And the Lord preserved David whithersoever he went (ver. 6; 1 Chronicles 18:6, 13). The providence, of God (his preservation, and government of all things), which embraces the creation in general (Psalm 36:6; Nehemiah 9:6) and man in particular (Psalm 8:4, 5; Luke 12:7), is exercised with special regard to the good of those that love him (Matthew 6:32; Matthew 10:29, 30). This is evident from his relation and love to them (Deuteronomy 32:9; Luke 12:32), the promises and declarations of his Word (Psalm 37:25; Psalm 121:8), and the facts of observation and experience (Genesis 45:5; Esther 6:1). The life of David is full of illustrations thereof (1 Samuel 19:10; 1 Samuel 23:28). "The Lord preserveth the faithful" (Psalm 31:23) -

I. IS LOYAL OBEDIENCE to his will, such as David exhibited.

"For he will give his angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways."
(Psalm 91:11.) i.e. the ways of duty; not of presumption, like those which the tempter (omitting these words in his quotation) sought to induce the Son of man to pursue (Matthew 4:6). "He that walketh uprightly walketh surely" (Proverbs 10:9), and "shall be saved; but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once" (Proverbs 28:18). We must keep the commandments of God if we would be "kept by the power of God." "Who is he that wilt harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" (1 Peter 3:13; 1 Peter 4:19).

II. AMIDST IMMINENT PERIL, arising from attacks of numerous foes; which must often be met in the path of duty, and cannot be avoided without sin (2 Samuel 4:9-11). "And, indeed, there is a great deal of reason why we should respect him that, with an untainted valour, has grown old in arms and hearing the drum heat. When every minute death seems to pass by and shun him, he is one that the supreme God cared for, and, by a particular guard, defended in the hail of death" (O. Felltham). There is a holy strife (Philippians 1:27; Jude 1:3; Ephesians 6:12), and in it We may sometimes be exposed to as great danger as David was (2 Samuel 21:16); but the eye of God sees it and his hand wards it off. "No weapon," etc. (Isaiah 54:17).

"O Jehovah Lord, thou Strength of my salvation,
Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle."

(Psalm 140:7.)

III. BY MANIFOLD MEANS. Not without prudence and effort on the part of men; not by direct, extraordinary and miraculous interposition; but by:

1. The salutary influence of a devout spirit on conditions favourable to safety.

2. Special impressions on the minds both of the good and of the bad, conducive to the preservation of the former.

3. A peculiar concurrence of circumstances having the same effect; and other ways, still more wonderful, and not less effectual (Proverbs 21:31). Nothing is more mysterious to our partial comprehension of them than the methods of providence by which God accomplishes his designs. "A mighty maze! but not without a plan."

IV. FOR BENEFICENT ENDS. Not only "the good of his chosen" (Psalm 106:5), whom he preserves; but also the good which they may effect on behalf of others, the manifestation of his great Name, the complete establishment of his kingdom. "We know that all things work together for good," etc. (Romans 8:28). "This is the sun in the heaven of all the promises." - D.

I. The first thing pointed out to us here is THE CATHOLICITY OF HIS KINGLY GOVERNMENT; embracing all Israel, all people. He did not bestow his attention on one favoured section of the people to the neglect or careless oversight of the rest. He did not, for example, seek the prosperity of his own tribe, Judah, to the neglect of the other eleven. In a word, there was no favouritism in his reign. In this he reflected that universality of God's care on which we find the Psalmist dwelling with such complacency: "The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works." In the next place, we have much to learn from the statement that the most prominent thing that David did was to "execute judgment and justice to the people."

