Israel; the Theocracy, the Monarchy, the Hierarchy; corresponding in some degree to the three divisions of the Old Testament, the Law, the Prophets, the Writings.

(a) The Theocracy. The history of the Jewish nation begins with Abraham, the friend of God, the father of the faithful, "the ancestor of all nations which have held a monotheistic belief practically." With him and with his family was made the first covenant of promise. In Egypt the family became a nation. The stern discipline of toil and suffering in the presence of their common enemy bound them together. The great signs and wonders of the Exodus declared their high destiny. At Sinai the covenant made with their forefathers was renewed, confirmed, and amplified to the nation. The Law was given as a schoolmaster for the childhood of the new-born nation, "a kind of external conscience" to train it to obedience. The Israelites entered Canaan, and the first part of the promise to Abraham was fulfilled.

But for a long time the nation seemed to make no progress. The period which intervened between the Entry into Canaan and the Life of Samuel was a time of anarchy and apostasy. The Book of Judges is a record of two centuries of national disintegration and religious declension. It was necessary, humanly speaking, in order that they might learn their weakness. They were unable as yet to bear the pure Theocracy, the direct government of God without the intervention of an earthly ruler. Some visible bond must be found to unite into a solid mass the scattered tribes which could not as yet be firmly bound together into one by the invisible tie of a common allegiance to Jehovah. Material and political means must prepare the way for the spiritual and religious end. Otherwise the nation must cease to exist, ground to pieces between the enemies which surrounded it on all sides. In order to make solid advance, retrogression was inevitable.

At this critical juncture God raised up Samuel, "a prophet second only to Moses," to guide the nation through this crisis in its existence, and effect the transition to the second stage of its education.

(b) The Monarchy. The sovereignty of a visible monarch was a declension from the ideal of the Theocracy. Yet a king might have been given by God in His own time as a necessary factor in the training of the nation. But the demand for a king, as made by the Israelites at this period, was the direct outcome of faithlessness. It was a defection from God. Nevertheless the request was granted. God first gave them a king according to their own ideal, that bitter experience might teach them lessons they would not otherwise learn: and then a king “ after His own heart,” a true representative of the Kingdom of God. In his hands such a monarchy as we may conceive might have been asked for without sin, fulfilled important purposes by consolidating the scattered tribes into a body strong enough to maintain its independence, thus saving the nation from destruction, and preserving it to fulfil its great destiny of blessing to the world.

(c) The Hierarchy at length took the place of the Monarchy and resumed the ideal of Theocracy. When the Kingdom fell, and the discipline of the Captivity had done its work, "the unity of a Church succeeded to the unity of a nation." The voice of prophecy ceased. In the absence of new revelations, the people pondered on the past, till at length "the time was fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God came."

5. (ii) In what respects did the period we have to study contribute to the formation and development of the Messianic expectation? The Law with its elaborate ritual of sacrifice had pointed forward to One who should be at once Priest and Victim, and make atonement for the sin of man. Now the Kingdom turned the national thoughts to the hope of a King who should reign in righteousness, and “have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth1" The kingdom of David and Solomon was a type of the kingdom of that Son of David to whom in the fulness of time was given in a spiritual reality the throne of His father David2. It is in

1 Ps. lxxii. 7, 8. Psalms ii., xlv., lxxii., cx. should be studied as illustrating the growth of the Messianic Hope in connexion with the Kingdom. 2 Lk. i. 32, 33.

the Book of Samuel that the title of Messiah, the LORD'S Anointed, the Christ, is first applied to the king1, whose visible majesty kindled prophetic hopes of a glorious future 2.

6. (iii) It remains to inquire how God's revelation of Himself was carried forward in this period.

(a) One result of the establishment of the kingdom was the building of the Temple. As the king was the visible representative of the Divine government, so the centralised sanctuary testified to the unity of Him whom Israel worshipped, and both combined to present spiritual ideas in a fixed and definite shape. Monotheism was not, as has sometimes been wrongly said, an instinct of the Semitic races. The repeated idolatries of the Jewish nation prove the contrary. Only through long discipline and with constant relapses was the lesson learnt. The period of the Monarchy taught this truth in a visible and material manner, and when once learnt it was afterwards spiritualised by the destruction of the visible Monarchy and the discipline of the Captivity.

