ession of the trust which past experience had
wrought. We shall then have two periods in the second half of the
psalm--the past victories won by God's help (vers. 31-36), the coming
triumphs of which these are the pledge (vers. 37-end).

In the former there shine out not only David's habitual consciousness of
dependence on and aid from God, but also a very striking picture of his
physical qualifications for a military leader. He is girded with bodily
strength, swift and sure of foot like a deer, able to scale the crags
where his foes fortified themselves like the wild antelopes he had so
often seen bounding among the dizzy ledges of the cliffs in the
wilderness; his hands are trained for war, and his sinewy arms can bend
the great bow of brass. But these capacities are gifts, and not they,
but their Giver, have made him victorious. Looking back upon all his
past, this is its summing up:--

"Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation,
And Thy right hand hath holden me up,
And Thy lowliness hath made me great."

God's strength, God's buckler, God's supporting hand, God's
condescension, by which He bows down to look upon and help the feeble,
with the humble showing Himself humble--these have been his weapons, and
from these has come his victory.

And because of these, he looks forward to a future like the past, but
more glorious still, thereby teaching us how the unchanging faithfulness
of our God should encourage us to take all the blessings which we have
received as but the earnest of what is yet to come. He sees himself
pursuing his enemies, and smiting them to the ground. The fierce light
of battle blazes through the rapid sentences which paint the panic
flight, and the swift pursuit, the vain shrieks to man and God for
succour, and the utter annihilation of the foe:--

(42) "And I will pound them like dust before the wind,
Like street-filth will I empty them out."

Then he gives utterance to the consciousness that his kingdom is
destined to extend far beyond the limits of Israel, in words which, like
so many of the prophecies, may be translated in the present tense, but
are obviously future in signification--the prophet placing himself in
imagination in the midst of the time of which he speaks:--

(43) "Thou deliverest me from the strivings of the people (_i.e._,
Israel),
Thou makest me head of the heathen;
People whom I knew not serve me.

(44) At t