“No,” I replied; “What danger?” They then told me that, just after they
started, they saw a wild Arab skulking after me, crouching to the
ground, with a musket in his hand; and that, as soon as he had reached
within what appeared to them musket-shot of me, he raised his gun; but,
looking wildly around him, as a man will do who is about to perpetrate
some desperate act, he caught sight of them and disappeared. Jeremiah
knew something of the ways of these Arabs when he wrote, (chap. iii. 2)
“In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness;”
and the simile is used in Psalm x. 9, 10, for the Arabs wait and watch
for their prey with the greatest eagerness and perseverance.—_John
Gadsby, in “My Wanderings,” 1860._
_Verse 8.—“He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the
secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set
against the poor.”_ All this strength of metaphor and imagery is
intended to mark the assiduity, the cunning, the low artifice, to which
the enemies of truth and righteousness will often resort in order to
accomplish their corrupt and vicious designs. The extirpation of true
religion is their great object; and there is nothing to which they will
not stoop in order to effect that object. The great powers which have
oppressed the church of Christ, in different ages, have answered to this
description. Both heathen and papistical authorities have thus
condescended to infamy. They have sat, as it were, in ambush for the
poor of Christ’s flock; they have adopted every stratagem that infernal
skill could invent; they have associated themselves with princes in
their palaces, and with beggars on their dunghill; they have resorted to
the villages, and they have mingled in the gay and populous city; and
all for the vain purpose of attempting to blot out a “name which shall
endure for ever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun.”—_John
Morison._
_Verse 9.—“He doth catch the poor.”_ The poor man is the beast they
hunt, who must rise early, rest late, eat the bread of sorrow, sit with
many a hungry meal, perhaps his children crying for food, while all the
fruit of his pains is served into Nimrod’s table. Complain of this while
you will, yet, as the orator said of Verres, _pecuniosus nescit
damnari_. Indeed, a money-man may not be damnified, but he may be
damned. For this is a crying sin, and the wakened ears of the Lord will
hear it, neither shall his provoked hands forbear it. _Si tacuerint
pauperes loquentur lapides._ If the poor should hold their peace, the
very stones would speak. The fines, rackings, enclosures, oppressions,
vexations, will cry to God for vengeance. “The stone will cry out of the
wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.” Hab. ii. 11. You
see the beasts they hunt. Not foxes, nor wolves, nor boars, bulls, nor
tigers. It is a certain observation, no beast hunts its own kind to
devour it. Now, if these should prosecute wolves, foxes, &c., they
should then hunt their own kind; for they are these themselves, or
rather worse than these, because here _homo homini lupus_. But though
they are men they hunt, and by nature of the same kind, they are not so
by quality, for they are lambs they persecute. In them there is blood,
and flesh, and fleece to be had; and therefore on these do they gorge
themselves. In them there is weak armour of defence against their
cruelties; therefore over these they may domineer. I will speak it
boldly: there is not a mighty Nimrod in this land that dares hunt his
equal; but over his inferior lamb he insults like a young Nero. Let him
be graced by high ones, and he must not be saluted under twelve score
off. In the country he proves a termagant; his very scowl is a prodigy,
and breeds an earthquake. He would be a Cæsar, and tax all. It is well
if he prove not a cannibal! Only Macro salutes Sejanus so long as he is
in Tiberius’s favour; cast him from that pinnacle, and the dog is ready
to devour him.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 9.—“He draweth him into his net.”_ “They hunt with a net.” Micah
vii. 2. They have their politic gins to catch men; gaudy wares and dark
shops (and would you have them love the light that live by darkness, as
many shopkeepers?) draw and tole customers in, where the crafty leeches
can soon feel their pulses; if they must buy, they shall pay for their
necessity. And though they plead, We compel none to buy our ware,
_caveat emptor_; yet with fine voluble phrases, damnable protestations,
they will cast a mist of error before an eye of simple truth, and with
cunning devices hunt them in. So some among us have feathered their
nests, not by open violence, but politic circumvention. They have sought
the golden fleece, not by Jason’s merit, but by Medea’s subtlety, by
Medea’s sorcery. If I should intend to discover these hunters’ plots,
and to deal punctually with them, I should afford you more matter than
you would afford me time. But I limit myself, and answer all their plans
with Augustine. Their tricks may hold _in jure fori_, but not _in jure
poli_—in the common-pleas of earth, not before the king’s bench in
