Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/353

XXXVII.] And when he came into his harem, the Angel of Death stood there and greeted him with the words, "God has heard thy supplications; now has thy life reached its end."

Then David said, "The Lord's will be done!" and he fell down upon the ground, and expired.

Gabriel descended to comfort Solomon, and to give him a heavenly shroud in which to wrap David. And all Israel followed the bier to Machpelah, where Solomon laid him by the side of Abraham and Joseph.

It will doubtless interest the reader to have an English version of the Psalm supposed to have been composed by David after the slaying of Goliath, which is not included in the Psalter, as it is supposed to be apocryphal.

(Pusillus eram). 1. I was small among my brethren; and growing up in my father's house I kept my father's sheep. 2. My hands made the organ: and my fingers shaped the psaltery. 3. And who declared unto my Lord! He, the Lord, He heard all things. 4. He sent His angel, and He took me from my father's sheep: He anointed me in mercy with His unction. 5. Great and goodly are my brethren: but with them the Lord was not well pleased. 6. I went to meet the stranger: and he cursed me by all his idols. 7. But I smote off his head with his own drawn sword: and I blotted out the reproach of Israel.

This simple and beautiful psalm does not exist in Hebrew, but is found, in Greek, in some psalters of the Septuagint version, headed "A Psalm of David when he had slain Goliath." S. Athanasius mentions it with praise, in his address to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms, and in the Synopsis of Holy Scripture. It was versified in Greek in A.D. 360, by Apollinarius Alexandrinus.