1 Surely God is good to Israel,
To those who are pure in heart;
2 But I--within a little of turning aside were my feet,
All but slipping were my steps.
3 For I was envious of the foolish,
When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no bonds [dragging them] to death,
And their body is lusty.
5 In the trouble belonging to frail mortals they have no part
And [in common] with men they are not smitten.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
Violence covers them as a robe.
7 Out of fat their eye flashes;
The imaginations of their heart overflow.
8 They mock and speak wickedly of oppression,
[As] from on high they speak.
9 They set in the heavens their mouth,
And their tongue stalks on the earth.
10 Therefore he turns his people thither,
And waters of abundance are drunk up by them.
11 And they say, How does God know?
And is there knowledge in the Most High?
12 Behold! these are wicked,
And, prosperous for ever, they have increased their wealth.
13 Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart,
And in innocency have washed my hands.
14 Yet have I been smitten all the day,
And my correction [came] every morning.
15 If I had said, I will speak thus,
Behold, I should have been unfaithful to the generation of Thy
children.
16 When I gave thought in order to understand this,
It was too difficult in my eyes--
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God,
And gave heed to their end.
18 Surely in slippery places Thou dost set them;
Thou castest them down to ruins.
19 How are they become a desolation in a moment,
Are ended, consumed with terrors!
20 Like a dream on awaking,
So Lord, on [Thy] arousing, Thou wilt despise their shadowy form.
21 For my heart was growing bitter,
And I was pricked [in] my reins.
22 And I, I was brutish and ignorant,
A [very] beast was I before Thee.
23 And yet I, I am continually with Thee;
Thou hast grasped [me] by my right hand
24 In Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me,
And afterwards to glory wilt "take" me.
25 Whom have I in heaven?
And, possessing Thee, I have no delight on earth.
26 [Though] my flesh and my heart fail,
The rock of my heart and my portion is God for ever.
27 For, behold, they that are far from Thee shall perish;
Thou hast destroyed every one that goes whoring from Thee.
28 But I, I--to draw near to God is good to me;
I have made in the Lord Jehovah my refuge,
That I may recount all Thy works.
The perennial problem of reconciling God's moral government with
observed facts is grappled with in this psalm, as in Psalms xxxvii.
and xlix. It tells how the prosperity of the godless, in apparent flat
contradiction of Divine promises, had all but swept the psalmist from
his faith, and how he was led, through doubt and struggle, to closer
communion with God, in which he learned, not only the evanescence of
the external well-being which had so perplexed him, but the eternity
of the true blessedness belonging to the godly. His solution of
the problem is in part that of the two psalms just mentioned, but
it surpasses them in its clear recognition that the portion of the
righteous, which makes their lot supremely blessed, is no mere earthly
prosperity, but God Himself, and in its pointing to "glory" which
comes afterwards, as one element in the solution of the problem.
The psalm falls into two divisions, in the first of which (vv. 1-14) the
psalmist tells of his doubts, and, in the second (vv. 15-28), of his
victory over them. The body of the psalm is divided into groups of four
verses, and it has an introduction and conclusion of two verses each.
The introduction (vv. 1, 2) asserts, with an accent of assurance, the
conviction which the psalmist had all but lost, and therefore had the
more truly won. The initial word "Surely" is an indication of his
past struggle, when the truth that God was good to Israel had seemed
so questionable. "This I have learned by doubts; this I now hold as
most sure; this I proclaim, impugn it who list, and seem to contradict
it what may." The decisiveness of the psalmist's conviction does not
lead him to exaggeration. He does not commit himself to the thesis
that outward prosperity attends Israel. That God is good to those who
truly bear that name is certain; but how He shows His goodness, and
who these are, the psalmist has, by his struggles, learned to conceive
of in a more spiritual fashion than before. That goodness may be
plainly seen in sorrows, and it is only sealed to those who are what
the name of Israel imports--"pure in heart." That such are blessed in
possessing God, and that neither are any other blessed, nor is there
any other blessedness, are the lessons which the singer has brought
with him from the darkness, and by which the ancient faith of the
well-being of the righteous is set on surer foundations than before.
The avowal of conquered doubts follows on this clear note of certitude.
