endeavour to meet the plots of his adversaries by counterplots, nor
imitate their incessant violence, but in direct opposition to their
godless behaviour would continually resort to his God. Thus Jesus did,
and it has been the wisdom of all believers to do the same. As this
exemplifies the contrast of their character, so it will foretell the
contrast of their end—the righteous shall ascend to their God, the
wicked shall sink to ruin. “_And the Lord shall save me._” Jehovah will
fulfil my desire, and glorify himself in my deliverance. The Psalmist is
quite sure. He knows that he will pray, and is equally clear that he
will be heard. The covenant name is the pledge of the covenant promise.
17. “_Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray._” Often, but none
too often. Seasons of great need call for frequent seasons of devotion.
The three periods chosen are most fitting; to begin, continue, and end
the day with God is supreme wisdom. Where time has naturally set up a
boundary, there let us set up an altar-stone. The Psalmist means that he
will always pray; he will run a line of prayer right along the day and
track the sun with his petitions. Day and night he saw his enemies busy
(verse 10), and therefore he would meet their activity by continuous
prayer. “_And cry aloud._” He would give a tongue to his complaint; he
would be very earnest in his pleas with heaven. Some cry aloud who never
say a word. It is the bell of the heart that rings loudest in heaven.
Some read it, “I will muse and murmur;” deep heart-thoughts should be
attended with inarticulate but vehement utterances of grief. Blessed be
God, moaning is translatable in heaven. A father’s heart reads a child’s
heart. “_And he shall hear my voice._” He is confident that he will
prevail; he makes no question that he would be heard, he speaks as if
already he were answered. When our window is opened towards heaven, the
windows of heaven are open to us. Have but a pleading heart and God will
have a plenteous hand.
18. “_He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was
against me._” The deliverance has come. Joab has routed the rebels. The
Lord has justified the cause of his anointed. Faith sees as well as
foresees; to her foresight is sight. He is not only safe but serene,
“_delivered in peace_”—peace in his inmost soul. “_For there were many
with me_;” many contending against me. Or it may be that he thankfully
acknowledges that the Lord raised him up unexpected allies, fetched him
succour when he most needed it, and made the friendless monarch once
more the head of a great army. The Lord can soon change our condition,
and he often does so when our prayers become fervent. The crisis of life
is usually the secret place of wrestling. Jabbok makes Jacob a
prevailing prince. He who stripped us of all friends to make us see
himself in their absence, can give them back again in greater numbers
that we may see him more joyfully in the fact of their presence.
19. “_God shall hear, and afflict them._” They make a noise as well as
I, and God will hear them. The voice of slander, malice, and pride, is
not alone heard by those whom it grieves, it reaches to heaven, it
penetrates the divine ear, it demands vengeance, and shall have it. God
hears and delivers his people, he hears and destroys the wicked. Their
cruel jests, their base falsehoods, their cowardly insults, their daring
blasphemies are heard, and shall be repaid to them by the eternal Judge.
“_Even he that abideth of old._” He sits in eternity, enthroned judge
for evermore; all the prayers of saints and profanities of sinners are
before his judgment-seat, and he will see that justice is done.
“_Selah._” The singer pauses, overwhelmed with awe in the presence of
the everlasting God. “_Because they have no changes, therefore they fear
not God._” His own reverential feeling causes him to remember the daring
godlessness of the wicked; he feels that his trials have driven him to
his God, and he declares that their uninterrupted prosperity was the
cause of their living in such neglect of the Most High. It is a very
manifest fact that long-continued ease and pleasure are sure to produce
the worst influences upon graceless men: though troubles do not convert
them, yet the absence of them makes their corrupt nature more readily
develop itself. Stagnant water becomes putrid. Summer heat breeds
noxious insects. He who is without trouble is often without God. It is a
forcible proof of human depravity that man turns the mercy of God into
nutriment for sin: the Lord save us from this.
20 He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him:
he hath broken his covenant.
21 _The words_ of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war _was_
in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet _were_ they drawn
swords.
20. The Psalmist cannot forget the traitor’s conduct, and returns again
to consider it. “_He hath put forth his hands against such as be at
peace with him._” He smites those to whom he had given the hand of
friendship, he breaks the bonds of alliance, he is perfidious to those
who dwell at ease because of his friendly professions. “_He hath broken
his covenant._” The most solemn league he has profaned, he is regardless
of oaths and promises.
