d to murder them all then and there. The very soldiers
shrink from the sacrilege, but a willing tool is at hand. The wild blood
of Edom, fired by ancestral hatred, desires no better work, and Doeg
crowns his baseness by slaying--with the help of his herdsmen, no
doubt--"on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear an ephod,"
and utterly extirpating every living thing from the defenceless little
city.

One psalm, the fifty-second, is referred by its inscription to this
period, but the correspondence between the history and the tone of the
psalm is doubtful. It is a vehement rebuke and a prophecy of destruction
directed against an enemy, whose hostility was expressed in "devouring
words." The portrait does not apply very accurately to the Doeg of the
historical books, inasmuch as it describes the psalmist's enemy as "a
mighty man,"--or rather as "a hero," and as trusting "in the abundance
of his riches,"--and makes the point of the reproach against him that
he is a confirmed liar. But the dastardly deed of blood may be covertly
alluded to in the bitterly sarcastic "hero"--as if he had said, "O brave
warrior, who dost display thy prowess in murdering unarmed priests and
women?" And Doeg's story to Saul was a lie in so far as it gave the
impression of the priests' complicity with David, and thereby caused
their deaths on a false charge. The other features of the description
are not contrary to the narrative, and most of them are in obvious
harmony with it. The psalm, then, may be taken as showing how deeply
David's soul was stirred by the tragedy. He pours out broken words of
hot and righteous indignation:

"Destructions doth thy tongue devise,
Like a razor whetted--O thou worker of deceit."

* * * * *

"Thou lovest all words that devour:[F] O thou deceitful tongue!"

[F] Literally, "words of swallowing up."

He prophesies the destruction of the cruel liar, and the exultation of
the righteous when he falls, in words which do indeed belong to the old
covenant of retribution, and yet convey an eternal truth which modern
sentimentalism finds very shocking, but which is witnessed over and
over again in the relief that fills the heart of nations and of
individuals when evil men fade: "When the wicked perish, there is
shouting"--

"Also God shall smite thee down for ever,
Will draw thee out,[G] and carry thee away from the tent,
And root thee out of the land of the li