1 Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in Thee
2 I have said to Jehovah, Thou art my Lord;
Good for me there is none besides Thee.
3 As for the saints which are in the earth,
They are the excellent, in whom is all my delight.
4 Their griefs are many who change [Jehovah] for another.
I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood,
And will not take their names on my lips.
5 Jehovah is my allotted portion and my cup;
Thou art continually my lot.
6 The measuring lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,
And my inheritance is fair to me.
7 I will bless Jehovah who has given me counsel;
Yea, in the night seasons my reins instruct me.
8 I set Jehovah before me continually,
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart rejoices, and my glory exults;
Yea, my flesh dwells in safety.
10 For Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol;
Thou wilt not suffer Thy Beloved One to see the pit.
11 Thou wilt make me know the path of life;
Before Thy face is fulness of joys;
Pleasures are in Thy right hand for evermore.
The progress of thought in this psalm is striking. The singer is first
a bold confessor in the face of idolatry and apostasy (vv. 1-4). Then
the inward sweetness of his faith fills his soul, as is ever the
reward of brave avowal, and he buries himself, bee-like in the pure
delights of communion with Jehovah (vv. 5-8). Finally, on the ground
of such experience, he rises to the assurance that "its very
sweetness yieldeth proof" that he and it are born for undying life
(vv. 9-11). The conviction of immortality is then most vividly felt,
when it results from the consciousness of a present full of God. The
outpourings of a pure and wholesome mystic religion in the psalm are
so entirely independent of the personality and environment of the
singer that there is no need to encumber the study of it with
questions of date. If we accept the opinion that the conception of
resurrection was the result of intercourse with Persia, we shall have
to give a post-exilic date to the psalm. But even if the general
adoption of that belief was historically so motived, that does not
forbid our believing that select souls, living in touch with God, rose
to it long before. The peaks caught the glow while the valleys were
filled with mists. The tone of the last section sounds liker that of a
devout soul in the very act of grasping a wonderful new thought, which
God was then and there revealing to him through his present
experience, than of one who was simply repeating a theological truth
become familiar to all.
The first turn of thought (vv. 1-4) is clear in its general purport.
It is a profession of personal adherence to Jehovah and of attachment
to His lovers, in the face of idol worship which had drawn away some.
The brief cry for preservation at the beginning does not necessarily
imply actual danger, but refers to the possible antagonism of the idol
worshippers provoked by the psalmist's bold testimony. The two
meanings of Martyr, a witness and a sufferer, are closely intertwined
in fact. He needs to be preserved, and he has a claim to be so, for
his profession of faith has brought the peril.
The remarkable expression in ver. 2 _b_ is best understood as
unfolding the depth of what lies in saying, My God. It means the
cleaving to Him of the whole nature as the all-comprehending supply of
every desire and capacity. "Good for me is none besides Thee." This is
the same high strain as in the cognate Psalm lxxiii. 25, where, as
here, the joy of communion is seen in the very act of creating the
confidence of immortality. The purest expression of the loftiest
devotion lies in these few words. The soul that speaks thus to Jehovah
turns next to Jehovah's friends and then to His foes. To the former it
speaks, in ver. 3, of the gnarled obscurity of which the simplest
clearing up is that adopted by the R.V. This requires a very small
correction of the text, the omission of one letter, (_Waw_ = and)
before "excellent," and the transference to the second clause of
"these," which the accents append clumsily to the first. If we regard
the "to" at the beginning, as the R.V. does, as marking simply
reference ("as for"), the verse is an independent sentence; but it is
possible to regard the influence of "I have said" as still continuing,
and in that case we should have what the psalmist said to the saints,
following on what he said to Jehovah, which gives unity to the whole
context, and is probably best. Cheyne would expunge the first clause
as a gloss crept in from the margin; and that clears the sense, though
the remedy is somewhat drastic, and a fine touch is lost, "I said to
Thy loved ones,--these (and not the braggarts who strut as great men)
are the truly excellent, in whom is all my delight." When temptations
to forsake Jehovah are many, the true worshipper has to choose his
company, and his devotion to his only God will lead to penetrating
insight into the unreality of many shining reputations and the modest
beauty of humble lives of godliness. Eyes which have been purged to
see God, by seeing Him will see through much. Hearts that have learned
to love Jehovah will be quick to discern kindred hearts, and, if they
have found all good in Him, will surely find purest delight in them.
The solitary confessor clasps the hands of his unknown fellows.
With dramatic abruptness he points to the unnamed recreants from
Jehovah. "Their griefs are many--they exchange (Jehovah) for another."
