The scene changes with startling suddenness to the fury of battle. In a burst of lyric enthusiasm, forgetting for a moment nuptials and wedding marches, the singer calls on the king to array himself for war and to rush on the foe. Very striking is this combination of gentleness and warrior strength--a union which has been often realised in heroic figures, which is needful for the highest type of either, and which is fulfilled in the Lamb of God, who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The king is to gird on his sword, and to array himself, as in glittering armour, in his splendour and majesty, and, thus arrayed, to mount his chariot, or, less probably, to bestride his war-horse, and hurl himself on the yielding ranks of the enemy. "Press forward, drive (or _ride_) on," crushing obstacles and forcing a path. But Israel's king could be no vulgar conqueror, impelled by lust of dominion or "glory." His sword is to be girt on for the help or "on behalf of truth, meekness, and righteousness." These abstracts may be used for concretes--namely, the possessors of the qualities named. But the limitation is not necessary. The monarch's warfare is for the spread of these. The Hebrew binds the two latter closely together by an anomalous construction, which may be represented by connecting the two words with a hyphen. They are regarded as a double star. Then follows a verse of hurry: "Thy right hand shall teach thee awe-striking deeds." He has no allies. The canvas has no room for soldiers. The picture is like the Assyrian sculptures, in which the king stands erect and alone in his chariot, a giant in comparison with the tiny figures beneath him. Like Rameses in Pentaur's great battle-song, "he pierced the line of the foe; ... he was all alone, no other with him." Then follow three abrupt clauses, reflecting in their fragmentary character the stress of battle: "Thine arrows are sharp--The peoples fall under thee--In the heart of the enemies of the king." The bright arrow is on the string; it whizzes; the plain is strewed with prostrate forms, the king's shaft in the heart of each. It is no mere fanciful spiritualising which sees in this picture an adumbration of the merciful warfare of Christ all through the ages. We get to the kernel of the history of Israel when we regard it as the preparation for Christ. We understand the _raison d'être_ of its monarchy when we see in these poor shadows the types of the King of men, who was to be all that they should have been and were not. The world-wide conflict for truth and meekness and righteousness is His conflict, and the help which is done on earth He doeth it all Himself. The psalm waits for its completion still, and will wait until the day when the marriage supper of the Lamb is preceded by the last battle and crowning victory of Him who "in righteousness doth judge and make war."