of the gracious epitomised. III. The promises of grace summarised. IV.
The grandest evidence of grace declared: “_because they trust in him_.”
PSALM XXXVIII.
TITLE.—A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. _David felt as if he
had been forgotten of his God, and, therefore, he recounted his sorrows
and cried mightily for help under them. The same title is given to Psalm
lxx., where in like manner the Psalmist pours out his complaint before
the Lord. It would be foolish to make a guess as to the point in David’s
history when this was written; it may be a commemoration of his own
sickness and endurance of cruelty; it may, on the other hand, have been
composed by him for the use of sick and slandered saints, without
special reference to himself._
DIVISIONS.—_The Psalm opens with a prayer, 1; continues in a long
complaint, 2-8; pauses to dart an eye to heaven, 9; proceeds with a
second tale of sorrow, 10-14; interjects another word of hopeful address
to God, 15; a third time pours out a flood of griefs, 16-20; and then
closes as it opened, with renewed petitioning, 21 and 22._
EXPOSITION.
O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure.
1. “_O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath._” Rebuked I must be, for I am
an erring child and thou a careful Father, but throw not too much anger
into the tones of thy voice; deal gently although I have sinned
grievously. The anger of others I can bear, but not thine. As thy love
is most sweet to my heart, so thy displeasure is most cutting to my
conscience. “_Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure._” Chasten me if
thou wilt, it is a Father’s prerogative, and to endure it obediently is
a child’s duty; but, O turn not the rod into a sword, smite not so as to
kill. True, my sins might well inflame thee, but let thy mercy and
longsuffering quench the glowing coals of thy wrath. O let me not be
treated as an enemy or dealt with as a rebel. Bring to remembrance thy
covenant, thy fatherhood, and my feebleness, and spare thy servant.
2 For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
3 _There is_ no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger;
neither _is there any_ rest in my bones because of my sin.
4 For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden
they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink _and_ are corrupt because of my foolishness.
6 I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day
long.
7 For my loins are filled with a loathsome _disease_: and _there is_
no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart.
2. “_For thine arrows stick fast in me._” By this he means both bodily
and spiritual griefs, but we may suppose, especially the latter, for
these are most piercing and stick the fastest. God’s law applied by the
Spirit to the conviction of the soul of sin, wounds deeply and rankles
long; it is an arrow not lightly to be brushed out by careless
mirthfulness, or to be extracted by the flattering hand of
self-righteousness. The Lord knows how to shoot so that his bolts not
only strike but stick. He can make convictions sink into the innermost
spirit like arrows driven in up to the head. It seems strange that the
Lord should shoot at his own beloved ones, but in truth he shoots at
their sins rather than them, and those who feel his sin-killing shafts
in this life, shall not be slain with his hot thunderbolts in the next
world. “_And thy hand presseth me sore._” The Lord had come to close
dealings with him, and pressed him down with the weight of his hand, so
that he had no rest or strength left. By these two expressions we are
taught that conviction of sin is a piercing and a pressing thing, sharp
and sore, smarting and crushing. Those who know by experience “the
terrors of the Lord,” will be best able to vouch for the accuracy of
such descriptions; they are true to the life.
3. “_There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger._” Mental
depression tells upon the bodily frame; it is enough to create and
foster every disease, and is in itself the most painful of all diseases.
Soul sickness tells upon the entire frame; it weakens the body, and then
bodily weakness reacts upon the mind. One drop of divine anger sets the
whole of our blood boiling with misery. “_Neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin._” Deeper still the malady penetrates, till
the bones, the more solid parts of the system, are affected. No
soundness and no rest are two sad deficiencies; yet these are both
consciously gone from every awakened conscience until Jesus gives
relief. God’s anger is a fire that dries up the very marrow; it searches
the secret parts of the belly. A man who has pain in his bones tosses to
and fro in search of rest, but he finds none; he becomes worn out with
agony, and so in many cases a sense of sin creates in the conscience a
horrible unrest which cannot be exceeded in anguish except by hell
itself.
