t, the conqueror
"faint, yet pursuing," and stooping for a moment to drink, then hurrying
on with renewed strength after the fugitives, one can scarcely help
feeling that such a close to such a psalm is trivial and liker the
artificial play of fancy than the work of the prophetic spirit, to say
nothing of the fact that there is nothing about pursuit in the psalm. If
we fall back on the older interpretation, which sees in the words a
prophecy of the sufferings of the Messiah who tastes death and drinks of
the cup of sorrows, and therefore is highly exalted, we get a meaning
which worthily crowns the psalm, but seems to break somewhat abruptly
the sequence of thought, and to force the metaphor of drinking of the
brook into somewhat strained parallelism with the very different New
Testament images just named. But the doubt we must leave over these
final words does not diminish the preciousness of this psalm as a clear,
articulate prophecy from David's lips of David's Son, whom he had
learned to know through the experiences and facts of his own life. He
had climbed through sufferings to his throne. God had exalted him and
given him victory, and surrounded him with a loyal people. But he was
only a shadow; limitations and imperfections surrounded his office and
weakened himself; half of the Divine counsel of peace could not be
mirrored in his functions at all, and death lay ahead of him. So his
glory and his feebleness alike taught him that "one mightier than" he
must be coming behind him, "the latchet of whose shoes he was not worthy
to unloose"--the true King of Israel, to bear witness to whom was his
highest honour.

The third characteristic of the first seventeen years of David's reign
is his successful wars with surrounding nations. The gloomy days of
defeat and subjugation which had darkened the closing years of Saul are
over now, and blow after blow falls with stunning rapidity on the amazed
enemies. The narrative almost pants for breath as it tells with hurry
and pride how, south, and east, and north, the "lion of the tribe of
Judah" sprang from his fastness, and smote Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon,
Amalek, Damascus, and the Syrians beyond, even to the Euphrates; and
the bounding courage of king and people, and the unity of heart and hand
with which they stood shoulder to shoulder in many a bloody field, ring
through the psalms of this period. Whatever higher meaning may be
attached to them, their roots are firm in th