These words are not applicable to David, for after he had served his generation, he fell asleep, and his body, interred in the royal sepulchre of the kings of Judah, which was in the city of David, saw corruption. The sentence "dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," has, for many a generation, been accomplished on Jesse's Royal Son. The remains of this mighty monarch cannot now be distinguished from those of earth's meanest slave. They are alike mingled in the dust of death, and must remain hid from the eye of man until the archangel's trump shall sound, and the command be given, Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment. The hell (in Hebrew, scheol) here alluded to, cannot be that place of torment, prepared for the devil and his angels, from which a soul never did or will escape. When once consigned to that abode of wo, there is a great gulf fixed, even the unchangeable decree of Omnipotence; a barrier stronger than walls of brass, and cannot be surmounted, or destroyed.[106] The word here rendered hell, (in the Greek, hades,) is the same as the Jews, before the Babylonish captivity, used for the grave, and is the sense in which it must be here understood. This verse is prophetic of the resurrection of the Messiah; which doctrine is taught in many parts of the Old Testament, by type, figure, and prophecy; in the New, we behold it clearly confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus. The circumstances attending this great event are repeatedly described, and the evidence clear and conclusive. The witnesses to this important fact are not few; both enemies and friends unite in giving their testimony to his death and resurrection. The soldiers having taken the dead body of Jesus from the cross, his friends deposit it in the tomb. We cannot but stop here, and admire the overruling hand of Providence in the more minute circumstances connected with the interment of the body of the Redeemer. The sepulchre was hewn out of the solid rock. No access could be gained to it but by one opening, on which a ponderous stone was placed, a seal set thereon, and the entrance strictly guarded by Roman soldiers. But wherefore all this care and attention over the dead body of one crucified at Golgotha? It is by order of the High Priest and Pharisees, who had requested Pilate to allow them to make the grave sure, as Jesus had declared he would rise again after three days. They, fully convinced of his death, and disbelieving his divinity, fear that the disciples should steal the dead body of their Master, and declare that he had risen; and thus the last error would be worse than the first. But we have cause to rejoice that they used so much caution, for it tends to establish the truth, and confirm the testimony, of the disciples. It fully proves the death and burial of Jesus, and that the body did not remain in the grave. On the first day of the week, certain women of the company hasted early to the sepulchre, to embalm, after the custom of the east,