21. “_The words of his mouth were smoother than butter._” He lauded and
larded the man he hoped to devour. He buttered him with flattery and
then battered him with malice. Beware of a man who has too much honey on
his tongue; a trap is to be suspected where the bait is so tempting.
Soft, smooth, oily words are most plentiful where truth and sincerity
are most scarce. “_But war was in his heart._” He brought forth butter
in a lordly dish, but he had a tent-pin ready for the temples of his
guest. When heart and lip so widely differ, the man is a monster, and
those whom he assails are afflicted indeed. “_His words were softer than
oil._” Nothing could be more unctuous and fluent, there were no
objectionable syllables, no jars or discords, his words were as yielding
as the best juice of the olive; “_yet were they drawn swords_,” rapiers
unsheathed, weapons brandished for the fray. Ah! base wretch, to be
cajoling your victim while intending to devour him! entrapping him as if
he were but a beast of prey; surely, such art thou thyself!
22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he
shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
22. “_Thy burden_,” or what thy God lays upon thee, lay thou it “_upon
the Lord_.” His wisdom casts it on thee, it is thy wisdom to cast it on
him. He cast thy lot for thee, cast thy lot on him. He gives thee thy
portion of suffering, accept it with cheerful resignation, and then take
it back to him by thine assured confidence. “_He shall sustain thee._”
Thy bread shall be given thee, thy waters shall be sure. Abundant
nourishment shall fit thee to bear all thy labours and trials. As thy
days so shall thy strength be. “_He shall never suffer the righteous to
be moved._” He may move like the boughs of a tree in the tempest, but he
shall never be moved like a tree torn up by the roots. He stands firm
who stands in God. Many would destroy the saints, but God has not
suffered it, and never will. Like pillars, the godly stand immovable, to
the glory of the Great Architect.
23 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of
destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their
days: but I will trust in thee.
23. For the ungodly a sure, terrible, and fatal overthrow is appointed.
Climb as they may, _the pit_ yawns for them, God himself will cause them
to descend into it, and _destruction_ there shall be their portion.
“_Bloody and deceitful men_,” with double iniquity of cruelty and craft
upon them, “_shall not live out half their days_;” they shall be cut off
in their quarrels, or being disappointed in their artifices, vexation
shall end them. They were in heart murderers of others, and they became
in reality self-murderers. Doubt not that virtue lengthens life, and
that vice tends to shorten it. “_But I will trust in thee._” A very
wise, practical conclusion. We can have no better ground of confidence.
The Lord is all, and more than all that faith can need as the foundation
of peaceful dependence. Lord, increase our faith evermore.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
_Title.—Maschil._ This is often prefixed to those Psalms in which David
speaks of himself as being chastened by God, inasmuch as the end of
chastisement is instruction.—_Simon de Muis, 1587-1644._
_Whole Psalm._—A prayer of the Man Christ in his humiliation, despised
and rejected of men, when he was made sin for his people, that they
might he made the righteousness of God in him, when he was about to
suffer their punishment, pay their debt, and discharge their ransom.
Utter depravity of the inhabitants of Jerusalem; betrayment of Messiah
by one of the twelve whom he had ordained to the apostolical office, and
who was Messiah’s constant attendant in all his ministerial circuits.
Premature and punitive death of the traitor Judas, and of others banded
together to crucify the Lord of glory.—_John Noble Coleman, M.A., in “A
Revision of the authorised English Versions of the Book of Psalms,”
1863._
_Verse 1._—In the first clause he uses the word תְּפִלָּתִי, that he
might indicate that he merely sought justice from God as a Judge; but in
the second he implores the _favour of God_, that if perchance the prayer
for _justice_ be less becoming to himself as a sinner, God may not deny
his grace.—_Hermann Venema._
_Verse 1.—“Hide not thyself from my supplication.”_ A figure taken from
the conduct of a king who debars an offender from seeing his face (2
Sam. xiv. 24), or from an enemy, who conceals himself from the ox, etc.;
that is, pretends not to see it, and goes away, leaving it (see Deut.