There is a tinge of shame in the emphatic "I" of ver. 2, and in the
broken construction and the change of subject to "my feet" and "my
steps." The psalmist looks back to that dreary time, and sees more
clearly than he did, while he was caught in the toils of perplexity
and doubt, how narrow had been his escape from casting away his
confidence. He shudders as he remembers it; but he can do so now from
the vantage-ground of tried and regained faith. How eloquently the order
of thought in these two verses speaks of the complete triumph over doubt!
In the first quatrain of verses, the prosperity of the godless, which
had been the psalmist's stumbling-block, is described. Two things are
specified--physical health, and exemption from calamity. The former is
the theme of ver. 4. Its first clause is doubtful. The word rendered
"bands" only occurs here and in Isa. lviii. 6. It literally means
bands, but may pass into the figurative signification of pains, and is
sometimes by some taken in that meaning here, and the whole clause as
asserting that the wicked have painless and peaceful deaths. But such
a declaration is impossible in the face of vv. 18, 19, which assert
the very opposite, and would be out of place at this point of the
psalm, which is here occupied with the lives, not the deaths, of the
ungodly. Hupfeld translates "They are without pains even until their
deaths"; but that rendering puts an unusual sense on the preposition
"to," which is not "till." A very plausible conjecture alters the
division of words, splitting the one which means "to their death"
(_l'motham_) into two (_lamo tam_), of which the former is attached
to the preceding words ("there are no pains _to them_" = "they have
no pains"), and the latter to the following clause ("_Sound_ and well
nourished is," etc.). This suggestion is adopted by Ewald and most
modern commentators, and has much in its favour. If the existing
text is retained, the rendering above seems best. It describes the
prosperous worldling as free from troubles or diseases, which would
be like chains on a captive, by which he is dragged to execution.
It thus gives a parallel to the next clause, which describes their
bodies (lit., belly) as stalwart. Ver. 5 carries on the description,
and paints the wicked's exemption from trouble. The first clause is
literally, "In the trouble of man they are not." The word for man here
is that which connotes frailty and mortality, while in the next clause
it is the generic term "Adam." Thus the prosperous worldlings appeared
to the psalmist, in his times of scepticism, as possessing charmed
lives, which were free from all the ills that came from frailty and
mortality, and, as like superior beings, lifted above the universal
lot. But what did their exemption do for them? Its effects might have
taught the doubter that the prosperity at which his faith staggered
was no blessing, for it only inflated its recipients with pride, and
urged them on to high-handed acts. Very graphically does ver. 6 paint
them as having the former for their necklace, and the latter for their
robe. A proud man carries a stiff neck and a high head. Hence the
picture in ver. 6 of "pride" as wreathed about their necks as a chain
or necklace. High-handed violence is their garment, according to the
familiar metaphor by which a man's characteristics are likened to his
dress, the garb of his soul. The double meaning of "habit," and the
connection between "custom" and "costume," suggest the same figure. As
the clothing wraps the body and is visible to the world, so insolent
violence, masterfulness enforced by material weapons and contemptuous
of others' rights, characterised these men, who had never learned
gentleness in the school of suffering. Tricked out with a necklace of
pride and a robe of violence, they strutted among men, and thought
themselves far above the herd, and secure from the touch of trouble.
The next group of verses (vv. 7-10) further describes the unfeeling
insolence begotten of unbroken prosperity, and the crowd of hangers-on,
admirers, and imitators attendant on the successful wicked. "Out of
fat their eye flashes" gives a graphic picture of the fierce glare of
insolent eyes, set in well-fed faces. But graphic as it is, it scarcely
fits the context so well as does a proposed amended reading, which by a
very small change in the word rendered "their eye" yields the meaning
"their iniquity," and takes "fat" as equivalent to a fat, that is, an
obstinate, self-confident, or unfeeling heart. "From an unfeeling heart
their iniquity comes forth" makes a perfect parallel with the second
clause of the verse rightly rendered, "the imaginations of their heart
overflow"; and both clauses paint the arrogant tempers and bearing of
the worldlings. Ver. 8 deals with the manifestation of these in speech.
Well-to-do wickedness delights in making suffering goodness a butt for
its coarse jeers. It does not need much wit to do that. Clumsy jests
are easy, and poverty is fair game for vulgar wealth's ridicule. But
there is a dash of ferocity in such laughter, and such jests pass
quickly into earnest, and wicked oppression. "As from on high they
speak,"--fancying themselves set on a pedestal above the common masses.
