salvation may be made sure to a man. David would never pray for that
which could not be. Nor would Peter charge us with a duty which stood
not in possibility to be performed. 2 Peter i. 10. “Make your election
sure.” And to stop the bawling throats of all cavilling adversaries,
Paul directly proves it: “Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus
Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” 2 Cor. xiii. 5. We may then
know that Christ is in us. If Christ be in us, we are in Christ; if we
be in Christ, we cannot be condemned, for (Rom. viii. 1) “There is no
damnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” But I leave this point
that it may be sure, as granted; and come to ourselves that we may make
it sure. The Papists deny this, and teach the contrary, that salvation
cannot be made sure; much good do it them, with their sorry and
heartless doctrine! If they make that impossible to any which God hath
made easy for many, “into their secret let not my soul come.” Gen. xlix.
6. Observe, 2. That the best saints have desired to make their salvation
sure. David that knew it, yet entreats to know it more. “I know thou
favourest me” (Psalm xli. 11); yet here still, _dic animæ_, “Say _unto
my soul, I am thy salvation_.” A man can never be too sure of his going
to heaven.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 3.—“Say unto my soul.”_ God may speak with _his own voice_; and
thus he gave assurance to Abraham, “Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy
exceeding great reward.” Gen. xv. 1. If God speak comfort, let hell roar
horror. 2. He may speak by _his works_: actual mercies to us demonstrate
that we are in his favour, and shall not be condemned. “By this I know
that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” 3.
He may speak by _his Son_. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matt. xi. 28. 4. He may speak by
_his Scripture_; this is God’s epistle to us, and his letters patent,
wherein are granted to us all the privileges of salvation. A universal
_si quis_; “Whosoever believes, and is baptised, shall be saved.” 5. He
may speak by _his ministers_, to whom he hath given “the ministry of
reconciliation.” 2 Cor. v. 19. 6. He doth speak this by _his Spirit_: he
“sendeth forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba,
Father.” Gal. iv. 6. By all these voices God says to his elect, “_I am
your salvation._”... “_My._” There is no vexation to the vexation of the
soul; so no consolation to the consolation of the soul.... Let this
teach us to make much of this “_My._” Luther says there is great
divinity in pronouns. The assurance that God will save some is a faith
incident to devils. The very reprobates may believe that there is a book
of election; but God never told them that their names were written
there. The hungry beggar at the feast-house gate smells good cheer, but
the master doth not say, “This is provided for thee.” It is small
comfort to the harbourless wretch to pass through a goodly city, and see
many glorious buildings, when he cannot say, _Hæc mea domus_, I have a
place here. The beauty of that excellent city Jerusalem, built with
sapphires, emeralds, chrysolites, and such precious stones, the
foundation and walls whereof are perfect gold (Rev. xxi.), affords a
soul no comfort, unless he can say, _Mea civitas_, I have a mansion in
it. The all-sufficient merits of Christ do thee no good, unless, _tua
pars et portio_, he be thy Saviour. Happy soul that can say with the
Psalmist, “O Lord, thou art my portion!” Let us all have oil in our
lamps, lest if we be then to buy, beg, or borrow, we be shut out of
doors like the fools, not worthy of entrance. Pray, “_Lord, say unto my
soul, I am thy salvation_.” ... Who? What? To whom? When? WHO? _The
Lord!_ To the Lord David prays. He hath made a good choice, for there is
salvation in none other. “Thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy
help.” Hosea xiii. 9. The world fails, the flesh fails, the devil kills.
