announced, thus at the outset stamping on the psalm its true
character. The "oracle" or "word of Jehovah unto my Lord," which he
heard, is a new revelation made to him from the heavens. He is taken up
and listens to the Divine voice calling to His right hand, to the most
intimate communion with Himself, and to wielding the energies of
omnipotence--Him whom David knew to be his lord. And when that Divine
voice ceases, its mandate having been fulfilled, the prophetic spirit in
the seer hymns the coronation anthem of the monarch enthroned by the
side of the majesty in the heavens. "The sceptre of Thy strength will
Jehovah send out of Zion. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies." In
singular juxtaposition are the throne at God's right hand and the
sceptre--the emblem of sovereignty--issuing from Zion, a dominion
realised on earth by a monarch in the heavens, a dominion the centre of
which is Zion, and the undefined extent universal. It is a monarchy,
too, established in the midst of enemies, sustained in spite of
antagonism not only by the power of Jehovah, but by the activity of the
sovereign's own "rule." It is a dominion for the maintenance of which
devout souls will burst into prayer, and the most powerful can bring
but their aspirations. But the vision includes more than the warrior
king and his foes. Imbedded, as it were, in the very heart of the
description of the former comes the portraiture of his subjects, for a
witness how close is the union between Him and them, and how inseparable
from His glories are those who serve Him. They are characterised in a
threefold manner. "Thy people (shall be) willing in the day of Thine
array." The army is being mustered.[U] They are not mercenaries, nor
pressed men. They flock gladly to the standard, like the warriors
celebrated of old in Deborah's chant of victory, who "willingly offered
themselves." The word of our psalm might be translated "freewill
offerings," and the whole clause carries us into the very heart of that
great truth, that glad consecration and grateful self-surrender is the
one bond which knits us to the Captain of our salvation who gave
Himself for us, to the meek Monarch whose crown is of thorns and His
sceptre a reed, for tokens that His dominion rests on suffering and is
wielded in gentleness. The next words should be punctuated as a separate
clause, co-ordinate with the former, and adding another feature to the
description of the army. "In the beauties of