xxii. 1, 3, 4; and Isa. lviii. 7); or, from a false friend, or an unkind
person, who, foreseeing that he may be entreated by a miserable and
needy man, will not let himself be seen, but seeks to make
escape.—_Martin Geier, 1614-1681._
_Verse 2.—“I mourn.”_ As one cast down with sorrow, making a doleful
noise.—_Henry Ainsworth, 1622._
_Verse 2.—“I mourn,”_ etc. A mourning suppliant shall neither lose his
prayers nor his tears; for, “_I mourn_,” is brought for a reason of his
hope that God shall attend and hear him.—_David Dickson._
_Verse 2.—“I mourn in my complaint.”_ The literal translation of these
words is, _I will suffer to wander in my thinking_; _i.e._, I will let
my mind wander, or my thoughts rove as they will.—_J. A. Alexander._
_Verse 2.—“In my complaint.”_ Saints have their complaints on account of
their sins and corruptions, their barrenness and unfruitfulness, and the
decay of vital religion in them, and because of the low estate of Zion,
the declining state of the interest of Christ, and the little success of
his gospel; and they mourn, in these complaints, over their own sins,
and the sins of others, professors and profane, and under afflictions
temporal and spiritual, both their own and the church’s. Christ also in
the days of his flesh, had his complaints of the perverseness and
faithlessness of the generation of men among whom he lived; of the
frowardness, pride, and contentions, of his disciples; of the
reproaches, insult, and injuries of his enemies; and of the dereliction
of his God and Father; and he often mourned on account of one or other
of these things, being a man of sorrows and acquainted with
griefs.—_John Gill._
_Verse 2.—“In my complaint.”_ The word here employed commonly means
discourse, meditation. It here occurs in the sense of _complaint_, as in
Job vii. 13; ix. 27; xxi. 4; xxiii. 2; Ps. cxlii. 2; 1 Sam. i. 16. It is
not used, however, to denote complaint in the sense of fault-finding,
complaining, accusing, or the idea that we have been dealt with
unjustly. This is not the meaning in this place or in the Scriptures
generally. It is the language of a _troubled_, not of an _injured_
spirit.—_Albert Barnes, 1868._
_Verse 2._—In confession, when the soul melts into a holy shame and
sorrow for the sins he spreads before the Lord, he feels a holy smart
and pain within, and doth not act a tragical part with a comical heart.
Chrysostom saith, “To paint tears is worse than to paint the face.” Here
is true fervency, “_I mourn in my complaint and make a noise._” There
may be fire in the pan when there is none in the piece; a loud wind but
no rain with it. David made a noise with his voice, and mourned in his
spirit.—_William Gurnall, 1617-1679._
_Verse 3.—“Because of the voice of the enemy,”_ there is their railing;
“_because of the oppression of the wicked_,” there is their violent
robbing him of his estate; “_they cast iniquity upon me_,” there are
their slanderous traducings of him, and charging him with faults
falsely; “_in wrath they hate me_,” there is their cruel seeking to
kill.—_David Dickson._
_Verse 3.—“For they cast iniquity upon me.”_ They tumble it on me, as
men do stones or anything else upon their besiegers, to endamage them;
so did these sin, shame, anything, upon innocent David, to make him
odious.—_John Trapp._
_Verse 4.—“Is sore pained,”_ or, _trembleth with pain_. The word usually
meaneth such _pains as a woman feeleth in her travail_.—_Henry
Ainsworth._
_Verse 4.—“The terrors of death are fallen upon me.”_ “_My heart_,” said
the afflicted Psalmist, “_is sore pained within me_;” and though I am
repeatedly assured of my interest in the divine love and favour, yet now
“_the terrors of death are fallen upon me_.” The case of David is so far
from being peculiar to himself, that it portrays in the most striking
colours, a state of mind to which many of the most exemplary Christians
are frequently, if not constantly, subject. Many, whose hopes are placed
on the right foundation, even Christ Jesus, and whose conduct is uniform
and consistent, are yet harassed almost continually by the tormenting
fears of death.... It will be an interesting and useful enquiry to
examine into the real causes of a fear, which cultivates melancholy and
despondency on the one hand and destroys our happiness on the other. To
effect this design I shall consider, I. The various causes of the fear
of death. II. The arguments calculated to remove it. There are few,
indeed, so hardened in the slavery of vice, or so utterly regardless of
every admonition, as to consider the awful period of dissolution without
some emotions of terror and dismay. There is something so peculiarly
awful in the idea of a change hitherto unknown, and of a state hitherto
untried, that the most hardy veterans have owned its tremendous
aspects.... One of the first causes of the fear of death is _conscious
guilt_. The most hardened are conscious of many things which they may
not readily confess; and the most self-righteous is conscious of many
crimes which he artfully studies to conceal. Whilst the Christian is
looking only to his own habits and temper, he may and will be always
wretched; but if he looks to the great Surety, Christ Jesus, his gloomy
prospect will soon be turned to joy. An _attachment to this world_ is
also a (second) cause of the fear of death. A principle of
self-preservation is also a (third) cause of the fear of death. That our
bodies, which are pampered by pride and nourished by indulgence, should
be consigned to the silent grave, and become even the food of worms, is
a humbling reflection to the boasted dignity of man. Besides, nature
revolts at the idea of its own dissolution; hence a desire of preserving
life, evidently implanted in us. The devil is also (fourthly) often
permitted to terrify the consciences of men, and thereby increase at
least the fear of death. Unbelief is also a (fifth) cause of the fear of
death. Were our faith more frequently in exercise, we should be enabled
to look beyond the dreary mansions of the grave with a hope full of
immortality. Our fears of death may be often caused by looking for that
perfection in ourselves, which we shall never easily discover. II.