The LXX., followed by many moderns, attaches "oppression" to the second
clause, which makes the verse more symmetrical; but the existing
division of clauses yields an appropriate sense.
The description of arrogant speech is carried on in ver. 9, which has
been variously understood, as referring in _a_ to blasphemy against God
("they set against the heavens their mouth"), and in _b_ to slander
against men; or, as in _a_, continuing the thought of ver. 8 _b_, and
designating their words as spoken as if from heaven itself, and in _b_
ascribing to their words sovereign power among men. But it is better
to regard "heaven" and "earth" as the ordinary designation of the
whole visible frame of things, and to take the verse as describing the
self-sufficiency which gives its opinions and lays down the law about
everything, and, on the other hand, the currency and influence which are
accorded by the popular voice to the dicta of prosperous worldlings.
That thought prepares the way for the enigmatic verse which follows.
There are several obscure points in it. First, the verb in the Hebrew
text means _turns_ (transitive), which the Hebrew margin corrects
into _returns_ (intransitive). With the former reading, "his people"
is the object of the verb, and the implied subject is the prosperous
wicked man, the change to the singular "he" from the plural "they" of
the preceding clauses being not unusual in Hebrew. With the latter
reading, "his people" is the subject. The next question is to whom the
"people" are conceived as belonging. It is, at first sight, natural
to think of the frequent Scripture expression, and to take the "his"
as referring to God, and the phrase to mean the true Israel. But the
meaning seems rather to be the mob of parasites and hangers-on, who
servilely follow the successful sinner, in hope of some crumbs from
his table. "Thither" means "to himself," and the whole describes how
such a one as the man whose portrait has just been drawn is sure to
attract a retinue of dependants, who say as he says, and would fain
be what he is. The last clause describes the share of these parasites
in their patron's prosperity. "Waters of abundance"--_i.e._, abundant
waters--may be an emblem of the pernicious principles of the wicked,
which their followers swallow greedily; but it is more probably a
figure for fulness of material good, which rewards the humiliation of
servile adherents to the prosperous worldling.
The next group (vv. 11-14) begins with an utterance of unbelief or
doubt, but it is difficult to reach certainty as to the speakers.
It is very natural to refer the "they" to the last-mentioned
persons--namely, the people who have been led to attach themselves to
the prosperous sinners, and who, by the example of these, are led to
question the reality of God's acquaintance with and moral government
of human affairs. The question is, as often, in reality a denial. But
"they" may have a more general sense, equivalent to our own colloquial
use of it for an indefinite multitude. "They say"--that is, "the
common opinion and rumour is." So here, the meaning may be, that the
sight of such flushed and flourishing wickedness diffuses widespread
and deep-going doubts of God's knowledge, and makes many infidels.
Ewald, Delitzsch, and others take all the verses of this group as
spoken by the followers of the ungodly; and, unquestionably, that
view avoids the difficulty of allotting the parts to different unnamed
interlocutors. But it raises difficulties of another kind--as, for
instance, those of supposing that these adulators should roundly call
their patrons wicked, and that an apostate should profess that he has
cleansed his heart. The same objections do not hold against the view
that these four verses are the utterance, not of the wicked rich man
or his coterie of admirers, but of the wider number whose faith has
been shaken. There is nothing in the verses which would be unnatural
on such lips.
Ver. 11 would then be a question anxiously raised by faith that was
beginning to reel; ver. 12 would be a statement of the anomalous fact
which staggered it; and vv. 13, 14, the complaint of the afflicted
godly. The psalmist's repudiation of a share in such incipient
scepticism would begin with ver. 15. There is much in favour of this
view of the speakers, but against it is the psalmist's acknowledgment,
in ver. 2, that his own confidence in God's moral government had been
shaken, of which there is no further trace in the psalm, unless vv.
13, 14, express the conclusion which he had been tempted to draw, and
which, as he proceeds to say, he had fought down. If these two verses
are ascribed to him, ver. 12 is best regarded as a summary of the
whole preceding part, and only ver. 11 as the utterance either of the
prosperous sinner and his adherents (in which case it is a question
which means denial), or as that of troubled faith (in which case it
is a question that would fain be an affirmation, but has been forced
unwillingly to regard the very pillars of the universe as trembling).