Only the Lord saves. WHAT? Salvation. A special good thing; every man’s
desire. I will give thee a lordship, saith God to Esau. I will give thee
a kingdom, saith God to Saul. I will give thee an apostleship, saith God
to Judas. But, I will be thy salvation, he says to David, and to none
but saints. To WHOM? “_My salvation._” Not others only, but “_thine_.” A
man and a Christian are two creatures. He may be a man that hath reason
and outward blessings; he is only a Christian that hath faith, and part
in the salvation of Christ. God is plentiful salvation, but it is not
ordinary to find a _cui_—to whom. Much of heaven is lost for lack of a
hand to apprehend it. WHEN? In the present, “_I am._” _Sum, non sufficit
quod ero._ It is comfort to Israel in captivity that God says, _Ero tua
redemptio_, I will redeem thee; but the assurance that quiets the
conscience is this, “_I am thy salvation_.” As God said to Abraham,
“Fear not, I am with thee.” Deferred hope faints the heart. Whatsoever
God forbears to assure us of, oh, pray we him not to delay this, “Lord,
say to our souls, _I am your salvation_.”—_Condensed from Thomas Adams._
_Verse 4.—“Let them be confounded and put to shame.”_ Here David
beginneth his imprecations, which yet, saith Theodoret, he doth not
utter as cursing, but as prophesying rather. If we shall at any time
take upon us thus to imprecate (as we may in some cases), we must see to
it, first, that our cause be good; secondly, that we do it not out of
private revenge, but merely for the glory of God; thirdly, that we utter
not a syllable this way, but by the guidance of God’s good Spirit.—_John
Trapp._
_Verses 4-8, 26._—How are we to account for such prayers for vengeance?
We find them chiefly in four Psalms, the seventh, thirty-fifth,
sixty-ninth, and one hundred and ninth, and the imprecations in these
form a terrible climax. In the last no less than thirty anathemas have
been counted. Are these the mere outbursts of passionate and
unsanctified feeling, or are they the legitimate expression of a
righteous indignation? Are they to be excused as being animated by the
“spirit of Elias?” a spirit not unholy indeed, but far removed from the
meekness and gentleness of Christ; or are they the stereotyped forms in
which the spirit of devotion may utter itself? Are they Jewish only, or
may they be Christian also? An uninstructed fastidiousness, it is well
known, has made many persons recoil from reading these Psalms at all.
Many have found their lips falter when they have been called to join in
using them in the congregation, and have either uttered them with bated
breath and doubting heart, or have interpreted them in a sense widely at
variance with the letter. Some have tried to reconcile them with a more
enlightened conscience, by regarding such words not as the expression of
a wish, but as the utterance of a prediction; the Hebrew optative, which
is distinct enough from the simple future, absolutely forbids this
expedient. Others again would see in them expressions which may lawfully
be used in the soul’s wrestling against spiritual enemies. And finally,
some would defend them as utterances of righteous zeal for God’s honour,
and remind us that if we do not sympathise with such zeal, it may be not
because our religion is more pure, but because our hearts are colder.
Now the real source of the difficulty lies in our not observing and
bearing in mind the essential difference between the Old Testament and
the New. The older dispensation was in every sense a sterner one than
the new. The spirit of Elias, though not an evil spirit, was not the
spirit of Christ. “The Son of Man came not to destroy men’s lives, but
to save them.” Luke ix. 56. And through him his disciples are made
partakers of the same spirit. But this was not the spirit of the older
economy. The Jewish nation had been trained in a sterner school. It had
been steeled and hardened by the discipline which had pledged it to a
war of extermination with idolaters; and however necessary such a
discipline might be, it would not tend to foster the gentler virtues; it
is conceivable how even a righteous man, under it, feeling it to be his
bounden duty to root out evil wherever he saw it, and identifying, as he
did, his own enemies with the enemies of Jehovah, might use language
which to us appears unnecessarily vindictive. To men so trained and
taught, what we call “religious toleration,” was a thing not only wrong,
but absolutely inconceivable.
It may be quite true that we find revenge forbidden as directly in the
Old Testament as in the New, as, for instance, in Lev. xix. 18, “Thou
shalt not avenge,” etc., though even there there is a limitation,
“against the children of thy people.” And it may be no less true that we
find instances of imprecation in the New; as when St. Paul says (2 Tim.
iv. 14), “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward
him according to his works,” or when he exclaims (Acts xxiii. 3), “God
will smite thee, thou whited wall;” or, “If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.” But even these expressions are very
different from the varied, deliberate, carefully-constructed, detailed
anathemas of the Psalms. And our Lord’s denunciations, to which
Hengstenberg refers, are in no way parallel. They are not curses upon
individuals, but in fact solemn utterances of the great truth, “Except
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” But after all, whatever may be
said of particular passages, the general tone which runs through the two
covenants, is unquestionably different. To deny this is not to honour
Moses, but to dishonour Christ. Matt. v. 43; xix. 8. On the other hand,
we must not forget that these imprecations are not the passionate
longing for personal revenge. The singer undoubtedly sees in his enemies
the enemies of God and his church. They that are not with him are
against God. And because the zeal of God’s house even consumes him, he
prays that all the doers of iniquity may be rooted out. The indignation
therefore is righteous, though it may appear to us wrongly directed, or
excessive in its utterance.
