(Ps. 51:12.)

In psalm 18:1-3 the words of David's exultant praise are recorded. His heart leaps with triumphant joy and confidence in Jehovah, and he exclaims:

"I do fervently love Thee, Jehovah, my strength; Jehovah, my cleft of the rock, and my fortress, and my rescuer!

My Mighty One, my Rock, in whom I take refuge:My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower! Upon the object of my praise, upon Jehovah, do I call, And from mine enemies I am saved"-(Num. Bible).

How blessedly Jehovah filled David's vision as he reviews His mercies through his eventful life! Therefore the psalm begins and ends with praise. His heart labors for expression, as it were, for what God had been to him. He calls Him "my Strength," my "Cleft of the Rock," "my Fortress," "my Rescuer," "my Mighty One," "my Rock," "my Refuge," "my Shield," "Horn of my Salvation," "my High Tower," "Object of my Praise." It expresses a joy in God that we may well covet, though God's grace has blessed us with higher blessings than David's.

Now when we come to Psalm 51, written years after the 18th; and hear the words of mourning, "Have mercy upon me, O God;" "Purge me with hyssop," "Make me to hear joy and gladness," "Cast me not away from thy presence," "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation," one might ask, Is this the David that wrote psalm 18? And if so, how has this come about? The heading of the psalm makes it known to us:"To the Chief Musician; a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone in to Bathsheba." The occasion and details of this interview of Nathan with David are given in 2 Samuel 12:1-14. Departure from God and the consequent fall into hateful sin was the cause of David's misery, as also the cause of all misery in the world.

David's conscience, which he had apparently succeeded in stifling for a time, was fully reawakened by the prophet Nathan's parable, and the message from the Lord Jehovah. This psalm of deep contrition, self-abhorrence, and confession to God comes as a result of getting back into Jehovah's presence, from which in prosperity and self-indulgence David has so far and sadly departed. "My sin is ever before me," he says. The guilt, the enormity of it, fills his soul with horror. He had wronged his brother, a brave and devoted soldier, and indirectly been the cause of his death; but above all he had knowingly trampled upon the law of his God! I doubt not that his sin against Uriah was ever before him by the fact that Bathsheba was now his wife. But the thought that he, the king, set over the people of God, had rebelled against the God who had been his protector, who had taken him from the sheepcote to be ruler over His people, and made David a great name, preeminently crushed David's spirit (ver. 4).

O fellow-believer, is not this a terrible example of what our fallen nature, the flesh in us, can do? David was a child of God, he knew God and had greatly rejoiced in Him and His salvation; yet now he abhors himself, he confesses that a desperately sinful nature is in him:"I was shapen in iniquity," and cries for God's mercy and compassion on his crushed spirit. "Hide thy face from my sin, and blot out mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God.. .and restore unto me the joy of thy salvation."

The prophet had said to David on his confession of guilt, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die" (2 Sam. 12:13); but deliverance from the sentence of death which is by the law was not enough to one who had known and sung of God's salvation, and for this the crushed heart in David is pleading:"Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." Full well did David realize that it was all over with him according to the law; it had no provision for guilt such as his. But the sense of God's goodness makes him realize and utter these memorable words:"A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise" (ver. 17). No; God who "commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners," He gave His own Son for us, never turns away the broken and contrite heart, and in due time He restores the joy of His salvation. In due time, I say, for there may be need of deepening the work of repentance in the soul-a sense of what sin against God really is, with loathing of one's self, without which it is in danger of falling back into the same or similar transgressions.

In the joy of God's salvation, David would utter God's praise:"Open Thou my lips," he says, "and my mouth shall show forth thy praise" (ver. 15). If, in the feeble light of the dispensation in which David lived, his heart longed to be engaged in Jehovah's praise, shall not ours also who live in the glorious display of God's grace? Behold, the glory of God is shining in our Saviour's face, being raised from the dead and seated on heaven's throne after He had by Himself purged away our sins. Where are our sins, then? Gone! and to be remembered against us no more; and in Him we are accepted before God.

This 51st psalm is addressed, "To the Chief Musician" as is also the 22nd, in which atonement is the great subject; and He who went down to the depths is heard, and delivered "from the horns of the unicorn" (vers. 19-21), and becomes the leader of praises, "the Chief Musician" to Jehovah among His redeemed people (vers. 22-25). HE is our Shepherd and High Priest, "restoring our souls and leading us in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake." If the joy of His salvation has in any measure departed from thy heart, dear fellow-believer, spread it out before Him, let Him show thee the cause, the point of departure, that He may restore unto thee the joy of His salvation.

"O keep my soul, then, Jesus,
Abiding still with Thee;
And if I wander, teach me
Soon back to Thee to flee,
That all Thy gracious favor
May to my soul be known:
And versed in this Thy goodness,
My hopes Thyself shalt crown."

E. C. T.