ly in his eager appeal when he and Saul stood face to face on
the solitary hill side. They are couched in the higher strain of poetry
indeed, but that is the only difference; whilst there are several verbal
coincidences, and at least one reference to the story, which seem to fix
the date with considerable certainty.

In it we see the psalmist's soul surging with the ground swell of strong
emotion, which breaks into successive waves of varied feeling--first
(vers. 1, 2) terror blended with trust, the enemy pictured, as so
frequently in these early psalms, as a lion who tears the flesh and
breaks the bones of his prey--and the refuge in God described by a
graphic word very frequent also in the cotemporaneous psalms (xi. 1;
lvii. 1, etc.). Then with a quick turn comes the passionate protestation
of his innocence, in hurried words, broken by feeling, and indignantly
turning away from the slanders which he will not speak of more
definitely than calling them "this."

(3) Jehovah, my God! if I have done this--
If there be iniquity in my hands--

(4) If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me--
Yea, I delivered him that without cause is mine enemy--

(5) May the enemy pursue my soul and capture it,
And trample down to the earth my life,
And my glory in the dust may he lay!

How remarkably all this agrees with his words to Saul, "There is neither
evil nor transgression in my hand, ... yet thou huntest my soul to take
it" (1 Sam. xxiv. 11); and how forcible becomes the singular reiteration
in the narrative, of the phrase "my hand," which occurs six times in
four verses. The peculiarly abrupt introduction in ver. 4 of the clause,
"I delivered him that without cause is mine enemy," which completely
dislocates the grammatical structure, is best accounted for by
supposing that David's mind is still full of the temptation to stain
his hands with Saul's blood, and is vividly conscious of the effort
which he had had to make to overcome it. And the solemn invocation of
destruction which he dares to address to Jehovah his God includes the
familiar figure of himself as a fugitive before the hunters, which is
found in the words already quoted, and which here as there stands in
immediate connection with his assertion of clean hands.

Then follows, with another abrupt turn, a vehement cry to God to judge
his cause; his own individual case melts into the thought of a
world-wide judgment, which