Once more, the very fact that a dark cloud hid God’s judgment in the
world to come from the view of the Old Testament saints, may be alleged
in excuse of this their desire to see him take vengeance on his enemies
here. How deeply the problem of God’s righteousness exercised their
minds, is abundantly evident from numerous places in the Psalms. They
longed to see that righteousness manifested. It could be manifested,
they thought, only in the evident exaltation of the righteous, and the
evident destruction of the wicked here. Hence, with their eye always
fixed on temporal recompense, they could even wish and pray for the
destruction of the ungodly. The awful things of the world to come were
to a great extent hid from their eyes. Could they have seen these, then
surely their prayer would have been not, “Let the angel of the Lord
persecute them,” “Blot them out of thy book;” but rather with him who
hung upon the cross; “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do.”—_J. J. Stewart Perowne._
_Verses 4, 8, 26._—David was about as devoid of vindictiveness as any
public character who can well be named. His conduct in relation to Saul,
from first to last displayed a singularly noble spirit, far removed from
anything like the lust of vengeance; and the meekness with which he
endured the bitter reproaches of Shimei, bore witness to the same spirit
after his accession to the throne.
When David’s whole career is intelligently and fairly reviewed, it
leaves on the mind the impression of a man possessed of as meek and
placable a temper as was ever associated with so great strength of will,
and such strong passions. Even in the heats of sudden resentment, he was
not apt to be hurried into deeds of revenge. Such being the case, it
would certainly have been a strange and unaccountable thing if he had
shown himself less the master of his own spirit in poems composed in
seasons of retirement and communion with God, especially since these
very poems express a keen sense of the heinousness of the sin that has
been laid to his charge. He can affirm regarding his implacable enemies,
“As for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my
soul with fasting; and my prayer returned into mine own bosom. I behaved
myself as though he had been my friend or brother: I bowed down heavily,
as one that mourneth for his mother.” Psalm xxxv. 13, 14. “O Lord, my
God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; if I have
rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me (yea, I have delivered
him that without cause is mine enemy): let the enemy persecute my soul,
and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth.” Psalm vii.
3-5. Surely one ought to think twice before putting on the imprecations
an interpretation which would make them utterly incongruous with these
appeals, uttered almost in the same breath.—_William Binnie, D.D._
_Verse 5.—“As chaff.”_ Literally, “As the thistledown.”—_John Morison._
_Verse 6.—“Let their way be dark and slippery.”_ A horrible way!
Darkness alone who feareth not? A slippery way alone who avoids not? In
a dark and slippery way, how shalt thou go? where set foot? These two
ills are the great punishments of men: darkness, ignorance; a slippery
way, luxury. “_Let their way be darkness and slipping; and let the angel
of the Lord persecute them_,” that they be not able to stand. For anyone
in a dark and slippery way, when he seeth that if he move his foot he
will fall, and there is no light before his feet, haply resolving to
wait until light come; but here is the angel of the Lord persecuting
them.—_Augustine._
_Verse 6.—“Slippery.”_ Margin, as in Heb., _slipperiness_. This is a
circumstance which adds increased terror to the image. It is not only a
_dark_ road, but a road made slippery by rains; a road where they are in
danger every moment of sliding down a precipice where they will be
destroyed.—_Albert Barnes._
_Verse 7.—“They hid for me their net in a pit.”_ As if David had said
that they had dug a pit, and covered and hid its mouth with a net, that
I might pass upon it and fall into it.—_Kimchi._
_Verse 8.—“Let destruction come upon him at unawares.”_ Or a storm, such
as is caused in the Eastern countries by a south wind, very sudden,
violent, and destructive.—_John Gill._
_Verse 8.—“Let his net that he hath hid catch himself: into that very
destruction let him fall.”_ By giving Ahithophel rope enough, the Lord
preserved David from perishing. Who will not admire that Goliath should
be slain with his own sword, and that proud Haman should hold Mordecai’s
stirrup, and be the herald of his honour? The wicked shall be undone by
their own doings; all the arrows that they shoot at the righteous shall
fall upon their own pates. Maxentius built a false bridge to drown
Constantine, but was drowned himself. Henry the Third of France was
stabbed in the very same chamber where he had helped to contrive the
cruel massacre of the French Protestants. And his brother, Charles the
Ninth, who delighted in the blood of the saints, had blood given him to
