but gushes
forth like some imprisoned stream, broad and full even from its
well-head. The common word for "love" is too weak for him, and he bends
to his use another, never elsewhere employed to express man's emotions
towards God, the intensity of which is but feebly expressed by some such
periphrasis as, "From my heart do I love Thee." The same exalted feeling
is wonderfully set forth by the loving accumulation of Divine names
which follow, as if he would heap together in one great pile all the
rich experiences of that God, unnamed after all names, which he had
garnered up in his distresses and deliverances. They tell so much as the
poor vehicle of words can tell, what his Shepherd in the heavens had
been to him. They are the treasures which he has brought back from his
exile; and they most pathetically point to the songs of that time. He
had called on God by these names when it was hard to believe in their
reality, and now he repeats them all in his glad hour of fruition, for
token that they who in their extremity trust in the name of the Lord
will one day have the truth of faith transformed into truth of
experience. "Jehovah, my rock and my fortress," reminds us of his cry in
Ziklag, "Thou art my rock and my fortress" (xxxi. 3), and of the "hold"
(the same word) of Adullam in which he had lain secure. "My deliverer"
echoes many a sigh in the past, now changed into music of praise. "My
rock" (a different word from that in a preceding clause), "in whom I
take refuge," recalls the prayer, "Be Thou my rock of strength" (xxxi.
2), and his former effort of confidence, when, in the midst of
calamities, he said, "My soul takes refuge in Thee" (lvii. 1.) "My
shield" carries us back to the ancient promise, fresh after so many
centuries, and fulfilled anew in every age, "Fear not, Abram, I am thy
shield," and to his own trustful words at a time when trust was
difficult, "My shield is upon God" (vii. 10). "My high tower," the last
of this glowing series, links on to the hope breathed in the first song
of his exile, "God is my defence" (the same expression); "Thou hast been
my defence in the day of trouble" (lix. 9, 16). And then he sums up his
whole past in one general sentence, which tells his habitual resource in
his troubles, and the blessed help which he has ever found, "I call on
Jehovah, who is worthy to be praised;[R] and from my enemies am I saved"
(verse 3).

[R] The old English word "the worshipful" comes near the for