Adversity had taught David self-restraint, had braced his soul, had
driven him to grasp firmly the hand of God. And prosperity had seemed
for nearly twenty years but to perfect the lessons. Gratitude had
followed deliverance, and the sunshine after the rain had brought out
the fragrance of devotion and the blossoms of glad songs. A good man,
and still more a man of David's age at the date of his great crime,
seldom falls so low, unless there has been previous, perhaps
unconscious, relaxation of the girded loins, and negligence of the
untrimmed lamp. The sensitive nature of the psalmist was indeed not
unlikely to yield to the sudden force of such a temptation as conquered
him, but we can scarcely conceive of its having done so without a
previous decay of his religious life, hidden most likely from himself.
And the source of that decay may probably be found in self-indulgence,
fostered by ease, and by long years of command. The actual fall into
sin seems to have been begun by slothful abdication of his functions as
captain of Israel. It is perhaps not without bitter emphasis that the
narrative introduces it by telling us that, "at the time when kings go
forth to battle," David contented himself with sending his troops
against Ammon, and "tarried still at Jerusalem." At all events, the
story brings into sharp contrast the levy _en masse_, encamped round
Rabbath, and their natural head, who had once been so ready to take his
share of blows and privations, loitering behind, taking his quiet siesta
in the hot hours after noon, as if there had been no soldiers of his
sweltering in their armour, and rising from his bed to stroll on his
palace roof, and peer into the household privacies below, as if his
heart had no interest in the grim tussle going on behind the hills that
he could almost see from his height, as they grew purple in the evening
twilight. He has fallen to the level of an Eastern despot, and has lost
his sense of the responsibilities of his office. Such loosening of the
tension of his moral nature as is indicated in his absence from the
field, during what was evidently a very severe as well as a long
struggle, prepared the way for the dismal headlong plunge into sin.
The story is told in all its hideousness, without palliation or reserve,
without comment or heightening, in that stern judicial fashion so
characteristic of the Bible records of its greatest characters. Every
step is narrated without a trace of softening, and without a word of
emotion. Not a single ugly detail is spared. The portraiture is as vivid
as ever. Bathsheba's willing complicity, her punctilious observance of
ceremonial propriety while she is trampling under foot her holiest
obligations; the fatal necessity which drags sin after sin, and summons
up murder to hide, if it be possible, the foul form of adultery; the
stinging rebuke in the conduct of Uriah, who, Hittite as he was, has a
more chivalrous, not to say devout, shrinking from personal ease while
his comrades and the ark are in the field, than the king has; the mean
treason, the degradation implied in getting into Joab's power; the
cynical plainness of the murderous letter, in which a hardened
conscience names his purposed evil by its true name; the contemptuous
measure of his master which Joab takes in his message, the king's
indifference to the loss of his men so long as Uriah is out of the way;
the solemn platitudes with which he pretends to console his tool for the
check of his troops; and the hideous haste with which, after her
scrupulous "mourning" for one week, Bathsheba threw herself again into
David's arms;--all these particulars, and every particular an
aggravation, stand out for ever, as men's most hidden evil will one day
do, in the clear, unpitying, unmistakable light of the Divine record.
What a story it is!
This saint of nearly fifty years of age, bound to God by ties which he
rapturously felt and acknowledged, whose words have been the very breath
of devotion for every devout heart, forgets his longings after
righteousness, flings away the joys of Divine communion, darkens his
soul, ends his prosperity, brings down upon his head for all his
remaining years a cataract of calamities, and makes his name and his
religion a target for the barbed sarcasms of each succeeding generation
of scoffers. "All the fences and their whole array," which God's mercies
and his own past had reared, "one cunning sin sweeps quite away." Every
obligation of his office, as every grace of his character, is trodden
under foot by the wild beast roused in his breast. As man, as king, as
soldier, he is found wanting. Lust and treason, and craft and murder,
are goodly companions for him who had said, "I will walk within my house
with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes." Why
should we dwell on the wretched story? Because it teaches us, as no
other page in the history of God's church does, how the alchemy of
Divine love can extract sweet perfumes of penitence and praise out of
the filth of sin; and therefore, though we turn with loathing from
David's sin, we have to bless God for the record of it, and for the
lessons of hope that come from David's pardon.
To many a sin-tortured soul since then, the two psalms (li., xxxii.),
all blotted with tears, in which he has sobbed out his penitence, have
been as footsteps in a great and terrible wilderness. They are too
familiar to need, and too sacred to bear, many words here, but we may
briefly note some points connected with them--especially those which
assist us in forming some image of the psalmist's state of mind after
his transgression. It may be observed that of these two psalms, the
fifty-first is evidently earlier than the thirty-second. In the former
we see the fallen man struggling up out of the "horrible pit and miry
clay;" in the latter he stands upon the rock, with a new song in his
mouth, even the blessedness of him "whose sin is covered." It appears
also that both must be dated after the sharp thrust of God's lancet
which Nathan drove into his conscience, and the healing balsam of God's
assurance of forgiveness which Nathan laid upon his heart. The
passionate cries of the psalm are the echo of the Divine promise--the
effort of his faith to grasp and keep the merciful gift of pardon. The
consciousness of forgiveness is the basis of the prayer for forgiveness.
Somewhere about a year passed between the crime and the message of
Nathan. And what sort of a year it was the psalms tell us. The coarse
satisfactions of his sin could not long content him, as they might have
done a lower type of man. Nobody buys a little passing pleasure in evil
at so dear a rate, or keeps it for so short a time as a good man. He
cannot make himself as others. "That which cometh into your mind shall
not be at all, in that ye say, We will be as the families of the
nations, which serve wood and stone." Old habits quickly reassert their
force, conscience soon lifts again its solemn voice; and while worse men
are enjoying the strong-flavoured meats on sin's table, the servant of
God, who has been seduced to prefer them for a moment to the "light
bread" from heaven, tastes them already bitter in his mouth. He may be
far from true repentance, but he will very soon know remorse. Months may
pass before he can feel again the calm joys of God, but disgust with
himself and with his sin will quickly fill his soul. No more vivid
picture of such a state has ever been drawn, than is found in the psalms
of this period. They tell of sullen "silence;" dust had settled on the
strings of his harp, as on helmet and sword. He will not speak to God of
his sin, and there is nothing else that he can speak of. They tell of
his "roaring all the day long"--the groan of anguish forced from his yet
unsoftened spirit. Day and night God's heavy hand weighed him down; the
consciousness of that power, whose gentleness had once holden him up,
crushed, but did not melt him. Like some heated iron, its heaviness
scorched as well as bruised, and his moisture--all the dew and
freshness of his life--was dried up at its touch and turned into dusty,
cracking drought, that chaps the hard earth, and shrinks the streamlets,
and burns to brown powder the tender herbage (Ps. xxxii.). Body and mind
seem both to be included in this wonderful description, in which
obstinate dumbness, constant torture, dread of God, and not one
softening drop of penitence fill the dry and dusty heart, while "bones
waxing old," or, as the word might be rendered, "rotting," sleepless
nights, and perhaps the burning heat of disease, are hinted at as the
accompaniments of the soul-agony. It is possible that similar allusions
to actual bodily illness are to be found in another psalm, probably
referring to the same period, and presenting striking parallelisms of
expression (Ps. vi.), "Have mercy upon me, Jehovah, for I languish (fade
away); heal me, for my bones are affrighted. My soul is also sore vexed.
I am weary with my groaning; every night make I my bed to swim. I water
my couch with my tears." The similar phrase, too, in psalm fifty-one,
"The bones which Thou hast broken," may have a similar application.
Thus, sick in body and soul, he dragged through a weary year--ashamed
of his guilty dalliance, wretched in his self-accusations, afraid of
God, and skulking in the recesses of his palace from the sight of his
people. A goodly price he had sold integrity for. The bread had been
sweet for a moment, but how quickly his "mouth is filled with gravel"
(Proverbs xx. 17). David learned, what we all learn (and the holier a
man is, the more speedily and sharply does the lesson follow on the
heels of his sin), that every transgression is a blunder, that we never
get the satisfaction which we expect from any sin, or if we do, we get
something with it which spoils it all. A nauseous drug is added to the
exciting, intoxicating drink which temptation offers, and though its
flavour is at first disguised by the pleasanter taste of the sin, its
bitterness is persistent though slow, and clings to the palate long
after that has faded utterly.
