rn their
question, which only expects a negative answer, into a prayer, fashioned
like that triple priestly benediction of old (Numbers vi. 24-26). His
own experience bursts forth irrepressible. He had prayed in his hour of
penitence, "Make me to hear joy and gladness" (Psa. li.); and the prayer
had been answered, if not before, yet now when peril had brought him
nearer to God, and trust had drawn God nearer to him. In his calamity,
as is ever the case with devout souls, his joy increased, as Greek fire
burns more brightly under water. Therefore this pauper sovereign,
discrowned and fed by the charity of the Gileadite pastoral chief,
sings, "Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that
their corn and wine increased." And how tranquilly the psalm closes, and
seems to lull itself to rest, "In peace I will at once lie down and
sleep, for Thou, O Jehovah, only makest me dwell safely." The growing
security which experience of God's care should ever bring, is
beautifully marked by the variation on the similar phrase in the
previous psalm. There he gratefully recorded that he had laid himself
down and slept; here he promises himself that he will lie down "in
peace;" and not only so, but that at once on his lying down he will
sleep--kept awake by no anxieties, by no bitter thoughts, but, homeless
and in danger as he is, will close his eyes, like a tired child, without
a care or a fear, and forthwith sleep, with the pressure and the
protection of his Father's arm about him.

This psalm sounds again the glad trustful strain which has slumbered in
his harp-strings ever since the happy old days of his early trials, and
is re-awakened as the rude blast of calamity sweeps through them once
more.

The sixty-third psalm is by the superscription referred to the time when
David was "in the wilderness of Judah," which has led many readers to
think of his long stay there during Saul's persecution. But the psalm
certainly belongs to the period of his reign, as is obvious from its
words, "_The king_ shall rejoice in God." It must therefore belong to
his brief sojourn in the same wilderness on his flight to Mahanaim,
when, as we read in 2 Sam., "The people were weary and hungry and
thirsty in the wilderness." There is a beautiful progress of thought in
it, which is very obvious if we notice the triple occurrence of the
words "my soul," and their various connections--"my soul thirsteth," "my
soul is satisfied," "my soul fol