Vv. 15-18 tell how the psalmist strove with and finally conquered his
doubts, and saw enough of the great arc of the Divine dealings, to
be sure that the anomaly, which had exercised his faith, was capable
of complete reconciliation with the righteousness of Providence. It
is instructive to note that he silenced his doubts, out of regard
to "the generation of Thy children"--that is, to the true Israel,
the pure in heart. He was tempted to speak as others did not fear to
speak, impugning God's justice and proclaiming the uselessness of
purity; but he locked his lips, lest his words should prove him untrue
to the consideration which he owed to meek and simple hearts, who
knew nothing of the speculative difficulties torturing him. He does
not say that his speaking would have been sin against God. It would
not have been so, if, in speaking, he had longed for confirmation of
his wavering faith. But whatever the motive of his words, they might
have shaken some lowly believers. Therefore he resolved on silence.
Like all wise and devout men, he swallowed his own smoke, and let the
process of doubting go on to its end of certainty, one way or another,
before he spoke. This psalm, in which he tells how he overcame them,
is his first acknowledgment that he had had these temptations to cast
away his confidence. Fermentation should be done in the dark. When
the process is finished, and the product is clear, it is fit to be
produced and drank. Certitudes are meant to be uttered; doubts are
meant to be struggled with. The psalmist has set an example which many
men need to ponder to-day. It is easy, and it is also cruel, to raise
questions which the proposer is not ready to answer.
Silent brooding over his problem did not bring light, as ver. 16 tells
us. The more he thought over it, the more insoluble did it seem to
him. There are chambers which the key of thinking will not open.
Unwelcome as the lesson is, we have to learn that every lock will not
yield to even prolonged and strenuous investigation. The lamp of the
Understanding throws its beams far, but there are depths of darkness
too deep and dark for them; and they are wisest who know its limits
and do not try to use it in regions where it is useless.
But faith finds a path where speculation discerns none. The psalmist
"went into the sanctuary (literally, sanctuaries) of God," and there
light streamed in on him, in which he saw light. Not mere entrance
into the place of worship, but closer approach to the God who dwelt
there, cleared away the mists. Communion with God solves many problems
which thinking leaves unresolved. The eye which has gazed on God is
purged for much vision besides. The disproportion between the deserts
and fortunes of good and bad men assumes an altogether different
aspect when contemplated in the light of present communion with Him,
which brings a blessedness that makes earthly prosperity seem dross,
and earthly burdens seem feathers. Such communion, in its seclusion
from worldly agitations, enables a man to take calmer, saner views
of life, and in its enduring blessedness reveals more clearly the
transiency of the creatural good which deceives men with the figment
of its permanence. The lesson which the psalmist learned in the solemn
stillness of the sanctuary was the end of ungodly prosperity. That
changes the aspect of the envied position of the prosperous sinner,
for his very prosperity is seen to contribute to his downfall, as well
as to make that downfall more tragic by contrast. His sure footing,
exempt as he seemed from the troubles and ills that flesh is heir to,
was really on a treacherous slope, like smooth sheets of rock on a
mountain-side. To stand on them is to slide down to hideous ruin.
The theme of the end of the prosperous sinners is continued in the
next group (vv. 19-22). In ver. 19 the psalmist seems as if standing
an amazed spectator of the crash, which tumbles into chaos the
solid-seeming fabric of their insolent prosperity. An exclamation
breaks from his lips as he looks. And then destruction is foretold
for all such, under the solemn and magnificent image of ver. 20. God
has seemed to sleep, letting evil run its course; but He "rouses
Himself"--that is, comes forth in judicial acts--and as a dreamer
remembers his dream, which seemed so real, and smiles at its imaginary
terrors or joys, so He will "despise" them, as no more solid nor
lasting than phantasms of the night. The end contemplated by the
psalmist is not necessarily death, but any sudden overthrow, of which
there are many in the experience of the godless. Life is full of such
awakings of God, both in regard to individuals and nations, which,
if a man duly regards, he will find the problem of the psalm less
insoluble than at first it appears. But if there are lives which,
being without goodness, are also without chastisement, Death comes at
last to such as God's awaking, and a very awful dissipating of earthly
prosperity into a shadowy nothing.
The psalmist has no revelation here of future retribution. His
vindication of God's justice is not based on that, but simply on the
transiency of worldly prosperity, and on its dangerous character.
