f the term "people," and the double
exhortations to his own devout followers and to the arrogant enemy. The
whole tone is that of patient resignation, which we have found
characterising David now. The first words are the key-note of the whole,
"Truly unto God my soul is silence"--is all one great stillness of
submissive waiting upon Him. It was in the very crisis of his fate, in
the suspense of the uncertain issue of the rebellion, that these words,
the very sound of which has calmed many a heart since, welled to his
lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much
heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word which is variously
translated "truly," "surely," and "only." It carries the force of
confident affirmation, like the "verily" of the New Testament, and is
here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient
resignation (ver. 1); of God's defence (ver. 2); of the enemies'
whispered counsels (ver. 4); to his exhortation of his soul to the
resignation which it already exercises (ver. 5); and to the triumphant
reiteration of God's all-sufficient protection. How beautifully, too,
does that reiteration--almost verbal repetition--of the opening words
strengthen the impression of his habitual trust. His soul in its silence
murmurs to itself, as it were, the blessed thoughts over and over again.
Their echoes haunt his spirit "lingering and wandering on, as loth to
die;" and if for a moment the vision of his enemies disturbs their flow,
one indignant question flung at them suffices, "How long will ye rush
upon a man? (how long) will ye all of you thrust him down as (if he
were) a bowing wall, a tottering fence?" and with a rapid glance at
their plots and bitter words, he comes back again to his calm gaze on
God. Lovingly he accumulates happy names for Him, which, in their
imagery, as well as in their repetition, remind us of the former songs
of the fugitive. "My rock," in whom I hide; "He is my salvation," which
is even more than "from Him cometh my salvation;" my "fortress," my
"glory," "the rock of my strength," "my refuge." So many phases of his
need and of God's sufficiency thus gathered together, tell how familiar
to the thoughts and real to the experience of the aged fugitive was his
security in Jehovah. The thirty years since last he had wandered there
have confirmed the faith of his earlier songs; and though the ruddy
locks of the young chieftain are silvered with grey now, and sin