ves the substance, and
transfigures the earthly monarchy into a heavenly dominion. We do not
enter upon the question of the Davidic authorship of this psalm. Here we
have not to depend upon Jewish superscriptions, but on the words of Him
whose bare assertion should be "an end of all strife." Christ says that
David wrote it. Some of us are far enough behind the age to believe that
what He said He meant, and that what He meant is truth.

This psalm, then, being David's, can hardly be earlier than the time of
Nathan's prophecy. There are traces in it of the influence of the
history of the psalmist, giving, as we have said, form to the
predictions. Perhaps we may see these in Zion being named as the seat of
Messiah's sovereignty and in the reference to Melchizedek, both of which
points assume new force if we suppose that the ancient city over which
that half-forgotten name once ruled had recently become his own.
Possibly, too, his joy in exchanging his armour and kingly robe for the
priest's ephod, when he brought up the ark to its rest, and his
consciousness that in himself the regal and the sacerdotal offices did
not blend, may have led him to meditations on the meaning of both, on
the miseries that seemed to flow equally from their separation and from
their union, which were the precursors of his hearing the Divine oath
that, in the far-off future, they would be fused together in that mighty
figure who was to repeat in higher fashion the union of functions which
invested that dim King of Righteousness and Priest of God in the far-off
past. He discerns that _his_ support from the right hand of God, _his_
sceptre which he swayed in Zion, _his_ loyal people fused together into
a unity at last, _his_ triumphant warfare on the nations around, are all
but faint shadows of One who is to come. That solemn form on the horizon
of hope is his Lord, the true King whose viceroy he was, the "bright
consummate flower" for the sake of which the root has its being. And, as
he sees the majestic lineaments shimmering through the facts of his own
history, like some hidden fire toiling in a narrow space ere it leaps
into ruddy spires that burst their bonds and flame heaven high, he is
borne onwards by the prophetic impulse, and the Spirit of God speaks
through his tongue words which have no meaning unless their theme be a
Divine ruler and priest for all the world.

He begins with the solemn words with which a prophetic message is wont
to be