The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 38

it is the natural outcome, the good fruit from a good tree. Dming life, he has been very zealous for the Lord God of Israel. The ruling passion displays itself in death. The great desire of the man who has kept t\10 law is that his son may keep it. To die well, one must live well. The last struggle works no change in the character. Deathbed repentance is generally delusive. They deceive themselves, who, " Dying, put on the weeds of Dominic, Or as Franciscans think to pa.ss disguised." 5. He 1carns us to set our house in ord,er, to pay our debts and square our accounts before we die. David, we read, " prepared abundantly (for the temple) before his death." He has made royal provision for the house that should be built. But he remembers at ln.st that three debts of his are still undischarged; a debt of gratitude to the sous of Barzillai, a debt of retribution to Joab, ancl another to Shimei. " Due punishment of malefactors is the debt of authority " (Bp. Hall). He will not, like some, "go on sinning in his grave;" he will have these debts dis• charged. He cannot depart in peace while they burden his conscience. And we, too, go where "there is neither work, nor device, nor knowledge," where Wl'Ongs cannot be redressed, where accounts cannot be settled. Have we any crime uncon- fessed, or injury unrepaired, any enemy unforgiven ? "What thou doest, do quickly." Dut let us now consider- II. WHAT DAVID DOES NOT SAY. The silence of Scripture is often golden, is some- times as instructive as its voices. Here is a C!l.se in point. The most spiritual of Old Testament saints-the man after God's own heart-is dying, and he knows it. He gi_.es his son his parting counsels, and what are they? They are all of this world. Observe-I. There is no mention of a future life ; no "hope full of immortality,'' no talk of reunion, bnt rather a sad "vale, vale in aeternum vale." The most remarkable feature in David's last words is, that there is not one word about another life. The Christian could not die thus. Even " half-inspired heathens" have expressed a livelier hope-witness Cicero's " 0 prreclarum diem cum ad illucl divi- nn.m animorum concilinm coetn.mqne proficiscar "-and how immeasurably higher than this, again, is St. Paul's desire to depart and be with Christ I " I go the way of all the earth "-it is like the sound of the clods upon the coffin, without the faintest whisper of a" ReBUrgam." What a contrast between this and the apostle's exultant cry, "Death is swallowed up in victory!" And the very humblest Chris- tian could hardly depart as David did, with absolutely no reference to the realm of the future. There would assuredly be some comforting word about the mo.ny man- sions, the rest for the weary, the gates of pearl, the streets of fine gold. Of all this David said nothing, neither in life nor death, because he knew nothing. He had hopes, anticipations, convictions almost, as some of the Psalms show, but he had not what the Christian ha~, the " full assurance of faith,'' the " sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life." In this respect how much greater was Addison, how mucll more " fall of all blessed conditions" his death. In this respect, every Christian deathbed has a glory and a consecration and a tliumph which we miss in the death chamber of the sweet Psalmist of Israel, the most saintly and spiritual of all the J ewe. As Coleridge, " Is that a deathbed where the Christian lies? Yes, bat not his; 'tie death itself there dies." 2. There is no id,ea of a future recompense. Hence, partly, his nrgent demand for the punishment of J oab and Shimei. He does not know of a "judgment to come ; " of any distribution of rewards and punishments after death. He has been taught that the righteous and the wicked alike are to be " recompensed in the earth," and therefore J oab and Shimei, albeit old and greyheaded, must not die in peace. If they do, justice, he thinks, will be robbed of its due. How different the conception of the Christian I He views with calmness the miscarrio.ge of justice ; he sees the wicked in great prosperity ; he " bears the whips and scorns of time," " suffers the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune," knowing tho.t this world w CH, II, 1-11.] THE FIRST BOOK OF l{INGS. 31