The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 417

all the rest of bis father's family, and be carries it down to the designation of his favourite son Solomon,as successor to his throne. "Howbeit the Lord God of Israel chose me before :ill the house of my father to be king over Israel for ever: for he bath chosen Judah to be the ruler; and of the house of Judah, the house of my father; and among the sons of my father he )iked me to make me king over all Israel: and of all my sons, (for the Lord bath given me many sons,) he bath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, be shall build my house and ruy courts: for I have chosen him to be my son and I will be his Father" (vers. 4-6). 3. With the frankness of truth and the unmislalcable singleness of aim of an aged man "ready to depart," David speaks out what had been his own pious design, his cherished resolve, and the actual preparation he had made for it. " I had in my heart to build an house of resUor the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building" (ver. 2). It is to be noted that no matter of personal advantage, or of family advantage, or even of a noble ambition, but yet a mere ambition, is here concerned. It is the calm, correct, intelligent prompting of religion. No doubt the desire of David's heart carried to completion must rerlound to the honour and fame of him- self and his family to all generations, and must be calculated to secure great practical benefit to a whole nation. Nevertheless it were a gratuitous maligning of a good heart to mistake these, or any of them, as the motives of David. He is learning and is illustrating the great though alphabetic principles that rule the man who distinctly believes in the invisible, and worships the invisible One. It is his right and due, it is justice, that a settled house, a permanent place of abiding, a worthy temple, be raised to him, and that nothing take real precedence of it. 4. With a different frankness, a frankness of perhaps even rarer sort, he withholds nothing of all that had passed between God and himself. He gives the reasons, correct and exact, on account of which his heart's desire is denied to him. It cannot be denied that there was something about them which a man less brave and strong might have inclined to suppress. There are things in life which, far from criminal, and far more misfortune than fault, nevertheless ask for a veil of kindly forgetfulness, and beg not to be thrust into prominence. But David tells all without disguise. It comes to this, that in the strongest of his days he had been very busy in work not of the most savoury, not of the most spiritual, not even of the most humane, and the stain of it cleaved to him-that stain the stain of blood. A very busy life in some directions often makes good works impossible at the time. But this is not necessarily the worst of it. The more significant and sad thing is that it does one or both of two other things. It either finally takes away all taste and disposition to do the work of higher goodness ; or if, as with David now, it does not do this, yet it clothes the man against his will with a character of unsuitableness to it. In this neither is man censorious nor God unjust. But nature is vindicating its reality and strength, and another illustration :is added of the truth, that" whatsoever a man sowetb, that shall he also reap." This, then, is David's frank confession : "God said unto me, 'l'hou sbalt not build an house for my Name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood" (ver. 3). 5. With grateful memory David records the promise that God bad made in substitu- tion for grantiug the exact desire of his heart. This promise of what should be done in and by Solomon was "the word on which God bad caused David to hope.'' And reflection npon it was very food to him, commemoration of it was a welcomed and sacred duty. The promise had been given in close connection with a detailed reminder of how God had selected David, and called him, and made such a changed career for him, upon all that had naturally loomed before him (2 Sam. vii. 8-16). The whole scene and purport of that report that Nathan made to David in his interview with him, had stamped one clear, effective impression on his mind. And it is evident that his own address to the people and to Solomon now answers feature for feature to it. _But in the centre of it was this promise about Solomon; all the rest clustered round 1t, and th" grateful promise holds the central place now in David's memory a?d heart. . 6. The dosing charge of David-a double charge, one to the people, one to their future krng, one to the Church, the other to the minister, "the leader and shepherd of Israel." (1). The charge to the laity. The very essence of impressiveness lies sometimes in the direct- lle5.I! of personal appeaL There may be personal appeal without individual appeal. t1tr. u.vm. 1-21.] THE FIRST BOOK O.F THE CIIRONICLES. 421