A Review of Israel’s History as a Source of Consolation
The fire, namely, that of wars, consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage, no marriage anthems were intoned in their honor, for they were killed or dragged into exile during the troublous times of the judges.
V. 64. Their priests fell by the sword, Hophni and Phinehas being examples, 1 Sam. 4, 11; and their widows made no lamentation, being kept from the customary rites of mourning by the terrors of war. But then came the change of Israel’s fortunes.
V. 65. Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, for it had seemed to Israel that He had slumbered while the heathen were enslaving His people, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine, filled with heroic courage by its proper enjoyment. V. 66. And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts, His blows raining down upon the backs, principally of the Philistines, who at that time were the chief enemies of Israel; he put them to a perpetual reproach, the disgrace recorded 1 Sam. 5, 6.
V. 67. Moreover, He refused the Tabernacle of Joseph, taking it away from Shiloh, in the midst of the tribe of Ephraim, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, v. 60, v. 68. but chose the tribe of Judah, the bearer of the Messianic promise, the Mount Zion which He loved, selecting Jerusalem as the city of His central Sanctuary.
V. 69. And He built his Sanctuary like high palaces, firm as the heights of heaven, most excellent and glorious, like the earth which He hath established forever, founded most solidly.
V. 70. He chose David also His servant, the ancestor of the Messiah, and took him from the sheepfolds, 1 Sam. 16, 11; v. 71. from following the ewes great with young He brought him to feed Jacob, His people, and Israel, His inheritance, the children of Israel being a type of the spiritual Israel, and David a type of the great Shepherd, the Messiah Himself, Is. 40, 11.
V. 72. So he fed them, as their ruler, with all care and kindness, according to the integrity of his heart, striving after ever greater understanding of their needs, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands, with the proper appreciation of all that was best for them.
Herein also David prefigured the great King of the Church, whose understanding of our needs and wants resulted in our eternal redemption.