The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 210

place mor_e like permanence and honour. And in the bringing of it, through no apparent fault of his own, the enterprise fails, disastrously and fatally. '!'his issue he must feel equivalent to a personal and very severe rebuff. Yet there is scarcely room to doubt tha( honest motive, religious feeling and principle, and an ardent faith dictated his desire and attempt. And as little room is there apparently to doubt that David reckoned on the helpful protection of Providence against whatever could be called accident and from his heart prayed for it. The/acts, however, of that day's journey and work ;e know· and they stand in painful contrast to what we had hoped. All the circumstances we do not know, and there may be explanations not given us which would easily mitigate our surprise and account for what happened. It may be that David did omit to give the m?s_t proper_ directions, and to urge the _needful cautions, and to implore solemnly the D1vme blessmg. He may have been a httle too confident of the mere act itself, a little too trustful in the good intentions of himself, and a little too uplifted because of the unanimous sentiment of all whom he had consulted. A stumble over the threshold may be very mortifying, very humbling, but no doubt it has often saved infinitely worse calamity further on. The very badness of an omen may turn confidence into care, and ,,;-ill work well for a cause, if it call special attention to some fact or principle or aspect of the whole matter liable to be overlooked or insufficiently regarded. Perhap~ in the present instance, did we but know all, this might sufficiently explain all that at first looks hard on David and an ill encouragement for his pious zeal. Passing, there- fore, interesting but uncertain conjecture, it is open to us to study some of the known and ascertained results of that same day and that same bitter experience of David. The passage before us proclaims plainly some of these, and proffers a leading illustration of the principle of present loss compensated by spiritual results. Noiice- I. THE BIRTH OF A DEEP RELIGIOUS FEELING OF FEAR OF GoD IN DAVID. " He was afraid of God that day." David was not like a very young man; still less was he like a very young man with little knowledge, and who had been stinted of oppor- tunity of gaining experience. Much of this he had already accumulated, and especially of the kind that had brought lessons of God and his providence near to him. There is not a little evidence going to indicate that David had a certain predisposition to religious thought and feeling. There is a wonderful absence of indication of the con- trary. His mind had largely opened to Divine manifestation, his thoughts frequently roved among the thoughts and ways of God. Dangers and actual sufferings and fears had often brought him into near converse with the kindness and watchfulness of the "chief Shepherd," of whom he knew how to speak so well. Perhaps it had never struck him (and perhaps it would have never struck us except for this incident) that there remained for him something especial to learn of God in a very different kind of direction from all before. His impressions of God were all most grateful, as well they might be. He had found God a" Sun and a Shield "-Light, Warmth, and Protection. He had found God one who "had lifted him up on high," and "had not suffered him to be cast down," nor" his foes to rejoice over him." He had been in earthly trial and per- secution much, but in heavenly favour more, and in a wonderful assurance of all that gave him "boldness of access" to God. And he had not yet learned the other side-- not, indeed, of the benevolent character and beneficent working of God-but the other side of himself, which might greatly need another sort of manifestation of the Divine power. Though he had often seen God's justice and his anger, and bad said, "God is angry with the wicked every day," he had never felt these, nor had dreame~ that h~ was such that the time might come that he would have to feel them, and his experience become enlarged by so much as this, "My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgmcnts" (Ps. cxix. 120). 'fo know a feaf of Go~ is _one of two things for the child of God. It is either to know the fear of ones own sm 1n honest earnest; or to catch one humbling, overwhelming sight of the contrast between the finite and erring nature of the creature man and the infinite perfection of God. _As Adam first" was afraid;" as Jacob" was afraid" when he woke from that transportmg dream; as Peter was afraid in the presence of the mighty Master of miracle; so was J?avid now "afraid of God." There were sliuht differences of detail in each case, and differences of form, but the fundamental fact~ were identical, and they were two in one-a sinful creature 11eizina a moment's real idea of the all-holy Almighty I And this was the birth of a deep rdigio"UB feeling in David which he never forgot, and which no doubt served the rest of his life many a valuable end. 011. xm. 1-14.] '.rHE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES.