The old-world ideal of a monarch put special emphasis upon two
things--personal beauty and courtesy of address and speech. The psalm
ascribes both of these to the King of Israel, and from both of them
draws the conclusion that one so richly endowed with the most eminent of
royal graces is the object of the special favour of God. 'Thou art
fairer than the children of men, grace is poured into Thy lips:
therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever.'
Here, at the very outset, we have the keynote struck of superhuman
excellence; and though the reference is, on the surface, only to
physical perfection, yet beneath that there lies the deeper reference to
a character which spoke through the eloquent frame, and in which all
possible beauties and sovereign graces were united in fullest
development, in most harmonious co-operation and unstained purity.
'Thou art fairer than the children of men.' Put side by side with that,
words which possibly refer to, and seem to contradict it. A later
prophet, speaking of the same Person, said: 'His visage was so marred,
more than any man, and His form than the sons of men.... There is no
form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him there is no beauty that
we should desire Him.' We have to think, not of the outward form,
howsoever lovely with the loveliness of meekness and transfigured with
the refining patience of suffering it may have been, but of the beauty
of a soul that was all radiant with a lustre of loveliness that shames
the fragmentary and marred virtues of the best of us, and stands before
the world for ever as the supreme type and high-water mark of the grace
that is possible to a human spirit. God has lodged in men's nature the
apprehension of Himself, and of all that flows from Him, as true, as
good, as beautiful; and to these three there correspond wisdom,
morality, and art. The latter, divorced from the other two, becomes
earthly and devilish. This generation needs the lesson that beauty
wrenched from truth and goodness, and pursued for its own sake, by
artist or by poet or by _dilettante_, leads by a straight descent to
ugliness and to evil, and that the only true satisfying of the deep
longing for 'whatsoever things are lovely' is to be found when we turn
to Christ and find in Him, not only wisdom that enlightens the
understanding, and righteousness that fills the conscience, but beauty
that satisfies the heart. He is 'altogether lovely.' Nor let us forget
that once on earth 'the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His
raiment did shine as the light,' as indicative of the possibilities that
lay slumbering in His lowly Manhood, and as prophetic of that to which
we believe that the ascended Christ hath now attained--viz. the body of
His glory, wherein He reigns, filled with light and undecaying
loveliness on the Throne of the Heaven. Thus He is fairer in external
reality now, as He is, by the confession of an admiring, though not
always believing, world, fairer in inward character than the children of
men.
Another personal characteristic is 'Grace is poured into Thy lips.'
Kingly courtesy, and kingly graciousness of word, must be the
characteristic of the Sovereign of men. The abundance of that bestowment
is expressed by that word, 'poured.' We need only remember, 'All
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth,' or how
even the rough instruments of authority were touched and diverted from
their appointed purpose, and came back and said, 'Never man spake like
this Man.' To the music of Christ's words all other eloquence is harsh,
poor, shallow--like the piping of a shepherd boy upon some wretched
oaten straw as compared with the full thunder of the organ. Words of
unmingled graciousness came from His lips. That fountain never sent
forth 'sweet waters and bitter.' He satisfies the canon of St. James:
'If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.' Words of
wisdom, of love, of pity, of gentleness, of pardon, of bestowment, and
only such, came from Him. 'Daughter! be of good cheer.' 'Son! thy sins
be forgiven thee.' 'Come unto Me all ye that labour and are
heavy-laden.'
'Grace is poured into Thy lips'; and, withal, it is the grace of a King.
For His language is authoritative even when it is most tender, and regal
when it is most gentle. His lips, sweet as honey and the honeycomb, are
the lips of an Autocrat. 'He speaks, and it is done: He commands, and it
stands fast.' He says to the tempest, 'Be still!' and it is quiet; and
to the demons, 'Come out of him!' and they disappear; and to the dead,
'Come forth!' and he stumbles from the tomb.
Another personal characteristic is--'God hath blessed Thee for ever.' By
which we are to understand, not that the two preceding graces are the
reasons for the divine benediction, but that the divine benediction is
the cause of them; and therefore they are the signs of it. It is not
that because He is lovely and gracious therefore God hath blessed Him;
but it is that we may know that God has blessed Him, since He is lovely
and gracious. These endowments are the results, not the causes; the
signs or the proofs, not the reasons of the divine benediction. That is
to say, the humanity so fair and unique shows by its beauty that it is
the result of the continual and unique operation and benediction of a
present God. We understand Him when we say, 'On Him rests the Spirit of
God without measure or interruption.' The explanation of the perfect
humanity is the abiding Divinity.
II. We pass from the person of the King, in the next place, to His
warfare.
The Psalmist breaks out in a burst of invocation, calling upon the King
to array Himself in His weapons of warfare, and then in broken clauses
vividly pictures the conflict. The Invocation runs thus: 'Gird on thy
sword upon thy thigh, O mighty hero! gird on thy glory and thy majesty,
and ride on prosperously on behalf (or, in the cause) of truth and
meekness and righteousness.' The King, then, is the perfection of
warrior strength as well as of beauty and gentleness--a combination of
qualities that speaks of old days when kings _were_ kings, and reminds
us of many a figure in ancient song, as well as of a Saul and a David in
Jewish history.
The singer calls upon Him to bind on His side His glittering sword, and
to put on, as His armour, 'glory and majesty.' These two words, in the
usage of the psalms, belong to Divinity, and they are applied to the
monarch here as being the earthly representative of the divine
supremacy, on whom there falls some reflection of the glory and the
majesty of which He is the vice-regent and representative. Thus arrayed,
with His weapon by His side and glittering armour on His limbs, He is
called upon to mount His chariot or His warhorse and ride forth.
But for what? 'On behalf of truth, meekness, righteousness.' If He be a
warrior, these are the purposes for which the true King of men must draw
His sword, and these only. No vulgar ambition or cruel lust of conquest,
earth-hunger, or 'glory' actuates Him. Nothing but the spread through
the world of the gracious beauties which are His own can be the end of
the King's warfare. He fights for truth; He fights--strange paradox--for
meekness; He fights for righteousness. And He not only fights _for_ them,
but _with_ them, for they are His own, and by _reason_ of them He 'rides
prosperously,' as well as 'rides prosperously' in order to establish
them.
In two or three swift touches the Psalmist next paints the tumult and
hurry of the fight. 'Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things.'
There are no armies or allies, none to stand beside Him. The one mighty
figure of the Kingly Warrior stands forth, as in the Assyrian sculptures
of conquerors, erect and solitary in His chariot, crashing through the
ranks of the enemy, and owing victory to His own strong arm alone.
Then follow three short, abrupt clauses, which, in their hurry and
fragmentary character, reflect the confusion and swiftness of battle.
'Thine arrows are sharp.... The people fall under Thee.' ... 'In the
heart of the King's enemies.' The Psalmist sees the bright arrow on the
string; it flies; he looks--the plain is strewed with prostrate forms,
the King's arrow in the heart of each.
Put side by side with that this picture:--A rocky road; a great city
shining in the morning sunlight across a narrow valley; a crowd of
shouting peasants waving palm branches in their rustic hands; in the
centre the meek carpenter's Son, sitting upon the poor robes which alone
draped the ass's colt, the tears upon His cheeks, and His lamenting
heard above the Hosannahs, as He looked across the glen and said, 'If
thou hadst known the things that belong to thy peace!' That is the
fulfilment, or part of the fulfilment, of this prophecy. The
slow-pacing, peaceful beast and the meek, weeping Christ are the reality
of the vision which, in such strangely contrasted and yet true form,
floated before the prophetic eye of this ancient singer, for Christ's
humiliation is His majesty, and His sharpest weapon is His
all-penetrating love, and His cross is His chariot of victory and throne
of dominion.
But not only in His earthly life of meek suffering does Christ fight as
a King, but all through the ages the world-wide conflict for truth and
meekness and righteousness is His conflict; and wherever that is being
waged, the power which wages it is His, and the help which is done upon
earth He doeth it all Himself. True, He has His army, willing in the day
of His power, and clad in priestly purity and armour of light, but all
their strength, courage, and victory are from Him; and when they fight
and conquer, it is not they, but He in them who struggles and overcomes.
We have a better hope than that built on 'a stream of tendency that
makes for righteousness.' We know a Christ crucified and crowned, who
fights for it, and what He fights for will hold the field.
This prophecy of our psalm is not exhausted yet. I have set side by side
with it one picture--the Christ on the ass's colt. Put side by side with
it this other. 'I beheld the heaven opened; and lo! a white horse. And
He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness
He doth judge and make war.' The psalm waits for its completion still,
and shall be fulfilled on that day of the true marriage supper of the
Lamb, when the festivities of the marriage chamber shall be preceded by
the last battle and crowning victory of the King of kings, the Conqueror
of the world.