Consider the arguments calculated to remove the fear of death. It may be
necessary to premise that the consolations of religion belong only to
real Christians; for the wicked have just reason to dread the approach
of death. But to such as are humbled under a sense of their own
unworthiness, and who have fled to Christ for pardon and salvation, they
have no cause to apprehend either the pain or the consequences of death;
because first, the sting of death is taken away. Secondly, because death
is no longer an enemy but a friend. Instead of threatening us with
misery, it invites us to happiness. Thirdly, the safety of our state is
founded on the oath, the purpose, and promise of God. A fourth argument
calculated to remove the fear of death, is the consideration of the
benefits resulting from it. The benefits which believers receive from
Christ at the resurrection also, is a fifth argument calculated to
remove the fear of death.—_Condensed from a Sermon by John Grove, M.A.,
F.A.S., 1802._
_Verses 4, 5._—In the version of the Psalter used in the Prayer-book,
this verse stands with a more homely and expressive simplicity, “My
heart is disquieted within me, and the fear of death is fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and an horrible dread hath
overwhelmed me.” The fear of death is upon all flesh. It is no sign of
manhood to be without it. To overcome it in the way of duty is courage;
to meet death with patience is faith; but not to fear it is either a
gift of special grace, or a dangerous insensibility. No doubt great
saints have been able to say, “I have a desire to depart.” And many have
rushed to martyrdom, as to the love and bosom of their Lord; but for the
rest, the multitude of his flock, who are neither wilful sinners, nor to
be numbered among the saints, the thought of death is a thought of fear.
We see that, on the first feeling of their having so much as set foot in
the path leading to the grave, even good men feel the “terror of death,”
“a horrible dread,” which makes every pulse to beat with a hurried and
vehement speed. Their whole nature, both in body and in soul, trembles
to its very centre; and their heart is “disquieted,” “sore pained,”
within them....
Let us see what are the causes or reasons of this “fear of death.” The
fact must needs be a consciousness of personal sinfulness. A sense of
unfitness to meet God, our unreadiness to die, a multitude of personal
faults, evil tempers, thoughts, and inclinations; the recollection of
innumerable sins, of great omissions and lukewarmness in all religious
duties, the little love or gratitude we have to God, and the great
imperfection of our repentance; all these make us tremble at the thought
of going to give up our account. We feel as if it were impossible we
could be saved. Shame, fear, and a “horrible dread,” fall upon
us.—_Henry Edward Manning, M.A., 1850._
_Verse 5.—“Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me.”_ In this pitiful
condition of mind, learn, that it is not a thing inconsistent with
godliness to be much moved with fear in time of danger; natural
affections are not taken away in conversion, but sanctified and
moderated.—_Daniel Dickson._
_Verse 5.—“Fearfulness.”_ How natural is this description! He is _in
distress_, he _mourns_, _makes a noise_, _sobs_ and _sighs_, his _heart
is wounded_, he expects nothing but _death_; this produces _fear_, this
produces _tremor_, which terminates in that _deep apprehension_ of
_approaching_ and _inevitable ruin_ that _overwhelms_ him with _horror_.
