we always expose ourselves to the evil of the nature which we should have controlled and condemned. The very next verse to the one which tells us of Absalom's reception by his father announces to us Absalom's parricidal rebellion. (Chap. 15:1.)
David must now flee. Sad and humiliating is it to see him, after being raised to such honors and high estate, descending from the throne and retreating from Jerusalem before the wave of tumult and rebellion evoked and fomented by his own son. He had passed through another moment similar, yet different to this. The suffering of Ziklag was retributive also, but it was more from man on every side. Here it is the loss of Jerusalem, the Mount Zion that he loved, his position and everything, and by the hand, not of the Amalekite, but of his own son.
But he surrenders it all, leaving it to the issue, “If I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it and his habitation,” &e. “And David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot.” How the discipline of that hour entered into his soul! Psa. 3 tells us, “Many there be that say of my soul, There is no help for him in God.” But what then? “I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill.” The true value of sorrow and trial is to lead the soul into simple and felt reliance on God. David had failed in this; and as he had neglected his appointed work, and thus exposed himself to temptation and sin (chap. xi. 1), so now he is subjected to a war with his own son. When we shrink from the services we are called to, not only does trouble befall us, but, like Jonah, we show that we need to be subjected to deeper exercise of soul in order to render us fit for our calling. But in this unnatural and bitter war, the suffering servant renews his confidence in God; and from the moment when he “laid him down and slept” (which I am induced to place where it is said, “And King David, and all the people that were with him, came weary, and refreshed themselves there,” 2 Sam. 16:1414And the king, and all the people that were with him, came weary, and refreshed themselves there. (2 Samuel 16:14)), all things went favorably. He says, “I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.” “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about.” There is no fear of man, however great or near us, when we are able to sleep because of reliance on God. Ahithophel's counsel is despised, and David returns to Jerusalem. But Absalom must fall!
David has other sorrows; his history pre-eminently teaches us how continually the exercise of his soul must be kept up. When delivered from Sheba (chap. xx.), there is a famine in the land for three successive years (chap. xxi.), which again leads him to the Lord in inquiry, and He tells him that it is for Saul and his bloody house, the last of whom is thus extirpated. After this (ver. 15), David had one more war with the Philistines. In the end of his course, even as at the beginning, he encounters a giant—not the same giant; for what we once really conquer, we have no need to reconquer. But other giants arise which test our strength, and we are made to feel that what is easy to faith is critical to one walking without its exercise; and that if our dependence on God be less, our ability is less, whatever may be the extent of our experience and attainment. David here “waxed faint;” and when the giant “thought to have slain him,” Abishai succored him and smote the Philistine. “Then the men of David sware unto him, saying, Thou shalt no more go out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel.”
But another and peculiar discipline is necessary for this already much-disciplined servant, and that at the close of his life. Years before he had desired to build a house for the Lord—a desire good in itself, but which he was unprepared to carry out; therefore the Lord, while at the same time greatly blessing David in his own soul by the revelation of his personal interest in him, refused to sanction the execution of it. But it is only at the end of his life that he is shown how ill prepared he was to build it, for he did not even know where it was to be built; and this he must learn through his own failure, as the fruit of God's discipline. The site of the temple is revealed to him in its moral value and suitability; so that, his own soul having learned the nature of that grace which was the basis of it, his last hours might be spent in preparing for the erection of it.
When David had rest from all his enemies, and naturally felt his exalted position, Satan takes advantage of him, and tempts him to number the people, in order to exult in the greatness of his resources. (Chap. xxiv.) It was God who had raised him to his present position, but the heart of man will count up God's gifts, in order to be independent of the giver. He owed everything that he had to God in so distinct and wonderful a way, that it betrayed the working of nature in a very open and shameless manner, that he should, at the end of his course so publicly show his desire to be accounted great because of the number of the people, rather than because of the help of God who had so supported him. For this the Lord visits him, but permits him to choose one of three afflictions. When we err, there is need of discipline to correct the flesh; but if our error be a private one, then the chastening is private, though none the less painful; but if public, the chastening must be public, for God shows His justice to all his creatures. David is restored in soul, for he chooses the affliction which is most immediately from the hand of the Lord, thereby showing that his dependence was revived.
And now a new and wondrous field of blessing opens to him. The most touching evidence of how God's grace flows from His love is, that when restoration is established it is always with a fuller revelation of how fully and happily we are accepted by Him. When the sword of the Lord was stretched over Jerusalem, and David was cast on God in a true sense of his evil, God declares His mercy; and the prophet Gad is directed to toll David to go up and set up an altar in the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite. “And the Lord answered David there, and the plague was stayed.” But still more. Having found at this altar acceptance with God, while afraid to go to the altar of burnt-offering in the high place of Gibeon, which belonged to the first tabernacle under the law, he learns for the first time the site of the temple. Long before he had essayed to erect this temple—this type of the Lord Jesus Christ; but never till now was he humbled enough to be taught of God the right place for it; nor did he, like many of us, know those exercises of soul and lessons of grace which he should submit to ere he knew the most preliminary part of the work which he had conceived himself equal for. It is good to desire high and great services, but we must be prepared to reach them in God's way. If James and John desire to sit the one on the right hand, and the other on the left in Christ's kingdom, are they prepared to drink of the cup He drank of, and be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized? David has now acquired a sense of God's grace unknown to him before, and which qualified him for determining the site of that building which would illustrate the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who had in Himself declared, that mercy rejoiceth over judgment; and therefore David said, “This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel;” and there the temple was erected.
It now only remains for us to notice the close of David's life. It appears that after the discipline and instruction of Mount Moriah, he applied himself assiduously to prepare the materials for the temple. (1 Chron. 22) And more than this (chap. having made Solomon, his son, king over Israel, he gathered together all the princes of Israel, with the priests and Levites, and divided them into their courses. (Chap. 23.—28.) Beautiful and blessed conclusion to his eventful and remarkable life, which his address to all the chiefs of Israel properly terminates as to testimony! Here is the end of his public course; but what were his private musings? His “last words” (2 Sam. 23) give utterance to them. There we learn his own practical feelings and judgment about everything:—God's grace to him; his own imperfect condition: the hope of his soul and the object it rested on; and, finally, his estimate of the world—in its antagonism to God, expressed by the “men of Belial.”
With the remembrance of these deeply interesting and experimental “last words” on our souls, and amid the circle of faithful and valiant ones who had accompanied him, and who are not to be forgotten (ver. 8, he.), we may close the history of this “man after God's own heart;” while we sing aloud, “Great and wonderful are thy works, O Lord, and that my soul knoweth right well.”
(Continued from page 126)