Into this dreary life Nathan's message comes with merciful rebuke. The
prompt severity of David's judgment against the selfish sinner of the
inimitable apologue may be a subtle indication of his troubled
conscience, which fancies some atonement for his own sin in stern
repression of that of others; for consciousness of evil may sometimes
sting into harshness as well as soften to lenity, and sinful man is a
sterner judge than the righteous God. The answer of Nathan is a perfect
example of the Divine way of convincing of sin. There is first the plain
charge pressed home on the individual conscience, "Thou art the man."
Then follows, not reproach nor further deepening of the blackness of the
deed, but a tender enumeration of God's great benefits, whereon is built
the solemn question, "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of
the Lord, to do evil in His sight?" The contemplation of God's faithful
love, and of the all-sufficient gifts which it bestows, makes every
transgression irrational as well as ungrateful, and turns remorse, which
consumes like the hot wind of the wilderness, into tearful repentance
which refreshes the soul. When God has been seen loving and bestowing
ere He commands and requires, it is profitable to hold the image of the
man's evil in all its ugliness close up to his eyes; and so the bald
facts are repeated next in the fewest, strongest words. Nor can the
message close until a rigid law of retribution has been proclaimed, the
slow operation of which will filter bitterness and shame through all
his life. "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord."
Two words (in the Hebrew) make the transition from sullen misery to real
though shaded peace. No lengthened outpouring, no accumulation of
self-reproach; he is too deeply moved for many words, which he knows God
does not need. More would have been less. All is contained in that one
sob, in which the whole frostwork of these weary months breaks up and
rolls away, swept before the strong flood. And as brief and simple as
the confession, is the response, "And Nathan said unto David, The Lord
also hath put away thy sin." How full and unconditional the blessing
bestowed in these few words; how swift and sufficient the answer! So the
long estrangement is ended. Thus simple and Divine is the manner of
pardon. In such short compass may the turning point of a life lie! But
while confession and forgiveness heal the breach between God and David,
pardon is not impunity, and the same sentence which bestows the
remission of sin announces the exaction of a penalty. The judgments
threatened a moment before--a moment so far removed now to David's
consciousness that it would look as if an age had passed--are not
withdrawn, and another is added, the death of Bathsheba's infant. God
loves His servants too well to "suffer sin upon them," and the freest
forgiveness and the happiest consciousness of it may consist with the
loving infliction and the submissive bearing of pains, which are no
longer the strokes of an avenging judge, but the chastisements of a
gracious father.
The fifty-first psalm must, we think, be conceived of as following soon
after Nathan's mission. There may be echoes of the prophet's stern
question, "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to
do evil in His sight?" and of the confession, "I have sinned against the
Lord," in the words, "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done
evil in Thy sight" (ver. 4), though perhaps the expressions are not so
peculiar as to make the allusion certain. But, at all events, the
penitence and prayers of the psalm can scarcely be supposed to have
preceded the date of the historical narrative, which clearly implies
that the rebuke of the seer was the first thing that broke up the dumb
misery of unrepented sin.
Although the psalm is one long cry for pardon and restoration, one can
discern an order and progress in its petitions--the order, not of an
artificial reproduction of a past mood of mind, but the instinctive
order in which the emotion of contrite desire will ever pour itself
forth. In the psalm all begins, as all begins in fact, with the
grounding of the cry for favour on "Thy loving-kindness," "the multitude
of Thy tender mercies;" the one plea that avails with God, whose love is
its own motive and its own measure, whose past acts are the standard for
all His future, whose compassions, in their innumerable numbers, are
more than the sum of our transgressions, though these be "more than the
hairs of our head." Beginning with God's mercy, the penitent soul can
learn to look next upon its own sin in all its aspects of evil. The
depth and intensity of the psalmist's loathing of self is wonderfully
expressed in his words for his crime. He speaks of his "transgressions"
and of his "sin." Looked at in one way, he sees the separate acts of
which he had been guilty--lust, fraud, treachery, murder: looked at in
another, he sees them all knotted together, in one inextricable tangle
of forked, hissing tongues, like the serpent locks that coil and twist
round a Gorgon head. No sin dwells alone; the separate acts have a
common root, and the whole is matted together like the green growth on a
stagnant pond, so that, by whatever filament it is grasped, the whole
mass is drawn towards you. And a profound insight into the essence and
character of sin lies in the accumulated synonyms. It is
"transgression," or, as the word might be rendered, "rebellion"--not the
mere breach of an impersonal law, not merely an infraction of "the
constitution of our nature"--but the rising of a subject will against
its true king, disobedience to a person as well as contravention of a
standard. It is "iniquity"--perversion or distortion--a word which
expresses the same metaphor as is found in many languages, namely,
crookedness as descriptive of deeds which depart from the perfect line
of right. It is "sin," _i.e._, "missing one's aim;" in which profound
word is contained the truth that all sin is a blunder, shooting wide of
the true goal, if regard be had to the end of our being, and not less
wide if regard be had to our happiness. It ever misses the mark; and the
epitaph might be written over every sinner who seeks pleasure at the
price of righteousness, "Thou fool."