drink, for he was worthy. It is usual with God to take persecutors in
the snares and pits that they have laid for his people, as many
thousands in this nation have experienced; and though Rome and her
confederates are this day a-laying of snares and traps and a-digging of
pits for the righteous, who will rather burn than bow to their Baal, yet
do but wait and weep, and weep and wait a little, and you shall see that
the Lord will take them in the very snares and pits that they have laid
and digged for his people.—_Condensed from Thomas Brooks._
_Verse 8.—“Let his net that he hath hid catch himself.”_ Thou fool, who
opposest thy counsels to those of the Most High. He who devises evil for
another, falls at last into his own pit, and the most cunning finds
himself caught by what he had prepared for another. But virtue without
guile, erect like the lofty palm, rises with greater vigour when it is
oppressed.—_Pietro Metastasio, 1698-1782._
_Verse 9.—“And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord,”_ etc. While some
ascribe to fortune, and others to their own skill, the praise of their
deliverance from danger, and few, if any, yield the whole praise of it
to God, David here declares that he will not forget the favour which God
had bestowed upon him. My soul, says he, shall rejoice, not in a
deliverance of the author of which it is ignorant, but in the salvation
of God. To place the matter in a still stronger light, he assigns to his
very bones the office of declaring the divine glory. As if not content
that his tongue should be employed in this, he applies all the members
of his body to the work of setting forth the praises of God. The style
of speaking which he employs is hyperbolical, but in this way he shows
unfeignedly that his love to God was so strong that he desired to spend
his sinews and bones in declaring the reality and truth of his
devotion.—_John Calvin._
_Verse 10.—“All my bones,”_ etc. These words contain the most vivid
description of the highest delight which by the whole soul and body
should be experienced and openly manifested. He mentions his soul (verse
9) and all his bones as about to take part in the joy, to indicate that
he most heartily and with his whole body was about to rejoice, and that
the joy which he would manifest would not be of an ordinary character,
but of the highest order, so that each several bone should sing forth
the praises of God.—_Hermon Venema, 1697-1787._
_Verse 10.—“All my bones.”_ In the Scriptures emotions are generally
ascribed to the viscera, the bones are usually regarded as passive; in
this place and Psalm li. 8, and in these two places only, exulting joy
is attributed to the bones. Ordinary experience shows us that the
intestines have sympathy with our passionate excitements, but we have no
consciousness of the bones becoming sympathetically sensitive. The
expression therefore is highly poetical, and indicates that the joy
intended would be far beyond ordinary and common delight; it would be so
profound that even the most callous part of the human frame would
partake of it. Doubtless the poetry has a basis of truth in it, for
though we may not perceive it, there is most assuredly a true and real
sympathy with our mental states in every particle of bone and muscle, as
well as in those tender organs which are more apparently affected.—_C.
H. S. Thoughts suggested by a passage in “Biblical Psychology,” by Franz
Delitzsch._
_Verse 10.—“All my bones.”_ That is, whatsoever strength and vigour is
in me it shall be spent in celebrating thy praises. Or, although I have
nothing left me but skin and bones, so poor am I grown, yet I will not
be wanting to the work.—_John Trapp._
_Verse 10._—My bones are riving through my skin, and yet all my bones
are praising him. “I said, I am cast out of thy sight, but I will look
again towards thy holy temple.”—_Thomas Halyburton, 1674-1711._
_Verse 11.—“They laid to my charge things that I knew not.”_ You will
say, Why does God permit wicked people to lay to the charge of the godly
such things as they are clear of: God if he pleased could prevent it,
and stop the mouths of the wicked, that they should not be able to speak
against his children? Answer—As all things work for the best to them
that love God, so this works for the good of God’s people. God doth
permit it for the good of his people, and thus he frustrates the hopes
of the wicked: they intend evil against the godly, and God disposes of
it for good. As Joseph said to his brethren, “You intended evil against
me, and God disposed of it for good;” so we may say to such as falsely
slander God’s people, You intended evil against the people of God, but
God disposes of it for good. There is a fivefold good that God brings
out of it to his people. _First_, God doth by this means humble them,
and brings them to examine what is amiss: so that though they be clear
of that crime laid to their charge, yet they will then examine whether
there be nothing else amiss betwixt God and them; they will search their
hearts, and walk more humbly, and cleave more close to the Lord.
