'His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life: weeping may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.'--PSALM xxx. 5.
A word or two of exposition is necessary in order to bring out the force
of this verse. There is an obvious antithesis in the first part of it,
between 'His anger' and 'His favour.' Probably there is a similar
antithesis between a 'moment' and 'life.' For, although the word
rendered 'life' does not unusually mean a _lifetime_ it _may_ have that
signification, and the evident intention of contrast seems to require it
here. So, then, the meaning of the first part of my text is, 'the anger
lasts for a moment; the favour lasts for a lifetime.' The perpetuity of
the one, and the brevity of the other, are the Psalmist's thought.
Then, if we pass to the second part of the text, you will observe that
there is there also a double antithesis. 'Weeping' is set over against
'joy'; the 'night' against the 'morning.' And the first of these two
contrasts is the more striking if we observe that the word 'joy' means,
literally, 'a joyful shout,' so that the voice which was lifted in
weeping is conceived of as now being heard in exultant praise. Then,
still further, the expression 'may endure' literally means 'may come to
lodge.' So that Weeping and Joy are personified. Two guests come; one,
dark-robed and approaching at the fitting season for such, 'the night.'
The other bright, coming with all things fresh and sunny, in the dewy
morn. The guest of the night is Weeping; the guest that takes its place
in the morning is Gladness.
The two clauses, then, of my text suggest substantially the same
thought, and that is the persistence of joy and the transitoriness of
sorrow. The one speaks of the succession of emotions in the man; the
other, of the successive aspects of the divine dealings which occasion
these. The whole is a leaf out of the Psalmist's own experience. The
psalm commemorates his deliverance from some affliction, probably a
sickness. That is long gone past; and the tears that it caused have long
since dried up. But this shout of joy of his has lasted all these
centuries, and is like to be immortal. Well for us if we can read our
life's story with the same cheery confidence as he did his, and have
learned like him to discern what is the temporary and what the permanent
element in our experience!