Nor less pregnant with meaning is the psalmist's emphatic
acknowledgment, "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned." He is not
content with looking upon his evil in itself, or in relation only to the
people who had suffered by it; he thinks of it in relation to God. He
had been guilty of crimes against Bathsheba and Uriah, and even the
rough soldier whom he made his tool, as well as against his whole
subjects; but, dark as these were, they assumed their true character
only when they were discerned as done against God. "Sin," in its full
sense, implies "God" as its correlative. We transgress against each
other, but we sin against Him.
Nor does the psalmist stop here. He has acknowledged the tangled
multiplicity and dreadful unity of his evil, he has seen its inmost
character, he has learned to bring his deed into connection with God;
what remains still to be confessed? He laments, and that not as
extenuation (though it be explanation), but as aggravation, the sinful
nature in which he had been born. The deeds had come from a source--a
bitter fountain had welled out this blackness. He himself is evil,
therefore he has done evil. The sin is his; he will not contest his full
responsibility; and its foul characteristics declare the inward foulness
from which it has flowed--and that foulness is himself. Does he
therefore think that he is less to blame? By no means. His
acknowledgment of an evil nature is the very deepest of his confessions,
and leads not to a palliation of his guilt, but to a cry to Him who
alone can heal the inward wound; and as He can purge away the
transgressions, can likewise stanch their source, and give him to feel
within "that he is healed from that plague."
The same intensity of feeling expressed by the use of so many words for
sin is revealed also in the reiterated synonyms for pardon. The prayer
comes from his lips over and over again, not because he thinks that he
shall be heard for his much speaking, but because of the earnestness of
his longing. Such repetitions are signs of the persistence of faith,
while others, though they last like the prayers of Baal's priests, "from
morning till the time of the evening sacrifice," indicate only the
suppliant's doubt. David prays that his sins may be "blotted out," in
which petition they are conceived as recorded against him in the
archives of the heavens; that he may be "washed" from them, in which
they are conceived as foul stains upon himself, needing for their
removal hard rubbing and beating (for such is, according to some
commentators, the force of the word); that he may be "cleansed"--the
technical word for the priestly cleansing of the leper, and declaring
him clear of the taint. He also, with similar recurrence to the Mosaic
symbols, prays that he may be "purged with hyssop." There is a pathetic
appropriateness in the petition, for not only lepers, but those who had
become defiled by contact with a dead body, were thus purified; and on
whom did the taint of corruption cleave as on the murderer of Uriah? The
prayer, too, is even more remarkable in the original, which employs a
verb formed from the word for "sin;" "and if in our language that were a
word in use, it might be translated, 'Thou shalt un-sin me.'"[W]
[W] Donne's Sermons, quoted in Perowne, _in. loc._
In the midst of these abased confessions and cries for pardon there
comes with wonderful force and beauty the bold prayer for restoration
to "joy and gladness"--an indication surely of more than ordinary
confidence in the full mercy of God, which would efface all the
consequences of his sin.
