1 John McNeill. ^ M. M'Neal-Sweeney, Men of No Land, 77.
3 A. C. Benson, Thy Bod and Thy Staff, 60.
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JOB-PS. XXX. — 30
Literature.
Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 305.
Clark (H. W.), Laws of the Inner Kingdom, 72.
Culross (J.), God's Shepherd Care, 121.
Duff (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 111, 129, 143.
Freeman (J. D.), Life on. the Uplands, 91.
Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalm, 84.
Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 83.
Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 16.
Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 131.
Pearse (M. G.), In the Banqueting House, 155.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, ii. 41.
Smith (D.), The Pilgrim's Hospice, 73.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869) No. 874 ;
xxi. (1875) No. 1222. Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms, 91.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), x. (1873) No. 815. "Watkinson (W. L.), Mistaken Signs, 155. Wynne (G. R.), In Quietness and Confidence, 123. Christian World Pulpit, xx. 123 (Hammond). Church Pulpit Year Book, viii. (1911) 78.
Churchman's Pulpit, Harvest Thanksgiving : xcvii. 61 (Hammond). Homiletic Review, xlviii. 465 (Norris).
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Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies : Thou hast anointed my head with oil ; my cup runneth over.
Ps. xxiii. 5.
1. We all love to look at pictures of happiness and content. We linger over the pages which describe the peaceful Garden of Eden. We love to read about the courtship of Isaac and Jacob. We take up the Book of Kuth with the same emotion. We gaze with pleasure upon the picture of little Samuel, waking up and answer- ing the call of God. We underscore such verses in the Bible as " Ho ! every one that thirsteth " and " Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden." We print the Beatitudes in large type. With much reading we soil those pages where words of comfort lie. The sacred page opens of itself at the fourteenth chapter of John, where these words meet us, " Let not your heart be troubled." Often do we turn to the joy-producing miracles. Well acquainted are we with the road to Bethany, with the resurrection morning, and with the picture painted in the 23rd Psalm.
Those poems in which the cup runs over are read the most and will live the longest. " The Deserted Village " cannot die, nor the " Cottar's Saturday Night," nor the " Village Blacksmith." The bright lines of happiness in the Greek and Latin poets draw us back to them again and again. We listen to men who lift us up with hopeful words. When a David sings " My cup runneth over," travellers stop to listen. The song of happiness will make some chord tremble in every human breast.
2. This Psalm seems to belong to the later years of David's life.
There is a ripeness and maturity of experience in it, also a fulness
in its tone of trust, and thankfulness, and hope. Youth could
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hardly write in so rich and full and immortal a strain of the goodness and all-encompassing care of God. This sweet, serene, poetic strain of the man who had been taken from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young, to be king over Israel, seems to have been sung when the sun in his life's day was beginning to descend, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen. There are some things which youth has that age has not. Youth has its energy, its buoyancy of spirit, its fervid impulses, its hopeful outlook, arising partly from inexperience of life, its fresh susceptibility to impressions from the scenes of nature and events of human life. It has these things which age has not, or has only in a feeble degree. But, on the other hand, age has something which youth has not. Where the life has been devout, thoughtful, righteous, godly, there is with the passing years growth of the soul in moral qualities and in the knowledge of the unfailing care and providence of God. A man then has a wider outlook upon the events and experiences of human life, and a richer store of inward peace and faith and hopeful assurance, and can sing a sweeter, loftier song of loyal, filial praise. As we pass from youth to old age, we lose some- thing out of our life, but with the loss there may also be gain in those things which make life real and blessed. It was so with the shepherd king of Israel, when he sang of the Lord as his Shepherd and Helper.
3. It would seem at first sight as though this Psalm had been sung amid happy surroundings, so peaceful and calm and even joyous is its strain ; but it is probable that it belongs to a dark and troublous period in his life — the period, indeed, when Absalom was in revolt. We are to picture the king as an exile, having fled from Jerusalem for refuge. Absalom, in his unfilial ambition, has won the hearts of the people, and now seeks to over- throw his father, and to ascend the throne and place the crown on his own brow. It is a shameful revolt. Upon the son who now plots against him the king has lavished all the affection of his noble and intense heart. The weight of this new trouble lies heavy upon him. The pain that is smiting his heart is sharp and cruel. His life is suddenly darkened, and black tempests- charged clouds of sorrow— fill his sky. And yet, while so much