1 To Thee silence is praise, O God, in Zion,
And to Thee shall the vow be paid.
2 O Thou hearer of prayer,
To Thee all flesh comes.
3 Deeds of iniquity have been too strong for me:
Our transgressions--Thou, Thou coverest them.
4 Blessed is he whom Thou choosest and bringest near,
That he may dwell in Thy courts:
We would be filled with the goodness of Thy house,
Thy holy temple.
5 By dread deeds in righteousness Thou dost answer us, O God of our
salvation,
The confidence of all the ends of the earth and of the remotest
sea:
6 Setting fast the mountains by His strength,
Being girded with might,
7 Stilling the roar of the seas, the roar of their billows,
And the tumult of the peoples.
8 So that the inhabitants of the ends [of the earth] become afraid
at Thy signs:
The regions whence morning and evening come forth
Thou makest to shout for joy.
9 Thou hast visited the land and watered it,
Thou enrichest it abundantly [by] a river of God, full of water,
Thou preparest their corn when thus Thou preparest it:
10 Watering its furrows, levelling its ridges,
With showers Thou softenest it,
Its outgrowth Thou dost bless.
11 Thou hast crowned the year of Thy goodness,
And Thy chariot-tracks drop fatness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness drop,
And the heights gird themselves with leaping gladness.
13 The meadows are clothed with flocks,
And the valleys are covered with corn,
They shout for joy, they also sing.
This and the two following psalms form a little group, with one great
thought dominant in each--namely, that God's manifestations of grace
and providence to Israel are witnesses to the world. They all reach
out to "the ends of the earth" in yearning and confidence that God's
name will be adored there, and they all regard His dealings with His
people as His appeals to mankind, which will not always be vain.
Psalm lxv. begins with that privilege of approach to God with which
Psalm lxvi. ends. In both, iniquity in heart is regarded as hindering
access to God; and, in both, the psalmist's experience of answered
prayer is treated as testimony for the world of the blessedness of
worshipping Israel's God. This psalm falls into three parts, which set
forth a threefold revelation of God in His acts. The first (vv. 1-4)
deals with the most intimate privileges of the men who dwell in His
house. The second (vv. 5-8) points to His rule in nature, the tokens
of God's power in the mighty things of creation--mountains, ocean,
day and night, the radiant east, the solemn sunset-west. The third
(vv. 9-13) gives a lovely picture of the annual miracle which brings
harvest joys. The underlying thought binding these three parts into
unity seems to be the witness to God's name which each set of His
acts bears--a witness which "they that dwell in the uttermost parts"
hear sounded in their ears. If this is the true view of the psalm, we
may hear a reminiscence of it in Paul's remonstrance with the rude
Lycaonian peasants: "He left not Himself without witness, in that He
did good, and gave you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling
your hearts with food and gladness."
The first strophe is wholly concerned with the glory of God as
answering prayer. It begins with enigmatical words, which, if the
existing text is adhered to, carry a deep truth. There are two kinds
of prayer--wordless submission of will and spoken vows. The former is
truly praise. The same thought is found in Psalm lxii. It goes down
to the root of the matter. The true notion of prayer is not that of
swaying God's will to gratify ours, but that of bringing ours into
unremonstrating acceptance of His. When the accents of eager desire or
of impatient murmuring and vain sobs and weeping are hushed, the still
soul enters into closeness of communion, else unattainable. Beautiful
and profoundly true as this is, it is not indubitably the psalmist's
meaning; and there is much to be said for the rendering which is adopted
from the LXX. by many commentators, and which only requires a slight
change in the vocalisation--namely, "Praise is meet for Thee." But
that idea is expressed in Psalm xxxiii. 1 by a different word, and the
meaning of the one used here is not _to be suitable for_, but _to be
like_. So that we have to choose between altering the text and then
imposing a somewhat unusual meaning on the word gained, and adhering
to the present reading and gaining a meaning which is admitted to be
"fine" but alleged to be "unbiblical." On the whole, that meaning seems
preferable. The convictions that God accepts silent devotion and answers
vows, so that the thank-offering promised in trouble will be called
for by deliverance, "fill the psalmist with a longing that all mankind
may have recourse to the same Divine Friend" (Cheyne, _in loc._). His
experience of accepted prayers has taught him that it is God's nature
and property to be "the hearer of prayer" (the word is a participle,
expressive of a permanent characteristic), and therefore he is sure that
"all flesh," in its weariness and need of an ear into which to pour
necessities and sorrows, will come to Him. His eye travels far beyond
Israel, and contemplates mankind as coming to worship. But one black
barrier rises between men and God, the separating power of which the
singer has painfully felt. Sin chokes the stream that would flow from
seeking hearts into the ocean of God. The very act of gathering himself
up to pray and praise quickens the sense of sinfulness in the psalmist.
