a complete victory over them, though it came near to have cost him his life.

Becoming fatigued in the battle, he was attacked by Ishbi-benob, a giant of immense stature, who would have slain him if Abishai had not come to his rescue and killed the Philistine. This exposure of their king so terrified his men, that they declared with an oath, that David should never again go out with them to battle, lest the light of Israel, as they termed him, should be quenched.

Soon after this there were two other engagements with the Philistines at Gob, in which the Israelites were victorious. In the former, Sibbechar, the Hushathite, slew Saph, of the race of the giants; and in the latter, the brother of Goliath, himself also a giant, fell by the hand of Elhanan of Bethlehem.

One more battle terminated the war, and in the entire discomfiture of the Philistines. It was fought in Gath, and here again another of their heroes, of enormous height and dimensions, who proudly defied the Israelites, was slain by Jonathan, a nephew of David.

At this time, and in view of the signal deliverance which God had afforded him in his late victories over the Philistines, David prepared the Psalm of thanksgiving which is recorded in the twenty-second chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, and which is supposed to be a revisal of

the eighteenth Psalm, originally composed when he was delivered from the hand of Saul.

We find, too, in the beginning of the twentythird chapter a short sacred song that is spoken of as the last words of David, probably the last which he committed to writing, as a divinely inspired composition; though some think that they were indeed the last which he ever uttered.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

David sins in numbering the people. A pestilence ensues. It is at length stayed.

From some motive, which is not particularly disclosed in the sacred narrative, David was led, after the famine had ceased, to undertake the numbering of the people. "The anger of the Lord," we are told, "was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them," to do this. In another place, Satan is said to have provoked him to the performance of the act; while, at the same time, it is spoken of as the result of his own agency.

In whatever way an overruling Providence permitted, or even more directly influenced David to take this step, and in doing it to yield to the sug

gestions of the great adversary of souls, we must scrupulously avoid the regarding it in such a light as to make God the author of the sin, or to destroy the accountability of him who committed it, or the guilt of the evil spirit that presented the temptation. To solve the difficulties attend ing the subject, connected as they are with the operations of the Infinite Mind, is, in the opinion of the writer, beyond the power of finite and feeble intellects like ours. Far better and wiser it is, to admit that these difficulties exist, than by attempting to remove them by any subtle and ingenious speculations, to start other and equally great difficulties. It will be time, on this account, to dread the attacks of scoffers and infidels upon the word or the government of God, when their peculiar views of nature, of chance, or of fate are involved in no mysterious perplexities, or present no absolute absurdity.

The order of the king to number the people was addressed to Joab, who made strong objections to it. "The Lord thy God," said he, "add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundred fold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?" The captains of the host, too, remonstrated against the measure, but David was inflexible, and the enumeration began. Joab and the captains of the host undertook it. It oc cupied nine months and twenty days, the tribes

of Levi and Benjamin being omitted by Joab, who seems to have hastened the labor to a close as speedily as possible; "for," it is said, "the king's word was abominable to Joab."

Eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword were calculated to be the number in Israel, and five hundred thousand in Judah, according to the Book of Samuel; while in the Book of Chronicles, the former are stated to be eleven hundred thousand, and the latter four hundred and seventy thousand. Some explain the difference by supposing that in Samuel the amount of the standing army of Israel is omitted; while others think it appears from 1 Chron. 27:23, 24, that the returns were not completed which were sent in to the king, and that in Samuel the number is mentioned according to the imperfect list actually given in, but in Chronicles, according to the list not laid before the king, or inserted in the public records, but generally known among the people. There are still others who attribute the discrepancy to the errors which some of the transcribers of the manuscript copies of the Scriptures may have made, and which they say might easily have happened in places where numbers are mentioned.

"David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people." In his distress he cried unto the Lord; "I have sinned greatly," he said, "in that I have done; and now, I beseech thee,

O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly."

The chastisement for his transgression was at hand. The next morning the prophet Gad, David's seer, was sent to him by the Lord with this fearful message: Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them that may do it unto thee. Shall seven years of famine come unto thee into thy land? Or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? Or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land?"

I

The prophet requiring an answer, David replied; "I am in a great strait. Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; and let us not fall into the hand of man." He chose the pestilence as the least of all the threatened evils, and it commenced that very morning. It was a terrible scourge, and must have filled the land with lamentation and wo. It raged three days, from one extremity of the country to the other, and destroyed no less than seventy thousand persons.

In the midst of this calamity, David and the elders of Israel, whom he had assembled, clothed in sackcloth, humbled themselves before God, in a public and solemn manner, beseeching him to have mercy upon them and upon the people. While doing this, David beheld the destroying Angel, who had been sent on this errand of ven