'The times that went over him.'--1 CHRON. xxix. 30.
This is a fragment from the chronicler's close of his life of King
David. He is referring in it to other written authorities in which
there are fuller particulars concerning his hero; and he says, 'the
acts of David the King, first and last, behold they are written in the
book of Samuel the seer ... with all his reign and his might, and the
times that went over him, and over all Israel, and over all the
kingdoms of the countries.'
Now I have ventured to isolate these words, because they seem to me to
suggest some very solemn and stimulating thoughts about the true
nature of life. They refer, originally, to the strange vicissitudes
and extremes of fortune and condition which characterised, so
dramatically and remarkably, the life of King David. Shepherd-boy,
soldier, court favourite, outlaw, freebooter and all but brigand;
rebel, king, fugitive, saint, sinner, psalmist, penitent--he lived a
life full of strongly marked alternations, and 'the times that went
over him' were singularly separate and different from each other.
There are very few of us who have such chequered lives as his. But the
principle which dictated the selection by the chronicler of this
somewhat strange phrase is true about the life of every man.