e previous psalms (vers.
17-24). Rising from his personal experience to the broad and lofty
thoughts of God which that experience had taught him, as it does all who
prize life chiefly as a means of knowing Him, he proclaims the solemn
truth, that in the exercise of a righteous retribution, and by the very
necessity of our moral nature, God appears to man what man is to God:
loving to the loving, upright to the upright, pure to the pure, and
froward to the froward. Our thoughts of God are shaped by our moral
character; the capacity of perceiving depends on sympathy. "Unless the
eye were light, how could it see the sun?" The self-revelation of God in
His providence, of which only the psalm speaks, is modified according to
our moral character, being full of love to those who love, being harsh
and antagonistic to those who set themselves in opposition to it. There
is a higher law of grace, whereby the sinfulness of man but draws forth
the tenderness of a father's pardoning pity; and the brightest
revelation of His love is made to froward prodigals. But that is not in
the psalmist's view here, nor does it interfere with the law of
retribution in its own sphere.

The purely personal tone is again resumed, and continued unbroken to the
close. In the former portion David was passive, except for the voice of
prayer, and God's arm alone was his deliverance. In the latter half he
is active, the conquering king, whose arm is strengthened for victory by
God. This difference may possibly suggest the reference of the former
half to the Sauline persecution, when, as we have seen, the exile ever
shrunk from avenging himself; and of the latter to the early years of
his monarchy, which, as we shall see, were characterized by much
successful military activity; and if so, the date of the psalm would
most naturally be taken to be the close of his victorious campaigns,
when "the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies round about" (2
Sam. vii. 1). Be that as it may, the latter portion of the psalm shows
us the soldier king tracing all his past victories to God alone, and
building upon them the confidence of a world-wide dominion. The point at
which memory passes into hope is difficult to determine, and great
variety of opinion prevails on the matter among commentators. It is
perhaps best to follow many of the older versions, and the valuable
exposition of Hupfeld, in regarding the whole section from ver. 37 of
our translation as the expr