Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD, and he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?
Then went king David in, and sat before the Lord. Sitting was anciently an attitude for worship (Exodus 17:12; 1 Samuel 4:13; 1 Kings 19:4). As to the particular attitude, David sat most probably upon his heels. It was the posture of the ancient Egyptians before the shrines; it is the posture of deepest respect before a superior in the East. Persons of highest dignity sit thus when they do sit in the presence of kings; and it is the only sitting attitude assumed by the modern Mohammedans in their places and rites of devotion. In Pococke's Travels' is drawn the figure of a person half-sitting, half-kneeling, that is, kneeling so as to rest the muscular part of the body upon the heels. This, he informs us, is the attitude in which inferiors sit at this day before great men in the East; and it is regarded as a posture of proper humility. Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house? This prayer breathes throughout a spirit of joyful surprise and overflowing gratitude. The exordium shows that David's thoughts had been taking a rapid retrospective survey of his marvelous career, from his humble origin until his elevation to the throne-a career distinguished in every stage by signal tokens of the divine favour, the crowning expression of which was the promised prosperity of his royal line (Psalms 21:3: see Pye Smith's 'Scripture Testimony,' p. 117).