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: — Life and liberty are sweet; but we may pay too dear a price even for the sweetest things. David is now at liberty; he has escaped out of the prison-house of Gath; but he has made his escape and obtained his liberty at much too great a price. For years past the name of Gath had been the proudest name that David's flatterers could speak in his willing ears. But after his disgraceful escape from that city to David's old age, it brought a cloud to his brow and a blush to his cheek to hear the name of Gath. We all have our Gaths. There are people and there are places in our own past life the very name of which, the very neighbourhood of which, throws a bolt into conscience and brings a blush upon the cheek. If we purchase a name, or a place, or an office, or wealth, or even a home, if we purchase any of them at the cost of truth or of justice, or of honour, or self-respect, or fair play to our competitor, we will find, when it is too late, that we have sold ourselves for naught, and have poisoned the very wells of life. So David discovered it to be when, for his liberty, he degraded himself in Gath, deceived Achish, and was hurried out of the land and escaped — a free, indeed, but a dishonoured man — to the Cave of Adullam. But then, it is out of such degradation and shame that weak and evil men rise on stepping-stones of their own transgressions to true honour and wisdom, to stable godliness and exercised virtue. "I will take sentry myself to-night," said David to his captains one Sabbath evening. Wrapping around him the cloak that Michal had worked for him in happier days, and taking in his hand Goliath's sword, David paced the rocky shelves, and poured out his full heart to God all that Sabbath night. All in the great cave did not sleep, or all at once; and it was nights like these — when their captain shared their dangers and assured their fears, as they heard his step and listened to his deep sweet voice — it was nights like these that did more to turn the rough and ill-used men into heroes and saints than all their sufferings and all their other discipline. David says: "I cried that night unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication." I went out alone, and "I poured out my complaint before Him," and "I showed Him" that night all "my trouble." We are never content. What would we have given for a full report of all that David said about himself and his cause to God that night? We are thankful for this dramatic 142nd psalm; but it would have been a grand piece of devotional literature, aye, of national history, had we had all that David said to God that sentinel night; but what he did say was not fitted or intended for any human ear. We know that from ourselves, from our own sentinel Sabbaths. We too have troubles and complaints that our ministers do not touch upon in all their most searching Sabbath Day exercises, any more than God touched upon David's here in the cave. But David seems only to have one "complaint," and yet it was so blessed to him that it compelled him to spend the hours of the night alone with God, Keep your complaints for God, my afflicted brethren; keep your complaints for God, and for the silence of the night. No one will listen to your trouble but God; no one has time, no one has attention to give to your sorrow but God. You will only expose yourself, and weaken yourself, and humble yourself, if you take your complaints to preoccupied men. Like David, some of you may to-night be labouring and anxious under some complaint against your master, or against some of your relatives; or some of you may have received an insulting, threatening, blackmailing letter, like Hezekiah. I do not say you are not to show that letter to a lawyer; but you must show it first to God, and then, if possible, to a lawyer who knows God. Send all your house to bed to-night before you answer that letter, and again show it to God in the morning before you post it. "I poured out my complaint before God; I showed Him all my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path." "The Lord," says Newton, "is not withdrawn to a great distance from you, His eye is upon you all the time, He sees your case, and does not behold it with indifference, but observes it with attention. He knows and considers your path, and not only so, but He appointed it and all the outs and ins of it. Your trouble began at the hour He appointed; it could not begin before, and He has marked the degree of it to a hair's breadth, and its duration to a moment. He knows, likewise, just how your spirit is affected to-night under the trouble, and He will supply you, if you will take it — He will supply grace and strength in due season, and as He sees they are needful. Therefore, hope in God; for you, like David, shall yet praise Him." To be imprisoned by God was better to David than to be set free by man. In David's best moments, as sometimes when sentinel in Adullam, David felt that God's prison-house was a very hermitage, sanctuary, a grand pavilion, as he signifies elsewhere, into which God takes the soul to show it His "marvellous lovingkindness." David had broken out of God's prison in Gath before the time, but he has never ceased to repent of that insane act. And if at any time he felt the banishment of Adullam — and he had a thousand thoughts during these lonely hours — he soon recollected who held the keys; and, though the door had been opened, he would not have escaped. God Himself conspicuously delivered David henceforth. God is David's jailor, and whatever time David feels his close detention, he betakes himself anew, in all his guilt, and lies, and playing the madman and the fool to earnest, believing, and waiting prayer: "Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise Thy name"; and then, as the new day broke in the east, and the shades of the night fled away, the day-star of hope arose in David's heart, and the present prayer seems almost to be prophetic. He foresaw the Lord not only as his refuge in every future time of trouble, but also as his alone "portion in the land of the living"; he saw himself set free from every prison and from every persecutor, with his "righteousness brought forth as the light, and his judgment as the noonday." "Bring my soul out of prison" was his last word to God, as the day broke in the east, "that I may praise Thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for Thou shalt deal bountifully with me." And how well was that hope fulfilled to David, how bountifully did God deal with David, and how hath the righteous compassed David about, as rapt listeners compass round the sweetest music, as rejoicing fellow-worshippers compass round a miracle of Divine grace. "There was no man that would know me," complained David in the day of his deep dejection. But all men whose knowledge is worth the having know David now. All righteous men compass him about now, and rejoice over him that his God, and their God, brought "his soul out of prison," and dealt so bountifully with him.

(A. Whyte, D. D.)

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KJV: {Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave.} I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the LORD did I make my supplication.

WEB: I cry with my voice to Yahweh. With my voice, I ask Yahweh for mercy.