Therefore his look turns swiftly inwards, for the only time in the
psalm. The consciousness of transgression wakes the sense of personality
and isolation as nothing else will, and for one bitter moment the
singer is, as it were, prisoned in the awful solitude of individual
responsibility. His words reflect his vivid sight of his sins in their
manifoldness, for he says that "matters of iniquities" have overcome
him. The exuberant expression is not tautological, but emotional. And
then he passes into sunshine again, and finds that, though he had to be
alone in guilt, he is one of a company in the experience of forgiveness.
Emphatically he reduplicates "Thou" in his burst of confidence in God's
covering of sins; for none but God can cope with the evil things that
are too strong for man. I can neither keep them out, nor drive them
out when they have come in, nor cleanse the stains that their hoofs
have made; but Thou, Thou canst and dost cover them. Is not that an
additional reason for "all flesh" coming to God, and almost a guarantee
that they will?
The strophe ends with an exclamation celebrating the blessedness of
dwelling with God. That refers, no doubt, to Israel's prerogative
of access to the Temple; but the inward and outward are blended, as
in many places in the Psalter where dwelling in the house of the
Lord is yearned for or rejoiced in. The universalism of the psalm
does not forget the special place held by the nation whom God "has
chosen and brought near." But the reality beneath the symbol is too
familiar and sweet to this singer for him to suppose that mere outward
access exhausts the possibilities of blessed communion. It is no
violent forcing more into his words than they contain, if we read in
them deeply spiritual truths. It is noteworthy that they follow the
reference to forgiveness, and, when taken in conjunction therewith,
may be called an itinerary of the road to God. First comes forgiveness
by expiation, for such is the meaning of "covering," Then the cleansed
soul has "access with confidence"; then approaching, it happily dwells
a guest in the house, and is supplied with that which satisfies all
desires. The guest's security in the house of his host, his right to
protection, help, and food, are, as usual, implied in the imagery. The
prerogative of his nation, which the psalmist had in mind, is itself
imagery, and the reality which it shadowed is that close abiding
in God which is possible by faith, love, communion of spirit, and
obedience of life, and which, wherever realised, keeps a soul in a
great calm, whatever tempests rave, and satisfies its truest needs
and deepest longings, whatever famine may afflict the outward life.
Forgiven men may dwell with God. They who do are blessed.
The second strophe (vv. 5-8) celebrates another aspect of God's
manifestation by deeds, which has, in like manner, a message for the
ends of the earth. Israel is again the immediate recipient of God's
acts, but they reverberate through the world. Therefore in ver. 5 the
two clauses are not merely adjacent, but connected. It is because God is
ever revealing Himself to the nation (for the tense of the verb "answer"
expresses continuous action) that He is revealed as the trust of the
whole earth. God's grace fructifies through Israel to all. How clearly
the psalmist had grasped the truth that God has limited the knowledge of
Himself to one spot of earth in order to its universal diffusion!
The light is focussed and set in a tower that it may shine out over sea
and storm. The fire is gathered into a brasier that it may warm all
the house. Some commentators take that strong expression "the trust of
all the ends of the earth" as asserting that even the confidences of
idolaters in their gods are at bottom trust in Jehovah and find their
way to Him. But such a view of idolatry is foreign to the Old Testament,
and is not needed to explain the psalmist's words. God is the only
worthy object of trust, and remains so whether men do in fact trust Him
or not. And one day, thinks the psalmist, God's patient manifestation
of His grace to Israel will tell, and all men will come to know Him for
what He is. "The remotest sea" is not translation, but paraphrase. The
psalmist speaks in vague terms, as one who knew not what lay beyond the
horizon of that little-traversed western ocean. Literally his words
are "the sea of the remote [peoples]"; but a possible emendation has
been suggested, reading instead of _sea_ "regions" or "nations." The
change is slight, and smooths an awkward expression, but destroys the
antithesis of earth and sea, and makes the second clause a somewhat weak
repetition of the first.