heaven.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 9._—Oppression turns princes into roaring lions, and judges into
evening wolves. It is an unnatural sin, against the light of nature. No
creatures do oppress them of their own kind. Look upon the birds of
prey, as upon eagles, vultures, hawks, and you shall never find them
preying upon their own kind. Look upon the beasts of the forest, as upon
the lion, the tiger, the wolf, the bear, and you shall ever find them
favourable to their own kind; and yet men unnaturally prey upon one
another, like the fish in the sea, the great swallowing up the
small.—_Thomas Brooks._
_Verse 10.—“He croucheth, and humbleth himself,”_ etc. There is nothing
too mean or servile for them, in the attempt to achieve their sinister
ends. You shall see his holiness the Pope washing the pilgrims’ feet, if
such a stratagem be necessary to act on the minds of the deluded
multitude; or you shall see him sitting on a throne of purple, if he
wishes to awe and control the kings of the earth.—_John Morison._
_Verse 10._—If you take a wolf in a lambskin, hang him up; for he is the
worst of the generation.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 11.—“He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten.”_ Is it not a
senseless thing to be careless of sins committed long ago? The old sins
forgotten by men, stick fast in an infinite understanding. Time cannot
raze out that which hath been known from eternity. Why should they be
forgotten many years after they were acted, since they were foreknown in
an eternity before they were committed, or the criminal capable to
practise them? Amalek must pay their arrears of their ancient unkindness
to Israel in the time of Saul, though the generation that committed them
were rotten in their graves. 1 Sam. xv. 2. Old sins are written in a
book, which lies always before God; and not only our own sins, but the
sins of our fathers to be requited upon their posterity. “Behold it is
written.” Isa. lxv. 6. What a vanity is it then to be regardless of the
sins of an age that went before us; because they are in some measure out
of our knowledge, are they therefore blotted out of God’s remembrance?
Sins are bound up with him, as men do bonds, till they resolve to sue
for the debt. “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up.” Hosea xiii. 12. As
his foreknowledge extends to all acts that shall be done, so his
remembrance extends to all acts that have been done. We may as well say,
God foreknows nothing that shall be done to the end of the world, as
that he forgets anything that hath been done from the beginning of the
world.—_Stephen Charnock._
_Verse 11.—“He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his
face; he will never see it.”_ Many say in their hearts, “God seeth them
not,” while with their tongues they confess he is an all-seeing God. The
heart hath a tongue in it as well as the head, and these two tongues
seldom speak the same language. While the head-tongue saith, “We cannot
hide ourselves from the sight of God,” the heart-tongue of wicked men
will say, “God will hide himself from us, he will not see.” But if their
heart speak not thus, then as the prophet saith (Isa. xxix. 15), “They
dig deep to hide their counsel from the Lord;” surely they have a hope
to hide their counsels, else they would not dig deep to hide them. Their
digging is nor proper, but tropical; as men dig deep to hide what they
would not have in the earth, so they by their wits, plots, and devices,
do their best to hide their counsels from God, and they say, “Who seeth,
who knoweth? We, surely, are not seen either by God or man.”—_Joseph
Caryl._
_Verse 11._—The Scripture everywhere places sin upon this root. “_God
hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it._” He hath
turned his back upon the world. This was the ground of the oppression of
the poor by the wicked, which he mentions, verses 9, 10. There is no sin
but receives both its birth and nourishment from this bitter root. Let
the notion of providence be once thrown out, or the belief of it faint,
how will ambition, covetousness, neglect of God, distrust, impatience,
and all other bitter gourds, grow up in a night! It is from this topic
all iniquity will draw arguments to encourage itself; for nothing so
much discountenances those rising corruptions, and puts them out of
heart, as an actuated belief that God takes care of human
affairs.—_Stephen Charnock._
_Verse 11.—“He hath said in his heart,”_ etc. “Because sentence against
an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Eccl. viii. 11. God forbears
punishing, therefore men forbear repenting. He doth not smite upon their
back by correction, therefore they do not smite upon their thigh by
humiliation. Jer. xxxi. 19. The sinner thinks thus: “God hath spared me
all this while, he hath eked out patience into longsuffering; surely he
will not punish.” “_He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten._” God
sometimes in infinite patience adjourns his judgments and puts off the
sessions a while longer; he is not willing to punish. 2 Peter iii. 9.
