ter the commencement of the
Monarchy. The reigns of David and Solomon seemed to have formed the
brightest period in the literary history of the Jews. The sweet Psalmist
of Israel was partly the pioneer to deeper thought, partly the
representative of the age in which he lived. It is the charm of his
poetry that it is very rich and recondite--a mine of gold, which the
farther it is worked, the more precious its yield becomes. But it
everywhere bears the stamp of passion and religious ardour, and does not
bespeak the critical incisiveness of a highly civilised age.
Argumentative acumen would have been as much below the poetic mind of
David in one respect as it was above it in another, and while his
rapturous language of admiration and faith seems above the range of
human genius; his bitter denunciations of his enemies remind us of his
date, and the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Such immaturity
would be sufficient to account for the non-existence of humour. It may
be urged that David had no tendency in that direction. His thoughts were
turned towards the sublime, and his religious character, his royal
estate, and the vicissitudes of his early life, all inclined him to
serious reflection. But we do not find that David was invariably grave
and solemn. He indulged in laughter at the misfortunes of his
adversaries, as we may conclude from a passage in Psalm lii, 6. "God
shall likewise destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away and pluck
thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the
living. Selah. The righteous also shall see and fear, and shall laugh at
him."

He also considered that, in turn, his enemies would deride him, if he
were unsuccessful. Psalm xxii, 7--"All they that see me laugh me to
scorn; they shoot out the lip and shake the head, saying, 'He trusted in
the Lord.'"

He evidently thought there was nothing wrong in such laughter, for he
even considers it compatible with Divine attributes,[5] Psalm ii, 4,
"He that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in
derision;" and Psalm xxxvii, 13, "The Lord shall laugh at him, for he
seeth that his day is coming."

Nothing can make it more certain than such expressions that the prophets
interpreted the intimations they received from above by clothing them
with their own mundane similitudes.

On the other hand, although David laughed at his enemies, he never seems
to have done so at anything else. He frequently mentio