II. That was the SOLID FOUNDATION ON WHICH ALL HIS BENEFITS RESTED. For it is never said that Saul did anything of the kind. And most certainly they are not words that could have been used of the ordinary government of Oriental kings. This idea of equal justice to all, and especially to those who had no helper, was a very beautiful one in David's eyes. It gathered round it those bright and happy features which in the seventy-second Psalm are associated with the administration of another King. "Give the king Thy judgments, O God, and Thy righteousness to the king's son. He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment." And in all this we find the features of that higher government of David's Son which shows so richly His most gracious nature. The cry of sorrow and need, as it rose from the dark world, did not repel, but rather attracted, Him. All were in the lowest depths of spiritual poverty, but for that reason His hand was the more freely offered for their help. We are not to think of David, however, as being satisfied if he merely secured justice to the poor and succeeded in lightening their yoke. His ulterior aim was to fill his kingdom with active, useful, honourable citizens.

III. The remaining notices of David's administration in the passage before us are simply to the effect that THE GOVERNMENT CONSISTED OF VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS, and that each department had an officer at its head.

1. There was the military department, at the head of which was Joab, or rather he was over "the host" — the great muster of the people for military purposes. A more select body, "the Cherethites and the Pelethites," seems to have formed a bodyguard for the king, or a banal of household troops, and was under a separate commander. The troops forming "the host" were divided into twelve courses of twenty-four thousand each, regularly officered, and for one month of the year the officers of one of the courses, and probably the people, or some of them, attended on the king at Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 27:1.)

2. There was the civil department; at the head of which were Jehoshaphat the recorder and Seraiah the scribe or secretary. While these were in attendance on David at Jerusalem they did not supersede the ordinary home rule of the tribes of Israel. Each tribe had still its prince or ruler, and continued, under a general superintendence from the king, to conduct its local affairs (1 Chronicles 27:16-22). This home-rule system, besides interesting the people greatly in the prosperity of the country, was a great check against the abuse of the royal authority; and it is a proof that the confidence of Rehoboam in the stability of his government, confirmed perhaps by a superstitious view of that promise to David, must have been an absolute infatuation, the product of utter inexperience on his part, and of the most foolish counsel ever tendered by professional advisers.

3. Ecclesiastical administration. The capture of Jerusalem and its erection into the capital of the kingdom made a great change in ecclesiastical arrangements. For some time before it would have been hard to tell where the ecclesiastical capital was to be found. Shiloh had been stripped of its glory when Ichabod received his name, and the Philistine armies destroyed the place. Nob had shared a similar fate at the hands of Saul. The old tabernacle erected by Moses in the wilderness was at Gibeon (1 Chronicles 21:29), and remained there even after the removal of the ark to Zion (1 Kings 3:4). At Hebron, too, there must have been a shrine while David reigned there. But from the time when David brought up the ark to Jerusalem that city became the greatest centre of the national worship. There the services enjoined by the law of Moses were celebrated; it became the scene of the great festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. We are told that the heads of the ecclesiastical department were Zadok the son of Ahitub and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar. These represented the elder and the younger branches of the priesthood. It is scarcely possible to say how far these careful ecclesiastical arrangements were instrumental in fostering the spirit of genuine piety. But there is too much reason to fear that even in David's time that element was very deficient. The bursts of religious enthusiasm that occasionally rolled over the country were no sure indications of piety in a people easily roused to temporary gushes of feeling, but deficient in stability. The systematic administration of his kingdom by King David was the fruit of a remarkable faculty of orderly arrangement that belonged to most of the great men of Israel. We see it in Abraham, in his prompt and successful marshalling of his servants to pursue and attack the kings of the East when they carried off Lot; we see it in Joseph, first collecting and then distributing the stores of food in Egypt; in Moses, conducting that marvellous host in order and safety through the wilderness; and, in later times, in Ezra and Nehemiah, reducing the chaos which they found at Jerusalem to a state of order and prosperity which seemed to verify the vision of the dry bones. We see it in the Son of David, in the orderly way in which all His arrangements were made: the sending forth of the twelve Apostles and the seventy disciples, the arranging of the multitude when He fed the five thousand, and the careful gathering up of the fragments "that nothing be lost." In the spiritual kingdom, a corresponding order is demanded, and times of peace and rest in the Church are times when this development is specially to be studied.

(W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)