his sorrow at the death 0£ son after son, ea.need alike by hie own sin and theirs. If Sanl had wronght the rnin of hie kingdom, David had wrought the ruin of hie family and home. But the one was stubborn in hi.s perverseness, the other was humbled and penitent, and his sin Wl!,S taken away. And now, calm and thankfnl, he was approaching the haven of eternal rest in Jehovah, and the enjoyment of that" everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, which was all his salvation and all his desire" (oh. x:x:iii. 5). It was the peacefnl end of a troubled life; and it makes us confident that he had been accepted, and that the words of his penitential psalms came from his heart. And we, when we recite them, may £eel sure that we are using the words of one who, if he had sinned much, had also been forgiven mnch, because he had a large love for God, warm genuine piety, and deep and earnest penitence, THE SECOND
BOOK OF SAMUEL.
EXPOSITION. to take him with him in the grand army of CHAPTER L the Philistines, which was slowly moving Ver. 1.-Now it oame to pass. During northward for the conquest of the land of the last .few days events had been crowding Israel. David bad God's promise of ulti- fast upon one another. Living as fugitives mate safety, and he ought not to have at Ziltlag, in the land of the Philistines, deserted his country. As a deserter to the David e.nd his men, unfit for the pee.ceful Philistines, he had to descend to falsehood, occupations of agriculture, had been driven and now treason seemed inevitable. His only to seek their maintenanoe by raids upon the choice lay between betraying his country or wild tribes in the desert. Of these the chief the king who had given him so hospitable were tho Amalekites, whose home we.s the a refuge. The jealousy, or rather the good bare region lying .between the south of sense, of the Philistine lords (1 Sam. xri.x. 4) Judah e.nd Egypt. We have ample proof saved him from this dreadful alternative, and that this race we.s utterly hostile to all he we.s sent back, to his great joy, to Ziklag. order and quietness; it lived by the plunder But it was a dree.dfnl sight which there met of others, and, sheltering itself in the recesses his view. . With strange mismanagement, he of the wilderness, broke out thence on every ha.d left no portion of his men to ~nard his opportunity to ce.rry ravage and rnin into little city, and the Amalekites had made all the neighbouring disbicte. The Amale- reprisals. The news of the Philistine army kite was thus every man's enemy, and the upon its march upwards would be quickly object of universal dislike; and the cruelty earried through the desert, and the wild which he habitually practised would justify tribes would be sure to take the opportunity to David's mind the barbarity with which for gathering plunder far and wide. Soun- he put to death all whom he found, ma.n defended was the whole country, that they and woman alike. But his object was not met nowhere with resistance. And David justice. His cruelty was the result of selfish saw, on his return, only the smoking ruin~ of motives. For it was necesse.ry for him to the little city where for many months he keep tidings of his real doings from the ears he.d dwelt. His wives, Ahinoam a.nd Abigail, of Aohiilh, who naturally would not approve the wives and children of his men, had all of David's military activity. He very pro- been carried away for the Egyptian slave- bably had put him there upon the borders market. So secure were th;i Amalekites, to protect his realm from inoursions; but that they had no fear about encumbering David in the Amalekite war was the as- their march with a vast multitude of children sailant, and was, moreover, practising his and cattle. And to e.dd to his distress, his men for ulterior objects. Achish most pro- men, indignant, and not without ret1son, at bably_re?eiv~d. a share of the captured cattle; Dii.vid's want of precaution, were three.tening b_ut his mqumes were met with e.n equivoca- to stone him as an alleviation for their dis- tion (1 Sam. xxvii. 10-12), which me.de him tress. Never had David's fortunes fallen so suppose that De.vid, with the usual bitterness low as at that moment; but quickly they of a renegade, had been harrying his own were to rise again. By energetic action he tribesmen. And the falsehood soon en- not only recovered the spoil and the captives tangled _David in most painful oonsequeuces; taken from Ziklag, but also won the immense for Ach1~h, !lothing doubung of his fidelity, wealth gathered by the Amalekites in a. and of Ins bitter hatred of Saul, determined wide roid me.de e.t a time when there Wall ll. SAMUEL. ll THE SEr0ND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [ CII, I. 1-27,