It was quite natural that David, who himself was exercised and proved by the cross, should be the first to introduce to the knowledge of the Church a _suffering Messiah_. But the doctrine has with him still the character of a germ; he still mixes up the references to the Messiah with the allusions to His types. It was from these that David rose to Him; it was from their destiny that David, by the Holy Spirit, inferred what would befall Him. Nowhere, however, has David directly and exclusively to do with a suffering Messiah, as had, afterwards, the prophet Isaiah. In all that respects the Psalms, we must content ourselves with merely a passing glance, lest we encroach too much upon the territory which belongs to the Commentary on the Psalms. But "the last words of David," preserved to us in the Books of Samuel, we shall make the subject of a more minute consideration, inasmuch as they form a connecting link between the two classes of Psalms which rest on the promise in 2 Sam. vii., viz., those referring to David's house and family, and those relating to the personal Messiah. The "ruler among men" whom we meet in these "last words," is, in the first instance, an _ideal_ person,--viz., the Davidic race conceived of as a person; but the _ideal_ points to the _real_ person, in whom all that had been foretold of the Davidic family should, at some future period, find its full realization. It is with a view to this person, that the personification has been employed. 2 SAMUEL XXIII. 1-7. The last words of David are comprehended in seven verses; and these, again, are subdivided into sections of five and two [Pg 153] verses respectively. First, there is a description of the fulness of blessings which the dominion of the just ruler shall carry along with it, and then of the destruction which shall overtake hostile wickedness. It is not by accident that these last words are not found in the collection of Psalms. The reason is indicated by the נאם There is a prophetic element in the lyric poetry of David wheresoever it refers to the future destiny of his house; but this prophetic element rises, here, at the close of his life, to pure prophetic inspiration and utterance, which stand on an equal footing with the prophecy of Nathan in 2 Sam. vii., and claim an equal authority. Ver. 1. "_And these are the last words of David. David, the son of Jesse, prophesies, and the man prophesies who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and sweet in the Psalms of Israel._"