Ps xlv. 3 — 5. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 0 most Mighty, ivith thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously , because of truth and meekness and righteous- ness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.
THIS psalm is called "a song of loves:" and it is supposed to have been written on occasion of Solomon's marriage with Pharaoh's daughter. But, beyond all doubt, a greater than Solomon is here.
Solomon was altogether a man of peace : but the King here spoken of was " a man of war ;" and all the address which is here made to him has reference to him mider that character. It may seem strange that this view of him should be introduced on the occasion of a nuptial solemnity ; but it must be re- membered, that as the Jews were wont, by God's special permission, to connect themselves in marriage with females whom they had taken captive in war, allowing them a month to forget their former rela- tives, so the Messiah first takes captive those with whom he afterwards unites himself in the nuptial bonds. This is particularly marked in the address to the spouse herself: "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house ; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty''." Hence, even whilst contemplating the Lord Jesus under the idea of an husband, we see why we should be anxious to behold his conquests extended over the face of the whole earth. That we may attain the spirit which David breathed, let us consider,
I. The frame of his mind —
In reading the Holy Scriptures, we should not be content with noticing the viere sense of any particular passage, (though that is doubtless in the first place, and with the greatest diligence, to be examined ;) but we should mark the peculiar spirit of it, the spirit which the passage itself breathes, the spirit of the person who wrote it, or which it has a tendency to produce in those who read it. Now, when David penned this psalm.
His mind was full of zeal for Christ —
[He had been contemplating the glory and excellency of Christ: *' My heart," says he, " is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the King." And so full was his heart of this glorious subject, that " his tongue was as the pen of a ready writer," which yet was scarcely capable of keeping pace with the ardour of his mind, or of giving utterance to the vast conceptions with which his soul laboured.
^ ver. 10, 11.