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Patriarchs and Prophets
bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction, and
that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day.”
Conscience was uttering bitter and humiliating truths to David.
While his faithful subjects wondered at his sudden reverse of fortune,
it was no mystery to the king. He had often had forebodings of an hour
like this. He had wondered that God had so long borne with his sins,
and had delayed the merited retribution. And now in his hurried and
sorrowful flight, his feet bare, his royal robes changed for sackcloth,
the lamentations of his followers awaking the echoes of the hills, he
thought of his loved capital—of the place which had been the scene
of his sin—and as he remembered the goodness and long-suffering of
God, he was not altogether without hope. He felt that the Lord would
still deal with him in mercy.
Many a wrongdoer has excused his own sin by pointing to David’s
fall, but how few there are who manifest David’s penitence and humil-
ity. How few would bear reproof and retribution with the patience and
fortitude that he manifested. He had confessed his sin, and for years
had sought to do his duty as a faithful servant of God; he had labored
for the upbuilding of his kingdom, and under his rule it had attained
to strength and prosperity never reached before. He had gathered rich
stores of material for the building of the house of God, and now was
all the labor of his life to be swept away? Must the results of years of
consecrated toil, the work of genius and devotion and statesmanship,
pass into the hands of his reckless and traitorous son, who regarded not
the honor of God nor the prosperity of Israel? How natural it would
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have seemed for David to murmur against God in this great affliction!
But he saw in his own sin the cause of his trouble. The words
of the prophet Micah breathe the spirit that inspired David’s heart.
“When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will
bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him,
until He plead my cause, and execute judgment for me.”
Micah 7:8, 9
.
And the Lord did not forsake David. This chapter in his experience,
when, under cruelest wrong and insult, he shows himself to be humble,
unselfish, generous, and submissive, is one of the noblest in his whole
experience. Never was the ruler of Israel more truly great in the sight
of heaven than at this hour of his deepest outward humiliation.
Had God permitted David to go on unrebuked in sin, and while
transgressing the divine precepts, to remain in peace and prosperity