(6) And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.
The affliction now was grown to its height. David, for whom, like another Jonah, the storm is induced, is to be the greatest sufferer: else wherefore stone him more than the rest. Reader! I know not what your views of this history are. But to Me, I confess, that I think the whole was so arranged and ordered by the Lord to bring back the heart of David again, (which I fear had for a long time been cold towards the God of his mercies), to a sense of his sin, and a longing to be restored once more to the Lord. And if I am right in my conjecture, what a blessed issue did the Lord bring this affair to? David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. Yes! the Lord his God, properly so called. For notwithstanding all David's unworthiness and undeservings, God was still his God in covenant. Reader! do not overlook this whatever else you lose sight of in this sweet scripture. There may be, and no doubt there is, much unworthiness, much undeserving, in the best of saints. There will be changes in God's people, like the ebbings and flowings of the tide. But there is no change in the covenant security of God's love. The efficacy of this is eternally and everlastingly the same. God in Christ is an ocean that never dries, never lessens, never abates. He is a rock, his work is perfect. Lord! give me grace, that whatever leanness or barrenness there may be in me, I may, like David, encourage myself in the Lord my God.