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I do not think that this was what you might call a mere sentimental longing. David was strong in true and real sentiment; but I do not think that when we have him pictured here longing and sighing, that he was, as some have supposed, merely suffering from passing home-sickness. Some take that view, and imagine that he just momentarily gave way to one of those whims or morbidities that come across the spirits of otherwise brave and earnest men, and make them as weakly sentimental as their neighbours. When I read that "David longed," and I hear his longing set forth, I like to think of him as showing here something of his deepest and best. The Spirit of God would make us know that He understands us when we are like David. There is a depth in us; a deep below, perhaps, what we ourselves, in our commonplaces, were unaware of. The hard-beaten bottom or floor of our soul sometimes gives way. Many a time and oft, when we are not thinking, or ever we are aware, these common, ordinary, worldly hearts of ours are cleft as by a great chasm and depth, through which there comes, like the breath of the mountain wind sighing through a gorge, a great, inexhaustible "Oh!" Like David, we long! "Oh, for youth; oh for renewal; oh for freshness; oh to get rid of what, is making me tame, and flat, and dull; of the earth, earthy; and of the world, worldly!" You see, there was a great deal in that water. There is no water like the water we drank at home, when we were young. Is that sentimental? Is not that feeling derived from something deep and true within the soul? It is more than ordinary water. What memory brings into mind of all the years that have come and gone between! And this "water of the well" is the type, and symbol, and picture of it — the rush of the spring, with the sheen and the bubble of the water, We are not so utterly dead, and dark, and given up as we seem to-day. God can open rivers in dry places. He can pierce down, down through all the mortification and all the corruption; through all the sand and sawdust; all that is earthly and carnal — clown to the quick. Then up there comes that burdened sigh — "Oh for living water! oh for cooling streams!" Rightly used, it leads the longing soul back to more than original purity. And this is also a type of the cry of the backslider who once knew the joys of salvation; who once lived in Bethlehem, the House of Bread; and drank of the well that bubbles up from beneath its walls. Ah, yes, we repeat it again, there is a great deal in a drink, in what it suggests. Oh, may you get that suggestion and the satisfaction of it to-day. "Oh! that I could get back to God, the living God!" Do not go easily over that word: David longed. Oh that God would give us to-day longing hearts, to find Him out. For you will never find out God by greater intellect; never by wider reading and deeper study. This is the road to God; this is the "new organ" by which we receive the truth that alone can satisfy. "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." May it be given us to-day to taste, and see that God is good. David's desire was gratified. The three mighty men said, "He shall have it." Shall I say one had wisdom, and the other love, and the other power; and these three together scattered the powers of Philistia? Oh! don't you see how the Gospel breaks out upon us? You yearn for something the possession of which would be the renewing of your youth; the lack of which is decay; and your longing is heard, and your prayer answered before you know it. The Three Mighties, the Blessed and Glorious Three, Wisdom, Love, Might, have broken the host of the Philistines, and liars brought to us — right to our parched lips — before our sighing is done, that bubbling spring for lack of which we die. I knew the Gospel was there. I knew it when I read the story. I felt it more deeply the longer I studied it. Do not accuse me of dragging things in — of putting the Gospel where it is not. The grand key to open the Old Testament is Christ — put Him in wherever He will fit, and certainly He will fit here. Still further, the story deepens in interest. "Nevertheless, he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord." Here we have the very crown and flower of Gospel teaching. What ought this great love of God to produce in our hearts? What did this great love of these three mighty men produce in David's heart? It begot in him a like spirit again. They flung themselves away for him; he flung himself, and them with him, back Upon God, the Fount and Spring of all. So with us: Christ has brought us pardon, and peace, and everlasting life. But let Christ's sacrifice produce a self-sacrificing spirit in you — as Christ flung Himself away for you, so fling your life away for God — and you will enjoy it. It has been brought to you; lay yourself, body, soul, and spirit, on the altar — it is your reasonable sacrifice. Give now your money, for money is a covenant blessing. It is one rill of the fountain that comes from the well — the spring of Bethlehem.

(J. McNeill.)

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KJV: And three of the thirty chief went down, and came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam: and the troop of the Philistines pitched in the valley of Rephaim.

WEB: Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.