A PERSONAL EPITAPH

This is most likely a prepared final statement, rather than David’s actual ‘last words’ (v 1): a message that he wants everyone, particularly his own descendants, to hear. Our ‘last wills and testaments’ tend to concentrate on how our material possessions should be distributed, but maybe we should recapture the tradition of making a statement of what we want our heirs to know! Notably, David writes as ‘son of Jesse’ (v 1), as the ‘man’ not as the king. He is aware that he is ‘the hero of Israel’s songs’ (v 1) but he wants them to remember his Spirit-inspired words, rather than any actions. Parallelism, saying the same thing twice in different ways, was a common method of emphasis; and in verse 2 we have more parallelism, to make doubly sure that his readers understood the importance of God’s words. God, David’s Rock in his youth and still in his old age, has spoken.

The message itself is short and simple: any ruler who ‘rules in the fear of God’ (v 3) brings tremendous blessing, like ‘light of morning’ or ‘brightness after rain’ (v 4). In verse 5 it may look as if David returns to the brash confidence of his youth – God has blessed me, so my house must be righteous, – but at this stage of his life he knows he doesn’t deserve God’s blessing.2 The point is that it is by God’s grace that he has been made right with God. The covenant has been given3 and David’s descendants have no excuse for failure. However, he knows only too well that any individual descendants could exclude themselves by not ruling ‘over people in righteousness’ (v 3); any such will ‘be cast aside like thorns’ (v 6) and their reign will bring as much blessing as a thorn bush to a farmer.

May we live so that people will be blessed as by ‘brightness after rain’ and to leave a legacy of the knowledge of God as the Rock.