not many words which he spoke, and in this also lies evidence of their depth and genuineness (comp. Luke

18:13) - but in them he owned two realities: sin and God. But to own them in their true meaning: sin as

against God, and God as the Holy One, and yet God as merciful and gracious - was to have returned to the

way of peace. Lower than this penitence could not descend; higher than this faith could not rise. And God

was Jehovah - and David's sin was put away.

Brief as this account reads, we are not to imagine that all this passed, and passed away, in the short space of

time it takes to tell it. Again we say: in this respect also let the record be searched of the penitential Psalms,

that Old Testament comment, as it were, on the three days' and three nights' conflict, outlined in Romans 7:5-

25, the history of which is marked out by the words "blasphemer," "persecutor," "injurious," and "exceeding

abundant grace" (1 Timothy 1:13-16). For, faith is indeed an act, and immediate; and pardon also is an act,

immediate and complete; but only the soul that has passed through it knows the terrible reality of a personal

sense of sin, or the wondrous surprise of the sunrise of grace.

Assuredly it was so in the case of David. But the sting of that wound could not be immediately removed.

The child who was the offspring of his sin must die: for David's own sake, that he might not enjoy the fruit

of sin; because he had given occasion for men to blaspheme, and that they might no longer have such

occasion; and because Jehovah was God. And straightway the child sickened unto death. It was right that

David should keenly feel the sufferings of the helpless innocent child; right that he should fast and pray for

it without ceasing; right even that to the last he should hope against hope that this, the seemingly heaviest

punishment of his guilt, might be remitted. We can understand how all the more dearly he loved his child;

how he lay on the ground night and day, and refused to rise or be comforted of man's comforts. We can also

understand - however little his servants might - how, when it was all over, he rose of his own accord,

changed his apparel, went to worship in the house of Jehovah, and then returned to his own household: for,

if the heavy stroke had not been averted, but had fallen - his child was not gone, only gone before. And

once more there came peace to David's soul. Bathsheba was now truly and before God his wife. Another

child gladdened their hearts. David named him, symbolically and prophetically, Solomon, "the peaceful:" the

seal, the pledge, and the promise of peace. But God called him, and he was "Jedidiah," the Jehovah-loved.

Once more, then, the sunshine of God's favor had fallen upon David's household - yet was it, now and ever

afterwards, the sunlight of autumn rather than that of summer; a sunlight, not of undimmed brightness, but

amidst clouds and storm.

-- end of volume 4 --

Prophets and Pro phecy in Israel. By Dr. A. Kuenen. London, 1877.

Comp. also the full discussion in Roediger's Gesenii Thes., Vol. 3, p. 1380 b - the positive part of which it

has not suited Dr. Kuenen to notice.

Onkelos paraphrases: "He will remember what thou hast done to him at the beginning, and thou shalt keep

in mind against him to the end."

This is well brought out in Ewald, Gesch. d. V. Isr., vol. 2:(3rd ed.) P. 596.

Comp. Auberlen, as quoted by Keil, Bibl. Comm., vol. 2. s. 2, p. 17.

Ewald suggests that Eli had attained the dignity of judge owing to some outward deliverance, like that of

the other judges. But the Scriptural narrative of Eli, which is very brief, gives us no indication of any such