1 Save, Jehovah, for the godly ceases,
For the trusty have vanished from the sons of men.
2 They speak vanity every man with his neighbour;
[With] smooth lip and a heart and a heart do they speak.
3 May Jehovah cut off all smooth lips,
The tongue that speaks proud things,
4 That says, To our tongues we give strength: our lips are our own
(lit. with us);
Who is lord to us?
5 For the oppression of the afflicted, for the sighing of the needy,
Now I will arise, saith Jehovah; I will set him in the safety he
pants for.
6 The words of Jehovah are pure words,
Silver tried in a furnace [and flowing down] to the ground,
purified seven times.
7 Thou, Jehovah, shalt guard them;
Thou shalt preserve him from this generation for ever.
8 All around the wicked swagger,
When vileness is set on high among the sons of men.
One penalty of living near God is keen pain from low lives. The ears
that hear God's word cannot but be stunned and hurt by the babble of
empty speech. This psalm is profoundly melancholy, but without trace
of personal affliction. The psalmist is not sad for himself, but sick
of the clatter of godless tongues, in which he discerns the outcome of
godless lives. His plaint wakes echoes in hearts touched by the love
of God and the visions of man's true life. It passes through four
clearly marked stages, each consisting of two verses: despondent
contemplation of the flood of corrupt talk which seems to submerge all
(1, 2); a passionate prayer for Divine intervention, wrung from the
psalmist by the miserable spectacle (3, 4); the answer to that cry
from the voice of God, with the rapturous response of the psalmist to
it (5, 6); and the confidence built on the Divine word, which
rectifies the too despondent complaint at the beginning, but is still
shaded by the facts which stare him in the face (7, 8).
The cry for help (_Save_, LXX.) abruptly beginning the psalm tells of
the sharp pain from which it comes. The psalmist has been brooding
over the black outlook till his overcharged heart relieves itself in
this single-worded prayer. As he looks round he sees no exceptions to
the prevailing evil. Like Elijah, he thinks that he is left alone, and
love to God and men and reliableness and truth are vanished with their
representatives. No doubt in all such despondent thoughts about the
rarity of Christian charity and of transparent truthfulness there is
an element of exaggeration, which in the present case is, as we shall
see, corrected by the process of God-taught meditation. But the
clearer the insight into what society should be, the sadder the
estimate of what it is. Roseate pictures of it augur ill for the ideal
which their painters have. It is better to be too sensitive to evils
than to be contented with them. Unless the passionate conviction of
the psalmist has burned itself into us, we shall but languidly work to
set things right. Heroes and reformers have all begun with
"exaggerated estimates" of corruption. The judgment formed of the
moral state of this or of any generation depends on the clearness
with which we grasp as a standard the ideal realised in Jesus Christ
and on the closeness of our communion with God.
As in Psalm v., sins of speech are singled out, and of these "vanity"
and "smooth lips with a heart and a heart" are taken as typical. As in
Eph. iv. 25, the guilt of falsehood is deduced from the bond of
neighbourliness, which it rends. The sin, to which a "high
civilisation" is especially prone, of saying pleasant things without
meaning them, seems to this moralist as grave as to most men it seems
slight. Is the psalmist right or wrong in taking speech for an even
more clear index of corruption than deeds? What would he have said if
he had been among us, when the press has augmented the power of the
tongue, and floods of "vanity," not only in the form of actual lies,
but of inane trivialities and nothings of personal gossip, are poured
over the whole nation? Surely, if his canon is right, there is
something rotten in the state of this land; and the Babel around may
well make good men sad and wise men despondent.
Shall we venture to follow the psalmist in the second turn of his
thoughts (vv. 3, 4), where the verb at the beginning is best taken as
an optative and rendered, "May Jehovah cut off"? The deepest meaning
of his desire every true man will take for his own, namely the
cessation of the sin; but the more we live in the spirit of Jesus, the
more we shall cherish the hope that that may be accomplished by
winning the sinner. Better to have the tongue touched with a live coal
from the altar than cut out. In the one case there is only a mute, in
the other an instrument for God's praise. But the impatience of evil
and the certainty that God can subdue it, which make the very nerve
of the prayer, should belong to Christians yet more than to the
psalmist. A new phase of sinful speech appears as provoking judgment
even more than the former did. The combination of flattery and
boastfulness is not rare, discordant as they seem; but the special
description of the "proud things" spoken is that they are denials of
responsibility to God or man for the use of lips and tongue. Insolence
has gone far when it has formulated itself into definite statements.
Twenty men will act on the principle for one who will put it into
words. The conscious adoption and cynical avowal of it are a mark of
defiance of God. "To our tongues we give strength"--an obscure
expression which may be taken in various shades of meaning, _e.g._ as
= We have power over, or = Through, or as to, our tongues we are
strong, or = We will give effect to our words. Possibly it stands as
the foundation of the daring defiance in the last clause of the verse,
and asserts that the speaker is the author of his power of speech and
therefore responsible to none for its use. "Our lips are with us" may
be a further development of the same godless thought. "With us" is
usually taken to mean "our allies," or confederates, but signifies
rather "in our possession, to do as we will with them." "Who is lord
over us?" There speaks godless insolence shaking off dependence, and
asserting shamelessly licence of speech and life, unhindered by
obligations to God and His law.
With dramatic swiftness the scene changes in the next pair of verses
(5, 6). That deep voice, which silences all the loud bluster, as the
lion's roar hushes the midnight cries of lesser creatures, speaks in
the waiting soul of the psalmist. Like Hezekiah with Sennacherib's
letter, he spreads before the Lord the "words with which they reproach
Thee," and, like Hezekiah, he has immediate answer. The inward
assurance that God will arise is won by prayer at once, and changes
the whole aspect of the facts which as yet remain unchanged. The
situation does not seem so desperate when we know that God is moving.