The bee naturally gives honey, but stings only when it is angered. The
Lord would have men make their peace with him. Isa. xxvii. 5. God is not
like a hasty creditor that requires the debt, and will give no time for
the payment; he is not only gracious, but “waits to be gracious.” (Isa.
xxx. 18); but God by his patience would bribe sinners to repentance; but
alas! how is this patience abused. God’s longsuffering hardens: because
God stops the vials of his wrath, sinners stop the conduit of
tears.—_Thomas Watson._
_Verse 11.—“He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his
face; he will never see it.”_ Because the Lord continues to spare them,
therefore they go on to provoke him. As he adds to their lives, so they
add to their lusts. What is this, but as if a man should break all his
bones because there is a surgeon who is able to set them again?...
Because justice seems to _wink_, men suppose her _blind_; because she
delays punishment, they imagine she denies to punish them; because she
does not always reprove them for their sins, they suppose she always
approves of their sins. But let such know, that the silent arrow can
destroy as well as the roaring cannon. Though the patience of God be
_lasting_, yet it is not _everlasting_.—_William Secher._
_Verses 11, 12, 13._—The atheist denies God’s ordering of sublunary
matters. “Tush, doth the Lord see, or is there knowledge in the Most
High?” making him a maimed Deity, without an eye of providence, or an
arm of power, and at most restraining him only to matters above the
clouds. But he that dares to confine the King to heaven, will soon after
endeavour to depose him and fall at last flatly to deny him.—_Thomas
Fuller._
_Verse 13.—“He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.”_—As
when the desperate pirate, ransacking and rifling a bottom, was told by
the master, that though no law could touch him for the present, he
should answer it at the day of judgment, replied, “If I may stay so long
ere I come to it, I will take thee and thy vessel too.” A conceit
wherewith too many land-thieves and oppressors flatter themselves in
their hearts, though they dare not utter it with their lips.—_Thomas
Adams._
_Verses 13, 14._—What, do you think that God doth not remember our sins
which we do not regard? for while we sin the score runs on, and the
Judge setteth down in that table of remembrance, and his scroll reacheth
up to heaven. Item, for lending to usury; item, for racking of rents;
item, for starching thy ruffs; item, for curling thy hair; item, for
painting thy face; item, for selling of benefices; item, for starving of
souls; item, for playing at cards; item, for sleeping in the church;
item, for profaning the Sabbath-day, with a number more hath God to call
to account, for every one must answer for himself. The fornicator, for
taking of filthy pleasure; the careless prelate, for murthering so many
thousand souls; the landlord, for getting money from his poor tenants by
racking of his rents; see the rest, all they shall come like very sheep
when the trumpet shall sound, and the heaven and earth shall come to
judgment against them; when the heavens shall vanish like a scroll, and
the earth shall consume like fire, and all the creatures standing
against them; the rocks shall cleave asunder and the mountains shake and
the foundation of the earth shall tremble, and they shall say to the
mountain, Cover us, fall upon us, and hide us from the presence of his
anger and wrath, whom we have not cared to offend. But they shall not be
covered and hid; but then shall they go the back way, to the snakes and
serpents, to be tormented of devils for ever.—_Henry Smith._
_Verse 14.—“Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to
requite it with thy hands,”_ etc. This should be a terror to the wicked,
to think that whatsoever they do, they do it in the _sight_ of him that
shall _judge_ them, and call them to a strict account for every thought
conceived against his majesty; and therefore, it should make them afraid
to sin; because that when they burn with lust, and toil with hatred,
when they scorn the just and wrong the innocent, they do all this, not
only _in conspectu Dei_, within the compass of God’s sight, but also in
_sinu diuinitatis_, in the bosom of that Deity, who, though he suffered
them for a time to run on, like “a wild ass used to the wilderness,” yet
he will find them out at the last, and then cut them off and destroy
them. And as this is terror unto the wicked, so it may be a comfort unto
the godly to think that he who should hear their prayers and send them
help, is so near unto them; and it should move them to rely still upon
