2 Samuel 23:1

2 Samuel THE DYING KING’S LAST VISION AND PSALM2 Samuel 23:1 - 2 Samuel 23:7 . It was fitting that ‘the last words of David’ should be a prophecy of the true King, whom his own failures and sins, no less than his consecration and victories, had taught him to expect. His dying eyes see on the horizon of the far-off future the form of Him who is to be a just and perfect Ruler, before the brightness of whose presence and the refreshing of whose influence, verdure and beauty shall clothe the world. As the shades gather round the dying monarch, the radiant glory to come brightens. He departs in peace, having seen the salvation from afar, and stretched out longing hands of greeting toward it. Then his harp is silent, as if the rapture which thrilled the trembling strings had snapped them. I. We have first a prelude extending to the middle of 2 Samuel 23:3 . In it there is first a fourfold designation of the personality of the Psalmist-prophet, and then a fourfold designation of the divine oracle spoken through him. The word rendered in 2 Samuel 23:1 ‘saith’ is really a noun, and usually employed with ‘the Lord’ following, as in the familiar phrase ‘saith the Lord.’ It is used, as here, with the genitive of the human recipient, in Balaam’s prophecy, on which this is evidently modelled. It distinctly claims a divine source for the oracle following, and declares, at the outset, that these last words of David were really the faithful sayings of Jehovah.

The human and divine elements are smelted together. Note the description of the human personality. First, the natural ‘David the son of Jesse,’ like ‘Balaam the son of Beor’ in the earlier oracle. The aged king looks back with adoring thankfulness to his early days and humble birth, as if he were saying, ‘Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should proclaim the coming King.’ Then follow three clauses descriptive of what ‘the son of Jesse’ had been made by the grace of God, in that he had been raised on high from his low condition of a shepherd boy, and anointed as ruler, not only by Samuel and the people, but by the God of their great ancestor, whose career had presented so many points of resemblance to his own, the God who still wrought among the nation which bore the patriarch’s name, as He had wrought of old; and that, besides his royalty, he had been taught to sing the sweet songs which already were the heritage of the nation. This last designation shows what David counted God’s chief gift to him,-not his crown, but his harp. It further shows that he regarded his psalms as divinely inspired, and it proves that already they had become the property of the nation. This first verse heightens the importance of the subsequent oracle by dwelling on the claims of the recipient of the revelation to be heard and heeded.

(1) The son of Jesse said. —The description of the human author of the following prophecy is strikingly analogous to that of Balaam in Numbers 24:3-4 ; Numbers 24:15-16 . The word “said,” used twice, is a peculiar form (used between two hundred and three hundred times) of direct Divine utterances, and applied to human sayings only here, in the places referred to in Numbers, and in Proverbs 30:1 , in all which special claim is made to inspiration. The sweet psalmist of Israel.—Literally, He that is pleasant in Israel’s psalms, i.e., by the composition and arrangement of Israel’s liturgical songs he was entitled to be called “pleasant.” David, with life now closing, fitly sends down this prophetic song to posterity with such description of its human writer as should secure to it authority.

2 Samuel 23:1 . These be the last words of David — Not simply the last that he spoke, but the last which he spake by the Spirit of God, assisting and directing him in an extraordinary manner. When we find death approaching, we should endeavour both to honour God, and to profit others with our last words. Let those who have had experience of God’s goodness, and the pleasantness of the ways of wisdom, when they come to finish their course, leave a record of those experiences, and bear their testimony to the truth of God’s promises. The man who was raised up on high — Advanced from an obscure estate to the kingdom. Whom God singled out from all the families of Israel, and anointed to be king. The sweet psalmist — He who was eminent among the people of God, for composing sweet and holy songs to the praise of God, and for the use of his church in after ages. These seem not to be the words of David, but of the sacred penman of this book.

1 . David the son of Jesse said ] The oracle of David the son of Jesse : a peculiar word, generally used of a direct message from God through a prophet in the phrase rendered, “saith the Lord,” and joined with the name of the human speaker only here and in Numbers 24:3-4 ; Numbers 24:15-16 ; Proverbs 30:1 . It therefore marks these “last words” as an utterance delivered by special divine inspiration. raised up on high ] Raised by God from a low estate to be the king of Israel. Cp. ch. 2 Samuel 7:8-9 ; Psalm 78:70-71 . the God of Jacob ] The use of the name Jacob , instead of the more familiar Israel , is chiefly poetical. It suggests more vividly the connexion of the nation with their great ancestor, and recalls more forcibly the covenant made with him by God. Cp. Psalm 20:1 ; Isaiah 2:3 . the sweet psalmist of Israel ] Lit. pleasant in Israel’s songs of praise : a title deserving to stand by the side of “the anointed of the God of Jacob,” because he was God’s instrument for educating and developing his people’s religious life by means of his Psalms, not less than for governing them as king. See Introd. ch. V. § 6, c , p. 31. Ch. 2 Samuel 23:1-7 .