righteousness_." They were well and wisely ordered,--the hand of his God had appointed them. He can repeat with greater assurance his forbearing retort to the curses of Shimei--"LET HIM CURSE ON, FOR THE LORD HATH BIDDEN HIM." Moreover, all this wilderness-experience not only sustained him in the present--it nerved him for the future. God's renewed faithfulness in this trying hour was a pledge for all time to come. He had added another Mizar-hill to former memorials of the Divine goodness. With the prospect, at his advanced age, of the last and terminating trial of his pilgrimage, (the descent to the deepest and gloomiest ravine of all,) he could, with his eye on the guiding Shepherd, exclaim--"_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me._"[104] Even temporal mercies had been largely and bountifully supplied him in the place of his exile. The powerful chiefs of the Transjordanic tribes, as we previously observed,--"Shobi of Ammon, and Machir, and Barzillai of Manasseh,"--brought the rich produce of their fields and pastures for the supply of himself and his army. He could say--"_Thou hast prepared a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over._"[105] And now, with the prospect before him of a joyful return to his throne, and the still more joyous prospect of being a worshipper in God's house on earth,--the type of the better Temple in the skies,--he can sing, as the closing strain of his exile--"_Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever._"[106] [102] Psalm xxiii. 1, 2. [103] Psalm xxiii. 3. [104] Psalm xxiii. 4. [105] Psalm xxiii. 5. [106] Psalm xxiii. 6.