7" My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.

9 I will praise thee, O LORD, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.

10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy P. xxxvi. 5. truth unto the clouds.

11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

PSALM LVIII.

1 David reproveth wicked judges, 3 describeth the nature of the wicked, 6 devoteth them to God's judgments, 10 whereat the righteous shall rejoice.

To the chief Musician, † Al-tashchith, Michtam of David.

& cviii. 4.

+ Or, Destroy not, A golden

David.

1 Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Psalm of do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?

2 Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.

3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

4 Their poison is § like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;

5 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, * charming never so wisely.

+ Heb. from the belly.

Heb. ac

cording to the likeness.

Or, asp.

* Or, be the charmer never

6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out so cunning. the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

7 Let them melt away as waters which run continually : when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.

8 As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away as with a whirlwind, † both living, and in his + Heb. as wrath.

10 The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

:

living as
wrath.

of the, &c.

11 So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward Heb.fruit for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

PSALM LXIII.

1 David's thirst for God. 4 His manner of blessing God. 9 His confidence of his enemies' destruction, and his own safety.

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

1 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my

A.C. 1058. soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, † where no water is ;

*Heb. weary. + Heb. without water.

+ Heb.fat

ness.

Heb. They

shall make

him run out

like water by the hands of the sword.

1057.

*

2 To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.

3 Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

4 Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips :

6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

7 Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

8 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

9 But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.

10 § They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.

11 But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped."

SECTION XIV.

Death of Samuel-David in the Wilderness of Paran.

1 SAMUEL XXV.

1 Samuel dieth. 2 David in Paran sendeth to Nabal.

10 Provoked by Nabal's

churlishness, he mindeth to destroy him. 14 Abigail, understanding thereof, 18 taketh a present, 23 and, by her wisdom 32 pacifieth David. 36 Nabal hearing thereof dieth. 39 David taketh Abigail and Ahinoam to be his wires. 44 Michal is given to Phalti.

1 And P Samuel died; and all the Israelites were gatherp Ch. xxviii. ed together, and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. And David arose, and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

Il Or, business.

2 And there was a man in Maon, whose, || possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

3 Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.

4 And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep.

5 And David sent out ten young men, and David said A.C. 1057. unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name:

6 And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.

*Heb. ask him in my

name of peace.

7 And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, Heb. neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.

8 Ask thy young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.

9 And when David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased.

10 And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.

shamed.

+ Heb. rested.

11 Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my § flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto Heb. men, whom I know not whence they be?

12 So David's young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.

13 And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.

14 But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he || railed on them.

slaughter.

|| Heb. flew upon them.

15 But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were Heb. conversant with them, when we were in the fields:

16 They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

17 Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his houshold for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him.

shamed.

18 Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred †clus- + Or, lumps.

A.C. 1057. ters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them

on asses.

19 And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal.

20 And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and, behold, David and his men came down against her; and she met them.

21 Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.

22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

23 And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground,

24 And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray *Heb. ears. thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.

+ Heb. lay it to his heart. + That is, fool.

25 Let not my lord, I pray thee, + regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; ‡ Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.

26 Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from Heb. saving coming to shed blood, and from § avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal.

thyself.

|| Or, present.

27 And now this || blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young Heb. walk men that follow my lord.

at the feet of,

&c.

28 I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.

29 Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of bow of a sling. a sling.

+ Heb. in the

midst of the

30 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel;

31 That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of A.C. 1057. heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood cause- * Heb. no less, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the staggering. LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember or, stumbling. thine handmaid.

32¶And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me:

33 And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.

34 For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

35 So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.

36 And Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken : wherefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.

37 But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a

stone.

38 And it came to pass about ten days after, that the LORD Smote Nabal, that he died.

39 And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife.

40 And when the servants of David were come to Abigail to Carmel, they spake unto her, saying, David sent us unto thee, to take thee to him to wife.

41 And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.

42 And Abigail hasted, and arose, and rode upon an ass, with five damsels of her's that went after her; and she + Heb. at her went after the messengers of David, and became his wife.

43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they Josh. xv. 56. were also both of them his wives.