The stability of human good lies with God.
God exalts the horn. God anoints with oil. "The horns in animals, where the Creator alone planted them, were their weapons of defence; and man, who lays all nature under tribute to enrich his stores of images and figures, very early made it synonymous with power, and then for what that will always confer upon the possessor. To exalt the horn means to advance in power, honour, and dominion." The unicorn of Scripture is, in all probability, the wild buffalo. Abbe Huc, in his travels, tells of having heard of an animal resembling the unicorn of heraldry; but we can hardly regard his work as trustworthy. Horns were, and are stilly worn by the women of the Lebanon; but the psalmist is much more likely to take his figure from the common features of animal life than from merely local customs of women. The figure of "anointing with fresh oil" is not easily explained. Attention is due to the suggestion that the use of oil in the toilet was the sign that a man was in health. When a man was sick, he refrained from his customary use of oil. So being anointed came to be the sign of good health. And established health is one of God's best blessings. So we get the two ways in which God secures the stability of the good.
I. HE LIFTS THEM OUT OF, KEEPS THEM ABOVE, THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES. Things may be always tending toward pulling down, depressing their horn. God is always raising it up, and keeping it up. This is a familiar thought to the psalmists: "He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings;" "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."
II. HE RENEWS THEIR OWN VIGOUR AND VITALITY. And so his people are able to keep wrestling with evils, and winning victories over circumstances. God is the secret of stability, because he is both in the circumstances and in us. "What can harm you, if ye be followers of the thing that good is?" What, indeed, seeing that "he who is for you is more than all that be against you."! They who upset your good, must shift God's relations to it, before they can reach you.—R.T.