The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 208

Ver. 3.-Religious resolution based on regretful memories. D11vid certainly wishes to make a contra.st, and a decided one, between the days and the administration of Sa.ul and those of himself; for it was ripe time, both that such contra.st should be made, and made patent to all the nation. Yet, as we have read wh&t he says and does, we do not take the impression that he desires to make that contr&st ostentatiously, invidiously, or with any degree of triumphant antipathy toward his predecessor. Wh&t he does desire is to make it effective and real. Indeed, though we cannot hold David responsible for the way in which things went in the days of Saul, and for the neglect and dishonour shown to the ark as well a.s to not a few other of the observances of religion, yet hie tone falls on our ear with something of the sound of self-reproach. And although it is impossible that he could in deep earnest have held himself responsible for those things -to profess it could have amounted to mere affectation-yet for all this we observe that he now speaks as though he would voluntarily include himself in his measure amongst the number of those involved in the fault and certainly in the disastrous consequences of it. He classes himself and those whom he is exhorting in the one common number of those who, let the causes be what they might, had long lived in neglect of some of the highest exercises and privileges of their religion. May we not justly set this down again to the forgiving temper and delicate feeling and refined nobility of spirit in David, to which his treatment of Saul had already often borne witness while Saul yet lived and though he was his bitterest foe? Therefore is it that David now abstains from ma.king any needless, any profuse references to the chief causes of the irreligion of the past reign. He does not at all enlarge upon the conduct of the arch offender, though in the necessity of things he mentions his name. Two simplest sentences tell the tale of what weighs deeply on his heart: "Let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul." Let us notice- L THE RESOLVE UPON IMMEDIATE AMENDMENT, AND THE IMMEDIATE PROCLAMATION OF IT. We cannot doubt that the mind of David was ma.de up, that hie resolution was formed. He is no sooner king of the whole people than he acknowledges the necessity of the presence and the ark of the God of the whole people. "Arise, 0 Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength : " this is his heart's earnest prayer. And he does not merely "in secret" pray, but takes the responsibility of exhortation. Be does not smother his convictions, nor utter them with bated breath, nor hope others will .take them up and work them out while he slumbers; but he has the courage of his convictions, and as it were in the audience of the whole people, he rouses their sense of duty and calls them to a practical, even though tardy, repentance. Clear duty is always to be honoured by prompt attention to it and by prompt summons of others to it. And it is to be observed with painful consequence that it is clear interest, clear policy, clear present gain, that too often wins this prompt attention, rather than clear duty in those very highest forms of it which the pure acts of religion involve. First then, the own prompt thought of David, and secondly,his unshrinking call to others, bespoke a genuine religion in this matter in him. He is baulked by no ehamefacedness, by no timidity of such as sometimes seem to think that their religion requires apolo- gizing for, and that they may rule it rather than be implicitly ruled by it. But David betrays the real spirit of thorough amendment, and, though the waters of repentance should need to run deep and very deep, they will safely bear a man through them. II. 'fHll: FAITHFUL PRESENCE OF ONE OF THE GREATEST HELPS TO THE AMENDMENT OF l'BACTICAL REPENTANCE, namely, a frank admission and public confess!on of the exact facts of the case. Nothing is a surer deterrent for a repentance that might be than an 11,nwilli11g facing of the exact state of things. Nothing augurs more surely that the repentance will die off with the transitorinese of a "morning cloud" than that it bll unaccompanied by an uncompromising confession, or be accompanied with but a feeble, partial confession, But the assertion now made without fear of contradiction is of the J:[lost unequivocal: "We did not inquire at it in the days of Saul." As though in our os. xm. 1-14.] THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 201