OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERUSAL OF

THE PSALMS.

If we would read the Psalms intelligently, or even understand the piety which is unfolded there, we must see in them the Spirit of Christ identifying itself with the circumstances, trials, thoughts, feelings, and position of the faithful in Israel in the latter day. They give a divine, and consequently perfect, expression to that which may be working by grace in their hearts, but which, in their hearts, mixed up with many other feelings, might, without this expression, which, in giving them in their perfectness, puts a divine sanction on them, have left their souls in uncertainty and misery. Whereas, through this blessed revelation, God comes into the grief, and gives also an answer to it.

Hence, in the very outset, we have the character of the righteous man placed among the ungodly, and the consequences under the government of God; and in the second the firm counsel of God, as to Christ, in spite of all the efforts of the heathen, whose kings and judges are called to submit themselves to the Son of God. In Psalm viii. His glory as Son of man is unfolded consequent on his rejection as Messiah. Thus, in general, we have everything past, present, and to come, which could touch the heart of a Jew renewed in the spirit of his mind by grace, expressed in connection with the feelings it gives rise to. Hence also the sufferings of Christ are given historically, the great centre of everything that Israel could rightly feel, and which forms the sole ground on which He could enter in spirit into the sorrows of the sinner.

No. XXIII.

1 KINGS.

THE Books of Kings show us the kingly power established in all its glory, its fall, and God's testimony in the midst of the ruin, with details concerning Judah after the rejection of Israel, until Lo-ammi had been pronounced upon the whole nation. In a word, it is the trial of kingly power, placed in the hands of men, as there had been a trial of the people set in relationship with God, by means of priesthood. Out of Christ, nothing stands.

Although the kingly power had been placed under the responsibility of its faithfulness to the Lord; and although it had to be smitten and punished whenever it failed in this, it was yet, at that time, established by the counsels and the will of God. It was neither a David, type of Christ in his patience, who, through difficulties, obstacles, and sufferings, made himself a way to the throne; nor a king who, although exalted to the throne, and always victorious, had to be a man of war to the end of his life, a type in this, I doubt not, of what Christ will be in the midst of the Jews at His return, when He will commence the coming age by subjecting the gentiles to Himself, having been already delivered from the strivings of the people (Ps. xviii. 43, 44); it was the king according to the promises and the counsels of God, the king established in peace, head over God's people to rule them in righteousness, son of David according to the promise, and type of that true son of David, who shall be a priest upon His throne, who shall build the temple of Jehovah, and between whom and Jehovah there shall be the counsel of peace (Zech. vi. 13).

Let us examine a little the position of this kingly power according to the Word; for responsibility and

VOL. III. PT. IV.

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election met in it, as well as the foreshadowing of the kingdom of Christ.

In the seventh chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, we have seen the promise of a son whom God would raise up to David, and who should reign after him, to whom God would be a Father, and who should be his son, who should build the temple of the Lord, and the throne of whose kingdom God would establish for ever. This was the promise; a promise which, as David himself understood, will be fully accomplished only in the person of Christ (1 Chron. xvii. 17). Here is the responsibility: "If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men" (2 Sam. vii. 14); which David well understood also (1 Chron. xxviii. 9).

The Book which we are considering, shows us that this responsibility was fully declared to Solomon (ix., 4-9).

The eighty-ninth Psalm, 28-37, sets the two things also before us very plainly, namely, the certainty of God's counsels, His fixed purpose, and the exercise of His government in view of man's responsibility.

In the Book of Chronicles, we have only what relates to the promises (1 Chron. xvii. 11-14), for reasons, of which we will speak when we examine that book.

From all these passages, we perceive that the royalty of David's family was established according to the counsels of God and the election of grace; that the perpetuity of this royalty, dependent on the faithfulness of God, was, consequently, infallible; but that, at the same time, the family of David in the person of Solomon was, in fact, placed upon the throne, at that time, under the condition of obedience and faithfulness to the Lord. If himself or his posterity were to fail in faithfulness, God's judgment would be executed; a judgment which, nevertheless, would not prevent God's fulfilling that which His grace had assured to David.

The Books of Kings contain the history of the establishment of the kingdom in Israel under this responsibility, that of its fall, of the long-suffering of God, of God's testimony amid the ruin which flowed from the unfaith

fulness of the first king, and finally, that of the execution of the judgment, a longer delay of which would but have falsified God's own character, and the testimony that should be given to the holiness of that character. Such delay would have borne a false testimony with respect to that which God is. We shall see that, after Solomon's reign, the greater part of the narrative refers to the testimony given by the prophets Elijah and Elisha, in the midst of Israel, and, in general, to that kingdom which had entirely departed from God. Little is said of Judah before the complete ruin of Israel. After this, the ruin of Judah, brought on by the iniquity of their kings, is not long delayed, although there were moments of restoration.

Before David's death, the iniquity and ambition of a son whom he "had not displeased at any time," led to the solemn proclamation of Solomon, to whom God had destined and David promised the throne. In this circumstance, Joab, long restrained by prudence in David's lifetime, shows himself as he is. He makes himself necessary to Adonijah, as he had been to David. Abiathar, long under the sentence of God, takes the same course. Solomon, the elect of God, who held his rights from God, did not suit them. But, after all, man's prudence fails before the judgment of God.

God

arranges events in such a manner as sooner or later to exhibit the most prudent in their true light. Apparently, all goes on well. The elder and beloved son of the king, the captain of the host whom David himself could not resist, and the priest who had always accompanied David are there, as well as all the king's sons, excepting the elect of God; but the thought of God, or His will, had no place there. The companions of David, who had truly served with him for the glory of God, were not there either.

The prophet of God, the witness to His will, is employed in the fulfilment of that will, and Solomon is proclaimed king, and inaugurated before the eyes of David himself.

David's faith, if it had not energy enough to give each one his place in judgment, had, at least, full intelligence

of what was proper. He communicates his judgment to Solomon, who is to execute it according to his word. He had indeed shown clemency to Adonijah; but the still restless will of the latter, who desired the deceased king's wife, awakens the righteous judgment destined for those who had failed in integrity, and who had risen up against God's anointed. It is the first character attached to the king reigning in glory. He executes righteous judgment in the earth. There is no escaping the vigilance of this judgment. This is seen in the case of Shimei.

We find, at the same time, the fulfilment of the word given to Samuel, namely, the humiliation of the priest. Solomon, the Lord's anointed, sends Abiathar away, and puts Zadok in his place.

But there is another element in the history of the king of glory, in which he oversteps the limits of the king of Israel's legitimate position; he allies himself with the Gentiles, and marries Pharaoh's daughter. Neither the house of Solomon, nor that of the Lord were yet built; but the daughter of Pharaoh, whom the king espouses in grace, dwells in the place where the suffering and victorious king had, provisionally, placed the ark of the covenant, which secures blessing to the people, and which, when placed in the temple will form the source of blessing for Israel. This ark was not a covenant made with Pharaoh's daughter; but she dwelt where the symbol of the covenant was hidden, and she was placed under the safeguard, and sheltered by the power of Him who had made this covenant, and who could not break it, whatever might be the unfaithfulness of a people who ought always to have enjoyed its benefits. I doubt not, that hereafter a remnant of the Jews will

a It is to David also, and not to Solomon, that God communicated the plan of the temple. Solomon, in glory, performs these things, and possesses the requisite discernment for executing justice and judgment; but it is in David that the intelligence displays itself. In fact, if Christ, reigning in glory, exercises just judgment, He is already wisdom; and, indeed, it is in His connection with the Church in the present dispensation, that the communication of the purposes of God, and the intelligence of His ways are found.