Apparently, then, there was some tendency in Israel to idolatry, which
gives energy to the psalmist's vehement vow that he will not offer
their libations of blood, nor take the abhorred names of the gods they
pronounced into his lips. This state of things would suit but too much
of Israel's history, during which temptations to idol worship were
continually present, and the bloody libations would point to such
abominations of human sacrifice as we know characterised the worship
of Moloch and Chemosh. Cheyne sees in the reference to these a sign of
the post-exilic date of the psalm; but was there any period after the
exile in which there was danger of relapse to idolatry, and was not
rather a rigid monotheism the great treasure which the exiles brought
back? The trait seems rather to favour an earlier date.
In the second section (vv. 5-8) the devout soul suns itself in the
light of God, and tells itself how rich it is. "The portion of mine
inheritance" might mean an allotted share of either food or land, but
ver. 6 favours the latter interpretation. "Cup" here is not so much an
image for that which satisfies thirst, though that would be beautiful,
as for that which is appointed for one to experience. Such a use of
the figure is familiar, and brings it into line with the other of
inheritance, which is plainly the principal, as that of the cup is
dropped in the following words. Every godly man has the same
possession and the same prohibitions as the priests had. Like them he
is landless, and instead of estates has Jehovah. They presented in
mere outward fashion what is the very law of the devout life. Because
God is the only true Good, the soul must have none other, and if it
have forsaken all other by reason of the greater wealth of even
partial possession of Him, it will be growingly rich in Him. He who
has said unto the Lord, "Thou art my Lord," will with ever increasing
decisiveness of choice and consciousness of sufficiency say, "The Lord
is the portion of mine inheritance." The same figure is continued in
ver. 5 _b_. "My lot" is the same idea as "my portion," and the natural
flow of thought would lead us to expect that Jehovah is both. That
consideration combines with the very anomalous grammatical form of the
word rendered "maintainest" to recommend the slight alteration adopted
by Cheyne following Dyserinck and Bickell, by which "continually" is
read for it. What God is rather than what He does is filling the
psalmist's happy thoughts, and the depth of his blessedness already
kindles that confidence in its perpetuity which shoots up to so bright
a flame in the closing verses (cf. lxxiii.). The consciousness of
perfect rest in perfect satisfaction of need and desires ever follows
possession of God. So the calm rapture of ver. 6 is the true utterance
of the heart acquainted with God, and of it alone. One possession only
bears reflection. Whatever else a man has, if he has not Jehovah for
his portion, some part of himself will stand stiffly out, dissentient
and unsatisfied, and hinder him from saying "My inheritance is fair
to me." That verdict of experience implies, as it stands in the
Hebrew, subjective delight in the portion and not merely the objective
worth of it. This is the peculiar pre-eminence of a God-filled life,
that the Infinitely good is wholly Good to it, through all the extent
of capacities and cravings. Who else can say the same? Blessed they
whose delights are in God! He will ever delight them.
No wonder that the psalmist breaks into blessing; but it is deeply
significant of the freedom from mere sentimental religion which
characterises the highest flights of his devotion, that his special
ground of blessing Jehovah is not inward peace of communion, but the
wise guidance given thereby for daily difficulties. A God whose sweet
sufficiency gives satisfaction for all desires and balm for every
wound is much, but a God who by these very gifts makes duty plain, is
more. The test of inward devotion is its bearing on common tasks. True
wisdom is found in fellowship with God. Eyes which look on Him see
many things more clearly. The "reins" are conceived of as the seat of
the Divine voice. In Old Testament psychology they seem to stand for
feelings rather than reason or conscience, and it is no mistake of the
psalmist's when he thinks that through them God's counsel comes. He
means much the same as we do when we say that devout instincts are of
God. He will purify, ennoble and instruct even the lower propensities
and emotions, so that they may be trusted to guide, when the heart is
at rest in Him. "Prayer is better than sleep," says the Mohammedan
call to devotion. "In the night seasons," says the psalmist, when
things are more clearly seen in the dark than by day, many a whisper
from Jehovah steals into his ears.
The upshot of all is a firm resolve to make really his what is his. "I
set Jehovah always before me"--since He is "always my lot." That
effort of faith is the very life of devotion. We have any possession
only while it is present to our thoughts. It is all one not to have a
great estate and never to see it or think about it. True love is an
intense desire for the presence of its object. God is only ours in
reality when we are conscious of His nearness, and that is strange
love of Him which is content to pass days without ever setting Him
before itself. The effort of faith brings an ally and champion for
faith, for "He is at my right hand," in so far as I set Him before me.