him, because we are sure of his presence wherever we are.—_G. Williams,
1636._
_Verse 14.—“The poor committeth himself unto thee.”_ The awkwardness of
our hearts to suffer comes much from distrust. An unbelieving soul
treads upon the promise as a man upon ice; at first going upon it he is
full of fears and tumultuous thoughts lest it should crack. Now, daily
resignation of thy heart, as it will give thee an occasion of conversing
more with the thoughts of God’s power, faithfulness, and other of his
attributes (for want of familiarity with which, jealousies arise in our
hearts when put to any great plunge), so also it will furnish thee with
many experiences of the reality both of his attributes and promises;
which, though they need not any testimony from sense, to gain them
credit with us, yet so much are we made of sense, so childish and weak
is our faith, that we find our hearts much helped by those experiences
we have had, to rely on him for the future. Look, therefore, carefully
to this; every morning leave thyself and ways in God’s hand, as the
phrase is. Psalm x. 14. And at night look again how well God hath looked
to his trust, and sleep not till thou hast affected thy heart with his
faithfulness, and laid a stronger charge on thy heart to trust itself
again in God’s keeping in the night. And when any breach is made, and
seeming loss befalls thee in any enjoyment, which thou hast by faith
insured of thy God, observe how God fills up that breach, and makes up
that loss to thee; and rest not till thou hast fully vindicated the good
name of God to thy own heart. Be sure thou lettest no discontent or
dissatisfaction lie upon thy spirit at God’s dealings; but chide thy
heart for it, as David did his. Psalm xlii. And thus doing, with God’s
blessing, thou shalt keep thy faith in breath for a longer race, when
called to run it.—_W. Gurnall._
_Verse 14.—“Thou art the helper of the fatherless.”_ God doth exercise a
more special providence over men, as clothed with miserable
circumstances; and therefore among his other titles this is one, to be a
“_helper of the fatherless_.” It is the argument the church used to
express her return to God; Hosea xiv. 3, “For in thee the fatherless
find mercy.” Now what greater comfort is there than this, that there is
one presides in the world who is so wise he cannot be mistaken, so
faithful he cannot deceive, so pitiful he cannot neglect his people, and
so powerful that he can make stones even to be turned into bread if he
please!... God doth not govern the world only by his will as an absolute
monarch, but by his wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not
his greatest pleasure to show his sovereign power, or his inconceivable
wisdom, but his immense goodness, to which he makes the other attributes
subservient.—_Stephen Charnock._
_Verse 14.—“Thou hast seen it,”_ etc. If God did not see our ways, we
might sin and go unpunished; but forasmuch as he seeth them with purer
eyes than to behold iniquity and approve it, he is engaged both in
justice and honour to punish all that iniquity of our ways which he
seeth or beholdeth. David makes this the very design of God’s
superintendency over the ways of men: “_Thou hast seen it: for thou
beholdest mischief and spite to requite it with thy hand: the poor
committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless._”
Thus the Psalmist represents the Lord as having taken a view or survey
of the ways of men. “_Thou hast seen._” What hath God seen? Even all
that wickedness and oppression of the poor spoken of in the former part
of the Psalm, as also the blasphemy of the wicked against himself (verse
13), “_Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? he hath said in his heart,
Thou wilt not require it._” What saith the Psalmist concerning God, to
this vain, confident man? “_Thou_,” saith he, “_beholdest mischief and
spite_;” but to what purpose? the next words tell us that—“_to requite
it with thy hand_.” As thou hast seen what mischief they have done
spitefully, so in due time thou wilt requite it righteously. The Lord is
not a bare spectator, he is both a rewarder and an avenger. Therefore,
from the ground of this truth, that the Lord seeth all our ways, and
counteth all our steps, we, as the prophet exhorts (Isaiah iii. 10, 11),
may “say to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they
shall eat the fruit of their doings.” We may also say, “Woe unto the
wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be
given him.” Only idols which have eyes and see not, have hands and