(b) Closely connected with the establishment of the Monarchy was the institution of the Prophetic Order. This was Samuel's second great legacy to his nation. By the agency of the prophets the Will of Jehovah was made known to men; new revelations of His character and His claims were communicated; the spiritual meaning of the Law was interpreted3.

(c) In this period was deepened the consciousness of the individual's personal relation to God. The intimate communing with Him in prayer and praise, which is characteristic of the Psalms of David, marks a new advance in the relation of man to God. Now was laid the foundation of that Psalter in which for all succeeding time, men have found the expression and the echo of their deepest thoughts and highest aspirations.

1 I Sam. ii. 10, where the Septuagint has xporós. The same word in both Heb. and LXX. is applied to the high-priest in Lev. iv. 5, 16,

vi. 22.

2 The typical character of David's reign and life is discussed in Ch. VII. of this Introduction. See also Additional Note I., p. 233. 3 See Introd. to 1 Samuel, ch. vi.

7. To sum up briefly, the Monarchy preserved the existence of the nation, foreshadowed the kingdom of the Messiah, witnessed to the government of God. At the same time Prophecy and Psalmody interpreted the past, spiritualised the present, stimulated hope for the future.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REIGN OF DAVID.

1. The First Book of Samuel brings the history of David's life down to the close of that period of preparatory discipline by which he was divinely educated for his high destiny1. The quiet life in the home at Bethlehem, the novel duties and temptations of Saul's court, the manifold hardships and perils of exile, had done their work, and moulded the lines of that manysided character with an ineffaceable impress. As shepherd he had acquired the spirit of calm thought and deep reflexion; as courtier he had been trained in prudent self-control and chivalrous generosity; as outlaw he had learned quick sympathy with the oppressed, knowledge of men, and power of government; and above all, each successive phase of experience had quickened and developed that conscious dependence upon God which was the fundamental secret of his strength throughout his life. Step by step he had been led forward, steadily refusing to take the shaping of his career into his own hands by deeds of violence", and "committing his way unto the LORD,” in the full assurance that "He would bring it to pass3."

2. The Second Book of Samuel contains the history of David's reign. When the discipline of his early life was complete, the death of Saul opened his way to the throne. The task before him was immense. Internal disorganization consequent upon the misrule of Saul's later years: the jealousy of the

1 See Introd. to 1 Samuel, chap. viii.

2

1 Sam. xxvi. 10.

$ Ps. xxxvii. 5.

partisans of the old dynasty: the antagonism of conflicting interests among the different tribes; a country overrun with victorious and powerful enemies; the certain prospect that any vigorous attempt to consolidate the kingdom would excite the hostility of foreign enemies —these were some of the difficulties which met him at the outset. And if these obstacles were successfully overcome, and he became the acknowledged sovereign of a united and powerful nation, the trial to his own character Icould not fail to be severe. Would he continue to be, as the essential nature of the Theocratic Monarchy demanded that he should be, the faithful "servant of Jehovah," the obedient instrument of His Will; or would he, like Saul, assume an attitude of autocratic independence, and fall by the sin of pride and self-reliance?

3. From such difficulties a weaker man might well have shrunk. But David was a born ruler of men. In his well-knit, sinewy frame, insensible to hardship, incapable of fatigue, he possessed the indispensable pre-requisite for a warrior-king1: but higher qualifications than these were the innate aptitude for governing which was early displayed in his control of the wild. spirits who gathered round him in his outlaw life; the fearless courage which had characterised him from his earliest days; and the singular power which he possessed of inspiring enthusiastic devotion in his followers3: and the highest qualification of all was his firm trust and unshaken dependence upon God, coupled with the consciousness of a divine commission, which led him in each crisis to "wait patiently upon God," in the confident expectation of divine guidance 1.

4. There are two clearly marked periods in the history of David's reign. During the first he reigned over Judah in Hebron, and during the second over all Israel in Jerusalem. His reign over Israel in Jerusalem is no less clearly divided

1 Observe how he regards this as the gift of God and gives thanks for it accordingly in 2 Sam. xxii. 34 ff.

2 1 Sam. xvii. 34.

1 Sam. xviii. 5, 16; 2 Sam. xxiii. 15 ff. 4 See Ewald's Hist. of Israel, III. 60.

II. SAMUEL

3