I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have
not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.
I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy
faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy
loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation.
Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy
loving-kindness and thy truth continually preserve me.
For innumerable evils have compassed me about; mine iniquities have
taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: they are more
than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.
Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.
Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to
destroy it; let them be driven backward, and put to shame, that wish
me evil.
Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame, that say unto me,
Aha, aha!
Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as
love thy salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified.
But I _am_ poor and needy: _yet_ the LORD thinketh upon me: thou _art_
my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.
This Psalm is a prophecy, and the voice of Christ himself; where
Christ himself says, that he was heard in the midst of his sufferings,
when crying and groaning in the midst of the agony of death. And it is
also a beautiful example and consolation for the whole church, and for
all the members of Christ,—that God will never forsake any of those
that believe in him, when agonizing in the same manner, if they cry
unto him, and call upon him in the midst of the horrible pit and
terrors of death.
The great prophet David, and others like him, published forth Psalms
of this kind, concerning the greatest and most important things of
Christ’s kingdom and people: for the expectation of the Messiah and of
Christ, was a very important matter among the people of God, and
therefore David makes the person of Christ himself speaking.
Christ here plainly says, that he is the one and only person who
fulfils the law, and does the will of God. Here he excludes all others
and their works. “In the volume of the book (says he) it is written of
me.” That is, the promise of blessing and grace, that the seed of the
woman should bruise the serpent’s head, and that in the seed of
Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed, were
concerning me, &c. Thus he rejects and abrogates the whole law, with
all works, sacrifices, and forms of worship; because, by them, the
will of God is not fulfilled.
All our works and sacrifices, therefore, are rejected. Christ here
saith, that he is the sole and only one who pleases God, and fulfils
his will. By these words, therefore, he promises the New Testament;
where there is no righteousness of the law, but the righteousness of
faith, preached in the great congregation: that is, in the whole
world, in all nations. There is no preaching of the righteousness of
the law, which only makes men proud pharisees and hypocrites, who have
not their hope fixed in God, or in the promise of grace, but in their
own righteousness, false holiness, and legal hypocrisy.