It is "a slippery place," and it is sure to come to an end. It is
obvious that there are many other considerations which have to be
taken into account, in order to a complete solution of the problem
of the psalm. But the psalmist's solution goes far to lighten the
painful perplexity of it; and if we add his succeeding thoughts as to
the elements of true blessedness, we have solution enough for peaceful
acquiescence, if not for entire understanding. The psalmist's way
of finding an answer is even more valuable than the answer which he
found. They who dwell in the secret place of the Most High can look on
the riddle of this painful world with equanimity, and be content to
leave it half unsolved.
Vv. 21, 22, are generally taken as one sentence, and translated as by
Delitzsch, "If my heart should grow bitter ... I should be brutish,"
etc.; or, as by Hupfeld, "When my heart grew bitter ... then I was
as a beast," etc.; but they are better regarded as the psalmist's
penitent explanation of his struggle. "Unbelieving thoughts had
fermented in his mind, and a pang of passionate discontent had pierced
his inmost being. But the higher self blames the lower self for such
folly" (Cheyne, _in loc._). His recognition that his doubts had their
source, not in defect in God's providence, but in his own ignorance
and hasty irritation, which took offence without cause, prepares him
for the sweet, clear note of purely spiritual aspiration and fruition
which follows in the next strophe.
He had all but lost his hold of God; but though his feet had almost gone
astray, his hand had been grasped by God, and that strong hold had kept
him from utterly falling. The pledge of continual communion with God is
not our own vacillating, wayward hearts, but God's gentle, strong clasp,
which will not let us go. Thus conscious of constant fellowship, and
feeling thrillingly God's touch in his inmost spirit, the psalmist rises
to a height of joyous assurance, far above doubts and perplexities
caused by the unequal distribution of earth's trivial good. For him,
all life will be illumined by God's counsel, which will guide him as
a shepherd leads his sheep, and which he will obey as a sheep follows
his shepherd. How small the delights of the prosperous men seem now!
And can there be an end to that sweet alliance, such as smites earthly
good? There are blessings which bear in themselves assurance of their
own undyingness; and this psalmist, who had nothing to say of the future
retribution falling on the sinner whose delights were confined to earth,
feels that death cannot put a period to a union so blessed and spiritual
as was his with God. To him, "afterwards" was irradiated with light
from present blessedness; and a solemnly joyful conviction springs in
his soul, which he casts into words that glance at the story of Enoch's
translation, from which "take" is quoted (_cf._ Psalm xlix. 16). Whether
we translate "with glory" or "to glory," there can be no question that
the psalmist is looking beyond life on earth to dwelling with God in
glory. We have, in this utterance, the expression of the conviction,
inseparable from any true, deep communion with God, that such communion
can never be at the mercy of Death. The real proof of a life beyond the
grave is the resurrection of Jesus; and the pledge of it is present
enjoyment of fellowship with God.
Such thoughts lift the psalmist to a height from which earth's
troubles show small, and as they diminish, the perplexity arising
from their distribution diminishes in proportion. They fade away
altogether, when he feels how rich he is in possessing God. Surely the
very summit of devotional rapture is reached in the immortal words
which follow! Heaven without God were a waste to this man. With God,
he needs not nor desires anything on earth. If the impossible should
be actual, and heart as well as flesh should fail, his naked self
would be clothed and rich, steadfast and secure, as long as he had
God; and he is so closely knit to God, that he knows that he will
not lose Him though he dies, but have Him for his very own for ever.
What care need he have how earth's vain goods come and go? Whatever
outward calamities or poverty may be his lot, there is no riddle in
that Divine government which thus enriches the devout heart; and the
richest ungodly man is poor, because he shuts himself out from the one
all-sufficient and enduring wealth.
A final pair of verses, answering to the introductory pair, gathers
up the double truth, which the psalmist has learned to grasp more
firmly by occasion of his doubts. To be absent from God is to perish.
Distance from Him is separation from life. Drawing near to Him is the
only good; and the psalmist has deliberately chosen it as _his_ good,
let worldly prosperity come or go as it list, or, rather, as God shall
choose. By the effort of his own volition he has made God his refuge,
and, safe in Him, he can bear the sorrows of the godly, and look
unenvying on the fleeting prosperity of sinners, while, with insight
drawn from communion, he can recount with faith and praise all God's
works, and find in none of them a stumbling-block, nor fail to find in
any of them material for a song of thankfulness.