2 Samuel 23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Scripture, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history, we encounter trials and temptations not found, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and therefore he is an even more suggestive type of our Lord.

David knew the trials common to all ranks and conditions of people. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown; the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook; the wanderer has many hardships, and David dwelt in the caves of Engedi; the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him.

The psalmist was also tried in his friends; his counselor Ahithophel forsook him, He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me. His worst foes were those of his own household. His children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honor and reproach, of health and weakness, all tested their power on him.

He had temptations from outside to disturb his peace, and from within to spoil his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him.

It is probably for this reason that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools—the school of heartfelt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we mature in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms and find them to be green pastures.

My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel you this day.