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Why were such oceans of feeling poured into David's soul, such true and graceful utterance of poetry infused into his lips, and such skill of music seated in his right hand? Such oceans of feeling did God infuse into his soul, and such utterance of poetry He placed between his lips, and such skilful music He seated in his right hand, in order that he might conceive forms of feeling for all saints, and create an everlasting psalmody, and hand down an organ for expressing the melody of the renewed soul. The Lord did not intend that His Church should be without a rule for uttering its gladness and its glory, its lamentation and its grief; and to bring such a rule and institute into being, He raised up His servant David, as formerly He raised up Moses to give to the Church an institute of Law. And to that end He led him the round of all human conditions, that he might catch the spirit proper to every one, and utter it according to truth; He allowed him not to curtail his being by treading the round of one function, but by every variety of functions, He cultivated his Whole being, and filled his soul with wisdom and feeling. He found him objects for every affection, that the affection might not slumber and die. He brought him up in the sheep-pastures that the ground-work of his character might be laid amongst the simple and universal forms of feeling. He took him to the camp and' made him a conqueror, that he might be filled with nobleness of soul and ideas of glory. He placed him in the palace that he might be filled with ideas of majesty and sovereign might. He carried him to the wilderness, and placed him in solitudes that his soul might dwell alone in the sublime conceptions of God and His mighty works; and He kept him there for long years, with only one step betwixt him and death, that he might be well schooled to trust and depend upon the providence of God. And in none of these various conditions did He take from him His Holy Spirit. His trials were but the tuning of the instrument with which the Spirit might express the various melodies which He designed to utter by him for the consolation and edification of spiritual men. Therefore, David had that brilliant galaxy of natural gifts, that rich and varied education, in order to fit him for executing the high office to which he was called by the Spirit, of giving to the Church those universal forms of spiritual feeling, whereof we have been endeavouring to set forth the excellent applications. And, though we neither excuse his acts of wickedness, nor impute them to the temptation of God, who cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth any man, we will also add that by his loss the Church hath gained; and that out of the evil of his ways much good hath been made to arise; and that if he had not passed through every valley of humiliation, and stumbled upon the dark mountains, we should not have had a language for the souls of the penitent, or an expression for the dark troubles which compass the soul that feareth to be deserted by its God. So much for the fitness of the psalmist to have been made the organ of spiritual feeling unto the Church.

(Edward Irving.).

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KJV: The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

WEB: This ends the prayers by David, the son of Jesse. BOOK III A Psalm by Asaph.