strike not.—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verse 14.—“Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to
requite it with thy hand: the poor committeth himself unto thee; thou
art the helper of the fatherless.”_ Let the poor know that their God
doth take care of them, to visit their sins with rods who spoil them,
seeing they have forgotten that we are members one of another, and have
invaded the goods of their brethren; God will arm them against
themselves, and beat them with their own staves; either their own
compassing and over-reaching wits shall consume their store, or their
unthrifty posterity shall put wings upon their riches to make them fly;
or God shall not give them the blessing to take use of their wealth, but
they shall leave to such as shall be merciful to the poor. Therefore let
them follow the wise man’s counsel (Eccles. x. 20), “Curse not the rich,
no, not in thy bedchamber;” let no railing and unchristian bitterness
wrong a good cause; let it be comfort enough to them that God is both
their supporter and avenger. Is it not sufficient to lay all the storms
of discontent against their oppressors, that God sees their affliction,
and cometh down to deliver and avenge them?—_Edward Marbury._
_Verse 14.—“Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to
requite it with thy hand,”_ etc. God considers all your works and ways,
and will not you consider the works, the ways of God? Of this be sure,
whether you consider the ways of God, his word-ways, or work-ways, of
this be sure, God will consider your ways, certainly he will; those ways
of yours which in themselves are not worth the considering or looking
upon, your sinful ways, though they are so vile, so abominable, that if
yourselves did but look upon them and consider them, you would be
utterly ashamed of them; yea, though they are an abomination to God
while he beholds them, yet he will behold and consider them. The Lord
who is of purer eyes than to behold any the least iniquity, to approve
it, will yet behold the greatest of your iniquities, and your impurest
ways to consider them. “_Thou_,” said David, “_beholdest mischief and
spite, to requite it_:” God beholdeth the foulest, dirtiest ways of men,
their ways of oppression and unrighteousness, their ways of intemperance
and lasciviousness, their ways of wrath and maliciousness, at once to
detest, detect, and requite them. If God thus considereth the ways of
men, even those filthy and crooked ways of men, should not men consider
the holy, just and righteous ways of God?—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verses 14-18.—“God delights to help the poor.”_ He loves to take part
with the best, though the weakest side. Contrary to the course of most,
who when a controversy arises use to stand in a kind of indifferency or
neutrality, till they see which part is strongest, not which is justest.
Now if there be any consideration (besides the cause) that draws or
engages God, it is the weakness of the side. He joins with many, because
they are weak, not with any, because they are strong; therefore he is
called _the helper of the friendless, and with him the fatherless_ (the
orphans) _find mercy_. By fatherless we are not to understand such only
whose parents are dead, but any one that is in distress; as Christ
promiseth his disciples; “_I will not leave you orphans_,” that is,
helpless, and (as we translate) _comfortless_; though ye are as children
without a father, yet I will be a father to you. Men are often like
those clouds which dissolve into the sea; they send presents to the
rich, and assist the strong; but God sends his rain upon the dry land,
and lends his strength to those who are weak.... The prophet makes this
report to God of himself (Isaiah xxv. 4): “_Thou hast been a strength to
the poor_, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the
storm,” etc.—_Joseph Caryl._
_Verse 16.—“The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished
out of his land.”_ Such confidence and faith must appear to the world
strange and unaccountable. It is like what his fellow citizens may be
supposed to have felt (if the story be true) toward that man of whom it
is recorded, that his powers of vision were so extraordinary, that he
could distinctly see the fleet of the Carthaginians entering the harbour
of Carthage, while he stood himself at Lilybœum, in Sicily. A man seeing
across an ocean, and able to tell of objects so far off! he could feast
his vision on what others saw not. Even thus does faith now stand at its
Lilybœum, and see the long tossed fleet entering safely the desired
haven, enjoying the bliss of that still distant day, as if it was
already come.—_Andrew A. Bonar._