_Secondly_, God doth by this means bring them oftener upon their knees,
to seek unto him, to plead their cause, and to clear their innocency.
How oft did the prophet speak unto God when the wicked did falsely
accuse him; how did he make his moan at the throne of grace unto God,
beseeching him to plead his cause, and to keep him close in his way,
that the wicked might not rejoice at his downfall! So when God’s people
see that it is that which the wicked would have, that which is their
joy, to see the godly fall into such and such a sin; then the godly will
pray more earnestly with David, Lord, lead me in a right path because of
my observers; then they will be earnest with God to keep them from
falling into that sin that the wicked desire they might fall into; and
this is a second good that comes of it. _Thirdly_, God doth use the
reproach of the wicked as a preventing medicine against that crime which
the wicked lay to their charge. The godly have unrenewed nature as well
as renewed, and if God should leave them never so little to themselves,
they are not their own keepers, they might fall into that sin which the
wicked lay to their charge: and every godly man and woman may say when
they are falsely accused, It is God’s mercy that I did not fall into
that sin that lay to my charge. God doth use wicked people’s tongues as
a warning against such a sin, that when they see how the wicked joy at a
brat of their own hatching, then they consider, if the wicked thus joy
without a cause, what would they do if they had just cause? Well, by the
help of God this shall be a warning to me for ever to watch against that
sin: for the time to come I will pray more against that particular sin
than I have done, and watch more against that sin than I have done;
through God’s help they shall never have occasion to rejoice over me in
that kind. Truly, I verily believe many a child of God can say by
experience, I never should have prayed and watched against such a sin so
much, had not God used the tongues of the wicked as preventing physic: I
knew not my own heart, but that I might have fallen into such and such a
sin had not God by this means hedged up my way with thorns; and this is
the third good comes of it. _Fourthly_, God doth by this means exercise
the graces of his people by letting them undergo bad report as well as
good report: he tries whether they will cleave close to him in all
conditions, as Psalm xliv. 15-17. _Fifthly_, God doth by this means
teach them how to judge of others when they are falsely accused. For the
time to come they will not receive a false report against their
neighbour; they will know the truth of a thing before they believe it,
and they know how to comfort others in the like condition; and thus God
disposes of it for good, and thus God makes the wicked the servant of
his people in that very thing which the wicked think to wrong them most
in; for he uses the wicked as the rod and wisp, to scour off the rust of
their graces and to correct their security; and when the rod hath done
its office then it is thrown into the fire: and thus you see how God
disposes of the wicked’s false accusations of his people for
good.—_Zephaniah Smyth’s Sermon, “The Malignant’s Plot,” 1647._
_Verse 12.—“They rewarded me evil for good.”_ For the good David did in
killing Goliath, and slaying his ten thousands of the Philistines, and
thereby saving his king and country, Saul and his courtiers envied him,
and sought to slay him: so our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good he
did to the Jews, by healing their bodies of diseases, and preaching the
gospel to them for the benefit of their souls, was rewarded with
reproaches and persecutions, and at last with the shameful death of the
cross; and in like manner are his people used, but this is an evil that
shall not go unpunished; see Prov. xvii. 13.—_John Gill._
_Verse 12.—“To the spoiling of my soul.”_ They robbed not his body of
goods but his soul of consolation. They bereaved his soul (that is the
word), like a widow who loses her children in whom she delighted and
found succour. They were not content with injuring his estate, but they
were for ruining the man himself by their undeserved malice, they
attacked him in name and reputation, which were as dear to him as his
sons and daughters, or even as his soul. It is evermore an injury to the
soul to be attacked with slander, it puts a man into a warring attitude,
endangers his peace of mind, imperils his enjoyment of quiet
contemplation, and tends to interrupt his communion with God. Thus the
spiritual nature is despoiled and suffers bereavement.—_C. H. S._