SECTION II.

THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND DOTH SAFELY TRUST IN HER, SO THAT HE SHALL HAVE NO NEED OF SPOIL.

Confidence of such a kind implies not only a conviction of simplicity and guilelessness of character in the wife, but it also assures us of her discretion. No man could safely trust in one whose conduct was not unspotted in all her intercourse with society. The heart of her husband had no care, lest, by any unguarded act, any imprudence on her part, she should bring a reproach upon his name, or a sorrow into his bosom. Such a woman must have shunned even the appearance of evil. She must have acted on the principle of the Hebrew proverb, "A good name is better than precious ointment, and loving favor to be chosen rather than choice gold ;" and, by the uniform consistency of a virtuous life, have gained the entire confidence of him who best knew her character.

But while the text implies this, yet it mainly refers to the assurance entertained by her husband of her care and skill in the management of her household. Archbishop Cranmer renders this passage, "So that he shall fall into no poverty," and Boothroyd translates it, "And of his property he will not be deprived." The Septuagint version understands the word spoil as referring to the woman, and not to her husband; "Such an one as she shall not want good spoils." But in any case it signifies that provident care and management, that looking after the concerns of her family, for which we find her so often commended throughout the poem.

The need of spoil must be explained by a reference to the usages of the Hebrews at this period of society. The Israelites had often obtained spoils in their encounters with neighboring nations. The reign of David had been occupied by continual warfare. The pastoral community at this time were not a tribe of idle shepherds, but those who had been men of war from their youth; and their fre· quent expeditions were regarded as acts of retaliation for similar offences from the herdsmen of neighboring tribes. Saul and David had been great

warriors; and under the latter king, the Israelites had been so trained to military discipline that they appear to have been always victorious in the field, and are frequently represented as sharing that spoil which in the more peaceful days of Solomon was less generally enjoyed. The first public act of Saul had been a battle against Nahash the Ammonite; and in the description of the spoil taken, when Saul and Jonathan, and all the Hebrews, encountered the Philistines, we see the nature of the wealth gained by the Israelites. In the narrative given in 1 Samuel xv., we find that the people flew upon the spoil, and took sheep and oxen and calves. And when, in the following chapter, we read that Saul fought against the Amalekites, and sinned against Jehovah by appropriating, as spoil, those things which he had commanded him to destroy, we find enumerated the sheep and oxen and lambs, which formed the wealth of a pastoral people.

But if Saul, as had been sung by the Hebrew maidens, had slain his thousands, David had slain his tens of thousands, and the records of his life display how much wealth had been gained by the Israelites from their enemies. At the time when David, driven from his home by the jealousy of