4. “_For mine iniquities are gone over mine head._” Like waves of the
deep sea; like black mire in which a man utterly sinks. Above my hopes,
my strength, and my life itself, my sin rises in its terror. Unawakened
sinners think their sins to be mere shallows, but when conscience is
aroused they find out the depth of iniquity. “_As an heavy burden they
are too heavy for me._” It is well when sin is an intolerable load, and
when the remembrance of our sins burdens us beyond endurance. This verse
is the genuine cry of one who feels himself undone by his transgressions
and as yet sees not the great sacrifice.
5. “_My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness._” Apply
this to the body, and it pictures a sad condition of disease; but read
it of the soul, and it is to the life. Conscience lays on stripe after
stripe till the swelling becomes a wound and suppurates, and the
corruption within grows offensive. What a horrible creature man appears
to be to his own consciousness when his depravity and vileness are fully
opened up by the law of God, applied by the Holy Spirit! It is true
there are diseases which are correctly described in this verse, when in
the worst stage; but we prefer to receive the expressions as
instructively figurative, since the words “because of my foolishness”
point rather at a moral than a physical malady. Some of us know what it
is to stink in our own nostrils so as to loathe ourselves. Even the most
filthy diseases cannot be so foul as sin. No ulcers, cancers, or
putrifying sores, can match the unutterable vileness and pollution of
iniquity. Our own perceptions have made us feel this. We write what we
do know, and testify what we have seen; and even now we shudder to think
that so much of evil should lie festering deep within our nature.
6. “_I am troubled._” I am wearied with distress, writhing with pain, in
sore travail on account of sin revealed within me. “_I am bowed down
greatly._” I am brought very low, grievously weakened and frightfully
depressed. Nothing so pulls a man down from all loftiness as a sense of
sin and of divine wrath concerning it. “_I go mourning all the day
long._” The mourner’s soul-sorrow knew no intermission, even when he
went about such business as he was able to attend, he went forth like a
mourner who goes to the tomb, and his words and manners were like the
lamentations of those who follow the corpse. The whole verse may be the
more clearly understood if we picture the Oriental mourner, covered with
sackcloth and ashes, bowed as in a heap, sitting amid squalor and dirt,
performing contortions and writhings expressive of his grief; such is
the awakened sinner, not in outward guise, but in very deed.
7. “_For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease_”—a hot, dry,
parching disorder, probably accompanied by loathsome ulcers.
Spiritually, the fire burns within when the evil of the heart is laid
bare. Note the emphatic words, the evil is _loathsome_, it is in the
_loins_, its seat is deep and vital—the man is _filled_ with it. Those
who have passed through the time of conviction understand all this.
“_And there is no soundness in my flesh._” This he had said before, and
thus the Holy Spirit brings humiliating truth again and again to our
memories, tears away every ground of glorying, and makes us know that in
us, that is, in our flesh, there dwelleth no good thing.
8. “_I am feeble._” The original is “benumbed,” or frozen, such strange
incongruities and contradictions meet in a distracted mind and a sick
body—it appears to itself to be alternately parched with heat and
pinched with cold. Like souls in the Popish fabled Purgatory, tossed
from burning furnaces into thick ice, so tormented hearts rush from one
extreme to the other, with equal torture in each. A heat of fear, a
chill of horror, a flaming desire, a horrible insensibility—by these
successive miseries a convinced sinner is brought to death’s door. “_And
sore broken._” Crushed as in a mill, pounded as in a mortar. The body of
the sick man appears to be all out of joint and smashed into a
palpitating pulp, and the soul of the desponding is in an equally
wretched case; as a victim crushed under the car of Juggernaut, such is
a soul over whose conscience the wheels of divine wrath have forced
their awful way. “_I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my
heart._” Deep and hoarse is the voice of sorrow, and often inarticulate
and terrible. The heart learns groanings which cannot be uttered, and
the voice fails to tone and tune itself to human speech. When our
prayers appear to be rather animal than spiritual, they are none the
less prevalent with the pitiful Father of mercy. He hears the murmur of
the heart and the roaring of the soul because of sin, and in due time he
comes to relieve his afflicted.