And following upon them are petitions for sanctifying, reiterated and
many-sided, like those that have preceded. Three pairs of clauses
contain these, in each of which the second member of the clause asks for
the infusion into his spirit of some grace from God--that he may possess
a "steadfast spirit," "Thy Holy Spirit," "a willing spirit." It is
perhaps not an accident that the central petition of the three is the
one which most clearly expresses the thought which all imply--that the
human spirit can only be renewed and hallowed by the entrance into it of
the Divine. We are not to commit the theological anachronism which has
been applied with such evil effect to the whole Old Testament, and
suppose that David meant by that central clause in his prayer for
renewal all that we mean by it; but he meant, at least, that his
spiritual nature could be made to love righteousness and hate iniquity
by none other power than God's breathing on it. If we may venture to
regard this as the heart of the series, the other two on either side of
it may be conceived as its consequences. It will then be "a right
spirit," or, as the word means, a steadfast spirit, strong to resist,
not swept away by surges of passion, nor shaken by terrors of remorse,
but calm, tenacious, and resolved, pressing on in the path of holiness,
and immovable with the immobility of those who are rooted in God and
goodness. It will be a free, or "a willing spirit," ready for all joyful
service of thankfulness, and so penetrated with the love of his God that
he will delight to do His will, and carry the law charactered in the
spontaneous impulses of his renewed nature. Not without profound meaning
does the psalmist seem to recur in his hour of penitence to the tragic
fate of his predecessor in the monarchy, to whom, as to himself, had
been given by the same anointing, the same gift of "the Spirit of God."
Remembering how the holy chrism had faded from the raven locks of Saul
long before his bloody head had been sent round Philistine cities to
glut their revenge, and knowing that if God were "strict to mark
iniquity," the gift which had been withdrawn from Saul would not be
continued to himself, he prays, not as anointed monarch only, but as
sinful man, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." As before he had
ventured to ask for the joy of forgiveness, so now he pleads once more
for "the joy of Thy salvation," which comes from cleansing, from
conscious fellowship--which he had so long and deeply felt, which for so
many months had been hid from him by the mists of his own sin. The
psalmist's natural buoyancy, the gladness which was an inseparable part
of his religion, and had rung from his harp in many an hour of peril,
the bold width of his desires, grounded on the clear breadth of his
faith in God's perfect forgiveness, are all expressed in such a prayer
from such lips at such a time, and may well be pondered and imitated by
us.
The lowly prayer which we have been tracing rises ere its close to a vow
of renewed praise. It is very beautiful to note how the poet nature, as
well as the consciousness of a Divine function, unite in the resolve
that crowns the psalm. To David no tribute that he could bring to God
seemed so little unworthy--none to himself so joyous--as the music of
his harp, and the melody of his songs; nor was any part of his kingly
office so lofty in his estimation as his calling to proclaim in glowing
words the name of the Lord, that men might learn to love. His earliest
song in exile had closed with a like vow. It had been well fulfilled for
many a year; but these last doleful months had silenced all his praise.
Now, as hope begins to shine upon him once more, the frost which had
stilled the stream of his devotion is melting, and as he remembers his
glad songs of old, and this miserable dumbness, his final prayer is, "O
Lord, open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise."
The same consciousness of sin, which we have found in a previous verse
discerning the true significance of ceremonial purification, leads also
to the recognition of the insufficiency of outward sacrifices--a thought
which is not, as some modern critics would fain make it, the product of
the latest age of Judaism, but appears occasionally through the whole of
the history, and indicates not the date, but the spiritual elevation of
its utterer. David sets it on the very summit of his psalm, to sparkle
there like some stone of price. The rich jewel which he has brought up
from the abyss of degradation is that truth which has shone out from its
setting here over three millenniums: "The sacrifices of God are a
broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not
despise."
The words which follow, containing a prayer for the building up of Zion,
and a prediction of the continuous offering of sacrifice, present some
difficulty. They do not necessarily presuppose that Jerusalem is in
ruins; for "build Thou the walls" would be no less appropriate a
petition if the fortifications were unfinished (as we know they were in
David's time) than if they had been broken down. Nor do the words
contradict the view of sacrifice just given, for the use of the symbol
and the conviction of its insufficiency co-existed, in fact, in every
devout life, and may well be expressed side by side. But the transition
from so intensely personal emotions to intercession for Zion seems
almost too sudden even for a nature as wide and warm as David's. If the
closing verses are his, we may, indeed, see in them the king re-awaking
to a sense of his responsibilities, which he had so long neglected,
first, in the selfishness of his heart, and then in the morbid
self-absorption of his remorse; and the lesson may be a precious one
that the first thought of a pardoned man should be for others. But
there is much to be said, on the other hand, in favour of the conjecture
that these verses are a later addition, probably after the return from
captivity, when the walls of Zion were in ruins, and the altar of the
temple had been long cold. If so, then our psalm, as it came from
David's full heart, would be all of a piece--one great gush of penitence
and faith, beginning with, "Have mercy upon me, O God," ending with the
assurance of acceptance, and so remaining for all ages the chart of the
thorny and yet blessed path that leads "from death unto life." In that
aspect, what it does not contain is as noteworthy as what it does. Not
one word asks for exemption from such penalties of his great fall as can
be inflicted by a loving Father on a soul that lives in His love. He
cries for pardon, but he gives his back to the smiters whom God may
please to send.