From the self-revelation of God in history the psalm passes to His
mighty deeds in nature (vv. 6, 7 _a_), and from these it returns to
His providential guidance of human affairs (ver. 7 _b_). The two
specimens of Divine power celebrated in vv. 6, 7, are suggested by the
closing words of ver. 5. "The ends of the earth" were, according to
ancient cosmography, girdled by mountains; and God has set these fast.
The dash of "the remotest seas" is hushed by Him. Two mighty things
are selected to witness to the Mightier who made and manages them. The
firm bulk of the mountains is firm because He is strong. The tossing
waves are still because He bids them be silent. How transcendently
great then is He, and how blind those who, seeing hill and ocean, do
not see God! The mention of the sea, the standing emblem of unrest
and rebellious power, suggests the "tumult of the peoples," on which
similar repressive power is exercised. The great deeds of God, putting
down tyranny and opposition to Israel, which is rebellion against
Himself, strike terror, which is wholesome and is purified into
reverence, into the distant lands; and so, from the place where the
sun rises to the "sad-coloured end of evening" where it sinks in the
west, _i.e._, through all the earth, there rings out a shout of joy.
Such glowing anticipations of universal results from the deeds of God,
especially for Israel, are the products of diseased national vanity,
unless they are God-taught apprehension of the Divine purpose of
Israel's history, which shall one day be fulfilled, when the knowledge
of the yet more wondrous deeds which culminated in the Cross is spread
to the ends of the earth and the remotest seas.
God reveals Himself not only in the sanctities of His house, nor
in His dread "signs" in nature and history, but in the yearly
recurring harvest, which was waving, as yet unreaped, while the poet
sang. The local colouring which regards rain as the chief factor in
fertility and the special gift of God is noticeable. In such a land
as Palestine, irrigation seems the one thing needful to turn desert
into fruitful field. To "water" the soil is there emphatically to
"enrich" it. The psalmist uses for "river" the technical word for an
irrigation cutting, as if he would represent God in the guise of the
cultivator, who digs his ditches that the sparkling blessing may reach
all his field. But what a difference between men-made watercourses and
God's! The former are sometimes flooded, but often dry; His are full
of water. The prose of the figure is, of course, abundant rain. It
prepares the earth for the seed, and "so" in effect prepares the corn.
The one is the immediate, the other the ultimate issue and purpose.
Spring showers prepare autumn fruits. It is so in all regions of man's
endeavour and of God's work; and it is practical wisdom to train
ourselves to see the assurance of the end in His means, and to be
confident that whatever His doings have a manifest tendency to effect
shall one day be ripened and harvested. How lovingly and patiently
the psalm represents the Divine Husbandman as attending to all the
steps of the process needed for the great ingathering! He guides the
showers, He fills the little valleys of the furrows, and smooths down
the tiny hills of the intervening ridges. He takes charge of the
germinating seed, and His sunshine smiles a benediction on the tender
green blade, as it pricks through the earth which has been made soft
enough for it to pierce from beneath. This unhesitating recognition of
the direct action of God in all "natural" processes is the true point
of view from which to regard them. God is the only force; and His
immediate action is present in all material changes. The Bible knows
nothing of self-moving powers in nature, and the deepest conception of
God's relations to things sensible knows as little. "There is no power
but of God" is the last word of religion and of true philosophy.
The poet stands in the joyous time when all the beauty of summer flushes
the earth, and the harvest is yet a hope, not a possibly disappointing
reality. It is near enough to fill his song with exultation. It is
far enough off to let him look on the whitened fields, and not on the
bristly stubble. So he regards the "crown" as already set on a year of
goodness. He sees God's chariot passing in triumph and blessing over
the land, and leaving abundance wherever its wheel-tracks go. Out in
the uncultivated prairie, where sweet grass unsown by man grows, is the
flush of greenery, where, before the rain, was baked and gaping earth.
The hills, that wear a girdle of forest trees half-way up towards their
barren summits, wave their foliage, as if glad. The white fleeces of
flocks are dotted over the vivid verdure of every meadow, and one cannot
see the ground for the tall corn that stands waiting for the sickle, in
each fertile plain. The psalmist hears a hymn of glad praise rising from
all these happy and sunny things; and for its melody he hushes his own,
that he and we may listen to
"The fair music that all creatures make
To their great Lord."