The more closely the preceding portrait of an awakened soul is studied
in the light of experience, the more will its striking accuracy appear.
It cannot be a description of merely outward disorder, graphic as it
might then be; it has a depth and pathos in it which only the soul’s
mysterious and awful agony can fully match.
9 Lord, all my desire _is_ before thee; and my groaning is not hid
from thee.
9. “_Lord, all my desire is before thee._” If unuttered, yet perceived.
Blessed be God, he reads the longings of our hearts; nothing can be
hidden from him; what we cannot tell to him he perfectly understands.
The Psalmist is conscious that he has not exaggerated, and therefore
appeals to heaven for a confirmation of his words. The good Physician
understands the symptoms of our disease and sees the hidden evil which
they reveal, hence our case is safe in his hands. “_And my groaning is
not hid from thee._”
“He takes the meaning of our tears,
The language of our groans.”
Sorrow and anguish hide themselves from the observation of man, but God
spieth them out. None more lonely than the broken-hearted sinner, yet
hath he the Lord for his companion.
10 My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of
mine eyes, it also is gone from me.
11 My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen
stand afar off.
12 They also that seek after my life lay snares _for me_: and they
that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all
the day long.
13 But I, as a deaf _man_, heard not; and _I was_ as a dumb man
_that_ openeth not his mouth.
14 Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth _are_ no
reproofs.
10. “_My heart panteth._” Here begins another tale of woe. He was so
dreadfully pained by the unkindness of friends, that his heart was in a
state of perpetual palpitation. Sharp and quick were the beatings of his
heart; he was like a hunted roe, filled with distressing alarms, and
ready to fly out of itself with fear. The soul seeks sympathy in sorrow,
and if it finds none, its sorrowful heart-throbs are incessant. “_My
strength faileth me._” What with disease and distraction, he was
weakened and ready to expire. A sense of sin, and a clear perception
that none can help us in our distress, are enough to bring a man to
death’s door, especially if there be none to speak a gentle word, and
point the broken spirit to the beloved Physician. “_As for the light of
mine eyes, it also is gone from me._” Sweet light departed from his
bodily eye, and consolation vanished from his soul. Those who were the
very light of his eyes forsook him. Hope, the last lamp of night, was
ready to go out. What a plight was the poor convict in! Yet here we have
some of us been; and here should we have perished had not infinite mercy
interposed. Now, as we remember the lovingkindness of the Lord, we see
how good it was for us to find our own strength fail us, since it drove
us to the strong for strength; and how right it was that our light
should all be quenched, that the Lord’s light should be all in all to
us.
11. “_My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore._” Whatever
affection they might pretend to, they kept out of his company, lest as a
sinking vessel often draws down boats with it, they might be made to
suffer through his calamities. It is very hard when those who should be
the first to come to the rescue, are the first to desert us. In times of
deep soul trouble even the most affectionate friends cannot enter into
the sufferer’s case; let them be as anxious as they may, the sores of a
tender conscience they cannot bind up. Oh, the loneliness of a soul
passing under the convincing power of the Holy Ghost! “_And my kinsmen
stand afar off._” As the women and others of our Lord’s acquaintances
from afar gazed on his cross, so a soul wounded for sin sees all mankind
as distant spectators, and in the whole crowd finds none to aid. Often
relatives hinder seekers after Jesus, oftener still they look on with
unconcern, seldom enough to do they endeavour to lead the penitent to
Jesus.
