as to bear the
brunt of these weapons of light. Summoning us to look with him by a
"Behold!" he tells his fate in an image of frequent occurrence in the
psalms of this period, and very natural in the lips of a man wandering
in the desert among wild creatures, and stumbling sometimes into the
traps dug for them: "He has dug a hole and hollowed it out, and he falls
into the pitfall he is making." The crumbling soil in which he digs
makes his footing on the edge more precarious with every spadeful that
he throws out, and at last, while he is hard at work, in he tumbles. It
is the conviction spoken in the proverbs of all nations, expressed here
by David in a figure drawn from life--the conviction that all sin digs
its own grave and is self-destructive. The psalm does not proclaim the
yet deeper truth that this automatic action, by which sin sets in motion
its own punishment, has a disciplinary purpose, so that the arrows of
God wound for healing, and His armour is really girded on for, even
while it seems to be against, the sufferer. But it would not be
difficult to show that that truth underlies the whole Old Testament
doctrine of retribution, and is obvious in many of David's psalms. In
the present one the deliverance of the hunted prey is contemplated as
the end of the baffled trapper's fall into his own snare, and beyond
that the psalmist's thoughts do not travel. His own safety, the
certainty that his appeal to God's judgment will not be in vain, fill
his mind; and without following the fate of his enemy further, he closes
this song of tumultuous and varied emotion with calm confidence and a
vow of thanksgiving for a deliverance which is already as good as
accomplished:

(17) I will give thanks to Jehovah according to His righteousness,
And I will sing the name of Jehovah, Most High.

We have still another psalm (lvii.) which is perhaps best referred to
this period. According to the title, it belongs to the time when David
"fled from Saul in the cave." This may, of course, apply to either
Adullam or Engedi, and there is nothing decisive to be alleged for
either; yet one or two resemblances to psalm vii. incline the balance to
the latter period.

These resemblances are the designation of his enemies as lions (vii. 2;
lvii. 4); the image of their falling into their own trap (vii. 15; lvii.
6); the use of the phrase "my honour" or "glory" for "my soul" (vii. 5;
lvii. 8--the same word in the original); the name