rough whose impenetrable
ranks his foes must pierce before they can reach him. From Samson's time
we read of lions in this district (Judges xiv. 8, 9), and we may
recognise another image as suggested by their growls heard among the
ravines, and their gaunt forms prowling near the cave. "The young lions
do lack and suffer hunger; but they that seek the Lord shall not want
any good" (ver. 10).

And then he passes to earnest instructions and exhortations, which
derive appositeness from regarding them as a proclamation to his men of
the principles on which his camp is to be governed. "Come, ye children,
hearken unto me." He regards himself as charged with guiding them to
godliness: "I will teach you the fear of the Lord." With some
remembrance, perhaps, of his deception at Gath, he warns them to "keep"
their "tongues from evil" and their "lips from speaking guile." They are
not to be in love with warfare, but, even with their swords in their
hands, are to "seek peace, and pursue it." On these exhortations follow
joyous assurances of God's watchful eye fixed upon the righteous, and
His ear open to their cry; of deliverance for his suppliants, whatsoever
hardship and trouble they may have to wade through; of a guardianship
which "keepeth all the bones" of the righteous, so that neither the
blows of the foe nor the perils of the crags should break them,--all
crowned with the contrast ever present to David's mind, and having a
personal reference to his enemies and to himself:

"Evil shall slay the wicked,
And the haters of the righteous shall suffer penalty.
Jehovah redeems the life of His servants,
And no penalty shall any suffer who trust in Him."

Such were the counsels and teachings of the young leader to his little
band,--noble "general orders" from a commander at the beginning of a
campaign!

We venture to refer the twenty-seventh psalm also to this period. It is
generally supposed, indeed, by those commentators who admit its Davidic
authorship, to belong to the time of Absalom's rebellion. The main
reason for throwing it so late is the reference in ver. 4 to dwelling in
the house of the Lord and inquiring in His temple.[J] This is supposed
to require a date subsequent to David's bringing up of the ark to
Jerusalem, and placing it in a temporary sanctuary. But whilst longing
for the sanctuary is no doubt characteristic of the psalms of the later
wanderings, it is by no means necessary to suppose that in th