s his capital, he
reigns for some ten years with unbroken prosperity over a loyal and
loving people, with this for the summary of the whole period, "David
went on and grew great, and the Lord God of Hosts was with him" (2 Sam.
v. 10). These years are marked by three principal events--the bringing
up of the ark to the city of David, the promise by Nathan of the
perpetual dominion of his house, and the unbroken flow of victories over
the surrounding nations. These are the salient points of the narrative
in the Book of Samuel (2 Sam. v.-viii.), and are all abundantly
illustrated by the psalms. We shall have next then to consider "The
Songs of the King."

How did the fugitive bear his sudden change of fortune? What were his
thoughts when at last the dignity which he had ever expected and never
sought was his? The answer is ready to our hand in that grand psalm (Ps.
xviii.) which he "spake in the day that the Lord delivered him from all
his enemies, and from the hand of Saul." The language of this
superscription seems to connect the psalm with the period of internal
and external repose which preceded and prompted David's "purpose to
build an house for the Lord" (2 Sam. vii.) The same thankfulness which
glows so brightly in the psalm stimulated that desire, and the emphatic
reference to the mercy promised by God to "his seed for evermore," which
closes the hymn, points perhaps to the definite promise of the
perpetuity of the kingdom to his descendants, which was God's answer to
the same desire. But whether the psalm belongs to the years of the
partial sovereignty at Hebron, or to those of the complete dominion at
Jerusalem, it cannot be later than the second of these two dates; and
whatever may have been the time of its composition, the feelings which
it expresses are those of the first freshness of thankful praise when he
was firmly settled in the kingdom. Some critics would throw it onwards
to the very close of his life. But this has little in its favour beyond
the fact that the author of the Book of Samuel has placed his version of
the psalm among the records of David's last days. There is, however,
nothing to show that that position is due to chronological
considerations. The victories over heathen nations which are supposed to
be referred to in the psalm, and are relied on by the advocates of later
date, really point to the earlier, which was the time of his most
brilliant conquests. And the marked assertions of his own