6. When I remember thee upon my bed. He
turned his bedroom into an oratory, he consecrated his pillow, his praise
anticipated the place of which it is written, “There is no night there.” Perhaps
the wilderness helped to keep him awake; and if so, all the ages are debtors to
it for this delightful hymn. If day’s cares tempt us to forget God, it is well
that night’s quiet should lead us to remember him. And meditate on thee in the night watches. Keeping up sacred worship in my heart as the priests and
Levites celebrated it in the sanctuary. Perhaps David had formerly united with
those “who by night stand in the house of the Lord,
” and now as he could not be with them in person he remembers the hours
as they pass, and unites with the choristers in spirit, blessing Jehovah as
they did. It may be, moreover, that the king heard the voices of the sentries
as they relieved guard, and each time he returned with renewed solemnity to his
meditations upon his God. Night is congenial, in its silence and darkness, to a
soul which would forget the world, and rise into a higher sphere. Absorption
into the most hallowed of all themes makes watches which else would be weary
glide away all too rapidly; it causes the lonely and hard couch to yield repose
more restful than even sleep itself.
PREVIOUS
NEXT
No comments:
Post a Comment