Morning, August 20
Go To Evening Reading
“The sweet psalmist of Israel.”
2 Samuel 23:1
Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David
possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive
character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not
to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and
hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew
the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles,
and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled
a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves
of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons
of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in his friends,
his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.” His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were
his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of
honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power
upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and
from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial
than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency
and alarm, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all
God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause
that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians.
Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has
exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human
heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools—the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed
in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly
appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel thee this day.