Whatever delay may intervene before the actual Divine act, there is
none before the assurance of it calms the soul. Many wintry days may
have to be faced, but a breath of spring has been in the air, and hope
revives. The twofold reason which rouses the Divine activity is very
strikingly put first in ver. 5. Not merely the "oppression or spoiling
of the meek," but that conjoined with the "sighing of the needy,"
bring God into the field. Not affliction alone, but affliction which
impels to prayer, moves Him to "stir up His strength." "Now will I
arise." That solemn "now" marks the crisis, or turning-point, when
long forbearance ends and the crash of retribution begins. It is like
the whirr of the clock that precedes the striking. The swiftly
following blow will ring out the old evil. The purpose of God's
intervention is the safety of the afflicted who have sighed to Him;
but while that is clear, the condensed language of ver. 5 is extremely
obscure. The A.V.'s rendering, "I will set him in safety from him that
puffeth at him," requires a too liberal use of supplemental words to
eke out the sense; and the rendering of the R.V. (margin), "the safety
he panteth for," is most congruous with the run of the sentence and of
the thought. What has just been described as a sigh is now, with equal
naturalness, figured as a pant of eager desire. The former is the
expression of the weight of the affliction, the latter of yearning to
escape from it. The latter is vain waste of breath unless accompanied
with the former, which is also a prayer; but if so accompanied, the
desire of the humble soul is the prophecy of its own fulfilment: and
the measure of the Divine deliverance is regulated by His servant's
longing. He will always, sooner or later, get "the safety for which he
pants." Faith determines the extent of God's gift.
The listening psalmist rapturously responds in ver. 6 to God's great
word. That word stands, with strong force of contrast, side by side
with the arrogant chatter of irresponsible frivolity, and sounds
majestic by the side of the shrill feebleness of the defiance. Now the
psalmist lifts his voice in trustful acceptance of the oracle.
The general sense of ver. 6 is clear, and the metaphor which compares
God's words to refined silver is familiar, but the precise meaning of
the words rendered "in a furnace on the earth" (R.V.) is doubtful. The
word for "furnace" occurs only here, and has consequently been
explained in very different ways, is omitted altogether by the LXX.,
and supposed by Cheyne to be a remnant of an ancient gloss. But the
meaning of furnace or crucible is fairly made out and appropriate. But
what does "tried in a furnace to the earth" mean? The "on the earth"
of the R.V. is scarcely in accordance with the use of the preposition
"to," and the best course is to adopt a supplement and read "tried in
a furnace [and running down] to the earth." The sparkling stream of
molten silver as, free from dross, it runs from the melting-pot to the
mould on the ground, is a beautiful figure of the word of God, clear
of all the impurities of men's words, which the psalm has been
bewailing and raining down on the world. God's words are a silver
shower, precious and bright.
The last turn of the psalm builds hope on the pure words just heard
from heaven. When God speaks a promise, faith repeats it as a
certitude and prophesies in the line of the revelation. "Thou shalt"
is man's answer to God's "I will." In the strength of the Divine word,
the despondency of the opening strain is brightened. The godly and
faithful shall not "cease from among the children of men," since God
will keep them; and His keeping shall preserve them. "This generation"
describes a class rather than an epoch. It means the vain talkers who
have been sketched in such dark colours in the earlier part of the
psalm. These are "the children of men" among whom the meek and needy
are to live, not failing before them because God holds them up. This
hope is for the militant Church, whose lot is to stand for God amidst
wide-flowing evil, which may swell and rage against the band of
faithful ones, but cannot sweep them away. Not of victory which
annihilates opposition, but of charmed lives invulnerable in conflict,
is the psalmist's confidence. There is no more lamenting of the
extinction of good men and their goodness, neither is there triumphant
anticipation of present extinction of bad men and their badness, but
both are to grow together till the harvest.
But even the pure words which promise safety and wake the response of
faith do not wholly scatter the clouds. The psalm recurs very
pathetically at its close to the tone of its beginning. Notice the
repetition of "the children of men" which links ver. 8 with ver. 1. If
the fear that the faithful should fail is soothed by God's promise heard
by the psalmist sounding in his soul, the hard fact of dominant evil is
not altered thereby. That "vileness is set on high among the sons of
men" is the description of a world turned upside down. Beggars are on
horseback, and princes walking. The despicable is honoured, and
corruption is a recommendation to high position. There have been such
epochs of moral dissolution; and there is always a drift in that
direction, which is only checked by the influence of the "faithful." If
"vileness is set on high among the sons of men," it is because the sons
of men prefer it to the stern purity of goodness. A corrupt people will
crown corrupt men and put them aloft. The average goodness of the
community is generally fairly represented by its heroes, rulers, and
persons to whom influence is given; and when such topsy-turvydom as the
rule of the worst is in fashion, "the wicked walk on every side."
Impunity breeds arrogance; and they swagger and swell, knowing that they
are protected. Impunity multiplies the number; and on every side they
swarm, like vermin in a dirty house. But even when such an outlook
saddens, the soul that has been in the secret place of the Most High and
has heard the words of His mouth will not fall into pessimistic
despondency, nor think that the faithful fail, because the wicked strut.
When tempted to wail, "I, even I only, am left," such a soul will listen
to the still small voice that tells of seven thousands of God's hidden
ones, and will be of good cheer, as knowing that God's men can never
cease so long as God continues.