The other psalm of the penitent (xxxii.) has been already referred to in
connection with the autobiographical materials which it contains. It is
evidently of a later period than the fifty-first. There is no struggle
in it; the prayer has been heard, and this is the beginning of the
fulfilment of the vow to show forth God's praise. In the earlier he had
said, "Then will I teach transgressors the way;" here he says, "I will
instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go." There he
began with the plaintive cry for mercy; here with a burst of praise
celebrating the happiness of the pardoned penitent. There we heard the
sobs of a man in the very agony of abasement; here we have the story of
their blessed issue. There we had multiplied synonyms for sin, and for
the forgiveness which was desired; here it is the many-sided
preciousness of forgiveness possessed which runs over in various yet
equivalent phrases. There the highest point to which he could climb was
the assurance that a bruised heart was accepted, and the bones broken
might still rejoice. Here the very first word is of blessedness, and the
close summons the righteous to exuberant joy. The one is a psalm of
wailing; the other, to use its own words, a "song of deliverance."
What glad consciousness that he himself is the happy man whom he
describes rings in the melodious variations of the one thought of
forgiveness in the opening words! How gratefully he draws on the
treasures of that recent experience, while he sets it forth as being
the "taking away" of sin, as if it were the removal of a solid
something, or the lifting of a burden off his back; and as the
"covering" of sin, as if it were the wrapping of its ugliness in thick
folds that hide it for ever even from the all-seeing Eye; and as the
"non-reckoning" of sin, as if it were the discharge of a debt! What
vivid memory of past misery in the awful portrait of his impenitent
self, already referred to--on which the mind dwells in silence, while
the musical accompaniment (as directed by the "selah") touches some
plaintive minor or grating discord! How noble and eloquent the brief
words (echo of the historical narrative) that tell the full and swift
forgiveness that followed simple confession--and how effectively the
music again comes in, prolonging the thought and rejoicing in the
pardon! How sure he is that his experience is of priceless value to the
world for all time, when he sees in his absolution a motive that will
draw all the godly nearer to their Helper in heaven! How full his heart
is of praise, that he cannot but go back again to his own story, and
rejoice in God his hiding-place--whose past wondrous love assures him
that in the future songs of deliverance will ring him round, and all his
path be encompassed with music of praise.
So ends the more personal part of the psalm. A more didactic portion
follows, the generalization of that. Possibly the voice which now speaks
is a higher than David's. "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the
way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye," scarcely
sounds like words meant to be understood as spoken by him. They are the
promise from heaven of a gentle teaching to the pardoned man, which will
instruct by no severity, but by patient schooling; which will direct by
no harsh authority, but by that loving glance that is enough for those
who love, and is all too subtle and delicate to be perceived by any
other. Such gracious direction is not for the psalmist alone, but it
needs a spirit in harmony with God to understand it. For others there
can be nothing higher than mere force, the discipline of sorrow, the
bridle in the hard mouth, the whip for the stiff back. The choice for
all men is through penitence and forgiveness to rise to the true
position of men, capable of receiving and obeying a spiritual guidance,
which appeals to the heart, and gently subdues the will, or by stubborn
impenitence to fall to the level of brutes, that can only be held in by
a halter and driven by a lash. And because this is the alternative,
therefore "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; but he that trusteth in
the Lord, mercy shall compass him about."
And then the psalm ends with a great cry of gladness, three times
reiterated, like the voice of a herald on some festal day of a nation:
"Rejoice in Jehovah! and leap for joy, O righteous! and gladly shout,
all ye upright in heart!"
Such is the end of the sobs of the penitent.