The Unchanging Christ Author:Alexander Maclaren Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IV. Gbe Iking in Ibis Beauty. " Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips : therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. (3) Gir... more »d thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, thy glory and thy majesty. (4) And in thy majesty ride on prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness ; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. (5) Thine arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under thee; they are in the heart of the king's enemies. (6) Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of Thy kingdom. (7) Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness : therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."—Ps. xlv. 2-7 (R.V.). HERE is no doubt that this Psalm was originally the marriage hymn of some Jewish king. All attempts to settle who that was have failed, for the very significant reason that neither the history nor the character of any of them correspond to the Psalm. Its language is a world too wide for the diminutive stature and stained virtues of the greatest and best of them. And it is almost ludicrous to attempt to fit its glowing sentences even to a Solomon. They all look like little David in Saul's armour. So, then,we must admit one of two things. Either we have here a piece of poetical exaggeration far beyond the limits of poetic licence, or " a greater than Solomon is here." Every Jewish king, by virtue of his descent and of his office, was a living prophecy of the greatest of the sons of David, the future King of Israel. And the Psalmist sees the ideal Person who, as he knew, was one day to be real, shining through the shadowy form of the earthly king, whose very limitations and defects, no less than his excellencies and his glories, forced the devout Israe...« less