I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his
people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD _is_ the death of his saints.
O LORD, truly I _am_ thy servant; I _am_ thy servant, _and_ the son of
thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.
I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon
the name of LORD.
I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his
people,
In the courts of the LORD’S house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.
Praise ye the LORD.
This is a Psalm of thanksgiving, in which the Psalmist renders thanks,
after coming out of a most heavy trial, and again rejoices in God;
praising God for having delivered him from the terrors of death, and
from the pains of hell; for by such terms does he express those deep
and heavy spiritual temptations, concerning which he had spoken
before, Psalm vi., which are not known unto all. And the Psalmist
complains also that he suffered all these things, and was thus
overwhelmed and almost destroyed by these heavy trials, because of his
confession of his faith and the truth of God before the world. “I
believed (saith he) and therefore have I spoken:” but I am heavily
afflicted for the word’s sake. For all the saints confess and teach
the righteousness of faith; and, on the other hand, they expose and
condemn all the righteousness, wisdom, and holiness of the world, and
also all hypocrisy, and the outside form of godliness. And this the
world will by no means whatever endure: they ever rage and roar
against it: and they load the godly with every kind of affliction,
because of their unsocial confession: and hence arise all those
terrors without and those fears within, by which the church of Christ
and the saints have ever been afflicted from the kingdom of the devil,
in the midst of which their confession is made.
But amid all these great, and hard, and numerous afflictions of Satan
and the world, the Psalmist has this firm consolation, that his work
and cause are right before God; therefore he comforts and encourages
himself by relying on the word of God, and stirs up and strengthens
himself unto all confidence. “I will take (saith he) the cup of
salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” As if he had said, If
they drink my destruction from the cup of their fury, and hate and
persecute me unto death; what then? “I will take the cup of God’s
salvation and helping grace:” that is (as if he had said), Supporting
and strengthening my faith with the glad word of thy promise, as with
strong and generous wine, I shall be filled with the Spirit, by
drinking of that cup; and, by my continuing to preach and spread the
word, I shall hold out the cup to others also, who confess with me the
same truth, and preach the same word; that they also may draw the same
consolation with me, out of the same most blessed word of the grace of
God.
This (saith the Psalmist) is our case, and this is the way in which we
drink of it and use it. We drink of it ourselves, and then we hold it
out to others, and invite them to drink also; and this is the true
worship of God; and by this we laud and magnify his name. By this
service we truly pay our vows unto God, namely, the vow of the first
commandment, paid unto God by his people; for the greatest and highest
vow of the first commandment is this—God, the true, the living God,
alone shall be our God: we will cleave unto him alone: him only will
we adore; him only will we worship; him only will we seek; on him only
will we call!
As, therefore, in many other Psalms, so also in this, you may see what
is the true sacrifice of praise (of that praise which is wrought in
the heart and in the spirit by the Holy Ghost, and is not lip-service
only.) And in this Psalm you may also see that the true preaching of
the word, and the true confession of the word, before the world, form
the highest and most precious worship of God.