No man ever described a mounded heart like David.—_Adam Clarke._
_Verse 6.—“And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I
fly away, and be at rest.”_ Wherever the Psalmist cast his eye, the
inscription was vanity and vexation. A deluge of sin and misery covered
the world, so that like Noah’s dove he could find no rest for the sole
of his foot below, therefore does he direct his course toward heaven,
and say, “_Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away
and be at rest_;” but rest is not a denizen of this world, nothing but
the heaven of heavens is at rest, and here does he fix only.—_Thomas
Sharp (1630-1693), in “Divine Comforts.”_
_Verse 6.—“Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away,
and be at rest,”_ King David, though for innocency not only a _dove_,
but the phœnix of doves, and so a notable type of Christ, upon whom the
Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove, yet was his whole life
nothing else but _bellum sine induciis_, a perpetual persecution without
intermission. Such was also the portion of Christ the Lord of David; and
such to the world’s end will ever be the lot of those that are the
heritage of Christ. My text imports no less; which, taken
_historically_, is the voice of David pursued by his enemies;
_prophetically_, the voice of Christ at his passion; _mystically_, the
voice of that mystical dove, the innocent soul, surrounded and environed
with the snares of death; even _generalis quædam querela_ (saith
Pellican), a general complaint of the malice of the wicked persecuting
the righteous. For (alas that it should be! yet so it is)—
“_Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio,
Qui malè faciunt, nobis; illis qui nil faciunt, tenditur._”[24]
“The net is not pitched for ravenous birds, as are the hawk and the
kite; but for poor harmless birds, that never meditate mischief.’ And
“_Dat veniam corvis, vexat, censura columbas._”
“The dove shall surely be shot at, when the carrion-crow shall go
shot-free.”[25]
It will then be no news unto you, that here the faithful soul, the
spouse, the dove of Christ, when trouble and heaviness take hold upon
her, and the floods of Belial compass her about _Tanquam avis e cave
liberari cupit_ (as St. Austin speaks of the cloistered monks in his
time), “Desireth like a bird to be loosed out of her cage.” Or, that as
Jonas (by interpretation _a dove_), after three days’ and three nights’
imprisonment in the whale’s belly, could not but long after his
enlargement. So the dove-like soul of man, when not three, but many
days, and months, and years, she hath been imprisoned in the body, hath
a longing desire to be enlarged, and to fly unto God that made her; and
so _mourning_ like a dove in devout _supplication_ and _mounting_ like a
dove in divine _speculation_, breaks forth into these sad elegies: “Oh
that I had wings!” and “Alas, that I have not wings! Woe is me that I am
constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have mine habitation among the
tents of Kedar. Like as the hart desires the water-brook, so longeth my
soul to be with thee, O God. I desire to be dissolved and to be with
Christ. Who will give me wings?” etc. Which is as if the poor distressed
soul, pathetically bemoaning her forlorn estate of pilgrimage, should
thus more plentifully enlarge herself. “My spouse is already ascended
higher than the winds, than the clouds, than the highest heavens, and I,
poor soul, as a husbandless widow, as a tutorless orphan, as a
comfortless exile, am left desolate and disconsolate in this valley of
tears; none to care for me, none to comfort me, till I have regained him
whom I love, and in whom I live. Nay (which worse is), this mine own
familiar friend, this nearest and dearest companion of mine, _my body_,
is even a burden unto me. The weight of it, and oft the sins that hang
so fast on it, doth so clog and shackle me, so glue and nail me to the
earth, that I cannot raise or rear up myself towards heaven. Or let him
therefore descend to relieve me, being _filia_, _sponsa_, _soror_, his
daughter, and spouse, and sister; or let him give me wings wherewith I
may ascend to him, under the shadow of whose wings I shall surely rest
in safety.” Ps. xci. 4.
“I must confess it was the very bitterness of extremity that first
compelled me to love him, though of himself no less lovely than love
itself. It was the sharp sauce of affliction that gave edge to mine
affections, and sharpened mine appetite to that ‘sweet meat that
endureth to everlasting life.’ But now, having had some little foretaste
of him, I am even in an holy ecstacy, so ravished, so transported with a
fervent desire of him and of his presence, that _ubi sum, ibi non sum;
ubi non sum, ibi animus est_: ‘where I am, there I am not; and where I
am not, there am I.’ For, _anima est ubi amat, non ubi animat_:[26] ‘The
soul is where it loveth, not where it liveth.’ Now sigh I not so much
for the present dangers I would decline, as because of my absent love,
whom I most desire. ‘_Who will give me wings?_’” etc.