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"on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." So speaks the religious munificence of all ages, — so speaks the founder of the Jewish Empire, and of the Jewish Temple.

There is yet a third utterance, still more emphatically and authentically stated to be "the last words of "David:" which expresses still more fully at once the light and shade, the strength and weakness, of his whole reign and character.

"David the son of Jesse," -so he remains to the end; always with his family affections fresh and bright, his father and his early kinsmen never forgotten amidst his subsequent splendor. "The man who was raised up “on high.” — This feeling, too, never deserted him, — the sense of the marvellous change which had placed a shepherd-boy on the throne of a mighty empire. "To "be the anointed the Messiah-of the God of Jacob." "Anointed" by Samuel in his early youth- anointed by the chiefs of Hebron on his first accession to the throne - - but through those human hands and human agencies, he sees the hand and agency of God Himself. "The God of Jacob," - an expression which is important as showing that at that time the story of Jacob - his wanderings, his repose on God's care — were familiar to David, not without a recollection of the likeness of his life to that of the persecuted patriarch. "The sweet singer of Israel." -"Pleasant in the songs "of Israel." It may be that he thus describes himself as endeared to the nation through his own songs, or that he is the darling of the songs of his people, as when the maidens sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, "and David his tens of thousands."

1 "The generation of them that seek thy face, O Jacob" (Psalm xxiv. 6). "He vowed to the mighty God

of Jacob." "He sought a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob" (Ps cxxxii. 2, 5).

And now comes "the prophecy," the "divine out"pouring" of his soul,

"The Spirit of Jehovah speaks in me,

And His strains are on my tongue ·

The God of Israel said to me

The Rock of Israel spake."

It was the "Breath" or "Spirit" of JEHOVAH that passed through his frame, and His poetic "strains" that dwelt on his tongue, the words of Him who was the ruling Force and the central Rock of the whole nation.

"He that ruleth over men justly

Ruling in the fear of God

So is it, as the light of the morning, at the rising of the sun

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After a clear shining, after rain, tender grass springs from the earth."

This is the ideal of a just reign,—whether, as looking back upon his own, or forwards to that of Solomon.2 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

1 Such is the force of the word rendered "speaks."

2 See the comparison of the moral and the natural world in Ps. xix

they doubtless present in a short compass the contrast between his hopes of what his dynasty might be,1 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 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 to close a song which begins go full of brightness and joy. But it is a true picture of the checkered life of David, and of the checkered fortunes of the ruler amongst men. It is a true picture of the "broken lights" of the human heart, whether in Judea 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 1 Comp. Ps. lxxxix. 2 Comp. Ps. ci.

His death.

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. 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 honored, 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," 2-of his own faithful body-guard, and it was pointed out down to the latest times of the Jewish people. "His sepulchre is with us unto this day," says St. Peter at Pentecost; and Josephus states that Solomon having buried a vast treasure in the His tomb 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." 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

1 Ant. vii. 15, § 2.

2 Neh. ii. 16.

3 Acts ü. 29.

6

4 Ant. vii. 15, § 3; xiii. 8, § 4; xvi

7, § 1.

5 Dio Cassius, lxix. 14.

• Ep. ad Marcellam, xlvi. § 12.

object of pilgrimage, but apparently in the neighborhood of Bethlehem. A large catacomb at some distance to the northwest 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. 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 2 mankind in truth."

1 In the Louvre may now be seen what M. de Saulcy believed to be the lid of David's sarcophagus (see De Sauley, Narrative, &c. ii. 162-215). The main objection to this theory, apart from any archæological argument to be drawn from the character of the design or workmanship of the remains, is that these sepulchres must always have been outside the walls,

and therefore cannot be identified with the tomb of David, of which the peculiarity was that it was within the walls (see Robinson, iii. p. 253).

2 See the description of a visit to the Tomb in Appendix to Sermons in the East, p. 149, and for the tra ditions, Williams's Holy City, ii. 505– 513.

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