12. “_They also that seek after my life lay snares for me._” Alas! for
us when in addition to inward griefs, we are beset by outward
temptations. David’s foes endeavoured basely to ensnare him. If fair
means would not overthrow him, foul should be tried. This snaring
business is a vile one, the devil’s own poachers alone condescend to it;
but prayer to God will deliver us, for the craft of the entire college
of tempters can be met and overcome by those who are led of the Spirit.
“_They that seek my hurt speak mischievous things._” Lies and slanders
poured from them like water from the town-pump. Their tongue was for
ever going, and their heart for ever inventing lies. “_And imagine
deceits all the day long._” They were never done, their forge was going
from morning to night. When they could not act they talked, and when
they could not talk they imagined, and schemed, and plotted. Restless is
the activity of malice. Bad men never have enough of evil. They compass
sea and land to injure a saint; no labour is too severe, no cost too
great if they may utterly destroy the innocent. Our comfort is, that our
glorious Head knows the pertinacious malignity of our foes, and will in
due season put an end to it, as he even now sets a bound about it.
13. “_But I, as a deaf man, heard not._” Well and bravely was this done.
A sacred indifference to the slanders of malevolence is true courage and
wise policy. It is well to be as if we could not hear or see. Perhaps
the Psalmist means that this deafness on his part was unavoidable
because he had no power to answer the taunts of the cruel, but felt much
of the truth of their ungenerous accusations. “_And I was as a dumb man
that openeth not his mouth._” David was bravely silent, and herein was
eminently typical of our Lord Jesus, whose marvellous silence before
Pilate was far more eloquent than words. To abstain from self-defence is
often most difficult, and frequently most wise.
14. “_Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no
reproofs._” He repeats the fact of his silence that we may note it,
admire it, and imitate it. We have an advocate, and need not therefore
plead our own cause. The Lord will rebuke our foes, for vengeance
belongs to him; we may therefore wait patiently and find it our strength
to sit still.
15 For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O LORD my God.
15. David committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, and so in
patience was able to possess his soul. Hope in God’s intervention, and
belief in the power of prayer, are two most blessed stays to the soul in
time of adversity. Turning right away from the creature to the sovereign
Lord of all, and to him as our own covenant God, we shall find the
richest solace in waiting upon him. Reputation like a fair pearl may be
cast into the mire, but in due time when the Lord makes up his jewels,
the godly character shall shine with unclouded splendour. Rest then, O
slandered one, and let not thy soul be tossed to and fro with anxiety.
16 For I said, _Hear me_, lest _otherwise_ they should rejoice over
me: when my foot slippeth, they magnify _themselves_ against me.
17 For I _am_ ready to halt, and my sorrow _is_ continually before
me.
18 For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.
19 But mine enemies _are_ lively, _and_ they are strong: and they
that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.
20 They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because
I follow _the thing that_ good _is_.
16. “_For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me._”
The good man was not insensible, he dreaded the sharp stings of taunting
malice; he feared lest either by his conduct or his condition, he should
give occasion to the wicked to triumph. This fear his earnest desires
used as an argument in prayer as well as an incentive to prayer. “_When
my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me._” The least flaw
in a saint is sure to be noticed; long before it comes to a fall the
enemy begins to rail, the merest trip of the foot sets all the dogs of
hell barking. How careful ought we to be, and how importunate in prayer
for upholding grace! We do not wish, like blind Samson, to make sport
for our enemies; let us then beware of the treacherous Delilah of sin,
by whose means our eyes may soon be put out.
17. “_For I am ready to halt._” Like one who limps, or a person with
tottering footsteps, in danger of falling. How well this befits us all.
“Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” How small a
thing will lame a Christian, how insignificant a stumbling-block may
cause him to fall! This passage refers to weakness caused by pain and
sorrow; the sufferer was ready to give up in despair; he was so
depressed in spirit that he stumbled at a straw. Some of us painfully
know what it is to be like dry tinder for the sparks of sorrow; ready to
halt, ready to mourn, and sigh and cry upon any occasion, and for any
cause. “_And my sorrow is continually before me._” He did not need to
look out of window to find sorrow, he felt it within, and groaned under
a body of sin which was an increasing plague to him. Deep conviction
continues to irritate the conscience; it will not endure a patched-up
peace; but cries war to the knife till the enmity is slain. Until the
Holy Ghost applies the precious blood of Jesus, a truly awakened sinner
is covered with raw wounds which cannot be healed nor bound up, nor
mollified with ointment.
18. “_For I will declare mine iniquity._” The slander of his enemies he
repudiates, but the accusations of his conscience he admits. Open
confession is good for the soul. When sorrow leads to hearty and
penitent acknowledgment of sin it is blessed sorrow, a thing to thank
God for most devoutly. “_I will be sorry for my sin._” My confession
shall be salted with briny tears. It is well not so much to bewail our
sorrows as to denounce the sins which lie at the root of them. To be
sorry for sin is no atonement for it, but it is the right spirit in
which to repair to Jesus, who is the reconciliation and the Saviour. A
man is near to the end of his trouble when he comes to an end with his
sins.
19. “_But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong._” However weak
and dying the righteous man may be, the evils which oppose him are sure
to be lively enough. Neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil, are
ever afflicted with debility or inertness; this trinity of evils labours
with mighty unremitting energy to overthrow us. If the devil were sick,
or our lusts feeble, or Madame Bubble infirm, we might slacken prayer;
but with such lively and vigorous enemies we must not cease to cry
mightily unto our God. “_And they that hate me wrongfully are
multiplied._” Here is another misery, that as we are no match for our
enemies in strength, so also they outnumber us as a hundred to one.
Wrong as the cause of evil is, it is a popular one. More and more the
kingdom of darkness grows. Oh, misery of miseries, that we see the
professed friends of Jesus forsaking him, and the enemies of his cross
and his cause mustering in increasing bands!
20. “_They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries._” Such
would a wise man wish his enemies to be. Why should we seek to be
beloved of such graceless souls? It is a fine plea against our enemies
when we can without injustice declare them to be like the devil, whose
nature it is to render evil for good. “_Because I follow the thing that
good is._” If men hate us for this reason we may rejoice to bear it:
their wrath is the unconscious homage which vice renders to virtue. This
verse is not inconsistent with the writer’s previous confession; we may
feel deeply guilty before God, and yet be entirely innocent of any wrong
to our fellow men. It is one thing to acknowledge the truth, quite
another thing to submit to be belied. The Lord may smite me justly, and
yet I may be able to say to my fellow man, “Why smitest thou me?”
21 Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me.
22 Make haste to help me, O LORD my salvation.
21. “_Forsake me not, O Lord._” Now is the time I need thee most. When
sickness, slander, and sin, all beset a saint, he requires the especial
aid of heaven, and he shall have it too. He is afraid of nothing while
God is with him, and God is with him evermore. “_Be not far from me._”
Withhold not the light of thy near and dear love. Reveal thyself to me.
Stand at my side. Let me feel that though friendless besides, I have a
most gracious and all-sufficient friend in thee.
22. “_Make haste to help me._” Delay would prove destruction. The poor
pleader was far gone and ready to expire, only speedy help would serve
his turn. See how sorrow quickens the importunity of prayer! Here is one
of the sweet results of affliction, it gives new life to our pleading,
and drives us with eagerness to our God. “_O Lord my salvation._” Not my
Saviour only, but my salvation. He who has the Lord on his side has
salvation in present possession. Faith foresees the blessed issue of all
her pleas, and in this verse begins to ascribe to God the glory of the
expected mercy. We shall not be left of the Lord. His grace will succour
us most opportunely, and in heaven we shall see that we had not one
trial too many, or one pang too severe. A sense of sin shall melt into
the joy of salvation; grief shall lead on to gratitude, and gratitude to
joy unspeakable and full of glory.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.