"At my right hand,"--then I am at His left, and the left arm wears the
shield, and the shield covers my head. Then He is close by my working
hand, to direct its activity and to lay His own great hand on my
feeble one, as the prophet did his on the wasted fingers of the sick
king to give strength to draw the bow. The ally of faith secures the
stability of faith. "I shall not be moved," either by the agitations
of passions or by the shocks of fortune. A calm heart, which is not
the same thing as a stagnant heart, is the heritage of him who has God
at his side; and he who is fixed on that rock stands four-square to
all the winds that blow. Foolhardy self-reliance says, I shall never
be moved (x. 6), and the end of that boast is destruction. A good man,
seduced by prosperity, may forget himself so far as to say it (xxx.
6), and the end of that has to be fatherly discipline, to bring him
right. But to say "Because He is at my right hand I shall not be
moved" is but to claim the blessings belonging to the possession of
the only satisfying inheritance, even Jehovah Himself.
The heart that expands with such blessed consciousness of possessing
God can chant its triumphant song even in front of the grave. So, in
his closing strain the psalmist pours out his rapturous faith that his
fellowship with God abolishes death. No worthy climax to the profound
consciousness of communion already expressed, nor any satisfactory
progress of thought justifying the "therefore" of ver. 9, can be made
out with any explanation of the final verses, which eliminates the
assurance of immortal life from them. The experiences of the devout
life here are prophecies. These aspirations and enjoyments are to
their possessor, not only authentic proofs "that God is and that He is
the rewarder of the heart that seeks Him," but also witnesses of
immortality not to be silenced. They "were not born for death," but,
in their sweetness and incompleteness alike, point onwards to their
own perpetuity and perfecting. If a man has been able to say and has
said "My God," nothing will seem more impossible to him than that such
a trifle as death should have power to choke his voice or still the
outgoings of his heart towards, and its rest in, his God. Whatever may
have been the current beliefs of the psalmist's time in regard to a
future life, and whether his sunny confidence here abode with him in
less blessed hours of less "high communion with the living God," or
ebbed away, leaving him to the gloomier thoughts of other psalms, we
need not try to determine. Here, at all events, we see his faith in
the act of embracing the great thought, which may have been like the
rising of a new sun in his sky--namely, the conviction that this his
joy was joy for ever. A like depth of personal experience of the
sweetness of communion with God will always issue in like far-seeing
assurance of its duration as unaffected by anything that touches only
the physical husk of the true self. If we would be sure of immortal
life, we must make the mortal a God-filled life.
The psalmist feels the glad certainty in all his complex nature,
heart, soul, and flesh. All three have their portion in the joy which
it brings. The foundation of the exultation of heart and soul and of
the quiet rest of flesh is not so much the assurance that after death
there will be life, and after the grave a resurrection, as the
confidence that there will be no death at all. To "see the pit" is a
synonym for experiencing death, and what is hoped for is exemption
from it altogether, and a Divine hand leading him, as Enoch was led,
along the high levels on a "path of life" which leads to God's right
hand, without any grim descent to the dark valley below. Such an
expectation may be called vain, but we must distinguish between the
form and the substance of the psalmist's hope. Its essence
was--unbroken and perfected communion with God, uninterrupted sense of
possessing Him, and therein all delights and satisfactions. To secure
these he dared to hope that for him death would be abolished. But he
died, and assuredly he found that the unbroken communion for which he
longed was persistent through death, and that in dying his hope that
he should not die was fulfilled beyond his hope.
The correspondence between his effort of faith in ver. 8 and his final
position in ver. 11 is striking. He who sets Jehovah continually before
himself will, in due time, come where there are fulness of joys before
God's face; and he who here, amid distractions and sorrows, has kept
Jehovah at his right hand as his counsellor, defender and companion,
will one day stand at Jehovah's right hand, and be satisfied for
evermore with the uncloying and inexhaustible pleasures that there
abide.
The singer, whose clear notes thus rang above the grave, died and saw
corruption. But, as the apostolic use of this psalm as a prophecy of
Christ's resurrection has taught us, the apparent contradiction of his
triumphal chant by the fact of his death did not prove it to be a vain
dream. If there ever should be a life of absolutely unbroken
communion, that would be a life in which death would be abolished.
Jesus Christ is God's "Beloved" as no other is. He has conquered death
as no other has. The psalm sets forth the ideal relation of the
perfectly devout man to death and the future, and that ideal is a
reality in Him, from whom the blessed continuity, which the psalmist
was sure must belong to fellowship so close as was his with God, flows
to all who unite themselves with Him. He has trodden the path of life
which He shows to us, and it _is_ life, at every step, even when it
dips into the darkness of what men call death, whence it rises into
the light of the Face which it is joy to see, and close to the loving
strong Hand which holds and gives pleasures for evermore.